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History - Germany > Section 1 > Flashcards

Section 1 Flashcards

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1
Q

When did Kaiser Wilhelm ‘abdicate’?

A

He was forced to abdicate on the 9th of November 1918 and he left Germany the following day

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2
Q

Why was the Kaiser forced to abdicate?

A

In order for Germany to negotiate an armistice based on Wilson’s ‘14 points’ with the allies, Germany had to become a republic

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3
Q

What were the October reforms?

A

They were reforms that ended the Kaiser’s autocratic rule based on recommendations made by General Ludendorff

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4
Q

What are some examples of the October reforms?

A
  • Prince Max of Baden was appointed as the German Chancellor
  • The chancellor was responsible for the Reichstag and formed a government from the political parties in the Reichstag
  • The armed forces would be controlled by the civil government
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5
Q

What was the peace note?

A

The peace note was written on the 3rd October 1918 from Prince Max to President Wilson.
It was asking for an armistice.
Wilson took 3 weeks to respond as he thought it was the Germans just trying to buy time to form a new offensive.
The response from Wilson demanded that Germany introduce a democratic government and evacuate occupied territory.
General Ludendorff could not accept the terms and so fled to Sweden

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6
Q

What was the German Public’s reaction to the peace note?

A
  • The note shattered German morale
  • It was admitting that Germany had lost the war and undermined respect for the government and especially the Kaiser
  • There was a widespread wish for the Kaiser to abdicate with striking workers on the 22 October shouting ‘The Kaiser is a scoundrel’
  • On The 28th October there was the first of a wider naval mutiny
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7
Q

What were the main events of the November Revolution of 1918?

A

-3rd November: naval mutiny at Kiel
-6th November: widespread revolts/uprisings around Germany demanding the Kaiser’s abdication
-8th November: a republic was declared in Bavaria
-9th November: General strike in Berlin forces the Kaiser’s abdication
Ebert becomes the Chancellor
General Groener withdraws the army’s support for the Kaiser

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8
Q

What was the Ebert-Groener pact?

A

It was a pact that said the The German army would support Ebert’s government so long as Ebert put down any new revolutions and opposed communism

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9
Q

What were the main struggles for power after the Armistice?

A
  • 6th December: A Spartacist demonstration was fired upon, killing 16
  • 23-24th December: A sailor’s revolt against the government was put down in Berlin
  • 6th January: The Spartacists launched an armed revolt against the government. After a week of fighting in Berlin it was put down. It would later become known as the January revolution
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10
Q

Who were the leaders of the Spartacists?

A

Karl Libknecht and Rosa Luxemburg

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11
Q

What were the outcomes of the first Weimar election on the 19th January 1919?

A
  • The SDP became the largest party but did not have a majority
  • Ebert was elected as President
  • Phillip Scheidemann was elected as chancellor to replace Ebert
  • A new constitution was written up
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12
Q

What were the strengths of the New Weimar constitution?

A
  • It provided universal suffrage to all Germans
  • It used PR which is a very democratic election system, giving votes equal value
  • It was a fully democratic country
  • The constitution set out clear rights that the individual had e.g. freedom of religion and freedom of the press
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13
Q

What were the weaknesses of the new Weimar constitution?

A
  • Smaller fringe parties were able to gain seats in the Reichstag due to PR
  • PR resulted in coalition governments becoming the norm. These were usually short lived and so elections were very frequent
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14
Q

What were the Länder?

A

The 17 states that existed before German unification. They all had local governments with some devolved powers and were represented in the Reichsrat

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15
Q

What was article 48?

A
  • It gave the President to rule by decree in ‘exceptional circumstances’
  • It was an un-democratic element of the new republic
  • It was used 136 times by Ebert
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16
Q

What were some undemocratic institutions that remained?

A
  • The army: The officer Korps that led the army was very conservative. General Hans Von Skeet who le Ethel army from 1920 onwards did not pledge allegiance to the Weimar Republic but to the ‘eternal German reich’
  • The civil service: Civil servants were overwhelmingly from the aristocracy and were very anti the Weimar Republic
  • The judiciary: The judges in the courts remained from the German Empire and were very biased. They punished left-wind radicales very severely and right-wing radicals not so much
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17
Q

What did the German public call the treaty of Versailles?

