Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Picture this: 1936, swastikas flapping in the breeze, jackboots marching in the street, and Der Fuhrer giving a speech. You're a German, but you don't really like what Adolf's saying, and your face shows it. Slouched against a lamppost, this guy is giving you the eye. Watch it! He's a member of what organization?
2. Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933. However, he still had many political enemies roaming around Germany, especially in the S.A. ("the Brownshirts") who were ready, willing and able to bring him down. Between June 30 and July 2, 1934, Hitler, the S.S., and the Nazi Secret Police decided to remedy that situation. What is this period of mass arrest, intimidation and bloodshed commonly known as?
3. In 1951, Mohammad Mossadegh finalized the nationalization of his country's oil industry. Britain and the C.I.A. objected and overthrew him in 1953. The Shah, who had fled as a precaution, returned and was encouraged to take a more dictatorial stance; his secret police, SAVAK, were all too happy to oblige. In which country did all this happen?
4. You're back in Germany again, but this time it's after World War II, in the German Democratic Republic, the puppet-state set up by the USSR. You hate the food shortages, and you stupidly say something about it to the mailman. At 3AM you hear a loud pounding at the door. Watch it! It's ____________ !
5. Let's go to Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the Western hemisphere. A brutal dictator comes to power in 1959; he declares himself "President for Life," purges the army, and forms a militia of volunteers, the "Tonton Macoutes," to suppress any opposition. They gladly carry out this mission by rape, killing, torture, extortion and mutilation. Who was this Haitian dictator?
6. 1884: Imperial Russian Tsar Alexander III, facing the very real threat of assassination, creates two more secret police organizations which are eventually streamlined into a super-agency of police which blends in everywhere. You're a Socialist, and have been known to shoot off your mouth. Suddenly, that "drunk" you're commiserating with pulls a gun on you. Oh man! You've just been bagged by the _________________!
7. Although the U.S.A. has never had an "official" secret police, from 1956-1971 the F.B.I. ran a highly secret program to discredit, smear, and destroy through illicit and extra-legal means all political movements and organizations which ran counter to the status quo. What was the shortened term for this program?
8. Color this group red. In various incarnations, it was known as the Checka,
OGPU, NKVD, and finally KGB. With what country are all these groups associated?
(Hint: Who is that ugly bald man and why is he banging his shoe on the table?)
9. NKVD leader Lavrentiy Beria was the instigator for a little-known atrocity carried out against the Polish nation in April-May 1940. Thousands of Poles were massacred and secretly buried in mass graves. Oddly enough, it was the German Army that brought this to the attention of the Red Cross and the world, when in the course of World War II, they discovered the graves. What is this atrocity known as today?
10. Concerned about the wars for regime change in neighboring Angola and Mozambique, the Republic of South Africa formed a new counter-insurgency unit to put down unrest in its "protectorate," South-West Africa (now Namibia). In Afrikaans, the force was named "Koevoet" because it was designed to separate the insurgents from the general population. What does "Koevoet" mean in English?
Source: Author
snediger
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor
stedman before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.
