Cambridge International AS & A Level

HISTORY 9489/32
Paper 3 Interpretations Question October/November 2022

1 hour 15 minutes

You must answer on the enclosed answer booklet.

You will need: Answer booklet (enclosed)

INSTRUCTIONS
● Answer one question from one section only.
Section A: The origins of the First World War
Section B: The Holocaust
Section C: The origins and development of the Cold War
● Follow the instructions on the front cover of the answer booklet. If you need additional answer paper,
ask the invigilator for a continuation booklet.

INFORMATION
● The total mark for this paper is 40.
● The number of marks for each question or part question is shown in brackets [ ].

This document has 4 pages.

DC (CE) 302835/2
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 2

Answer one question from one section only.

Section A: Topic 1

The origins of the First World War

1 Read the extract and then answer the question.

Militarism is a vague and emotional term, but two fairly specific aspects of it are of concern here: the
amount of arms available in 1914, and the more than occasional dominance of military over political
considerations. The military expenditures of the European Powers rose at an unprecedented rate,
until, at the beginning of 1914, they stood at three hundred per cent of what they had been in 1870.
While the amount of weapons was measurable, their influence on policy was a more subtle matter.
But with all these instruments of destruction available, it would have been surprising if there had
not been people prepared to use them. This brings us to the second and even more crucial aspect
of the matter, the undue influence of military over political decision-making. The Germans and the
Russians were the worst, though not the only, guilty ones here. Instead of supporting policy, the
preparations undertaken by Russia’s and Germany’s military authorities – general mobilisation
and Schlieffen Plan – decided policy and, in the event, disastrously so.

Relatively little blame belongs to the generals. It is their task to prepare for war. A great deal of
blame, however, belongs to the statesmen. It was they who should have known how flexible a term
‘military necessity’ was, who should have seen how perilous the plans of the respective general
staffs were, and have overturned them. Why they did not do so is not an entirely easy question to
answer. One can say the statesmen were men of limited ability who lacked the qualities necessary
to establish the absolute priority of civilian over military authority. Berchtold and Sazonov, one
suspects, were so much the prisoners of their generals’ plans in July 1914 largely because they
had previously been too lazy to find out what those plans were. And one can add that it was in
those countries where the military stood at the top of the social hierarchy that there occurred the
worst violation of the rule, essential to sound government and sensible diplomacy alike, that the
sovereign must be commander-in-chief, rather than the commander-in-chief being sovereign.

But this is not the whole answer. For in Britain and France too, membership of the general
staff tended to be an indication of more than usual intelligence and social acceptability. Nor did
the military staff talks held under the Entente Cordiale invariably follow the instructions of the
representatives of the people or crown. In the summer of 1914, the majority of the British cabinet
would be just as surprised by how committed Britain already was to France as was the majority
of the German government by the details of the Schlieffen Plan. Still, there were some important
differences. Thus the French government, when presented with counter plans envisaging a
French invasion of Belgium in response to the Schlieffen Plan, told the generals to discard it and
come up with something politically more tenable. And while professional soldiers of all nations
were perhaps equally fascinated by the technological necessities of modern warfare, it was in
Russia and Germany again that technology was allowed its clearest triumph over diplomacy. The
First World War was to a large extent a war of railroad timetables. Governments built railroads
according to the requirements of the plans. But once the trains were set in motion, how were they
to be stopped without creating havoc to the plan? Hence, in the Russo–German stand-off over
mobilisation, much more was involved than diplomacy and prestige. The means of war were being
allowed to bring about a state of war.

What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who
wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the origins of the First World War to explain your
answer. [40]

© UCLES 2022 9489/32/O/N/22

Section B: Topic 2

The Holocaust

2 Read the extract and then answer the question.

All the women I interviewed resisted their fates. They supported each other like sisters and nurtured
each other like mothers. To a certain extent, women’s Holocaust experiences were determined by
their gender and their roles in families. When the invading Germans shot Jewish leadership shortly
after occupation, Jewish communities were shorn of their most active and experienced men. In
an attempt to evade forced labour, Jewish men fled east, leaving women and children alone.
Selections for forced labour in ghettos and then in concentration camps were usually gender and
age-based, separating able-bodied males and females, and condemning mothers with very young
children, or the aged, to death. The Nazis had genocidal plans for all Jews, including women and
children, whose labour was not worth exploiting even temporarily. Women who joined resistance
groups may have come individually, but in the social structure of such groups women often found
protectors among the men and established relationships that later often became stable marriages.
These women filled nurturing and supporting roles, like Aida Brydbord, who nursed the sick and
wounded even though she had a gun and was trained to use it. Marysia Warman, like other
women in resistance groups, exploited the stereotypical view of women held by the Nazis to serve
as a courier and in other roles in which Jewish men would have been more easily detected. In
concentration camps, strict segregation of the sexes was the rule. Women were forced to rely on
their own resources, developing leadership roles and loyalties to each other.

