The Weimar Republic was formed on unstable ground, born out of Germany’s defeat in the First World War. The Republic suffered its first major blow when Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which caused major economic problems for the relatively young country. From 1924 to 28, the Nazi party had little support from the German public. This lack of support was due to the success of Stresemann’s policies and the country was now stable and flourishing, after the events in the Ruhr and hyperinflation. Germany now had a low unemployment rate and had an improved international status. These conditions meant that the Nazi extremist ideologies had little appeal to Germany’s population. However this period of stability has short lived. On 24th October 1929, Black Thursday struck. The American Stock Exchanged crashed and the world rapidly plummeted into the Great Depression, with Germany experiencing the worst effects. In a bid to bring Germany out of the Depression, Bruning was appointed chancellor and introduced drastic policies in an effort to save the German economy. Despite the promise the policies potentially had they failed. Early in 1933, the Weimar Republic was preparing for what would be its last pre-war Reichstag election. When the Reichstag building was razed to the ground by a fire allegedly started by communists, the seeds were sown for Hitler to rise to power and the Weimar Republic had lived its last day.
The Weimar Republic was a direct result of Germany’s defeat in World War I. The German population had endured hardship and starvation as a result of a blockade of their ports, by the British navy. The situation had escalated and conditions became so bad that in October 1918, sailors mutinied in Kiel and Hambu...
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History: Hitler's Rise to Power. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2012, from BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/hitlerpowerrev1.shtml
Hyperinflation. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2012, from Investopedia: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hyperinflation.asp#axzz1qOCEr6dd
McCallum, A. (1992). Germany 1918-1945 Democracy to Dictatorship. Port Melbourne: Heinemann Education.
The Seeds of Evil: The Rise of Hitler. (2004, June 4). Retrieved March 29, 2012, from Schools History: http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/ASLevel_History/week2_theweimarconsitution.htm
Tonge, S. (2011, January 5). Weimar Germany 1919-1933 . Retrieved March 29, 2012, from European History: http://www.historyhome.co.uk/europe/weimar.htm#collapse
White, A., & Hadley, E. (1990). Germany 1918 - 1949. London: Collins Educational.
Class Worksheets and Notes
The German Weimar Republic was an attempt to make Germany a more democratic state. While this was a very good idea in theory, the Weimar Republic was ineffective due to the instability that came with it. Several factors contributed to the instability of Germany’s Weimar Republic, such as the new political ideals brought forward and the government’s hunger for war.
This investigation will address the research question, to what extent was Germany’s post-World War I economic depression a causal factor in Hitler’s rise to power from 1919 to 1934? With the Treaty of Versailles, the German government was required to pay 132 billion gold marks of war reparations, drastically worsened with the US Wall Street crash. This effectively crippled the German economy and created a desperate people. For this investigation, Hitler’s private life history and pre-military career will not be analyzed. His political rise will be examined from the perspective of economic and social factors. Several primary sources will be explored, including the Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Hitler’s 25-Point Program. In addition, tertiary sources covering Hitler’s non-personal life and rise to power will be studied.
The period after World War One was very politically unstable. Many different kinds of governments, such as fascism and communism, were coming up all over Europe. One country that especially faced this political fluctuation was Germany. After the war, Germany was forced into a democracy known as the Weimar Republic, but this government soon collapsed and Hitler’s fascism took over. There were various factors that contributed to the fall of the Weimar Republic, but three major ones were the lack of popular support for the government, the lack of efficiency and internal organization, and the competition of other, more conservative parties such as the Nazis.
Living in the crumbled remains of Germany, or the Weimar Republic, in the 1920’s was a dismal existence. Hyperinflation was rampant and the national debt skyrocketed as a result of the punishing features of the Treaty of Versailles. During the depression, however, a mysterious Austrian emerged from the depths of the German penal system and gave the desperate German people a glimpse of hope in very dark times. He called for a return to “Fatherland” principles where greater Germany was seen as the center of their universe with zealous pride. Under Hitler’s leadership, Nazi Germany rapidly grew and expanded, continually approaching the goal of world domination and the “Thousand-Year Reich” that Hitler promised the German people. Only a few years later, Nazi Wehrmacht soldiers could be seen marching the streets from Paris to Leningrad (St. Petersburg, Russia). The German Empire, however, like all other expansive empires, had its limits and integral components such as resources, manpower, and industrial capacity began to fall in short supply further crippling the Nazi war machine. Basically, by 1944, “Nazi Germany’s fundamental problem was that she has conquered more territory than she could defend” (Ambrose, 27). Hitler conquered a vast area and vowed to defend every single inch of his empire with every last drop of blood at his disposal. As Frederick the Great warned, “He who defends everything, defends nothing” (Ambrose, 33). It is interesting to study any empire’s rise and fall because similarities are always present, even with some nations today promising to fight the evil, when it reality, it might be becoming what it vows to fight.
