HISTORY 369: WORLD IN THE 20TH CENTURY

Lecture: WEIMAR GERMANY AND THE RISE OF THE NAZIS.

I. The End of Imperial Germany. During the final weeks of World War I, the German Imperial government unraveled. The outbreak of a sailors' at Imperial Naval base at Kiel, purred on similar uprisings in other armed force units and bread riots in the major cities. By November 9, Kaiser Wil1iam II, like his cousin Nicholas, was forced to abdicate. But unlike Nicholas, he lived out his life in exile in Holland. Abdicated. Two days later an armistice was signed between Germany and the Allies.

A. The Provisional Government. A provisional government was organized and led mainly by the Social Democratic party.

B The Social Democrats. The SPD was largest political party in Imperial Germany. The SPD was divided into factions.

1. The Majority Socialists or gradualist faction supported a broad-based party, parliamentary road to power and gradual development of socialism.

2. Independent Socialists favored immediate socialization of society and nationalization of industry, but like the gradualist supported non-violent means to this end.

3. The Spartacists favored immediate violent overthrow of the government and the establishment of a Dictatorship of the proletariat like the Russian Bolsheviks.

C. The Spartacist Putsch. The Spartacists attempted a revolution in Berlin in January 1919.

1. The Provisional Government withdrew to Weimar and raised volunteer units of demobilized troops (freikorps) and deployed them against the Spartacists in Berlin.

2. The bulk of the German army opposed the Spartacist revolt and the coup was smothered within a few days.

3. The army's action in suppressing the Spartacist revolt tended to restore the Germans' esteem for the army even though it had been defeated in the war.

D. The Weimar Constitution. The provisional government did not wait long to convene a constitutional convention, like the Russian Provisional government in 1917. In February 1919, less than a month after the Spartacist Revolt, National Assembly convened at Weimar and formed a constitution. The Weimar Constitution gave interwar Germany a republican government with federal, democratic features and a strong presidency. The new constitution included the following features:

1. Elected by universal suffrage

2. A head of state, the president, elected by universal suffrage

3. A lower legislative body, the Reichstag, elected by universal suffrage in which all parties would be included by their election strength throughout Germany.

4. Parties were to be represented in the Reichstag in proportion to party strength in the electorate as a whole.

5. A head of government, a chancellor (prime minister), responsible to both the president and the Reichstag and chosen, together with his ministers from the majority party or coalition in the Reichstag.

6. The president could set aside laws and rule by decree in an emergency

7. The president also could force a chancellor to resign regardless of the Reichstag

8. The Reichstag conversely had the power to force a chancellor's resignation even if the president desired to keep him in office.

E. Further Left Wing and Right-Wing Putsches. The Weimar Republic continued to face a threat to its existence from both the extreme left and the extreme right.

1. In the summer of 1919, an attempt was made to organize a Bavarian Soviet Republic center in Munich in the summer of 1919. Ironically one of the military leaders of this abortive revolt was Ernst Rohm, who later was the head of the Nazi Storm troopers.

2. In 1920, an armed putsch by rightist army officers forced the republican government from Berlin. This revolt was foiled when the labor unions of Berlin halted all public utilities and telecommunications.

3. In 1923, a second rightist coup was attempted in Munich led by retired Field Marshal von Ludendorff and Adolph Hitler. While this "Beer Hall Putsch" was crushed its fanatical ringleader, Hitler, was only given a token sentence in a comfortable jail, in which he wrote his blueprint for Nazism.

4. In 1924, both right wing nationalists and Communists gained strength at the expense of centrist parties parliamentary elections.

4. This was followed by the election of retired Field Marshal Paul von Hindenberg in 1925 that was considered a victory of the conservative right.

F. Weaknesses of the Weimar Government.

1. As the Weimar Republic was attacked by extremists from both left and right, whenever the republic faced economic and social problems, like the inflation and unemployment of 1918-1924 and the Great Depression of 1929-1933, moderate parties lost seats while extreme parties, like the Communists and Nazis, won seats in the Reichstag.

2. The moderate parties were divided, and the ideological enemy the Nazis, the Communists, did not make common cause with the SDs.

3. The Weimar Republic treated the extreme parties and their putsches quite leniently, hence allowing them to regroup and try again.

4. The Weimar Republics reputation among Germans was tainted by it acceptance of the humiliating Versailles Treaty. Reparations, demilitarization, loss of territory, and the "war guilt" clauses were especially despised.

8. The Social Democrats in power had made almost few economic or social reforms. The old imperial bureaucracy was still in the helm; and the army, although smaller, retained its militaristic Prussian traditions by maintaining officers and non-coms as the bulk of its force..

9. The Weimar Republic confronted to face enormous economic difficultiesinflation and depression.

II. Economic and Social Distress. During World War I, without access to American capital, the Kaisers government attempted to pay for the war by printing large amounts of currency were the "war guilt" clause as it progressed. Instead, it issued large quantities of paper money. This began an inflationary spiral that would continue for five years.

A. Inflation. Germany's defeat affected its currency even more, and inflation continued. By 1923, one dollar, which had been worth about four marks before the war, was worth over four trillion paper marks. Wheelbarrows of bills would be needed to buy a loaf of bread. Individuals and businesses that held their savings in banks or maintained fixed budgets were devastated. Those individuals and businesses that were in debt paid off their debt quickly with the inflated money. The implementation of the Rentenbank and the Rentenmark, along with U.S. Dawes Plan for reparations payments stabilized the currency and encouraged renewed industrial development by 1925.

