The Weimar Republic

• The impact of WWI devastated Germany

• The punitive nature of the Treaty of Versailles made it worse

• The Weimar Republic veered from crisis to crisis from 1918-1924

• By 1933, the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis) emerged victorious

Effects of WWI

1914

• Germany was an industrial and economic powerhouse

• Militaristic, nationalistic, imperialistic

• Went into WWI with a high sense of optimism and confidence

Impact of WWI

1918

• Germany defeated - In August Hindenburg reveals that victory is not possible

• People surviving on turnips and sawdust bread

• Flu epidemic spreads through Germany

• Strikes and mutinies are rife - German society is in chaos

Effects of WWI

• Germany is virtually bankrupt

• National income 30% of 1914 levels

• Industrial production 70% that of 1914

German women search through garbage for something to eat in Berlin

Social divisions

• Huge gap between rich and poor

• Workers pay restricted but not industrialists’ profits

• Female participation in workforce seen as “un-German”

• German is faced with the task of demobilisation of 2 million + men

Revolution

1918 Revolution and mutinies force abdication of

Kaiser

Socialists form government

Many despise new government and do not warm to the unfamiliar notion of

“democracy”

Many Germans also believed that the “glorious” Germany army and nation had not lost the war but had been betrayed

by Jews, Socialists and Communists at home.

The “Stab in the Back” theory is born

November Criminals

(Dolchstoßlegende literally "Dagger stab legend")

The Dolchstoß was a central image in propaganda produced by the many right-wing and traditionally conservative political parties that sprang up in the early days of the Weimar Republic, including Hitler's NSDAP.

In Mein Kampf he described a vision at this time which drove him to enter politics. Throughout his career he railed against the "November criminals" of 1918, who had stabbed the German Army in the back.

Even provisional President Friedrich Ebert contributed to the myth when he saluted returning veterans with the oration that "they returned undefeated from the battlefield (sie sind vom Schlachtfeld unbesiegt zurückgekehrt)." It was meant as a tribute to the German soldier, but it contributed to the prevailing feeling.

The danger of Bolshevism, Germany, 1919. Artist: Rudi Feld. Hoover Institution Archives Poster Collection

The distrust of the general populace,

combined with the threat of Bolshevism,

left the Weimar Government in a

vulnerable position -

What happens next?