PDF file: History - Advanced Higher - Germany - Education Scotland

History 

Germany: Versailles to the 

Outbreak of World War II 

1918 – 1939 

Advanced Higher 

7897

Autumn 2000 

History 

Germany: 

Versailles to the Outbreak of 

World War II 

1918 – 1939 

Advanced Higher 

Support Materials 

HIGHER STILL 

*+,-./

CONTENTS 

Course Requirements 

Using this Unit 

Chronological Study 

PART ONE COURSE ISSUES: A FRAMEWORK FOR STUDENTS 

Theme 1 The Creation of the Weimar Republic 

Theme 2 A Period of Relative Stability 

Theme 3 The Collapse of Weimar 

Theme 4 The Transformation of Post-Weimar Society 

PART TWO CURRENT RESEARCH 

Section One Introduction 

Section Two Historiography of the Weimar Republic: 1970-2000 

Section Three Historiography of the Third Reich: 1970-2000 

PART THREE THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC: SOURCES 

Section One 

Section Two 

Section Three 

Section Four 

Section Five 

The Foundations of the Republic: 1918-1923 

Foreign Policy: 1918-1933 

Republican Stability: 1924-1929 

The Collapse of the Republic: 1930-1933 

Nazism in the Weimar Republic: 1918-1933 

History: Germany: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II – 1918-1939 (AH) i

CONTENTS (CONTINUED) 

PART FOUR THE THIRD REICH: SOURCES 

Section One Politics and Economics: 1933-1939 

Section Two The Nazi Social and Racial Revolution: 1933-1939 

Section Three Hitler’s Foreign Policy: 1933-1939 

History: Germany: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II – 1918-1939 (AH) ii

COURSE REQUIREMENTS 

General Aims 

This Advanced Higher context has to fulfil the overall aims for this level of historical 

study i.e.: 

• to acquire depth in the knowledge and understanding of historical themes. 

• to develop skills of analysing issues, developments and events, drawing 

conclusions and evaluating sources. 

Course Content 

The content to be covered is described in the following terms: 

Germany: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II 

A study of the changing nature of political authority, the reasons for changes and the 

consequences of the changing character of political authority, focusing on the themes 

of ideology, authority and revolution. 

The creation of the Weimar Republic, including: military defeat, the November 

Revolution and the Treaty of Versailles; social and political instability; economic 

crisis and hyper-inflation. 

A period of relative stability, including: currency reform and the Dawes plan; social 

welfare provision; the Stressemann era in foreign affairs. 

The collapse of Weimar, including: economic depression and mass unemployment; 

the weakening of democracy, Bruning to Schleicher; the rise of Nazism; Hitler and 

the Nazi takeover of power. 

The transformation of post-Weimar society, including: Nazi consolidation of power in 

Germany; Nazi economic policy; Nazi social and racial policies; the impact of foreign 

policy on domestic circumstances. 

Assessment 

Course requirements describe the criteria that students are expected to meet as 

consisting of the ability to: 

• handle detailed information in order to analyse events and their relationship 

thoroughly 

• use this analysis to address complex historical issues including consideration of 

alternative interpretations 

• draw a series of judgements together by structured, reasoned argument reaching 

well-supported conclusions. 

History: Germany: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II - 1918-1939 (AH) 1

Learning Experiences 

The kinds of activities expected of a student who is taking an Advanced History 

course are outlined as follows: 

Students should: 

• engage in wide-ranging, independent reading relevant to their historical studies 

• interpret and evaluate historical source material, relating it precisely to its 

context in order to show awareness of the complexity and elusiveness of historical 

truth 

• become aware of different interpretations of history by different historians and the 

reasons for these 

• record systematically information derived from a variety of sources, such as 

books, notes, lectures, audio-visual materials 

• make use of historical terms and concepts encountered in the study of complex 

primary and secondary evidence 

• take part in formal and informal discussion and debate based on and informed by 

historical evidence and knowledge 

• develop the skills of extended communication for a variety of purposes including 

descriptive and analytical essays or oral responses, responses to source-based 

questions and a Dissertation; opportunities should be provided for revision and 

redrafting of extended writing following critical review 

• develop individual and independent learning skills, especially those relating to the 

preparation and production of a Dissertation. 

It is important that the students should understand the historical themes that run 

through the chosen topic and not simply learn about a series of discrete historical 

issues. 


USING THIS UNIT 

The material in this unit is intended to support students’ work on this course by: 

• expanding the course content to provide a more detailed framework for student 

study 

• providing stimulus material to encourage debate and discussion 

• providing source handling exercises appropriate to the course requirements 

• making reference to suitable texts. 

Teachers may wish to: 

• provide an introductory lecture for an aspect of the course, this introduction to be 

followed by purposeful note-taking by students investigating the relevant aspect 

more fully 

• raise a question/problem/issue to be discussed, followed by note-taking, and 

concluded with further discussion 

• raise an issue for students to explore, given an assigned case to argue, to be 

followed by formal debate 

• provide stimulus materials in any appropriate form, to be followed by detailed 

research of the issue through student note-making 

• select essay titles for collaborative planning of an essay outline 

• use sources for collaborative work on handling sources effectively. 

Sources 

It is essential that sources are used regularly and are drawn from all parts of the 

course. 

Sources should include extracts from the works of historians. Where appropriate, 

differing interpretations by historians should be used and the reasons for these 

differences carefully considered. 

Students’ study of historians’ works should include identifying and describing 

historians’ viewpoints. 

The student material which follows is structured to: 

• provide a framework for the course which students can use to develop more 

detailed notes 

• raise issues to form the basis for student research and to use for discussion, debate 

and essay/practice 

• provide a selection of primary sources 

• provide appropriate activities. 



CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY 

1871 18 January William I becomes Emperor of the German Empire 

1914 August Germany at war with Russia, France and Britain. 

1916 29 August Hindenburg and Ludendorff form new Supreme 

Army Command (OHL). 

1917 7 April William II promises reform of voting system. 

19 July Peace Resolution passed by the Reichstag (SPD 

Centre and left liberals). 

1918 3 March Germany and USSR sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. 

27 September Army High Command calls for an armistice. 

3 October Request for an armistice sent to President Wilson. 

4 October Prince Max of Baden becomes Chancellor at the head 

of a majority government including Socialists (SPD), 

and Centre and liberal politicians. 

26 October Germany becomes a constitutional monarchy by an 

Act of Parliament. 

3-9 November Revolution spreads throughout Germany. 

9 November Abdication of William II. Republic proclaimed. 

Ebert becomes Chancellor in SPD-USPD Coalition. 

10 November Ebert and Groener agreement. 

11 November Armistice signed with the Allies. 

1919 5-11 January Spartacist Rising in Berlin. 

19 January Election of National Assembly. 

11 February Ebert elected National (Reich) President. 

28 June The Treaty of Versailles signed. 

11 August Weimar Constitution comes into force. 

1920 24 February The Nazi (NSDAP) Party founded in Munich. 

13-16 June Right-wing Kapp Putsch fails. 

6 June First elections to the Reichstag. 


1921 24-29 January French proposal that Germany pay reparations for the 

sum of 269,000,000,000 gold marks. 

(In May 1921 the figure was set at 132,000,000,000 

gold marks, and for Germany to pay 26% of her 

export earnings and the costs of the Allied 

occupation.) 

26 August Erzberger murdered by right-wing extremists. 

1922 16 April Germany and USSR sign the Treaty of Rapallo 

during Genoa Conference on reparations and 

reconstruction. 

24 June Rathenau murdered by right-wing extremists. 

22 November Cuno becomes Chancellor. 

1923 11 January French and Belgian troops enter the Ruhr. 

13 January German government under Cuno proclaims passive 

resistance in the Ruhr. 

July – November Hyperinflation at its peak. 

13 August Stressemann becomes Chancellor. 

26 September Stressemann’s government abandons passive 

resistance unconditionally in the Ruhr. 

8-9 November Hitler Putsch in Munich. 

15 November Rentenmark introduced to stabilise the currency. 

1924 29 August Reichstag accepts Dawes Plan on reparations. 

1925 28 February Death of Ebert. Hindenburg elected President in 

April. 

5-16 October Locarno Conference. 

1926 Germany becomes a member of the League of 

Nations. 

1927 16 July Law on Labour Exchanges and Unemployment 

Insurance provides progressive welfare legislation. 


1928 20 May Reichstag Elections: Nazis win 12 seats. 

29 June Grand Coalition formed. SPD re-enter government. 

27 August Kellogg-Brand Pact outlaws war. 

1929 3 October Death of Stressemann. 

29 October Crash on Wall Street Stock Exchange. 

1930 12 March Reichstag accepts Young Plan on reparations. 

29 March Bruning appointed Chancellor following the 

resignation of Muller as head of Weimar’s last 

majority government. 

14 September Reichstag Elections: significant Nazi gains. They 

become the second largest party with 107 seats. 

1931 6 July Moratorium (suspension) on reparations. 

1932 10 April Hindenburg re-elected President after a second ballot. 

Hitler takes second place. 

30 May Von Papen appointed Chancellor. 

27 July Von Papen suspends Prussian government and 

introduces direct rule in Germany’s largest state. 

31 July Reichstag Elections: Nazis become the largest party 

with 230 deputies. 

6 Nov Reichstag Elections: significant Nazi losses. They 

remain the largest party with 196 deputies. 

3 Dec Schleicher succeeds von Papen as Chancellor. 

30 Dec. Official unemployment figure of 4,380,000. 

1933 30 January Hitler appointed Chancellor in a coalition cabinet. 

27 February Reichstag fire. 

28 February Presidential decree suspends civil liberties. 

5 March Last Reichstag Elections. The Nazis win 288 seats 

out of 647 seats. 

13 March Goebbels becomes Minister for Propaganda. 

23 March Enabling Act passed which effectively ended 

parliamentary government in Germany. 


1 April National boycott of Jewish shops. 

1933 2 May Free trade unions dissolved. 

10 May Burning of books throughout Germany. 

14 July Nazi Party becomes the only ‘legal’ political party. 

14 October Germany leaves the League of Nations. 

1934 26 January German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact signed. 

30 June SA Chief of Staff Ernst Rohm arrested and killed 

along with other colleagues in ‘Night of the Long 

Knives’. 

19August After the death of Hindenburg, Hitler becomes 

President as well as Chancellor of Germany. 

1935 15 January Plebiscite in Saar votes for reunion with Germany. 

16 March Reintroduction of conscription. 

18 June Anglo-German Naval agreement signed. 

15 September Nuremberg Race Laws passed. 

1936 7 March German troops enter the Rhineland. 

September Four Year Plan announced to make German economy 

‘capable of war’. 

1 November Rome-Berlin Axis announced by Mussolini. 

1937 5 November Hossbach Memorandum records Hitler’s plans for 

territorial expansion. 

26 November Schacht resigns as Minister of Economics. 

1938 4 February Resignation of leading German generals announced. 

12 March Anschluss with Austria. 

30 September Munich Agreement cedes Sudetenland to Germany. 

9 November Kristallnacht. Organised pogroms against the Jews. 


1939 15 March Hitler seizes Prague. This is followed by a 

Franco-British guarantee to Poland on 31 March. 

23 August Nazi-Soviet Pact signed. 

1 September Germany invades Poland. 

3 September Britain and France declare war on Germany. 

1940 22 June France signs an armistice with Germany. 

1941 22 June Germany invades the Soviet Union. 

1942 20 January Wansee Conference in Berlin on the ‘Final Solution’. 

1943 30 January German Sixth Army capitulates at Stalingrad. 

1944 6 June Allied invasion of Normandy. 

20 July Stauffenberg Bomb Plot to assassinate Hitler. 

1945 4-11 February ‘Big Three’ conference at Yalta. 

30 April Adolf Hitler commits suicide in Berlin. 

8 May Unconditional surrender of Germany to the Allies. 



PART ONE: COURSE ISSUES - A FRAMEWORK FOR STUDENTS 

THEME 1: THE CREATION OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 

This first main area of the course involves the study of the creation of the Weimar 

Republic including: 

• military defeat 

• the November Revolution and the Treaty of Versailles 

• social and political instability 

• economic crisis and hyper-inflation. 

This is the crucial base on which the course is built. It requires an appreciation of 

military, political, social and economic matters. It needs a grasp of the wider context 

surrounding events in Germany, including the attitudes of Allied leaders who shaped 

the Treaty of Versailles, and events in Russia. 

This section of the course therefore deals with the key concepts of: 

• ideology 

• authority 

• revolution. 

From careful study of this theme, an understanding of the inter-action between these 

concepts will be developed. 

Issues for investigation/discussion 

There are many questions to think about in this section e.g. 

• Were the circumstances in which Weimar was born a burden that was 

impossible to overcome? 

• Was the Versailles Treaty so unfair to Germany as to leave the 

Weimar Republic an impossible legacy? 

• Was political opinion in Germany so completely divided that uniting 

behind the Weimar Government was never going to be possible? 

• Was the Weimar Constitution fundamentally flawed? 

• Did the way the war ended leave Germans with the illusion that they 

had not been properly militarily defeated? 


Part A: Military Defeat 

From August 1914, Germany had waged total war. As one historian has commented, 

‘The amount of blood and treasure invested in the First World War made it difficult 

for Germans to contemplate a future in which the German Reich was not victorious.’ 

AJ Nicholls, ‘Weimar and the Rise of Hitler’, MacMillan, 2000 

The apparently sudden coming of setbacks that threatened defeat was therefore a 

profound shock that had enormous political consequences. 

Notes will be required on the following dimensions: 

1. From Success to Failure from the German Army, 1918 

This involves considering: 

(i) German victory over Russia 

(ii) The Treaty of Brest Litovsk 

(iii) The Ludendorff Offensive in the West 

(iv) Allied counter-offensives, July-August 

(v) German retreat 

(vi) The collapse of Germany’s allies. 

