Interwar years · 1936-1939

The road to war, 1936-1939

Step by step, Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles: the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland, Prague. Britain and France gave way until 1939. Students follow each step on the 1930 and 1938 maps and debate whether appeasement could have worked.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
13–16
On the map
3 steps, AD 1938 to AD 1930
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

Step by step, Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles: the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland, Prague. Britain and France gave way until 1939. Students follow each step on the 1930 and 1938 maps and debate whether appeasement could have worked.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Order the steps Hitler took between 1936 and 1939 and locate each on the map.
  • Explain what appeasement was and why Britain and France chose it.
  • Explain why the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 made war almost certain.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

AD 1938

Germany grows

Open the map in 1930 and find Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. Then move the slider to 1938. Which country has disappeared, and which border areas has Germany gained?

Open this view on the map
b

AD 1938

The Sudetenland

Zoom in on the border areas of Bohemia, called the Sudetenland. Ask the atlas: "What was decided at the Munich Agreement in 1938?" Who was not invited to the meeting?

Open this view on the map
c

AD 1930

Danzig and Poland

Travel to Danzig (Gdańsk) on the Baltic coast, a free city under the League of Nations. Find the strip of Polish land to its west. Why was this Hitler's next demand in 1939?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. In 1936 German troops marched into the Rhineland and nobody stopped them. Why did Britain and France do nothing?
  2. Many Austrians cheered the Anschluss in 1938, while others were arrested or fled. Why would people react so differently?
  3. Chamberlain said the Munich Agreement brought "peace for our time". Was appeasement cowardly or sensible in 1938?
  4. Why did Hitler and Stalin, bitter enemies, sign a pact in August 1939?
  5. Could the Second World War have been prevented? At which moment, and how?
4

Game round

10 min

No ruler in Rule History lived in 1938. Play one round as Frederick the Great, who also seized a neighbor's province, Silesia, and dared the great powers to stop him. Then compare his gamble with Hitler's demands in 1936-1939.

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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