germany 1890-1945

• Reasons why the Kaiser introduced the Navy laws and Weltpolitik

  • Distract attention away from socialism
  • Increase support for the monarchy
  • Help make Germany a world power
• Impacts of World War One on German people

  • Starving as allies blocked imports of food
  • Rationing
  • Bombings
  • War weary
• Weaknesses or problems with the Weimar constitution

  • Proportional representation made it difficult to make decisions
  • President could suspend the constitution and pass laws without the Reichstag consent
• Reasons why German people hated the Treaty of Versailles

  War guilt clause - Germany had to accept blame for the war

  Army reduced to 100,000 men and 6 warships

  Forced to pay 6.6 billion in reparations

  Lost 13% of its land

  had to give Alsace-Lorraine to France
• Ways the Sparticists threatened Weimar in 1919

  Sparticist uprising

  • Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg
  • Took over important buildings
  • 50,000 workers went on strike in support
• Ways Dr Wolfgang Kapp threatened Weimar in 1920

  Kapp putsch

  • Friekorps marched into Berlin to overthrow the Weimar regime
  • Wanted to create a right-wing government
• Ways German people suffered during hyperinflation in 1923

  • Money became worthless so everything became really expensive
  • Food and goods shortages were worse as no one wanted to trade with Germany
  • Bank savings became worthless
• Impacts of Hitlers Munich Putsch

  • Occupied a beer hall in Munich
  • Marched into Munich but stopped by police
  • Hitler was imprisoned and Nazi party banned
  • Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (my struggle) which millions of Germans read
  • Gave Hitler more publicity
• Reasons people were attracted to the Nazis

  • Sign of hope after Great Depression
  • Scapegoated Jews
  • Hitlers promises
  • Propaganda + SA
  • Hitlers private army made the party seem organised
• Ways German people were terrified into conforming to the Nazis

  The SS

  • Feared for their cruelty
  • Hitlers bodyguards

  The Gestapo

  • Secret police

  Local wardens

  Members of the public encouraged to report disloyalty

  Concentration camps
• Ways the Nazis spread their ideology in Germany

  • Propaganda
  • Scapegoated Jews + Communists
  • Had to approve all artistic works
  • Censorship
  • Controlled newspapers, radios, films, posters
  • Public rallies
  • Architecture
  • Nazified schools
• Ways Women were affected by Nazi social policy

  • Banned from being lawyers
  • Encouraged to be mothers and stereotypical housewives
  • Medals for children
  • Marriage loans
  • League of German Maidens
  • expected to dress plainly
  • Taught to have a big family
• Ways young people were affected by Nazi social policy

  • Hitler youth - trained young boys for war, they ended up fighting in the war
  • League of German Maiden - trained girls in domestic skills and taught them to be mothers
  • Nazified schools - rewrote subjects to fit Nazi ideas
• Ways the Nazis persecuted the Jews during world war two

  • The final solution - killed them
  • Ghettos - Jews kept away from the population
  • Used for slave labour
  • Death camps
  • Approximately 6 million Jews were killed
• Ways the constitution in Germany made the Kaiser powerful

  Could dismiss:

  • The chancellor
  • The bundesrat
  • The reichstag
• Problems facing Kaiser Wilhelm in Germany

  Social

  • Threat of Socialist revolution
  • Gov didn't want to pass reforms

  Political

  • Kaiser under pressure to introduce reforms
  • Risked angering supporters
  • SPD popularity made it harder to pass legislation
• Impacts of the Navy laws and Weltpolitik

  Navy Laws

  • Increased German fleet
  • Expanded navy
  • Laws inspired patriotism
  • SPD lost seats

  Weltpolitik

  • Expanded Germany's territory
  • Boosted size of army and navy
• Key steps to Hyperinflation in 1923

  • Germany could no longer pay reparations
  • France and Belgium took Germany's resources instead
  • Occupied the Ruhr which led to a strike
  • Germany decided to print more money to pay striking workers
• Ways the Weimar government became stronger under Gustav Streseman

  • Introduce the Rentenmark to stop hyperinflation
  • The Dawes plan
  • The Locarno pact
  • Joined the League of Nations
  • The Kellogg-Briand pact
  • The Young plan reduced reparations
• Examples of Weimar's golden age in the 1920's

  • Improved unemployment, wages and housing
  • Women given more freedom
  • They could vote, enter politics, work, divorce easier, more opportunities
  • Advanced in art, music, literature and cinema
• Ways in which Hitlers personality attracted support

