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Germany's economic depression
Germany's economic depression
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Germany was in a bad place after the first world war, the economy was vulnerable due it being built on other countries money. When the loans became due and the rest of the world would not buy the Germans exports after the war. The German economy was beginning to crash as production in factories went to a halt, workers were laid off causing high levels of unemployment. Quickly the middle-class way of living so many Germans had enjoyed was wrecked by events out of their midst. The great depression began and they began looking for any solution to their poverty. Many people including Hitler believed that Jews had made a major impact on Germany’s loss in the world war. Jews were outstanding in some sectors of the economy around the world like banking
and finance. This made it easy for Hitler to blame the crash of the economy on the Jews. Hitler could blame the Jews for everything because they were a small helpless minority who could be given to the people as someone to hate and rally against. Hitler was smart enough to know that he could use old stereotypes and most people would agree because its nothing new to them. So, Hitler was able to keep building that hatred till they believed it was okay to murder innocent Jews without question.
FDR's Response to the Great Depression. The stock market crash of 1929 set in motion a chain of events that would plunge the United States into a deep depression. The Great Depression of the 1930's spelled the end of an era of economic prosperity during the 1920's. Herbert Hoover was the unlucky president to preside over this economic downturn, and he bore the brunt of the blame for the depression.
“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach,” Adolf Hitler (The National World War Museum). The German Nazi dictator utilized his power over the people using propaganda, eventually creating a sense of hatred towards Jews. After World War 1, the punishments of the League of Nations caused Germany to suffer. The Nazi party came to blame the Jews in order to have a nation-wide “scapegoat”. This hatred and prejudice towards Jews is known as anti-semitism. According to the Breman Museum, “the Nazi Party was one of the first political movements to take full advantage of mass communications technologies: radio, recorded sound, film, and the printed word” (The Breman Museum). By publishing books, releasing movies and holding campaigns against Jews, antisemitism came to grow quickly, spreading all across Germany. The Nazi Party often referred to the notion of a “People’s Community” where all of Germany was “racially pure” (Issuu). They would show images of ‘pure’, blond workers, labouring to build a new society. This appealed greatly to people who were demoralized during Germany’s defeat in World War 1 and the economic depression of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Hitler, along with Joseph Goebbels, used developed propaganda methods in order to suppress the Jews and spread anti semitism.
During the 1920's America experienced an increase like no other. With the model T car, the assembly line, business skyrocketed. Thus, America's involvement in World War II did not begin with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Starting in October 1929, the Great Depression, the stock market crashed. It awed a country used to the excesses of the 1920's. These are the events that lead up to the crash.
The Wall Street Crash and the Recession in Germany Were the Salvation of the Nazi Party
Germany was humiliated. Although Hitler was born and raised in Austria, he loved and desired his homeland in Germany. This inspired him to begin campaigning for ultimate power in 1919. Before the Holocaust, but during WWII Hitler had a passion to rebuild Germany. It did not matter whom he stepped on to do so. Adolf started to blame Jews for most everything. Germany started referring to those of Jewish religion as “Vermons” (David 4-5). Jews would later be restricted and removed from
After World War I, there was a spiritual void left within the people of Germany. The outcome of the war had ripped the German society along the class lines causing great stress and tension among the people. The people of Germany had believed all along that they were winning the war, and therefore the news of surrender came as a great shock to them. To make things worse, the peace treaty established placed the entire fault of the war on Germany and left them responsible for paying for the costs of the war for all who were involved. This sparked a conflict between the middle and working classes in society. Then, the depression followed, creating even more unhappiness among the people. With all of this unhappiness because of the class divisions and the depression, the Nazi...
After Germany lost World War I, it was in a national state of humiliation. Their economy was in the drain, and they had their hands full paying for the reparations from the war. Then a man named Adolf Hitler rose to the position of Chancellor and realized his potential to inspire people to follow. Hitler promised the people of Germany a new age; an age of prosperity with the country back as a superpower in Europe. Hitler had a vision, and this vision was that not only the country be dominant in a political sense, but that his ‘perfect race’, the ‘Aryans,’ would be dominant in a cultural sense. His steps to achieving his goal came in the form of the Holocaust. The most well known victims of the Holocaust were of course, the Jews. However, approximately 11 million people were killed in the holocaust, and of those, there were only 6 million Jews killed. The other 5 million people were the Gypsies, Pols, Political Dissidents, Handicapped, Jehovah’s witnesses, Homosexuals and even those of African-German descent. Those who were believed to be enemies of the state were sent to camps where they were worked or starved to death.
