He used the jail time to dictate his political ideas in a book, Mein Kampf-My Struggle. His trial brought him fame and followers. In 1923, he was imprisoned for trying to overthrow the government. Adolf Hitler had been undisputed leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party-known as Nazis-since 1921. Germany’s fledgling democracy was profoundly tested by the crumbling of old values and fears of what might come next. For the first time, women were working outside the home in large numbers, and the new constitution gave women the right to vote. New social problems emerged from the impact of rapid industrialization and the growth of cities. Right–wing propaganda and demonstrations played on fears of a Communist revolution spreading from the Soviet Union. In 1932, ninety-nine people were killed in the streets in one month. Many political parties had their own paramilitary units to attack opponents and intimidate voters. ![]() In a country plagued by joblessness, embittered by loss of territory, and demoralized by ineffective government, political demonstrations frequently turned violent. The German banking system collapsed, and by 1930 unemployment skyrocketed to 22%. Economic conditions stabilized for a few years, then the worldwide depression hit in 1929. Middle class savings were wiped out as severe inflation left the currency worthless. Thousands of Germans waited in lines for work and food in the early 1920s. A new and unfamiliar democratic form of government-the Weimar Republic-replaced the authoritarian empire and immediately faced daunting challenges. Troops left the bloody battlefields and returned to a bewildering society. Many veterans and other citizens struggled to understand Germany’s defeat and the uncertain future. “It cannot be that two million Germans should have fallen in vain,” Adolf Hitler later wrote. In fact, the German military had quietly sought an end to the war it could no longer win in 1918. To many, including 30-year old former army corporal Adolf Hitler, it seemed the country had been “stabbed in the back”-betrayed by subversives at home and by the government who accepted the armistice. Germany was forced to accept full responsibility for starting the war and to pay heavy reparations. What shocked so many in Germany about the treaty signed near Paris, at the Palace of Versailles, was that the victors dictated a future in which Germany was deprived of any significant military power. The humiliation of Germany’s defeat and the peace settlement that followed in 1919 would play an important role in the rise of Nazism and the coming of a second “world war” just 20 years later. Winston Churchill said the war left “a crippled, broken world.”Īftermath of World War I and the Rise of Nazism, 1918-1933 It was a cataclysm that darkened the world’s view of humanity and its future. Under the pressure of unending carnage, governments toppled and great empires dissolved. Advances in the technology of killing included the use of poison gas. ![]() ![]() Millions of veterans were crippled in body and in spirit. ![]() More than one third of all German men aged 19 to 22 were killed. “It is the ending of the world.” Half of all Frenchmen aged 20 to 32 at war’s outbreak were dead when it was over. “This is not war,” one wounded soldier wrote home. It became known as “the war to end all wars.” It cast an immense shadow on tens of millions of people. The first “world war,” from 1914 to 1918, was fought throughout Europe and beyond. What followed soon after were two devastating wars. The 20th century began much like our own-with hope that education, science and technology could create a better, more peaceful world. More than fifty million people from around the world visited the Universal Exposition-a world’s fair intended to promote greater understanding and tolerance among nations, and to celebrate the new century, new inventions, exciting progress.
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