B. Germany and the Depression. Soon after the depression of 1929 struck highly industrialized Germany, six million people were unemployed. The depression brought about the rise of the hard left and right parties at the expense of the center. This economic and social roller coaster ride made many Germans believe that the Versailles treaty caused all the vicissitudes that confronted them and this view played into the hands of the Nazis. Both the Nazis and the communists gained seats in the Reichstag in the elections of 1930 and 1932.

VI. The Ascendancy of the National Socialists. The Nazi, or National Socialist party was formally known as

the National Socialist German Workers' Party, which originated in 1920.

A. Adolph Hitler. Adolph Hitler was born in Austria in 1889. Orphaned at an early age, he drifted to Vienna where he developed a deep hatred for Jews, whom he blamed for his failure to gain either a higher education or recognition as an artist.

1. He moved to Bavaria two years before the beginning of World War I. There he joined the German army.

2. Discharged from the army, he returned to Bavaria where he became one of the first members of what eventually became the Nazi party.

3. "Nazi" is a combination of the first syllable of the German word, national, and the second syllable of the German word for socialist, sozialistische.

B. The Beer-Hall Putsch. As mentioned above, the Nazis tried a coup detat in Munich in 1923, which was immediately crushed. Hitler received a lenient and light prison term.

1. While in comfortable prison surroundings, which included use of a secretary, Hitler composed Mien Kemp (My Battle or Struggle), which together with Got fried Feeders Program of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (1920), and Alfred Rosenberg's Myth of the Twentieth Century, became the ideological bases of the Nazi party.

C. The Nazi Theories. The Nazis' theories were centered on outrageous race theories and distortions of history. Nazi ideology was so ridiculous on the surface that most did not believe it could catch on with the public until it was too late to do anything about it.

1. One of the basic elements of Nazi ideology was the belief in the German master race (herrenvolk). Germans were believed to be the master race that had accomplished every major greatness in world history. Nazi ideology believed that it was the destiny of the master race to rule the world; non-Germans (untermenschen) were fit only to be slaves of the herrenvolk. They would be subjugated, destroyed or displaced to make "living space" (lebensraum) for the master race.

2. Another important ideological tenet of the Nazis claimed that Germany was surrounded by hostile states (Russia, Poland, France, etc.) controlled by Untermenchen trying to destroy Germany and the herrenvolk.

3. The Nazis also had a perverted concept of popular sovereignty and the general will which emphasized the leader principle (the Führer princip). The Leader (der Führer) governed the German people by a mystical connection to its general will. Every German was supposed to be absolutely loyal to the Nazi party and its Leader.

4. Virulent anti-Semitism was the most well-known and diabolical element of Nazism. Up until Nazism Jews were probably better off in Germany than in any other country in the world except the United States. The Jews provided the Nazis with a scapegoat; everything wrong with the world was the fault of the Jews. Germans who resented Jewish competition in business and professional life supported the Nazis' bid for power.

5. Hitler shifted the Nazi ideology around to meet temporary political expedients. When Germany and Japan were allied during World War II, for example, Hitler described the Japanese as "honorary Aryans."

D. The Nazi Program. In the early 1930's, the Nazis developed a political based upon:

a. Anti-Communism

b. Anti-Semitism

c. Revision of the Versailles Treaty;

d. Renegotiation of war reparations payments;

e. The recovery of Germany's lands and colonies.

E. The Nazi Tactics and Appeal.

1. Hitler was a clever demagogue who knew how to play on the emotions of desperate and proud Germans caught in the depression.

2. The Nazis general political tactic was to promise changes that would appeal to the greatest number of people; while asking Germans to follow unquestioningly. They used the Versailles Treaty and the Jews as scapegoats for Germans plight.

V. The Nazis come to Power. With the elections of July 1932, the Nazis became a plurality in the Reichstag with 230 seats. They were the largest political party, but they did not hold a majority of the seats in the Reichstag, and were having difficulty putting together a coalition.

A. Hitler appointed Chancellor. On January 30, 1933, President von Hindenberg appointed Hitler chancellor.

1. The coalition government composed of Nazis and conservative nationalists and militarists.

2. Like their Italian counterparts, many German politicians mistakenly believed that exigencies of coalition government would mitigate the extremism of the Nazis.

3. Like Mussolini, Hitler did not moderate in power; indeed he became a dictator much faster than his Italian counterpart.

4. As chancellor, Hitler would not compromise with his coalition and the Reichstag at large; hence he received a vote of no confidence. The Reichstag was paralyzed, and new elections were ordered for March 5, 1933.

B. The Elections of 1933 and the Reichstag Fire. During the election the Reichstag building was set on fire in an act of terror. Hitler and the Nazis claimed that it was the work of Communists, but evidence exists that the Nazis set it themselves to propel themselves into power.

1. The Nazis persuaded President Von Hindenberg to issue state of siege decrees that suspended freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

2. The presidential decrees silenced Nazi opponents, and the Nazi Party and its organs used rallies, demonstrations, and storm trooper attacks to assure a Nazi victory

3. The Nazis still only won 44% of the votes. Their most pliable coalition partners won 8% of the vote. The new Nazi-nationalist government had a majority but not the two-thirds majority necessary to amend the constitution.

C. The Enabling Act. Hitler was able to persuade the Catholic Center Party to support the Nazis with a promise to negotiate a concordat with the Papacy, like Mussolini did, if the Catholics would vote for the Enabling Act.

1. The Enabling Act (passed 23 March 1933) gave Hitlers government dictatorial powers until April 1, 1937.

2. Only 94 members of the Reichstag opposed the Enabling Act, and these were all Socialists and Social Democrats.

3. After the Death of Von Hindenberg in 1934, Hitler was than able to obtain the power to change the constitution by decree. Thus Germany became a totalitarian dictatorship under a party founded upon racism, militarism and aggression.