Our Stand

Our stand

In conclusion, with all the evidence that we have collected, the group concludes that it was the right situation that led Hitler to power. 

Though his charisma and oratorical skills may have gained him supporters and that he was wise to exploit the citizens' fear of communism to gain more support. If it were not for the Weimar government's political and economic weaknesses, his skills would have not been of any use as the citizens would already be satisfied with their lives and not demand change. The Great Depression also played a part in Hitler's rise in power as his promises at the time, would make the citizens' lives better. 

Thus, it was the right situation that allowed Hitler's rise in power.

Hitler's Charisma and Oratorical Skills

One of the factors of Hitler’s rise to power is due to his charisma and oratorical skills. Hitler had used his oratorical skills and charisma to his advantage in justifying the Germans' resent towards the Treaty of Versailles and wanted to abolish the Treaty. Hitler had a ideology that the Germans were a superior race compared to the others especially the Jews who he considered the lowest of them all. His ideologies were well received by the German people who were angry about the treaty of Versailles. In order to achieve his aims, he decided to reorganize the Nazi Party to make it strong and credible. It would then be able to capture the hearts of the Germans in elections. As a result, the Nazi Party's membership increased significantly. Under Hitler's leadership, the Nazi Party became more efficient and gained the respect of voters. Using his oratorical skills to his advantage, Hitler was able to garner the support of the Germans as he knew exactly what to say. This won him much support. Hitler's speeches and the way he was portrayed convinced many Germans that he was able to bring Germany to greatness

By Zhi Wei

The Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression sparked by the stock market crash of 1929 in the New York Stock Exchange.This affected almost every country in the world.

Source A:Picture of German kids holding up a sign, showing opposition

Source A shows German children's opposition to the shortages of jobs.USA recalling the loans and deposits which Germany was heavily dependent caused an economic crisis which led to factories,Banks and companies causing millions to lose their jobs,their hard earned savings which led to a social crisis.

Source B:Germans people supporting Hitler

Source B shows more support to hitler then the other parties.When the Reichstag was dissolved and elections were called, more people supported extreme parties such as the Nazi Party and the Communist Party compared to the moderate parties hoping for a change as they were angry and wanted decisive action.Since the previous President did not care about democracy and was a right winged nationalist.

I can infer from the sources that The Great Depression caused a social crisis due to its citizens suffering from poverty, and wanting a change in the people running the country for their opinions are moderate hoping it would change or alleviate the situation.Supporting parties with extreme opinions as they felt that parties of moderate opinions would not offer much change.



Citations:
Source A:http://whenintime.com/EventDetails.aspx?e=26800d8d-a3f9-4765-b1a0-88bb3f1868f5&t=/tl/dimplezz/adolf_hitler/

Source B:https://www.pinterest.com/pin/16325617370037402/

Exploitation of the fears of Communism

Just a picture(not a source)

Source A(Hitler's Speech)-"But they hand down their own worst sentence, in that they themselves confess to the failure of their efforts by the type of propaganda they use today. Once it was their desire to govern Germany better in the future than in the past, and they are forced to observe that the only real product of their attempts at government is that Germany and the German Volk are still alive."

I can infer from Source A that Hitler was exploiting the citizen's fear of communism against the Communist Party of Germany. As during the Weimar Republic years, the Communist Party of Germany was the largest communist party in Europe and seen as the "leading party" of the communist movement outside the Soviet Union. And as the "leading party" had to use propaganda and failed to improve Germany, causing the citizens to be fearful of Communism as they had no helpful impact on their lives as the only helpful things they did were that the citizens weren't completely eliminated.

Source B(Hitler's Speech)- "And there is no such thing as a nation—and thus no such thing as nationalism—if the army of millions who work with their intellects are not joined by the army of millions who work with their fists, the army of millions of peasants. As long as Nationalism and Socialism march as separate ideas, they will be defeated by the united forces of their opponents. On that day when both ideas are molten into one, they will become invincible!"

I can infer from Source B that Hitler was promoting Nationalism and Socialism and convincing the citizens that Nationalism and Socialism was the right way to go rather than Communism. As the citizens already had fear of Communism in the Soviet Union that the state having ownership of the all the lands and assets of every single person. The citizens of Germany would be likely to support Hitler.

Source C(Hitler's Speech) "Thirteen years ago we National Socialists were mocked and derided—today our opponents’ laughter has turned to tears! A faithful community of people has arisen which will gradually overcome the prejudices of class madness and the arrogance of rank. A faithful community of people which is resolved to take up the fight for the preservation of our race, not because it is made up of Bavarians or Prussians or men from Württemberg or Saxony; not because they are Catholics or Protestants, workers or civil servants, bourgeois or salaried workers, etc., but because all of them are Germans."