2. Where did power lie? 


(i) The character and government of Kaiser William II 

(ii) The German political systems; Reichstag and Bundesrat 

(iii) The power and influence of Army leaders 

(iv) The main political parties, their leaders, supporters and policies. 

3. Revolution from above? 


(i) Ludendorff’s views on the need for an armistice 

(ii) His views on the need for a parliamentary democracy 

(iii) Prince Max of Baden and the forming of a parliamentary cabinet 

(iv) The request by Germany for an armistice. 

Issues to discuss 

• Was Ludendorff simply trying to avoid being blamed for defeat? 

• Should the Social Democrats have agreed to enter the Government? 


Part B: The November Revolution 

This section covers a remarkable series of events in later October and November 1918 

that include Germany becoming a republic and the First World War finally coming to 

an end. 

The Historian, William Carr, argues that 

‘The German Revolution, like the March Revolution in Russia, was spontaneous in its 

origins. ….It was also a bloodless revolution.’ 

Notes will be required on the following aspects: 

1. Problems of peace-making 


(i) The German request for an armistice 

(ii) President Wilson’s demands 

(iii) Ludendorff’s resistance and resignation. 

2. Constitutional monarchy is established 


(i) Limitations on the Emperor’s powers 

(ii) The establishment of government responsible to the Reichstag 

(iii) Controls over the military. 

3. Conditions in Germany 


(i) The effects of the allied blockage 

(ii) The shock of defeat 

(iii) Evidence of differences between classes and between regions; tensions 

in society 

(iv) Evidence of anti-Semitism. 

4. Naval Mutiny 


(i) The mutiny in two cruisers and the reasons for this 

(ii) The spread of the mutiny in Kiel 

(iii) The widening of protest to include workers and soldiers in Germany 

(iv) The setting up of workers’ and soldiers’ councils. 

5. Political Revolution 


(i) Different left-wing political groups 

(ii) The setting up of the Bavarian Republic 

(iii) The Kaiser’s abdication 

(iv) Ebert becomes Chancellor. 


6. A Troubled Government 


(i) The Ebert-Groener Pact 

(ii) Signing the armistice 

(iii) Forming a new government 

(iv) Workers and Soldiers councils; the Berlin Congress 

(v) Limits on Government control of Germany. 

7. The Far Left Fails 

This involves the following: 

(i) The Spartacists, their leaders and their beliefs 

(ii) How the Rising came about 

(iii) Its failure; Noske’s use of Freikorps, the death of their leaders 

(iv) The issue of workers councils, the miners’ strike 

(v) Resentment at the use of controls and central planning. 

Issue to debate 

‘Ebert’s aim was to avoid a real social revolution in Germany.’ 

What can be said for and against this view? 


Part C: The Treaty of Versailles 

With the First World War over, the new Weimar Government not only had to struggle 

to impose its authority in Germany, it also had to face the consequences of the peace 

treaty that was being worked out by the victorious Allies. It is therefore important to 

build up detailed knowledge of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the motives and 

concerns of the men who created the Treaty, the reactions in Germany to the terms of 

the Treaty, and the consequences for the Weimar Government of accepting the Treaty. 

The war had not been fought on German soil and only months earlier German forces 

had ended Russia’s part in the war and advanced west as far as the River Marne. It is 

not surprising that defeat was difficult to accept. 

Notes will be required on the following dimensions: 

1. The peace aims of the Allies 


(i) The USA, President Wilson and the 14 Points 

(ii) Lloyd George, Britain, and naval and imperial and economic concerns 

(iii) France and Clemenceau and French concerns for security. 

2. The Treaty of Versailles 

This involved considering: 

(i) Territorial arrangements including a ban on uniting with Austria 

(ii) Military restrictions on Germany and the army of occupation in the 

Rhineland 

(iii) Financial arrangement including war guilt, reparations and overseas 

instruments 

(iv) Overseas arrangements including colonies and the fleet. 

3. German Responses 


(i) Popular expectations of the peace 

(ii) The attitudes of leading politicians 

(iii) The arguments against the Treaty 

(iv) An evaluation of the justice of German complaints 

(v) The decision to sign the Treaty 

(vi) Attitudes in Germany towards the Treaty 

(vii) The emergence of the ‘stab in the back’ view. 


Issues to consider and discuss 

• The historian A J Nicholls states that the Versailles Treaty ‘still left the Germans 

considerably more territory than united Germany has today.’ How justified was 

German hostility to the Treaty of Versailles? 

• How far is it fair to argue that ‘The only treaty acceptable to the Germans was 

one drawn up as if they had won the war’? 

• The historian William Carr argues 

‘What the German Nationalists could not do ….was bring themselves to accept 

the fact of Gemany’s military defeat.’ 

Why was it possible for them to do this? 

What might be the results of such an attitude? 


Part D: Social and Political Instability 

This part of the course deals with the years 1919-22, a time when the new Republic 

struggled to become established and faced threats to its stability from both the left and 

right wings. The Treaty of Versailles was signed by two ministers of the Weimar 

Government on 28 th June 1919; reactions to this Treaty therefore form a factor in the 

problems of this period. Some historians believe the kind of political system that was 

created by the new Weimar Constitution of 1919 was itself partly to blame for the 

troubles that developed in the following years. 

Notes will be needed on the following: 

1. The New Constitution 


(i) Elections and the drafting of the constitution 

(ii) The Länder and their powers; the Reichsrat 

(iii) The President and his authority; Ebert the first President 

(iv) The Reichstag; the chancellor and his responsibilities 

(v) The electoral system; people’s rights 

(vi) Problems and tensions in the constitution. 

2. Political Parties and their Policies 


(i) The Social Democrats and Independent Social Democrats 

(ii) The Democrats 

(iii) The People’s Party 

(iv) The Centre 

(v) The National People’s Party 

(vi) The Communists. 

3. Supporters and Opponents of the Weimar Government 

This involves considering the attitudes of: 

(i) Trade Unions 

(ii) The Army 

(iii) The Civil Service 

(iv) The Judiciary 

(v) The Educational Systems 

(vi) A series of Chancellors in office 

(vii) The murders of leading politicians. 

4. The Kapp Putsch 


(i) The causes of and supporters of the Putsch 

(ii) The seizure of control in Berlin; army attitudes 

(iii) The general strike 

(iv) The end of the Putsch 

(v) Why sympathiseres were not dealt with firmly. 


5. The Nationalist Socialist German Works Party 


(i) Drexler and the German Workers Party 

(ii) Aspects of Hitler’s early life shaping his beliefs 

(iii) The Party’s principles 

(iv) The importance to Hitler of racial views 

(v) Hitler’s rise in the Party and the reasons for this 

(vi) To whom did the Party appeal? 

Issues to discuss 

• Do you agree that ‘the Weimar Constitution provided a recipe for tension, 

quarrels and instability?’ 

• Why did not those wholly committed to the Republic deal more firmly with their 

opponents? 

• How true is it to state that the Army managed to become ‘a state within a state’? 


Part E: Economic Crisis and Hyper-inflation 

1923 proved to be a very troubled year for the Republic, a year in which troubles in 

Germany and foreign pressure combined to being about a major crisis. The reactions 

of political parties and the Army to the crisis showed how insecure the Republic’s 

foundations were. The crisis was weathered and brought to the fore the man who was 

to be Weimar’s leading statesmen - Gustav Stressemann. Events included Adolf 

Hitler’s first bid for power. 

Notes should be made on the following aspects: 

1. Trying to meet Allied demands? 


(i) The final reparations bill presented to Germany 

(ii) Economic problems in Germany i.e. 

- Debates 

- Wartime losses 

- The need to tackle post-war problems 

- The difficulty of enforcing a strict taxation policy 

- Signs of inflation 

(iii) The Wirth Government and the policy of ‘fulfilment’ 

(iv) Von Seeckt and the Army policy of avoiding military restrictions 

(v) The Treaty of Rapallo and avoidance of restrictions. 

2. The occupation of the Ruhr 


(i) German inability to meet reparation demands 

(ii) Poincaré and the Franco-Belgian occupation 

(iii) The Cuno Government and passive resistance 

(iv) The use of French workers; violence, strikes and sabotage. 

3. Inflation 


(i) How the Ruhr occupation worsened the state of the economy 

(ii) Price rises and the fall in value of the Mark 

(iii) Who benefited 

(iv) Damage done to wages, savings and attitudes to the Republic. 

4. Reactions in Germany 


(i) Bavaria as a shelter for Patriotic League paramilitaries 

(ii) Von Kahn’s policies 

(iii) Army attitudes to events in Bavaria 

(iv) Army intervention to remove left-wing governments in Saxony and 

Thuringia 

(v) Stressemann, his career and personality 

(vi) Stressemann resumes reparation payments 

(vii) Hitler’s Munich Putsch and its consequences. 


Issues to consider 

• Why did Britain and France press so hard for reparations? Did their reasons 

differ? 

• Should the French be blamed for their actions? 

• Why was Bavaria so important a centre of right-wing activity? 

• Why did not Hitler’s failure simply make him a figure of ridicule? 


THEME 2: A PERIOD OF RELATIVE STABILITY 

During the years 1924 to 1929, the Weimar Republic seemed to flourish. Living 

standards rose, industrial production increased, exports grew. These developments 

took place amid a background of international negotiations that helped to stabilise the 

German economy and seemed to have sorted out the question of reparations 

agreements. 

In foreign affairs too, Germany moved back into a world of better relations with the 

countries that had so recently been her enemies. French troops left the Ruhr and 

Allied troops began to leave the Rhineland. Germany’s changed status was marked 

by her entry into the League of Nations. 

Yet all was not entirely well. Foreign money poured into Germany, attracted by high 

interest rates, and might just as easily leave. Extremist political parties on left and 

right continued to denounce the Republic and its policies. Those who accepted the 

Weimar political system were fragmented in different political parties and did not find 

it easy to co-operate with one another. The Army continued to fail to offer 

enthusiastic backing for the Weimar Republic. 

The concepts of ideology and authority pervade this part of the course as people with 

differing political beliefs clashed and the government continued to struggle to assert 

really effective and generally accepted authority. 

Issues to consider / investigate / discuss 

• How soundly-based was Germany’s economic recovery of 

1924-1929? 

• How ready were Germans at this time to now accept the 

territorial arrangement made in the Versailles Treaty? 

• How secure and stable was the Weimar political system? 


Part A: Currency Reform and the Dawes Plan 

During 1923 runaway inflation had caused great harm to many in Germany. This 

problem was tackled by Stressemann when he became Chancellor in August. The 

Reichstag gave him full power to try to solve the problem. The reforms that followed 

worked well. In August 1924 the Reichstag accepted a plan to settle the problem of 

fixing reparations repayments at a figure acceptable to Germany. These events show 

how intertwined foreign and domestic policies had come to be in deciding the 

effectiveness of the Weimar Government’s authority. 


1. Currency Reform 


(i) The use of land and industrial values as a base on which to secure the 

currency 

(ii) The loan provided for the Reichsbank 

(iii) The creation of the Rentenbank and a new currency 

(iv) Luther as Finance Minister 

(v) The importance of Schacht as Currency Commissioner. 

2. Cutting Costs 


(i) Cutting expenditure in Government 

(ii) Tax increases 

(iii) Restoration of confidence. 

3. The Dawes Plan 


(i) The importance of Herriot and MacDonald’s elections to office 

(ii) US pressure to sort out reparations 

(iii) The Dawes Committee 

(iv) The proposed reparation repayment system 

(v) Security for repayment from revenues: a loan from the West 

(vi) German critics of the Plan 

(vii) Its successful passage through the Reichstag. 

What do you think …. 

Were the key reasons why these economic reforms were successful? 


Part B: Social Welfare Provision – and Problems 

The recovery of the mid to late 1920s allowed the Weimar Government to improve 

living conditions for many people in terms of better transport, housing, schools and 

hospitals. However, the opponents of the Republic continued to be very active whilst 

its supports failed to combine together in reply. The tensions and differences finally 

led to the end of what had been a reasonably stable Government over the issue of the 

provision to be made for the unemployed. 

Notes will be required on the following: 

1. Areas of complaint 


(i) Farmers and their reasons for complaint 

(ii) The complaints of small businessmen, craftsmen etc. 

(iii) The growth of small parties representing them 

(iv) The attitude of Army, Civil Service and University 

(v) The forming of an alliance between far right parties. 

2. Problems of Government 


(i) The death of Ebert and the election of Hindenburg 

(ii) The dependence of German prosperity on foreign loans 

(iii) Confirmed tensions between pro-Weimar parties 

(iv) The death of Stressemann. 

3. Success and Failure 


(i) The electoral achievements of moderate parties 

(ii) The setting up of the Reichsbanner 

(iii) The Young Plan to scale down reparations 

(iv) The 1927 reform of social insurance 

(v) Opposition to this and the end of the Müller Government, 1930. 

Issue to clarify 

Why were pro-Weimar political parties unable to work better together? Was it 

personalities or policies that separated them? 


Part C: The Stressemann Era in Foreign Affairs 

From 1924 to 1929 Stressemann dominated German foreign policy-making. His 

formidable skills brought Germany a whole range of benefits in terms of her status 

and helpful to bring a reduction in her reparations bill. His death in October 1929 was 

a serious blow to the Republic. Historians have been careful to point out that 

Stressemann was very much a German Nationalist, however. 


1. Gustav Stressemann 


(i) His personality, beliefs and skills 

(ii) His early career 

(iii) The aims of his foreign policy. 

2. His Circumstances 


(i) British foreign policy aims 

(ii) French foreign policy aims 

(iii) Russian foreign policy aims 

(iv) His attitude to eastern frontiers. 

3. A Deal in the West, 1925 


(i) The Geneva Protocol 

(ii) Negotiations with Britain and France 

(iii) The Treaty of Locarno 

(iv) His attitude to eastern frontiers. 

