Cambridge A Level History 9389 — 2019 May/June Paper 3 · Variant 2

1 Read the extract and then answer the question. The British Empire emerged victorious from the First World War, its borders considerably extended by territory taken from Germany and Turkey. The acquisition of these new possessions, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, was in theory subject to the supervision of the newly-formed League of Nations. In practice, Britain ruled Tanganyika, Palestine, Iraq and the rest as if they were their own colonies. Britain’s intrusion into the Middle East on such a scale reflected its need to control sufficient oil-producing territory to lubricate the wheels of British industry and to provide fuel for the Royal Navy. In Palestine, however, Britain had taken on a problem of such complexity that an equitable solution was permanently beyond reach. In many ways, the ‘new empire’ in the Middle East was to be more trouble than it was worth. The progress of the war had exposed the Empire’s strengths and weaknesses as never before. On the positive side, the Empire survived intact. But there was another negative side. The war had allowed malcontents to express their impatience with British rule. There had been a brief Afrikaner rising in 1914; Irish nationalists had staged the Easter Rising in 1916; Indian nationalists had demanded constitutional reform as the price of co-operation. Worse than this, although less evident and therefore less embarrassing, Britain had become massively in debt to finance the war. The dominions and India had given the Mother Country essential human and financial support. This was bound to alter, at the most fundamental level, the imperial relationship. The foundations of Britain’s great power status were now seriously and permanently undermined. From 1918 to 1939 Britain sought to carry on imperial business as usual. Successive governments and a host of public and private organisations sought to promote the imperial ethic. A great Empire Exhibition was held in the London suburb of Wembley in 1924 (though cynics said that visitors were keener on the funfair than on the displays of imperial achievement). There was an Empire Marketing Board, the naming of Imperial Airways, films showing the Empire at its best, and the King’s annual broadcast to his Empire on Christmas Day. Yet, to the perceptive, the days of the Empire were clearly numbered. Not only were the dominions acting as increasingly independent nations, in India, Mahatma Gandhi had mobilised the masses into opposing the Raj through campaigns of civil disobedience, the potency of his appeal enormously enhanced by the horrors of the Amritsar massacre in 1919. Desperate to hold on to their greatest possession, the British made substantial constitutional concessions in the Government of India Acts of 1919 and 1935. But, significantly, it was no longer possible to recruit sufficient British candidates into the exalted and highly-paid ranks of the Indian Civil Service. In the dependent empire, the first clear signs of disaffection were displayed in Africa, Ceylon and South-East Asia. At home, the advent of Labour as a party of government, and the increased attraction of Marxism as a rallying point against Fascism, seemed to bode ill for the imperial future. Moreover, in the final resort, as surveys illustrated, the British public remained persistently and woefully ignorant of, and perhaps indifferent to, the Empire. As the Second World War approached, the appeal of Empire as a symbol of national unity seemed more limited than ever before. What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the British Empire to explain your answer. [40]

Mark scheme: Question Answer Marks The Causes and Impact of British Imperialism, c.1850–1939 1 Interpretation / Approach 40 The main interpretation is that the First World War dealt a possibly terminal blow to the Empire, despite attempts in the inter-war period to carry on as normal. Showing understanding of the Big Message will involve discussion of both these aspects. The extract shows how the First World War weakened the Empire, increasing opposition and putting Britain massively in debt. In the inter-war period, despite attempts to pretend all was well, the weaknesses became progressively more apparent, with opposition abroad and indifference at home. Glossary: the two main areas of interpretation have been (i) on whether imperial policy was determined at the centre (the metropole) or at the periphery (in the territories of the empire). This can involve debates on who was making the decisions at the centre (the ‘official mind’, ‘gentlemanly capitalists’ etc) or at the periphery (the ‘man on the spot’): and (ii) on whether the British Empire was characterised by a preference for formal (i.e. direct rule over annexed territory) or informal (i.e. indirect control mainly through and for commercial interests). What counts is how appropriate the use of this kind of terminology is in relation to the extract, and how effectively the extract can be used to support it.

