How far was Hitler's foreign policy to blame for war in 1939?

Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 · Paper 1 Section A, Core Content Option B Syllabus: 2027 and 2028 Option B: The twentieth century: international relations since 1919 Key Question 3 of six

This file covers the road from Hitler taking power to Britain and France declaring war in September 1939, and it covers the four rival explanations Cambridge expects you to weigh against him: the Treaty of Versailles, the collapse of the League of Nations, the policy of appeasement, and the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

If you are looking for how Hitler ran Germany, this is the wrong page. Life inside Nazi Germany, the Enabling Act, the Night of the Long Knives, persecution and propaganda all belong to Depth Study B: Germany, 1918 to 1945, which is a different part of the paper. This page is foreign policy and international relations only, and examiners deduct nothing for domestic detail because they simply do not credit it.

The command word in the Key Question is how far. That is not decoration. A file that only lists Hitler's aggressions can only argue one side, and one side is capped at 6 out of 10. Everything below is arranged so that you finish holding both.

1. What the syllabus actually asks

This is the wording printed in the Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 syllabus for 2027 and 2028. Learn the Key Question itself, because examiners build 10 mark questions directly out of it and out of the focus points underneath it.

Key Question 3

How far was Hitler's foreign policy to blame for the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939?

Focus points

• What were the long-term consequences of the Treaty of Versailles?
• What were the consequences of the failures of the League of Nations in the 1930s?
• Was the policy of appeasement justified?
• How important was the Nazi-Soviet Pact?
• Why did Britain and France declare war on Germany in September 1939?

Specified content

• Hitler's foreign policy aims
• Rearmament
• The Saar
• Remilitarisation of the Rhineland
• The Rome-Berlin Axis and the Anti-Comintern Pact
• German and Italian involvement in the Spanish Civil War
• Anschluss with Austria
• The crisis over Czechoslovakia and the Munich Agreement
• The Polish crisis and the outbreak of war

Read the focus points again, and notice what Cambridge has done

Four of the five focus points are not about Hitler.

The syllabus defines a focus point as an item that identifies "the issues that enable candidates to gain an understanding of the key question". Here, one of the five is the treaty that came before Hitler, one is the international body that failed before he moved, one is the policy of the countries that did not stop him, and one is the agreement he made with the state he had spent his career denouncing. Cambridge has built the counter-argument into the specification. A candidate who revises the focus points has both sides of a part (c) whether they meant to or not.

That is why this page is organised the way it is. Section 3 is the case named in the question. Sections 4 to 8 are the focus points, and each one is a ready-made rival explanation.

A note on the syllabus wording

The syllabus prints the option title two ways. The contents page and the subject content introduction both call it The twentieth century: international relations since 1919, while the header on the Option B content page reads from 1919. They mean the same thing. Use "since 1919".

One other small thing. In the specified content the syllabus joins the two halves of "Rome-Berlin Axis" and "Nazi-Soviet Pact" with a long dash rather than a hyphen. Cambridge's own mark schemes print both names with an ordinary hyphen just as often, and this page follows the mark schemes. Either is accepted; nobody has ever lost a mark on the punctuation of a treaty name.

Where the neighbours start

Two of your neighbours overlap with this file, and it is worth knowing exactly where each one takes over.

• Key Question 1, Was the Treaty of Versailles fair? owns the peacemaking, the terms and the impact on Germany to the end of 1923. This file owns the long-term consequences after that, which is a different argument: not whether the Treaty was fair, but whether it made a second war likely.
• Key Question 2, To what extent was the League of Nations a success? owns the League's structure, its 1920s peacekeeping, its humanitarian work, and the causes, events and consequences of the Manchurian and Abyssinian crises. This file owns only what those failures did to Hitler's calculations. Cambridge has actually set this as a 6 mark question in exactly those words, so the distinction is examined, not theoretical.

2. Where this Key Question appears on the paper

The mark ladders are the same for every question on Paper 1, and they are set out in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes: the three parts and their marks, the assessment objective split, and the two rules Cambridge changed for the 2024 series. Read that page once. Nothing below repeats it.

What is specific to this Key Question is where it sits and how often it is set.

It is always Question 6. Forty-eight Paper 1 mark schemes were read for these notes, covering every March, June and November series from 2018 to 2024. Thirty of the forty-eight set a question on this Key Question, and in all thirty it was Question 6. Not once in seven years was it Question 5, 7 or 8. Question 5 in every single paper read went to Key Question 1 or Key Question 2.

That follows from the rule printed in the syllabus, that two of the four Option B questions come from Key Questions 1 to 3 and two from 4 to 6. In practice Cambridge fills the first slot with Versailles or the League and, when it uses this Key Question at all, puts it in the second.

Roughly five series in eight set it. The eighteen papers that did not set it gave both of the first two slots to Versailles and the League. June 2023 is the clearest case: all three variants ran Question 5 on Versailles and Question 6 on the League, and this Key Question did not appear on Paper 1 at all. It is common but it is not guaranteed, which matters if it is the only one of the first three you have revised.

Examiners describe it as popular. The Principal Examiner report for November 2022, paper 12, opens its Question 6 commentary with the sentence that this "was the most popular question in the Core Content".

