After the defeat of Germany in World War One and a day after the Kaiser was forced to abdicate and sent to Belgium, the Weimar republic was born. (10 November 1918). The republic was a democracy-based constitution thought as an emergency solution, set up to alleviate the effects of World War One on the German population. The republic although failed to do so and after the Allies imposed the Treaty of Versailles on Germany, and the republic was forced to sign it, the majority of the German population, who wasn’t exactly thrilled about this new democratic based republic, felt betrayed and angered at the Weimar Republic. It wasn’t exactly the best start for the republic and many Germans will hold this grudge till 1933 and over. But was the republic …show more content…
The right wing was a strong oppent as well: while the left wing wanted change, the right wing were the ones who supported the Kaiser and its dictatorial styled empire. In March 1920, 5000 Freikorps led by Wolfgang Kapp, started the so called Kapp Putsch, a revolt to take down the Weimar Republic. Ebert turned to the army and officers and asked for support, but they refused to attack the Freikorps. Ebert couldn’t rely on them any longer. At the same time though, the Kapp putsch proved that the newborn government had the support of workers and industrialist, who liked the democratic Germany as, when the Kaiser was ruling Germany, they didn’t have a saying in society, while now they did. Workers and industrialist consisted a major part of German society at the …show more content…
The German economy was extremely fragile, and the reparations couldn’t be paid. So by January 1923 the French troops were sent in the Ruhr (industrial area) and occupied it, while taking the goods they found. Ebert, to stop the French from depriving the industries, demanded that the workers stopped working. To do so though, he had to pay them. This lead to the government having to print more, and more money and that started a chain reaction. When so much money is in circulation, it loses its value. Now people were losing their lifetime savings. Surely this led to anger and indignation from loads of Germans. Even in this case though, there were some people who were satisficed. People who had to pay their rent for example, now found it a lot easier to do so, thanks to the never-ending flow of money.
On the 9th of November 1923, Hitler attempted to persuade a right wing revolution in Munich, take over the government in Bavaria and take control of the Weimar republic. The ‘Munich Putsch’ was unsuccessful, as the people didn’t rise up against the government and support Hitler, as he was hoping would happen. This shows that the Weimar republic was starting to gain support from more and more people. Hitler was arrested and sentenced five years in prison. He
According to Document 2 “In the period following the end of World War 1, Germany experianced a disastrous perioid of inflation. The German governemnts method of financing the war by borrowing heavily and printing large quantities of unbacked currency began th inflationary spiral. This lead to political violence.” The german economy was in ruins at the time, one us dollar was equivilant to 4,200,000,000,000 German marks at one point. This helped Hitler Rise to power because the people felt that their economy was very very weak because of the government, and they wanted a new upgraded government.
The total reparations were set at $55,000,000,000, a number that many saw as excessive and unfair (Document 1). Germany’s economy was already struggling from the war, and the reparations only made things worse. The payments were very difficult to make due to the high levels of inflation and the fact that Germany had to pay in gold or foreign currency, which it did not have. These terms, combined with the disruption caused by the war, led to a period of hyperinflation in Germany during the early 1920s. They printed large amounts of paper money in order to make the payments, creating an inflationary spiral.
German inflation occurred and their economy collapsed. Throughout 2 and 6 the ideals of debt for Germany are expressed. In document 2, John Maynard Keynes shares his work called The Economic Consequences of Peace. It basically discusses the severity of the economic depression in Germany. It also talks about how it could lead to starvation.
[Doc 1]. This responsibility forced Germany into massive debt, as they had to pay large sums of money while their economy was still in ruins from the war. This plight initially led to the weakened economy described
One of the main factors was hyperinflation. This is when prices increase while value of money decrease. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, hyperinflation caused a depression, which undermined, “the stability of the German economy.” Jobs were hard to find and didn’t pay enough even when you had one. This caused the people of Germany to be in desperate need of help from anyone who could offer it.
