Free Sample Essays > European History
What problems did Germany face after WWI
What problems did Germany face after WW1
and how were they overcome?
A ‘crisis is strictly the point in a disease where the patient is finely balanced between recovery on one side and death on the other. The Weimar republic experienced two periods of crisis. The first was between 1919-1923, from which it recovered. The second, between 1929 and 1933 killed it. The crisis of 1919-23 had three causes. One was an external cause, which was the treatment of Germany by the allies. The others were internal, economic collapse and the political putsches; all of these were interconnected. Germany had surrended to the allies on 11 November 1918, two days after the formation of the republic. In June 1919 the terms of the treaty of Versailles were announced and Germany was held to be ‘guilty’ of causing the First World War and all of the damage resulting from it. Hence, the German nation was expected to pay compensation.
The aim of this essay is to investigate the problems that Germany faced after world war one and how they were overcome between the years 1918-1920.
The Weimar republic was born out of Germanys defeat in the First World War. The German armies had failed to break through the western front against Britain and France. The German people had also suffered great hardship and starvation as a result of a blockade of their ports by the British navy. As a result it was inevitable of German failure and on 9 November the Kaiser abdicated and fled to the Netherlands. Due to the chaos of the collapsing Reich, a new government somehow had to be formed. There were two main possibilities of a government. One, being a formation of a democracy advocated by the social democrats, which at that time were the largest political party in Germany. Another possibility was that Germany would become a communist State, this was the ambition of the Spartacus league led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. In January 1919 the spartacists tried to seize power with an armed uprising in Berlin. It was the freikorps units that suppressed the spartacist revolt in Berlin, they were seen as numerically weak and the task was not a demanding one in military terms. January 1919 showed the freikorps to be ruthless and vindictive by their actions. Their principal victims were Liebknecht and Luxemburg, they were arrested on 14 January and both shot. Their murder had important political consequences. It had poisoned relations between the KPD and the SPD- on whose behalf the freikorps were acting. It also helped to create an atmosphere in which thoughout the Weimar period collaboration of any kind between the two parties was out of the question.
The treaty was signed on June 28th 1919.Lloyd George of Britain, Clemenceau of France and Woodrow Wilson of America had conspired together to set the retributions to Germany. They had different arguments and views to put forward but Clemenceau of France had one simple belief, that the only way to gain satisfaction [next page]