Now we have to explore the prelude to the Second World War in Europe, again exploring how we go from the chaos of 1918 to the fascist regimes that initiate the conflict, foremost among them Nazi Germany. The critical narrative during this period is a general ‘crisis of democracy’, whereby the democracies of Europe are challenged and, with very few exceptions, replaced by autocratic states, many inspired by Italian fascism.
We already covered the nature of the triple crisis facing European governments after 1918 when we talked about the rise of Mussolini and Italian fascism, but I’m going to go over the basics again to reorient ourselves.
Economic crisis: the interconnected global economy is destroyed by WWI and never recovers, instead the continent slips into a massive recession after 1918. The barriers to international trade and finance makes the recession particularly long and arduous. The economic policies of many states only further hurt the economy, particularly true for the hyperinflation seen in Germany, Hungary, and other central and eastern European states.
Social crisis: the largest factor of this is mass unemployment, particularly mass unemployment of veterans. The inability of states to care for their population, and particularly veterans, is seen as shameful and delegitimizes governments. By 1920, this problem has been exacerbated by massive refugee movement across borders, further adding to the ‘surplus’ population that states are unable to effectively care for.
Political crisis: the political establishments of Europe are tainted for getting involved in WWI and thus exposing their population to a bloody and fruitless war. The politicians of Germany, Turkey, and the other Central powers are further discredited for having lost the war. All European states fail to effectively deal with the economic and social crises, creating an impression that capitalist democracies cannot solve the problems of the time.
France and Britain abdicate leadership
At the end of the First World War, most of the settlements of the conditions of the peace are to be enforced by Britain and France, the two major victors since the USA fucks off. Much of this enforcement is meant to be done under the mandate of the League of Nations. Both the League, and Britain and France independently, are crippled by economic crisis and political turmoil.
France and Britain are hit by the same general economic crisis that affects the whole world after 1918. On top of that, both countries have an enormous debt burden that they struggle to pay off.
Britain attempted to reestablish currency conversion with gold, but did so at too high a level, meaning that it set the conversation rate so that the supply of gold was much less than the supply of British pounds. This triggered multiple monetary crises, as the country hemorrhaged money, British exports lost competitive advantage to cheaper currencies, and the reduction in the money supply caused a deflationary crisis. Britain never recovers from the 1918 crash and the economy only gets worse during the Great Depression.
France suffered as the main battlefield of WWI, leaving large portions of its industry and agriculture destroyed after the war. Its ability to rebuild this industrial capacity is limited by indebtedness and its inability to recover war reparations from Germany. France is also debilitated by the collapse of international trade. Unlike Britain, France doesn’t enact austerity nor overvalue its currency, protecting its economy from further crises. The continuation of government spending, including issuing loans for rebuilding occupied areas, allows France to avoid an extended recession or widespread unemployment, at least until 1929.
The primary tactic to pay off the debt incurred during WWI is austerity measures, which deepen the economic recession. This austerity also sees a massive decline in military spending, meaning neither country is willing to engage in costly foreign and colonial wars. Austity is so popular partially because it is the dominant economic doctrine at the time. Voices that argue against austerity, like John Maynard Keynes, are a minority whose ideas are untested. The USA is also exerting immense pressure for a rapid repayment of loans, forcing Britain and France to focus on repayment over other budgetary priorities.
The ‘triple crisis’ in Britain and France not only reduces their economic ability to cover the costs of foreign intervention, but also saps both countries of the political will to intervene to enforce the peace treaties of 1918.
The war with the Ottomans is ended by the Treaty of Sevres, which carves up the Empire between Greece, Britain, Italy, France, and a new Armenian state. It is rejected by Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal ‘Ataturk’. Neither Britain or France is willing to enforce its terms and, after minor battles in southern Turkey, both agree to the new 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.
One of the provisions of the peace treaties that ended WWI was the establishment of various ‘free cities’ and plebiscite territories that were disputed and would be under League of Nations jurisdiction until a decision could be reached. At no point do Britain and France actually fight for these territories -- they give up on any military challenge, as shown during the two Italian occupations of Fiume.
After the defeat of the Central Powers in WWI, the Entente decided to intervene in the ongoing Russian Civil War, with the goal of preventing Communist victory. The intervention is logistically difficult, costly in a way that no one can afford, deeply unpopular among both soldiers and domestic populations, and bloody. Further participation just leaves countries with greater financial burdens, as refugees flee to occupied zones, and stain the conflict with the wartime atrocities of the allied White armies. By 1920, all Entente forces had evacuated Russia, except the Japanese, who remained in Siberia until 1922. Rather than fight Communism, the Entente reconciles itself to the existence of the USSR.
When we continue to see the rise of revisionist powers in Europe, as well as Japanese aggression in Asia, and repeated violations of the Treaty of Versailles by the Nazis in the 1930s, it will be in the political context of British and French weakness and American isolationism.
Civil war in central and eastern Europe
Because Austria and Germany collapsed in conditions of popular revolution and mutiny, their former territories lacked any centralized government authority. Conflict broke out between different groups of, now demobilized, soldiers. Some had different political objectives, some had different nationalist aspirations. Conflict was almost immediate and continued for most of the decade.
These conflicts, and the accompanying domestic persecution of minorities and refugee crises, was caused by the application of the principle of ‘nation states’ to ethnically mixed central and eastern Europe. Any possible border would include minority ethnicities, leading to conflict over mixed areas and persecution of minorities within borders. Around 30% of the population of eastern Europe ended up being ethnic minorities. These ethnic minorities are viewed as a threat to governments because just a few years ago, the existence of these people in this location was a reason for someone else to fight them and try to annex that territory.
The Russian Civil War, which began in 1917, continued for years, up until 1922. During that time, the war engulfed the entirety of the former Russian Empire, with conflicts occurring between Bolsheviks, nationalists, and other factions. The final borders of the new Soviet Union are only set through years of conflict. There was also an impression that Communism might expand from the USSR into Europe. This fear was occasioned by the success of the Bolsheviks in Russia; the 1919 Communist revolution in Hungary, which was coordinated with Lenin; and the 1920 Soviet invasion of Poland.
The Communist revolution in Hungary, led by Bela Kun, marked the first successful Communist takeover outside of the former Russian Empire and thus raised the prospect of Communism spreading to other parts of Europe. It was defeated in 1920 by a joint Romanian, Yugoslav, Czechoslovak invasion.
Even after the Bolsheviks seized control of most major Russian cities, there still was still the question of whether they’d expand to control the entirety of the former Russian Empire, having previously captured newly independent states in the Caucasus. In 1920, the answer seemed to be that the Bolsheviks would expand to capture the entirety of the former Empire, as they invaded the most powerful of the newly independent states: Poland. It was only the defeat of Leon Trotsky’s forces in Warsaw in 1920 that forced a Soviet withdrawal and secured the independence of eastern European states.
All of this fighting displaced millions of people, particularly in the former Russian Empire, where fighting was particularly long and brutal. Further refugee flows were started by intense ethnic persecution by new national governments.