Vo, Kayla Period 3 3/28/14 The Nazi Party’s Ascension to Power in Germany The signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 intended to bring worldwide peace after World War I and to penalize Germany for being responsible for the casualties that resulted. The penalty caused Germany to lose its pride, power, and nationalism, thus leaving the country in a helpless economic state and in an abyss. This poor condition after the Great War in 1918 caused citizens to have a strong will for change, which provided the perfect stage for political parties to rise in power. One political party in particular, the National Socialist German Worker's Party--otherwise known as the Nazi Party--captured the interest of the German public.
As stated before the social pressures as the hands of women, sailors, soldiers, and works eventually became cries for political change. Weitz explains how the rise of these groups created a rift in Germany, “To their mainly working-class supporters, the councils…were vehicles for bringing, at long last, democracy and socialism to Germany. To their opponents, including Social Democrats, the councils…meant political terror, insecurity, chaos, and economic disaster.” Due to social and political pressures the old government could not sustain power and the chancellor handed power over to the Social Democrats and their leader Friedrich Ebert. The author explains that Ebert needed to “rein in” the German people as he feared a Bolshevik type revolution.
This was one of the biggest impacts on Germany all throughout World War I and it even partially drifted directly into World War II. As stated earlier, the Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany for starting the war. Thus, Germany was held accountable for the cost of the damage caused during the war and the Treaty of Versailles stated that Germany was to pay reparations to the Allies (France, Russia, Great Britain, Japan, and the United States). These reparations would be paid monthly and would total up to 6,600 million dollars in Germany. In the United States, that would be a total of 8,118,000 US
Since the Germans had to pay for all of the casualties and damages inflicted upon other countries, they began creating an excessive amount of money. This lead to the inflation in Germany, and this put Germany in financial trouble where parents began giving this money for children to use as blocks as it was easier to make the children blocks with the money then paying more for a reduced amount of blocks. This is what the Germans called the Depression of 1929. “The depression of 1929 created poverty and unemployment, which made people angry with the Weimar government. People lost confidence in the democratic system and turned towards the extremist political parties such as the Communists and Nazis during the depression” (BBC 2014)
The young Weimar Republic was wracked by armed street fighting waged mainly between Communists and Nazis. Foreclosures, bankruptcies, suicides and malnourished all skyrocketed. Six million Germans, 40 per cent of the working population, were unemployed; and thousands found themselves without a place to live….” (2) The Bruning government failed to respond to the German population
When the government failed to make the reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along the Ruhr. Widespread civil unrest followed. The unrests paved way for Hitler to
• There is historical debate over Ebert’s sincerity and leadership of the SPD; whilst most historians, such as Paul Bookbinder would agree that although the integrity of Ebert and the SPD remain definite, their readings of the political situations in the early years of the republic were blinded by their fear of insurgency from left and right-wing forces. • They too citizen Ebert of having supported the forces of their opposition, causing them to compromise with the traditional forces of Imperial Germany rather than proclaiming their own authority. • The army was not reformed and it was never committed to a democratic state. • As a corollary, they failed to capitalize on the opportunity to establish a stable republic founded on socialists and democratic philosophies, hindering the legitimacy of the republic from the onset.
After World War I ended, there was a peace treaty signed but Germany lost a lot of land and territory. England and France made Germany pay for the damages from the war. While this was happening Germany was broke and the people were starving. In the time in need for order Hitler rose to power because he had solutions to problems, they may have not been good, but they were solutions. The Nazi party started gaining power in Germany and
However German government printed more money to pay off the debt but it caused inflation. The government had 300 million papers and work 24 hours a day to pay a huge amount of debt. Germany wasn’t earning money properly, so it didn’t affect their wealth, which means they were still poor while they are keep making money. So prices of goods and education and services rose quickly. So many people didn’t go to the hospital, because it was too
As Chancellor he took the crucial step of ceasing financial support to end the hyperinflation. He introduced a new and stable currency (the Rentenmark). He lasted as chancellor for 100 days but after that he remained as foreign minister. Over the next six years, as foreign minister he sought to improve Germany’s international position. In 1924, the Dawes Plan was set up by Charles Dawes to regotiate the reperations (Carr, 1996 p.278).