2 Read the extract and then answer the question. According to the post-war testimony of Eichmann, Heydrich told him in the autumn of 1941, ‘The Führer has ordered the physical destruction of the Jews.’ More evidence appears to come from an article in November 1941, in which Goebbels publicly proclaimed that, ‘The Jews wanted their war, and now they have it. But they also feel the effect of the prophecy made by the Führer in the German Reichstag on 30 January 1939, that if international financial Jewry should succeed in forcing nations once more into a world war, the result would be the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.’ However, despite these indications, it does not necessarily follow that an absolute decision was taken in the autumn of 1941 to murder all of the Jews currently living in Nazi-occupied territory. Hitler had wanted the Jews deported from the Reich since the autumn of 1939 – it was just a question of deciding when the time was right. Now, sharing the anger of key lieutenants like Goebbels and Kaufmann at the fact that Jews remained in the Reich, and believing the war in the East was all but over, Hitler resolved to get ‘rid’ of the Jews once and for all. He was well aware that Soviet Jews were being murdered in the East, and so by sending other Jews into the killing zones he would have known what was likely to happen to them. But whether they were killed on arrival by shooting, or gassed, or starved in ghettoes, or worked to death over a longer period – these were all details that could be worked out by others. What was crucial was that, once expelled, they should never come back. Thus while Hitler authorised the sending of the Jews East to die, he did not dictate a precise method of killing them, or an exact timescale within which their disappearance had to occur. This was still, therefore, an important moment in the evolution of the Holocaust, but it does not amount to initiating the whole enterprise by one single, overarching decision. A large number of questions remained unresolved in the autumn of 1941. Most tellingly of all, what about the nearly three million Jews of Poland, was this really the moment their fate was sealed? Why, if there was a decision at this point to kill all the Polish Jews, were the only two killing centres that were actually under construction in Poland on such a small scale? Doesn’t it appear that those on the ground were, to an extent, working out what to do without precise orders from above? Support for this idea can be found from Hitler’s own words. In mid-October 1941 he asked, ‘What would happen to me if I didn’t have around me men whom I completely trust, to do the work for which I cannot find the time? For me the best man is the man who removes the most from my shoulders, the man who can take 95 per cent of the decisions in my place.’ An example of how this attitude influenced actual events can be found in a note that Greiser wrote to Himmler in spring 1942 about the killing of patients with tuberculosis in the Warthegau. After Greiser’s authority to proceed with the killing had been questioned, he said to Himmler, ‘I personally don’t think we have to consult the Führer again on this matter, all the more since he told me at the last meeting concerning the Jews, that I should act according to my best judgement.’ What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the Holocaust to explain your answer. [40] Section C: Topic 3 The Origins and Development of the Cold War, 1941–1950

Mark scheme: 2 Interpretation / Approach 40 The main interpretation is that while Hitler willed some kind of reckoning with the Jews, he did not order the Holocaust, but left it to others to determine the details of what would happen in practice. (Do not allow for this second aspect that they were carrying out Hitler’s orders for genocide). Showing understanding of the Big Message will involve discussion of both these aspects. Whilst this definitely means ‘No Hitler, no Holocaust’, it is clear from the extract that, even by the end of 1941, basic details about how the Jews were to be dealt with remained undecided. Those ‘on the ground’ were being left with the decisions on when and how to act. This fusion of intentionalist and structuralist elements makes this a synthesis interpretation, which is what candidates achieving L5 should conclude, though answers illustrating both aspects of the BM to conclude that the interpretation is either intentionalist or structuralist can only be sound understanding, so L4 max. Glossary: Candidates may use some / all of the following terms: Intentionalism – interpretations which assume that Hitler / the Nazis planned to exterminate the Jews from the start. Structuralism – interpretations which argue that it was the nature of the Nazi state that produced genocide. There was no coherent plan but the chaotic competition for Hitler’s approval between different elements of the leadership produced a situation in which genocide could occur. Functionalism is closely related to structuralism. It sees the Holocaust as an unplanned, ad hoc response to wartime developments in Eastern Europe, when Germany conquered areas with large Jewish populations. Candidates may also refer to synthesis interpretations, i.e. interpretations which show characteristics of more than one of the above. What counts is how appropriate the use of this kind of terminology is in relation to the extract, and how effectively the extract can be used to support it.