These refugees were a consequence of intense nationalism, as many were minority ethnicities expelled from the new nation states of eastern Europe: Germans expelled from Poland, Hungarians expelled from Czechoslovakia, etc. No one wanted these ethnic minorities, which threatened the dominant position of the titular nationality of each country. They either had to find the one country where they would be a majority or get to a liberal western European state, like France, but western European states increasingly rejected refugees under conditions of poverty and mass unemployment of their own people. This problem was particularly intense for stateless groups, like the Jews or Roma, without their own nation-state. These groups were destined to a fate of constant persecution, imprisonment, and transit between different hostile nations unless they got lucky enough to get permission to come to the Americas.
Fascist groups were particularly successful at mobilizing public support against refugees. Central or eastern Europeans denounced them at ‘fifth columns’ threatening the dominant position of the titular nationality, whereas western Europeans shamed them as drains on the public purse and responsible for stealing jobs and lowering the wages of native workers.
Crisis of democracy
Between 1918 and 1939, virtually all the states of Europe became dictatorships, with the exceptions only of France, Britain, and the neutral nations of Scandinavia, Switzerland, and the Benelux. Of the new democracies of eastern and central Europe, only Czechoslovakia remained a democracy.
There is a general impression, from 1918 onward, but intensifying during the conflicts of the 1920s and economic hardship of the 1930s, that democracy is fundamentally unable to cope with the problems facing the world. Increasingly, people look elsewhere for solutions, either to the Communist dictatorship of the USSR, or to Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship in Italy, or to conservative authoritarian regimes that will ‘protect society’ from the radicalism of fascism and socialism.
Most of the dictatorships that will arise in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s are neither socialist nor fascist, merely nondemocratic. Some, like the Estado Novo in Portugal, do envision an entirely new conception of society. But most are not fascist or socialist, but rather arise out of a belief that democracies cannot cope with the violent challenges posed by socialist and fascist movements. If anything, the rightist dictatorships of Europe are formed in opposition to communism and fascism.
Eastern Europe lacked any democratic tradition or experience, being ruled by authoritarian monarchies until the end of WWI. Most of these democratic systems turn into dictatorships in reaction to a perceived threat to the established order, variably: communism (Hungary), fascism (Estonia), ethnic separatism (Yugoslavia), or weak government that would leave the nation exposed to foreign aggression (Poland, Lithuania). The Great Depression only compounded these political challenges by strengthening socialist and fascist movements.
Western European governments faced the same ‘triple crisis’ as elsewhere in Europe, namely a failure to effectively respond to the economic crisis beginning in 1918 and intensifying in 1929, the corresponding impoverishment and mass unemployment, particularly among returning veterans, and a lack of political legitimacy, challenged by both the socialist left and the fascist movement. Some governments, like Britain and France, face these challenges and survive. Both nations face threats from Communist or socialist uprisings and fascist movements, with the Croix Fer being particularly threatening. But their more entrenched democratic traditions and relative wealth, primarily through access to colonies, allow the democratic order to survive.
The same is not true in other parts of western Europe, particularly Italy, Spain, and Portugal. These countries are much much poorer, leaving them more exposed to economic crisis, less able to access resources, and less able to care for refugee, veteran, or indigent populations. The economic crisis and, in the case of Portugal and Italy, the social crisis, is much more acute in these countries. Accordingly, democratic governments cede power to or are forced by authoritarians who promise to resolve the ‘triple crisis’.
The Kiel Mutiny
For Germany, the end of the First World War was a result of the German Revolution, beginning with the mass mutiny of sailors in Kiel and spreading throughout the country as soldiers and sailors on leave marched around the country, overthrowing governments and demanding an end to the war wherever they went. The Kaiser abdicated and Germany became a republic on 9 November and this new government signed the armistice ending WWI on 11 November. So, WWI ends amidst a collapse of state authority within Germany.
The German Revolution began with a mutiny of sailors in the port city of Kiel on 3 November 1918. They are ordered on a suicidal last strike against the British fleet in the North Sea and refuse. This rapidly escalates to mutiny as sailors take control of Kiel and march south, demanding an end to the war. They are joined by demobilized soldiers.
As soldiers and sailors marched over Germany, they established councils of soldiers, sailors, and workers, based on the experience of the Russians in 1917. They usually disarmed any soldiers who didn’t join them and demanded that local or regional governments obey the councils. Soldiers councils, at least initially, were not particularly radical. They called for an end to the war, but kept civilian authorities largely in place and promised that soldiers would continue to enforce criminal law. The most revolutionary aspect was stripping officers of power and organizing on an equal basis.
The German establishment was caught off guard by the size and rapidity of the revolution. Opposition groups tried to take advantage of the scenario: the SDP tried to avoid Bolshevik revolution, the USDP tried to ensure maximum gains and avoid revolution, and the Spartikists tried to have a Communist revolution.
Who are all these groups?
The Social Democrats (SDP) are the primary opposition party in Germany. They begrudgingly supported the war and always opposed the Kaiser. Although they want a socialist society, they are horrified by the violence in Russia. Their leader is Friedrich Ebert.
The Independent Social Democrats (USDP) are a breakaway faction of the SDP that formed in 1917 in total opposition to the war. It is more willing to embrace revolution, but also horrified by the events in Russia.
The Spartikists, soon to become the Communist Party of Germany, are a faction of the USDP that fully supports revolution and wants a ‘Russian style’ revolution in Germany. Their leaders are Karl Liebknacht and Rosa Luxemburg.
The SDP is as scared witless by the ‘Russian style’ councils as the Spartikists are excited by them. Both mobilize to try to prevent or start, respectively, a Bolshevik revolution in Germany.
The German Revolution
On 8 November, just 5 days after the initial mutiny, the revolutionary soldiers and sailors reached Berlin. As a last ditch attempt to prevent a ‘Russian style revolution’ in Germany, the German government handed power to the opposition SDP, appointing Ebert as Chancellor on 9 November. The conservative German establishment may have wished to preserve power, using Ebert as a shield, but on 9 November the Jager cavalry regiment meant to guard the Kaiser announced loyalty to the SDP, prompting the Kaiser to abdicate the throne and flee to Netherlands.
The Spartikists then moved to occupy the Imperial Palace and Liebknecht announced the creation of a socialist republic based on the model of Soviet Russia. The SDP was preparing to announce the abdication of the Kaiser but, upon hearing of Liebknecht’s declaration across town a short time earlier, Philipp Scheidemann gets scared of being outmaneuvered by the radicals and announces that German is now a republic, with Ebert as president. The SDP itself had not decided on republicanism prior to this, preferring constitutional monarchy to avoid alienating conservatives. In fact, Ebert had recommended that the Kaiser abdicate to preserve the monarchy as recently as October 1918. But, the SDP never contradicted Scheidemann’s declaration and just kind of rolled with it.
Now, on 9 November, German has two governments: a republic under Ebert and the SDP and a socialist republic under the Spartikists. They eventually clash, but first there is scrabble to gather allies for the coming confrontation. Unsure about the loyalty of the revolutionary forces in Berlin, Ebert decides to reach out to the regular army still fighting in France. On 10 November, Ebert called Gen. Wilhelm Groener, head of German forces on the western front, at this headquarters in Spa and made an agreement for the army’s aid in crushing Communist revolution in Germany, something they both feared.
The real question in the first days of the revolution is where the loyalties of the revolutionary soldiers and sailors lay. The Spartikists in particular were banking on their support. However, the councils were never that revolutionary and generally supported either the SDP or USDP. On 10 November, the soldiers’ council in Berlin formally endorsed the Ebert government, greatly strengthening its position. Now having the backing of the main armed force in Berlin, Scheidemann convinced the USDP that their split is now irrelevant and that they should join together to create a new government. Helped by a threat by the soldiers’ council that the parties better resolve their differences or else, the SDP and USDP create a six-member provisional government on 11 November and pledge to hold free elections, which end up happening in January 1919.
