Website Spotlight: WWII: Behind Closed Doors

Website URL: http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/

Introductory Note:

Welcome to one in a series of posts which spotlight quality websites that I use with my U.S. History survey course students (I also use this particular website extensively in an upper-division course covering World War II) at Azusa Pacific University to enrich the regular material in our learning modules.

In this post, I limit myself to those specific aspects of the website which I find fit particularly well within our face-to-face class sessions (each student is required to bring a laptop to class) or as the basis for the students' regularly-assigned written reactions.

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I ask the students to work through the following links:

Episode 1 - Unlikely Friends
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/episode-1/index.html

Stalin's Pact with Hitler
Terror in Eastern Poland
Stalin Ignores Warnings
Operation Barbarossa
Stalin Allies with the West
The Battle for Moscow
A Problem with Poland
Setback — A Defeat at Kharkov
Molotov Presses for a Second Front

Episode 2 - Cracks in the Alliance
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/episode-2/index.html

Hitler Attacks / Churchill Negotiates
The Battle of Stalingrad
Stalin – A Hero in the West
The Battle of Kursk
The “Big Three” Finally Meet
The Red Army Re-enters Poland
Warsaw Resistance Fighters Rise Up
A Conference in Quebec

Episode 3 - Dividing the World
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/episode-3/index.html

Churchill’s Secret Proposal
A Grand Deception in Poland
The Red Army Captures Budapest
The “Big Three’s” Final Meeting
Europe War Ends, Tensions Mount
The Potsdam Conference
A Devastating New Weapon
Stalin Persecutes His Comrades
The Cold War

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Maps:
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/maps/index.html

Stalin Stands Alone
Struggle for Poland
Prelude to the Cold War
Supplying the Allies
The Conferences

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In-Depth:

1. Uneasy Allies
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/uneasy-allies.html

Three Allies, Three Sets of Objectives
Negotiations at the Allied Conferences
The Inevitable Postwar Tensions

2. The Conferences
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/the-conferences.html

Atlantic
Casablanca
Quebec, 1943
Cairo
Teheran
Yalta
Potsdam

3. Supplying the Allies
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/the-conferences.html

The U.S. Lend-Lease Program

4. Struggle for Poland
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/struggle-poland.html

5. Stalin’s Spies and Secret Police
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/stalins-spies.html

6. Stalin Stands Alone
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/stalin-stands.html

Germany Invades Soviet Union
Siege of Leningrad
Battle of Stalingrad

7. Prelude to the Cold War
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/prelude-coldwar.html

8. Katyn Massacre
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/katyn-massacre.html

9. Governments in Exile
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/govt-exile.html

10. Fighting with the Allies
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/fighting-allies.html

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Timeline:
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/timeline/index.html

Integrates Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, World Events, World War II events.

Use the vertical scroll bar to move through the timeline.

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Biographies:
http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/biographies/index.html

Stalin
Churchill
Hopkins
Marshall
Molotov
Zhukov

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Snapshot Lesson: [This one is good]:

Supporting the Allies: The Lend–Lease Act

http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/education/snapshot-lessons/lendleaseact.html

http://www.historians.org/projects/GIRoundtable/Lend_Lease/LendLease1.htm

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Concluding Note:

I hope you will use this blog post in conjunction with both the modules on my Learning Professor wiki and the numerous other posts in my Website Spotlight series.

1. The website spotlighted in this post fits within the following U.S. History survey course module on the wiki:
http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/World+War+II

2. The other blog posts in my Website Spotlight series--chronologically displayed by U.S. History survey course module-- can be found on this wiki page:
http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/WEBSITE+SPOTLIGHT