SINGLE PARTY STATES- HITLER

Coming to power

Conditions of Wienmar Government

-How Born-

-End of September 1918 it was obvious that Germany could not win World War One

-Germany’s military leaders wanted the shame of defeat and the humiliating task of seeking terms to be shuffeld onto civilian shoulders.

-prince Max of Baden was appointed chancellor

-Announced resignation of Kaiser Wilhelm II

-New Chancellor - Freiderich Ebert (chairman of SPD)

-Republic formed.

-Groener-Ebert pact

-Treaty of Versailles 7 may 1919

-surrender of territories

- Demilitarise the Rhineland

- Reduce army to 100 000 men and 6 battleships

- Reparations 6.6 Billion Pounds

- "war guilt" clause

-Germans were stunned by the harshness, blamed on "november criminals and stab in the back"

-Wiemar Constitution

- Proportional representation

- Article 48

- Gave rights to president to rule by decree and suspend the rights of citizens

-1920 Kapp Putsh.

- Actually suceeded, but Kapp announced that he had accomplished all that he had to do, and fled to sweden

-Problems in early 20’s

- Ocupation of the Ruhr- January 1923

-Caused Huperinflation

-Money basically useless until November 1923

Passive resistance in Ruhr halted, ‘Rentenmark’ established

-Hitler and the Nazi party

- Hitler born in Austria on 20 April 1889

- Awarded Iron Cross In World War One but only rose to the rank of corporal.

- Remained in army and employed as an investigator to check on the Right-wing radical groups that had sprung up in Bavaria.

- Attended a meeting of the German Worker’s party in September 1919, joined it as member 7

- 1920 Clearly emerged as leader

- set out a 25-point program designed to attract a wide range of support.

- Called for strong leadership, abolition of treaty and unification of Germans in a greater Germany.

- 1921 set up S.A.

- by 1923 party membership was 55 000

- 1923 The Munich Putsch

- Went into beer hall, announcing that "the revolution has begun"

- Marched through city, fired apon by police

- Arrested two days later, charged with high treason.

- Propaganda triumph for Hitler: made patriotic speeches from the dock declaring that "there is no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918"

- Sentanced to 5 years prison in Landsberg prison, treated well, only served 9 months.

- Wrote Mein Kampf

-Problems in late 20s/ early 30s.

- Stressman era- 1924-29

- Stressman detested terms of treaty of Versailles and advocated a policy of fulfillment (meeting the requirements of the TOV as long as it served Germany’s greater interest)

- Considered a period of relative prosperity, cultural freedom

- However, Democratic system was unable to provide stable domestic Government, industrial relations deteriorated,

- Dependence on foreign loans

-Depression hits, October 1929

-By 1932, 6 Million Unemployed

-27 May 1930: Socialist Chancellor Hermann Muler forced to resign

-Bruning takes his place, end of democracy in Germany. From then on basically rules by Presidential decree.

-september 1930 New elections catapulted the Nazis into prominence. They rose from 12 seats in the old reichstag to 107 in the new.

-Timeline- hitlers rise to power from here.

Quotes

There is no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918

If outvoting them takes longer than outshooting them, at least the results will be guaranteed by their own Constitution!

"Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far in the corner that he'll squeak," Papen boasted to a political colleague.