The German Revolution in Bavaria was much more radical, with the USDP man Kurt Eisner being appointed head of a socialist republic on 8 November after the abdication of King Ludwig III on 7 November 1918. Although Eisner kept all civil and military authorities in power, the existence of his socialist state presented an alternative that terrified both the SDP and conservatives.
On 11 November 1918, the new SPD-run provisional government negotiated an armistice with the Entente. The German army would retreat back into Germany and across the Rhine, with Entente forces occupying the left bank of the Rhine until a peace treaty was signed. Large numbers of retreating soldiers reached Germany in late November and early December.
The period between the creation of the provisional government on 10 November and the inauguration of the Weimar Republic in February 1919 is marked by the continued attempts of the Spartikists to seize power, the attempt of the provisional government to maintain order, and the chaotic influx of armed, but demobilized, soldiers into Berlin, often organized into paramilitaries.
The councils didn’t go away, with soldiers and workers continuing to organize and make demands. The councils, from all over Germany, still largely endorsed the provisional government. They sent representatives to a meeting in Berlin between 16 and 19 December, endorsing Ebert’s call for a constitutional assembly and free elections. The soldiers and sailors who streamed into Berlin were usually much more radical than the councils themselves and it is they who associate most with the Spartikists. The continued presence of the councils terrified Ebert and the SDP. They believed they would prevent the reestablishment of the order upon which democracy and the economy depended. In late December 1918, the SDP called on the army to disband soldiers’ councils and restore order to their government, which it was largely successful in doing.
The overwhelming concern of Ebert and the SDP is the continued threat of a Bolshevik revolution. On top of regular fears of radical communism, the Entente threatened to invade if there was Bolshevism in Germany, giving Ebert more reason to crush communism.
An immediately apparent trend is the willingness of the SDP to use the army, now returned from the front, to fight radical leftists. This trend is first seen on 6 December, when Ebert orders the army to violently disperse a peaceful assembly by Spartikists. The next incident of conflict is on 23 December 1918 when – during the chaos of an unrelated incident wherein sailors (with USDP sympathies) who had been entrusted to guard the Ebert government, had done a shitty job, and had, due to a misunderstanding, taken some members of government hostage and gotten into a skirmish with the army until they were paid to fuck off – Sparticists allied with Berlin police tried to storm the Palace. They were repulsed by the army.
The willingness of Ebert and the SDP to ally with the army leads to a fracturing of the provisional government. Angry at the army’s violence on 6 December and 23 December, the USDP demands a reform of the army. As the key condition of his alliance with Gen. Goerner was that the government would not interfere with the internal affairs of the army, Ebert balks. The USDP members resign from the provisional government on 29 December. On 31 December, the Sparticists also officially broke off as the German Communist Party. All of this created a gap between moderate socialists, radical socialists, and Communists that are the conditions for more violence in 1919.
The Weimar Republic
The Sparticist revolt of January 1919, during which Sparticists occupied all major government buildings in Berlin on 5 January, was by far the largest clash and cemented the reliance of the SDP on the army and rightist paramilitaries, mainly the Freikorps, to crush the radical left.
Protests over the dismissal of radical Berlin police chief Emil Eichhorn turned into a full blown occupation of the city by the Sparticists on 5 January. The Ebert government fled while most soldiers did nothing. As soldiers, and especially sailors, often associated with the Sparticists, the Socialist government feared that the army currently in Berlin was politically unreliable and so recruited Freikorps paramilitaries (militias of demobilized soldiers) from more conservative outlying areas and marched them into Berlin on 11 January, defeating the Sparticists by 12 January and placing Berlin under martial law. After putting down the rebellion, the Freikorps murdered Leibknacht and Luxemburg after their arrest on 15 January. The Communists never forgave the SDP for the use of violence, particularly the murder of its leaders, or its alliance with rightists and always considered the SDP even more dangerous and hostile than the Nazis.
Elections are held on 19 January 1919 to a constitutional assembly and the Weimar Republic is created on 6 February 1919, out of a coalition between liberals, socialists, and Catholics. The Constitution, promulgated in August 1919, created a representative parliamentary democracy, but with a strong executive as President, including wide ranging emergency powers.
Now leading a democratically elected government, Ebert enters into peace negotiations with the Entente. Pressure on Germany during the negotiations remains intense, as Britain maintains its naval blockade of the country and the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine continues until the final peace treaty is signed at Versailles on 28 June 1919.
The Versailles Treaty split off part of Germany into Poland, gave Alsace-Lorraine to France, put the Saarland under French economic jurisdiction, and forced a demilitarization of the Rhine. It reduced the size of the Germany army (to 100k) and navy, and prohibited an airforce, submarines, and armored vehicles. Union with Austria was specifically prohibited. It also set an indemnity, whose massive size was only agreed upon in 1921. The German delegation balked at the strict and punitive terms of the treaty and initially refused to sign, only doing so after being threatened with Entente invasion should it refuse.
Until the total reparations amount was set in 1921, Germany was to transfer set amounts of gold, gold-convertible reserve currency (US dollars), and raw materials to the Inter-allied Reparations Committee. The privation caused by the reparations cripples the German economy and is a source of enormous public anger.
The terrible peace deal was blamed on the SDP and Weimar democracy as a whole. The ‘stabbed in the back’ myth also began to gain credence that pacifists, like the SDP, who had opposed the war, had sabotaged Germany. The fact that the new Germany was a republic led by the SDP, the same constitutional system and control that they had wanted, further intensified rumors about some shadowy plot between the SDP and foreign powers.
The Enemies of Weimar Democracy
The Weimar Republic has many enemies from across the political spectrum and, between 1919 and 1923, all of these groups will try to overthrow the government.
Communism:
The Communist threat to Weimar still exists and the murder of Liebknecht and Luxemburg in January 1919 only increased their hatred of the Republic and the SDP. At this point, they are in contact with Vladimir Lenin and organize their uprisings with assistance from the Bolsheviks.
The Right:
The German upper classes, including the officer corps, the high bourgeois, the landlords, and the aristocracy, all oppose democracy and form the core of the rightist movement. The rightists are angry about everything that the SDP has done since it came to power: freedom of speech, expanded workers’ rights, communists being alive. They want to reverse all of this, usually by establishing a military dictatorship. Rightists are also particularly sour about the Versailles Treaty and want Germany to defy it, even at the cost of another war. They are the most likely to believe the ‘stabbed in the back’ myth and blame the SDP for Germany’s loss in the war.
Fascism and the NSDAP:
The German fascist movement begins small and is mainly concentrated in Bavaria. Its first incarnation is the German Workers’ Party (DAP), which is a standard fascist party following in Mussolini’s example. The German fascist movement takes on unique characteristics, however, as it falls under the control of Adolf Hitler.
What, exactly, are Nazis?
