As a losing country, Germany experienced a severe economic and social crisis after the First World War . The country was overthrown by the monarchy, and in its place came the republic, called the Weimar. This political regime lasted until 1933, when the Nazis came to power, led by Adolf Hitler.
November revolution
In the fall of 1918, Kaiser Germany was on the verge of defeat in the First World War. The country was drained of bloodshed. In society, dissatisfaction with the authority of William II has long ripened. It resulted in the November Revolution, which began on November 4 with the uprising of sailors in the city of Kiel. More recently, similar events have occurred in Russia, where the centuries-old monarchy has already collapsed. The same thing eventually happened in Germany.
On November 9, Prime Minister Maximilian of Baden announced the completion of the reign of William II, who had already lost control of what was happening in the country. The Reich Chancellor handed over his powers to the politician Friedrich Ebert and left Berlin. The new head of government was one of the leaders of the popular in Germany social democratic movement and the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany). On the same day, the establishment of the republic was announced.
The conflict with the Entente has actually stopped. On November 11, a truce was signed in the Compiegne Forest in Picardy, which finally stopped the bloodshed. Now the future of Europe is in the hands of diplomats. Backstage negotiations and preparations for a large conference began. The result of all these actions was the Treaty of Versailles, signed in the summer of 1919. In the few months that preceded the conclusion of the agreement, Germany experienced many internal dramatic events after the First World War.
Spartacist Rise
Any revolution leads to an imperious vacuum, which various forces are trying to occupy, and the November revolution in this sense was no exception. Two months after the fall of the monarchy and the end of the war in Berlin, an armed confrontation broke out between forces loyal to the government and supporters of the Communist Party. The latter wanted to build a Soviet republic in their native country. The key force in this movement was the Spartak Union and its most famous members: Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.
On January 5, 1919, the Communists organized a strike that swept all of Berlin. Soon she grew into an armed uprising. After the First World War, Germany was a flaming cauldron, in which a variety of currents and ideologies clashed. The rebellion of the Spartacists was a vivid episode of this confrontation. A week later, the speech was defeated by the troops, who remained loyal to the Provisional Government. On January 15, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were killed .
Bavarian Soviet Republic
The political crisis in Germany after the First World War resulted in another major uprising of supporters of Marxism. In April 1919, power in Bavaria belonged to the Bavarian Soviet Republic, opposed to the central government. The government in it was headed by the communist Yevgeny Levine.
The Soviet Republic organized its own Red Army. For some time, she managed to contain the pressure of government troops, but after a few weeks she was defeated and retreated to Munich. The last centers of the uprising were suppressed on May 5. Events in Bavaria led to widespread hatred of leftist ideology and supporters of the next revolution. The fact that Jews were at the head of the Soviet Republic resulted in a wave of anti-Semitism. These national feelings began to play radical nationalists, including supporters of Hitler.
Weimar Constitution
A few days after the end of the Spartacist uprising, in early 1919, general elections were held, in which the composition of the Weimar constituent assembly was elected. It is noteworthy that it was then that German women first got the right to vote. For the first time, the constituent assembly met on February 6. The whole country was closely following what was happening in the small Thuringian city of Weimar.
The key task of the elected representatives was the adoption of a new constitution. The preparation of the main law of Germany was led by the left-liberal Hugo Preiss, who later became the Reich Minister of the Interior. The constitution received a democratic foundation and was very different from the Kaiser one. The document became a compromise between different left-wing and right-wing political forces.
The law established parliamentary democracy with social and liberal rights for its citizens. The main legislative body of the Reichstag was elected for four years. He adopted the state budget and could dismiss the head of government (Chancellor), as well as any minister.
The restoration of Germany after the First World War could not be carried out without a well-functioning and balanced political system. Therefore, the constitution introduced a new post of head of state - the Reich President. It was he who appointed the head of government and received the right to dissolve the parliament. The Reich President was elected in a general election for a 7-year term.
The first head of the new Germany was Friedrich Ebert. He held this position in 1919-1925. The Weimar Constitution, which laid the foundation for the new country, was adopted by the constituent assembly on July 31. The Reich President signed it on August 11. This day was declared a national holiday in Germany. The new political regime was called the Weimar Republic in honor of the city where the epoch-making constituent assembly took place and the constitution appeared. This democratic power lasted from 1919 to 1933. It began with the November Revolution in Germany after the First World War, and it was swept away by the Nazis.
Treaty of Versailles
Meanwhile, in the summer of 1919, diplomats from around the world gathered in France. They met to discuss and decide what Germany would be like after the First World War. The Treaty of Versailles, which was the result of a long negotiation process, was signed on June 28.