4. Skilful Progress 


(i) The evacuation of the Ruhr 

(ii) Partial evacuation of the Rhineland 

(iii) Entry to the League of Nations 

(iv) The Treaty of Berlin 

(v) The Kellogg Briand Pact 

(vi) The evacuation of the rest of the Rhineland 

(vii) The Young Plan and the removal of further Allied controls. 



There has been considerable debate about Stressemann, his motives, his aims, his skill 

in building an image as a diplomat in search of a peaceful settlement of German 

frontiers. In 1926 he won the Nobel Peace Prize. 

• How accurate is this image? 

• What can be said against it? 

• Does he deserve to be known as ‘a good European’? 

• What contacts and connections did he build up with German minorities living in 

other lands? 

• How seriously did he regard the Treaty of Locarno? Was it just a tactic? 



THEME 3: THE COLLAPSE OF WEIMAR 

The third area of the course requires the study of: 

• Economic depression and mass unemployment 

• The weakening of democracy; Bruning to Schleicher 

• The rise of Nazism 

• Hitler and the Nazi take over of power. 

Between 1930 and 1933 the Weimar Republic was hit by the economic depression 

that had a severed impact on many countries of the world. This section of the course 

deals with the Republican Governments’ attempts to deal with the crisis and with the 

political consequences of the events of the period. By spring of 1933, parliamentary 

government had effectively ended, swept aside by the country’s recently appointed 

Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist Party. Nazi beliefs 

differed sharply from those of the parliamentary parties; Nazi strategies fed down 

from the authority of their leader. 

In this section of the course; therefore, the three key concepts are all central to 

understanding i.e. 

• Ideology 

• Authority 

• Revolution. 


A great deal is concentrated in this short period including: 

• Could the Weimar Republic have avoided the collapse of 

parliamentary government? 

• What made it possible for Hitler to rise so rapidly to the post of 

chancellor? 

• Who supported the Nazi Party? 

• Was it primarily the economic crisis that destroyed the Weimar 

Republic? 

• What was the role of the Army in the events of these years? 


Part A: Economic Depression and Mass Unemployment 

The world economic crisis that developed rapidly from the collapse of the USA’s 

Wall Street Stock Exchange in October 1929 soon made its impact on Germany. In 

March 1930 Bruning of the Centre Party had become Chancellor and for two years he 

struggled no deal with the crisis that hit German farming, industry, trade and finance. 

In the election that Bruning called in September 1930 pro Weimar parties did badly, 

extreme parties (especially Nazis and Communists) did well. It is against this 

background, and heavily dependent on President Hindenburg’s support, that Bruning 

tried to cope with the economic crisis. 


1. World Depression 

This involves considering the background to the crisis in Germany including: 

(i) Wall Street Crash and the stock market crisis 

(ii) Bank failures 

(iii) Crisis in farming and industries and price falls 

(iv) World trade problems and increasing tariffs. 

2. The Depression in Germany 


(i) German dependence on foreign loans and the withdrawal of loans 

(ii) Business failures and problems of trade 

(iii) Farming crisis 

(iv) Banking troubles 

(v) Rising unemployment. 

3. Government policies under Bruning 


(i) Falling government tax revenues 

(ii) Government cuts and their consequences 

(iii) The problem of sustaining the Mark’s value 

(iv) Tax increases 

(v) The unsuccessful attempt at customs union with Austria. 

4. The End of Reparations 


(i) Bruning’s aim of ending reparations 

(ii) Hoover and US readiness to end inter-allied debts 

(iii) British and French responses 

(iv) The virtual end of reparations. 



• What criticisms were made in Germany of Bruning’s policies? 

• Were they justified? Should he have acted differently? 

• How far were Germany’s deep problems, 1929 – 32, the result of mistaken 

policies pursued 1924-1929? Was the economy in an unsound condition 

anyway? 


Part B: The Weakening of Democracy; Bruning to Schleicher 

Bruning became Chancellor in March 1930. At the end of January 1933, Adolf Hitler 

became Chancellor. The period between these dates is a critical time in understanding 

why the parliamentary democracy that had survived since the war finally came to an 

end. Political dealing between parties took place against the background of the 

economic depression and the effects that this had on Germany’s voters. The 1930 

election saw big gains for the extremes of left and right yet the remaining parties still 

seemed to fail to collaborate to resist movements determined to end parliamentary 

democracy. Running through this section is the key question of how far the Weimar 

Republic brought about its own downfall. Once Hitler became chancellor the 

parliamentary system was rapidly dismantled. 

Notes will be needed on the following aspects: 

1. The Bruning Government 


(i) The influence of Schleicher 

(ii) Bruning’s political beliefs, qualities, etc 

(iii) Why Bruning replaced Müller 

(iv) His reliance on Hindenburg 

(v) His budget proposals and clash with the Reichstag. 

2. The 1930 Election 


(i) The election results and the reasons for them 

(ii) The problems facing the Socialists 

(iii) How the Government survived. 

3. The Crisis of 1932 


(i) The Presidential campaign 

(ii) The failure of constitutional supporters to effectively organise 

(iii) Army attitudes 

(iv) The fall of Bruning and appointment of von Papen 

(v) The July and November elections and the reasons for the results 

(vi) Von Papen’s attack on the Prussian Government 

(vii) The replacement of von Papen by Schleicher. 


What can be said for and against the view that: 

‘The real turning point in the collapse of Weimar democracy was the fall of Bruning 

not the fall of Müller’? 


Part C: The Rise of Nazism 

The rapid rise of the Nazi Party during the early 1930s to become the largest party in 

the Reichstag deserves careful consideration. The character and polices of the Party, 

its power structure, its methods and its leadership all require attentions. 


1. Who supported the Nazis? 

There is no simple answer to this; areas of particular strength should be 

considered including: 

(i) Nazi strength in the provinces 

(ii) Nazi appeal to the middle classes 

(iii) Nazi strength in Protestant areas 

(iv) Attitudes in the Army 

(v) Where Nazi finances came from. 

2. What were Nazi policies? 

There are shifts here, but aspects to consider include: 

(i) Nationalism 

(ii) Anti-Marxism 

(iii) Racialism 

(iv) Hostility to Versailles 

(v) Strong government and strong leader 

(vi) Ideas for reform. 

3. What were Nazi methods? 

Aspects to include: 

(i) Marches and rallies 

(ii) The SA and the use of violence 

(iii) Propaganda 

(iv) The skilful exploiting of circumstances including the Young Plan and 

the economic crisis. 

4. Adolf Hitler 

Aspects to include: 

(i) His control over the Party 

(ii) His oratory 

(iii) His skill as a political opportunist 

(iv) Other key figures in the Party. 

Issue to discuss 

‘Was Hitler’s support strongest in Protestant provincial Germany?’ 


Part D: Hitler and the Nazi Take-over of Power 

Having become Chancellor, General von Schleicher lasted just two months in office. 

He lacked a secure political base and had earned the enmity of von Papen. Although 

it did not prove easy to persuade Hindenburg to appoint Hitler, he eventually agreed 

to do so. Right wing nationalist parties celebrated believing that they had won the 

ability to control Hitler. Events rapidly showed them that they were wrong. 


1. The Fall of Schleicher 


(i) His attempt to secure the backing of a section of the Nazis led by 

Strassen 

(ii) His plans for reforms and the hostility they met 

(iii) Von Papen and the right wing deal with Hitler 

(iv) The fall of Schleicher. 

2. Hitler arrives in office 

This includes: 

(i) His appointment as Chancellor 

(ii) His Cabinet 

(iii) Calling an election 

(iv) Using the power of the state in the campaign, including Goering’s 

authority in Prussia. 

3. Democracy is Overturned 

This includes: 

(i) The Reichstag Fire 

(ii) The use of it to suspend basic political rights 

(iii) The electoral results 

(iv) The Enabling Law. 


‘There was nothing inevitable about Nazi success.’ 

Do you agree? 


THEME 4: THE TRANSFORMATION OF POST-WEIMAR SOCIETY 

The last main area of the course requires the study of: 

• Nazi consolidation of power in Germany 

• Nazi economic policy 

• Nazi social and racial policies 

• The impact of foreign policy on domestic circumstances. 

The means used to assert power and the use made of power mean that all three key 

concepts are of relevance i.e. 

• Ideology 

• Authority 

• Revolution. 


The nature of Nazi rule and Hitler’s own intentions have been the 

subject of much debate among historians. As you build up notes 

consider the following issues: 

• Is Hitler’s role absolutely central to all that happened in these 

years? 

• What difference did Nazi rule make to the lines of ordinary 

Germans? 

• What opposition did the Nazis face inside Germany? 

• How do you explain the German economic recovery? Was it due 

to Nazi policies? 

• Is it possible, in any way, to see Nazi policies as a continuation of 

what had been happening before 1933? 

The historian Ian Kershaw notes: 

‘More than half a century after the destruction of the Third Reich, 

leading historians are far from agreement on some of the most 

fundamental problems of interpreting and explaining Nazism.’ 

Ian Kershaw, ‘Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of 

Interpretation’, Arnold, 2000 


Part A: Nazi Consolidation of Power in Germany 

Once installed as Chancellor and with the powers provided by Hindenburg’s 

declaration of a state of emergency as well as the Enabling Law, Hitler moved swiftly 

to assert full control over the political system. The death of Hindenburg enabled him 

to gather in presidential power too. However, his political skills also showed 

themselves in a refusal to push through too rapid a revolution; he was determined to 

carry the Army and big business with them rather than alarm them by a rush of radical 

measures. Those (among whom SA leaders loomed large) who did not agree with this 

caution were dealt with brutally. 

Notes will be required on the following: 

1. The Elimination of Democracy 


(i) The dissolution of other parties; Germany as a one party state 

(ii) A one party election; the use of plebiscites 

(iii) The destruction of Länder democracy and abolition of the Reichsrat 

(iv) Death of Hindenburg and Hitler as Führer 

(v) The Cabinet empowered to pass laws. 

2. The Elimination of Enemies 


(i) Reasons for tension between Hitler and the SA leaders 

(ii) Reasons for action 

(iii) The ‘Night of the Long Knives’ 

(iv) The elimination of other potential enemies 

(v) Why this brutality was accepted. 

3. The Assertion of control over the Army 


(i) The Army oath of loyalty to Hitler 

(ii) The removal of Blomberg and other leaders 

(iii) The appointment of new leaders 

(iv) The absolution of the War Ministry; Hitler as Commander in Chief. 

4. The Spread of Nazi Organisations 


(i) The end of free trade unions; the Labour Front 

(ii) The creation of a unified police; Himmler, Heydrich and the Gestapo 

(iii) Himmler and the growth of an independent SS 

(iv) The use intimidation, violence, concentration camps 

(v) Nazi organisations for the young, teachers, doctors, civil servants, etc. 

5. Propaganda 


(i) The importance of Goebbels 

(ii) The use of the media 

(iii) The use of rallies and marches. 



• How effective was the very centralised Nazi state? 

• Did it work smoothly? 

• Did it contain rivalries, feuds, etc, and if so, was this deliberate? 


Part B: Nazi Economic Policy 

Between 1933 and 1939 the German economy recovered, unemployment fell, public 

works (like road building) were much in evidence and there were strong Nazi claims 

that a major achievement had been accomplished as a result of their policies. This has 

been questioned by historians and it is important to gather information not only on 

what the Nazis did in terms of economic policy but also to consider whether they 

were, in any way, creating original policies that actually delivered results. 


1. Tackling Unemployment 


(i) The use of labour in public works 

(ii) Conscription 

(iii) Encouraging women not to work 

(iv) Manipulating statistics. 

2. Economic Revival 


(i) The rearmament programme 

(ii) Subsidies to farmers 

(iii) Construction work – roads, houses, etc 

(iv) Encouraging the motor industry 

(v) Export subsidies 

(vi) World trade revival. 

3. Economic Management 


(i) Schacht and the banking system 

(ii) Central control of wages and prices 

(iii) Trying to make Germany more self-sufficient 

(iv) Economic agreement with other countries. 

Issue to investigate and discuss 

How far was economic recovery a Nazi achievement? 


Part C: Nazi Social and Racial Policies 

Nazi control over German society made it possible for an attempt to be made to reshape 

peoples’ ideas and beliefs. This involved control over the school curriculum 

and over teaching staff. It also included control over what adults read and heard. The 

churches, whose ministers and priests preached rather different beliefs, found this a 

difficult situation and one that led to conflict. The Nazi racial views could now be 

enforced in an increasingly cruel manner. 

This section of the course will require notes on a number of aspects: 

1. Serving the State 


(i) Service on public works for young people 

(ii) Nazi organisations for the young 

(iii) Re-shaping the school curriculum 

(iv) Purging the teaching profession 

(v) Nazi views on women’s roles in society. 

2. Controlling the Churches? 


(i) The Nazi Concordat with the Pope 

(ii) Breaking the Concordat – Nazi interference in the Catholic Church 

(iii) Clashes with clergy 

(iv) The attempt to control the Protestant Churches 

(v) Niemoller and protest 

(vi) The Confessional Church and Nazi attacks on it. 

3. Racial Policy 


(i) The nature of Nazi beliefs 

(ii) Early restrictions on Jews 

(iii) The Nuremberg Laws, 1935 

(iv) Crystal Night 

(v) Further anti-Jewish measures. 


Why was Nazi policy against Jewish people so little resisted? 


Part D: The Impact of Foreign Policy on Domestic Circumstances 

An overall knowledge and understanding of Nazi foreign policy up to the outbreak of 

the Second World War is essential for this section but should be seen not just in its 

own right but in terms of what is says about Hitler, about the nature of Nazism. This 

foreign policy tackled one of Hitler’s main causes – the desire to end the Treaty of 

Versailles – and his success here helped sustain his popularity in Germany. The 

needs of foreign policy affected the economy very directly. 

