History - Germany

Treaty of Versailles

Treaty of Versailles

1919

10% of German land lost + all overseas colonies

Germany split in 2 - Poland given sea access

$6,600 million reparations

army reduced to 100,000 men

Hyperinflation

1923

causes - treaty of Versailles, France and Belgium took Ruhr

response - could no longer pay workers, printed more money, prices rose

1923 - 1USD = 200bil marks

Spartacist uprising

1919 - Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht

support from the working class

took over government newspaper and telegraph headquarters

result - failed, leader killed

Kapp putsch

1920 - Wolfgang Kapp and the Freikorps

12,000 Freikorps marched to Berlin + right wing groups supported them

Kapp became leader for a day

result - people rebelled, Kapp fled

Munich Putsch

1923 - Adolf Hitler and Erich Ludendorff

2000 Nazi supporters

result - Hitler went to prison, but made successful speech

Gustav Stresseman

solved hyperinflation → 1 rettenmark = 100 bil marks

got back Ruhr

Dawes Plan 1924 → given longer to pay

Locarno Pact, 1925 → joined the League of Nations

Young plan 1929 → reparations reduced from 6,600 to 2000 million

loans from the USA

Great depression

1929

50,000 firms closed

6 million unemployed - benefits cut by 60%

Hitler’s aims

strong central leadership, expand Germany, destroy communism and the treaty, establish Aryan master race

Hitler’s reforms

6000 trained speakers, public meetings, Nazi promises designed to appeal to everyone, 100,000 attended rallies

Nazi rise to power

1928 - 12 seats in the Reichstag → 1930, second largest party

1932 - 37% of the seats

Papen - deal with Hitler

Hitler as chancellor

1933

Reichstag burnt down by a communist

communism banned from elections

Enabling act - Hitler could make laws without Reichstag

Gestapo formed

trade unions banned

all political parties except from Nazis banned

Night of the Long Knives

Nazis created jobs

2000 miles of new motorways

all men forced to the 6 months of mandatory labor

300,000 troops, 2,500 war planes

Women in Nazi Germany

increase birth rate - 1936, 30% higher than in 1933

medals given to people with >4 children

marriage rates - 500,000 to 770,000

1939 - compulsory year of service

Nazis and religion

60% were protestant

1933 - concordat with the church

Reich church

6000 pastors joined the confessional church

Jews in Nazi Germany - Boycott and bans

1933 - Jewish people banned from state jobs

Jewish children could not play with non-Jewish children

Jews in Nazi Germany - Nuremberg laws

1935 - lost citizenship and could not vote

Jews in Nazi Germany - Kristallnacht

1938 - Jewish person shot diplomat - Goebbels created a campaign of violence

91 Jewish dead, all Jewish people fined 1 billion marks, 30,000 arrested

Jews in Nazi Germany - Invasion of Poland

1939 - 3.5 million Jews captured, forced into ghettos

Jews in Nazi Germany - Wansee conference

1942 - leading Nazis met

Jews would be transported to 6 death camps

gas chambers capable of killing 7,000 at once

Jews in Nazi Germany - final result

by the end of the war - 6 million Jews killed

Himmler

head of intimidation - controlled the police

he removed any threat to Nazi rule

SS - 250,000 members

informers, camps, gestapo, police and courts

Goebbels

minister of propaganda - controlled anything anti-nazi

newspapers - Nazis owned 2/3 of German newspapers

mass rallies

the arts - 200,000 books burnt, Hitler’s book

radio - 1939, 70% of Germans owned a radio

opposition - the army

1944 bomb plot - Claus von Stauffenberg

closest to success - failed, leaders killed

opposition - edelweiss pirates

youth group - 200 members

disorganised

1942 - 739 arrested,

1944 - 12 executed

opposition - white rose

Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst

1943 - first major public demonstration

leaders tortured and killed