The main points of the document were as follows. France received from Germany the disputed provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, lost by it after the war with Prussia in 1870. Belgium went to the border districts of Eupen and Malmedy. Poland received land in Pomerania and Poznan. Danzig has become a neutral free city. The victorious powers gained control of the Baltic Memel region. In 1923, it was transferred to the newly emerged independent Lithuania.
In 1920, as a result of popular plebiscites, Denmark received a part of Schleswig, and Poland - a piece of Upper Silesia. Its small section was also transferred to neighboring Czechoslovakia. At the same time, as a result of the vote, Germany retained the south of East Prussia. The losing country guaranteed the independence of Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The territory of Germany after the First World War changed in the sense that the republic lost all the Kaiser colonies in other parts of the world.
Restrictions and reparations
The German-owned left bank of the Rhine was subject to demilitarization. The country's armed forces could no longer exceed the mark of 100 thousand people. Obligatory service in the army was canceled. Many warships not yet sunk were handed over to the victorious countries. Also, Germany could no longer have modern armored vehicles and combat aircraft.
Reparations from Germany after the First World War amounted to 269 billion marks, which amounted to approximately 100 thousand tons of gold. So she had to compensate for the losses that the Entente countries suffered as a result of a four-year campaign. A special commission was organized to determine the required amount.
The German economy after World War I was hit hard by reparations. Payments drained a devastated country. She was not even helped by the fact that in 1922 Soviet Russia refused reparations, exchanging them for agreement with the nationalization of German property in the newly formed USSR. Over the entire period of its existence, the Weimar Republic has not paid the agreed amount. When Hitler came to power, he completely stopped transferring money. Payment of reparations resumed in 1953, and then again in 1990, after the unification of the country. The reparations from Germany after the First World War were finally paid only in 2010.
Internal conflicts
There was no peace after the end of the war in Germany. Society was embittered by its plight, left and right radical forces constantly appeared in it, who were looking for traitors and perpetrators of the crisis. The German economy after World War I could not recover due to the constant strikes of workers.
In March 1920, the Kappovsky putsch occurred. The coup attempt almost led to the liquidation of the Weimar Republic in just the second year of its existence. Part of the army disbanded under the Treaty of Versailles rebelled and seized government buildings in Berlin. Society has split. Legitimate authorities evacuated to Stuttgart, from where they urged people not to support the coup and to organize strikes. As a result, the conspirators were defeated, but the economic and infrastructural development of Germany after the First World War again received a serious blow.
Then in the Ruhr region, where there were many mines, there was an uprising of workers. Troops were brought into the demilitarized region, which contradicted the decisions of the Treaty of Versailles. In response to a violation of the agreement, the French army entered Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Hanau, Homburg, Duisburg and some other western cities.
Foreign troops again left Germany only in the summer of 1920. However, tensions with the winning countries continued. She caused the financial policies of Germany after the First World War. The government did not have enough money to pay reparations. In response to downtime in payments, France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr area. Their armies remained there in 1923-1926.
Economic crisis
After World War I, Germany’s foreign policy focused on the task of finding at least some profitable cooperation. Guided by these considerations, in 1922 the Weimar Republic signed the Rapallo Treaty with Soviet Russia. The document provided for the beginning of diplomatic contacts between isolated rogue countries. The rapprochement between Germany and the RSFSR (and later the USSR) caused discontent among the European capitalist countries, which ignored the Bolsheviks, and especially France. In 1922, terrorists killed Walter Rathenau, the foreign minister who organized the signing of the agreement in Rapallo.
The external problems of Germany after the First World War faded before the internal ones. Due to armed demonstrations, strikes and reparations, the country's economy continued to slide into the abyss. The government tried to save the situation by increasing the output of money.
The logical result of such a policy was inflation and mass impoverishment of the population. The value of the national currency (paper stamp) was continuously decreasing. Inflation has grown into hyperinflation. The salaries of small officials and teachers were paid in kilograms of paper money, but there was nothing to buy for these millions. Currency stoked stoves. Poverty has led to bitterness. Many historians later noted that it was social upheavals that allowed the nationalists, who used populist slogans, to come to power.
In 1923, the Comintern tried to take advantage of the crisis and organized an attempt for a new revolution. She failed. Hamburg became the center of confrontation between communists and the government. Troops entered the city. However, the threat came not only from the left. After the abolition of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, Munich became a stronghold of nationalists and conservatives. In November 1923, a putsch occurred in the city, organized by the young politician Adolf Hitler. In response to another rebellion, Reich President Ebert introduced a state of emergency. The beer coup was suppressed, and its initiators were tried. Hitler spent only 9 months in prison. Returning to freedom, he began with renewed vigor to ascend to power.
