Vocabulary List for WWI, Fascism, and WWII - Regular

 

Anti-Semitism - Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.

 

arms race - A competition between two or more countries for military supremacy. Each party competes to produce superior numbers of weapons, larger armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation.

 

balance of power – a condition of international politics where evenly matched military forces avoid conflict for fear of losing.

 

Balkans – The region of southeastern Europe containing the nations of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, and the European part of Turkey

 

blitzkrieg - war conducted with great speed and force; specifically : a violent surprise offensive by massed air forces and mechanized ground forces in close coordination

 

fascism - a political movement that believes in an extreme form of nationalism: denying individual rights, insisting on the supremacy of the state, and advocating dictatorial one-party rule

 

genocide - the intentional killing of an entire people

 

Holocaust - the deliberate, systematic murder of the European Jews by the Nazis

 

militarism – glorification of military power

 

Nazism - fascism + totalitarianism + hatred of Jews + German nationalism + swastikas

 

totalitarian - a political system in which the government has control over every aspect of the lives of individual citizens

 

war of attrition – a type of military conflict characterized by both sides trying to wear down the other; neither side makes quick strikes or sudden advances, but rather each focuses on slowly grinding up the other side’s forces

 

Zyklon B - a gas used to murder Jews in Nazi concentration camps