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Germany and the occupied territories in the Second World War

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The Second World War brought the Holocaust in occupied Europe and growing hardship at home, until the Third Reich collapsed in 1945.

The Holocaust

In occupied Poland, Jewish people were forced into ghettos such as Warsaw, where many starved.
After the invasion of the USSR (1941), death squads (Einsatzgruppen) shot huge numbers of Jewish people.
The Final Solution, coordinated at the Wannsee Conference (January 1942), meant the systematic murder of Europe's Jews in death camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka. About 6 million Jewish people were murdered.

The Home Front

Rationing began in 1939.
After defeat at Stalingrad (1943), Goebbels declared total war: all resources for the war effort.
More women were drawn into war work, and millions of foreign forced labourers were used.
Allied bombing destroyed cities such as Hamburg (1943) and Dresden (1945), killing many civilians and making people homeless.

Opposition and defeat

Edelweiss Pirates: some helped deserters; thirteen people were hanged in Cologne in 1944.
White Rose: students in Munich, including Hans and Sophie Scholl, spread anti-Nazi leaflets; they were executed in 1943.
July Bomb Plot (1944): army officers led by Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler; it failed and thousands were arrested.
Hitler killed himself on 30 April 1945; Germany surrendered in May 1945.
Worked example

Explain why Goebbels declared 'total war' in 1943.

  1. Germany suffered a huge defeat at Stalingrad.
  2. The war was clearly going to be long.
  3. So all workers, factories and resources had to be put into the war effort.

Answer: After Stalingrad, Germany needed to mobilise everything to keep fighting.

Key idea

Occupied territories: ghettos, death squads, and the Final Solution in death camps (about 6 million Jewish people murdered). Home Front: rationing, total war after Stalingrad, women and forced labour, Allied bombing. Opposition: Edelweiss Pirates, White Rose, July Bomb Plot (1944). Hitler died on 30 April 1945.

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