Practice German expansion - Events and Responses with authentic IB History exam questions for both SL and HL students. This question bank mirrors Paper 1, 2, 3 structure, covering key topics like historical sources, cause and effect, and continuity and change. Get instant solutions, detailed explanations, and build exam confidence with questions in the style of IB examiners.
Paper
Level
Question 1
SL & HLPaper 1
Source A
A British report by the heads of the three armed services on their ability to fight a war against Germany in 1936.
We would at once emphasise ... that any question of war with Germany while we were as at present heavily committed to the possibility of hostilities in the Mediterranean would be thoroughly dangerous. As regards naval operation against Germany, our minimum requirements could only be carried out by weakening naval forces in the Mediterranean to an extent which would jeopardise our position there vis-avis Italy ... As regards the Army and the Air Force, the purely defensive provisions already made in the Mediterranean have drawn upon the resources of these two S ervices to such an extent that until those reinforcements have returned to this country we should be quite incapable of dispatching a Field Force or providing any proper defence in the air. To bring home the se forces with their equipment ... would take in the case of the army two months ... and even longer in the case of the Air Force . At the moment our coast defence artillery requires modernisation to a large extent, we have no anti-submarine defences for a number of our most important ports, and the number of our anti-aircraft guns and searchlights is quite inadequate to deal with the air threat from Germany.
Source B
A cartoon published in Punch Magazine on 18 March 1936
Source C
Ruth Henig, a British academic historian, in an academic book, The Origins of the Second World War ( 1985 ).
On 7 March 1936, token German forces marched into the Rhineland and Hitler announced that the German government was remilitarizing it because of the threat to Germany posed by the Franco-Russian alliance which had just been ratified by the French Senate ... The remilitarization was a further challenge to the Versailles settlement and to the British government's wish to secure peaceful and orderly revision. For the British government had already gone out of its way to indicate to Hitler that ministers were willing to agree to German remilitarization of the Rhineland as part of a more general package of measures which might include an air-pact, German return to the League of Nations, some peaceful revision of Germany's eastern frontiers and the return of former German colonies. Now Hitler had shown once again, in his rearmament policies that he preferred to achieve his objectives by unilateral military action rather than by participating in multilateral diplomatic discussions . ... In retrospect, many politicians and commentators claimed that this was the point at which Hitler should have been challenged, and that after March 1936 he could not be stopped from plunging Europe into war.
Source D
A speech by Hitler to the Reichstag following the remilitarization of the Rhineland, Saturday 7 March 1936.
The German government has continuously emphasised during the negotiations of the last years its readiness to observe and fulfil all the obligations arising from the Rhine Pact so long as the other contracting parties were ready on their side to maintain the pact. This obvious and essential condition can no longer be regarded as being fulfilled by France . France has replied to Germany's repeated friendly offers and assurances of peace by infringing the Rhine Pact through a military alliance with the Soviet Union directed exclusively against Germany. In this manner, however, the Locarno Rhine Pact has lost its inner meaning and ceased to exist ... In order, however, to avoid any misinterpretation of its intentions and to establish beyond doubt the purely defensive character of these measures, as well as to express its unalterable longing for a real pacification of Europe between states in equal rights and equally respected, the German government declares itself ready to conclude new agreements for the creation of a system of peaceful security for Europe ... After three years, I believe that today the struggle for German equality of rights can be deemed concluded ... We have no territorial claims to make in Europe. Above all, we are aware that all the tensions resulting either from erroneous territorial provisions or from the disproportion between the size of its population and Lebensraum can never be solved by wars.
1.[3]
According to Source A, why would it be difficult for Britain to resist German aggression in 1936?
2.[2]
What is the message of Source B?
3.[4]
With reference to its origin, purpose and content, assess the value and limitations of Source C, for a historian studying the reasons for the remilitarization of the Rhineland.
4.[6]
Compare and contrast the views expressed in Source C and Source D regarding Hitler’s movies for his actions in 1936
5.[9]
Using these sources and your own knowledge, examine the reasons for HItler’s remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936