Germany 1918-45

January 1919 - Leaders of allies met to decide what to do about the defeated powers.

• The Treaty of Versaille was imposed on Germany to:
  • Punish:
  • Economically weaken: 
  • Weaken militarily:                                             
    
• Loss of land and colonies (losing 13% European territory, 50% iron and 15% coal reserves)
• Disarmament (only 100'000 troops, no tanks/submarines etc, 6 battleships, Rhineland)
• War guilt (accept that it was ONLY Germany and their allies fault for outbreak of war)
• Reparations (Germany pays for damage done to allies - 6.6 billion)

Germany's Reactions

•  Angry as they were led to believe that they were winning the war
• Stunned by the severity of the treaty (since they had assumed it'd follow the 14 points)
• They felt it was unjust as they didn't believe that they began the war
• They began to blame the Jews and socialists for the loss of the war

Left-wing (Communist) views (mainly - KPD):

• All people treated equally (including workers holding political power)
• Promoted workers interests: they should own the land and businesses themselves
• Inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917 & wanted a similar revolution in Germany

• Spartacist Rising (1919)
• Brought Berlin to a standstill: attempted to set up a communist government.
• Lasted for 10 days with support but government turned to the Freikorps and volunteer soldiers who ended revolt
• Well organised: plan to occupy government HQ, newspapers and telephone offices.

Right-wing (Nationalists) views (mainly - National Party):

• Wanted strong authoritarian government headed by a powerful leader - return of Kaiser 
• Belief in Capitalism and protecting private businesses/landowners interests 
• Hatred towards Communists who opposed the Kaiser 

• Kapp Putsch (1920)
• Marched into Berlin to try and overthrow the government 
• Lasted 1 week with Freikorps support but Government had support of the majority of people in Berlin

 Germany was struggling with reparations in 1923, so France occupied the Ruhr to 'extract reparations'.

Passive Resistance: the German workers:

• Refused to work for the French.
• Carried out strikes and riots where they killed over 100 French workers who had been brought in.

This was encouraged by the government who:

• agreed with the protestors.
• encouraged strikes and arranged protests.
• gave money to strikers to help them.

However, it led to consequences:

• Workers of both countries were killed.
• Soldiers and the public killed a few people
• When there were strikes, production was halted and the French Occupation was made useless
• It also led to hyperinflation, as it crippled Germany and the government had to print more paper money.

Causes

• 1919-23 German income became very low due to the war effort, reparations and the Invasion of the Ruhr
• This led to the government printing more banknotes so there was enough money - but this decreased the value of the money

Effects

• This led to rapid price increase eg. price of bread
  • EG.  price of bread in December 1918 = 0.5 to November 1923 =  201'000'000'000
• This forced millions of Germans into poverty:
  • people on fixed wages, retired people, middle-class people
• However, it also benefitted some people:
  • farmers, landowners, people with loans and mortgages