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| reading:the_coming_of_the_third_reich [2023-05-16 03:07] – [The Spirit of 1914] section 3 notes asdf | reading:the_coming_of_the_third_reich [2023-05-20 01:41] (current) – [Descent into Chaos] section 3 notes asdf | ||
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| ==== Descent into Chaos ==== | ==== Descent into Chaos ==== | ||
| + | * in November 1918, most Germans expected the terms of peace would be equitable; after all, the Allies had never set foot on German soil | ||
| + | * the previous four years had been marked by debates over the extent of territory Germany should annex in victory; official war aims called for complete German hegemony over the continent, and right-wing groups wanted much more; none had contemplated the cost of defeat | ||
| + | * under the Armistice of 11 November 1918, all German troops were to withdraw east of the Rhine, the German fleet was to be surrendered to the Allies, vast amounts of military equipment had to be handed over, the Treaty of Brest Litovsk had to be repudiated, and the German High Seas Fleet and all submarines had to be surrendered | ||
| + | * to ensure compliance, the Allies maintained their economic blockade of Germany until July 1919 | ||
| + | * Germans almost universally felt humiliated by these terms, especially the French enforcement efforts | ||
| + | * many refused to believe that their military had actually been defeated; a myth began to circulate (and propagated by senior army officers themselves) that the army had only been defeated because it had been stabbed in the back by its enemies at home; this myth found strong purchased among the center and right | ||
| + | * Hindenburg and Ludendorff themselves claimed that the army had been the victim of a " | ||
| + | * Kaiser Wilhelm II echoed the phrase in his 1920s memoirs, writing that " | ||
| + | * even the Social Democrats joined in; party leader Friedrich Ebert proclaimed to returning troops, "No enemy has overcome you!" | ||
| + | * Bismarck' | ||
| + | * following the Russian Revolution, Woodrow Wilson and the Allies proclaimed that the war's principal purpose was to make the world safe for democracy | ||
| + | * once he realized the war was lost, Ludendorff advocated democratization of the Reich to improve the likelihood of favorable terms from the Allies; as a nice bonus, he knew that the burden of accepting unfavorable terms would fall on the democratic politicians rather than the Kaiser or army leadership | ||
| + | * a new government was formed under the liberal Prince Max von Baden, but it was unable to control the navy; the naval officers set out to sea to go down fighting against the British | ||
| + | * the sailors mutinied, and civilians followed; eventually the Kaiser and all the princes were forced to abdicate | ||
| + | * the army effectively melted away after the Armistice | ||
| + | * the democratic parties were left to " | ||
| + | * in the Treaty, Germany lost a tenth of its population and 13% of its territory, including Alsace-Lorraine, | ||
| + | * the Saarland was lopped off with the promise that its people would be able to choose whether to join France (it was expected that they would) | ||
| + | * Allied troops were stationed in the Rhineland for much of the 1920s to prevent the German armed forces from entering | ||
| + | * Northern Schleswig went to Denmark, Memel to Lithuania | ||
| + | * Poland was established as its own state, and a corridor to the Baltic Sea was carved out for them; this corridor separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany | ||
| + | * Danzig became a "free city" nominally controlled by the League of Nations, and Germany' | ||
| + | * the Allies also refused to allow Germany and Austria to unite; with the collapse of the Habsburg Empire into separate nation-states, | ||
| + | * that idea had been on the fringe of political thought not long before, but faced with the postwar economic realities, it seemed their best option | ||
| + | * even the Austrian socialists figured that joining the more advanced German Reich would facilitate a socialist transformation | ||
| + | * Wilson had declared in his Fourteen Points that every nation should be able to determine its own future unimpeded by outsiders; if this applied to the Poles, Czechs, and Yugoslavs, why not the Germans? | ||
| + | * the Allies disagreed, believing the war would have been pointless if the German Reich gained six million people and a considerable territory | ||
| + | * this was to be a constant sore spot among the Germans | ||
| + | * the veto was justified by Article 231, which forced Germany to accept the sole guilt for the outbreak of the war | ||
| + | * other articles mandate the trial of the Kaiser and others for war crimes; atrocities had indeed been committed, but the German courts refused to accept the legitimacy of the charges; only 7 of 900 individuals singled out for trial were found guilty, 10 were acquitted, and the rest never saw a full trial | ||
| + | * the idea began to take root in Germany that the concept of war crimes had been invented by the Allies based on imagined atrocities; this would have severe implications in the Second World War | ||
| + | * the real purpose of Article 231 was to legitimize punitive reparations to be paid by Germany; the Allies seized 2,000,000 tons of merchant ships, 5,000 railway engines and 136,000 coaches, 24,000,000 tons of coal, and more; Germany was to pay in gold over a number of years; their standing army was mandated to never exceed 100,000, and Germany was forbidden from using tanks and heavy artillery (and more) | ||
| + | |||
| + | * this outcome was a huge shock to most Germans, especially after the upward trajectory they'd been on since unification | ||
| + | * the so-called " | ||
| + | * had Germany won, they would have demanded massive territory concessions and likely reparations as well; considering the territory Germany wanted to annex, Versailles was mild | ||
| + | * Germany did have sufficient resources to pay the reparations, | ||
| + | * the German nationalists, | ||
| + | * quoting a once-pacifist Social Democrat: "I came to feel the rifle butt of the French and became patriotic again." | ||
| + | * indeed, the French presence in the Rhineland and Saarland amplified the tension; in occupied areas, the French banned German patriotic songs and festivals, encouraged separatist movements, and outlawed radical nationalist groups | ||
