impact of WW1 in Germany

• Kaiser runs away to the Netherlands
• Kaiser orders Navy soldiers to fight in the trench, they rebel and he flees
• They need a whole new constitution because he does not have someone to take over after him
• The people don't know that they are in trouble because they where told that they where winning. This is because of propaganda
• The war was expensive, so they had little money left after buying all of their weapons and paying for uniforms
• They are in financial debt
• They plan to take the money from their defeated opponents, but since they lost the war, they didn't get an money from them
• Widows get pensions when their husband dies in war, so they are still also paying money to all of these widows until they die (600,000)
• The widows with more children get more money then those with fewer or none
• They try and get some of their money back by trading, but the production in Germany was down and some of the factories where destroyed, so they had nothing to trade with
• They still had to pay taxes
• The economy is now down by 2/3. lots of money going out, not very much coming in
• Germany is on the verge of bankruptcy
• Women are working in the factories to prove that they are equal to men
• The traditional people did not like this. They wanted things to stay the same as they where, with women not in the work force
• By the end of the war the realised that it was necessary, but they did not like it
• Mostly everyone else was okay with women working. This caused a split in society
• The factory owners are making huge amounts of money because of all the orders they are getting
• Factory owners where kept at the same wadges, so did not get any more money
• Some where really rich and some where really poor and suffering
• The divide is getting worse
• They need a new political system
• LEFT WING, Everyone (including women) can vote
• RIGHT WING, mainly traditionalists, they didn't want women to be able to vote
• The constitution and the Kaiser decided on proportional representation
• No one would get the majority of the votes, which means that they would have to form a coalition government
• The problem is that they don't have the same views, which causes a lot of arguments
• Compromise. Agreeing to some of what the other party wants in order to get other things that you want to happen done
• Voting in the social democrats. The rich are small and in the minority of the population
• Germany gets democracy because they lost the war. It feels like a punishment, particularly for the right wing
• Weimar republic, the November criminals (basically the house of commons/parliament)
• November because that is the month that they surrendered
• They sign the treaty of Versailles, they view it as a betrayal of their country