ww1 and nazi germany
...ard, but their sources began to run out. They were running out of men, supplies, and morale from the people at home. The people living at home in Germany were increasingly affected by the hardships of war. There was a shortage of food; mothers could not get enough food to feed their children. The army was running out of supplies; soldiers were lucky if they had a descent pair of boots, or even a pair of boots that fit them. Discouragement was growing, and people wanted the war to be over so that things could go back to the way they were beforehand. World War I did not end because somebody lost; it was ended through an armistice, an agreement between both sides to disarm and stop fighting. Germany had not been defeated. Most of the fighting was being done in France; no one had gained any of Germany’s territory. The Germans wanted to end the war with peace and no territorial gains. The Kaiser had disappeared at this time and it was decided that the fight would be given up on. Unfortunately for Germany, the armistice was not the end. That armistice had been signed, but problems in Germany persisted and became worse. The Kaiser left an empty space in German politics and a Republic was forming. Extreme right and extreme left wing parties took advantage of this gap in the government. There was revolution in the streets by huge groups of people. There were huge economic concerns. All of this fighting, and new government left the new president, Ebert in a very difficult situation. About six to seven months after the Armistice was signed, came the Treaty of Versailles which was signed on November 11, 1919. The Germans went to this meeting expecting to negotiate a treaty with the other powers. They did not get this at all. They were forced to sign a treaty that they did not feel was fair at all. If they didn’t sign it, Germany would have been invaded. Through Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty Germany was forced accept full blame for the outbreak of the war. They had to agree that they were completely responsible for the start of the war, and were given the burden of paying tremendous amounts of war reparations in both goods and money. This was only the beginning of the harsh factions towards Germany in the treaty. The treaty called for plenty of German territory to be taken away and split up between various other nations. Among this land taken away, was the Saar basin which was an area where coal mines that were very important and beneficial to the German economy. The Germans were also left with no land touching the ocean; they had no outlet to the sea. The treaty did not stop here, but rather continued by saying that the German navy and air force had to be surrendered, and their army was limited to a small amount of 100,000 men. With only a small army to fight, it would be very difficult to protect your country. On top of this, the Germans were forced to demilitarize the Rhineland near the border of France. One could not protect their country if they could not have any troops near the border. All of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles outraged the Germans and no one wanted to sign the treaty. The treaty would have to be signed or else Germany would go to war and no one felt that Germany could go to war, not even the army. Eventually a group of socialists and Catholics were put together to sign the treaty. The two unknown diplomats that were said to have signed it were later killed. With the signing of the treaty came the entire blame that the German people put on the Socialists. They dominated the government before the war and were left to blame for all of the hardships that came from the war. People were beginning to turn to new parties for attempts to look for answers and ways to deal with the hardships in Germany at the time. The Weimar Republic had been created in 1919 as a way to resolve the hardships and national conflict of Germany, but instead it became part of it. The Weimar Republic was an experiment in parliamentary democracy for Germany. This was a system that Germans were already unused to. Not only did the Germany people have to deal with this, but they had to deal with an enormous amount of political, economic, and social problems. There were a number of different political parties in existence in Germany at the time of the Weimar Republic and none of them were able to have the majority. This resulted in a very unstable government. All of the parties cared only about their specific interests and didn’t do anything about attracting others to their party. There was also a lack of strong political leaders in the Weimar Republic. There had been two strong leaders in the beginning, Ebert and Stresemann but they both died in the 1920’s. Hindenburg, one of the controlling generals of World War One became president at the death of Ebert. He was a person that was distrustful of the republic and the numerous parties and politics that came along with it. The numerous disagreeing political parties and lack of strong leadership symbolized the beginning of the end of German democracy. Among these problems, there was the problem of the army that wasn’t really controlled by the government. The governmen...