I can infer that Hitler is trying to recruit the Germany citizens into joining the National Socialists Movement against the Communism so that they will have higher chances of winning and eliminating Communism and having the Nazi Party take over the governing of  Germany.

Citations: Source A,B,C-(http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/appeal_to_the_nation.htm)

Political Weakness of the Weimar Government

Political weakness of the Weimar Government

The system of proportional representation

Proportional representation is a system in which a political party receives the same percentage of seats in parliament as the percentage of votes it won in the election.

Germany had been controlled by authoritarian rule for a very long time. The democratic Weimar Government had a president who was chosen by the people. There were no specific candidates for the party and people voted for a party instead. Parties gained the seats based on the number of votes won and the parties who gained the most number of seats wins.

 Article 48 of the Weimar government

On February 27, the Reichstag Fire damaged the house of Parliament in Berlin. Claiming that the fire was the first step in a Communist revolution, the Nazis used the fire as a pretext to get President von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree. And so, the single-party dictatorship in Germany begun... As a result, over the years, Hitler used Article 48 to give his dictatorship the stamp of legality so that he would remain in power.

Weimar Coalition

The Weimar Coalition is made up of the centre-left coalition of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the social liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) and the Christian democratic Centre Party, who together had a large majority of the delegates to the Constituent Assembly that met at Weimar in 1919. However, the different parties have different opinions and thus not able to cooperate, leading to the breaking up of the government. Therefore, the Germans seen the government as weak  

Kapp Putsch

The Kapp Putsch took place in Weimar Germany in March 1920. Wolfgang Kapp was a right-wing journalist who opposed all that he believed Friedrich Elbert stood for especially after what he believed was the humiliation of the Treaty Of Versailles. The Kapp Putsch was a direct threat to Weimar’s new government. Kapp was assisted by General Luttwitz who led a group of Freikorps men. On March 13th, 1920, Luttwitz seized Berlin and proclaimed that a new right of centre nationalist government was being established with Kapp as chancellor.

Spartacists carrying red flag through the streets of 

Berlin in their call for revolution on 1 December 1918.

The Weimar Government was opposed by the left. The 'left' refers to the Communists. One of the communist group 'Spartacists'  wanted to set up Communist government that is similar to the Soviet Union's one. The communist workers took control over many parts of Germany such as public buildings and put up red flags which is the symbol of communism, along the streets. The Spartacists rebellion took place on 5 January 1919 and ended on 10 January 1919. Many of the Spartacists were killed including the Spartacists leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. 

The 'right' was another group of German Army unhappy with the loss of the war as they felt that they should not have loss and have to carry the responsibility which makes Germany even weaker. 

Citations: 

Proportional representation- jash suren : http://hithitler123.blogspot.sg/2014/06/weakness-of-weimar-government.html

Article 48: http://www.woodville.org/documentos/131010was-weimar-doomed.pdf

Weimar coalition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Coalition

Kapp Putsch: C N Trueman "Kapp Putsch"

historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 22 May 2015. 3 Mar 2016.

Spartacists and German Army info: http://hithitler123.blogspot.sg/2014/06/weakness-of-weimar-government.html

Economic Weakness of the Weimar Government

Source A- American contemporary view of German World War I reparations. Political cartoon 1921.

Source A shows a large bag of money with 'Reparations' and a value on it, squashing a man with a t-shirt that says 'Germany'. This represents the large amount of reparations or debt that Germany had to pay due to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. This was a large burden to the already weak economy of post-war Germany and made many Germans resent the already unpopular Weimar government for agreeing to the terms.

Source B- A German poster urges passive resistance during the Ruhr crisis, under the motto "No! You won't subdue me!" (1923)

Source B shows a German Ruhr worker resisting the french and belgium soldiers. This is due to Germany's inability to pay reparations on time. As such French and Belgium armies marched into the Ruhr to take payment in materials. In return, the Government ordered the Workers to go on strike and not engage or help the soldiers in anyway.

This further caused the economy to collapse as Germany was not producing anything.

Source C- A woman using money as firewood for her stove

Source D- Children using money as a kite

Source E- A man using money as wallpaper

Source C, D and E shows the results of hyperinflation, in that money has less value and became useless. So much so that it was used for all the things mentioned above. To pay its debt, the government began printing more and more money so that it could be traded for foreign currency and used to pay other countries. However, this plan inevitably backfired with the currency quickly becoming useless and of little value.

It became so useless that it could no longer be used to pay reparations and Germany instead had to pay through materials like coal. Hyperinflation became even worse during the Ruhr crisis as the Government had to pay the workers for their passive resistance, they did this by printing more money.

Hyperinflation agitated the middle classes as their savings quickly became useless while the poor only became poorer.

Citations:

Source A- Wikipedia

Source B- Pintrest

Source C- BBC UK

Source D- Akruder. Glogster.

Source E- Wikipedia