3.09b Germany, 1918-1945

3.03a Weimar Republic

Was the Weimar Republic doomed from the start?

• as we discuss the weaknesses of the Weimar Republic, keep in mind 👤 Hitler (leader of the Nazi Party since 1921) was always in the background, just waiting for his chance…

Impact of 1914-1918 World War I on Germany (1918)

Economic Impact

Inf

Germany was pretty much broke at this point

• compared to 1913 because it’s ==the year before WW1 started==:
  • national income was one-third of what it was in 1913
  • industrial production was two-thirds what it was in 1913
• Acute food shortages
  • by 1918 Germany was producing only 50% of the milk and 60% of the butter and meat it’d produced before the war
  • fuel was short → people were cold → ==nearly 300,000== people died from starvation and hypothermia in 1918
• war left 600,000 widows and 2 million children without fathers
  • by 1925 the state was spending one-third of its budget in war pensions

Social Impact

• huge gaps between the living standards of the rich and poor further divided German society
  • they were bitter, NOT ‘salty’
• German workers were bitter at the restrictions placed on their earnings during the war, while factory workers made fortunes because of it
• one and a half million demobilised soldiers returned to society, many disillusioned
• many were angry about losing the war
  • wave of unrest in cities like Berlin
  • law and order broke down in a country where people were used to discipline

Political Impact

• War stresses led to a revolution in October-November 1918
  • fighting between right-wing and left-wing groups
• many ex-soldiers and civilians despised the new democratic leaders, believing that the heroic leader Field Marshal Hindenburg was betrayed by weak politicians

Most serious challenge

• [] [#Economic Impac] → no money = nothing you can do
• [] [#Political Impac] → infighting in the divided Reichstag + mistrust of the Weimar democratic government = nothing got done
  • see Proportional Representation in the Reichstag for more information on how chaotic it was

A perfect democracy – in theory

• Bill of Rights guaranteed every German citizen freedom of speech and religion + equality under the law
• all men and women over 20 years old could vote (women's suffrage)
  • women couldn’t vote until the 1900s because they weren’t educated until the last century
• the President and Reichstag (parliament) were to be elected
• the Reichstag would make laws (legislation)

Branches of government

graph TD

government --> leg(legislation:<br>creation of law)
government --> jud(judiciary:<br>the courts)
government --> exe(executive:<br>administers the law)

Weaknesses of the Weimar government

Proportional Representation in the Reichstag

• people voted for a party, not candidates
• political party receives same percentage of seats as percentage of votes it won
  • e.g. if you win 10% of the votes → you get 10% of the seats in the Reichstag
• democratic and fair, but created a fragmented and ==diluted== parliament
  • there were too many small parties competing
  • no party could gain a majority
• later on, people would be happy for Hitler’s dictatorship
  • Hitler would get things done, and was a stable, constant leader
  • the new system Hitler created was a lot neater than the old Weimar system

Coalition government

• all the small parties came together to form a coalition government
• the parties all had extreme ideas and none were willing to compromise
• the government kept breaking up, leading to frequent changes in government
  • Weimar had ==20 different governments== from 1919 to 1933 – that’s about 0.7 government changes per year!
• it was difficult to pass laws → Weimar government was seen as ==weak==

Article 48

• allows the President to dissolve parliament and ==rule== in times of “emergency”
  • “emergency” was never clearly defined
• civil liberties could be suspended
• exploited by 👤 Hitler to ==seize and remain== in power legally

Impact of Great Depression

• 🇩🇪 Germany was dependent on loans and investments from the 🇺🇸 USA
• the New York Stock Exchange crashed
  • 🇺🇸 USA recalled loans and deposits from German banks
• Germany suffered an economic crisis → led to a social crisis
  • unemployment, poverty, homelessness, starvation
  • ==1932== unemployment rate: 6 million ($\frac{1}{3}$ of Germany’s population)
    • 👤 Hitler solved this… by conscripting people into the army 💀
  • political crisis followed; what could Hindenburg have done?

People

👤 Gustav Stressemann

• 1923 August - 1923 Nov: Chancellor
• 1924 - 1929: Foreign Minister

Notable achievements

• replaced Deutschmark with Rentemark in 1923 November to end hyperinflation
• negotiated Dawes Plan in 1924

  • • 1924 Dawes Plan: August. 🇺🇸 USA lends money to 🇩🇪 Germany (📕 TB page 43, Fig. 19)

    Link to original

  • end of Ruhr occupation by Allied troops
  • more time for Germany to pay reparation
  • received the Nobel prize in 1925 for his work on the Dawes Plan
• involved in 1925 Locarno Pact
  • respecting German borders with France and Belgium

“Germany, Belgium and France, mutually undertake that they will in no case attack or invade each other or resort to war against each other”

👤 Adolf Hitler during the war

• a messenger who ran information from frontlines to command and vice-versa
  • was given a medal here and there for his work
• nearly sniped by Henry, a 🇬🇧 British soldier, during the war
  • Henry ultimately spared him

Germany under 👤 Stresemann

Economy

Rebuilding of German prosperity	Precarious economic boom
==Dawes’ Plan== – money poured into German industry & businesses	US loans could be retracted at short notice
by 1928: Germany achieved same levels of production as before the war (i.e. 2nd greatest industrial power)	Increased inequality where the rich got richer (e.g. big businesses) but the poor got poorer (e.g. peasant farmers & sections of middle class) - a university lecturer could earn 10 times a coal miner in 1913 but only earned twice as much in the 1920s

Politics

Stable politics	Undercurrents (subtext beneath the surface)
no more revolutions after 1923	frequent change in chancellors; influence of party leaders held party coalitions together
by 1928 moderate parties had 136 more seats than radical parties	right-wing parties like the Nazis were biding their time, building up their organisations
Nazi Party had less than 3% of the votes in the 1928 election	Election of a new president in 1925 who opposed democracy

Culture

Cultural revival	Moral decline
free expression of ideas	for many living in the rural areas, the culture of the cities represented moral decline
innovation and creativity

Foreign Policy

Improving Germany’s standing in the world	Implications of foreign policy from right-wing opponents
1925: Signing of Locarno Treaties to guarantee not to change Germany’s western borders	Germany signing the Locarno Treaties and joining LoN = Germany accepted ToV → RW opponents weren’t happy
Germany accepted terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and gained entry into the League of Nations
Continued to work to negotiate the Young Plan → removing British, French, Belgium troops from the Rhineland

Tip

Think Mean Girls – what if the bullied suddenly joined the Plastics?

That’s how right-wing opponents felt