The Jewish people were targeted, hunted, tortured, and killed, just for being Jewish, Hitler came to office on January 20, 1933; he believed that the German race had superiority over the Jews in Germany. The Jewish peoples’ lives were destroyed; they were treated inhumanly for the next 12 years, “Between 1933 and 1945, more than 11 million men, women, and children were murdered in the Holocaust. Approximately six million of these were Jews” (Levy). Hitler blamed a lot of the problems on the Jewish people, being a great orator Hitler got the support from Germany, killing off millions of Jews and other people, the German people thought it was the right thing to do. “To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community” (History.com Staff).
After World War II, Germany was left in shambles and was facing a depression. During this time, Hitler came to power through helping get the economy back on track and because of this positive aspect, the public supported him and his regime. However, this time of prosperity and increase in well being of the people was cut short when the Holocaust began.
The Nazi Party, controlled by Adolf Hitler, ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. In 1933, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany and the Nazi government began to take over. Hitler became a very influential speaker and attracted new members to his party by blaming Jews for Germany’s problems and developed a concept of a “master race.” The Nazis believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jewish people were a threat to the German racial community and also targeted other groups because of their “perceived racial inferiority” such as Gypsies, disabled persons, Polish people and Russians as well as many others. In 1938, Jewish people were banned from public places in Germany and many were sent to concentration camps where they were either murdered or forced to work.
The Effect of the Great Depression on Hitler's Power There is no simple answer as to why Hitler became chancellor in January 1933. There are a number of causal factors which all contributed to his rise into power. Any of the factors, on its own, however, would not have resulted in his appointment. They are all linked in a web of causation and if any of the factors were missing, Hitler would not have been appointed chancellor. Of the factors I would say that the Great Depression was the most important.
This economic state is one of the driving forces behind the successful takeover of the German state by the Nazi party. In Germany there was vast unemployment causing great hunger and despair throughout the country. At this point a charismatic leader entered the scene. He was a man who could make the Germans again feel nationalistic pride and hope in a better future. His name was Adolf Hitler. His message of hope combined with weak and decided left wing parties created the perfect situation for the Nazi party to be elected into office. Another favorable quality of Hitler's Nazi party was that it provided for the country a scapegoat for all problems, the Jewish people.
After World War I, the social climate in Germany was depressing. The German people were humiliated by their country's defeat and by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The financial depression that resulted left millions of individuals out of work. The German government was weak, and the people sought new leadership. These conditions provided an opportune setting for a new leader, Adolf Hitler, and his party, the National Socialist German Workers Party. Hitler, reckless and powerful, was able to fan the flames of an ancient hatred into a wild and out of control holocaust (Altman 12).
These new Jews were even more different to the average German, and it did not help matters that they brought cholera to the country in 1892. In other words, these Jews were not hated because of their actual religious beliefs and actions, but because of Germans’ unwillingness to accept diversity. This lends itself to the wider debate of racial Anti-Semitism vs. religious Anti-Semitism. Due to the phrase Anti-Semitism being coined by a ‘secular Anti-Semite’, Wilhelm Marr, it is reasonable to conclude that the rational side of Anti-Semitism was perhaps more important a factor than the irrational side was. Due to the growing popularity of Darwinism and other such scientific theories, people began to believe in the superiority of the Aryan race. The move to scientific Anti-Semitism made it even more difficult for Jews to assimilate; they could be as German as they tried, but would always be treated differently because of their ancestry. Jews could not win either way, as they were told to become more like everyone else and when they did become upstanding members of German society, they were resented for it. Ultimately, Jews were not hated for what they believed or did, but simply because they were Jews. Anti-Semitism was just a symbol of right-wing ideology and a code word for all that was hated by conservative Germans, from socialism to liberalism, and ‘hatred of
Germany had many huge problems throughout their years as a country, but one major problem that made a huge impact was the Holocaust. The Holocaust refers to a time period where Adolf Hitlers becomes chancellor and there’s a mass killing in the certain minorities Hitler found responsible for his losses. Hitler mainly looked at the Jews responsible for his losses which led to a mass killing and destruction towards the Jews and Jewish community. This mass killing took out two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of all entire worlds Jewry.