THE ORDEAL OF THE GREAT WAR AND FOUNDING OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC

1. THE ORDEAL OF THE GREAT WAR AND FOUNDING OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC • Most historians today regard Imperial Germany as the aggressor in 1914, but most Germans then BELIEVED that they were fighting a legitimate war of national defense against Russian expansionism in the Balkans. • The Reichstag voted unanimously to approve war credits in August 1914, and all German parties and trade unions agreed to a Burgfrieden, a domestic truce. • The British naval blockade imposed serious food shortages by the winter of 1915/16, and inflation rates soared. • By 1917 many Germans suspected that they were really fighting a war of Imperialist aggression; in April the SPD suffered schism between a patriotic majority and an anti-war Independent Social Democratic Party, and the most revolutionary Marxists founded a “Spartacus League.”

2. Kaiser Wilhelm II (1888-1918) sought popularity through Weltpolitik battleship building

3. EUROPE IN 1907: Germany had one reliable ally, Austria, but confronted the “Triple Entente” of Britain, France, and Russia

4. Helmuth von Moltke the Younger (1906-14) Chancellor Theobold von Bethmann Hollweg (1909-17) Social Democrats, Catholics, and liberals knew that their army command was highly aggressive but trusted that their civilian leadership sought to maintain peace.

5. Photograph of Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand on a state visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia, on June 28, 1914, and artist’s rendition of the bloody deed by the Bosnian Serb terrorist Gavrilo Princip Austria and Germany seized the pretext for a show-down with Serbia and its ally, Russia

6. Soldiers in Berlin march toward Paris, 2 August 1914 A Lutheran pastor blesses army reservists in a small town in southern Germany

7. Munich’s Odeon Square, August 2, 1914 “To me those hours seemed like a release from the painful feelings of my youth. Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time” (Mein Kampf, p. 161)

8. Käthe Kollwitz, “The Volunteers” (woodcut, 1922/23)

9. After Russia ordered a general mobilization, Germany ordered a preemptive strike against Paris on July 31

10. The actual German advance by September 5, 1914

11. By November 1914 a continuous line of trenches stretched from Switzerland to the English Channel

12. Germany achieved its only great victory at Tannenberg, East Prussia, where 130,000 invading Russians were killed or captured on August 30, 1914.Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg became Germany’s greatest war hero. “Buy war bonds! Times are hard, but victory is certain.”

13. The situation in December 1915

14. The British blockade caused hunger, because Germany only produced 2/3 of the food it needed. Women replaced men in many difficult and dangerous jobs in the munitions industry.

15. The British deployed 300 tanks at the Battle of Cambrai, November 1917. Thousands of German soldiers surrendered.

16. American troops disembark at Le Havre, July 12, 1918

17. Breaking through the “Hindenburg Line” –British troops occupying the San Quentin Canal, October 2, 1918, andtheir multitude of German prisoners

18. In October 1918 Hindenburg told the Kaiser to appoint Prince Max of Baden head of a “parliamentary” government, but Max turned to Friedrich Ebert of the SPD

19. Mutiny broke out in the High Seas Fleet in Kiel on November 4

20. The first day of the German Revolution in Berlin,Unter den Linden, November 9, 1918

21. SPD leaders proclaim Germany a Republic from the balcony of the Reichstag on November 9, 1918

22. The “Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council” of the small city of Guben, November 1918. As in Russia, “soviets” were elected by every mutinous regiment and striking factory.

23. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg founded the Spartacus League and the German Communist Party in December 1918.They embraced Lenin’s slogan, “All power to the Soviets!”

24. At the National Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils in Berlin on December 16-21, 1918, Ebert won a 75% majority for his call to elect a National Assembly

25. Communist insurgents in the newspaper district of Berlin,January 1919

26. A Freikorps armored car patrols Berlin, January 1919

27. Käthe Kollwitz, “Memorial to Karl Liebknecht”

28. “Workers, Burghers, Farmers, Soldiers of every German Tribe: Unite in the National Assembly!” (Dec. 1918)

29. Max Pechstein, “A Call to Socialism”(SPD, January 1919).Several Expressionist artists volunteered to design campaign posters for the SPD, but voters did not know what to make of them.

30. “Women!Same Rights – Same Duties:Vote Social Democratic”(1919)

31. “Farmers, Artisans, Merchants, Civil Servants, Workers, Industrialists, Artists and Scholars:ONLY THE CENTER PARTY UNITES ALL VOCATIONS AND IS THEREFORE THE TRUE PEOPLE’S PARTY”

32. “New Construction.The Building Blocks of the German Democratic Party.”The blocks include:“Equal rights for all”“Stronger protection of individual freedom”“A free church in a free state”“The League of Nations”

33. “Who will save Prussia from destruction? The German Nationalist People’s Party!” (January 1919)

34. “War Veterans! Have you spilled your blood so that conditions here would resemble a madhouse?”(DVP, 1919).Even Gustav Stresemann denounced the Republic….

35. SHARES OF THE NATIONAL VOTE INJANUARY 1919 AND JUNE 1920 USPD=Independent Social Democratic Party (dissolved 1922) SPD=Social Democratic Party DDP=German Democratic Party (left liberal) Center=Center Party (mostly Catholic) DVP=German People’s Party (national liberal) DNVP=German Nationalist People’s Party (conservative)

36. Friedrich Ebert’s opening address to the National Assembly in Weimar, February 1919

37. CONTROVERSIAL PROVISIONS OF THE WEIMAR CONSTITUTION • Mixed presidential/parliamentary government, with a powerful Chancellor to head the cabinet, but also a popularly elected President who was commander-in-chief. • Article 22 provided for PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. • Article 48 granted the President sweeping decree powers in a “state of emergency.” • Article 73 provided for a popular referendum on any measure supported by 1/10 of the voters. • Article 129 granted all civil servants (including professors and judges) tenure for life. • Articles 153 & 156 granted the Reichstag power to confiscate private property, with or without compensation, and nationalize large-scale enterprises.

38. Armed Communists march through Munich under its short-lived “Soviet Republic” in April 1919

39. The Free Corps “restore order” in Munich, May 1919 Some adopted the swastika as a symbol of racial purity, and many later joined the Nazi Party.

40. The impact of the Treaty of Versailles (June 1919)

41. TREATY PROVISIONS THAT ANGERED GERMANS • Germany lost the “Polish Corridor” to the new Republic of Poland (but Woodrow Wilson had demanded that). • Germany lost Alsace-Lorraine (again, demanded in Wilson’s 14 Points). • Germany was declared “guilty” for the war. • Because it was “guilty”, Germany was obliged to pay for the total costs of the war (Wilson had promised a “peace without annexations or indemnities”). • Germany was disarmed: Its army could have no more than 100,000 troops, and it was forbidden to possess an air force, battleships, or tanks.

42. “The Stab in the Back”(Nazi magazine cover, 1924)

43. PHASES IN THE HISTORY OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC • 1918/19: Founding the Republic (suppression of the radical Left, writing the constitution) • 1919-1923: Inflation becomes hyper-inflation (Dada and expressionism dominate the art scene) • 1924-1929: Economic and political stabilization (the “New Objectivity” emerges in the arts) • 1930-1932: The Great Depression and paralysis of democratic institutions. • 1933: The “National Revolution” (Hitler is appointed Chancellor on January 30 and suppresses all non-Nazi political parties and trade unions within five months).