A

Diktat (dictated peace)

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18
Q

Who were the 4 main countries at the Paris peace conference?

A

Britain
France
USA
German

19
Q

What were the main terms of the treaty of Versailles?

A

-Germany would loose over 70,000km of land. It was given to countries like France, Poland and Lithuania. They also had to give up their overseas colonies to be split between the allies. The Saarland in SW Germany was placed under League of Nations control for 15 years

-Germany would be disarmed. Its army was limited to 100,000 men and its navy was limited to 15,000. It could not have an Air Force.
The de-militarised Rhineland was also set up which was occupied by the allies

  • Article 231 of the treaty said that Germany had to accept responsibility for starting the war and pay £6.6billion in reparations to the allies
  • Other terms included Germany Being forbidden from joining the League of Nations and unifying with Austria
20
Q

What were Germany’s main objections to the treaty of Versailles?

A
  • Millions of Germans in the Polish corridor were not given self-determination, something that Wilson’s 14 points required for armistice negotiations
  • The war guilt clause. Many thought it was just there to humiliate Germany
  • Many thought that the massive sum of reparations would destroy the German economy
  • The occupation of Western Germany and the banning of nationalist German songs by the French
  • The disarming of Germany and exclusion from the League of Nations humiliated a once proud and powerful nation
21
Q

How was Germany’s reaction to the treaty of Versailles not justified?

A
  • Wilson’s 14 points clearly outlined that Germany would loose some territory
  • The treaty could have been a lot harsher had the French got their way and demands e.g. full annexation of the Rhineland
  • The treaty was not as harsh as the treaty of Brest-Litovsk
  • If the Germans had won the war, their peace treaty would have been very harsh on the allies
  • Germany was able to pay the reparations bill, and the figure was a lot lower than that demanded by the French
22
Q

What was the political reaction like to the Treaty of Versailles?

A

-Instead of signing the treaty, Chancellor Scheidemann resigned in June 1920 and was replaced by Gustav Bauer

  • Pro-republican parties were reluctant to sign the treaty but eventually did as they saw it as Germany’s only option, especially as general Groener informed Ebert that military action would be futile
  • The parties also put forward the policy of fulfilment; complying with the treaty whilst negotiating modifications to it.

-Right wing groups spread the ‘stab in the back myth’ promoted by Ludendorff and Von Hindenburg. The myth stated that the German army could have won the war but the politicians betrayed them by signing the armistice

23
Q

What was the British reaction to the TOV?

A
  • The British public were satisfied with the treaty as Germany lost their colonies and fleet
  • Lloyd George believed that Germany was punished too harshly as he wanted them to be strong enough to resist the USSR
  • Some in Britain thought that France had treated Germany too harshly
24
Q

What was the French reaction to the TOV?

A
  • Most French people thought that Germany got off too lightly as France had stuffed greatly in the war
  • Marshall Foch ‘This is not peace, it is an armistice for 20 years’
25
Q

What was the U.S reaction to the TOV?

A
  • Many thought that the European powers were being too greedy with the treaty
  • The US Congress did not ratify the treaty and they made separate peace with Germany in 1921
  • The US did not join the League of Nations and withdrew involvement from European affairs in the 1920s
26
Q

How much debt did Germany have to pay in 1919?

A

1.44 billion Marks

27
Q

What was the main political reason Germany struggled to pay back its debts?

A

The German government was reluctant to raise taxes or reduce government spending, which meant that they couldn’t raise money to pay debts

28
Q

What were some economic impacts of reparations?

A

-It made paying back Germany’s wartime debt even more difficult as they had a lot more to pay back

The treaty of Versailles made it difficult to pay back the reparations in any way as:

  • It did not have enough gold to pay it back in gold
  • It could not pay it back in coal as their coal fields were lost to France
  • It couldn’t pay it back in manufactured goods as the allied countries wouldn’t accept them
  • It couldn’t pay it back in foreign currency as the allies destroyed its merchant shipping fleet

As a result the German government could only do one thing; print more money. This decision resulted in hyper inflation.

29
Q

What were some political impacts of the treaty of Versailles?

A
  • Germany was left in a political crisis as they were given an ultimatum to sign the treaty
  • The German government started the policy of fulfilment
  • Germany was continually unable to pay back its reparations
30
Q

What was cause and events of the invasion of the Ruhr in 1923?