  • Charismatic, patriotic and energetic
  • Depicted as Germany's saviour
  • Came across as a strong leader
  • Authority over the SA
• How Hitler became dictator

  Gestapo

  Reichstag fire

  Election

  Enabling act

  Night of the long knives

  Trade unions

  Opposition

  President Hindenburg dies
• Reasons the SA were a threat to Hitler

  • Members were loyal to Ernst Röhm their leader
  • Worried that Röhm was too powerful
  • Were unpopular with leaders of the German army and some German people
• Impacts of the night of the long knives

  • Hitler sent men to kill or arrest Ernst Röhm
  • Also removed political opponents
  • Several hundred people were killed or imprisoned
  • Showed Hitlers brutality and that he could act above the law
• Ways the Nazis policy impacted the church in Germany

  Catholics

  • Concordat
  • Destroyed catholic education
  • Arrested priests
  • Disbanded catholic youth groups

  Protestants

  • Reich church
  • Nazified christianity, replaced cross with swaztika
• Examples of young people opposing the Nazis

  The Edelweiss Pirates

  • Helped army deserters, forced labourers and concentration camp prisoners
  • Gave out Anti-Nazi leaflets
  • They were arrested and some members hanged

  The Swing kids

  • Acted against the Nazi regime
  • Listened to American music
  • Drank alcohol
  • Some were sent to camps
• Ways people felt better off under the Nazis

  • Volkswagen
  • Strength through joy - provided workers with holidays
  • Beauty of labour - encouraged factory owners to improve working conditions
• Ways German people were affected by the Second World War

  • Smaller wages
  • Rationing
  • Women and children had to work
  • Non-essential businesses closed
  • Bombings killed thousands and made many homeless
  • Refugees caused further food and shelter shortages
• Ways Germany was changing under the Kaiser

  Economically

  • New jobs
  • Population grew
  • Working class expanded

  Socially

  • Rise in Socialism
  • Support for SPD grew
  • Working class wanted better reputation
• Impacts of the Wall Street crash

  Great Depression

  • German economy collapsed without Americas loans (Dawes plan)
  • Mass unemployment
  • Government cut unemployment benefits
  • Factories and banks closed
• Ways the Nazis made sure they won in 1933

  • Controlled the news media
  • Opposition meetings were banned
  • Blamed communists for the Reichstag fire
  • Used emergency powers to intimidate communist voters
• Ways the church opposed the Nazis

  • Confessing church protested against the Reich church
  • Martin Niemöller
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer - helped Jews escape and planned to assassinate Hitler
  • Clemens August Von Galen used his sermons to protest against Nazi policies
• Ways the Nazis got people into jobs

  • Construction of Autobahns
  • National labour service
  • Military conscription
  • Nazis labour front
  • Encouraged German industry to make more ships, aircraft, tanks and weapons
• Ways in which Jewish people were impacted by Nazi racial policy

  • Boycott of Jewish businesses
  • Banned from jobs
  • Nuremberg laws - banned marriage between Jews and non-Jews and stopped Jews being German citizens
  • Banned from many public places
  • Banned from schools
  • Kristallnacht - November 1938
• Ways opposition to the Nazis grew during the war

  • The Kreisau circle
  • The Rosentrasse protest
  • The White rose group - uni students who wrote Anti-Nazi graffiti and leaflets, many were executed
  • July plot of 1944 - bomb in a briefcase but the briefcase was moved and Hitler was unharmed, plotters executed
• Strengths of the Weimar constitution

  • Made Germany democratic
  • President was elected by the people
  • Very small parties were given seats
  • Allowed women and anyone over 20 to vote
• Changes made by Hitler to the German workers party in the 1920's

  • Renamed the Nazi party
  • Promoted policies in the Twenty Five point programme
  • Rejected the Treaty of Versailles
  • Founded the SA to intimidate opposition
• Ways in which Germany became a police state

  • Enabling Act
  • The peoples court
  • The sickerheitsdinest
  • Law for reconstruction of the Reich
• Pressures and threats facing Weimar Germany in 1919

  • The Treaty of Versailles made Germany feel betrayed by the republic - Diktak
  • The Spartacist uprising
  • Hate for signing the armistice - November Criminals
• Ways the German economy was prepared for or impacted by the second world war

  • Four year plan
  • Workers retrained
  • Hermann Goring aimed to make Germany self-sufficient
  • German workers conscripted
  • Used foreign workers
  • Albert Speer improved efficiency and weapons production
  • He used raw materials from occupied lands