Lesson Plan

Hitler’s Rise To Power

Students will watch a video on Hitler’s rise to power by Facing History and Ourselves. Questions from the viewing guide will help students get the main takeaways.

30-60 Min Grades 9-12
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Domain
Nazi Germany
Subject
Emergence
Topic
The Rise of Nazism

Enduring Understanding

Recognizing a strong sense of unjustness after the end of World War I and a dissatisfaction among the German people with the Weimar Republic, Hitler and his fellow Nazis promised to solve Germany’s problems by restoring the nation and the Aryan race.

Essential Question

  • 1How do politicians and institutions shift with the needs of their people?

Readiness

5 Min

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.

Input

20 Min

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?

Output

15 Min

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?

Wisconsin Academic Standards

This lessons meets the following Academic Standards required by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

BH1.a: Individual Cognition, Perception, and BehaviorBH2.a: Relationship of People and GroupsBH3.a: Social InteractionsHist1.a: CauseHist1.b: EffectHist2.c: ContextualizationPS4.b: Compromise, Diplomacy, and Consensus Building
Teacher Primer

Know Before You Go

Before you teach, use our teacher primer to freshen up on your content knowledge.

Nazi GermanyEmergenceThe Rise of Nazism