Like fascist movements elsewhere, NSDAP is both anti-communist and anti-capitalist. The early movement, in particular, is heavily critical of capitalism. All of Mussolini’s critiques of democracy and support for authoritarianism are echoed by the Nazis, although they focus less on Mussolini’s opinion that democracy is a system for political domination by the bourgeois class. The fascist movement in Germany is heavily linked to the ‘volkisch’ ideology of Pan-German nationalism. They want to unite all German peoples, especially in Austria, and protest the oppression of German minorities abroad, particularly in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania. Like the rightists, the Nazis are extremely bitter about losing the war, want to resist the Treaty of Versailles, and endorse the ‘stabbed in the back’ myth. The Nazi version of the myth not only blames the SDP, but also implicates Jewish business interests in prematurely ending the war.
Who is Hitler?
Hitler was a failed artist from the Austrian border with Bavaria. He left for Munich in 1913 and joined the German army in 1914. He enjoyed war and was a good soldier. He was recuperating in a military hospital for injuries in a gas attack during most of the chaos of 1918 and 1919. He was invited to a meeting of DAP by a Bavarian officer, prompting Hitler to join and eventually reorganizing it into NSDAP in 1920. In 1921, by far the most effective leader in the party, Hitler demanded and received absolute authority within NSDAP. Prior to 1921, Hitler competes for authority with other figures in the party who don’t share his focus on Jews, such as Strasser or the anti-communists. Once he gains absolute authority, National Socialism emerges as a distinct ideology from fascism.
Hitler’s unique worldview
Hitler draws heavily from race theory, which is a globally dominant belief in the 1920s and 1930s. This means that humanity is divided into biologically distinct races, including his own Aryan race. Unlike mainstream race theory, which made little distinction between the Caucasian races, Hitler stresses large differences between Aryans and Slavs.
According to Hitler, the ideal state is Darwinian competition between the races: survival of the fittest. There would be unity within racial groups and competition over resources between them. The stronger races would then starve and outcompete the weaker ones. His goal is to restore the world to this state. Hitler, of course, believed that the strongest race was the Aryans.
The only reason that Darwinian racial warfare isn’t constant is because of the existence of non-racial ideologies like communism, capitalism, and Christianity. These ideologies blind people to the nature of the world and limit racial competition. All of these non-racial ideologies were created by Jews. Jews are the weakest race and would be quickly outcompeted into extinction in a state of Darwinist racial warfare. So, Jews created these other ideologies to replace race war with systems that benefit them at the expense of all other races.
This Jewish subversion of the natural order through ideology is bad for all the other races, but particularly for the Aryans because under regular conditions they would be dominant. The starvation of Germany during WWI is a chief example of this: the strongest race was being starved! As the Aryans benefit most from pure Darwinian competition, they must crush ideology and restore constant racial warfare.
Unlike Mussolini or even others in NSDAP, Hitler is not really a fascist. His only goal is restoring Darwinian competition and he sees the strong and totalitarian fascist state as the best way to mobilize the German people into a united race and deploy them to crush ideology.
What do I mean by crush ideology? So Hitler believes that you can actually kill an idea so long as you can kill all the people propagating that idea. Since all these ideologies are created by Jews, you can end them by killing all the Jews or isolating them in a place where they cannot parasitically feed off other races (Siberia, Madagascar, etc.).
To Hitler, the chief ideology of the Jews is Communism, an idea influenced by popular antisemitic tropes that drew attention to how many Jews, like Trotsky, were at high levels of Soviet government in an attempt to mobilize antisemites against Communism. This idea was bolstered by the fact that the USSR had the world’s largest population of Jews, around 3 million. Destroying the USSR and disempowering or exiling Soviet Jews was thus the first and most important step to restoring racial Darwinism.
The Second Spartikist Revolt
At the outset of the Weimar Republic, the Communists are the most active threat to the constitutional order. Their rebellions are defeated by alliance of the SDP government with rightists in the military and the Freikorps.
On 3 March 1919, the Spartikists launched another uprising to seize power in Germany along the model of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, beginning with a general strike in Berlin. Freikorps, who still kept Berlin under martial law, responded with massive violence, with 1,200 dying in the fighting between mainly anti-communist Freikorps, Sparticist sailors, and soldiers on both sides. Fighting ended by 16 March, although martial law did not end until December 1919.
The Bavarian Soviet Republic
The socialist republic in Bavaria ends in January 1919 after Eisner recognizes his defeat in elections and steps down in favor of a SDP government. Eisner’s defeat, and his assassination by an antisemitic rightist in February, only stirred tensions on the Left. Rumors spread that the SDP leader in Bavaria, Erhard Auer, had been behind the assassination and he was assassinated by leftists. Street fighting breaks out in Munich in the aftermath of Auer’s assassination.
Communist Ernst Toller staged a coup on 7 April 1919 and proclaimed the Bavarian Soviet Republic, forcing the elected government of Johannes Hoffmann to flee Munich for Bamberg. Soldiers entered Munich on 3 May and peacefully arrested senior members of the Soviet government as the Red army dissipated. In the following occupation, the Freikorps occupied the city and carried out a counterrevolutionary terror.
The most lasting legacy of the Bavarian Soviet would be the repression carried out by the Freikorps. Whereas Bavaria had previously been the epicenter of radical leftist politics, it would come under the domination of a radical rightist clique led by Gustav von Kahr and be a safe haven for rightist and anti-republican groups to organize.
The Kapp Coup and the Ruhr Revolt
One of the conditions of the Versailles Treaty is the reduction of the size of the German army to 100k men. The army itself reduces to this amount, but the Entente powers complain that the Freikorps constitute an unofficial second army that is far in excess of the limit and demand that they be disbanded.
One of the Freikorps marked for disbandment is the Ehrhardt brigade, a rightist militia that was given the task of guarding Berlin after notable success against Communists in Wilhelmshaven and Poles in Silesia. The military commander of Berlin, Walther von Luttwitz -- responsible for both the army and Freikorps in the area -- refuses to disband the unit.
The Ehrhardt brigade entered Berlin on the night of 12 March 1920, forcing the government to flee. Von Luttwitz and Gustav Kapp, head of the rightist Fatherland party, then declare themselves the heads of a new government.
Both Kapp and Ebert ask the army, under General Hans von Seeckt, to support their government. Von Seeckt, however, rejects involvement, saying that German soldiers do not shoot at each other. Throughout the entirety of the Weimar period, von Seeckt refuses to let the army become involved in politics; a major source of stability. Von Seeckt refuses to intervene because he is focused on his one and only goal: to rebuild the German army in contravention of the Versailles Treaty. He believes that this goal can only be achieved if the army is apolitical, avoiding the situation of the army breaking up into factions and fighting itself.
The Kapp government is a total failure. The immediate reaction of the population is a general strike that both paralyzes Berlin and cuts off communications with the rest of Germany. On top of that, they had been banking on support from the military, which never came through. On 17 March, the coup government collapsed as Kapp fled to Sweden and von Luttwitz surrendered the next day. All of the men of the Ehrhardt brigade were pardoned and incorporated into the army.
As part of the general strikes that disabled the Kapp coup, the Ruhr held strikes, mostly organized by the Communists. These strikes developed into political demands for a socialist state. During the incident, the army retreated from striking towns in the Ruhr, including Essen, leaving them under Communist control. The army deliberately retreated from the Ruhr cities as an excuse to reoccupy the east bank of the Rhine. The Versaille Treaty had placed severe restrictions on the military presence on the Rhine, to the anger of the German army. The Communist insurrection gave the army a great excuse to march soldiers into the Rhine far in excess of the allowed amount, with the intent of having them not leave.
