A republic born in defeat

In November 1918 Germany was losing the First World War. Sailors mutinied, revolution spread, and Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated. A new democratic government signed the armistice on 11 November 1918, ending the war.

• Friedrich Ebert (Social Democrat) led the new republic.
• The Weimar Constitution (1919) was very democratic: votes for all over 20, a President and a Reichstag (parliament) elected by proportional representation.
• Article 48 let the President rule by emergency decree without the Reichstag.

Watch out: proportional representation was fair, but it produced many small parties and weak coalition governments that struggled to agree — a built-in weakness.

When did the fighting stop?

The Treaty of Versailles, 1919

The peace treaty (June 1919) punished Germany harshly. Germans called it the Diktat — a dictated peace — and blamed the new government, branding them the "November Criminals".

Why it mattered: resentment of Versailles gave extremists — especially the Nazis — a powerful grievance to exploit for the next 20 years.

Why did Germans hate Versailles?

The crisis year: 1923

When Germany fell behind on reparations, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr (Germany's industrial heartland) in January 1923 to seize goods by force.

• The government told workers to go on strike ("passive resistance") but still paid them.
• With no goods being made and money owed, the government printed money — triggering hyperinflation.
• By late 1923 a loaf of bread cost billions of marks; savings became worthless.

Winners and losers: people with savings or fixed pensions were ruined; but those with debts could pay them off in worthless money. The chaos discredited democracy.

Stresemann and recovery

Gustav Stresemann became Chancellor in 1923 and steered the recovery — the "Golden Twenties".

• Ended hyperinflation by introducing a new currency, the Rentenmark (1923).
• Dawes Plan (1924): US loans and easier reparation payments restarted the economy.
• Locarno Pact (1925) and joining the League of Nations (1926) improved Germany's standing abroad.
• Culture flourished — cinema, cabaret, art and architecture (the Bauhaus).

Watch out: the recovery was fragile. It depended heavily on American loans — if those were ever recalled, Germany would be in deep trouble. Stresemann himself said Germany was "dancing on a volcano". He died in October 1929.

Put the Weimar events in order

Tap the events in chronological order, earliest first.

How was recovery funded?

Hitler and the early Nazi Party

Adolf Hitler joined the tiny German Workers' Party in 1919. He soon led it, renamed it the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and in 1920 published the Twenty-Five Point Programme.

• Set up the SA ("Brownshirts") — a private army to protect meetings and intimidate rivals.
• Munich Putsch, November 1923: Hitler tried to seize power in a coup. It failed; he was jailed.
• In prison he wrote Mein Kampf and decided to gain power legally through elections, not force.

Key idea: the failed Putsch was a turning point — Hitler switched from violent revolution to winning votes. That decision shaped everything that followed.

Why did the Munich Putsch matter?

The Depression changes everything

The Wall Street Crash (October 1929) ended the boom. America recalled its loans, and the Great Depression hit Germany hardest of all.

• By 1932 around 6 million Germans were unemployed.
• People lost faith in the weak coalition governments, which cut spending and ruled by Article 48 decree.
• Nazi Reichstag seats leapt from 12 (1928) to 230 (July 1932) — the largest party.

Causation link: no Depression, no mass Nazi vote. Hard times made Hitler's simple promises — jobs, bread, national pride, someone to blame — suddenly attractive.

Why did support for the Nazis grow?

How bad was unemployment?

Hitler becomes Chancellor

Despite Nazi votes, President Hindenburg refused to make Hitler Chancellor at first — he distrusted him. Instead there was political scheming.

• Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher took turns as Chancellor but could not govern with a Reichstag majority.
• Von Papen convinced Hindenburg he could "control" Hitler by giving him the top job with few Nazis in the cabinet.
• On 30 January 1933, Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor.

Misconception alert: Hitler was not voted in as dictator. He was appointed Chancellor through backroom deals — the conservative elite thought they could use and control him. They were badly wrong.

How did Hitler get power?

The Reichstag Fire

On 27 February 1933, weeks after Hitler became Chancellor, the Reichstag building burned down. A young Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was caught at the scene.

• Hitler blamed a communist plot and used it to spread fear.
• Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending civil rights and allowing the arrest of thousands of communists.
• This wrecked Nazi opponents just before the March 1933 election.

Interpretation awareness: historians debate whether the Nazis started the fire, but what matters for the exam is how Hitler used it — as an excuse to crush opposition and grab emergency powers.

The Enabling Act, March 1933

After the March election the Nazis, with communists banned and opponents intimidated by the SA, pushed through the Enabling Act on 23 March 1933.

This is the crucial step. From here Hitler could rule by decree. He quickly banned other parties and trade unions — by summer 1933 Germany was a one-party state.

