The Weimer republic 1918 - 1929 Early challenges to Weimer Flashcards
General terms of Versailles ( june 1919 )
Germany accepted blame for the war (Article 231, the ‘War Guilt Clause’).
Germany must pay £6.6 billion in reparations (payments to the victors) to the Allies.
This meant a huge loss of land in Europe and all their German colonies.
Germany lost 13% of its land and 12.5% of its population.
Military terms of Versailles
Military restrictions, which included having a maximum of 100,000 soldiers, 15,000 sailors, 6 ships, 0 submarines and 0 armoured vehicles.
The demilitarisation (removing military from an area) of the Rhineland.
Not being able to join with Austria.
Resentment of Versailles
Some Germans felt that Germany could have won the war and so were ‘stabbed in the back’ by Ebert and his government that signed the armistice. These politicians were known as the ‘November Criminals’.
Public opinion
The historian James Hawes says ‘Germany should have won the war’. Germany was usually the first country to develop new weapons like poison gas, very heavy artillery, and functioning submarines.
Hawes says that ‘in August 1918, most Germans still genuinely thought they were going to win the war’.
This made the terms of Versailles even harder to accept.
Challenges from the left - Spartacist Uprising
The Spartacists were a Communist group supported by the Soviet Union. They were led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.
In January 1919, the Spartacists staged a revolt (rebellion) in Berlin and hoped to lead a general strike. The ultimate aim was to overthrow the Weimar Republic.
Ebert used a right-wing (conservative) group of former soldiers, called the Freikorps, to stop the uprising.
He recognised the need to use political extremist (holding extreme views) groups against one another.
he and Luxemburg were captured and summarily executed by anti-communist Freikorps. The death toll was roughly 150–200.
Key challenges from the right - Kapp Putsch
In March 1920, the Freikorps in Berlin staged a rebellion. Wolfgang Kapp was the leader of the Freikorps in this rebellion.
The aim was to seize control and stop the Weimar democratic system.
The putsch failed because German workers went on strike. This forced Kapp to flee.
Wolfgang Kapp was a nationalist German civil servant. Some people believe that Kapp was a puppet for General Ludendorff, although this is unconfirmed.
TOV meant Germany’s army had to be significantly reduced and the Freikorps had to be disbanded.
Other violence
Nationalist terrorists assassinated 300 + government politicians, including the foreign minister, and finance minister. Judges in their trials, many of whom preferred the
Kaiser’s government, consistently gave these terrorists light sentences, or let them go free.
Background of the Munich Putsch
The second challenge from the right was the Munich Putsch in 1923.
The National Socialist German Worker’s Party (NSDAP), also known as the Nazi Party, staged the Munich Putsch.
Hitler had been introduced to Ludendorff by Rohm, the leader of the SA.
Adolf Hitler and Ludendorff (the general who told the Kaiser to abdicate in World War One) led the putsch.
The Nazis thought the Weimar Republic was weak because of the economic crisis in 1923.
The Munich Putsch
In November 1923, the Nazis entered a meeting of the Bavarian government. Hitler demanded the government’s support.
The Nazis took control of the local police and army headquarters. But Ludendorff secretly let the government leaders go.
The next day, Hitler marched on Munich to declare himself President of Germany.
But the state police met the Nazis. They arrested Hitler 2 days later after he fled, who received a 1-year sentence of ‘fortress arrest’.
Hitler’s imprisonment
Hitler used his trial for publicity to spread the Nazi message.
In prison he wrote his bestseller, ‘Mein Kampf’, which outlined his political objectives.
Most importantly, the need to destroy democracy, the need to expand German territory to house the population, and the inferiority of the Jews.
Hitler realised he needed to reorganise the Nazi party to gain success.
‘Mein Kampf’
Hitler wrote ‘Mein Kampf’ in prison.
He spoke of the ‘need’ to destroy German democracy, to increase living space to house Germans, and spoke of the ‘inferiority’ of the Jews.