Although fighting Communists was a secondary goal to reoccupying the Rhine, the army was brutal toward the Communists when it marched into the Ruhr early April, retaking Essen on 7 April. The army and Freikorps took no prisoners and killed thousands of Communists, suspected Communists, and civilians.
Following the failure of the Kapp coup, of which the original issue had been the disbandment of paramilitaries as mandated by the Versailles Treaty, the Freikorps were largely disbanded. The largest and most politically connected of these, the Bavarian Home Guard, was eventually disbanded in May 1921.
The disbandment was never complete, however, because the army and the German government resented the Treaty and knew that unofficial paramilitaries that knew not to make noise were an ideal way of having an armed and disciplined force in excess of the provisions of the Versailles Treaty. The anti-communist sympathies of the government and army meant that rightist paramilitaries, including the Nazi Sturmabteilung, were thus tolerated in a way that leftists were not, on the assumption that they could be reabsorbed into a largely conservative army.
1921 March Action
A strike of miners in Saxony-Anhalt came into conflict with police after workers armed themselves and barricaded the mines. Shooting between miners and police started on 18 March. Violence spread as the Communists called for a general strike on 24 March, as many workers ignored the strike call, leading to fighting between Communist and anti-Communist workers. The last occupied factories and mines surrendered on 31 March. The incident showed how little support the Communists had among the working class.
War indemnity and the Ruhr Crisis
In April 1921, the Entente finally announced the size of the war indemnity owed by Germany under the Versailles Treaty, 132 billion gold marks, of which only a tiny fraction has been paid off through the transfers in kind. Germany now owes installments to pay it off beginning in August 1921.
This sets off a new economic crisis in Germany. Inflation is already bad from 1918, but gets much worse in April 1921. The war indemnity causes inflation because Germany cannot realistically afford to pay the reparations asked of it in 1921, so it instead prints money to cover the difference, particularly to cover its own expenses. Moreover, the high rate of inflation means that taxes lose their value almost as soon as they are paid. This further reduced effective revenue and increased dependency on the printing press to cover expenses.
Why were reparations set at a higher level than could be afforded? America is largely responsible for the fact that the crisis over reparations came so quickly, because it demanded strict repayment timetables from the Entente powers, prompting them to be more insistent about German repayment of war indemnities.
Germany halts payments by January 1922, citing an inability to pay. The issue just continues to fester for a while, with Germany delivering some goods to the Entente in lieu of its actual reparations payments.
On 9 January 1923, the Reparations Committee, mainly under French President Raymond Poincaré, determined that Germany had failed to deliver coal on schedule. So, on 11 January, French and Belgian troops moved to occupy the Ruhr to enforce coal production. In response, President Ebert and Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno announced a period of ‘passive resistance’ and ordered a total work stoppage in the Ruhr and stopped all reparations payments until French and Belgian troops evacuated the area. On 26 January, the Reparations Committee declared that Germany was in general default and that the occupation would continue until reparations payments and transfers were resumed.
Why does broke and weary France invade and occupy the Ruhr? Unlike other foreign conflicts, this one has little chance of serious fighting, so it costs much less, and, unlike other conflicts, this one is directly over money and France believes that this action will result in additional revenue.
The ‘passive resistance’ policy forced the French to take direct control of the coal industry in the Ruhr if they wanted any work done. France did, but a general strike brought the industry and transportation to a halt. The policy was terrible for France, resulting in fuel shortages and an end to even limited reparation payments. Despite the military occupation, France failed to get even 1% of the coal it had been receiving beforehand.
France responded to resistance with brutal force, including the execution of saboteurs and violent dispersal of rallies. The French arrested police and civil servants who had not cooperated, shot at striking miners, and set up a customs barrier between the occupied zone and the rest of Germany. France also tried to encourage a Rhinelander separatist movement during the 1923, tried to get people to stage a coup in Dusseldorf, but the movement failed and lacked any real popular support during a time of high nationalist feeling. As soon as the French left, the separatist movement was crushed and their supporters swept out of power in Dusseldorf and Bonn.
The Ruhr crisis triggered a period of crippling hyperinflation beginning in 1923, with markups reaching as high as 20% every day. The inflation situation already wasn’t good, but it got worse because, not having access to tax revenue from its wealthiest region, Germany printed even more money to cover expenses. On top of that, the repayments crisis crippled international support for the mark and caused speculation against its value.
During the period of crippling hyperinflation, cities and even businesses would print their own banknotes backed by stores of physical goods. Goods such as silk, leather, or porcelain were used as currency. Many people returned entirely to barter, as workers rejected worthless wages. The psychological impact of extreme inflation, and particularly its devastating effect on the middle classes, created the desire for stability and hope that contributed to the rise of the Nazis. Whereas most Germans suffered from the hyperinflation of 1923, some merchants and speculators became extraordinarily wealthy. Due to their domination of the commercial classes, Jews were common as speculators. This increased antisemitism, as many Jews benefited as German Gentiles suffered.
Insurrections during the Ruhr Crisis
The economic disaster that accompanies the Ruhr Crisis creates rising support for an insurrection against the Cuno government. In the Fall of 1923, we see all three groups (leftists, rightists, fascists) try to overthrow the government.
Leftists:
On orders from the Comintern, the Communists tried to seize the city of Hamburg on 23 October 1923, but were crushed by the police. Next, the Communists tried to organize leftist paramilitaries in the SDP-run states of Saxony and Thuringia, but were stopped when the German government caught wind and used its emergency powers to overthrow the Saxon government on 29 October and militarily occupy Thuringia on 6 November. None of the insurrections were well thought out.
Why did the Communist insurrections fail and keep failing? The Communists had never been particularly popular and their repeated failed attempts to seize power by force between 1919 and 1923 only alienated them from the working class, allowing that group to be co-opted by other parties, particularly the SDP.
Rightists:
In response to the degrading situation of the economy due to hyperinflation, the Bavarian authorities declared Gustav von Kahr, a vehement rightist and anti-republican, the emergency dictator of the state on 26 September 1923. The Bavarians ignored central authority and the army in the area pledged loyalty to von Kahr in late October 1923. At this point, von Kahr revealed his goal of using Bavaria as a base to overthrow the Weimar government. He asked for von Seeckt’s support and tried to intimidate the government, but Ebert didn’t blink and von Seeckt both refused to take any direct action or tolerate any independent initiative on the part of the Bavarians. Von Kahr then abandoned his plans. There were other similarly attempted coups in late 1923 by underground Freikorps, but these were put down by the regular army.
Why did the Kahr coup fail? As in other coups, von Seeckt refused to support military intervention in politics. Moreover, von Seeckt would not tolerate the domestic use of the remaining rightist paramilitaries, as he intended to use them against the French.
Fascists:
Hiter sought to take advantage of the chaos to emulate Mussolini’s March on Rome by marching from Munich, which had become a rightist stronghold under von Kahr, to Berlin, gathering the disaffected masses and anti-republican Freikorps along the way. Hitler was supported by Erich Ludendorff, who had become an acolyte of antisemitic national socialism.