This section of the course will require notes on several aspects: 

1. The Main Episodes in Foreign Policy 1933-39 


(i) Leaving the League and the disarmament conference 

(ii) Non-aggression pact with Poland 

(iii) Recovery of the Saar 

(iv) Naval treaty with Britain 

(v) Occupation of the Rhineland 

(vi) Deals with Italy and Japan 

(vii) Union with Austria 

(viii) Sudeten Crisis and Munich 

(ix) Danzig, Poland and the Nazi-Soviet Pact. 

2. The Impact of foreign Policy in Germany 


(i) Its effects on employment and the economy in terms of conscription and 

rearmament 

(ii) Effects on popular acceptance of the Nazi regime and its methods 

(iii) Its effects on the Army’s attitudes to Hitler 

(iv) Its effects on Hitler’s personal standing. 


The historian Tim Mason has argued that Hitler was ‘worried by the fear that if the 

period of peace and relative prosperity of the late 1930s were to continue for too 

long, the German people would lose what he imagined to be their sense of aggressive 

discipline, militarism and ideological fervour.’ 

From ‘Re-evaluating the Third Reich’ ed T Childers and J Caplan, 1993, 

Holmes and Meier 

What can be said for and against this view of Hitler’s aggressive foreign policy? 


PART TWO: CURRENT RESEARCH 

SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION 

Twentieth century German history in general and the history of Germany between 

1933 and 1945 specifically continue to hold a collective fascination for many people. 

Indeed at school level in Scotland the Advanced Higher the German history context is 

by far the most popular option. The out-pouring of literature, most notably on the 

Third Reich, makes it a difficult and time consuming exercise for even the most 

conscientious of classroom teachers to keep pace with and assimilate the available 

literature. 

Any student of the Advanced Higher German history course will quickly become 

aware that in the last three decades there has been a massive outpouring of 

historiographical material on Germany between 1918 and 1939. It is no longer 

sufficient, if it ever was, for any student of the period to simply explain and analyse 

what happened. Anyone looking at the German past must have a historiographical 

understanding of what has happened in the twentieth century. Three excellent 

historiograpical essays which collectively deal with the period 1918 to 1939 have 

been written by Eberhard Kolb, John Hiden and John Farquharson as well as Ian 

Kershaw. The historiography of the Weimar Republic is well-documented by 

Eberhard Kolb (The Weimar Republic, 1990) in a book in which the author gives a 

relatively up-to-date detailed explanation of the state of research on the period from 

1918 to 1933. John Hiden and John Farquharson (Explaining Hitler’s Germany, 

1983) have written a thorough and detailed guide of what historians have said about 

the Third Reich in the last fifty years. An excellent guide to recent debates on the 

Third Reich is by Ian Kershaw (The Nazi Dictatorship, 1993). Even at the school 

textbook level an author like Jane Jenkins (Hitler and Nazism, 1998, p.49, p.51 and 

pp.100-101) makes reference to key historiographical debates and arguments. 

SECTION 2: HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC – 1970s- 

2000 

Even with the passage of time, many books published in the last thirty years on the 

Weimar Republic continue to be implicitly as well as explicitly influenced by the 

darkening shadow of the Third Reich. As recently as 1993 E. J. Feuchtwanger (From 

Weimar to Hitler: Germany, 1918-33, 1993), in the Preface to his general history of 

the Weimar Republic, states ‘The history of the Weimar Republic is overshadowed by 

the catastrophic consequences of its collapse’. Feuchtwanger goes on to admit it is 

difficult ‘to prevent the question of ultimate failure from being too dominant.’ And 

yet it is worth remembering that, in simple arithmetic, the Weimar Republic lasted for 

fifteen years whilst the Third Reich lasted for only twelve years. A wide variety of 

books are available, especially in German, on the history and the historiography of the 

Weimar Republic. The 1980s and 1990s saw a significant growth in the number of 

English language books on the history of Germany between 1918 and 1933. 

The history of the Weimar Republic can be conveniently divided into three distinct 

periods. Firstly came the establishment of the Republic between 1918 and 1923. This 

was a relatively neglected period of study until the late 1960s and early 1970s which 

saw a growth of research on the Republic’s early years and re-examined the political 


alternatives available to the revolutionary government in 1918 and 1919. Secondly 

there were the mid years of the Republic between 1924 and 1928. 

This was a time when Germany’s new democracy enjoyed a period of relative 

political stability and economic prosperity. These, the least ‘dramatic’ years of the 

Republic have not, historically and historiographically speaking, attracted as much 

interest from historians as the other two periods. And yet the 1990s has seen a 

growing level of research into this period. This research has shown that social, 

economic and political conflict was much more in evidence in the so-called ‘golden 

years’ than had previously been thought possible. The final years of the Republic 

understandably dominated and continue to dominate much post-war research. 

Historians have tried to explain the long-term and immediate short-term reasons as to 

why to the Weimar Republic collapsed in 1933. 

The German Revolution has been the subject of much historical debate. Historians 

have argued and continue to argue about the immediate post-war situation in 

Germany. Historians still debate the possibility of using the term the ‘German 

Revolution’ about the years 1918-1919. There are those who have argued that 

significant political changes had already taken place towards the end of the war and 

even before 1914. Debate also continues as to whether it was feasible for major 

social, economic and political changes to take place in a country that that was still 

essentially ‘conservative’. Perhaps in the past historians have focused too much on 

what was going on in Berlin and the other major cities and not looked enough at small 

town and rural Germany. Research into the early years of the Republic produced 

books in German by historians like Eberhard Kolb and Reinhard Rurup and in English 

by Francis Carsten (Revolution in Central Europe, 1918-1919, 1972). The consensus 

view of historians is that the social basis for change in Germany at this time was 

wider than had previously been believed. Moreover the forces for change on the 

extreme left were less strong than they appeared in reality, and therefore the ruling 

authorities had more freedom of action than had previously been thought possible. 

The timidity of the Social Democrats can be explained in terms of trusting the old 

elites and distrusting the spontaneous mass movements that existed in the immediate 

post-war years. Research in the last two decades has argued that the democratic 

potential of the workers’ and soldiers’ councils, was decidedly contentious. Work on 

the economy (G. Feldman, The Great Disorder. Politics, Economics and Society in 

the German Inflation 1914-1924, 1993) and on business (H.A. Turner, German Big 

Business and the Rise of Hitler, 1985) has done much to shed light on Germany in the 

years after the end of the Great War. Viewed from the late 1990s, there has not yet 

been published a comprehensive and wide ranging English-language history of the 

November Revolution. From the East German perspective, it is significant that there 

have been two detailed accounts of the German Revolution, published in 1968 (J. 

Drabkin, Die Novemberrevolution 1918 in Deutschland, 1968) and 1978 (Illustrierte 

Geschichte der deutschen November-revolution 1918-19, 1978). Until the late 1950s 

the Marxist-Leninist line in East Germany was that the German Revolution had been 

an unsuccessful proletarian revolution. However, from the late 1950s East German 

historians began to view the Revolution of 1918-1919 as being ‘by its character a 

bourgeois-democratic revolution’. Marxist orthodoxy argued that the masses had not 

yet been sufficiently organised, and this organisation was to be provided by the 

founding of the Communist Party at the beginning of 1919. (A worthwhile study of 

the historiography of the German Revolution from the East German historiographical 


perspective is provided by A. Dorpalen in German History in Marxist Perspective, 

1985.) 

On Weimar politics there is a need to research the lines of continuity or discontinuity 

between the political parties of the Wilhelmine era and those established in the 

immediate post-war years in the new Weimar Republic. More research also needs to 

be done on the collapse, particularly after 1928, of the party political system. It is 

interesting to note that the majority of German language studies on individual parties 

have tended to concentrate on the early and latter years of the Weimar Republic rather 

than on its middle years. For English language instances of this see, for example, the 

books by Evans on the Centre Party (The German Center Party, 1870-1933, 1981); by 

Leopold in a biography on Hugenberg with reference to the Conservative Nationalists 

or DNVP (Alfred Hugenberg. The Radical National Campaign against the Weimar 

Republic, 1977); and by Fowler on the Communists (Communism in Germany under 

the Weimar Republic, 1983). Put briefly it should be noted that there are still many 

gaps in the political history of the Weimar Republic. There is a noticeable absence of 

good biographies of the Republic’s numerous Chancellors. Regional studies of the 

various parties are conspicuous by their absence. And finally there is also work to be 

done on the social composition of the parties and how, if at all, that changed 

composition between 1918 and 1933. 

Until the 1960s political history dominated research on the Weimar Republic. 

However, a symposium held in West Germany in 1973 reflected the growing interest 

in the social and economic history of the Republic. Unfortunately for English 

language students, few of these studies have been translated from their original 

German into English. During the course of the next three decades numerous German 

language studies focused on the socio-economic background to political events in 

Germany between 1918 and 1933. A consensus developed amongst historians that 

the formation of the Central Working Association between trade unions, employers 

and government in 1918-1919, was significant as an exercise in co-operation, which, 

however, had ended by 1924. Inevitably much has been written about the inflation of 

1923. Early studies looked at the events surrounding the years 1922 and 1923 in 

isolation. In the mid 1970s G. Feldman (The Great Disorder. Politics, Economics 

and Society in the German Inflation 1914-1924, 1993) looked the origins of the 

inflation back into the war years. (Coincidentally Feldman has also written 

extensively about the effects of reparations on Germany.) Borchardt has looked at 

length at who specifically gained by the inflation of 1923, and, how the inflated 

currency of that time in the short-term directly affected the German middle classes, 

and in the long-term indirectly led to the collapse of the Republic. In English 

Holtfrerich (The German Inflation 1914-1923, 1986) has argued that the inflation was 

inevitable. Fraenkel and others have seen the Ruhr lockout of 1928, when 250,000 

workers were excluded from the workplace, as a significant turning point in the social 

history of the Weimar Republic. The lockout showed that even before the Great 

Depression, in the period of so-called ‘stabilisation’, the Republic was having to deal 

with a potentially explosive situation between employers, trade unions and 

governments. The years between 1924 and 1928 were not quite the ‘years of 

stability’ as they had once been perceived as labour and capital were in conflict and as 

the Republic saw the break up of the party system. Research on the mid years of the 

Republic, notably by Borchardt (Perspectives on Modern German Economic History 

and Policy, 1991), has shown that the Republic’s economy did not show an upturn 


that was suddenly reversed by the onset of the Great Depression. Put simply 

Borchardt argued the Republic after 1918 was living beyond its means. 

He argued, in numerous publications in the early 1980s, that the German economy 

could not have, even if the Great Depression had not occurred, continued to carry on 

as it was doing. Yet some German historians have questioned the premise presented 

by Borchardt that economic sense lay with employers, rather than with trade unions 

and the various governments, and that the pressure for higher wages was acting as a 

destabilising force on the German economy in the 1920s. The 1980s and 1990s 

witnessed a succession of numerous English language studies which looked at the 

economic factors involved in the collapse of the Weimar Republic. In particular 

Henry Ashby Turner has written extensively about the role of big business. The early 

chapters of one of Turner’s books (German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler, 1985) 

provides a detailed account of big business during the Weimar Republic, not least in 

its relationship with National Socialism. Harold James (The German Slump: Politics 

and Economics, 1924-1936, 1986) has also written about the linkage of politics and 

economics from the mid 1920s to the mid 1930s. There is no shortage of other 

English language studies recently published which look at the German economy and 

the problems it had to deal with and how they impinged on the politics of the day. 

See, for example the works by Abraham (The Collapse of the Weimar Republic, 

1986); James (The German Slump: Politics and Economics 1924-1936, 1986); 

Kershaw (Weimar: Why Did German Democracy Fail?, 1991); Kruedener (Economic 

Crisis and Political Collapse, The Weimar Republic 1924-1933, 1991) and Balderston 

(The Origins and Course of the German Economic Crisis, 1993). 

As mentioned earlier the collapse of the Republic dominated much of the immediate 

post 1945 research on the Weimar Republic. In the 1950s and 1960s the nature of 

presidential government after 1930 stimulated a great deal of historical debate, most 

notably between Conze and Bracher. The publication of Heinrich Bruning’s Memoirs 

in 1970 gave credence to the view that his appointment as Chancellor in September 

1930 signalled a move towards an authoritarian form of government and an end to 

democracy. Various other topics relevant to this period, for example the SPD’s 

‘toleration’ of the Bruning cabinet and the reaction of the SPD, trade unions and also 

the reaction of the Prussian government to von Papen’s coup d’etat against Prussia on 

20 July 1932, remain the subject of historical debate and controversy. A number of 

historians continue to be critical of the passive role played by the SPD and the 

Prussian government in the early 1930s. And yet any attempt at armed resistance by 

democratic forces to save the Republic might well have led to the establishment of a 

right-wing authoritarian dictatorship. In the final analysis the extensive range of 

research on the viability of the Weimar Republic now points the way in favour of 

accepting that it was not doomed from the start and that monocausal explanations of 

its collapse have been superseded, in the light of much research, by multi-causal 

explanations of the Republic’s demise. Hitler’s accession to power was not 

inevitable. In the final analysis political miscalculation on the part of certain key 

individuals rather than any actions on the part of Hitler led to the end of the Republic 

in January 1933. 

The collapse of the Republic is inevitably linked to the rise of the Nazis. The 

dramatic rise of National Socialism from 1928 attracted and continues to attract much 

attention from German and non-German scholars. Historians focused on specific 

aspects of the Nazi Party to give a clearer picture of the Nazi movement before 1933. 


