On 11 November 1918, Germany signed the armistice agreement that brought the First World War to an end. The agreement was preceded by the abdication of the German Kaiser, and the ordination of a provisional government, under Friedrich Ebert, of the Social-Democratic Party (SPD). Following parliamentary elections in January 1919 and the formation of a left-centre coalition on February 6, the constituent assembly held its inaugural meeting in Weimar, the town for which the republic was named, and which was a symbol of German culture. Shortly after its establishment, the government was forced to sign a peace treaty that subjected Germany to very harsh terms. The International agreement signed in Versailles, France, was regarded by many Germans as a national humiliation.
More on
The revolutionary wave
As the new socialist government was formed, radical socialists and communists embarked on revolutionary activity throughout Germany. Fearful that the revolutionary wave would gather momentum, Ebert sought the army's support for a crackdown against the menace of Bolshevism. The agreement between the government and the army made it possible to violently suppress the revolutionary attempts. This violence included the murder of revolutionary leaders. The close co-operation between the government and the military helped stabilise the new parliamentary regime, but made the government more dependent on the army, on the Freikorps (ΓÇ£free volunteer legionsΓÇ¥), and on the civil service, who rejected democracy and the Weimar Republic - all of which limited the democratisation of society and of the state.
The Crisis of the Republic
From 1919 on, the sense of national humiliation was accompanied by an economic crisis, which flowed from; the immense expenditures for the war, damage to industrial production capacity, the transition from a war economy to a peace economy, and the high level of reparations that Germany was forced to pay under the Versailles treaty. The combination of these factors led to raging inflation and to a drastic increase in unemployment. The government, beset by instability within the coalition, internal political pressure from the Right and Left, and by the might of the army, found it difficult to cope with the economic crisis. A degree of stability was restored, however, in 1924, when an influx of English and American capital boosted industrial production and stemmed unemployment. Germany's achievements in foreign policy, reflected in the signing of multilateral agreements with a number of European powers, bolstered this stability. These ΓÇ£good yearsΓÇ¥ ended in 1929.
More on
The ΓÇ£Stab in the BackΓÇ¥ and the Jews
The fact that not a single piece of German territory had been occupied during the First World War, along with the fact that the surrender was signed by a civilian government established just before the war's end, led many among the German populace to feel wrongly that the defeat had been caused by internal weakness and subversion. This climate gave rise to the myth of the ΓÇ£stab in the backΓÇ¥. According to this myth, leftist forces led by Jews were to blame for Germany's defeat and for its resulting adversity. This finger-pointing toward Jews, stemmed, among other reasons, from the fact that many Jews held prominent positions in Germany's leftist and liberal movements.
Split to Hot Spots
Kurt Eisner was head of the revolutionary movement in Munich. He was elected by the Council of Peasants, Workers, and Soldiers as head of the Soviet government in revolutionary Bavaria He was murdered on 21 February 1919 by Count Arco Valley. Rosa Luxemburg was one of the founders of the German Communist party - the Spartakusbund (Spartacus League) - and a leading figure in the ΓÇ£Spartacus uprising" in Berlin in January 1919. She was murdered by German military officers on 15 January 1919. Hugo Preuss was a member of the German Democratic Party. In his capacity as Minister of the Interior, he wrote the Weimar Constitution.
More on (continued)
For the enemies of the Republic, these facts were sufficient evidence of the Jews' subversive nature and of their responsibility for Germany's collapse. In April 1919, the conservative German newspaper Auf Vorposten wrote that: 'In view of the softness shown by the peoples of central Europe, and particularly by the Germans, in their handling of the Jewish question, any revelation of Jewish aims would probably have been rejected before the war with an incredulous smile. Even during the world war only a few realized that there must exist some great plan for the destruction of Germany; those who were initiated knew that the Freemasons and Jews had prepared this plan decades in advance, for the purpose of overthrowing the princely houses of Europe and then launching a struggle against the Church...Let an imperial tribunal examine who is to blame for that war! We summon the leaders of international Freemasonry, the Jewish world-alliances and all the chief rabbis to appear before it.' (Cohen 133)
The End of the Republic
The collapse of the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929 initiated a world economic crisis, which lasted several years. Germany, whose economic relations with the United States had been the basis for its recuperation from previous economic crises, now tumbled into further distress. In early 1930, the government resigned. The new government, under Heinrich Bruening, which was based solely on emergency powers without a parliamentary majority, was equally unable to achieve stabilisation. Although two election campaigns for the Reichstag were held between July and November 1932, no stable government was able to form. In early 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg decided to appoint Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, to be Germany's new Chancellor, in spite of the fact that his National Socialist Party had in fact lost votes and seats in the November elections.
The Emergence of the Nazi Party
The Nazi movement's gradual rise to prominence took place against the background of the formation and ongoing crises of the Weimar Republic. In January 1919, an Antisemite by the name of Anton Drexler established the ΓÇ£German Workers PartyΓÇ¥, whose goal was to maintain the purity of the German race, to fight the Jews, and to unite all Germans. Adolf Hitler joined the party in September 1919. In July 1921 he was appointed chairman of the newly named National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 8 November 1923, Hitler attempted to stage a coup and to seize power in Bavaria, from which he hoped to take over all of Germany. The putsch failed, Hitler was sent to prison, and his party was banned. Following his release from prison, Hitler resumed his political activity, and the ban on party activity was lifted in early 1925. From 1926 on, the NSDAP began to reorganise itself as a party for the masses. Although it was a marginal factor in the political life of the republic throughout the 1920's, the economic crisis of the early 1930's led to a significant increase in the party's strength. The electoral support of the NSDAP climbed from 2.4 in May 1928 to 18.5 percent in the September 1930 elections, and peaked at 37.9 percent in the elections of July 1932. Although the Nazi party lost some of its strength in the next elections, which were held late that year, Hitler became the leading candidate to form Germany's next government.
More on
The NSDAP becomes a mass party
In 1927, the Nazi party began to focus its efforts on attracting the support of the middle class. One may gauge the potential of this support as viewed by the NSDAP people, from remarks by the Deputy Gauleiter of Hannover, Karl Dincklage, in December 1927: 'In full agreement with the remarks of our leader in Weimar, we too believe that we shall not yet succeed in winning much ground from the Marxists in the coming election. We shall receive most sympathy from the small business man as the strongest opponent of department sand consumer co-operatives. Further, from the white-collar worker, who, being in the DHV [German National Commercial Employees' Association] is already antisemite...'. (Noakes 90)