After the First World War Germany recognised her first ever democratic government, the Weimar republic lasted from 1918 – 1933 an astonishingly long time given its turbulent start. The November revolution saw the election of soldier and worker councils similar to that of the Russian revolution in 1917, it spread across Germany like wildfire and in turn split the country before a democracy could even be instated nevertheless on November 9th 1918 the German republic was established. From then on The Weimar Republic was set on unstable and insecure path and this is why it is one of Germanys most important historical periods; it was Germanys earliest form of non-imperial government and rule and its collapse in 1933 paved the way for the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party. For these reasons there have been endless works published on the Weimar republic and the outpouring of literature post world war two focuses on the collapse of the Weimar republic and how the Nazi party came to power. However, to understand why the debate surrounding the Golden Era in the Weimar Republic is an interesting one and lacking in historical works, it is key to examine the historiography of the Weimar republic as a whole. Furthermore, to understand why historians focus on other periods in the Weimar’s history in particular the consequences of the treaty of Versailles and the consequences of the Wall Street crash in 1928 which led to its collapse.
Hitler’s rise to power can be attributed to a series of events occurring both in Germany and the rest of the world in the mid 20th century. In the year 1929, due to the collapse of the American Stock Exchange the economic situation in Germany terribly worsened. “’I see myself as Chancellor and I will be Chancellor,’ Hitler told Hans Frank, who by then had become his lawyer.” (P.64) Hitler believed in himself and eventually received the power he aimed for. Unemployment was at around 6 million and people were desperate for a quick ...
'Nazi Germany ' represented the period from 1933s to 1945s, which played an important role in prosperous German history and the modern European history. After Germany participated in First World War in the first half of the 20th century, the whole society was glutted with unemployment, poverty, hunger, inflation and moral corruption. The public couldn’t feel the republican democracy benefits.
The causes of the failure of the Weimar government are multi-faceted. However, I assert that the Weimar government's inability to keep the people's confidence in their capabilities, which eventually rendered them obsolete, was fundamentally due to the threats from within rather than the external hazards. Through exploring the flaws in the constitution and the threats to the WG's authority from the outside, it will be proven that what brought the WR down were its intrinsic vulnerabilities , and that the external threats were only catalysts of their downfall; without the presence of the internal weaknesses in the first place, the external perils would not have been able to threaten the rule of the government.
Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany. 2nd ed. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.
In December 1929, the German government faced a total financial crisis, facing a short fall of 1.5 billion marks in anticipated revenues. It occurred then that the world would lie in darkness, where deaths would override births dramatically, and where the lives of those of a different race, those opposed to the Nazi rule would lie.
Hitler’s rise to power was the result of many factors, but Hitler’s ability to take advantage of Germany’s poor leadership and economical and political conditions was the most significant factor. His ability to manipulate the media and the German public whilst taking advantage of Germany’s poor leadership resulted in both the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler and the nazi party. During the early 1920s, Germany was struggling with economic instability and political uncertainty. Germany, after being defeated in the Great War, was forced to sign the unforgiving treaty of Versailles, which the Weimar Republic was held responsible for. This brought forward feelings of fear, anger and insecurity towards the Weimar Republic. Hitler built on these feelings and offered the secure and promising alternative of the extremist nazi party. Although there were many factors that contributed to the rise of Hitler and the collapse of the Weimar republic, Hitler’s ability to build upon people’s frustrated view of the hatred of the treaty of Versailles and the circumstances it placed upon the German nation, was the fundamental reason for Hitler’s rise to power and the Weimar Republic to collapse
Richard Bessel’s article stresses the political structure of Weimar Germany as the cause of its failure. Its structure was flawed in numerous ways, all of which contributed to its inevitable failure. First of all, the problems within Germany due to the First World War were massive. This caused economic, political and social problems which first had to be dealt with by the new Weimar government. The loss of the war had left Germany with huge reparations to pay, and massive destruction to repair. In order to gain the capital needed to finance efforts to rebuild, and repay the Allies, the economy had to be brought back to its prewar levels. This was not an easy task.
On November 11th, 1918, the Second Reich of Germany formally surrendered to the Allied powers and officially ended World War 1. In its wake, millions were dead and many of the European economies in ruin. Germany, a unified nation since only 1871, was at the center of this conflict and blamed by most for the destruction of much of Europe. But how did this young nation go from a couple dozen states and city-states, to a European power, to lying in ruins in such a short period of time? Several factors, such as increased nationalism, shifts in cultural and sociopolitical factors, and an increase in military power all led to the quick rise and fall of the Second Reich of Germany.
...ce of many Germans to the Weimar Republic – perhaps even paving the way for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party’s rise to power in the 1930s.
...After we consider all these points mentioned we begin to see how everything worked and connected to form one huge disaster for Germany. We start to see how all these things played a part, the reparations led to unemployment that led to no money that led to overprinting of money. How the huge consequence of the reparations led to the unsuccessful paying of it leading to the French invasion of the Ruhr which led to strikes and therefore no products to trade with. How the unstable Weimar government led to extremist parties that damaged the economy further and brought inflation to its highest. The effects were probably the worst, the starvation coupled with the disease epidemic that killed people off and the worthless tonnes of paper notes roaming around the nation. It all in all was a very bad time in Germany one that they always found it hard to recover from.