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Phases of the Weimar Republic. Revolution and peacemaking (1918/19) Inflation (1920-23) Stabilization (1924-29: the “Golden Twenties”) Great Depression (1930-33). A modern dance routine at Herwarth Walden’s art gallery in Berlin, “Der Sturm,” 1923. Otto Dix, “Metropolis” (1927/28).
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Phases of the Weimar Republic Revolution and peacemaking (1918/19) Inflation (1920-23) Stabilization (1924-29: the “Golden Twenties”) Great Depression (1930-33)
A modern dance routine at Herwarth Walden’s art gallery in Berlin, “Der Sturm,” 1923
Postcard of Hitler in Landsberg Prison (1924) TOTAL GERMAN SALES: 1929: 23,000 1932: 80,000 1933: 1,500,000 1945: 10,000,000
CORE IDEAS OF MEIN KAMPF (1924-26) • All great cultures have been created by the Aryans (the Indo-Aryan language group includes ancient Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, and Old High German). • The Jews always seek to divide and exploit the Aryans; today the Jews are responsible for Communism, the liberal press, pacifism, international finance capital, pornography, abstract art, and psychoanalysis. • Germany must rearm and should ally with Italy and if possible Great Britain to gain Lebensraum in Eastern Europe.
Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) ran for President in 1925:“I extend my hand to every German who supports the nation and desires confessional and social peace.”
Until 1930 the KPD was much larger and appeared more dangerous than any far right group:Ernst Thälmann leads a march of Red Combat Veterans in Berlin, June 1927
“Karl Liebknecht House,” the KPD headquarters in Berlin, 1929:According to the Comintern’s new “ultra-left” line, Social Democrats were denounced as “social fascists”
THE POLARIZATION OF THE GERMAN ELECTORATE IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION
CAUSES OF THE PARALYSIS OF THE REICHSTAG • A deepening rift on the Left between the SPD and a newly Stalinized KPD. • The growth of single-issue parties for farmers, inflation victims, small business owners, and regionalists that drained support from the moderate parties. • The turn of the DNVP toward a fascistoid course under the press baron Alfred Hugenberg, leaving the Great Coalition as the only possible majority coalition. • The growing impatience of President Hindenburg and the Reichswehr with Social Democratic opposition to rearmament and agrarian protectionism. These factors help explain why the Great Coalition failed to reach any agreement on a budget in Jan-March 1930.
Chancellor Heinrich Brüning(1930/31), nicknamed the “Hunger Chancellor” by the Communists
The Center Party campaigned against the extremism of Left and Right but sometimes lumped the SPD with the KPD
Thousands of Stormtroopers march the streets of Brunswick in October 1931
Gregor Strasser (1892-1934), pharmacist & Reich Organization Leader of the NSDAP Dr. Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), appointedGauleiter of Berlin in 1926
Hitler with young Stormtroopers in the Munich Party Headquarters, 1932:Tomorrow belongs to us!
Chancellor Franz von Papen and his defense minister, General Kurt von Schleicher.Why did they topple Brüning?(Turner, pp. 11-14)
“We workers are now awake.We vote National Socialist” (July 1932):The Communist bum exalts the Soviet Union and class warfare; the SPD labor boss, “agitation and mass rallies.”
“The Worker in the Realm of the Swastika!” (SPD, July 1932) “The People Will Die from this System!”(SPD, July 1932)
“Bravo Herr von Papen! Just continue with your emergency decrees: You are giving us Communists our best chance!”(Nazi campaign poster, November 1932)
Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher addresses a rally in Berlin on January 15, 1933