WEIMAR GERMANY AND THE RISE OF HITLER

You will learn…..  Why Germany’s new government had so many problems after WWI  How Germany recovered from some of these problems from 1924 to 1929  How events after 1929 led to the collapse of this government  What Nazism means  Why Hitler and his National Socialist Party came to power by 1933

GERMANY TODAY

A new government in Germany  New government – known as Weimar Republic after the small German town where it was first set up  It was a democratic government  People able to choose their own leaders  Vote for President of the Republic  In a Republic, the country is ruled by a President and a Parliament, both elected by the people  Regular elections to choose representatives in the German Parliament (Reichstag)

WEIMAR TODAY

A new government in Germany  Proportional representation  A political party will receive the same percentage of places in the Reichstag as their votes  A wide range of views would be represented in parliament  Is this good or bad?

A new government in Germany  Disadvantages of “proportional representation”  Encouraged many small parties to be formed  Difficulty in getting a single majority party  Most governments of the Weimar Republic were coalition governments  ie made up of representatives from many parties which had won small percentages of the votes in elections  Weak and did not last long; 9 coalition governments in the first four years  Advantageous to those who wanted to replace the democratic form of government

MAIN SECTIONS  The Troubled Years  1919 to 1923  The Recovery Years  1923 to 1929  The Depression Years  1929 to 1933  Rise of Hitler

THE TROUBLED YEARS  Many attempts to overthrow the Weimar Republic in the early years. Why?  Where did the threats come from?

THE TROUBLED YEARS  Many attempts to overthrow the Weimar Republic in the early years. Why?  Many blamed the WR for Germany’s losses at the Treaty of Versailles  WR also held responsible for the country’s economic problems during these years  Reparations for war damage had effectively bankrupted the German economy  Loss of Saar, Germany’s industrial heartland, and Alsace-Lorraine in the Treaty of Versailles  Hard times throughout Europe after WWI  Fewer goods produced – people lost jobs  Soldiers returned home with no jobs  Convenient to use the government as scapegoat

THE TROUBLED YEARS  Where did the threats come from?  Left wing and right wing???????

Make up your minds, you morons!! Which wing do you want?

The left wing wants more power to be given to the ordinary people. Usually very sympathetic to socialism and communism. Wanted the type of communist government created in Russia in Spartacists Uprising An uprising in Berlin in 1919 to overthrow the government led by the communist group known as Spartacists

Right wing Right wing were people who did not like democracy and wanted to return to the kind of strong government Germany had before the war. A more serious threat than the left wing. Right wing supporters often had friends in high places Eg law courts, govt depts and armed forces Explains why little or no action were taken against them

Many right-wing politically-motivated murders went unpunished – more than 350 political murders Right-wing armed gangs Roamed the streets and made life unpleasant for the peoplePutsch Secretly-planned attempt to remove a government by force

Kapp Putsch Unsuccessful attempt by Wolfgang Kapp, to seize control of Berlin in Munich or ‘Beer Hall’ Putsch Unsuccessful attempt by the new National Socialist Party in No prizes for guessing who led the Party!! KAPP