Weimar Flashcards
(28 cards)
What was article 48
A law giving the chancellor the right to make laws in an emergency without having majority support from the reichstag
The Weimar government set up
Reichstag-elected by the people
President- elected by the people every seven years
Chancellor- elected by the president. In charge of day to day running
What is proportional representation
The number of seats a party gets in parliament is directly proportional to the percentage of votes they received
Give 3 disadvantages of the Weimar Republic
Article 48- it wasn’t clarified what counted as an emergency
Proportional representation- no party was big enough to have an impact
Opposition
Why was the Weimar government unpopular
People didn’t like the government for signing the Treaty of Versailles.
They blamed the Weimar government for the economic crisis Germany was in.
What is a republic?
A country without a monarch
In what ways was Germany in chaos between 1918 and 1919?
- people were starving
- The kaiser had fled
- The government was unpopular
- freikorps formed private armies
- there were constant revolts
What caused hyperinflation?
- In 1923, Germany failed to pay their annual war reparations payment
- As a result, the French invaded the Ruhr
Spartacists revolt
- It happened in January 1919
- It was a communist revolt
- It was led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
- 5,000 spartacists rebelled in Berlin
The Kapp Putsch
- It happened in March 1920
- It was a right ring uprising
- It was led by Dr Wolfgang Kapp
- The army refused to attack him
- He was eventually defeated when Berlin workers went on strike
The Red Army
- A Communist paramilitary group
* They rebelled in Ruhr in 1920 after the failure of the Kapp Putsch
The events leading up to hyperinflation (1923)
Germany failed to pay reparations…
The French invaded the Ruhr…
German workers went on strike…
The government printed paper money.
There was hyperinflation
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What was hyperinflation ?
- prices ran out of control
- currency became worthless
- people with savings were hit the worst
- people on wages were safe
Rebellions (1923)
- nationalist group Black Reichswehr rebelled in Berlin
- The Nazis attempt a putsch in Munich
- Communists take over Saxony and Thuringia
- Communists declare the Rhineland independent
Nazi policies
- Lebensraum- living space to grow
- A strong Germany
- A Fuhrer
- abolition of the Treaty of Versailles
- Autarky
- social Darwinism
Who was Joesef Goebbels and what did he do?
He was the minister of Nazi propaganda
He used radio, rallies, newspapers, posters and speeches to gain support
The Munich Putsch
- November 1923
- Hitler and the Nazis went into Munich to take power
- Kahr called the police who shot 16 nazis
- Hitler was arrested two days later
- He only served 9 months of a 5 year sentence
Why did Hitler attempt the Munich putsch
- the nazi party was stronger than ever (55,000 members)
- the Weimar Republic was in crisis
- he had a huge army of storm troopers
- he wanted to copy mussolini( the Italian facist leader)
Result of the Munich putsch
- the nazi party was banned
- Hitler was banned from public speaking until 1927
- Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in prison
Hitler set up the ss
Hitler set up the nazi youth
How did Weimar survive?
- In 1923, Stresemann comes to power
- he gets the government to call off the strike
- he gets France to leave the Ruhr
- Germany allowed to join League of Nations in 1926
- stresemann introduced reforms
- he sets up a new currency called the rentenmark
The Dawes plan
- Charles Dawes (U.S. budget director) helped to form the German reichsbank
- This ended hyperinflation
- The Dawes plan gave Germany longer to pay reparations
- Dawes agreed that America would lend Germany 800 million gold marks
The golden years
The entertainment business was booming
The economy was back on its feet
Gropius ( architect- led Bauhaus movement)
Marlene Dietrich ( singer/ actress)
Fritz Lang ( film maker)
Erich Maria Remarque( writer)
What happened in 1929 and what did this lead to in the 1930s?
The Wall Street crash which led to the Great Depression
This helped hitler gain power because It made the current government even more unpopular
Give two results of the Great Depression. What did hitler promise which would fix this?
Unemployment rose to 6 million
People were starving
Hitler promised work and bread which gained him lots of support
