Depth Study: Germany 1918-1945
There are four questions to be considered when studying
Germany from the time period of the revolution of 1918 to the
end of the Second World War in 1945. They are:
1. Was the Weimar Republic doomed from the start?
2. Why was Hitler able to dominate Germany by 1934?
3. How effectively did the Nazis control Germany, 1933-1945?
4. What was it like to live in Nazi Germany?
1. Was the Weimar Republic doomed from the
start?
How did Germany emerge from defeat at the end of the First
World War?
Germany was losing the war by the end of 1918. Their soldiers
were backing out and refusing orders. Their leader, Kaiser
Wilhelm II asked the Navy to attack the allies and they thought
it was hopeless so they mutinied and decided to revolt. The
Kaiser abdicated because he realised he could no longer rely
on the army. The country ended up being controlled by the
Social Democrats led by Friedrich Ebert. Ebert decided to take
the side of Germany’s army because he knew they had a lot of
power with the people. He signed a secret pact with the war
general for the army and the Freikorps (an organisation of exservicemen) to support the new government to avoid the
revolution. Matthias Erzberger, a colleague of Ebert’s signed
the armistice on 11 November 1919. Germans felt that this was
practically a surrender. A new government called the Weimar
government was then put in place by the allies. Germans felt
that since the Kaiser, who was in power when the war started
was gone, and a new ally government was in place in Germany,
the treaty they had to sign would not be very harsh and would
mainly be based off Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points. They
were wrong.
What was the impact of the Treaty of Versailles on the
Republic?
The Treaty of Versailles was harsh. Harsher than the Germans
expected. It was set mainly to the interests of the French and
did not fulfil most of Wilson’s 14 points. Germans were angry
that they did not have a say in the terms and that the treaty
was a diktat.
Soldiers and common Germans thought they were stabbed in
the back by corrupt politicians and didn’t really lose the war,
and that the government planned Germany’s downfall by
signing the armistice and the treaty.
The Treaty of Versailles also caused major political distress in
Germany. Communists tried to take over the government
multiple times. They failed each time because they were
stopped by the government and the Freikorps. Even though
they failed the uprising, communists kept protesting until 1923.
After Ebert had realised there was no longer a communist
threat, he ordered the Freikorps to disband but they refused.
They still wanted power and decided to try and take it. They
assembled with the leader of another right-wing party leader,
Wolfgang Kapp and marched into Berlin in the Kapp Putsch.
Berlin workers went on strike, the putsch failed and the
participants new arrested. However, the judges were also rightwing and didn’t justly punish them, only one person involved
was ent to jail.
The French were angry that the Germans weren’t paying the
reparations on time so they decided to invade the Ruhr to seize
resources they were owed as payment. The government
ordered the people in the Ruhr to peacefully protest by
stopping all production. The people got fed up after a while
and decided to fight.The German economy became so weak
because most of its industries were located in the Ruhr. They
had no money so the government started printing thousands of
banknotes at rapid speed but this led to hyperinflation and the
economy crashed as the money was now worthless. New
chancellor, Gustav Stresemann decided to create a new
provisional currency to replace the German Mark that had now
lost all its value. He started paying the reparations again and
the French left the Ruhr.
To what extent did the republic recover after 1923?
Foreign countries felt sympathy for Germany. The USA for
example negotiated the Dawes plan with Stresemann and
loaned them 800 million Reichsmarks (the new German
currency) to help them rebuild their economy and help them
pay the reparations. The Americans also created another plan
that would reduce the reparations but by the time it was to be
finalised, Stresemann had died and the Great Depression was
underway.
2. Why was Hitler able to dominate Germany by
1934?
What did the Nazi Party stand for in the 1920s?
Hitler became the leader of the German Workers Party after
successfully contesting the leadership of its founder, Anton
Drexler. He changed the name of the party to the National
Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) which was then
shortened to “Nazi Party” or just “Nazi”. Hitler also made the
Swastika the party’s symbol, introduced a military, bought a
newspaper to spread propaganda and introduced the Hitler
salute.
Why did the Nazis have little success before 1930?
Hitler decided to stage a coup on 8 November 1923 but was
stopped by the police and army. Hitler and the other leaders of
the attempted putsch were arrested and sent to prison. Hitler’s
trail speeches became iconic and gained him new support all
across Germany. The judge was a right-wing sympathiser and
only gave Hitler five years for an offence that was seen worthy
of the death penalty. He only spent nine months in jail and used
this time to write his book, “Mein Kampf”
After he was released, Hitler reorganised the NSDAP which had
fallen apart without him and decided that they would put a hold
on attempts of violent uprisings and rater try to gain political
support and become the most powerful party in Germany.
From 1925 to 1928, Hitler made many changes to the Nazi
party to allow them to be stronger and more powerful. Despite
this, the party only won 2.6% of the national vote in the 1928
elections. Hitler needed an opportunity for the Nazis to show
their strength.
In 1929, the Young Plan was proposed, following the same
purpose as the Dawes Plan, reducing reparations and
spreading out the payments. The right wing was furious about
this plan because it accepted paying the reparations and in
turn accepted war guilt. The NSDAP joined a campaign led by
the German National People’s Party to protest the plan and this
gave them the respect and popularity that they needed to win
votes.
Why was Hitler able to become chancellor by 1933?
