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Unit 18: Hot war, cold war
Why did the major twentieth-century conflicts affect so many people?



In this unit pupils learn about the main conflicts of the twentieth century by identifying key ideas and themes and making links and connections, particularly between the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War. The unit focuses on the widespread impact of these conflicts through the examination of specific events, the personal experiences of individuals and a wide range of visual and written sources.
Each section contains a sequence of activities with related objectives and outcomes.
This unit is expected to take 10-15 hours.




Section 3.
Why did the end of the Second World War
have the effect of starting another, different world conflict?


We will begin by concentrating on local events: the Partisan campaign against the Yugoslav Resistance, the transformation of Slovenian society by massacre and mass exile from 1945, the swift transition from the Fascist to Communist dictatorship, and the beginning of the Cold War in the democratic Powers’ confrontation with Tito in 1945-1947 over Trieste and Carinthia.
.....We will then consider the larger story. Revolutionary Communism was in a natural ally of revolutionary Nazism against the legitmiate governments of Europe, and remained in alliance with Hitler as long as it could. After he attacked it what followed was, although very bloody, merely a civil war within totalitarianism. Central Europe was not liberated in 1945, but in 1989. What happened in 1945 was merely a shift from one shade of tyranny to another. The new Communist regimes used the same methods, often employed the same concentration camps (with many of the same inmates), and pursued the same global vendetta against the West. The struggle between a free West and an enslaved East continued from 1939 until the fall of the Berlin Wall. So the best answer to the question Why did the end of the Second World War start another, different world conflict? is that it didn’t trigger a different conflict. The Cold War is essentially a continuation of World War Two.
.....Do you agree? What other ways are there of thinking about the confrontation of Communist and capitalist camps from 1946 to 1991?


Objectives
Children should learn:
• that the invention of nuclear weapons was a major turning point in twentieth-century history
• that Great Powers, post-1945, shared certain specific characteristics
• that the Cold War was partly created by widely different political ideologies
• to compare some of the features of the Cold War with earlier twentieth-century conflicts
• to present their findings in a variety of ways
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Activities
• Use sources such as textbooks, photographs, eyewitness accounts and poetry to focus on Hiroshima. Ask pupils to use the sources to produce a brief description of what happened and why the atom bomb was dropped.
• Introduce the idea that Hiroshima was a turning point after which humanity knew that it could destroy itself.
• Briefly explain the end of the Second World War eg that the USA and Soviet Union were allies and winners, but by 1945 were unequal allies. There was a shift in the balance of power, they had different ideologies and the USA and Soviet rivalry led to a nuclear arms race.
• Pose the question After Hiroshima, what made a Great Power? Create a spidergram from the pupils' responses.
• Using a timeline and world map, identify the stages by which post-1945 Europe was divided into East and West, and the Iron Curtain created. Use the timeline and world map to show the widespread effect of the Cold War.
• Using video extracts or a range of sources, lead a short study of one or more key Cold War incidents, the Berlin Airlift, Hungary '56, the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the Prague Spring. Emphasise key characteristics and check pupils' understanding of the overall chronology.
• Provide pupils with statements representing some key features of the Cold War, eg mistrust of motives, use of spies, stockpiling nuclear weapons, fear of nuclear war. Provide some additional blank cards on which pupils can write additional features. Working in groups, pupils undertake a classification of Cold War features by putting the statements in their appropriate place on a concept map organised with the headings 'cause', 'nature', 'impact' and 'effect'.
• Lead a class discussion to compare this concept map with the one made at the beginning of the unit. ________________________________________

Outcomes
• explain the significance of nuclear weapons
• identify the chief characteristics of the Great Powers post-1945
• analyse reasons for and results of the Cold War
• select, organise and use relevant information to produce structured work, making appropriate use of dates and terms






Section 4. How did the Cold War end?



Section 2. Do the causes of twentieth-century wars have anything in common?



Section 5. What do local people remember about the main conflicts?





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