In another sense, women, like men, influenced their own destinies by taking action unrelated to
gender. None of the women was passive. Each acted and reacted to events, evading, hiding,
resisting, making choices, taking initiatives, fighting the death that was intended for them. By
refusing to be separated, mothers and daughters or sisters resisted the isolation that was the first
step in the dehumanisation process. By taking risks for each other they fought the system and their
own despair. By remaining true to their Jewish identities, even when they were ‘posing’ as Aryans,
Jewish women drew spiritual and moral strength that contributed to their survival and assured
Jewish continuity after the Holocaust. Jewish women, like Jewish men, had strong identities as
Jews. Even those who were not particularly observant of religious laws acted and reacted as
Jews. Trying to behave in accordance with Jewish values, keeping track of the Jewish calendar,
risking their lives to save other Jews, particularly children, and retaining a sense of decency even
when opportunities arose for revenge after liberation, are a few examples of such behaviour.

An important characteristic of Jewish society was the primacy of the family. Loyalty to, and
responsibility for, family members is a basic Jewish value, which prevented many Jews from
leaving their families to engage in resistance activities. Aida Brydbord did not leave the ghetto
for the forests with her fiancé until her father gave his consent. Only after mass deportations
destroyed family structure did remaining Jews feel free to join resistance groups. Marysia Warman
did not leave the Warsaw ghetto to work for the resistance until her mother was deported and
she had managed to arrange a haven for her sister. Often families that had risked much to stay
together were deported together to their deaths. In the camps, as all vestiges of their human
identities were stripped from them, Jews could only retain what was in their hearts and souls.

What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who
wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the Holocaust to explain your answer. [40]

© UCLES 2022 9489/32/O/N/22 [Turn over

Section C: Topic 3

The origins and development of the Cold War

3 Read the extract and then answer the question.

Stalin’s effort to solve the Soviet Union’s problem of security and recovery short of widespread
conflict with the United States was not matched by American leaders who came to power on
the death of Roosevelt. The President left them little beyond the traditional method of open-
door expansion, with the whole world available for US trade. They proceeded rapidly and with a
minimum of debate to translate that conception of America and the world into a series of actions
and policies which closed the door to any result but cold war. The various themes which went into
the United States’ conception of the freedom and necessity of open-door expansion had been
formed into an ideology before Roosevelt’s death. It was based on an economic definition of the
world, and this explanation of reality was persistently stressed by US corporate leadership as it
developed its policy towards the Soviet Union and other nations. It was not the possession of the
atom bomb which prompted American leaders to get tough with the Soviet Union, but rather their
open-door outlook which interpreted the bomb as the final guarantee that they could go further,
faster down that path to world predominance.

Long before anyone knew that the bomb would work, most American leaders were operating on
the basis of three assumptions which defined the world in terms of a cold war. The first specified
the Soviet Union as being evil but weak. Another basic attitude held by American leaders defined
the United States as the symbol and the agent of positive good as opposed to Soviet evil, and
assumed that the combination of American strength and Russian weakness made it possible to
determine the future of the world in accordance with that judgement. One leading Congressman
thought in terms of the ‘United States seeking world power as a trustee for civilisation’. Following
the even earlier lead of publisher Henry Luce, who had announced in 1941 that it was ‘the climax
of the American century’, various business spokesmen began stressing the need to become
‘missionaries of capitalism and democracy’. Shortly afterwards a leading oil industry leader
asserted that the United States ‘must set the pace and assume the responsibility of the majority
stockholder in this corporation known as the world’. Such remarks were not unique; they merely
represented the increasing expression of one aspect of US traditional policy.

The third essential aspect of the open-door outlook, which also made its appearance before the
end of the war, was the fear that the US economic system would suffer a serious depression if it
did not continue to expand overseas. Stressing the fact that there remained roughly nine million
unemployed in 1940, one leading Senator warned in 1941 that the danger of another depression
could not be overemphasised. The drive to achieve the desired post-war results began in earnest
while the war was still going on. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State until 1944, stated in 1941 that ‘the
primary object is both to reopen the old and seek new outlets for our surplus production’. One of
his principal concerns was to break into the British trading system, a campaign in which he was
vigorously supported by American exporters. Hull’s weapons included Lend-Lease, and Britain’s
growing need for a major recovery loan. The United States made its aid conditional upon the
acceptance by Britain of the open-door principle.

What can you learn from this extract about the interpretation and approach of the historian who
wrote it? Use the extract and your knowledge of the Cold War to explain your answer. [40]
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