From the early 1970s numerous studies appeared which looked at the Party at a 

regional level most notably Jeremy Noakes (The Nazi Party in Lower Saxony, 1921- 

1933, 1971). The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the publication of numerous books on 

the organisational structure of the Party, for example on the SA by Bessel (Political 

Violence and the Rise of Nazism. The Storm Troopers in Eastern Germany 1925-34, 

1984) and Fischer (Stormtroopers. A Social, Economic and Ideological Analysis, 

1929-35, 1983); on the SS by Koehl (The Black Corps. The Structure and Power 

Struggles of the Nazi SS, 1983); on students by Giles (Students and National 

Socialism in Germany, 1985); and on youth by Stachura (Nazi Youth in the Weimar 

Republic, 1975). This period also witnessed a reassessment of the social basis of 

National Socialism and a re-examination and reassessment of the prevailing view that 

Hitler and his movement was supported by rural and small town Protestant Germans 

in northern, central and eastern Germany. Childers (The Nazi Vote. The Social 

Foundations of Fascism in Germany, 1919-1933, 1983) argued that the social base of 

support for the Party was neither so static nor so narrow than had previously been 

supposed. Hamilton’s (Who Voted for Hitler?, 1982) analysis of voting patterns in 

selected German cities has shown that a significant number of upper and upper middle 

class voters voted for the Nazis. Even amongst the working classes, the Nazis, as 

various works by Fischer have shown (for example The Rise of the Nazis, 1995), 

made crucial inroads into obtaining their support at a time of high unemployment. 

The relationship of big business to National Socialism was inevitably the subject of 

much research in East Germany. Put simply East German historians argued that 

German fascism under the Nazi take-over was an extreme form of monopoly 

capitalism. By way of contrast the American historian Henry Ashby Turner (for 

example in German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler, 1985) refuted the ‘well 

established’ view that the Nazis received a great deal of financial support from big 

business. Another historian Feldman, in various German language studies published 

in the 1970s and the 1980s, took issue with Turner and argued that money alone from 

big business did not pave the way for the Nazi take-over in 1933. Feldman argued 

that as the 1920s progressed big business moved away from supporting or having any 

sympathy in favour of the Weimar Republic in favour of supporting an authoritarian 

form of government. 

Weimar foreign policy has been closely scrutinised by historians. Since 1945 

German criticisms of the vindictive nature of the Versailles Settlement have 

somewhat abated and a greater understanding of the difficulties confronting the 

peacemakers in 1919 has gained greater credence. Schulz (Revolution and Peace 

Treaties, 1917-1920, 1974) argued that the Great War heavily influenced the terms 

agreed upon at Versailles. In a lengthy study Mayer (Politics and Diplomacy of 

Peacemaking. Containment and Counter-Revolution at Versailles 1918-1919, 1967) 

looked not just at the so-called ‘German question’ but also at how the domestic 

political circumstances of each of the powers represented at Versailles affected their 

country’s specific decision-making in 1919. Mayer even went on to argue that the 

desire to ‘contain’ Bolshevik Russia at the end of the War was the crucial feature of 

international politics at this time rather than any desire to punish Germany. There is 

certainly a greater willingness on the part of historians to accept that at Versailles 

Germany was treated more leniently than has been acknowledged in the past. 


Indeed in a German language study Andreas Hillgruber (Grossmachtpolitik und 

Militarismus im 20. Jahrhundert, 1974) has contended that because Germany was 

treated ‘leniently’ in 1918 and 1919 then the room for diplomatic manoeuvre on the 

part of the Weimar Republic in international affairs was greater than it had been 

before 1914 under William II as Emperor or even when Bismarck was Imperial 

Chancellor. How the Treaty of Versailles led to the rise of the Nazis and to the 

collapse of the Weimar Republic is still a matter of much debate amongst historians. 

Bracher (for example in The German Dictatorship, 1971) has shown that numerous 

factors led to the collapse of the Republic and that Versailles alone did not bring 

about the rise of Hitler. In the final analysis few historians would argue with the view 

that the Treaty of Versailles did play a role in destabilising the Weimar political 

system. 

A great deal has been written on reparations. Given the complex nature of the subject 

it is no surprise to note that even the ‘experts’ disagree on how much the Germans 

actually paid. The release of French documents in the early 1970s led to the 

questioning of the long-established view that France pursued a draconian peace on 

Germany. McDougall (France’s Rhineland Diplomacy 1914-1924, 1978) and others 

argued that, on the contrary, immediate post-war French governments adopted a 

moderate stance on the issue of reparations. Poincare’s occupation of the Ruhr in 

1923 occurred only when all attempts at a negotiated peace had failed. However, the 

theme of reparations and how it continued to affect post-war Franco-German relations 

is still the subject of continuing debate. Revisionist work on post-1918 French 

foreign policy by French historians like Baechler, Bariety and Jeannesson has done 

much to shed new light on German politics and historical writing of the time. 

The relationship between Germany and Russia in the 1920s attracted much attention 

from German historians in the 1970s and the 1980s, not least because of the ongoing 

relationship of East and West Germany with the Soviet Union. The Treaty of 

Rapallo, signed by Germany and Russia in 1922, was viewed in the West for many 

years as a Russo-German conspiracy. Original research by a number of German 

historians from the 1950s through to the 1980s confirmed the view that there was no 

possibility of a Russo-German conspiracy against the West, and that it suited both 

Germany and Russia, as the international outcasts after 1919, to put pen to paper at 

Rapallo for mutually beneficial reasons. Writing in German in 1977 Klaus 

Hildebrand may be as close to the truth as any historian when he argued that a ‘fear of 

isolation’ propelled Germany into signing the Treaty of Rapallo. 

Gustav Stressemann remains the dominant figure in German foreign policy between 

1918 and 1933. Before 1970, with the obvious exception of Third Reich historians, 

the great majority of works on Stressemann were highly complimentary and saw him 

as a ‘good European’ whilst a few saw him as a ‘German nationalist’. After 1970 a 

consensus view evolved which saw him as being no different to any other European 

statesman of the time. He was a realist and a nationalist who ‘looked after’ the 

interests of his own country in the existing diplomatic system. In other words he was 

working within the European power system as it existed in the 1920s. Wishing to 

ensure a restoration of an independent German foreign policy after the War, 

Stressemann realised he would have to work within, however unpalatable it might be, 

the parameters set by Versailles in 1919. The use of Germany’s economic power was 

the only possible leverage available to him in the light of a lack of military power. 


All his ‘actions’ from the Dawes Plan to the Young Plan must be seen in this light. 

Moreover Stressemann never forgot that he would have to satisfy French demands for 

security to achieve his goals. With his death in 1929 there is no doubt that successive 

Chancellors, namely Bruning, von Papen and Schleicher adopted a more assertive and 

aggressive foreign policy. 

SECTION 3: HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE THIRD REICH - 1970S-2000 

Over fifty years after its collapse, the legacy of the Third Reich continues to haunt the 

German people and the German historical profession. It is even debatable if they will 

ever be able to master the Nazi past – the so-called Vergangenheitsbewaltigung (See 

Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 1993, p.1). Some historians believe that the 

academic and intellectual tools of the historian are simply inadequate to deal with a 

phenomenon that was largely irrational. They see it as impossible to give an adequate 

explanation of Nazism. It is certainly true that the history of Germany between 1933 

and 1939, and indeed up to 1945, is more a matter of contentious and heated debate 

amongst historians than the history of Germany between 1918 and 1933. 

The issue of continuity and change continues to be a dominant theme when placing 

the Third Reich in a wider historical context in German history. Historians still argue 

over the extent to which Hitler and his movement was the logical culmination of 

German history extending back beyond the Weimar years into the nineteenth century 

and even into the more distant past. A consensus view largely prevails that the rise of 

Nazism can be placed in a short-term (for example the effects of World War I, the 

weaknesses of the Weimar Republic, and the effects of the Great Depression) and 

long-term (for example the effects of industrialisation and the political legacy of 

Bismarck) context linked to the political machinations which, in December 1932 and 

January 1933, brought the Chancellorship to Hitler. Disagreements continue to 

manifest themselves away from this bigger picture. It is highly unlikely that the issue 

of continuity and change will go away. Historians continue to be fascinated and 

intrigued by this topic. This continuing fascination is discussed at some length in a 

recent study by Richard Evans (Rethinking German History, 1990). The pioneering 

work of Fritz Fischer (Germany’s Aims in the First World War 1966 and also War of 

Illusions, 1973) continues to influence German historical scholarship in the field of 

continuity and change. The continuing relevance and topicality of his work was 

reflected in the translation into English, by an Australian historian Roger Fletcher, of 

his famous polemical essay Bundnis der Eliten (From Kaiserreich to Third Reich 

Elements of Continuity in German History 1871-1945, 1986). 

The place of Hitler in the history of the Third Reich continues to dominate much 

historical scholarship on the period between 1933 and 1945. The question is 

continually asked how important is Adolf Hitler to an understanding of the history of 

the Third Reich? The last two decades of the twentieth century witnessed the debate 

between the ‘intentionalist’ and ‘structuralist’ historians as to the central importance 

or otherwise of Hitler. The ‘intentionalists’ argued that as an individual Hitler was 

pivotal to an understanding of the history of the Third Reich. Thus Klaus Hildebrand 

argued that Hitler’s pathological anti-Semitism led to the annihilation of European 

Jewry because it was his ultimate ‘intention’ to exterminate the Jews. (See also G. L. 

Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology, 1964). In terms of foreign policy Hitler’s 

ideological goals, outlined in Mein Kampf and elsewhere, in the early 1920s, shaped 

his actions in the 1930s and 1940s. 


Rainer Zitelmann has argued that Hitler wanted to ensure that the German economy 

was developed and advanced in technological and industrial terms and so he ensured 

the economic revival of Germany after 1933 because of his reflationary policies. 

Such views which give Hitler a determining role in the period are refuted by the 

‘structuralists’ who see an undue emphasis being given in history to the role of Adolf 

Hitler as an individual. Two prominent ‘structuralists were Martin Broszat and Hans 

Mommsen. As a key ‘functionalist’ Martin Broszat moved away from the 

Hitler-centred treatment of Nazism when looking at the nature of government in the 

Third Reich. First published in German in 1969, Broszat’s The Hitler State looked at 

the character and structure of government, policy formation and power relations in the 

Third Reich. Previously Bracher had argued that Hitler had consciously and skilfully 

ruled Germany by a ‘divide and rule’ strategy. Broszat however argued that the 

‘divide and rule’ strategy was not consciously devised by the regime, but rather was 

the unwillingness of Hitler to establish an ordered system of authoritarian 

government. Hans Mommsen (for example see his article in G. Hirschfelsd’s [ed.] 

The Policies of Genocide) argued that the implementation of the ‘Final Solution’ in 

the war years cannot be attributable to Hitler alone but rather needs to be explained in 

terms of improved bureaucratic initiatives which had their own inbuilt momentums. 

On anti-Semitism some ‘structuralists’ historians would argue the persecution of the 

Jews leading to the Holocaust came about largely because it was driven by lowerranking 

officials in Nazi Germany. ‘Structuralists’ never seek to deny the importance 

of Hitler but they would contend that Hitler is not as important as made out by the 

‘intentionalists’. Furthermore ‘structuralists’ would argue in favour of the importance 

of political and administrative structures in shaping the history of Germany during the 

Third Reich. These structures and institutions largely determined the history of 

Germany at this time with various interest groups competing frantically for power and 

influence in an anarchic manner. 

An American critic of the ‘structuralists’, David Crew, has argued that their type of 

history does not deal with ordinary people in their everyday lives and so can be 

criticised because it depersonalises history. Another critic, the Cambridge historian 

Richard Evans, has argued that the ‘structuralists’ have tended to write in a political 

vacuum and not given appropriate emphasis to the social and economic forces at work 

in German society. Ian Kershaw (The Nazi Dictatorship, 1993) has come to the 

conclusion that there are elements in the ‘intentionalist’ and ‘structuralist’ approaches 

that can be brought together in some sort of synthesis to establish a greater 

understanding of the Third Reich. 

Despite the publication of biographies by non-academics like Joachim Fest (1973) 

and John Toland (1977), the 1970s and 1980s witnessed a move away from writing 

biographical history by professional historians. This does not necessarily mean to say 

that the ‘Hitler industry’ showed or shows no signs of abating. (Christian Leitz [The 

Third Reich, 1999, p.2] makes reference to the fact that about 120,000 publications on 

Adolf Hitler have been produced.) Such a move is in keeping with the desire of 

historians to place Hitler, not least by the structuralists, in the wider context of the 

history of the Third Reich. Yet curiously enough the late 1990s saw the appearance 

of the first volume of a two part ‘biography’ of Adolf Hitler by the essentially 

‘structuralist’ British historian Ian Kershaw (Hitler 1889-1936, 1998). Kershaw was 

at pains to explain how, in the context of his unique time, this obscure Austrian came 

to rule over the most powerful and advanced state in Europe. 


In his Introduction Kershaw argues that the circumstances of the time involving 

factors like social Darwinism, xenophobic nationalism, defeat in the Great War and 

the events surrounding the history of the Weimar Republic ensured that this Austrian 

drifter was catapulted to power. Even when Hitler came to power in 1933, Kershaw 

sees developments in Nazi Germany, taking place in spite of Hitler (through the 

actions and exertions of other leading Nazis and lesser officials and zealous 

supporters throughout Germany) and not because of Hitler (who was lazy and 

indolent). 

The 1980s saw the so-called Historians’ Dispute or Historikerstreit which flared up 

between the distinguished historian Martin Broszat and other eminent German 

historians. (Anyone wishing to study the Historikerstreit at length should consult the 

edited collection of sources produced by Gates and Knowlton, Forever in the Shadow 

of Hitler?) Quite apart from its content the Dispute showed how rancorous and 

personally vituperative German scholarship and German historians could be. Broszat 

argued it was important for the historical profession to try to understand Hitler and 

Nazism and move away from the continuing demonisation of Hitler and the Third 

Reich (or what Ian Kershaw has called ‘bland moralisation’). Broszat felt it was no 

longer adequate or analytically sufficient to call Hitler, as William Shirer had done, as 

‘evil’ and possessing ‘a demonic personality’. He argued in various German language 

studies that Hitler should be brought back into mainstream history and analysed by 

historians as a historical figure and phenomena. In the jargon of the time he felt it 

was important to move towards the ‘historicisation’ or Historisierung of Hitler. In 

response, amongst others, Saul Friedlander argued that placing Nazism in the wider 

context of German history would downplay the moral awfulness of regime. Secondly 

the concept of ‘historicisation’ was too vague and open-ended and demanded 

clarification if individual actions by people during the Nazi era ranging from 

‘normality’ to ‘criminality’ were to have any meaning. 