Germany’s economy was mostly reliant on US aid, so when the
stock market crash led to the great depression, Germany’s
economy was left destroyed and the US still wanted the money
that they were owed. Hitler used propaganda to spread the
message that if the Nazi party was in power, he would end
German’s dependency on money from the USA and they
wouldn’t take any money from the US at all.
Hitler was also an amazingly persuasive public speaker and
gained the respect of the German public by voicing out their
shared anger and frustration.
Paul von Hindenburg, leader of Germany in 1932 did not want
to make Hitler chancellor even though the Nazis won the
majority of seats because he did not support their policies. He
was later persuaded to change his mind by Franz Von Papen
who told him that appointing Hitler would be a good idea
because there were two ways the situation could go.
3. How effectively did the Nazis control Germany,
1933-1945?
How much opposition was there to the Nazi regime?
In the first few years of the Nazi control in Germany there was
little opposition because they had restored the economy and
arrested most of the leaders of opposing parties. However, as
the war begun, hatred and resentment for Nazism increased.
How did the Nazis use culture and the mass media to control
people?
The state controlled the radio and even though newspapers were
privately owned, if anything against the Nazis was written, it a
newspaper, they editor would be punished so they made sure nothing
opposing the Nazis was published. In March 1933, Hitler created a
ministry to ensure that all art and entertainment was in line with Nazi
values and a radio called the “People’s Receiver” was mass-produced
that every German could easily receive propaganda and Nazi-centred
entertainment. By 1939, 70% of the German population had one,
making them the number one in terms of ownership of radios in the
world. There was also an art exhibition arranged in 1937 called
“Degenerate Art” to showcase art work that was wrong or immoral by
Nazi values.
Why did the Nazis persecute many groups in German society?
Hitler felt that some ethnic groups and people with disabilities
were genetically inferior to able-bodied and white people. He
saw them as a threat to the “purity” of Germany and wanted
them killed or persecuted to prevent them from passing their
genetics, “weakening the bloodline” Many German Jews were
killed and white Germans were not allowed to marry or have
sexual relations with anyone of Jewish descent.
Was Nazi Germany a totalitarian state?
A totalitarian state is one described as having an official
ideology, a single party state led by one person, total control of
the military, total control of media and communication, total
control of the economy and being a police state that uses
terror to suppress opposition. Nazi Germany fit into these
criteria quite well.
4. What was it like to live in Nazi Germany?
How did young people react to the Nazi regime?
There were many tactics used by the NSADAP to indoctrinate
young children into believing Nazi ideology. Jewish teachers
and teachers that were suspected to be anti-Nazi were
removed. The curriculum was changed to teach the study of
“eugenics” and to promote German racial superiority at any
possible opportunity. There were two organisations created to
made for children. There was the Hitler Youth which prepared
boys for war and taught them outdoor and physical skills and
the League of German Maidens which taught young girls to be
good housewives. Most children were raised already having
fierce loyalty to Hitler and were ready to report anyone who
contested him, even their parents.
Some children however, were part of anti-Nazi groups like the
Eldelwiss Pirated who listen to Nazi-condemned music and
followed their own ideals. They attacked boys from the Hitler
Youth and the Nazis decided to publicly hand 12 of the boys as
an example of what would happen if children decided to go
against Hitler.
How successful were Nazi policies towards women and the
family?
Nazi policy towards women expected them to be submissive
homemakers. They were only allowed to have “feminine” jobs
and it was not encouraged for them to go to university. Many
older women supported these ideals but they were not so
popular among the younger generation who enjoyed the
freedom the Weimar government gave them. Women were
encouraged to have as many children as possible another was
a Nazi slogan that translates to “children, kitchen, church”
which described the duties of women in Nazi Germany. In the
Second World War women were needed to work as many men
were off fighting. Some German women decided resist against
Nazism and many were killed in women-only concentration
camps.
Did most people in Germany benefit from Nazi rule?
One thing a lot of Germans that supported the Nazis liked was
the economic stability the NSDAP provided. Hitler came into
power just as the Great Depression was becoming less severe
and so he had the opportunity of restoring Germany’s economy
to its pre-war state. This improved the lives of many working
Germans and many industries were growing rapidly. Nazis did
not trust workers because they voted for communist parties.
They tried to win them over by providing free holidays to take
peoples minds of politics, thus reducing opposition but there
was no proof that because these people were accepting the
free holidays and leisure time, they were beginning to support
Nazi ideology.
How did the coming of war change life in Nazi Germany?
When the Second World War began in 1939, the Nazis were
hardly struggling and the German civilian lifestyle was not
majorly disrupted. However, tension began to grow an
eventually, all economic resources were being used on the war
and every civilian was somehow involved.
Germany was not properly prepared for a war, weapons-wise
as their plan for the production of weapons in anticipation of
war had failed. Even with incredibly significant increase in the
production of arms, Germany still only had a small fraction of
the weapons that Britain France and the USSR had. Many
Germans were killed by bombs sent by the British. The German
army invaded Poland in 1939 and 3 million more Jews were
now living in Germany and the number kept increasing with the
invasion of the USSR. The German government decided to
stop trying to keep the Jews alive in ghettos and start killing
them instead. They came up with a “final solution” to kill all of
the Jews living in Germany. This is what cameo be known as
the Holocaust.