Paper 2 sets it in June 2028. The syllabus prints the prescribed topics for Paper 2 by series. For examination in 2027 the Option B prescribed topics are Versailles, Versailles, and Key Question 6. For examination in 2028, the June exam prescribed topic is "How far was Hitler's foreign policy to blame for the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939?" So for anyone sitting June 2028, this content is worth marks on both papers, though Paper 2 tests it as sources and Paper 1 tests it as explanation, and the two are not the same skill.

Past Paper 2 papers have already used this content: source investigations have been set on whether appeasement was the correct policy at the time, whether Britain was justified in not acting over the Rhineland, how far the Austrian people supported the Anschluss, how far Britain was responsible for the Soviet Union agreeing to the Nazi-Soviet Pact, what Hitler was trying to achieve in Spain, whether Italy benefited from its relationship with Germany, and whether the Second World War could have been avoided.

What Question 6 has actually asked

Learn the family, not the individual question.

The 4 mark family: define a thing, or describe an episode. What was meant by lebensraum. What was the Anti-Comintern Pact. What were the terms of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. What was the Saar plebiscite of 1935. Describe what happened in the Saar in 1935. Describe events in the Rhineland in March 1936. Describe Hitler's preparations for war before 1936. Describe the main aims of Hitler's foreign policy. Describe the main features of Hitler's foreign policy from 1933 to 1935. Describe how Hitler's policies between 1935 and 1938 broke the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Describe German involvement in the Spanish Civil War. Describe Italian involvement in the Spanish Civil War. Describe the events in February and March of 1938 that led to Anschluss. Describe Hitler's takeover of Austria in 1938. Describe the takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1938 to 1939. What was agreed at Munich in 1938. What were the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. What did the Soviet Union gain from the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

The 6 mark family: always Why, always two explained reasons. Why was the Treaty of Versailles important for Hitler's foreign policy. Why were the failures of the League of Nations in the 1930s important to Hitler. Why was Hitler able to ignore the League of Nations. Why did Hitler remilitarise the Rhineland in 1936. Why was the remilitarisation of the Rhineland important to Hitler. Why did Britain and France do little when Germany remilitarised the Rhineland. Why was German involvement in the Spanish Civil War important to Hitler. Why was Anschluss important to Hitler. Why did Britain and France fail to take action against the Anschluss in 1938. Why was taking control of Czechoslovakia important to Hitler. Why did Britain adopt a policy of appeasement. Why was the Nazi-Soviet Pact important to Hitler. Why did Stalin agree to the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Why did the Nazi-Soviet Pact surprise many people. Why did Britain go to war over the German invasion of Poland. Why did British and French guarantees to Poland fail to prevent war in 1939. Why did Britain react differently to Germany's aggression towards Czechoslovakia and towards Poland.

The 10 mark family has four recognisable shapes.

Two cautions about practising on old papers

Some old Question 6 parts sit outside the current specified content. Several papers between 2018 and 2024 set the 4 mark or 6 mark part on the increasing militarism of Japan or of Italy in the 1930s, or on relations between Italy and Germany. The words "militarism" and "militarisation" do not appear anywhere in the 2027 and 2028 specified content for this Key Question. Practise those questions for the technique if you like, but do not build a revision plan on them.

Question 8 in old papers is a Key Question that no longer exists. Papers from 2018 to 2024 repeatedly set Question 7 or Question 8 on Iran and Iraq. The words Iran, Iraq and Saddam appear nowhere in the 2027 and 2028 syllabus. That content has been removed.

3. The case named in the question: Hitler's aims, and the steps that carried them out

This is the side the question puts to you, and you have to be able to build it properly before you can argue about how far it goes.

Hitler's foreign policy aims

Cambridge's own mark schemes credit these, in these terms:

• To revise or destroy the Treaty of Versailles
• To unite all German speakers in one country, a Greater Germany, including Anschluss with Austria and the Germans of the Sudetenland
• To expand eastwards to achieve lebensraum, living space
• To destroy communism

Those four are not four separate ambitions. They are a sequence, and seeing the sequence is what turns a list into an explanation.

1. destroy Versailles
2. Germany is rearmed and its borders are defensible
3. unite the German speakers
4. Germany is larger, richer and surrounded by weaker neighbours
5. take living space in the east
6. the land taken is Polish and Soviet, which means the war on communism and the war for lebensraum are the same war.

Two definitions examiners insist on, because they are the two most confused terms on this whole Key Question.

Lebensraum means living space taken to the east, at the expense of Poland and Russia, for resettlement and for resources. It does not mean Austria and it does not mean the Sudetenland. Those are Greater Germany, a completely different aim. Examiner reports flag this confusion in almost every series read.

Greater Germany means bringing German speakers inside German borders. Austria and the Sudetenland belong here.

Rearmament, 1933 to 1935

Mark schemes credit the following, and each has a date attached in Cambridge's own materials:

• 1933: Hitler began to rearm. Germany walked out of the World Disarmament Conference and left the League of Nations.
• A ten-year non-aggression pact with Poland was signed. Cambridge lists this without a date, so do not supply one.
• 1935: conscription was reintroduced. Hitler announced that his army would be 500 000 men and that he intended to create a military air force. A rearmament rally was held.
• 1935: the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. Germany was allowed a fleet 35 per cent the size of Britain's and a submarine force up to 45 per cent of Britain's. France was not consulted, and the agreement was made despite French and Italian protests.