A
  • Germany had fallen behind in its payments of reparations in 1922
  • In response the French and Belgians sent 60,000 troops (which later grew to 100,000) to the Ruhr region to force Germany to pay
  • They wished to seize the areas coal steel and manufactured goods as reparations
  • In response, Chancellor Cuno sent paramilitary troops to sabotage the German efforts
  • A strike was called in the area in order to stop the occupying forces from benefiting from the region
  • The occupation worsened the hyperinflation crisis by reducing tax revenue, increasing government spending and leading to an increased shortage of goods
31
Q

What caused hyperinflation in Germany?

A
  • Germany could only pay back its reparations in Marks
  • They had very few Marks and so printed more to pay back their reparations
  • They continued to print more and more money which made it worthless and inflation increased every minute
  • Prices rose astronomically and workers started being paid in the billions and trillions
  • In 1914 a loaf of bread was 1 Mark and in 1923 it was 100 billion Marks
  • By 1923 the exchange rate was 4.2billion Marks to the US dollar
32
Q

Who benefited from hyperinflation?

A
  • Home owners
  • Business owners
  • Those who took out loans
  • Landowners
  • Those on the black market
33
Q

Who lost out due to hyperinflation?

A
  • Those with savings
  • Those living on welfare support (fixed income)
  • Government worked
  • Workers who did not receive a pay rise
34
Q

Who were the Spartacists?

A

-A group of communist revolutionaries led by Karl Liberknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. They were the precursor to the KPD

35
Q

Why were left wing revolutionary groups a threat to the Weimar?

A
  • They led violent uprisings e.g. the Spartacists uprising in January 1919
  • They had the power to call strikes which were very effective in shutting down the government e.g. they shut down the beer hall putsch with a strike
36
Q

Who were the Ruhr Red Army and what happened in the Ruhr ‘civil war?’ (March-April 1920)

A
  • The Ruhr Red army was a group of 50,000 communists who called a general strike in the Ruhr region and later seized the area
  • The Ruhr Red Army was supported by over 300,000 German workers

-Their occupation resulted in a clash between them and the army/Freikorps which eventually resulted in a crushing of the rebellion after a great struggle

37
Q

Who were the Freikorps?

A
  • They were a paramilitary group set up at the end of the First World War by Hindenburg
  • They consisted mainly of former soldiers who were encouraged to join by General Groener
  • They were led by General Luttwitz
  • They were used to crush rebellions when the army was not enough or when the army couldn’t e.g. French occupation of the Ruhr
  • They tended to be more violent than the army as they were not accountable to the government
38
Q

What were the main events of the Kapp Putsch in 1920?

A
  • General Lüttwiz and political Wolfgang Kapp led a group of soldiers to Berlin to overthrow the government
  • When the government called on the army to crush the rebellion they refused, stating that ‘troops do not fire on troops’
  • They successfully took over the government and it continued to function
  • The Putsch only failed when a general strike was called and Berlin went into a 4 day long stand still
39
Q

Who were the Organisation Consul?

A

An ultra-nationalist paramilitary group formed of ex-Freikorps members who joined after their units were disbanded after the Kapp Putsch. They were responsible for many political assassinations.

40
Q

Why was Erzberger assassinated?

A

He was the finance minister who led the German delegation to the armistice and he signed the treaty of Versailles.

He had previously been shot and injured by the Organisation Consul and they returned to finish the job.

He was assassinated in August 1921

41
Q

Why was Rathenau assassinated?

A

He was a Jew and participated in the signing of the TOV and was a negotiator with the allies

He was assassinated by the Organisation Consul on the 24th June 1922

42
Q

Between 1919 and 1923 how many assassinations were there, and how may was each side responsible for?

A

There were 376, 22 left wing and 354 right wing

43
Q

What were the main events of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923?

A
  • Hitler and the Nazi party planed to seize power and install a new government
  • He had support from General Ludendorff who he planned to install as the new German leader
  • On The 8th of November Hitler and his stormtroopers coerced, at gunpoint, Ritter Von Kahr to support the putsch
  • By the 9th November the two no longer supported the putsch and Hitlers stormtroopers were unable to gain control of the Munich army barracks
  • The March through Munich went ahead anyway but failed.
  • There was a gunfight with the police and both Hitler and Ludendorff were arrested

History - Germany (4 decks)

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