Weimar Germany 1919 - 1933

Question 1

Explain the effects on Germany of the end of WW1 and the peace settlement

Answer 1

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

• the war guilt clause
• army limited to 10.000 men
• navy limited to six warships
• no air force
• Alsace and Lorraine returned to France
• union with Austria was forbidden
• demilitarized Rhineland
• £6.6 billion in reparations to the allies.

Question 2

Describe the opposition to the Treaty of Versailles

Answer 2

• Germany got no say in the dictated peace ‘DIKTAT’
• Germany was blames for starting the war
• Germans felt humiliated
• didn’t want to pay reperations
• lost land
• armed forced reduces increasing unemployment/leaving them vunerable to attack.

Question 3

Explain the formation and characteristics of the Wiemar Republic

Answer 3

• all Germans over 20 could vote
• used proportional representation ( 60,000 votes = 1 seat)
• the president was elected by the people
• Article 48 ( allowed the president to rule the country in an emergency without consulting the Reichstag. )

Question 4

Describe the attempts to overthrow the Wiemar Republic

Answer 4

THE SPARTACIST REVOLT

• Jan 1919, 100,000 workers went on strike in the center of Berlin
• demonstrators were armed and newspaper and communications buildings were taken over
• Freikorps (ex-army, communist haters) killed over 100 workers… known as ‘Bloody Week’.

BEER HALL PUTSCH

• 8 Nov 1923, Hitler and 600 fans invaded a political meeting
• he fired a gun in the air and made a speech
• forced the Bavarian leaders to agree to rebel
• leaders ordered army/police to stop the revolution
• 9 Nov, Nazis went into Munich for a march
• police/army blocked them
• 16 Nazis, 4 police killed from gunfire
• Hitler injured and fled/ arrested 2 days later

Question 5

Explain the economic problems of the Wiemar Republic

Answer 5

HYPERINFLATION

• 1922, German government missed a reparations payment
• invasion of the Ruhr by France and Belgium
• Wiemar ordered Ruhr workers to strike
• Wiemar printed more money to pay strikers
• German currency lost all value

THE WALL STREET CRASH

• Oct 29, 1929
• triggered the Great Depression, a global economic downturn
• dramatic drop in stock prices led to panic selling
• resulted in bank failures and loss of savings
• unemployment soared as buisnesses closed
• caused a decline in international trade and deflation
• lasted through the 1930s impacting economic policies worldwide