The Naval Agreement is worth a paragraph on its own, because it is the single best piece of evidence that Hitler was not acting against a united Europe.

1. the Treaty of Versailles capped the German navy
2. Britain signs a bilateral agreement letting Germany exceed the cap
3. a victor power has now licensed a breach of its own treaty
4. France, the state most threatened, was not asked
5. Hitler learns that the victors will not act together.

The Saar, 1935

The Saar was not an act of aggression, and this is the most commonly muddled item in the whole specified content.

The plebiscite was written into the Treaty of Versailles, to be held after fifteen years. It took place in January 1935, administered by the League of Nations, and offered three choices: join Germany, join France, or remain under League administration. Both France and Germany wanted the territory for its rich coalfields. Over 90 per cent voted to join Germany, and the Saar became part of Germany in March 1935. Cambridge also credits Goebbels going to the Saar to whip up enthusiasm, and intimidation by the Gestapo during the vote.

So the Saar was legal, scheduled and overwhelmingly popular. What it gave Hitler was a victory that appeared to prove his claim that German speakers wanted to be in Germany, and resources useful for rearmament. Examiner reports specifically flag candidates who confuse the Saar with the Rhineland and write that German troops marched in. They did not. Nobody invaded the Saar.

The Rhineland, March 1936

Cambridge's Paper 2 background information dates this precisely: the German army marched into the Rhineland on 7 March 1936, breaking both the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Britain and France did not intervene.

Why Hitler did it, in the terms mark schemes credit: to break Versailles; to strengthen Germany's western frontier; to test the League and the willingness of Britain and France to fight; to gain support at home. The best-marked exemplar in the corpus makes the strategic point, and it is the one that connects this section to lebensraum:

1. Hitler's aim is an aggressive policy in the east
2. but Germany is open to attack from the west while the Rhineland is demilitarised
3. securing the western border is the precondition for moving east
4. the Rhineland has to come first.

Examiners note that many candidates know about the anxiety of the German generals in case the French army mobilised, and Cambridge credits the point that the German troops had orders to retreat if they met resistance. That is the evidence for the strongest claim on this episode: 1936 was the cheapest moment to stop him, and it was not taken.

The Rome-Berlin Axis, the Anti-Comintern Pact and Spain

Cambridge treats these together, and they belong together, because their common function was to end Germany's isolation.

The Anti-Comintern Pact. Signed in 1936, between Germany and Japan, aimed against the Soviet Union and against the spread of the Communist International. Italy joined in 1937. Other countries including Spain and Romania signed later. Cambridge notes it became known as the Axis Alliance. Do not confuse it with the Nazi-Soviet Pact; examiner reports record candidates doing exactly that.

The Rome-Berlin Axis. Cambridge's materials give two different dates for this and they cannot both be right. See section 11 before you write a date down.

The Spanish Civil War. The war began in 1936 between the Republican government and the Nationalists. A Non-Intervention Committee was set up and 27 countries signed the Non-Intervention Agreement in August 1936, including Germany, Britain, France, Italy and the Soviet Union. Germany and Italy signed it and both broke it. Hitler was sending planes as early as July 1936, before the Agreement existed, and he sent troops, planes, tanks and munitions through Portugal to hide German involvement, claiming the Germans fighting in Spain were volunteers with nothing to do with his government.

What Germany actually sent, in the terms mark schemes credit: transport planes to move Franco's troops and equipment from Morocco to Spain; the Condor Legion, set up at the end of 1936; naval support including two pocket battleships, a cruiser, torpedo boats and U-boats. Italy sent tens of thousands of troops, military equipment, aircraft and submarines, and Italian troops played a large part in the failed offensive at Guadalajara.

Why it mattered to Hitler, and this is the 6 mark answer:

1. Spain lets Hitler test aircraft and tactics in a real war
2. carpet bombing at Guernica and Blitzkrieg methods at the offensive on Bilbao are rehearsed
3. the same methods open the Second World War
4. and fighting on the same side as Mussolini pulls Italy away from Britain and France, which removes the one power that had blocked Anschluss.

That second half is the point candidates miss. Mussolini had stopped Hitler taking Austria in 1934. Spain is where that obstacle was removed.

Anschluss, March 1938

Cambridge's own account, from Paper 2 background information and Paper 1 mark schemes together:

• In 1934, Austrian Nazis assassinated the Austrian chancellor, Dollfuss. Hitler attempted union that year and Mussolini stopped him.
• Nazi propaganda in Austria in favour of union intensified after Hitler came to power.
• In February 1938, Hitler met the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg and pressed him to appoint Seyss-Inquart, a leading Austrian Nazi, as Minister of the Interior. Austrian Nazis staged demonstrations calling for union.
• Schuschnigg decided to hold a plebiscite on Austrian independence, then under Nazi pressure cancelled it and resigned.
• On 12 March 1938, German troops entered Austria unopposed. One day later Austria was incorporated into Germany.
• A plebiscite was held in April and showed overwhelming support for the union.

