Explain to students that before the Nazi rise to power the Jewish community was well integrated into German society, meaning that many Jews worked, went to school, and were part of the same social scene as their non-Jewish counterparts.

There are two short clips (1:45 and 1:29) that help illustrate this for students. Go to the iWitness website by USC Shoah Foundation and show them the clips from Margaret Lambert. It should be the first two clips on the page. Play the one where Margaret speaks about her childhood in Germany first. Next, play the clip where Margaret speaks about segregation and exclusion from anti-Jewish laws.

Ask students the following questions after they have viewed both clips:

• How did Margaret describe her childhood and her feelings about her being Jewish?
• What changed for Margaret after 1933?
• Do you notice a change in her behavior or attitude from one video to the next?

Explain to students that during the first six years of the Nazi regime, more than 400 legal restrictions were imposed on Jews and other groups. Ask students to pull up the resource on Antisemitic Legislation 1933-1939 from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. This resource will show 29 examples of antisemitic legislation.

In groups of 2 or 3, assign one of the years from the list. Multiple groups can have the same year, especially years that have multiple items under it. In these groups, students will pick a specific law to learn more about. You can either assign them a specific law or let them pick one themselves under their designated year.

Have students go to the digital exhibition, State of Deception, by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Show them the different pages of the exhibition. As a class, go through the “What is Propaganda?” page. Show them how to get to the page showcasing the 1933-1939: Dictatorship section. This is where they will be working for this activity.

Provide this worksheet for students as they navigate the time frame 1933-1939.

Discuss the following questions in your small groups, then come back together as a class and share.

• How did the laws and decrees, paired with the propaganda, pave the way for further violence and persecution during the Holocaust?
• For what purpose did the Nazis control all aspects of media and culture?

Begin by asking students what art means to them. Next, ask students to name different types of art and write down these responses in a communal space.

Pull up the Visual Essay: Free Expression in the Weimar Republic by Facing History and Ourselves. Read the Introduction to the Visual Essay as a class and scroll through the different artworks. Prompt students to look at the art and think about what they see, what the piece represents, and whether or not it sheds a positive light on Germany. The brief descriptions accompanying each piece should help.

One of the pieces featured, Hannah Hoch, The Kitchen Knife, 1919, has a video (4.5 minutes) from Smarthistory that takes a deeper dive into the aspects of the piece. Show this video when you come to that piece.

After showing that video, ask students the following:

• Why could an art piece like this only be created in a democracy?
• How does this piece demonstrate art being a form of social criticism?

In pairs or small groups, have students respond to the three questions at the bottom of the visual essay (shown below). Give students approximately 10 minutes to discuss on their own before opening up into a class discussion to go over their answers.

1. Fritz Mackensen’s 1982 painting Der Saeugling (The Baby) is one example of the more traditional art that many Germans were familiar with before World War I. Compare and contrast this painting with the more modern Weimar-era works of art that follow in this visual essay. What differences do you notice? What might those differences reveal about tensions present within German society during the Weimar Republic?
2. What can we learn about history from artwork? How do the works of art here connect to what you have already learned about the Weimar era in Germany? How do they extend your knowledge of this era? How do they challenge your thinking about Weimar Germany?
3. Is freedom of expression important to a democracy? Under what conditions, if any, should such freedom be restricted?

Ask students what they know about the other groups persecuted by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. Can they come up with other examples of groups that were the targets of Nazi violence?

Explain to students that the Nazis’ idea of creating a superior Aryan (white, European descent) race meant that anyone who did not meet these criteria was endangered . Although there was not a specific organized pogrom to eliminate the African Germans, an unknown number were sterilized, incarcerated, or murdered.

Direct students to the resource by The Holocaust Explained from the Wiener Holocaust Library. Scroll down to the section titled, ‘Black People’ or choose it from the list on the left side of the page.

Have students read through this section, taking notes on each of the topics: Employment, Education, Sterilization and Imprisonment, and End of War. When taking notes, students should build a list of acts of social and legal discrimination as well as physical actions and violence against Black people in Germany.

Come together as a class. Ask students to look down at the notes they have written down. Ask students if they are surprised by their list. Did they expect there to be so many actions taken against Black people? What actions stood out the most?

At the end of this resource it implies that Black people could have been targeted for mass murder if Germany had not been defeated. What can you deduce from the parallels between the mistreatment of Jews and Blacks that supports this statement?

If necessary, review the Nuremberg Race Laws or the Law Against Overcrowding in Schools.

Explain to students that a string of anti-Jewish legislation came into effect in Germany in 1933. These laws segregated Jews from Germans and restricted where they could work, who they could marry, and where they could attend school.

Direct students to the resource, Law Limits Jews in Public Schools by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Discuss the following questions in an open discussion:

1. Why did the Nazis call this a law “against overcrowding”?
2. What purpose(s) did it serve to reduce the amount of Jewish students in schools and universities?
3. How might separating Jewish children from their German classmates impact how they will view one another later in life?

Ask the class, What is an oath? What purpose does it mean to take an oath?