The putsch started on 8 November 1923, when Hitler kidnapped the rightist Bavarian government, including Gustav von Kahr. Satisfied with their acquiescence, Hitler then released the triumvirate that ruled Bavaria. SA troops occupied some, but not all, government buildings and key locations in Munich, but were soon outnumbered on 9 November, when the von Kahr government ordered Bavarian soldiers to resist Hitler. Police fired on Hitler’s putschists during a march that day, ending the coup, and resulting in Hitler’s arrest 2 days later. Hitler was sentenced to prison, whereas Ludendorff was acquitted as he had worn civilian clothing rather than an SA uniform. In the aftermath of Hitler’s arrest, NSDAP was temporarily dissolved.
Why did the Beer Hall putsch fail? When Mussolini marched on Rome in 1922, his paramilitaries already exercised de facto control over the entirety of northern Italy and resisting them, even if the army was willing, would mean triggering civil war. Hitler had no independent power base even within Munich. Crushing him was easy in a way that would have been impossible with Mussolini. The decision to oppose Hitler was made by rightists who feared losing von Seeckt’s favor or losing their own power. The arrest of Hitler in 1923 and imprisonment for 1 year convinced him that an ‘Italian solution’ was not applicable in Germany and that NSDAP would have to create a mass movement and generate electoral victories.
The End of the Ruhr Crisis
On 26 September 1923, Chancellor Gustav Stresemann ends the policy of ‘passive resistance’, Chancellor Cuno having resigned in August, thus ending the political standoff and the immediate cause for the economic crisis. Stresemann ended ‘passive resistance’ because the policy had been terrible for France, for it resulted in fuel shortages and an end of reparation payments, and for Germany, because it triggered economic collapse and devastating hyperinflation.
The economic crisis itself continued after the end of the Ruhr Crisis, as hyperinflation could not be reigned in until November 1923, when the government issued a new currency. All confidence in the mark had been lost in late 1923, so the new currency, the rentenmark, would be backed by the value of all mortgages on German land, all held by a state bank. In theory, these notes entitled their bearer to a portion of all mortgaged land in the country. They calmed the hyperinflation crisis. The final solution of the currency issue did not come until August 1924, when a new mark was issued. By this point, almost a year later, the rentenmark had proved successful and Germans were willing to use and trust in the value of the new mark.
The occupation of the Ruhr continues until 1925, but the end of ‘passive resistance’ in September 1923 sets the stage for the peace process between France and Germany. The issue of reparations and occupation of the Rhineland will be solved by the Dawes Commission in September 1924, setting out a new schedule for reparations and resolving the dispute.
The fact that the Weimar government survived the crisis of 1923, crushing the Communists and von Seeckt refusing to endorse any rightist coup, greatly increased its strength. The Republic emerged stronger from the crisis for increased faith in it and the willingness of, particularly rightist anti-republicans, to reconcile themselves to the republic.
The Dawes Plan
After the resolution of the high point of the Ruhr Crisis in late 1923, the Europeans agree to turn the issue over to a committee headed by American banker Charles Dawes. America was involved in the committee to begin with because the stoppage of German reparations had reduced the ability of the Entente to repay their own loans to the USA.
The Dawes committee released its recommendation in April 1924:
- The amount that Germany paid annually would be reduced and only increased with the German ability to pay.
- As a stopgap measure, Germany would be given a $200 million loan from American banks to meet its immediate needs and initial payments.
- A new mark would be issued, this happened in August 1924, and the Reichsbank would remain under Entente supervision to prevent another inflationary crisis.
- France and Belgium would remove their troops from the right bank of the Rhine, which was accomplished in August 1925 after the Locarno conference. Part of the left bank of the Rhine would remain occupied until 1930, or 1935 in the case of the Saarland.
Ultimately, the Dawes Plan was unsuccessful, as Germany was unable to meet even the reduced reparations amounts, but this issue did not come to a head until 1928. In the meantime, the Dawes Plan ended the reparations crisis and allowed Germany to enter into a period of relative economic and political stability for the rest of the decade.
The Locarno Treaties
The period of turmoil in Germany’s foreign relations ended with the 1925 Locarno Treaties, in which Germany accepted the status quo in Europe in return for being reintegrated into the international system. Under the Treaty, Germany recognized its new borders with France and Belgium and pledged to refrain from force in resolving its existing territorial disputes with Poland, Lithuania, and Czechoslovakia. Britain, France, and Germany also agreed to remain at peace, with the other two countries attacking whatever nation started an aggressive war against another one. France agreed to refrain from using force against Germany, in return for the Rhineland remaining demilitarized, withdrawing its troops from the right bank in August 1925.
The Locarno Treaties were meant to remove conflict from the relationship between Germany and its neighbors. Together with the Dawes Plans, the Locarno Treaties ushered in a period of stability in German politics, leading to Germany’s ascension to the League of Nations in 1926.
France still didn’t totally trust Germany and, as a guarantee against any future aggression, sets up the Cordon Sanitaire. The Cordon Sanitaire was a system of alliances between France and the newly formed states of eastern Europe. France’s principal allies are Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania.
Why does Germany enter a period of relative stability after 1923?
The end of the Ruhr Crisis and the creation of, first, the rentenmark and then the new mark end the period of hyperinflation in Germany. Although hampered by the generally bad economic conditions in Europe, the German economy slowly grows until the Great Depression of 1929.
The repeated failed attempts of the Communists to seize power by force between 1919 and 1923 only alienated them from the working class. The armed struggle ended completely around 1924 or 1925, at which point the Comintern was controlled by Stalin and opposed the export of revolution. From this point on, German Communists were under orders to not start insurrections.
The repeated refusals of von Seeckt to endorse a military coup, as witnessed in the 1920 Kapp coup and the 1923 von Kahr coup, forced the rightists to abandon hopes of overthrowing the government. The majority of rightists reconciled themselves to republican government and participated in elections, becoming more moderate as their party, the German People’s Party (DVP), won elections.
The spectacular failure of the Beer Hall putsch led Hitler to abandon any hope of a ‘March on Berlin’ and turn toward electoral politics. The Nazis will not again try to overthrow the German government. Additionally, the Nazis remain marginal and unimportant until the 1929 Great Recession, receiving only 2.6% of the national vote in 1928, although still claiming its place as dominant among the fascist groups of Germany.
Von Seeckt’s army
We know that von Seeckt has been studiously avoiding any involvement in German politics because he doesn’t want political factionalism to infect the army. He believes that this would detract from his primary goal of illegal rearmament. The first aspect of von Seeckt’s rearmament campaign is securing the continued existence of ‘underground’ rightist paramilitaries and former Freikorps. The groups formed a reserve force that, he hoped, could be reintegrated into the regular army in case of conflict. The second major part of the rearmament effort was secret cooperation with the USSR, which allowed Germany to train officers and store and test illegal military equipment on Soviet territory in exchange for military and technical assistance.
The relationship between the Soviets and von Seeckt was first established around 1922 and, by 1926, Germany had rearmed to a significant degree, storing these new weapons and materiel in the USSR. After 1925, four secret German military bases were established in the USSR: one for aviation, one for armored vehicles, and two for chemical weapons. Despite putting so much effort into chemical weapons, the main German discovery was that chemical weapons were not compatible with a mobile warfare doctrine. They also learned about how to counter and treat chemical weapons injuries. This cooperation laid the groundwork for the modern German military and made the Soviets the most mechanized army on Earth by 1939. The majority of Soviet military and chemical industry was designed and run by German engineers for most of the 1920s. Cooperation only ceased in 1933, when Hitler came to power because he both hated the Soviets and didn’t see a reason to hide rearmament.