Note the date trap built into that last point. When Cambridge asked candidates to describe "the events in February and March of 1938 that led to Anschluss", the examiner report records that some wrote about the plebiscite, which was held in April and therefore earned nothing.

Why it mattered to Hitler: it united German speakers and created a Greater Germany; it broke a term of Versailles that had expressly forbidden union; it added Austria's soldiers, weapons and its deposits of gold, iron ore and salt to Germany; it put German forces on three sides of Czechoslovakia; and, because Britain and France did nothing, it told him the price of the next move was low.

The misconception examiners name here every single series: Austria and Germany had never been united, so Hitler did not "reunite" them. Write "unite", never "reunite". This one error appears in reports for at least five different series.

Czechoslovakia and Munich, 1938 to 1939

The Sudetenland contained about three and a half million Germans and it contained the Skoda armaments works. It had been given to Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of St Germain, part of the Paris settlement. It had never been German territory, which is the second misconception examiners name repeatedly: candidates write that Hitler wanted it back because Versailles had taken it from Germany. Versailles did not, and it was never Germany's.

The Munich Agreement was signed on 30 September 1938 by Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler and Mussolini. The Czechs were not present and were not consulted. Hitler received the Sudetenland, promised he had no further ambitions in Czechoslovakia, and agreed that Britain and Germany would settle future disputes by talking rather than war. Chamberlain returned to Britain and announced "Peace for our time", and Cambridge records that there was rejoicing throughout the country.

Munich handed over the Sudetenland and nothing else. Examiner reports record a common misconception that Chamberlain let Hitler have the whole of Czechoslovakia at the conference. He did not. That happened in March 1939, when Germany took the rest of the country, and the difference between those two events is the hinge on which the whole Key Question turns.

The Polish crisis

After March 1939, Britain and France no longer believed Hitler's promises. In March 1939 Britain gave a guarantee to Poland, and Britain and France attempted to reach an alliance with the Soviet Union against Hitler. The attempt failed. On 23 August 1939 Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Britain and France declared war.

The full chain, in one line

1. Versailles is dismantled step by step from 1933
2. each step is unopposed, so each next step is cheaper
3. Greater Germany is completed at Anschluss and the Sudetenland
4. in March 1939 Hitler takes non-German territory, which no aim he had ever declared could justify
5. the guarantee to Poland follows
6. the Nazi-Soviet Pact removes the risk of a war on two fronts
7. Poland is invaded on 1 September 1939 and the guarantee is honoured.

4. Focus point: what were the long-term consequences of the Treaty of Versailles?

The argument. War came in 1939 because of a treaty signed in 1919. Hitler did not invent German grievance; he inherited it, and every one of his early moves was the reversal of a specific clause.

Cambridge's own exemplar for the 6 mark question "Why was the Treaty of Versailles important for Hitler's foreign policy?" makes the mechanism explicit: the Treaty had weakened Germany, Hitler had promised to undo it, and undoing it made him popular. Union with Austria was banned by the Treaty, so achieving Anschluss was simultaneously a step towards Greater Germany and a demolition of Versailles. The army was capped, so rearmament was the same double act.

Line the two documents up and the shape of the 1930s appears:

1. Versailles imposes terms Germans regard as unjust
2. the terms remain a live grievance through the 1920s
3. Hitler builds a foreign policy out of reversing them one by one
4. each reversal is popular at home and defensible abroad, because many in Britain agree the Treaty was too harsh
5. the powers that wrote the Treaty will not enforce it against a man they half agree with.

The strongest form of this argument is not that Versailles was cruel. It is that Versailles was self-undermining. It left Germany aggrieved enough to want revision and strong enough to take it, and it left the victors half-convinced they had been unfair. Cambridge's mark schemes list "Britain thought the Treaty of Versailles had been unfair on Germany" and "many people thought the Treaty had been too harsh on Germany and the Rhineland should never have been demilitarised" as credited points on the appeasement questions. That is Versailles causing the war twice over: once by creating the demand, and once by disarming the response.

The limit of the argument. Grievance explains revision. It does not explain March 1939. Taking the rest of Czechoslovakia reversed nothing in the Treaty of Versailles, because none of it had ever been German. Nor does grievance explain lebensraum, which was about acquiring territory that was never German and never claimed to be. If Versailles were the whole cause, Hitler should have stopped at the Sudetenland.

Do not drift into Key Question 1 here. The fairness of the Treaty, the aims of the Big Three and the impact on Germany to the end of 1923 belong in the Was the Treaty of Versailles fair? notes. What this Key Question wants is the consequence after 1923, and only as it bears on 1939.

5. Focus point: what were the consequences of the failures of the League of Nations in the 1930s?

The argument. Hitler's moves were possible because the machinery for stopping aggression had already been shown not to work, in public, twice, by other people.