In the 1980s Michael Sturmer (Forever in the Shadow of Hitler?, 1993) argued that it 

was important, in a domestic context of pacifism and a lack of national 

self-confidence, that German historians should present their country’s history in a 

positive national identity for the German people. Sturmer argued that Germany’s 

unique and exposed position in central Europe had largely determined her tragic 

history. Therefore in a sense he felt the personal responsibility of German leaders for 

both world wars was somehow diminished. At the same time Ernst Noltke attracted 

enormous controversy by contending that Bolshevism in Soviet Russia and Nazism 

were interrelated and that Bolshevism triggered a response in Germany which 

crystallised into Nazism. Noltke went on to argue that Stalin and Pol Pot, amongst 

others, should be examined in the same context as Hitler. Some critics of Noltke 

interpreted this as an attempt to relativise or ‘historicise’ the Nazi era and experience. 

(For a sample of Noltke’s writing in English see ‘Between Myth and Revisionism? 

The Third Reich in the Perspective of the 1980s’, in H.W. Koch’s Aspects of the Third 

Reich.) Noltke argued in favour of Nazism as a bulwark and protective barrier 

against Communism and the evils of Stalinism. Furthermore he contended that the 

Nazi experience should be treated as dispassionately as other past historical events. In 

a wider perspective he placed Nazism as the counterpoint to Soviet communism in a 

European civil war between 1917 and 1945. 


Critics of Noltke argued that his views were trying to ‘rehabilitate’ and ‘normalise’ 

and ‘relativise’ the Nazi past. (And yet it should be remembered that Noltke always 

strenuously denied that he was trying to ‘rehabilitate’ the Nazis.) Another German 

historian, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, has argued that the evils of the Third Reich should be 

faced and confronted so that Germany could move forwards as a liberal and 

democratic State. The German past, particularly the Nazi past, was crucial in 

impinging upon the politics of the present. 

For decades after the Second World War many historians portrayed the Third Reich 

as a ruthlessly efficient and monolithic ‘totalitarian’ state. Such historians had looked 

at Germany ‘from the top’ down by investigating the nature of Hitler’s rule and how 

various institutions and organisations had been affected by National Socialist rule. 

Once again Hitler and his henchmen ‘influenced’ and ‘determined’ much historical 

writing. This image has been hard to dispel and still lingers on, at least in the mind of 

the general reader. However, in the 1970s social historians began to look at history 

‘from below’ and how the ordinary German people themselves had been affected in 

their ‘everyday life’ or ‘Alltagsgeschichte’ by the Nazi regime. (Yet as long ago as 

the early 1930s a leading Communist, Ernst Ottwald, wrote about the ‘unknown 

National Socialist’. On this see Hiden and Farquharson, Explaining Hitler’s 

Germany, 1989, pp.167-68.) Major impetus to this new social history ‘from below’ 

was given by two massive studies taking place in Germany. In the south Martin 

Broszat and other German historians were editing the ‘Bavarian Project’, whilst in the 

west Lutz Niethammmer was editing the ‘Ruhr Oral History Project’. (It should, 

however, be noted that the ‘Ruhr historians’ still used fairly generalised ‘top down’ 

conceptual models.) Both research projects looked at the mundane and not so 

mundane ways in which the Nazi State impinged upon and affected the lives of 

individual Germans as they went about their daily business. Incidentally social 

history had thereby gained a respectability and credence amongst a number of 

German academics that would have been unknown and unheard of a generation earlier 

when political history dominated German historical scholarship. This new 

perspective of the Nazi regime ‘from below’ has done much to create a newer 

understanding of the Hitler State. The so-called ‘Alltagsgeschichte’ has also served 

the useful function of allowing younger people to understand how ordinary people 

like themselves behaved during the Third Reich. It is something they can identify 

with because of the personal nature of the history. This has been acknowledged by 

some of the more moderate critics of the Project. However more strident critics of 

‘Alltagsgeschichte’ such as E. Hennig have said that this type of history has tended to 

lead to the accumulation of sterile facts describing what life was like without setting 

them in an analytical or theoretical framework. 

The study of anti-Semitism continues to play a prominent role in the history of the 

Third Reich. It is still not easy to explain why possibly the most cultured nation in 

Europe carried out the brutal and systematic annihilation of 6,000,000 Jews. It is also 

not easy for the historian to use the tools of scholarship to come to an understanding 

of the Holocaust and the genocidal persecution of a people. The perspective provided 

by non-Jewish scholars is inevitably different from that provided by Jewish historians. 


The controversial nature of this topic and the strong feelings it arouses, not least 

between Jews, was reflected in the publication of Daniel Goldhagen’s (Hitler’s 

Willing Executioners, 1996) best-selling book in the mid 1990s. (For a discussion of 

the reaction to Goldhagen’s book see Ron Rosenbaum’s Explaining Hitler, 1998, 

pp.337-68. The chapter in Rosenbaum’s book discusses the reaction to Goldhagen’s 

book at a symposium held North America in 1996 which the author attended.) 

Goldhagen claimed that the German people were aware of what was happening to the 

Jews in the east. He goes on to argue that up to half a million Germans were, by the 

end of the war, actively engaged in the persecution of European Jewry. Goldhagen 

believes that the roots of the mass killings went back in to the nineteenth century and 

was the result of an ‘eliminationist anti-Semitism’. In 1997 another prominent Jewish 

historian, Saul Friedlander (Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1997) published a book in 

which he referred to what could be termed ‘redemptive anti-Semitism’. The German 

people were looking for a ‘redeemer’ who would ‘save’ them from their enemies and 

in particular the Bolshevik menace. Friedlander also wrote that the German people 

were a curious mix of racial and Christian anti-Semitism allied to a xenophobic 

Wagnerian nationalism. Research on the persecution of the Jews in the Third Reich 

has understandably concentrated on the Holocaust. (Otto Dov Kulka, ‘Major Trends 

and Tendencies of German Historiography on National Socialism and the ‘Jewish 

Question’ (1924-1984)’, Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute, 30, 1985; Saul 

Friedlander, ‘From Anti-Semitism to Extermination. A Historiographical Study of 

Nazi Policy Towards the Jews and an Essay in Interpretation’, Yad Vashem Studies, 

16, 1984; M. Marrus, ‘The History of the Holocaust. A Survey of Recent Literature’, 

Journal of Modern History, 59, 1987.) Anti-Semitism as a topic of study on the Third 

Reich will continue to arouse controversy and heated debate. 


PART THREE: THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC - SOURCES 

SECTION ONE: THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC - 1918-1923 

Source A 

On 1 October 1918 Ludendorff asks the SPD be brought into government. 

I have asked His Majesty to bring those people into the government who are largely 

responsible that things have turned out as they have. We shall therefore see these 

gentlemen enter the ministries, and they must now make the peace which has to be 

made. They must now eat the soup which they have landed us in ! 

Source B 

Workers and soldiers – 

Your hour has come. Now, after long endurance and days of silence, you have set 

about the task. It is not too much to say: at this time the world is watching you, and 

you hold the fate of the world in your hands. 

Workers and soldiers! Now that the hour has come, there can be no going back. The 

same ‘socialists’ who have laboured for four years in the pay of the government, who 

have in recent weeks put you off with the ‘people’s government’, with parliamentary 

government and other trash, are now doing everything to impair your struggle, and to 

break up the movement. 

(Manifesto of the Spartacus Group, 8 November 1918.) 

Source C 

On 9 November 1918 the SPD leader Ebert accepts the post of Chancellor. 

Prince Max of Baden… Has turned over to me the task of carrying on the affairs of 

the Reich Chancellor. I have in mind to form a government by consent of the parties 

and will give a public report on this shortly. 

The new government will be a people’s government. Its goal will be to bring peace to 

the German people as soon as possible, and to establish firmly the freedom which it 

has achieved. 

Fellow Citizens: I ask you all for your support in the heavy tasks that await us. You 

know how seriously the war has threatened the sustenance of the people … The 

political revolution should not interfere with the feeding of the population. 

(Chancellor Freidrich Ebert’s Manifesto, 9 November 1918) 


Source D 

In his memoirs General Groener remembers his secret telephone conversation with 

Ebert on 10 November 1918. 

In the evening (10 th November) I telephoned the Reich Chancellery and told Ebert 

that the army put itself at the disposal of the government, that in return for this the 

Field-Marshal and the officer corps expected the support of the government in the 

maintenance of order and discipline in the army. The officer corps expected the 

government to fight against Bolshevism and was ready for the struggle. Ebert 

accepted my offer of an alliance. From then on we discussed the measures which 

were necessary every evening on a secret telephone line between the Reich 

Chancellery and the high command. The alliance proved successful. 

We (the high command) hoped through our action to gain a share of the power in the 

new State for the army and the officer corps. If we succeeded, then we would have 

rescued into the new Germany the best and strongest element of old Prussia, despite 

the revolution. 

Source E 

In ‘Mein Kampf’ Hitler rails against the November Revolution and its perpetrators. 

And so it had all been in vain. In vain all the sacrifices and privations; in vain the 

hunger and thirst of months which were often endless; in vain the hours in which, 

with mortal fear clutching at our hearts, we nevertheless did our duty; and in vain the 

death of two million who died … There followed terrible days and even worse nights 

– I knew that all was lost. Only fools, liars and criminals could hope in the mercy of 

the enemy. In these nights hatred grew in me, hatred for those responsible for this 

deed … There is no making pacts with Jews; there can only be the hard: either – or. 

I, for my part, decided to go into politics. 

Source F 

The liberal newspaper the ‘Frankfurter Zeitung’ appeals to the National Assembly on 

10 February 1919. 

The German National Assembly in Weimar should resolve as a matter of urgency that 

a large notice be put up in every room used by the politicians and wherever the 

machinery of party runs. This notice should bear the message, in letters of fire: ‘Do 

not forget: the German people has carried out a revolution!’ 


Source G 

Article 48, Weimar Constitution, 1919. 

If any state does not fulfil the duties imposed upon it by the Constitution or the laws of 

the Reich, the Reich President may enforce such duties with the aid of the armed 

forces. 

In the event that public order and security are seriously disturbed or endangered, the 

Reich President may take the measures necessary for their restoration… 

Source H 

The Constitution of 1919 included numerous basic welfare rights. Welfare provision 

was a contentious issue throughout the history of the Weimar Republic. 


In order to maintain public health and the ability to work, to protect motherhood and 

to make provision against the economic consequences of old age, infirmity and the 

vicissitudes of life, the Reich will provide a comprehensive system of insurance, in 

which those insured will make a vital contribution. 


Every German has the moral obligation, his personal freedom notwithstanding, to 

exercise his mental and physical powers in a manner required by the welfare of all. 

Every German shall be given the opportunity to earn his living through productive 

work. If no suitable opportunity for work can be found, the means necessary for his 

livelihood will be provided. Further particulars will be given in subsequent 

legislation. 

Source I 

Hugo Preuss, a prominent architect of the 1919 Constitution, expresses his concern 

about how the German people will cope with the new democratic political order. 

I have often listened to debates with real concern, glancing rather timidly to the 

gentlemen of the Right, fearful lest they say to me: ‘Do you hope to give a 

parliamentary system to a nation like this, one that resists it with every sinew of its 

body? Our people do not comprehend at all what such a system implies.’ One finds 

suspicion everywhere; Germans cannot shake off their old political timidity and their 

deference to the authoritarian state. They do not understand that the new government 

must be blood of their blood, flesh of their flesh, that their trusted representatives will 

have to be an integral part of it. Their constant worry is only: ‘how can we best keep 

our constituted representatives so shackled that they will be unable to do anything?’ 

(Hugo Preuss, Staat, Recht und Freiheit [1926] as translated in Republican and 

Fascist Germany, J Hilden, Longman 1996) 


Source J 

Heinrich Stroebel, a member of the USPD, comments on the events of November 

1919. 

Except for a handful of political careerists and profiteers, the whole country feels 

greatly depressed by the course and results of the revolution. Today, as the first 

anniversary of the birth of the Republic approaches, not only are the Junkers and 

upper bourgeoisie simply itching to give it a mortal blow at the first opportunity, not 

only is it an object of scorn for the small man and the peasant, but it is so even for the 

proletariat, which feels mocked and cheated, and considers democracy simply the 

façade behind which capitalist exploitation and military despotism are carrying on 

exactly as they did under the monarchy… 

Source K 

On 13 March 1920 Wilhelm Kapp, a senior civil servant, issued a proclamation and 

tried to establish a conservative regime in Berlin. His Putsch failed. 

The Reich and nation are in grave danger. With terrible speed we are approaching 

the complete collapse of the State and of law and order. The people are only dimly 

aware of the approaching disaster. Prices are rising unchecked. Hardship is 

growing. Starvation threatens. Corruption, usury, nepotism and crime are cheekily 

raising their heads. The government, lacking in authority, impotent, and in league 

with corruption, is incapable of overcoming the danger. Away with a government in 

which Erzberger is the leading light ! 

We shall govern not according to theories but according to the practical needs of the 

State and the nation as a whole. In the best German tradition the State must stand 

above the conflict of classes and parties. We reject the granting of class-advantage 

either to the Right or the Left. We recognise only German citizens … 

Everyone must do his duty ! The first duty of every man today is to work. Germany 

must be a moral working community! 

Source L 

In ‘Mein Kampf’ Hitler comments on the reaction of the authorities to the French 

occupation of the Ruhr and the need for ‘national renewal’. 

