Germany and the Great Depression

• The Nazis became popular due to the impact of the Great Depression, weaknesses of the Weimar Republic, and strength of the Nazi Party.
• In 1929, the Wall Street Crash occurred in the USA, causing banks to lose billions of dollars.
• The Great Depression affected Germany primarily due to unemployment.
• US banks stopped loans to Germany, causing German industries to lose finance and lay off workers.
• By 1932, 40% of workers in Germany were unemployed.
• The German government had no money, so it reduced unemployment benefits.
• The combination of factors led to families suffering and losing faith in democracy.
• The failure of the Weimar Republic was due to the inability of the government to solve the problem of unemployment.
• Heinrich Brüning became the Chancellor of the Weimar Republic in March 1930, just after the Great Depression was taking hold of the global economy.
• Brüning introduced policies to cut wages, aiming to increase employment.
• The public was unhappy with Brüning's policies as they saw their wages falling if they were employed and their benefits and social security falling if they were unemployed.
• The parliament and Reichstag resisted Brüning's policies, so he used Article 48 to ignore parliament and bypass the government.
• Brüning's reliance on 'Article 48' set a precedent for Hitler to use Article 48 after the Reichstag Fire.
• The next step after the Reichstag Fire was Hitler's use of the Enabling Law.