Cambridge sets this as a 6 mark question in almost these words, and the exemplar is worth learning as a model of what an explanation looks like when a candidate has understood the question rather than the topic:

1. the League's failures show that it will not stand up to aggressive foreign policies
2. Japan gets away with invading Manchuria
3. Italy gets away with invading Abyssinia, which is far closer to Europe
4. each member puts its own national interest above collective action
5. Hitler concludes that destroying the Treaty of Versailles will bring no response.

Note what that chain does not contain: any account of what happened in Manchuria or Abyssinia. The examiner report for the paper that set this question says candidates "knew a great deal about the failures of the League of Nations in the 1930s but needed to apply this knowledge to why these failures were important to Hitler". The crises themselves are Key Question 2 content. Here they are evidence, not subject matter. One clause each is enough.

There is a second, sharper consequence, and it is the one that connects this focus point to the Nazi-Soviet Pact four years later. Cambridge's mark schemes credit the point that "Stalin saw Britain and France being helpless in the League over Abyssinia".

1. the League fails over Abyssinia
2. Stalin watches Britain and France prove unable to act collectively
3. collective security looks worthless to Moscow as well as to Berlin
4. in 1939 Stalin has no reason to believe an alliance with Britain and France would protect him.

The Rhineland is where the two threads meet. Britain and France were preoccupied with Abyssinia in March 1936, which examiners list as one of the reasons they did nothing. So the League's failure did not merely embolden Hitler in the abstract. It distracted the two powers who could have stopped him on the exact week he moved.

The limit of the argument. The League was made of its members. Saying "the League failed" and saying "Britain and France would not act" are frequently the same sentence with a different subject, and an answer that treats them as two separate causes is double-counting. If you use both, say how they differ: the League's structural weaknesses are one thing, and the choices Britain and France made are another.

6. Focus point: was the policy of appeasement justified?

This is the most heavily examined single argument on this Key Question. Of the thirty Question 6s read, appeasement or Munich was the subject of the 10 mark part in ten of them, more than any other theme.

The case that appeasement was justified

Cambridge's mark schemes and examiner reports credit these, and each one needs a mechanism attached, not just naming.

Britain was not in a condition to fight. It had only recently begun to rearm, and the Depression had damaged the economy that would have to pay for a war. Cambridge's Level 5 exemplar makes the strongest version of this: the aim of appeasement was not to give in to Hitler indefinitely, but to wait until Britain was in a better position. Britain went to war in 1939 in a much stronger state than it would have been in 1936 or 1937.

There was no public appetite for war, and no imperial one. At the time of Munich most people in Britain were against going to war, and so was most of the empire. Cambridge credits the point that Britain could not go to war while it was so divided, and that by 1939 both had changed. Examiners also credit the uncertainty over whether the USA or the Commonwealth would give support.

Fear of communism. This has been set as an entire 10 mark question. British politicians regarded the spread of Soviet communism as the greater long-term threat and saw Germany as a buffer against it, so appeasing Hitler strengthened the barrier.

Many of Hitler's demands looked reasonable. A great many people in Britain believed Versailles had been too harsh, that the Rhineland was Germany's "own backyard", and that German speakers had a right to live in Germany. Judged by the principle of self-determination the victors themselves had written into the peace, the Saar, the Rhineland, Anschluss and the Sudetenland were all arguable.

France would not act alone. Cambridge credits "France would not act without British support". In March 1936, France was in an economic crisis and facing elections, and French public opinion was against action.

The case that appeasement was not justified

It taught Hitler that promises cost nothing. This is the central chain and the one examiners quote:

1. Hitler is allowed the Rhineland, then Anschluss, then the Sudetenland
2. each time he says his demands are ended, and each time he moves again
3. the powers that let him do so learn nothing from the pattern
4. Hitler concludes Britain and France will not fight
5. he invades Poland believing the guarantee is a bluff.

Hitler's intentions were on the record. Cambridge credits the point that it was clear from what Hitler had said and written that he wanted to control most of Europe, that Chamberlain should have known this, and that Churchill did. Cambridge's Paper 2 material notes that Churchill was questioning appeasement as early as 1936.

Opportunities were missed while they were cheap. German forces were not as strong as Britain believed. Britain and France could have defended Czechoslovakia, which had its own strong army and its own defences. The Rhineland was a gamble, and Cambridge records that German troops had orders to withdraw if resisted. The Rhineland move breached both Versailles and Locarno, so the two powers arguably had a treaty obligation to act.

It was morally indefensible at Munich. Czechoslovakia was not at the conference that dismembered it. Examiner reports credit this as a strong argument in its own right.

It alienated the USSR. Stalin was not consulted at Munich. Britain and France showed little interest in an alliance with him. Cambridge's Paper 2 topic asks directly how far Britain was responsible for the Soviet Union agreeing to the Nazi-Soviet Pact, so this is not a fringe reading.

1. Stalin is excluded from Munich and rebuffed as an ally
2. the Soviet Union concludes the Western powers will not defend it and may prefer to see Germany turn east
3. in August 1939 Stalin takes the offer that is actually available
4. Hitler is freed from a war on two fronts.

The judgement examiners are looking for

The command is almost always about whether it was justified, sensible or reasonable at the time. That phrase does the work. Judged by 1945 the policy failed, and saying so earns nothing because it answers a question nobody asked. Judged by what was known in 1936, by what Britain could actually put in the field, and by what the British public would support, the case is genuinely open.