But anyone who in the spring of 1923 wanted to make France’s occupation of the 

Ruhr an occasion for reviving out military implements of power had first to give the 

nation its spiritual weapons, strengthen its will power, and destroy the corrupters of 

this most special national strength … Regardless what type of resistance was decided 

on, the first requirement was always the elimination of the Marxist poison from our 

national body … To fight France with the deadly enemy in our ranks would have 

been sheer idiocy … For never in our history have we been defeated by the strength 

of our foes, but always by our own vices and by the enemies in our own camp. Since 

the leaders of the German state could not summon up the courage for such a heroic 


deed, logically they could only have chosen the first course, that of doing nothing at 

all and letting things slide … To be sure, this so-called passive resistance as such 

could not be maintained for long … Hence any so-called passive resistance has an 

inner meaning only if it is backed by determination to continue it if necessary in open 

struggle or in undercover guerrilla warfare. 

Source M 

Monthly averages of Dollar Quotations for the Mark between 1914 and 1923: 

July 1914 4.2 

January 1919 8.9 

July 1919 14.0 

January 1920 64.8 

July 1920 39.5 

January 1921 64.9 

July 1921 76.7 

January 1922 191.8 

July 1922 493.2 

January 1923 17,972.0 

July 1923 353,412.0 

August 1923 4,620,455.0 

September 1923 98,860,000.0 

October 1923 25,260,208,000.0 

November 15 1923 4,200,000,000,000.0 

Source N 

A personal recollection of the hyper-inflation of 1923. 

May I give you some recollections of my own situation at that time? As soon as I 

received my salary I rushed out to buy the daily necessities. My daily salary, as 

editor of the periodical ‘Soziale Praxis’, was just enough to buy one loaf of bread and 

a small piece of cheese or some oatmeal. On one occasion I had to refuse to give a 

lecture at a Berlin city college because I could not be assured that my fee would cover 

the subway fare to the classroom, and it was too far to walk. On another occasion, a 

private lesson I gave to the wife of a farmer was paid somewhat better – by one loaf of 

bread for the hour. 

(Personal memoir of Dr Freida Wunderlich, found in J W Hiden, The Weimar 

Republic, 1974,p.86) 


ACTIVITIES 

Essays 

1. Conditions seemed to exist for a remodelling of Germany after the First World 

War. Discuss. 

2. Do you agree with the view that the conditions in which the Weimar democracy 

was born were not all that helpful to allow it to flourish? 

3. To what extent were the German people willing to accept the Constitution of 

1919 ? 

4. How significant were the years from 1918 to 1923 in the history of the Weimar 

Republic ? 

Source-based Questions 

1. How accurate an account of the handing over of power to the civilian government 

is given by Sources A C and D? 

2. Why did General Groener telephone Ebert on 10 November 1918 as indicated in 

Source D? 

3. Explain why the architect of the German Constitution in Source I was concerned 

about whether the German could cope with the new democratic order. 

4. Do you agree with the view of Wilhelm Kapp in Source K that The Reich and 

nation were in ‘grave danger’ in 1920? 

5. How ‘representative’ of the German people on the occupation of the Ruhr by the 

French were the views expressed by Hitler in Source L? 

6. How convincing is the personal recollection in Source N of the hyper-inflation of 

1923 ? 


SECTION TWO: FOREIGN POLICY - 1918-1933 

Source A 

We cannot sign a document which our enemies call a peace. Any government which, 

by its signature, gives this work of the devil the halo of light, sooner or later will be 

driven out of office. 

Is this peace a surprise to us? Unfortunately, yes. No one could possibly have 

believed in such cunning madness. We all expected a peace of agreement and justice. 

We read about it carefully and with good faith what the false prophet across the big 

pond promised to us and all the world. Now we can see how Old England and that 

revenge-laden chauvinist, Clemenceau, urged on by Foch, put together a peace like 

those of the old days. There is not the least trace of an understanding of the times, or 

any foresight into the future. There it is - a grey, bureaucrat’s treaty, put together by 

small, narrow-minded, hate-ridden politicians. In a few years all this wicked 

bungling will be wiped away . 

(Alfred von Wegerer, in ‘Der Tag’, 28 May 1919) 

Source B 

Articles 231 and 232 of the Peace Treaty of Versailles signed on 28 June 1919. 

The Allied and Associated Governments affirm, and Germany acknowledges, that 

Germany and her Allies are responsible for all the losses and damage which the 

Allied and Associated Governments and their peoples have sustained as a result of the 

war unleashed against them by the aggression of Germany and her Allies. 

… The Allied and Associated Governments demand, and Germany undertakes, that 

compensation be made for all losses… 

Source D 

In late June of 1919 Gustav Bauer, a member of the new SPD-Centrist coalition, 

acknowledges German acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles. 

Surrendering to superior force but without retracting its opinion regarding the 

unheard-of injustice of the peace conditions the government of the German Republic 

therefore declares its readiness to accept and sign the peace conditions imposed by 

the Allied and Associated Governments. 


Source D 

A Foreign Office Official comments on the new found relationship between Germany 

and Russia. (The Treaty of Rapallo was signed on 16 April 1922). 

Just three years have passed since the German Foreign Minister, Wather Rathenau, 

and the Russian People’s Commissar, Chicherin, concluded at Rapallo the now 

famous treaty which purified the atmosphere … Between Germany and Russia and 

agreed on co-operation between the two peoples in the laborious business of political 

and economic reconstruction. Just three years – and the ‘Rapallo-line’ is now surely 

a basic component of the political creed of both countries. No German political party 

could - in spite of criticism of and reservations about individual details - determine 

upon any other policy. 

(Herbert von Dirksen, May 1925, found in Hitorisches Lesebuch 1914 –1933, 1968) 

Source E 

In September 1922 von Seeckt comments on Germany’s borders in the east. 

Poland’s existence is intolerable, incompatible with the survival of Germany. It must 

disappear, and it will disappear through its own internal weakness and through 

Russia - with our assistance … With Poland falls one of the strongest pillars of the 

Treaty of Versailles, the preponderance of France … The re-establishment of the 

broad common frontier between Russia and Germany is the precondition for the 

regaining of strength of both countries … In all these enterprises, which to a large 

extent are only beginning, the participation and even the official knowledge of the 

German government must be entirely excluded. The details of the negotiations must 

remain in the hands of the military authorities. 

Source F 

Declaration of the Reparations Commission, 26 December 1922. 

On 20 October 1922, the French Delegation requested the Commission to declare 

Germany in default as regards her obligation to furnish timber to France during 

1922. Under the above order all sawn timber should have been delivered to France 

before 30 September, and the 200,000 telegraph poles before 30 November 1922. On 

the latter date, the deliveries were still considerably in arrears. 

Source G 

From a letter by General J. H. Morgan, British Military representative on the 

Inter-Allied Council, 20 February, 1925. 

Everything that an ingenious brain could devise and a subtle intellect invent, down 

even to giving companies of infantry of the new army the numbers and badges of the 

old, has been done to ensure that, at the touch of a button, the new army shall expand 

to the full stature of its predecessor. The proofs in my possession are overwhelming. 

Your government tells us repeatedly that our work is done and that there is nothing 

left for us to find out. They tell us the Treaty of Versailles has been loyally executed. 


Source H 

Article 1 of the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee, Locarno, 16 October 1925. 

The high contracting parties collectively and severally guarantee … The 

maintenance of the territorial status quo resulting from the frontiers between 

Germany and Belgium, and between Germany and France, and the inviolability of the 

said frontiers as fixed by or in pursuance of the Treaty of Peace signed at Versailles 

on the 28 th June, 1919, and also the observance of the stipulations of Article 42 and 

43 of the said treaty concerning the demilitarised zone. 

Source I 

Gustav Stressemann outlines some of his foreign policy aims in a letter to the ex- 

Crown Prince on 7 September 1925. 

In my opinion there are three great tasks that confront German foreign policy in the 

more immediate future - 

In the first place the solution of the Reparations question in a sense tolerable for 

Germany, and the assurance of peace, which is an essential premise for the recovery 

of our strength. 

Secondly, the protection of Germans abroad, those 10 to 12 millions of our kindred 

who now live under a foreign yoke in foreign lands. 

The third great task is the readjustment of our eastern frontiers; the recovery of 

Danzig, the Polish corridor, and a correction of the frontier in Upper Silesia ... 

The most important thing for the first task of German policy mentioned above is, the 

liberation of German soil from any occupying force. We must get the stranglehold off 

our neck. 

Source J 

Germany becomes a member of the League of Nations on 8 September 1926. 

More than six years have passed since the League was founded. A long period of 

development was thus necessary before the general political situation made it 

possible for Germany to enter the league, and even in the present year great 

difficulties have had to be overcome … Even before her entry, Germany tried to 

promote friendly Cupertino. The action she took led to the Locarno pact and 

arbitration treaties with her neighbours. The German government is resolved to 

persevere with this policy and is glad to see that these ideas, which at first met with 

lively opposition in Germany, are now being more and more accepted. 

(The League of Nations Official Journal: Special Supplement, No. 44.) 


ACTIVITIES 

Essays 

1. Discuss the view that the German reaction to the Versailles Settlement was out of 

all proportion to the terms imposed. 

2. How valid is the view that Germany was treated leniently in the Versailles 

Settlement? 

3. To what extent was Weimar Foreign Policy affected by her military weakness 

after 1919? 

4. Stressemann was a great European rather than a good German. Do you agree 

with this assessment of the German Foreign Minister? 


1. How far do Sources A C reflect the views of the German people on the Treaty of 

Versailles? 

2. Discuss the view that Sources F and G accurately reflect the German position on 

reparations? 

3. What light does Source D shed on Russo-German relations in the 1920s ? 

4. Does Source E accurately reflect the Reichwehr’s involvement in German foreign 

policy and domestic policy between 1918 and 1933? 

5. To what extent does Source I reveal Stressemann to be a ‘good German’? 

6. Does Source H reflect the ‘high point’ for international relations in Europe in the 

1920s? 


SECTION THREE: REPUBLICAN STABILITY - 1924-1929 

Source A 

A German commentator on American-German relations in 1924. 

Therefore political and economic collaboration with the USA is a worthwhile goal for 

Germany… It will not mean much of a temporary basis. On the contrary, it will 

mean striving for, and achieving, the involvement of American capital methodically 

and to the greatest possible extent in Germany, in private industry in terms of loans to 

national and municipal ventures. Germany must deliberately make herself a debtor 

nation of the USA. By dint of the economic interest, the political interest of the USA 

in Germany will also develop. 

(Herbert von Dirksen, May 1925, found in Hitorisches Lesebuch 1914 –1933) 

Source B 

Extract from the Agreement between the Reparations Commission and the German 

Government (Dawes Plan) 9 August 1924. 

Being desirous of carrying into effect the plan for the discharge of reparations 

obligations and other pecuniary liabilities of Germany under the Treaty of Versailles 

proposed to the Reparation Commission on April 9 1924, by the First Committee of 

Experts appointed by the Commission – which plan is referred to in this agreement as 

the Experts’ (Dawes) Plan - and of facilitating the working of the Experts’ Plan… 

The German Government undertakes to take all appropriate measures for carrying 

into effect the Experts’ Plan and for ensuring its permanent operation… 

Source C 

Proclamation by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, 12 May 1925. 

I have taken my new important office. True to my oath, I shall do everything in my 

power to serve the well-being of the German people, to protect the constitution and 

the laws … In this solemn hour I ask the entire German people to work with me. My 

office and my efforts do not belong to any single class nor to any stock or confession, 

nor to any party, but to all the German people … My first greetings go to the entire 

working population of Germany which has suffered much. It goes to our brothers 

outside the German borders, who are inextricably bound together with us by ties of 

blood and culture … And it goes finally to our German youth, hope of our future. 


Source D 

Speech by Wilhelm Keil to the SPD Congress in Heidelberg, 1925. 

We Social Democrats feel ourselves to be the real representatives of the democratic 

republic, and we must, therefore, defend it with all our might … In essence, the 

Social Democrats are, and remain, the advocate of the poor, the workers and the 

disinherited. We must use all our power in public life to defend the vital interests of 

the working people and of the innocent victims of the capitalist economy against the 

patronage of property. Thus when we are in opposition, our demands must not 

exceed those limits which we would have to honour if we were in power. 

Source E 

Dr Hjalmar Schacht, memorandum, December 1929. 

The Young Plan is a treaty structure which is the only possible way to solve the 

reparations question and to restore world peace. This Plan expresses the most 

serious sense of moral responsibility which its authors feel not only to their own 

people, but to the entire civilised world. We have a right to ask the governments not 

to endanger this pacific achievement by insisting upon unilateral interests… The 

German people have a right to expect foreign governments to cease their efforts to 

squeeze out of German industry special payments and sacrifices which go beyond the 

terms of the Young Plan. 

Source F 

Gustav Stressemann comments on political leadership in 1929. 

The supplanting of the individual by the organisation is the prime evil of modern 

political life. A person is not only the representative of a professional organisation, a 

local association or a mass body of one sort or another: his significance lies in 

himself … We must strive to achieve reform of the parliamentary system. We must 

demand that the spirit of party be confined to what is vitally required for Germany’s 

development, that Parliament itself exert the pressure to produce a real and not 

merely formal majority. But if that fails in the present situation, because of the 

parties themselves, then let the cry go up, ‘Res venit ad triaros!’ and let responsible 

individuals find the courage to govern - that is, to assume leadership. 

(From The Weimar Republic, D Peukert, Allen lane 1991) 


TASKSHEET 

Essays 

1. Do you agree with the view that economic recovery was largely responsible for 

stabilising the Weimar Republic in the mid 1920s? 

2. Discuss the significance of the appointment of Hindenburg as President of the 

Weimar Republic in 1925? 