3 Read the extract and then answer the question. Many would trace the origins of the Cold War right back to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which the capitalist countries regarded as a direct threat to their own political stability and economic security. In this interpretation, the wartime alliance was a temporary aberration forced on the participating countries by the shared menace of Nazism, and the post-war slide into hostility was merely a resumption of ‘normal’ relations. While there is much force in this argument, one must also seek the more immediate causes of the mutual suspicion, mistrust and animosity during the last few years of Stalin’s life. At the conferences of Tehran and Yalta some kind of loose agreement was reached on the settlement of post-war Europe. It was understood that the Soviet Union had a legitimate interest in ensuring that the countries on her western borders should be governed by regimes which would be politically sympathetic to it. If it is true that Stalin over-estimated the degree of latitude he had in interfering in the internal politics of the eastern European states, it is equally true that the explicitly hostile declarations of some western politicians, as well as Russia’s long experience of vulnerability to invasion from the west, made Stalin unwaveringly determined that the military security of the USSR should have absolute priority. In this way, starting with east Germany and Poland, Stalin gradually extended Soviet political control over most of central and eastern Europe, thereby creating a protective barrier of buffer states between the Soviet Union and the West. In fact, there was already hostility in the air soon after the Yalta conference during an open confrontation in Washington between the new American President, Truman, and the Soviet Foreign Minister, Molotov. In what one commentator described as ‘the language of a Missouri mule driver’, Truman publicly lectured his visiting Soviet ally over what he regarded as the unacceptable composition of the proposed government of Poland, on which a compromise agreement had already been agreed at Yalta. There was a heated exchange, but Stalin immediately wrote to the President in remarkably restrained tones, pointing out the Soviet Union’s crucial interest in ensuring the existence of a friendly government in adjacent Poland. Quite correctly, he pointed out that the USSR had neither been consulted about, nor claimed the right to interfere in, the establishment of the governments of, for instance, Greece or Belgium. ‘To put it plainly,’ Stalin wrote, ‘you want me to renounce the security of the Soviet Union, but I cannot proceed against the interests of my own country.’ Stalin’s face-to-face meeting with Truman at Potsdam in July-August 1945 did nothing to dispel the mounting distrust between the two formally allied leaders; indeed, it served only to confirm their suspicions about each other’s hostile intentions and drive them into even more firmly entrenched positions. On 6 and 9 August 1945, the USA dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is an abundance of evidence to suggest that the decision was motivated as much by political considerations in relation to the Soviet Union as by military objectives against Japan. Even before the bomb was successfully tested, Truman had remarked with reference to the Russians, not the Japanese, ‘If it explodes, I’ll have a hammer on those boys!’ Secretary of State Byrnes was also explicit in his opinion that the USA’s possession and demonstration of the bomb ‘would make Russia more manageable in Europe’. He was wrong. If anything, it made Stalin even more determined to strengthen his hold on eastern Europe. What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the Cold War to explain your answer. [40]

Mark scheme: 3 Interpretation / Approach 40 The main interpretation is that in the immediate post-war period both sides gave the other reason for suspicion, but the USA bears more blame than the USSR for this. Showing understanding of the Big Message will involve discussion of both these aspects. The extract seems to place greater blame on the USA and Truman. Nonetheless, Stalin is not completely exonerated, nor is the West entirely demonised. This is a nuanced extract which for L5 must be identified as post-revisionist. A revisionist conclusion properly supported would be L4, but trying to blame the USSR would not show more than an understanding of aspects of the interpretation, so L3 max. Glossary: Traditional / Orthodox interpretations of the Cold War were generally produced early after WW2. They blame the Soviet Union and Stalin’s expansionism for the Cold War. Revisionist historians challenged this view and shifted more of the focus onto the United States, generally through an economic approach which stressed the alleged aim of the US to establish its economic dominance over Europe. Post-revisionists moved towards a more balanced view in which elements of blame were attached to both sides. Since the opening of the Soviet archives post-1990 there has been a shift to attributing prime responsibility to Stalin – a post-post-revisionist stance which often seems very close to the traditional view. What counts is how appropriate the use of this kind of terminology is in relation to the extract, and how effectively the extract can be used to support it.