Cambridge's own Level 5 exemplar comes down on the side of vindication by a specific and stated measure: the policy bought time, and Britain was stronger in 1939 than it had been in 1936. That is what a supported judgement looks like. It names a standard and applies it.

One trap examiners name in almost every series. When the question asks whether appeasement was justified, or whether you are surprised by it, candidates write about why it was adopted. Reports say this earns no credit. The reasons for the policy and the defence of the policy are different answers. Reasons become defence only when you attach the word "therefore".

7. Focus point: how important was the Nazi-Soviet Pact?

What it was. Signed 23 August 1939. A ten-year non-aggression agreement: Germany and the Soviet Union agreed not to fight each other, and that if one went to war with a third party the other would not intervene. A secret protocol divided eastern European states into zones of influence and, in particular, divided Poland. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were assigned to the Soviet sphere, and Germany agreed not to interfere with Soviet actions towards Romania.

Why it was so surprising

This is the most frequently set 10 mark question on the whole Key Question, and both sides have to be genuinely explained.

The surprise case. The two states were ideological opposites, fascist and communist. Hitler had written in Mein Kampf that destroying communism was an aim. Communists had been his principal enemies in Germany and had been imprisoned or executed. He regarded Slavs as subhuman. He had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which existed specifically to oppose the Soviet Union, and had fought communists in Spain. From the Soviet side, Stalin regarded Nazi Germany as the great enemy of communism, and the Soviet Union had a Mutual Assistance Pact with France.

The no-surprise case. For Hitler, it removed the war on two fronts that had destroyed Germany in the First World War, cleared the way into Poland, gave him half of Poland, and served lebensraum by putting German forces further east. For Stalin, it bought time to rebuild armed forces weakened by the Purges, regained land lost to Poland, allowed trade with Germany to continue, and postponed an invasion he expected. Britain and France had shown no serious interest in an alliance and had excluded him from Munich, so the choice was not between Hitler and the West; it was between Hitler and nothing.

Neither side intended to keep it. Cambridge credits that point directly.

1. Hitler's aims require both Poland and eventual war with the Soviet Union
2. but not at the same time as war with Britain and France
3. the Pact separates the two wars in time
4. Stalin, offered nothing better, accepts the same postponement for his own reasons
5. the invasion of Poland becomes safe for Germany nine days later.

How important was it, actually

The case that it was decisive. It was the last barrier. Cambridge credits "it gave Hitler the confidence to attack Poland" and, on the 6 mark question about why the British and French guarantees failed to prevent war, credits precisely this: with the Pact signed, Hitler did not believe Britain and France would act, and even if they did, the Soviet Union would not.

The case against. The Pact enabled the invasion; it did not cause the intention. Hitler's Polish aims predate August 1939, and the guarantee that turned an invasion of Poland into a European war was given in March, five months before the Pact existed. On this reading the Pact changed the timing and the risk, not the destination.

Two chronology errors examiners name. First, the British and French guarantee to Poland came before the Nazi-Soviet Pact, not after. Reports record candidates reversing them. Second, some candidates write that war began after the invasion of Czechoslovakia. It did not.

One question-focus error examiners name. When the question is about Hitler's reasons for signing, candidates supply balance by explaining Stalin's reasons. Reports say this does not count as the other side, because it is a different subject, not a different argument. Balance means two positions on the same question.

8. Focus point: why did Britain and France declare war on Germany in September 1939?

This focus point is the one that turns the whole Key Question from a story into a problem, because the honest version of it contains a puzzle.

The puzzle. Britain and France had accepted the Rhineland, accepted Anschluss, signed away the Sudetenland at Munich, and done nothing when Germany took the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Poland was further away and no easier to defend than Czechoslovakia had been. So why this time? Cambridge has set exactly this as a 10 mark question: "Is it surprising that Britain and France went to war over Poland, but not over Czechoslovakia?"

The answer, in the terms Cambridge credits. Up to March 1939, every German move could be presented as recovering German land or uniting German speakers. Taking the rest of Czechoslovakia could not. Cambridge's own exemplar puts it plainly: once he had invaded Czechoslovakia, his plan to conquer the whole of Europe was clear.

1. until March 1939 every move can be read as revision of Versailles
2. the takeover of Bohemia and Moravia has no such justification
3. the pattern is now visibly one of conquest, not grievance
4. Britain and France guarantee Poland in March 1939
5. appeasement has ended before Poland is invaded, not because of it.

Then add the second half, which is about credibility. Cambridge credits the point that Britain had decided Hitler could not be trusted and could not go on letting him take one country after another, and that Britain had been rearming. The guarantee to Poland was as much about the value of a British promise as about Poland.

And the third element, which is what went wrong. Hitler did not believe the guarantee. He had appeased opponents' expectations before and they had folded. The Pact had removed Soviet risk. Cambridge's Level 5 exemplar on the Munich question states the possibility carefully: "It is possible that Hitler calculated that they would not do this." Deterrence failed not because the threat was absent but because the record made it incredible. That is the sharpest single link between appeasement and the outbreak of war, and it is worth a whole paragraph in a part (c).