Golden Twenties
Hyperinflation, which shook the young Weimar Republic, was suppressed by the introduction of a new currency - the rental mark. Monetary reform and the arrival of foreign investment gradually brought the country to life, despite the abundance of internal conflicts.
Particularly beneficial were the funds that came from abroad in the form of American loans according to the plan of Charles Dawes. A few years later, the economic development of Germany after the First World War led to the long-awaited stabilization of the situation. The period of relative prosperity in 1924-1929 received the name "Golden Twenties."
German foreign policy after the First World War of those years was also successful. In 1926, she joined the League of Nations and became a full member of the world community created after the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. Friendly relations with the USSR were maintained. In 1926, Soviet and German diplomats signed the new Berlin neutrality and non-aggression treaty.
Another important diplomatic agreement was the Briand-Kellogg Pact. This treaty, signed in 1926 by key world powers (including Germany), declared the renunciation of war as a political tool. Thus began the process of creating a system of European collective security.
In 1925, the election of the new Reich President was held. The head of state was General Paul von Hindenburg, who also bore the rank of Field Marshal. He was one of the key commanders of the Kaiser army during the First World War, including led the operations on the front in East Prussia, where there were battles with the army of tsarist Russia. The rhetoric of Hindenburg was markedly different from the rhetoric of its predecessor Ebert. The old military actively used populist slogans of an antisocialist and nationalist character. To such mixed results led the seven-year political development of Germany after the First World War. A few more signs of instability were observed. For example, there was no leading party force in parliament, and compromise coalitions were constantly on the verge of collapse. Deputies in almost every issue clashed with the government.
The Great Depression
In 1929, Wall Street collapsed in the United States. Because of this, foreign lending to Germany ceased. The economic crisis, soon called the Great Depression, affected the whole world, but it was the Weimar Republic that suffered the most from it. And this is not surprising, because the country has achieved relative, but not at all lasting stability. The Great Depression quickly led to the collapse of the German economy, export disruption, mass unemployment and many other crisis phenomena.
The new democratic Germany after the First World War, in short, was swept away by circumstances, which it was not able to change. The country depended heavily on the United States, and the American crisis could not fail to inflict a fatal blow on it. However, local politicians added fuel to the fire. The government, parliament and the head of state constantly clashed and could not establish much-needed interaction.
The logical result of the dissatisfaction of the population with the current situation was the growth of radicals. Led by the energetic Hitler, the NSDAP (National Socialist German Party) received more and more votes in various elections year after year. Discussions about stabbing in the back, betrayals and the Jewish conspiracy have become popular in society. The youth who grew up after the war and did not recognize its horrors experienced a particularly acute hatred of unknown enemies.
The rise to power of the Nazis
The popularity of the NSDAP led its leader Adolf Hitler into big politics. Members of the government and parliament began to consider an ambitious nationalist as a participant in internal power combinations. The democratic parties never formed a united front against the Nazis, which were gaining popularity. Many centrists were looking for an ally in Hitler. Others considered him a short-lived pawn. In fact, Hitler, of course, was never a controlled figure, but cleverly seized every convenient opportunity to increase his popularity, be it the economic crisis or criticism of the Communists.
In March 1932, the next elections of the Reich President were held. Hitler decided to participate in the election campaign. The barrier for him was his own Austrian citizenship. On the eve of the election, the Minister of the Interior of the province of Braunschweig appointed an attache policy in the Berlin government. This formality allowed Hitler to obtain German citizenship. In the elections in the first and second round, he took second place, losing only to Hindenburg.
The Reich President was cautious of the leader of the NSDAP. However, the vigilance of the elderly head of state was euthanized by his many advisers, who believed that Hitler should not be afraid. January 30, 1930 a popular nationalist was appointed Reich Chancellor - head of government. Hindenburg's associates believed that they would be able to control the minion of fate, but they were mistaken.
In fact, on January 30, 1933, the end of the democratic Weimar Republic came. Soon laws were passed "On Extraordinary Powers" and "On the Protection of the People and the State", which established the dictatorship of the Third Reich. In August 1934, following the death of the elderly Hindenburg, Hitler became the Fuhrer (leader) of Germany. The NSDAP was declared the only legal party. Not taking into account the recent historical lesson, Germany after the First World War again embarked on the path of militarism. An important part of the ideology of the new state was revanchism. Defeated in the last war, the Germans began to prepare for even more terrible bloodshed.