| + | * passive resistance against the new French authorities in those areas deepened nationalist sentiment and further entrenched distrust of the politicians and democracy that had allowed and accepted this state of affairs | ||
| + | * obviously the extreme nationalists were even more pissed off by this change in fortune; early in the war, they seemed poised to gain everything they wanted; now the war was lost and annexationism fell out of favor among the general public | ||
| + | * into this environment rose the German Fatherland Party, founded in September 1917 by Wolfgang Kapp (associate of Pan-German League founder Hugenberg); its goals were similar to those of the Pan-Germans --- aggressive annexation, authoritarian constitutional changes, etc. | ||
| + | * the Fatherland Party presented itself as above party politics and committed to the German nation over abstract ideology | ||
| + | * within a year, they claimed to have over 1.25 million members; in reality, they had less than 500,000 due to intentional double counting (noted in an internal memo) | ||
| + | * they quickly pushed aside the Pan-Germans, | ||
| + | * the government itself was suspicious of the Fatherland Party; it banned soldiers from joining and told civil servants not to help it | ||
| + | * the Fatherland Party struggled to recruit among the working class (who were still primarily aligned with the Social Democrats) and wounded veterans (who were thrown violently out of a party meeting) | ||
| + | * the party was essentially a rehash of previous ultra-nationalist movements, though they lacked the spiciness of the Pan-Germans | ||
| + | * for their part, the Pan-German League fell into obscurity after 1918 | ||
| + | |||
| + | * a nostalgic myth began to grow around the idea of the "front generation" | ||
| + | * the revolution in 1918 was bitterly resented by many soldiers, who often disarmed and arrested the local councils that had sprung up | ||
| + | * generally rejected by the revolutionaries, | ||
| + | * soldiers returned to a Germany organized wholly unlike that for which they had fought; the feeling began to spread among them that they had been " | ||
| + | * these are generalizations of course; many soldiers had deserted toward the end of the war, and others gravitated toward the left afterward rather than the extreme right; some of their interest groups fought to keep such a war in the past | ||
| + | * still, the soldiers' | ||
| + | * as time went on, it was increasingly felt that the veterans deserved far better treatment than they had received | ||
| + | * one veterans' | ||
| + | * founded by decorated soldier Franz Seldte in November 1918, its stated purpose was to provide financial support for old soldiers in need | ||
| + | * its leadership believed the organization should be above politics, by which they meant it should tap into the patriotic spirit of 1914 to overcome party divisions and forge national unity | ||
| + | * the Steel Helmets denounced the Treaty of Versailles, demanded the restoration of the black-white-red Imperial flag, and blamed Germany' | ||
| + | * by the mid-1920s, they had 300,000 or so members; they brought a formidable, militaristic presence to their rallies and marches | ||
| + | * Germany failed to transition back to peacetime after 1918; militaristic metaphors pervaded the language and actions of politics | ||
| + | * prior to the war, calm discussions were possible even between those of deeply opposed political opinion; that was no longer the case post-1918 | ||
| + | * parliamentary meetings often degenerated into shouting matches; worse, political parties began associating with paramilitary wings who frequently clashed in the streets | ||
| + | * many of the members of these street gangs had been too young to join the war and used street violence to legitimize themselves in the face of the myth of the front generation | ||
| + | * these paramilitary groups provided security at party meetings, paraded through the streets in uniform to impress the public, and fought each other; their relationships with the politicians were often fraught with tension, and they tended to maintain autonomy | ||
| + | * such context made it obvious that the Steel Helmets were not an apolitical veterans' | ||
| + | * the Nationalists formed their own " | ||
| + | * the far right had a number of " | ||
| + | * few were satisfied with the results of the German Revolution of 1918--19 | ||
| + | * leftists like Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg sought a second revolution to fully transition Germany to a socialist state run by the workers' | ||
| + | * the Social Democrats, fearing a red terror to mirror that of Russia, sanctioned the recruitment of Free Corps units to put down any further revolutionary uprisings | ||
| + | * following a poorly-organized uprising in Berlin in early 1919, the Free Corps brutally murdered revolutionaries across Germany, including Liebknecht and Luxemburg | ||
| + | * in spring 1920, a Red Army of workers formed to oppose an attempted right-wing coup in Berlin was put down by Free Corps units and the regular army on order of the Social Democrats; over 1000 members were slaughtered, | ||
| + | * after these events, cooperation between the Social Democrats and Communists was out of the question | ||
| + | * despite their support for violence against the Communists, the Social Democrats were still targets of the Free Corps, many of whom were firm believers in the stab-in-the-back myth and were fiercely anti-Republican | ||
| + | * socialists and democrats of any kind were viewed as the same by those on the right, who dubbed them the " | ||
| + | * those who had signed the Treaty of Versailles were particularly targeted for assassination by the Free Corps | ||
| + | * yet another failed Communist uprising was put to bloody end in 1923; the same year saw gun battles between rival political parties in Munich and battles involving French-backed separatists in the Rhineland | ||
| + | * the mass legitimization of violence in an already tense political climate served as fertile breeding ground for what would become Nazism; right-wing fringe groups were feeling more empowered to use violence to implement the measures that the Pan-Germans, | ||
| + | * still, German society of the time was highly polarized, not totally right-wing; plenty of people and parties actively worked to forge a functional parliamentary democracy from the mess | ||
| + | |||
| ==== The Weaknesses of Weimar ==== | ==== The Weaknesses of Weimar ==== | ||
| ==== The Great Inflation ==== | ==== The Great Inflation ==== | ||
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