A dating point, and Cambridge is not consistent about it. See section 11 before you write down when Germany invaded Poland relative to when war was declared.

9. Building the judgement

The general shapes, and what turns a Level 2 identification into a Level 4 explanation, are in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. What follows is the same move made about this Key Question, because a judgement has to be about something.

The tenth mark is a separate act. It is not a summary. It is one sentence that answers the question asked and attaches a reason for coming down that way. These do that:

• "Hitler's foreign policy was the cause; appeasement was the permission. Without his aims there was nothing to appease, but without appeasement the aims could have been stopped in 1936 at a fraction of the price."
• "Versailles explains everything up to March 1939 and nothing after it, because from that point Hitler was taking land no German grievance had ever claimed."
• "The Nazi-Soviet Pact decided the timing rather than the outcome, because the guarantee that turned Poland into a European war had already been given in March."
• "Appeasement was defensible on the evidence available in 1936 and indefensible on the evidence available in 1938, so the fault lay not in adopting it but in continuing it after Hitler had shown what his promises were worth."
• "Britain and France went to war over Poland and not Czechoslovakia because in March 1939 Hitler stopped being a revisionist and became a conqueror, and only the second of those could not be accommodated."

Two more things worth saying about weighing this particular question.

Distinguish necessary from sufficient. Several of these factors are necessary conditions rather than causes. The League's collapse and appeasement made war possible; Hitler's aims made it intended. A judgement that says which kind each factor is will read as historical rather than as list-shaped.

Do not present five factors as equals. Examiner reports repeatedly describe answers that pick up "many valid factors" and never rank them. Cambridge's own exemplars concede a rival factor and then subordinate it, in the shape "X mattered, but Y mattered more, because". That is the move.

10. What examiner reports say candidates get wrong here

The faults that apply to any question on the paper, such as overwriting part (a) and listing instead of explaining, are in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. These are the ones that belong to this content and appear in report after report.

The three vocabulary confusions.

• "Reunite" Austria and Germany. They had never been united. Reports name this in at least five separate series. Write "unite".
• Lebensraum used for Austria or the Sudetenland. Lebensraum meant land to the east taken from Poland and the Soviet Union. Austria and the Sudetenland are Greater Germany. Named in five series.
• The Sudetenland "taken from Germany" by Versailles. It never belonged to Germany. It went to Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of St Germain. Named in four series.

The three factual confusions.

• The Saar confused with the Rhineland. Candidates write that German troops marched into the Saar. They did not; there was a plebiscite the Treaty itself had scheduled.
• The Anti-Comintern Pact confused with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Two pacts, opposite purposes, three years apart.
• The Munich Agreement confused with the Munich Putsch of 1923. The Putsch is Depth Study B content and belongs on a different paper.

The Munich overreach. Reports name a recurring belief that Chamberlain gave Hitler the whole of Czechoslovakia at the conference. He gave the Sudetenland. The rest came in March 1939, in breach of the agreement, and the distinction is the pivot of the entire Key Question.

Chronology. Reports say plainly that a good understanding of the sequence is needed to write a successful answer, and name three specific reversals: putting the guarantee to Poland after the Nazi-Soviet Pact rather than before; having the war start after the invasion of Czechoslovakia; and muddling the order of events around Munich.

Date limits in the question. This Key Question attracts them, because Cambridge uses them to separate stages. "Before 1936" excludes the Rhineland, Spain and Anschluss. "February and March of 1938" excludes the April plebiscite. "Between 1935 and 1938" excludes 1933 and 1934. "From 1933 to 1935" excludes everything after the Naval Agreement. Reports record marks lost on every one of these.

Answering about the wrong actor. When the question asks why something mattered to Hitler, reports record candidates explaining why it mattered to Britain, France or the USSR. When the question asks why Hitler signed the Pact, candidates supply the other side by explaining why Stalin signed it. Underline the subject of the question before you plan.

Straying into domestic policy. Reports note candidates writing about Hitler's political opponents inside Germany, or treating lebensraum as a domestic policy. This is a foreign policy question on a foreign policy Key Question. Nazi rule inside Germany is Depth Study B.

Blaming the First World War for British and French weakness. Reports specifically correct this: the weakness of the mid-1930s came from the Great Depression, not from recovery from 1914 to 1918.

Narrating instead of judging. On the "are you surprised" questions, reports repeatedly describe answers that give a full narrative of the road to war and never say whether they are surprised. That is the difference between Level 2 and Level 4 on a 10 mark question, and it costs more than any fact.

11. Where Cambridge's own materials disagree

Two conflicts appear inside Cambridge's published documents. Do not try to reconcile them, and do not stake a mark on either.

The Rome-Berlin Axis. A Paper 2 background information section states that "in October 1936 Germany and Italy signed a treaty forming the Rome-Berlin Axis". A Paper 1 mark scheme exemplar for a different series states that "in 1937 the Rome-Berlin Axis was formed". These cannot both be correct. The Axis is named in the specified content, so you need to know what it was: an agreement between Germany and Italy that ended Hitler's isolation and detached Mussolini from Britain and France. You do not need to date it. If you want a dated Italian item, use the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Cambridge dates consistently: Germany and Japan in 1936, Italy joining in 1937.

