"Hitler repeatedly expressed his personal admiration for Stalin, 'one of the most extraordinary figures in world history', as he called him in July 1941. 'Stalin, too,' Hitler told his dinner companions a year later, 'must command our unconditional respect. In his own way he is a hell of a fellow! He knows his models, Genghiz Khan and the others, very well…' 'Stalin,' said Hitler on another occasion, 'is half beast, half giant…If we had given him another ten years, Europe would have been swept away, as it was at the time of the Huns.'"
Richard Evans
Stephen Kotkin in Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 notes:
"A lifelong Germanophile, Stalin appears to have been mesmerized by the might and daring of Germany's parallel totalitarian regime. For a time, he recovered his personal and political equilibrium in his miraculous Pact with Hitler, which deflected the German war machine, delivered a bounty of German machine tools, enabled the reconquest and Sovietization of tsarist borderlands, and reinserted the USSR into the role of arbitrating world affairs."
For this task you will be required to complete a Historical Analysis of 1200-1500 words.
You must complete a comparative analysis of one key theme or feature of the Hitler and Stalin dictatorships.
Your question is “Compare the significance of (insert your topic) in the dictatorships of Stalin and Hitler up to 1939.”
You will be given TWO class lessons for work on this task.
MH 12-8 plans and conducts historical investigations and presents reasoned conclusions, using relevant evidence from a range of sources
Articles from periodicals, magazines or journals is referred to as 'Journal literature'. Journal articles provide valid, reliable and up-to-date information on your topic.
Use History Reference Source & JSTOR to find academic journal articles.
*You'll need to access these databases on the CANVAS Library page when you're at home.
![]() |
catalogue | online eResources |
Find books and other published material in the State Library of NSW catalogue. This catalogue also includes ebooks.
New South Wales residents with a Library card or a registered NSW public library card can access these resources from anywhere, anytime.
Acceptable themes or features must not go beyond 1939 and could include the following:
Two possible structures for your essay:
a. INTRODUCTION INCLUDING THESIS
b. ONE PARAGRAPH EACH ON THREE DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TOPIC.
COMPARE THE SIGNIFICANCE IN NAZI GERMANY AND THE SOVIET UNION THROUGHOUT EACH PARAGRAPH
c. CONCLUSION
Or
Whatever approach you take make sure you are comparing (identifying and explaining similarities and differences about the significance of your topic) throughout your essay.
Check this closely for how to include intext referencing in your essay:
https://www.historyskills.com/referencing/in-text-referencing/
Bibliography should be compiled using Citemaker
https://www.citemaker.com/spx.nsw/
![]() |
catalogue |