The Control Commission continuously reported back to the Entente that German had not disarmed and had no intention of disarming, but the Entente lacked the political will to do anything about it.
Von Seeckt’s tireless efforts to violate the Versailles Treaty mean that, when Hitler does come to power in 1933, he does not inherit a rump force of 100k without access to the equipment needed for modern warfare, but instead inherits a modern army with advanced equipment and millions of trained men and officers.
The Weimar Republic in the Great Depression
Ebert dies on 28 February 1925 and his replacement as president is Paul von Hindenburg. The Center and SDP candidate, Wilhelm Marx, would have won had not the Communists run their own candidate against him. Von Hindenburg does not believe in democracy and allies with anti-democratic rightist forces. The Weimar Republic always suffered from parliamentary instability and chaotic politics, leading the population to trust in the strong executive as a source of stability. Weimar democracy functions fairly well, so von Hindenburg only becomes a liability during the crisis period of the Great Depression. During that crisis, it becomes important that the German President doesn’t believe in democracy.
The Weimar Republic enters another period of crisis, that ultimately brings about its downfall, beginning in 1929 with the onset of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a massive economic recession beginning in October 1929, when the US stock market crashes, and continuing into the late 1930s.
The immediate cause of the Great Depression is the October 1929 stock market crash. Stock prices had been greatly inflated and, once a panic set in, shot down. This led to a general recession as people pulled their money out of financial markets to prevent further losses. At the same time, the Dust Bowl starts in the Great Plains, ruining millions of farmers. In conditions of recession, these farmers cannot get new loans, meaning that agriculture will not recover as an industry for years. America’s limited banking infrastructure, the Federal Reserves, cannot cope with the crisis and does not issue new loans. The credit freeze combined with people pulling their money out of markets both destroys businesses with outstanding loans and creates a deflationary crisis as wages and prices drop. The Great Depression is different from previous crises because of its scope: at its height, the Depression wiped out around 15% of global GDP. On top of that, the centrality of the USA to global financial markets meant that the crash affected the entire globe.
The German economy is very closely tied to the American economy, so it crashes alongside the USA after Black Monday in 1929. Its economic crisis is particularly severe. The economic crisis only got worse in 1931, when the collapse of the Austrian bank Creditanstalt set off a run on banks across Europe.
As stipulated in the Dawes Plan and Young Plan, Germany would continue to receive loans from the USA to make its reparations payments manageable. Germany remained totally dependent on these short-term American loans to function. Germany remained stuck on the reparations repayment schedule implemented in the Young Plan, which became a huge cost as the Great Depression set in.
One of the most visible signs of the crisis is mass unemployment. Germany had around 8% unemployment in 1929, which rose to around 32% or 7.5 million unemployed, in 1932. Misery isn’t confined to cities, as rural populations also got shafted; substantial land reform never occurred in Germany and farmers had suffered under both the hyperinflation of the early 1920s and the Great Depression. One of the earliest political crises resulting from the Great Depression will be over the issue of unemployment, as the government runs out of money to pay unemployment insurance and needs to come up with a solution.
The political side of the Great Depression
The pressures generated by the Great Depression crush German democracy, ultimately leading to Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in 1933 and his assumption of dictatorial authority shortly afterward.
There are two narratives of German politics during this period:
The rise of radicalism. With the onset of the Great Depression, there is a general sense that capitalism has failed as an economic system. The state’s inability to effectively respond to the economic crisis, particularly skyrocketing unemployment, engenders a belief that democracy has failed as a political system. Consequently, this period sees the Communists and the Nazis move from the fringe of politics to, together, represent a majority of delegates in the Reichstag.
The death of German democracy. Von Hindenburg had never been a democrat and, when the Reichstag becomes dysfunctional, he has no problems resorting to rule by emergency powers. From 1930 onward, all German governments will govern by executive decree, with the Reichstag exercising veto power rather than legislative authority.
The trend through this whole period is that the Right is terrified by the rise in Communist support following the Great Depression and is unable to find anyone to make the economy actually work again. Fearing that further economic crisis will only result in greater radicalism, they search for a solution, but all of their other options come up short as they rapidly lose electoral support. Eventually, faced with little choice but to include the Nazis in government, they do exactly that, hoping and praying that Hitler isn’t as radical as some believe.
The beginning of the political crisis in Weimar Germany
The Chancellor in 1929, Hermann Muller of the SDP, was faced with the immediate budgetary crisis of being unable to cover unemployment insurance. After he failed to find parliamentary approval for his economic plans, Muller proposed that von Hindenburg grant him the ability to rule by emergency powers. However, von Hindenburg disliked Muller and the SDP and refused, forcing Muller to resign in March 1930.
Who replaces Chancellor Muller?
Facing a massive economic crisis, Army chief Kurt von Schleicher suggested to von Hindenburg that Heinrich Bruning, a Center party member and trained economist, would make a good Chancellor. Bruning was appointed on 28 March 1930.
Just like Muller, Bruning was unable to win support for his economic policies in the Reichstag, as the austerity measures he recommended were deeply unpopular. Unlike Muller, however, Bruning had the full support and cooperation of President von Hindenburg. Arguing that economic reforms were critically important in the context of the Great Depression, von Hindenburg used his emergency powers to allow Bruning to legislate without the participation of the Reichstag. However, the Reichstag still disagreed with Bruning’s policies and they overruled his economic measures using the veto they maintained even under emergency rule. In July 1930, Bruning and von Hindenburg tire of the Reichstag continually rejecting Bruning’s economic plan, so they called new elections, held in September 1930.
The 1930 election is the first since the Great Depression and reflects the massive change in support for political radicals. In 1930, NSDAP gained 18.3% of the vote and became the second largest party after the SDP, up from under 3% of the vote in the previous election. The third largest party is the Communists. The election changes the dynamics of German politics by making the Reichstag dependent on the votes of two parties totally opposed to the continuation of Weimar democracy: the Communists and the Nazis
The immediate consequence of the election is that fear of the radicals led the SDP to support Bruning, giving him enough support in the Reichstag to pass his economic policies without being overridden by a veto. He rules by decree from this point onward. Even then, the dictatorial powers granted to Bruning didn’t even seem to matter because the economy continued crashing and burning anyway and he failed to achieve any revision to the Versailles Treaty that could have saved his career.
Bruning instituted a deflationary austerity policy meant to balance the state budget and avoid a balance-of-payments crisis. This policy was actively harmful to the economy, causing unemployment to rise even higher. His protectionist measures of German agriculture, which artificially raised cereal prices, were also particularly unpopular.
Why did Bruning, a trained economist, implement policies that were so actively harmful to the economy? Bruning instituted those policies because he was a trained economist, as orthodox economic theory during this time stressed the importance of balancing budgets and did not really understand the negative effects of austerity on recessionary economies. Moreover, the ‘correct’ approach would have caused inflation, something that Germany economists were terrified of after the hyperinflation of 1923.
Bruning’s other main policy goal, besides balancing the budget, was suspending the reparations payments. This eventually happened at the Lausanne Conference of June and July 1932, at which the Entente decided to temporarily suspend German reparations payments, but this victory came too late (1 or 2 months) to help Bruning stay in power.
