FREE ESSAY ON FROM WWI TO WWII

FROM WWI TO WWII

On November 18th of 1918, Germany, a member of the Central Powers, surrendered
unconditionally to the allies. World War I had ended with a total of 37 million
casualties, including 9 million dead combatants. German propaganda had not prepared that
nation for defeat, and its suddenness resulted in a sense of injured German national
pride. Following the defeat of Germany in World War I and in the midst of a great
worldwide depression, both the social and political climates were prime for a dictator
such as Adolf Hitler to rise to power. 
A year later, in June of 1919, the leaders of the Allies met at the Palace of Versailles
to decide on the peace settlement after World War I. The treaty, which was a compromise
of ideas from George Clemanceau, Prime minister of France, David Lloyd George, the Prime
Minister of Great Britain, Vittorio Orlando, the Prime minister of Italy, and Woodrow
Wilson, President of the United States. According to the terms of the peace agreement,
Germany was forced to reduce its army to 100,000 men, reduce the navy to 6 warships and
was not allowed to have any submarines, destroy all of its air force and give land to
Belgium, France, Denmark and Poland. This was not all, however. The allies concluded the
Germany must be forced to pay for it's mistakes against the rest of the world, so it was
also forced to hand over all of it's colonies, agree to pay reparations to the Allies for
all of the damage caused by the war, a sum totaling over 6 and a half billion marks, and
to accept all blame for the war in the 'War Guilt Clause'. To Germany, the Treaty of
Versailles seemed as if the Allies dictated it purely on revenge. In such a war-ravaged
country, it seemed impossible for the government to pay back this incredible amount of
money. Although economists at the time declared that such a huge sum could never be
collected without upsetting international finances, the Allies insisted that Germany be
compelled to pay, and the treaty permitted the Allies to take punitive actions if Germany
were to fall behind on its payments.
Many Germans did not believe that the German army had actually been defeated in 1918
because Germany had not been invaded. Many Germans, including a young Adolf Hitler, came
to believe that the army had been stabbed in the back by the November Criminals, the
politicians who had signed the armistice which had brought the Great War to an end on the
11th of November in 1918. Also, Germany felt that it had been made a scapegoat by the
other countries involved in the war. After all, didn't the war start when a Serbian
assassinated an Austrian ruler? In any case, the German people were getting more and more
restless with their government. The reparation costs were incredibly high, and Germany
felt no obligation to pay them because in their minds the Allies had betrayed them,
forced them to sign the treaty once they could not continue fighting. When the subsequent
peace-treaty did not reflect United States President Woodrow Wilson's lenient 14 points,
the myth arose that Germany had not been defeated in honest battle but by dishonest
deceit.
By 1920, the economy of Germany was rapidly crumbling to an all-time low. As far as
natural resources, Germany was only producing three-fourths of it's possible coal
production and only one-half of it's steel. Both small and large farms alike began to
declare bankruptcy due to the lack of animals available, causing a lack of fertilizer and
then, bad crops of food. Between 1913 and 1919 the national debt rose from five to 154
billion gold marks, while paper money in circulation increased from two to 45 billion. On
the occupation of the Rhur in January 1923, it fell to 18,000 to the dollar; by July 1,
it had dropped to 160,000; by August 1, to a million. By November, when Hitler thought
his hour had struck, it took 4 billion marks to buy a dollar, and therefore the figures
became trillions. (Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of
Nazi Germany) At five billion marks, interest on the national debt was larger than the
budget had been in 1913. As the gap between receipts and expenditures continued to grow
in 1919, the policy of reckless borrowing, inflation, and currency devaluation continued
as well. In reality, the postwar years were almost as bad as the war itself, as far as
living conditions for civilians went. People in towns lived on starvation ratios,
although country people usually had eggs and butter, bread and meat for which they
charged high prices. (Grey, Ronald. Hitler and the Germans) Between 1922 and 1923,
hyperinflation set in. The value of the German mark fell from $600 per mark to $.01 per
mark. By 1923, wages were paid in millions of marks, and it was necessary to pay millions
for quite ordinary things. (Grey, Ronald. Hitler and the Germans) The government had
betrayed its people once again and lost what little trust and faith the middle class had
in the democratic system. The far left and the far right would always oppose the Weimar
Republic for this, and when the worldwide depression hit in 1930, the middle classes,
with nothing left to fall back on, would join them. As one economic philosopher stated,
What good where the standards and practices of such a society, which encouraged savings
and investment and solemnly promised a safe return from them and then defaulted? Was this
not a fraud upon the people? (Shirer, William.The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich) 
Consequently, following the strong economic unrest at that time in Germany, political
unrest quickly followed. In Berlin and Munich, left-wing Communist groups proclaimed
Russian-like revolutions, only to meet violent opposition from right-wing nationalist
Freikorps along with regular Army troops. Both Communists and National Socialists argued
that democracy had fatal weaknesses, and that a dictatorship was necessary. Although they
agreed on this, they were bitter enemies, with rival armies of citizen volunteers who
often engaged in street fights. Violence regarding social and political unrest eventually
prevailed and it led to Communists, Socialists and even innocent bystanders being called
to appear and murdered in January, 1919, in Berlin, and in May in Munich. 
