Collaboration, local power and responsibility
Explain non-German participation through specific regimes and actions while retaining Nazi Germany’s driving role.
Exam scope and assessment notes
Partial 2026 course: introductory context across the twelve AS topics, with selected document workshops, not full AS or A Level preparation. All three Paper 3 alternatives have introductory context, historiography and original interpretation exercises; Italy, Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany and Britain have introductory depth pathways across their four enquiries. The USA in the late 1940s/1950s and the 1960s/1970s have introductory American depth pathways; the 1980s/early-1990s theme now introduces all four enquiries with original teaching and two longer essay workshops. All four American themes now have introductory teaching and longer essay workshops, including US foreign policy, 1944–1992. The US–Soviet theme introduces all four enquiries through thirty core lessons and two longer essay workshops. Forty-one lessons introduce all four East and Southeast Asia enquiries: eight on post-war change, nine on Korea, twelve on Vietnam and twelve on Sino-American relations. Eight lessons introduce the African independence enquiry through Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya and comparative reasoning. Nine further lessons introduce government, economic and social challenges after independence. Thirteen further lessons introduce Cold War involvement, Chinese support, non-alignment and Pan-Africanism. Twelve further lessons introduce UN involvement in Congo and Somalia, with 1993–1995 explicitly labelled as later context beyond the theme’s 1992 endpoint. Ten lessons introduce the creation-of-Israel enquiry. Twenty further lessons introduce wars and peace efforts in 1948–1979. Seventeen further lessons introduce superpower motives, oil, American and Soviet policies and their consequences through 1991. Twenty-one further lessons introduce the Iranian Revolution, Iran–Iraq War and 1990–1991 Gulf War. All four 2026 Middle East enquiries have introductory lessons; broader reading, depth, specialist review and full assessment remain unfinished. The separate 2027–2029 requirements are not mapped by these 2026 lessons. A separately labelled revised-year orientation and Eastern Europe enquiries 7.1–7.4 introductions and South Africa enquiries 8.1–8.3 and Zimbabwe enquiry 8.4, followed by Malaya enquiry 9.1 and introductory sequences for Malaysia formation enquiry 9.2 and Indonesian nationalism enquiry 9.3, with partial preparation, revolution, 1950s challenges and New Order teaching in enquiry 9.4, are available; other revised teaching remains unfinished. Source summaries are original StudyForA paraphrases, not quotations, complete documents or simulated eyewitness sources. Primary documents, historians’ arguments and original exercises are identified separately. Guided source comparisons, interpretation exercises and analytical models are not full papers, calibrated marking or Cambridge grades. Broader authentic source reading, historical depth and subject-specialist review remain required. The Holocaust is a Paper 3 alternative in 2026. The official paper gives one unidentified historian’s extract of no more than 600 words and asks about the interpretation and approach. You are not asked to name its author. Infer the argument from its reasoning, selection, emphasis and qualifications, using relevant context. These identified StudyForA exercises teach that skill; they are not authentic historian extracts, unseen examination material or a complete 75-minute, 40-mark paper. Read the linked historians’ own writing and interviews as well.
Before you begin
- Place events in chronological order
- Distinguish a historical document from a later account and from a student argument
Work on paper. Try each question before revealing help, and explain why your method works.
Quick readiness check
How should you begin analysing a historian’s extract?
What you will learn
- Explain different forms of non-German participation
- Distinguish collaborating regimes, institutions and individuals from whole peoples
- Analyse local initiative alongside occupation and German policy
Analyse a historical interpretation
- Read the whole exercise and write your analysis before opening the model.
- Infer the overall argument, connect details across the passage and explain the author’s emphasis and qualifications. Use context to illuminate that reading. Do not guess an author or replace the analysis with your own general essay.