Misconception alert: the Enabling Act made the dictatorship look "legal", but it was passed under intimidation and after communists were barred from voting. Legal on paper — not genuinely democratic.

Match the step to its significance

Tap an event on the left, then its significance on the right.

Night of the Long Knives

By 1934 the SA and its leader Ernst Röhm were a problem: the SA was huge, Röhm wanted a "second revolution", and the regular army distrusted him.

• On 30 June 1934, the SS murdered Röhm and other SA leaders (plus old enemies like von Schleicher).
• Hitler removed a rival power base and won the loyalty of the army.

When Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, Hitler merged the roles of Chancellor and President to become the Führer. The army swore a personal oath of loyalty to him.

How Hitler turned Chancellor into Führer

When did Hitler become Führer?

Terror and the police state

The Nazis controlled Germany through fear as well as propaganda. The SS (led by Himmler) ran the state's machinery of terror.

• Gestapo — the secret police; could arrest without trial. People feared informers and often self-censored.
• SS — an elite force loyal to Hitler; later ran the concentration camps.
• Courts and judges came under Nazi control; the first concentration camp opened at Dachau (1933).

Key idea: the Gestapo was smaller than people imagined. Much of its power came from ordinary Germans denouncing each other, so people policed themselves.

Propaganda and control of minds

Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, controlled what Germans saw, heard and read.

• Cheap radios (the "People's Receiver") spread Hitler's speeches into every home.
• Newspapers, films and posters were censored; the 1936 Berlin Olympics showcased the regime.
• Mass rallies at Nuremberg created spectacle and a sense of belonging.
• Books by Jewish or anti-Nazi authors were burned.

Source skill: Nazi photos and posters are propaganda — designed to persuade. Always ask who made this, and why? before trusting what a source shows.

Why use propaganda AND terror?

Young people and education

The Nazis wanted to control the next generation.

• Hitler Youth (for boys) and the League of German Girls trained loyalty; membership became compulsory.
• Boys were prepared to be soldiers; girls were prepared to be mothers.
• School lessons were rewritten — History glorified Germany, Biology taught racial ideas, PE was heavily emphasised.

Aim: raise children who were fit, obedient and utterly devoted to Hitler — future soldiers and mothers of the "master race".

Women, work and the economy

• Women: encouraged to leave paid work and focus on the "three Ks" — Kinder, Küche, Kirche (children, kitchen, church). Medals rewarded large families.
• Work: unemployment fell sharply. Public works like the autobahns, rearmament, and the RAD (labour service) created jobs.
• The "Strength Through Joy" scheme offered workers cheap holidays and leisure — but trade unions were banned.

Balance it: jobs returned, but at a cost — no free unions, wages controlled, and rearmament (not consumer goods) drove the recovery.

The Nazi view of women

Persecution of Jews and minorities

Nazi ideology was built on racism and antisemitism. Persecution grew steadily harsher through the 1930s.

• 1933: boycott of Jewish shops and businesses.
• 1935 Nuremberg Laws: stripped Jews of citizenship and banned marriage between Jews and other Germans.
• 1938 Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass"): synagogues and Jewish shops attacked across Germany; thousands sent to camps.
• Others were persecuted too — Roma, disabled people, homosexuals, and political opponents.

Causation: notice the escalation — boycott → loss of rights → open violence. Each step made the next seem "normal".

Opposition and resistance

Despite terror, some Germans resisted:

• Some Churches spoke out — Pastor Niemöller and Bishop Galen criticised the regime.
• Youth groups like the Edelweiss Pirates and Swing Youth rejected Nazi conformity.
• The White Rose student group distributed anti-Nazi leaflets (its leaders were executed in 1943).
• In 1944 army officers attempted the July Bomb Plot to assassinate Hitler — it failed.

Why so limited? Fear of the Gestapo, propaganda, and genuine support for jobs and national pride meant most Germans conformed rather than resisted.

The home front and the Final Solution

When war began in 1939, life for ordinary Germans grew harder, and persecution turned to mass murder.

• Home front: rationing from 1939; from 1942 "total war" meant women were pulled back into factories; Allied bombing devastated cities.
• The Final Solution: from 1941–42 the Nazis moved to the systematic murder of Europe's Jews in death camps such as Auschwitz — the Holocaust, in which around six million Jews were killed.
• Defeat: as the Allies closed in, Hitler took his own life on 30 April 1945; Germany surrendered in May 1945.

Where the story ends: the depth study runs 1918–45 — from the birth of Weimar democracy to the total collapse of the Nazi dictatorship in war.

When did Jews lose citizenship?

The key dates to know

You've covered the whole 4HI1 depth study — Weimar, the Nazi rise, consolidation, life under the Nazis, and the war. Press Finish to see your score.