How can we explain the incredible margin of victory at the referendum for Anchluss in 1938?
Leaning objectives
- Students learn to understand 4 possible reasons why Austria voting so overwhelmingly for Anschluss and be able to summarise these
- They should give two reasons why the percentage of 99.7% of Austrians voting for Anchluss was higher than you might expect.
Starter
Students are shown photographs of German troops moving into Austria in 1938 on slide 2 Show this even before the title slide. In pairs they have to consider what the likely effect on the Austrian people this might have had? Some might already be thinking that some people look quite excited.
Step 1
Now show the actual statistics of the referendum using the title slide 1. Students will be surprised and probably now better motivated to want to solve the conundrum.
Step 2
Set the scene using as much of the background of slides 3,,4 and 5 as you want.
Step 3
Now to the enquiry. Explain the 4 principal sources they will be using. Slide 7 deserves particular treatment so allow 10 minutes for students in pairs to find, say, 6 ways in which Hitler seems to
