Edexcel GCSE History: Source Inference (two things you can infer)

Source A — an invented letter written for this exercise, in the style of a letter from a young German woman to her sister, dated December 1923, during the Weimar hyperinflation in Munich.

Dearest Greta, I no longer know how to keep house. Mother sends me to the baker the moment Father's wages are paid, because by the afternoon the same notes will buy nothing at all, and yesterday a kindly neighbour gave us a basket of coal in exchange for Grandmother's gold ring, which once she would never have parted with for any price. The children next door play with bricks made of banknotes tied in bundles, and nobody scolds them, for the money is worth less than the string. I hear the presses are at last to stop, and that some new currency is promised, but we have been promised much this year. Pray for us, and do not send money, for it will be paper by the time it arrives.

Give two things you can infer from Source A about life during the German hyperinflation of 1923. (4 marks)

Source B — an invented account written for this exercise, in the style of a memoir by a former member of the Hitler Youth, recalling the early 1930s.

When I joined I was twelve, and it was the proudest day of my life. We were given a uniform, a dagger and a flag, and on the marches the whole town would line the streets to watch us pass. Our leaders told us that the boys of Germany were the future of the nation, and that our bodies belonged to the Fatherland. We did little book-learning; instead we hiked, camped, boxed and practised with rifles, and were taught that a strong body served the race. Above all we were taught to love the Führer as a son loves his father, and to report anyone, even our own parents, who spoke against him. I remember how my father grew careful of what he said at table once I had joined.

Give two things you can infer from Source B about the aims of the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany. (4 marks)

Source C — an invented diary extract written for this exercise, in the style of a diary kept by a Jewish shopkeeper in a German town, dated 12 November 1938, two days after Kristallnacht.

The street outside is still glittering with broken glass. On the night of the 9th they came to the shop with hammers and iron bars; by morning the windows were gone and the stock lay trampled in the gutter, and not one policeman moved to stop them, though several stood and watched. They have taken my brother away with the other men of the congregation, and we are told they are at Dachau, though no charge has been read against them. This morning a notice was nailed to the door declaring that we Jews must ourselves pay for the damage done to us, and that our insurance money is forfeit to the state. I have lived in this town all my life. I no longer know whether there is any future here for my children.

Give two things you can infer from Source C about the treatment of Jewish people in Germany after Kristallnacht. (4 marks)

Source D — an invented newspaper report written for this exercise, in the style of a report in an American newspaper, dated September 1957, on the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas.

For a third day the nine Negro students did not enter the school. A crowd of several hundred white men and women gathered at the gates from before dawn, jeering and shaking their fists, while soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard, posted there on the Governor's orders, turned the children away at bayonet point. One girl, walking alone, was followed by the mob and spat upon, and reached the bus stop only with the help of a white woman who shielded her. Federal officials in Washington declared the Governor's action a defiance of the Supreme Court, which three years ago ruled that separate schools were unequal and unlawful. The President is said to be considering whether to send troops of his own to enforce the order.

Give two things you can infer from Source D about the obstacles to school desegregation at Little Rock in 1957. (4 marks)

Source E — an invented letter written for this exercise, in the style of a letter from a young American soldier in Vietnam to his family, dated February 1968, during the Tet Offensive.

You will have heard by now that the whole country went up at once at the New Year. We were told the enemy was beaten and on the run, yet they struck every city at the same hour, and for a time they were inside the embassy compound in Saigon itself. Out here we cannot tell the enemy from the farmers; the same villagers who sell us soda by day guide them to us by night, and we have learned to trust no one. We burned a hamlet last week because they said the Cong were sheltered there, and I cannot forget the faces of the people watching their homes go up. I came here believing we were wanted. I do not believe it any longer. Tell Mother I am well, but do not tell her the rest.

Give two things you can infer from Source E about the difficulties faced by American soldiers in Vietnam. (4 marks)

Source F — an invented speech extract written for this exercise, in the style of a public address by a Nazi official to a crowd, reported in a German newspaper of April 1933.

For fourteen years our nation has been chained by the traitors of Weimar, by the party squabbles that left honest Germans jobless and hungry while the Reichstag talked. That time is ended. The Führer has been given by the Reichstag itself the power to make law without its further consent, so that the work of national rebirth need no longer wait upon endless debate. There will be one will in Germany, and it will be the will of the people made flesh in the Leader. The shops of those who set themselves against the new Germany have been marked, and good Germans now know where not to buy. We ask only this of every citizen: trust, obedience, and silence where silence is required.

Give two things you can infer from Source F about how the Nazis established their dictatorship in 1933. (4 marks)