The invasion of Poland. A June 2021 Paper 1 mark scheme prints "Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939". A March 2022 examiner report contains the phrase "when he invaded Poland on 3 September, they declared war". The mark scheme is the document markers work from, and 1 September is the date printed there. The safest thing you can write is that Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 and that Britain and France declared war days later, which is true on any reading.

12. Quick revision

The Key Question is "how far", so you need both sides. One side caps at 6 out of 10.

Where it sits. Always Question 6. Set in thirty of the forty-eight mark schemes from 2018 to 2024. Never Question 5, 7 or 8. Paper 2's prescribed topic for the June 2028 exam.

Hitler's four aims: destroy Versailles, unite German speakers in a Greater Germany, take lebensraum in the east, destroy communism. The last two are the same war.

The dated spine, all from Cambridge's own materials:

The five arguments, one line each.

• Versailles: created the grievance and half-convinced the victors they had been unfair, so it built the demand and disarmed the response. Explains everything up to March 1939 and nothing after.
• The League: proved twice, in Manchuria and Abyssinia, that aggression carried no cost, and taught Stalin the same lesson it taught Hitler.
• Appeasement: defensible on 1936 evidence, indefensible after Hitler broke Munich. Judge it by what was known at the time, and say by which standard.
• The Nazi-Soviet Pact: removed the two-front war and made 1 September safe. Changed the timing more than the outcome, because the guarantee to Poland came first.
• September 1939: March 1939 is the hinge. Until then every move could be called revision; after it, conquest, and conquest could not be accommodated.

The three words that cost marks: "reunite" for Austria, "lebensraum" for Austria or the Sudetenland, and "taken from Germany" for the Sudetenland.

Never write a sentence about Hitler's rule inside Germany. That is Depth Study B on a different component.

Where these facts come from

Everything substantive above is taken from Cambridge's own documents, and each claim can be checked against a named one.

The Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 syllabus for 2027 and 2028. The Key Question, all five focus points and all nine specified content items, quoted from pages 15 and 16. The definitions of key question, focus point and specified content. The rule that two Section A questions come from Key Questions 1 to 3 and two from 4 to 6. The Paper 2 prescribed topics for 2027 and 2028, including this Key Question for the June 2028 exam. The absence of Iran, Iraq and militarism from the 2027 and 2028 content.

Paper 1 mark schemes, March, June and November 2018 to 2024, forty-eight papers. The count of thirty questions set on this Key Question, all at Question 6. Every question stem quoted in section 2. Hitler's four aims and the wording used for them. The rearmament details, including the 500 000 man army, the air force announcement and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement percentages. The Saar plebiscite, its three options, the League administration, the ninety per cent figure and the March 1935 transfer. The Rhineland motives and the reasons for Anglo-French inaction. The Anti-Comintern Pact signatories and dates. The Condor Legion, Guernica, Bilbao, Guadalajara and the German naval contribution to Spain. The Anschluss sequence including Schuschnigg and Seyss-Inquart, and the 1934 attempt blocked by Mussolini. The Skoda works. The Munich promises and "Peace for our time". The Nazi-Soviet Pact terms, including the ten-year duration, the secret protocol, the Baltic states and Romania. The date of the invasion of Poland. Every worked exemplar quoted or paraphrased in sections 3 to 8.

Paper 2 question papers, 2018 to 2024. The Background Information sections, which are written by Cambridge rather than by a source author, supply: the Rhineland entry on 7 March 1936 and the breach of both Versailles and Locarno; the Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938 and its four signatories; Churchill questioning appeasement as early as 1936; the Anschluss sequence from the Dollfuss assassination in 1934 to 12 March 1938 and the April plebiscite; the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 23 August 1939 and its secret section; the Spanish Civil War, the Non-Intervention Agreement of August 1936 with 27 signatories, and German planes in Spain from July 1936; the Rome-Berlin Axis of October 1936 and the Pact of Steel of May 1939.

Principal Examiner reports, 2018 to 2024. Section 10 in its entirety. The description of Question 6 as the most popular question in the Core Content comes from the November 2022 report on paper 12. The three and a half million Germans in the Sudetenland and its transfer under the Treaty of St Germain come from the November 2022 report on paper 13, and the Skoda works and the Sudeten population also appear in the November 2020 report on paper 12. The German order to retreat from the Rhineland if resisted appears in the November 2020 and November 2022 reports.

Where the corpus contradicts itself. Section 11 names both conflicts. Neither has been silently resolved.

Not verified, and therefore not asserted above. The date of the Rome-Berlin Axis, for the reason given in section 11. The date of the German non-aggression pact with Poland, which Cambridge's mark scheme lists without one. The date on which Britain and France declared war, as distinct from the date of the invasion, for the reason given in section 11. The Hossbach Conference of November 1937, which appears in the corpus only inside a Paper 2 source written by a historian rather than in Cambridge's own voice, and which is not in the specified content. Casualty figures, troop numbers and rearmament spending figures of any kind, none of which are printed in the mark schemes read and none of which are needed for any question set.

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