Bruning was terrified by the prospect of a Nazi takeover and made plans to replace the republic with a constitutional monarchy, with a transition period first under von Hindenburg as regent. He got the support of the right, the Center Party, and SDP for this plan, as all feared a Nazi coup, but von Hindenburg objected to the restored monarchy being constitutional and Bruning’s centrist and leftist supports rejected anything else, so the plan fell flat.
After the failure of his planned coup, Bruning floundered for another solution to the pressing economic and political crisis. The Right had always resented Bruning’s compromise government with the SDP and increasingly saw Bruning as a poor fit for chancellor. Not everyone saw the Nazis as the greatest threat. After their strong showing in the 1930 elections, von Schleicher started intriguing for the Nazis to be champions of the Right. As Hitler hated the SDP, von Schleicher proposed dropping the SDP and picking up the support of the Nazis. Von Hindenburg, who put great trust in von Schleicher, endorsed the idea, which required dropping Bruning. Bruning resigned on 30 May 1932, having been informed that von Hindenburg no longer believed he was the man for the job.
Who replaces Chancellor Bruning?
Von Hindenburg appointed Franz von Papen as the new Chancellor. Von Papen was from the Center Party and never had any popular support, being outcast from his own party for becoming Chancellor. He led a minority government of anti-republican rightists approved by von Hindenburg and no one else.
His lack of mandate led to an immediate vote of no confidence and new elections on 31 July 1932. These elections resulted in even greater Nazi and Communist victories, with the Nazis gaining ⅓ of the seats and becoming the largest party. The July 1932 elections occurred amidst street fighting between Nazis and Communists. The fighting between Red Guards and SA helped boost support for both sides as it stoked anticommunist and antifascist fears.
Who are the SA? The SA, or Sturmabteilung, are the Nazi paramilitary. Mainly recruited in the early 1930s, during which time NSDAP membership swelled to almost 1 million, the SA fielded around 300,000 members by 1933; around 60% of these SA members were unemployed. Street violence between Communists and Nazis started in 1926, when Joseph Goebbels was given control over NSDAP in Berlin and set about turning the SA from a mob into a discipline militia. Beginning in 1927, Goebbels had the SA actively provoke clashes with the Communists and attempt to actively disrupt their activities. Having been briefly outlawed in 1931, a ban which had no effect, the SA was relegalized on 18 July 1932, just before the elections. This was likely done in the hope that the SA would murder Communists, which they did, resulting in up to a dozen murders a day in major cities.
With widespread street fighting between the SA and Communists, the von Papen government used this as an excuse to place Prussia under military control, kicking out the SDP government there on 20 July 1932. Having already lost majority support in the Prussian Landtag in the last elections, the SDP meekly accepted its unconstitutional ousting. Von Papen personally ran the state from this point. This move destroyed the independent power base of the SDP and gave the Nazis and Communists free reign in one of the centers of Weimar democracy.
Together, the Nazis and Communists commanded a majority in the Reichstag, meaning that any legislation needed the support of one of them. But the Communists hated the SDP so much that they refused to cooperate with anyone against Nazism and the Nazis strategically held their votes in an attempt to get Hitler into the chancellorship.
Upon reconvening, the Reichstag immediately approved another vote of no confidence against von Papen and triggered new elections for November 1932; this lack of confidence was underscored by a massive transit strike in Berlin against his government, supported by both the Communists and Nazis. Despite liking von Papen a lot, von Hindenburg removed him from office on the advice of von Schleicher, who convinced him that von Papen’s policies would only result in civil war between the Nazis, Communists, and the rightist establishment. He resigned on 17 November 1932.
Who replaces Chancellor von Papen?
When the Reichstag reconvened, von Hindenburg selected von Schleicher as his Chancellor on 2 December 1932, having been told this was the best way to avoid civil war.
Von Schleicher had two plans for his chancellorship: forging an alliance with the Left by supporting trade unions and splitting the Nazis. Von Schliecher planned to gather leftist support by promoting greater powers for trade unions and promoting land reform. This failed on both ends, as the Left did not trust him and these moves antagonized his support among landlords and the bourgeois. He attempted to cripple Nazi influence by splitting Gregor Strasser and his supporters off from NSDAP. Instead, Strasser is expelled from the party after Hitler catches wind of the plan and the party closes ranks around Hitler.
The fall of von Schleicher and the rise of Hitler
The Right disliked von Schleicher’s failed attempts to reach out to the Left and agitated for his removal. The movement to remove von Schleicher was concentrated around von Papen, who was furious about being dismissed as chancellor. The rightists wanted power, but recognized that any coalition against the Left needed the participation of the Nazis, as the largest party. So, the Right had to work out under what conditions the Nazis would support them. At this point, von Papen and the Right believed that they could use Hitler and NSDAP to give popular support to their own rightist government.
Hitler would only participate in government if he got to be chancellor, so Hitler had to be made chancellor. The main problem with this was that von Hindenburg personally hated Hitler. To appoint Hitler, it needed to be demonstrated that von Schleicher had failed.
Von Papen met with Hitler and convinced him to bring down the government. The Communists already voted against every piece of legislation von Schleicher proposed, so if the Nazis also blocked and vetoed then the government would be paralyzed. The government thus paralyzed, von Papen would propose to von Hindenburg that Hitler be made Chancellor, on the condition that his Cabinet would include von Papen and other trustworthy rightists. Under immense political pressure from his own rightist allies centered around von Papen, von Hindenburg removed von Schliecher and appointed Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933.
How does Hitler go from Chancellor to Fuhrer?
Hitler comes into office with widespread popular support as the leader of the largest party in the Reichstag. The assumption of his rightist allies, including his Vice Chancellor, von Papen, is that his political inexperience will allow him to be controlled so that his popular support aids their own rightist agenda.
All of these figures are hostile to democracy and to leftists. Accordingly, they all support the crackdown on leftism that Hitler initiates and the massive extension of his powers. On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was burned down in an arson. It is disputed who set the fire, although it probably was the Netherlandish council communist Marnius van der Lubbe. Hitler then convinced von Hindenburg to grant him emergency powers, passing a decree that suspended habeas corpus, ended freedom of speech, press, and assembly, and removed privacy laws as well as warrant requirements. Under this decree, Hitler arrested every Communist representative of the Reichstag, giving himself a majority of seats, and all senior Comintern members in the country.
Hitler then organized a general election for 5 March. This unnerved his rightist allies, who believed this was a prelude to their removal, but he convinced them to support the elections by promising to retain his current cabinet. The elections, taking place under severe voter intimidation by the SA, resulted in a majority win for the Nazis and their nationalist allies, with the Nazis alone winning 44% of the seats.
The right hoped that the ‘nationalist ally’ part would control Hitler, but they were very wrong about that. Hitler used this mandate to outlaw the Communists and then arrested enough Social Democrats that he had the 2/3s majority in the Reichstag needed to legally pass the emergency decrees that soon transformed Germany into a dictatorship. The first of these laws, the Enabling Act passed on 24 March, allows Hitler to rule by decree in both domestic and foreign policy. By the beginning of April 1933, Germany was a dictatorship. At this point, the Right is very closely tied to Hitler and, regardless, has previously demonstrated its inability to govern independently. The only party to oppose Hitler’s Enabling Act is the SDP.
— Eunice Noh, June 2020
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