Early Challenges to Weimar

• Military terms of Versailles

  • Military restrictions include having a maximum of 100,000 soldiers, 15,000 sailors, 6 ships, 0 submarines and 0 armoured vehicles.
  • Demilitarisation (removing military from an area) of Rhineland
  • Not being able to join with Austria.
• Public Opinion

  • The historian Jame Hawes says 'Germany should've won the war' Germany was usually the first country to develop new weapons such as very heavy artillery weapons, poison gas and functioning submarines.
  • Hawes says 'in August 1918, most Germans still genuinely thought they were going to win the war.'
  • This made the terms of Versailles even harder to accept.
• Background of Munich Putsch

  • Nationalist Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP), also known as the Nazi party staged the Munich Putsch
  • Hitler had been introduced to Ludendorff by Rohm, the leader of SA
  • Adolf and Ludendorff led the Putsch
  • Nazi's thought the Weimar Republic was weak due to economic crisis in 1923.
• The Munich Putsch

  • November 1923, The Nazi's entered a meeting of Bavaria government, Hitler demanded the government's support. The Nazi's took over the local police and army headquarters but Ludendorff secretly lets the government leaders go.
  • The next day, Hitler marched on Munich to declare himself as President of Germany, but the state police met the Nazi's, arresting Hitler and was sentenced to 1-year of 'fortress arrest'
• Hitler's imprisonment

  • Used his trial for publicity to spread Nazi message.
  • In prision he wrote his best seller 'Mein Kampf' which outlines his political objectives: need of destroying democracy, need for Lebenraum (to expand German territory to house the population), and the inferiority of the Jewish.
  • Realises he needs to reorganise the Nazi party to gain success