In early January of 1919, approximately six months prior to the signing of the peace
treaties at Versailles, a small political party called the German Workers Party was
formed. This anti-Semitic, high German nationalism party was led by Anton Drexler. As
stated by Hitler the party was, This absurd little organization with its few members
seemed to me to possess the one advantage that it had not frozen into an 'organization,'
but left the individual opportunity for real personal activity. Here it was still
possible to work, and the smaller the movement, the more readily it could be put into the
proper form. Here, the content, the goal, and the road could still be determined...
(Hitler, Adolf. Mien Kampf) On 12th September, 1919 Adolf Hitler became a member of this
Party, and at the first public meeting held in Munich, February 24th of 1920, he
announced the Party's program. That program, which remained unaltered until the Party was
dissolved in 1945, consisted of 25 points, including these five which where the basic
standings on which the German Worker's Party was based: 
Point 1. We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany, on the basis of
the right of self-determination of peoples.
Point 2. We demand equality of rights for the German People in respect to the other
nations; abrogation of the peace treaties of Versailles and Saint Germain.
Point 3. We demand land and territory for the sustenance of our people, and the
colonization of our surplus population.
Point 4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one
who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a
member of the race....
Point 22. We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.
Of these goals, the one that seems to most pertinent to the party was the removal of the
disgrace of the Armistice, and the restrictions of the peace treaties of Versailles and
Saint Germain. In a speech in Munich, Hitler stated, The Treaty was made in order to
bring 20 million Germans to their deaths, and to ruin the German Nation. As stated by a
critic, He had always promised to remove the humiliations imposed by the Treaty of
Versailles, and the rearmament programme was essential for that. (Grey, Ronald. Hitler
and the Germans) In 1923, Hitler's attempt at an armed overthrow known as the Beer Hall
Putsch failed miserably. Subsequently, he was convicted on charges of high treason, and
jailed. While in jail, Hitler wrote Mien Kampf, or My Struggle, which detailed his plan
for Germany's future Third Reich.
In Mien Kampf, Hitler divides humans into categories based on physical appearance,
establishing higher and lower groups, or types of humans. At the top, according to
Hitler, is the Northern-European man with his fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes, also
known as an Aryan. He asserts the Aryan is the master race. And so, if there is a supreme
form of human, then there must be others less than supreme, called the 'Untermenschen',
or racially inferior. Hitler assigns this position to Jews and the Slavic peoples,
notably the Czechoslovakians, the Polish, and the Russians. Hitler, however, made it
clear that it was the Jews who are engaged in a conspiracy to keep this master race from
assuming its rightful position as rulers of the world. He claimed that the Jews were
ruining the races' racial and cultural purity and even inventing forms of government in
which the Aryan comes to believe in equality and fails to recognize his racial
superiority. This conspiracy idea would become widespread beliefs in Nazi Germany and
would even be taught to schoolchildren. This, combined with Hitler's racial attitude
toward the Jews, would be shared to by millions of Germans, so that they either remained
silent or actively participated in the Nazi effort to exterminate the entire Jewish
population of Germany, and eventually Europe. 
The propaganda of the German Worker's Party was easy to accept, as it not only offered
hope in the form of new jobs for workers and the cessation of the Treaty of Versailles,
but it allowed for many scapegoats in which the German people could blame the economic
depression and political unrest on. The German people looked onto Hitler as a sort of
savior. Hitler's expertise in propaganda helped him to come to power because no matter
how evil his methods were, he controlled the information that the general public
received. Hitler was able to convince the public that everything he was doing was to save
Germany from the people who wanted to destroy her. In the public's eye he was a hero.
These factors along with his unbendable will allowed Adolf Hitler to eventually take
control of every aspect of life in Germany. His dispensing of decrees was so fast after
he took office that no one was able to react or retaliate until it was much too late. As
stated by Goethe, I have often felt a bitter sorrow at the thought of the German people,
which is so estimable in the individual and so wretched in the generality. (Shirer,
William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany) Hitler
created an agenda of what he wanted accomplished and nothing could stand in his way of
attaining his goals. He would lie to make allies, intimidate to get his way, and then
smooth it all over to the public through his propaganda and oratory abilities. Both
Goebbels and Hitler had understood how to unleash mass instincts at their meetings, how
to play on the passions that underlay the veneer of ordinary respectable life. (Speer,
Albert. Inside the Third Reich) Because of this, the popularity of the party only rose in
the Reichstag from 12 members in 1928, to 107 members in 1930, to over 230 members in
1932. Hitler also had the support of Alfred Hugenberg, a millionaire who owned 53
newspapers, all of which backed Hitler. 
The general election in Germany took place on March 5th of 1933. The Nazis won 288 seats,
which was not a majority, but 52 Nationalists supported them. At the first meeting, the
81 Communists stayed away. Hitler could now do as he liked. The Enabling Act was
immediately passed, which made Hitler dictator of Germany for four years, causing him to
crush all opposition to him in Germany. All trade unions were abolished and all political
parties banned, except for the Nazis. In November 1933 in another general election, in
which only Nazi candidates were allowed, 92% of the people supported the Nazis. 
It was often thought that Hitler's abrasive personality and cruel ideas where simply a
bi-product of the benefits the German people were sure to receive as a result of his
coming to power. In fact, it was stated that,  In the early days after 30 January 1933
many Germans were ready to believe that the brutality of the Nazi's was only a minor
fault, which Hitler would correct. (Grey, Ronald. Hitler and the Germans). However, as
modern history knows, the correction was never made, and Hitler rose to power, showing
that democracy can easily be destroyed by using the weaknesses of the people, and
someone's own ability to say the right things.