Partial 2026 course: introductory context across the twelve AS topics, with selected document workshops, not full AS or A Level preparation. All three Paper 3 alternatives have introductory context, historiography and original interpretation exercises; Italy, Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany and Britain have introductory depth pathways across their four enquiries. The USA in the late 1940s/1950s and the 1960s/1970s have introductory American depth pathways; the 1980s/early-1990s theme now introduces all four enquiries with original teaching and two longer essay workshops. All four American themes now have introductory teaching and longer essay workshops, including US foreign policy, 1944–1992. The US–Soviet theme introduces all four enquiries through thirty core lessons and two longer essay workshops. Forty-one lessons introduce all four East and Southeast Asia enquiries: eight on post-war change, nine on Korea, twelve on Vietnam and twelve on Sino-American relations. Eight lessons introduce the African independence enquiry through Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya and comparative reasoning. Nine further lessons introduce government, economic and social challenges after independence. Thirteen further lessons introduce Cold War involvement, Chinese support, non-alignment and Pan-Africanism. Twelve further lessons introduce UN involvement in Congo and Somalia, with 1993–1995 explicitly labelled as later context beyond the theme’s 1992 endpoint. Ten lessons introduce the creation-of-Israel enquiry. Twenty further lessons introduce wars and peace efforts in 1948–1979. Seventeen further lessons introduce superpower motives, oil, American and Soviet policies and their consequences through 1991. Twenty-one further lessons introduce the Iranian Revolution, Iran–Iraq War and 1990–1991 Gulf War. All four 2026 Middle East enquiries have introductory lessons; broader reading, depth, specialist review and full assessment remain unfinished. The separate 2027–2029 requirements are not mapped by these 2026 lessons. A separately labelled revised-year orientation and Eastern Europe enquiries 7.1–7.4 introductions and South Africa enquiries 8.1–8.3 and Zimbabwe enquiry 8.4, followed by Malaya enquiry 9.1 and introductory sequences for Malaysia formation enquiry 9.2 and Indonesian nationalism enquiry 9.3, with partial preparation, revolution, 1950s challenges and New Order teaching in enquiry 9.4, are available; other revised teaching remains unfinished. Source summaries are original StudyForA paraphrases, not quotations, complete documents or simulated eyewitness sources. Primary documents, historians’ arguments and original exercises are identified separately. Guided source comparisons, interpretation exercises and analytical models are not full papers, calibrated marking or Cambridge grades. Broader authentic source reading, historical depth and subject-specialist review remain required.
One interpretation exercise and analytical model
This is an original StudyForA interpretation exercise, not a quotation, an authentic extract by a named historian or a primary document. The Holocaust is a Paper 3 alternative in 2026. The official paper gives one unidentified historian’s extract of no more than 600 words and asks about the interpretation and approach. You are not asked to name its author. Infer the argument from its reasoning, selection, emphasis and qualifications, using relevant context. These identified StudyForA exercises teach that skill; they are not authentic historian extracts, unseen examination material or a complete 75-minute, 40-mark paper. Read the linked historians’ own writing and interviews as well.
StudyForA interpretation exercise · implementation beyond one state
[1] The genocide’s implementation cannot be reconstructed from German orders alone. Allied regimes, local institutions and individual participants supplied authority, knowledge and action in different settings. Some initiatives drew on local aims as well as German direction.
[2] Widening the account does not divide responsibility into smaller national shares. It asks how several actors made a policy effective and where their choices differed. A government’s refusal of one demand may matter, but it does not erase other persecution or turn every member of its population into the same historical actor.
1. Analyse the interpretation of wider participation offered here.
Compare after trying
The exercise argues that implementation involved actors beyond German decision-making and that their different relationships require reconstruction. The opening selects authority, knowledge and action to explain what cooperation or initiative contributed. Local aims are included without replacing German direction entirely.
The second paragraph limits the consequence of widening the account. Responsibility is not divided into smaller shares, because several actors can contribute through different roles. The example of refusing one demand also qualifies an all-or-nothing judgement: a refusal can be significant while other persecution continues.
The approach compares specific institutions and choices rather than whole national populations. Relevant context about an allied regime or an occupied administration can clarify those relationships. An answer should explain how local participation affects the interpretation without treating it as German exoneration or a universal verdict about everyone in a country. The passage’s concern is connected responsibility with variation, not a count of national labels.
Why this response fits
- Explains local agency within a wider process.
- Retains the limits of national generalisation and all-or-nothing judgements.
Different relationships produced different actions
Non-Germans participated in persecution and murder through allied governments, occupation administrations, police units, auxiliaries and individual actions. Some measures were German-initiated; others involved local initiative or a collaborating regime’s own antisemitic programme. The relationship between occupation, alliance and domestic authority varied. Specify the place, period and institution rather than use collaboration as one undifferentiated action with a single motive.
Vichy French institutions participated in anti-Jewish measures and deportation, while Romanian authorities perpetrated mass murder and deportation in territories under their control. These examples demonstrate different state relationships with Nazi Germany. They do not justify attributing an identical action to every French or Romanian person. Local auxiliaries in occupied eastern Europe also contributed to killing operations. Identifying them broadens responsibility without removing the Nazi German regime’s central role in driving the genocide.
