Weimar Germany 1918

2. The Weimar Republic
• The impact of WWI devastated Germany
• The punitive nature of the Treaty of Versailles
made it worse
• The Weimar Republic veered from crisis to
crisis from 1918-1924
• By 1933, the National Socialist German
Workers Party (Nazis) emerged victorious

3. Effects of WWI
1914
• Germany was an industrial and economic
powerhouse
• Militaristic, nationalistic, imperialistic
• Went into WWI with a high sense of
optimism and confidence

4. Impact of WWI
1918
• Germany defeated - In August Hindenburg
reveals that victory is not possible
• People surviving on turnips and sawdust
bread
• Flu epidemic spreads through Germany
• Strikes and mutinies are rife - German
society is in chaos

5. Effects of WWI
German women search through
garbage for something to eat in Berlin
• Germany is virtually bankrupt
• National income 30% of 1914 levels
• Industrial production 70% that of 1914

6. Social divisions
• Huge gap between rich and poor
• Workers pay restricted but not
industrialists’ profits
• Female participation in workforce seen as
“un-German”
• German is faced with the task of
demobilisation of 2 million + men

7. Revolution
1918
Revolution and mutinies force abdication of
Kaiser
Socialists form government
Many despise new government and do not
warm to the unfamiliar notion of
“democracy”

8. November Criminals
Many Germans also believed that the “glorious” Germany
army and nation had not lost the war but had been betrayed
by Jews, Socialists and Communists at home.
The “Stab in the Back” theory is born

9. (Dolchstoßlegende literally quot;Dagger stab legendquot;)
The Dolchstoß was a central image in propaganda produced by
the many right-wing and traditionally conservative political parties
that sprang up in the early days of the Weimar Republic, including
Hitler's NSDAP.
In Mein Kampf he described a vision at this time which drove him
to enter politics. Throughout his career he railed against the
quot;November criminalsquot; of 1918, who had stabbed the German
Army in the back.
Even provisional President Friedrich Ebert contributed to the myth
when he saluted returning veterans with the oration that quot;they
returned undefeated from the battlefield (sie sind vom Schlachtfeld
unbesiegt zurückgekehrt).quot; It was meant as a tribute to the
German soldier, but it contributed to the prevailing feeling.

10. The distrust of the
general populace,
combined with the
threat of Bolshevism,
left the Weimar
Government in a
vulnerable position -
What happens next?
The danger of Bolshevism, Germany, 1919. Artist: Rudi Feld.
Hoover Institution Archives Poster Collection