Nazi Germany

• World War I ends

  1918
• As punishment for losing, Germany's two wartime allies the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires were carved up shortly afterwards
• The pressures of defeat plunged Germany into chaos and as a result the Kaiser abdicated
• Revolution and counter-revolution were the order of the day in Germany
• The Weimar Republic was declared the next year
• The Allies signed the Treaty of Versailles which dictated the terms of Allied Victory
• Germany lost territory, had to reduce its military massively, pay war reparations, and accept almost full responsibility for the war's outbreak
• Weimar Republic


  • One of the most democratic nations in the world at that point
  • Suffrage granted to everyone over the age of 20 including women
  • German people could vote on two aspects of the national government every seven years - president and reichstag
  • Proportional representation system where percentage of votes nationally dictated percentage of seats in the reichstag
  • President could call elections whenever he felt and had the important job of appointing the chancellor
• No party ever got 50% of the seats in the reichstag, so parties had to cooperate
• There were numerous attempts at revolutions such as the quickly aborted Socialist Republic of Bavaria and the 1920 Revolution led by Dr Wolfgang Cap
• Germany missed a war payment, so the French occupied the heavily industrialized region of the Ruhr
• This created the hyperinflation that the Weimar Republic is famous for
• In November 1923, another attempted revolution occurred in Munich led by Adolf Hitler and the SA
• The Weimar Republic managed to survive thanks to the intervention of Gustav Stresemann and Charles Dawes
• The Great Depression struck, tanking the US economy and dragging Germany's down with it
• President Hindenburg had to invoke Article 48 to pass laws without the approval of the reichstag
• The German people turned to different political parties to fix the problems, with some choosing communism and others placing their faith in the National Socialists (Nazis)
• The Nazis were popular because they wished to disregard the Treaty of Versailles, limit any foreign involvement in German affairs, and end the continuing economic crises
• After continuous victories in elections, Hindenburg agreed to make Hitler Chancellor in January 1933
• Hitler immediately began working to overthrow the government, using the Reichstag fire to paint all Communists as enemies of Germany
• Hindenburg issued the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, making Hitler the de facto dictator of Germany
• Over the next few months, Hitler established the Gestapo secret police, outlawed trade unions, and abolished all other political parties
• In 1934, Hitler ordered the SS and Gestapo to eliminate his enemies, including the head of the SA, Ernst Röhm, in the Night of the Long Knives
• After Hindenburg's death, Hitler assumed the role of President as well as Chancellor, declaring himself the Führer of Germany and creating a single-party dictatorship
• The lives of Germans changed massively under the new Nazi regime, with the media brought under the control of Joseph Goebbels and the Gestapo and SS cracking down on anyone who disagreed
• The German Labor Front was established, and the Strength Through Joy program was designed to keep workers happy and maintain class barriers
• In 1936, Hermann Göring was put in charge of the economy, beginning the Four-Year Plan to make Germany self-sufficient and leading to the start of German rearmament
• In 1938, German troops marched into Austria and Hitler announced its annexation, and Germany then occupied the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia
• In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II, and the Soviets invaded two weeks later
• The Allies, particularly Britain and the US, began bombing campaigns against German cities to destroy factories and infrastructure and frighten the Germans
• The Nazis implemented a policy of forced labor in the conquered territories, with Jewish and other "undesirable" populations rounded up and placed into concentration camps
• The Nazis attempted to decide on what to do with the Jewish population, eventually leading to the Holocaust and the extermination of around 5.5 million Jews
• After failing to conquer the Soviet Union, the tide of the war turned against the Nazis, and they were pushed back into Germany by the Soviets and the Allied invasion of Western Europe
• Most of the German High Command, including Hitler, committed suicide in April 1945, and Germany surrendered in May, ending the Third Reich and the Nazi regime
• After the war, Germany was occupied and divided into East and West, with the two parts reuniting in 1990 at the end of the Cold War
• The legacy of Nazi Germany is complex, as they committed unimaginable crimes but also reinvigorated Germany and built it into a military powerhouse