Then they established the Reichstag Parliament. They had lost a lot through the Treaty of Versailles like limited military, lost 10% of land, war reparation of 30 billion dollars, and lost colonies to Britain. The war dues they had to pay were what caused hyper-inflation and that is what lead to the depression. Germany was under the Weimar Republic when they overthrew the Kaiser in November of 1918 and they negotiated an armistice. This was like Russia's armistice that we have previously learned about. The Weimar Republic was what ended the hyper-inflation because of new currency. It also included Dawe's plan which was for America to lend Germany money so they could pay back their war reparations. Hitler later rose to power because he talked about ways to get out of tough living situations like jobs or money. This appealed to the WWI veterans and the workers because they were struggling the most during this time. Hitler was put in jail but he wrote Mein Kampf or "My Struggle" and this basically blamed the Jews and made them the scapegoat and he said that the "Aryan" race was superior.
America:
For America, the war had created new opportunities in a sense for them. Women were given the right to vote (Women's Suffrage) and there was a new rising middle class and they had a lot of leverage going on with money. They would pay $1o dollars for example and get a bank loan for $90 and then they would sell things for more so they would increase their money by a large percent. This lead to the Great Depression because when the stock market crashed people lost money instead of gaining more from selling. They were having to sell at a lower price than what they bought it for and therefore they were in debt because their borrowed money from the banks but they couldn't pay it back. That lead to banks shutting down and people losing their money because the banks simply didn't have it. Then people decided to start taking their money out of the banks so that they wouldn't lose their money but that only made it worse. Then people didn't spend as much so people weren't getting paid as much and so they lost their jobs and wouldn't buy as much and it became a vicious cycle. It was a bad recession or called a depression. This lead to the decision of finding alternative ways of government.
Sources:
notes from Ms. Xia in class (02-24-10 & 02-26-10)
Overall, i thought this was a good post, but i just wanted to add a little bit to the Great Depression part. What caused people to lose so much money and trigger the Great Depression was that SOOOO many people were borrowing money to try to make a profit (remember the example with the boxes that we saw in class) that not everyone could find someone to do business with. If a person couldn't do business, they could not make a profit. Without a profit, they could not pay their money lender back without losing a big chunk of their own money. Sometimes people even lost all of the money they borrowed AND all of the money they had before they tried the get rich quick scheme.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the Jews were the group of people that were targeted the most, they weren't the only ones. Germany blamed the depression on the socialists communists and jews for “betraying the nation” and "stabbing it in the back. They did this, because the Germans ceased fire during WWI and signed the Treaty of Versailles.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing is that the Jobs that Hitler created were out of rebuilding most of Germany. This rebuilding process included Public buildings, Super Highways, Bridges, and Canals. In about for years the number of unemployed people went from 6.2 million to 500,000. This made everyone really happy because there was finally order and discipline in Germany.
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