Examine motives and choices in context
Antisemitism, nationalist aims, material gain, career opportunities, revenge and coercion could affect participation in particular settings. The presence of occupation does not by itself explain every choice or prove that no alternatives existed. Conversely, risks and opportunities were not identical everywhere. A historian should investigate the relationship between orders, initiative and action instead of assuming either total compulsion or complete independence before examining evidence.
Institutions and individuals could change behaviour over time. A government might participate in some measures and resist another deportation demand, while persecution or exploitation continued. A refusal in one place or period is not proof of universal innocence, just as one collaborating institution is not the entire population. Follow the policies and people actually involved. Such distinctions allow a comparative interpretation to explain variation rather than merely catalogue national labels.
Wider participation does not dilute a crime
An extract may expand the scale beyond German decision-making to explain implementation and local agency. Analyse what that changes about the argument. Does the author identify enabling cooperation, independent aims or a particular limit to German control? A wider field of participants is not a mathematical reduction of anyone else’s responsibility. The same event can involve several responsible actors through different roles. The historical task is to explain those relationships with evidence, without collective guilt or a hierarchy that makes some victims’ experiences disappear.
Sources for this lesson
- Cambridge History 9489 · 2026 Version 3 · content pp. 9–41, assessment pp. 43–45, changes p. 52
- Cambridge History 9489 · December 2025 update · 2026 only
- USHMM · Collaboration · historical account distinguishing regimes, institutions and local participants
- USHMM · Einsatzgruppen · historical account of mass shootings and participating institutions
- Christopher Browning · interview with Ephraim Kaye, March 1997 · selected pp.1–6, Yad Vashem
Pause and explain
Which comparison is defensible?
Worked example
Does identifying local collaborators make Nazi Germany less responsible by a fixed amount?
Show the worked solution
- Identify each role.
- Explain the relationship.
- Reject a numerical subtraction of responsibility.
Answer No. Several actors can bear responsibility through different actions. Wider participation explains implementation and local choices without mathematically reducing the driving regime’s role.
Try a topic test
Choose Easy, Normal or Difficult. Save your answers and open worked review after finishing.
Test this topic →From guided practice to a new situation
Write your answer and reasoning first. Use a hint only if you are stuck. The model solution is for self-checking; your written work is not automatically marked.
Guided: Distinguish an allied regime from an occupied local auxiliary.
Give me a hint
Compare authority and relationship without assuming equal independence.
Compare my reasoning
- Identify the institution.
- Explain its relationship with German power.
- Connect that position with a specific action.
An allied government could operate its own institutions and antisemitic policies, while a local auxiliary might act within a German occupation formation. These relationships shaped power and opportunity. Both require investigation of actual actions, rather than an assumption that all participation had an identical source or degree of independence.
Look for these in your work
- Distinguishes relationships
- Requires specific evidence
Independent: Analyse a passage that credits a refusal but retains other persecution.
Give me a hint
Identify the scope of each claim.
Compare my reasoning
- Locate the refusal.
- Identify measures that continued.
- Infer the qualified judgement.
The writer may recognise that a particular deportation demand was refused while still identifying dispossession, forced labour or other persecution. These facts can coexist. The interpretation evaluates specific policies over time, rather than treating one refusal as a complete verdict on every action of a regime or population.
Look for these in your work
- Explains the qualification
- Preserves variation over time
Application: Revise a fictional answer that describes all French people as one collaborating actor.
Give me a hint
Replace the national generalisation with institutions and evidence.
Compare my reasoning
- Name the relevant authority.
- Specify the measure and period.
- Leave different individual responses visible.
The answer should identify Vichy institutions and the particular anti-Jewish measures or deportations being analysed. This supports a precise attribution of responsibility. It should not convert state or police action into a claim about every French person, whose positions and actions were not identical.
Look for these in your work
- Attributes action precisely
- Avoids collective generalisation
Common mistakes
- Assigning a collaborating institution’s actions to an entire people
- Treating occupation as proof that every action was compelled
- Using wider participation as automatic exoneration of German leaders
What can you explain now?
Which comparison is defensible?
Compare with the explanation
Specify regimes, institutions, actions and dates before comparing their relationships with German policy
Precise comparison explains variation while preserving multiple forms of responsibility.
After trying it yourself, choose your next review. This is your self-assessment.
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Make it stick
Which comparison is defensible?
If you needed the solution, close it and solve the problem again from a blank page. A correct answer is stronger when you can explain the reason for each step.