Direct students to the resource, ‘Pledging Allegiance’ by Facing History and Ourselves. Divide the class into groups of 3-5 and have them read through the resource as a group.

In their groups of 3-5, have students discuss the Connection Questions at the bottom of the resource page.

Explain to students that World War I was known to be the most destructive war the world had seen. It ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1918.

Share this image by Facing History and Ourselves with your students. What can you gather from this picture?

Direct students to the resource ‘Treaty of Versailles: The War Guilt Clause’ by Facing History and Ourselves.

Explain to the class that in addition to taking full responsibility for the war, Germany would have to pay heavy reparations, had considerable territory losses, and was required to dramatically reduce their military.

As a class, discuss the following questions:

1. What is the significance of Germany taking the responsibility for starting World War I?
2. How do you think the resentment in signing the War Guilt Clause played into the rise of Nazism?

Explain to students that World War II involved two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The main countries making up the Allies were France, Poland, and the United Kingdom. The Axis powers consisted of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Tell students that the video they will watch will help to explain the actions taken by these countries during the war.

Give out the questions below prior to starting the video (6.5 min) by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Answers to the questions can be found in the intervals shown above.

Beginning – 1:30
What groups of people were targeted by Nazis and their allies and collaborators? What was their reasoning?

1:30 – 4:40
Which country did Germany invade first? What did they do there?

End of video
How did the war end?

In small groups, or as a class, ask students if they are able to list the roles in which major countries played in the war? Write a header for ‘Allies’ (those that fought Germany), ‘Occupied Territories’, ‘Allied with Germany’, and ‘Neutral’. You may want to provide the list of the countries. You can tell them to focus on German aggression, not the attacks done by the Soviet Union. Give students 10 minutes for this activity. If you would like, you can return to the video and have students try to correct their answers.

The answer guide can be found here.

It is okay if students can’t remember all of them from the video (most will not be able to), the exercise is meant to show how much was going on at that time. It is important to remind students that the murders of 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews were taking place under the cover of war.

When you explain how the Holocaust was perpetrated under the cover of World War II, you should also mention that this is not the first instance of this happening. The genocide against the Armenians took place under the cover of World War I.

Ask students, why do they think atrocities, such as genocide, take place in conjunciton with war?

Explain to the students that they will be watching a video on Hitler’s rise to power. Start by asking students what they may know already about the rise of Nazism and of the Nazis’ political platform.

Watch the video, Hitler’s Rise to Power: 1918-1933 from Facing History and Ourselves. Provide students with the Viewing Guide to accompany the video. Watch the video a second time.

Questions from the Viewing Guide:

1. How did German soldiers who returned from World War I affect the way German politics was conducted?
2. How did the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (the Nazi Party) explain Germany’s loss in World War I to the public? Who did they blame for the loss?
3. While in prison for his failed attempt at a coup in Munich, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a book in which he shares his ideas for how to take control of a people. What is his main idea?
4. What was the Nazis’ primary campaign message in the early 1930s? How was it different from what we now know were the Nazis’ two primary goals for Germany?

As a class, go over the answers the students wrote down from the viewing guide. End the lesson by proposing the following question for discussion:

• What choices did you learn about in this video, made by people other than Hitler, that contributed to the possibility that Hitler and the Nazi Party could eventually rise to power in Germany?

Ask the students what they already know about World War I. Try to get students thinking about this: Why is learning about World War I important when introducing the Holocaust?

Walk students through the resource World War I by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Start off by going over the Key Facts at the top of the page to provide students with a feel for the topic. Read through the resource as a class.

You do not need to watch the video, Path to Nazi Genocide during this lesson as it is featured in the multimedia source for World War I. If time permits, you may choose to include it in this lesson.

Divide the class into groups of three or five to discuss the Critical Thinking Questions found at the bottom of the resource page. Ask groups to designate one person to write down their answers.

Reconvene as a class to go over the student’s answers. Have groups add to their answers with notes from the classroom discussion.

Explain that maps are one way to analyze the impact of World War I. Tell students that you are going to look at changes in empires and ask if they know what an empire is. If they don’t, provide a brief definition. Remind students that in World War I, the Axis powers were led by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire (which became Turkey after the war), and the Allied powers were led by Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia (until 1917) and the United States (beginning in 1917).

Access the Empires before World War I map from 1914 and the The World after World War I map from 1920 from Facing History and Ourselves. Display them side by side for students. Ask students to look closely at the maps, noticing differences between the two maps. Students can begin by looking at the colors, and seeing which have increased and which have decreased. Students can then identify which empires and countries expanded their territory between 1914 and 1920, and which lost territory. Ask students to notice which countries existed in 1914 but not in 1920, and which countries are on the map in 1920 but not in 1914.

Divide the class into groups of 3 – 5 students

Assign an empire or country from the 1914 map to each group. Have each group write down answers to the following questions using information from the maps.

1. What land did the empire or country gain or lose from the war?
2. Looking at the changes between the maps, how do you think the changes affected the attitudes and feelings of the citizens of your assigned country or empire?

As the groups reflect, highlight their answers to the final question. These can be used as touchpoints in thinking about the precursors of the Holocaust.