IN POST WWI GERMANY

The Treaty of Versailles

TREATY OF VERSAILLES(Paris Peace Conference Jan. – June, 1919)

Major Players

• 27 nations attended (Allied)

• “dictated peace”

(“The Big Four”)

• David Lloyd George (Britain)

• Georges Clemenceau (France)

• Woodrow Wilson (USA)

• Vittorio Orlando (Italy)

The Price of Defeat (Clauses)

• The Rhineland was to be demilitarized.

The Price of Defeat

• German army reduced to 100,000 soldiers

No conscription

The Price of Defeat

• Small Army

• No Tanks

• No Air Force

• No Submarines (6 ships)

• No Reserves

• Germany and Austria were forbidden to join. (Anschluss)

The Price of Defeat

XGermany Austria

The Price of Defeat

• Lost all overseas colonies– Mandates

The Price of Defeat

The Price of Defeat

• Saar Basin (coal producing)

French allowed to mine for 15 years

The Price Of Defeat

• Took all blame for WWI.

“War Guilt Clause”“Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage which the Allied…Governments and their nationals have been subjected to as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.”

The Price Of Defeat

• Germany was forced to pay reparation payments to the victorious nations. In the amount of…

France 52%

British Empire 22%

Italy 10%

Belgium 8%

Others 8%

• In the midst of political chaos in Germany politicians met in the German town of Weimar to discuss a new constitution.

• The new German Republic met in February 1919. (WEIMAR REPUBLIC)

• This was meant to be the new liberal democratic government of Germany but the government was not to last.

Dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles

• Ex-soldiers felt that they had been ‘Stabbed in the back’ and felt that they had not been defeated.

• Hatred over provisions (I.e. War Guilt Clause)• The Spartacist rising, amongst others, led to many

people fearing a Communist revolution in Germany.• Gave rise to parties who promised to overturn the treaty.

(I.e. NAZI Party)• Many Germans also associated liberalism with the

victors of WWI“Fight against liberalism in all it’s forms, liberalism that…

defeated Germany, was the common idea which united socialism and conservatives in one common front.”

- Friedrich Hayek

• Germany stopped making reparation payments in 1923; France and Belgium invaded the Ruhr valley, production halted, inflation skyrocketed.

• Germans watched as their savings disappeared

Following the disaster of 1923…• The situation in Germany improved slightly

thanks to the Dawes Plan and the introduction of a new currency…

• However, the stock market crash in the United States and the ensuing Great Depression plunged Germany back into economic hardship once again

DAWES PLAN (1924): American banks lent money to the German government so that reparation payments could be continued. This made Germany financially reliant on the USA and caused debt to grow. This plan was later replaced by the Young Plan (1929).

The Great Depression

• The economic crisis caused the rise in popularity of more extreme parties offering radical solutions to Germany’s problems.

• American bankers and financiers needed their money back from Germany.

• German industries could no longer sell their goods abroad which resulted in mass unemployment.

• Middle classes scared of Communist revolution.

Votes for the Nazis Unemployed in Germany

“We will become Reichstag deputies in order to cripple…Weimar… with its own type of machinery. If a democracy is so stupid as to provide us with free tickets…that is its own affair…We come as enemies! We come like the wolf which breaks into the sheepfold.”

- Joseph Goebbels

“Instead of working to achieve power by armed coup we shall have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag…Sooner or later we shall have a majority, and after that Germany.”

- Adolf Hitler

According to the quotations by Joseph Goebbels and Hitler, how did the Nazi Party

plan to get control of Germany?

• Areas of Austria and Czechoslovakia had large German-speaking populations, so many Germans felt these people were part of a larger German-speaking nation.

• Hitler later used the term “Lebensraum” (living space) to justify the taking of these lands.

• Germany had a strong military history and was strongly influenced by the policies of Otto Von Bismarck (“Blood and Iron”)

• Germans were tired of decades of instability and were motivated by promises of a strong, stable government.

• Hitler also used the fear of the German people to justify the use of military force to “subdue” his opponents.

Go to pg. 176 and read “The Program of the Nazi Party”.

Answer the questions that follow; when finished, discuss with a partner.

“Education for Death: The Education of one of Hitler’s Children”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASW3UCc17AI