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neurologyYou need to know

• Nazi ideas about a racial hierarchy, the "Aryan" master race and Volksgemeinschaft.
• The influence of Social Darwinism, eugenics and pseudo-scientific racism.
• Nazi beliefs about "racial purity", heredity and the perceived threat of racial "degeneration".
• The roles of Hitler, the Nazi Party, the SS, medical professionals and state institutions.
• The gradual radicalisation of racial policy between 1933 and 1941.
• How propaganda, education, law, terror and social pressure spread and enforced racial ideas.
• Policies towards groups outside the Volksgemeinschaft
• The July 1933 Sterilisation Law and compulsory sterilisation of those considered to have hereditary illnesses.
• The persecution of mentally and physically disabled people.
• The T4 euthanasia programme and the murder of disabled adults and children.
• Policies towards those labelled "asocial", including the homeless, beggars, alcoholics and sex workers.
• The persecution and imprisonment of homosexual men, including the use of Paragraph 175.
• Policies towards members of religious sects, particularly Jehovah's Witnesses.
• The racial persecution of the Roma and Sinti, including registration, segregation and imprisonment.
• The roles of the police, Gestapo, SS, courts, welfare agencies and medical profession.
• The extent of public support, indifference, participation and opposition.
• Anti-Semitic policies, 1933–1937
• The place of antisemitism within Nazi ideology and the concept of a Jewish "racial enemy".
• The boycott of Jewish shops, 1 April 1933, and its limited success.
• The exclusion of Jewish people from the civil service, education and professions.
• The use of propaganda, intimidation and local initiatives to isolate Jewish communities.
• The Nuremberg Laws, September 1935: the Reich Citizenship Law and Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour.
• The removal of citizenship and prohibition of marriage and sexual relations between Jews and "Aryans".
• How the definition of Jewish identity was based on ancestry rather than religious belief.
• The growing social, legal and economic exclusion of Jewish people.
• Radicalisation, 1938–1939
• The increased "Aryanisation" and seizure of Jewish businesses and property.
• The effect of the Anschluss with Austria in March 1938, including public humiliation, violence and confiscation.
• The causes and events of Reichskristallnacht, 9–10 November 1938.
• The destruction of synagogues and businesses, murder and imprisonment of Jewish men.
• The state's role in organising violence and forcing Jewish communities to pay for the damage.
• Further restrictions on education, employment, movement and public life after Reichskristallnacht.
• The growth of forced emigration and the difficulties faced by those attempting to leave.
• The responses of German society and foreign governments to escalating persecution.
• War, occupation and persecution, 1939–1941
• How the invasion of Poland in September 1939 created new opportunities for racial persecution.
• Nazi plans to reshape occupied Poland through removal, resettlement and Germanisation.
• The mass murder of Polish elites and persecution of Polish civilians.
• The concentration of Polish Jews in sealed ghettos.
• Conditions in the ghettos: overcrowding, starvation, disease, forced labour and high death rates.
• Deportations of Jews and other targeted groups within occupied Europe.
• The invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and further radicalisation.
• The role of the Einsatzgruppen in mass shootings of Jews, Roma, Communist officials and other civilians.
• The involvement of the SS, police, army units and local collaborators.
• The movement from exclusion and forced emigration towards systematic mass murder.

• Explain the key ideas and assumptions underpinning Nazi racial ideology.
• Explain how Nazi racial policy was connected to the idea of Volksgemeinschaft.
• Identify patterns of continuity, escalation and radicalisation between 1933 and 1941.
• Compare Nazi policies towards different persecuted groups.
• Assess the roles of ideology, pseudo-science, war and practical circumstances in shaping policy.
• Explain how laws, propaganda, economic pressure, violence and imprisonment were used together.
• Assess the importance of the sterilisation laws and T4 programme in the development of racial policy.
• Explain why Jewish people occupied a central position within Nazi racial ideology.
• Evaluate the significance of the boycott and Nuremberg Laws.
• Explain why anti-Jewish policies became more radical during 1938.
• Assess the significance of the Anschluss in escalating persecution.
• Analyse the causes, nature and consequences of Reichskristallnacht.
• Explain the factors encouraging and restricting Jewish emigration.
• Assess the reactions of German society and foreign governments to persecution.
• Explain how the invasion and occupation of Poland changed Nazi racial policy.
• Analyse the purposes, conditions and consequences of ghettos and deportations.
• Explain the significance of the invasion of the Soviet Union and the Einsatzgruppen.
• Assess the roles of Hitler, central government, the SS and local initiatives in radicalisation.
• Evaluate the extent of cooperation and complicity among state institutions, professionals and ordinary Germans.
• Explain the progression from discrimination and exclusion to organised mass murder.
• Analyse primary sources using content, provenance, tone, purpose and historical context.
• Evaluate historical interpretations and support conclusions with precise evidence.