3. Were the Socials Democrats the ‘real’ defenders of the Weimar Republic? 

4. Is it right to say Gustav Stressemann was a ‘republican by conviction’? 


1. Does Source A accurately reflect the importance of reparations for Germany in 

the 1920s? 

2. To what extent does Source B accurately reflect the position of the German 

people on the Dawes Plan? 

3. What light does Source C shed on the political history of the Weimar Republic? 

4. Do you agree with Source D that the Social Democrats were right to see 

themselves as the ‘real representatives’ of the Weimar Republic? 

5. Sources C and D agree on how the economic and political interests of the German 

working classes were to be protected. Discuss. 

6. In what ways are Source F critical of the Weimar parliamentary ‘system’? 


SECTION FOUR: THE COLLAPSE OF THE REPUBLIC - 1930-1933 

Source A 

Count Harry Kessler, a friend of the murdered Rathenau, laments the death of 

Stressemann on 3 October 1929 in his diaries. 

At the barber about midday overheard a conversation: ‘Stressemann is dead’ … It is 

an irreplaceable loss, whose effects cannot be predicted. That is how it is viewed 

here, too … The general feeling is one not only of consternation, but also of anxiety 

about what will happen now. I am afraid above all that the death of Stressemann will 

have very serious domestic repercussions, such as a rightward trend in the People’s 

Party, a breach in the coalition, and the facilitating of dictatorial tendencies. 

The legend is born; Stressemann has become an almost mythical figure through his 

sudden death … He is the first to enter Valhalla as a truly European statesman. 

Source B 

A letter to the Army from the Minister of Defence, General Groener, 22 January 

1930. 

National Socialists as well as Communists aim at the destruction of the existing 

system by means of violence. That means civil war … The Reichswehr has to find its 

way free from these extremes. It cannot entertain fantastic plans, vague hopes, 

high-sounding slogans. It carries an enormous responsibility for the continuance of 

the national state. It knows that its attitude in the hour of peril will decide the fate of 

the nation … It is the sacred task of the Wehrmacht to prevent the cleavage between 

classes and parties from ever widening into suicidal civil war. 

Source C 

Count Harry Kessler is dismayed at the electoral success of the Nazis on 14 

September 1930. (diary entry) 

A black day for Germany. The Nazis have increased their representation tenfold, they 

have risen from 12 to 107 seats and have thus become the second largest party in the 

Reichstag. The impression abroad is bound to be catastrophic, the aftermath, both 

diplomatically and financially will be dreadful. With 107 Nazis, 41 Hugenbergers, 

and over 70 Communists, that is to say some 220 deputies who radically reject the 

present German State and seek to overthrow it by revolutionary means, we are 

confronted with a political crisis which can only be mastered by the formation of a 

strong united front of all those forces which support or at least tolerate the 

Republic… In fact, the next move must be (if there isn’t a Putsch) the formation of a 

‘Grand Coalition’ between the present governing parties and the Social Democrats, 

as otherwise government will simply come to a halt ... 

National Socialism is the feverish symptom of the dying German petty bourgeoisie; 

but this poison of its illness can bring misery to Germany and Europe for decades to 

come. This class cannot be saved; but in its death-throes it can bring terrible new 

suffering to Europe. 


Source D 

The KPD observes the September 1930 Election. 

While the revolutionary progress of the working-class movement increased unabated 

even after the election of 14 September 1930, the bourgeoisie took a further step 

along the way towards the creation of a fascist state. The Bruning Government, 

which destroyed the surviving achievements of the revolution of 1918, which 

dismantled the Weimar Constitution clause by clause, which eliminated the influence 

of the parliament and turned itself into the executive organ of the employers’ frantic 

offensive against the living standards of the proletariat… Has become a government 

for the realisation of the fascist dictatorship. 

(Fascism and Democracy in the Theses of the KPD, 1931-32) 

Source E 

Hermann Dietrich, Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister, comments on the fall of 

Bruning on 30 May 1932. 

The deeper reasons for Bruning’s removal lie in the fact that a class of people who 

had ceased to exercise any decisive influence in the state, namely the old Prussian 

element, decided that they would like to rule once more … This element made its first 

attempts to seize power at the time of the formation of Bruning’s government. 

Bruning was supposed to give the helm a turn to the right … But events were too 

strong for him so he was dismissed because he did not fulfil the gentlemen’s 

expectations. 

Source F 

Von Papen recollects his appointment as Chancellor in a ‘Cabinet of Barons’ in May 

1932. 

He (Schleicher) gave me a general survey of the political situation, described the 

crisis within the cabinet, and told me that it was the President’s wish to form a 

cabinet of experts, independent of the political parties. It had become technically 

impossible to form a parliamentary cabinet, because no combination could command 

a majority. The sole remaining constitutional solution was the formation of a 

presidential cabinet by the chief of State … He no longer considered it possible to 

combat a party as strong as the Nazis by negative means, which had only resulted in 

the steady and threatening growth of their power … 

Schleicher left me in no doubt that he was acting as spokesman for the army, the only 

stable organisation remaining in the State, preserved intact and free of party political 

strife by von Seeckt and his successors. He then turned the conversation to the 

subject of who could lead the new cabinet…to my amazement Schleicher now 

suggested that I should take over this task myself … 


A quarter of an hour later I stood before the President … ‘You cannot possibly leave 

an old man like me in the lurch’ … Such a call, I felt transcended party obligations. I 

clasped the Field Marshal’s hand. Schleicher, who had been waiting in the next 

room, came in to offer his congratulations. 

Source G 

The pastoral letter of the Bishops in Prussia on the subject of the elections of 31 July, 

1932. 

The imminent elections of deputies to the German Reichstag are of great importance, 

not only in the political context but also on account of the influence of legislators and 

the Government on the promotion and protection of religious interests and the 

position of the Church in the life of the nation. This lays on all Catholic Christians 

the patriotic duty of exercising their vote in a manner befitting the responsibility of a 

true citizen and a faithful Catholic Christian. 

Vote for deputies whose character and attested attitude bear witness to their 

commitment to peace and social welfare, and to the protection of confessional 

schools, the Christian religion and the Catholic Church. Beware of agitators and 

parties which are not worthy of the trust of the Catholic people. 

Source H 

Otto Meisner gives evidence to the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946. 

Schleicher came to Hindenburg with a demand for emergency powers as a 

prerequisite of action against the Nazis. Furthermore, he believed it necessary to 

dissolve, and even temporarily eliminate, the Reichstag, and this was to be done by 

presidential decrees on the basis of Article 48 - the transformation of his government 

into a military dictatorship … Schleicher first made these suggestions to Hindenburg 

in the middle of January 1933, but Hindenburg at once evinced grave doubts as to its 

constitutionality. In the meantime von Papen had returned to Berlin, and by 

arrangement with Hindenburg’s son had had several interviews with the President … 

Source I 

A Rhineland newspaper reports on the growing political crisis late January 1933. 

Reich Chancellor von Schleicher today informed the Reich President…that the 

present national government would be unable to defend itself vis a vis the Reichstag if 

it did not obtain in advance the power to dissolve parliament. Reich President von 

Hindenburg stated that he could not grant this proposal because of current 

conditions. Reich Chancellor von Schleicher then announced the resignation of the 

government … Reich President von Hindenburg summoned former Chancellor von 

Papen and requested him to clarify the political situation and to suggest possible 

procedures. 


ACTIVITIES 

Essays 

1. The existence of Article 48 ensured the collapse of the Weimar Republic. 

Discuss. 

2. Discuss the view that the ‘old order’ betrayed the Weimar Republic between1930 

and 1933. 

3. Do you agree with the view that the collapse of the Weimar Republic was 

inevitable? 

4. The achievement of the Weimar Republic was that it lasted for fourteen years. 

Do you agree with this view? 


1. Was the death of Stressemann as described in Source A ‘an irreplaceable loss’? 

2. What circumstances led the author of Source B to write to the Army? 

3. How accurate is the Communist analysis of the Election of September 1930 in 

Source D? 

4. Is Source E correct in claiming the old order ‘had ceased to exercise any decisive 

influence’ in German political life? 

5. What light do Sources A, D and F shed on political life in Germany in the early 

1930s? 

6. How far do Sources C and F agree on the growing threat of the Nazis in the early 

1930s? 


SECTION FIVE: NAZISM IN THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC - 1918-1933 

Source A 

Part of the Programme of the Nazi Party, February 1920 

1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Greater Germany on the basis of the 

right of national self-determination. 

2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in its dealing as with other 

nations, and the revocation of the peace treaties of Versailles and Saint-Germain. 

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and settle our surplus 

population. 

4. Only members of the nation may be citizens of the State. Only those of German 

blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. Accordingly no Jew 

may be a member of the nation. 

Source B 

The nineteen year old Hans Frank hears Hitler speak for the first time in January 

1920. 

I was strongly impressed straight away. It was totally different from what was 

otherwise to be heard in meetings. His method was completely clear and simple. He 

took the overwhelmingly dominant topic of the day, the Versailles Diktat, and posed 

the question of all questions: What now German people? What’s the true situation? 

What alone is now possible? He spoke for over two-and-a-half hours … Everything 

came from the heart, and he struck a chord with all of us… He concealed nothing … 

of the horror, the distress, the despair facing Germany … When he finished, the 

applause would not die down … From this evening onwards, though not a party 

member, I was convinced that if one man could do it, Hitler alone would be capable 

of mastering Germany’s fate. 

(from Hitler 1889 –1936, I Kershaw, Allen Lane, 1998) 

Source C 

Part of Hitler’s closing speech at his trial, 27 March 1924. 

The fate of Germany does not lie in the choice between a Republic and a Monarchy 

but in the content of the Republic or the Monarchy. What I am contending against is 

not the form of a state as such, but its ignominious content. We wanted to create in 

Germany the precondition which alone will make it possible for the iron grip of our 

enemies to be removed from us. We wanted to create order in the state, throw out the 

drones, take up the fight against international stock exchange slavery, against our 

whole economy being cornered by trusts, against the politicising of the trade unions, 

and above all, for the highest honour and duty which we, as Germans, know should 

be once more introduced - the duty of bearing arms, military service. And now I ask 

you: Is what we wanted high treason? 


Source D 

Hitler writes in ‘Mein Kampf’ about the representative individual. 

When from his workshop or big factory in which he (the individual) feels very small, 

he steps for the first time into a mass meeting and has thousands and thousands of 

people of the same opinion around him … he is swept away by three or four thousand 

others into the mighty effect of suggestive intoxication and enthusiasm, when the 

visible success and agreement of thousands confirm to him the rightness of the new 

doctrine and for the first time arouse doubts in the truth of his previous conviction - 

then he himself has succumbed to the magic influence of mass … suggestion. 

Source E 

In ‘Mein Kampf’ Hitler comments on the masses. 

The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is 

feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective 

propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as 

far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently 

repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put 

forward. 

Source F 

An interview with Hitler in 1924. 

I noticed that he barred in particular any reminder of the putsch and any question 

concerning his policy towards the Party schism … I gladly eschewed the subject as 

too delicate. But the lesson it taught was another matter, which Hitler himself took 

up. ‘From now on’, he said, ‘we must follow a new line of action. It is best to attempt 

no large reorganisation until I am freed … When I resume active work it will be 

necessary to pursue a new policy. Instead of working to achieve power by armed 

conspiracy, we shall have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag against the 

Catholic and Marxist deputies. If outvoting them takes longer than outshooting them, 

at least the results will be guaranteed by their own Constitution!’ 

(Reported in I Knew Hitler, Kurt Ludecke, London 1938,pp.217-218) 

Source G 

The growth in membership of the NSDAP. 

1924 55,000 

1928 70,000 

1931 130,000 

1933 850,000 

1935 2,500,000 

1939 5,300,000 

1942 7,100,000 

1945 8,500,000 


Source H 

A National Socialist report on a meeting in Berlin in February 1927. 

On the 11 th of this month the Party held a public mass meeting in the Pharus (Beer) 

Halls’ in Wedding, the real working class quarter, with the subject: ‘The Collapse of 

the Bourgeois Class State’. Comrade Goebbels was the speaker … When the meeting 

was opened by Comrade Daluege, the SA leader, there were, as was expected, 

provocative shouts of ‘On a point of order!’ … Within seconds both sides had picked 

up chairs, beer mugs, even tables, and a savage fight began… The fight was quickly 

decided: the KPD left with 85 wounded … On our side we counted 3 badly wounded 

… When the police appeared the fight was already over. Marxist terrorism had been 

bloodily suppressed … 

(from Nazism:1919-1945 Vol I ,J Noakes and G Pridham (Eds), University of Exeter, 

1983) 

Source I 

In 1927 Gregor Strasser explains why he became a National Socialist. 

How did all those tens of thousands in all parts of Germany become National 

Socialist? Perhaps I may be allowed to recall how I became one … Before the war 

we did not bother with politics … (During the war) the best soldiers were frequently 

those who had least to defend at home. He co-operated, he did his duty unfailingly… 

Because we had become nationalists in the trenches we could not help becoming 

Socialists in the trenches … Those who have fought together with us and who are 

hostile towards the nation because it has not bothered with them must be emancipated 

so that Germany will in future be strong and the master of her enemies. 


1983) 

Source J 

At an election meeting in March 1928 Hitler speaks on nationalism and socialism. 

We can conclude that bourgeois nationalism has failed, and that the concept of 

Marxist socialism has made life impossible in the long run. These old lines of 

confrontation must be eradicated along with the old parties, because they are barring 

the nation’s path into the future. We are eradicating them by releasing the two 

concepts of nationalism and socialism and harnessing them for a new goal, towards 

which we are working full of hope, for the highest form of socialism is burning 

devotion to the nation. 


1983) 

Source K 

The ‘Voelkischer Beobachter’analyses Election results on 31 May 1928. 

… The election results from the rural areas in particular have proved that with a 

smaller expenditure of energy, money and time, better results can be achieved there 

than in the big cities. In small towns and villages mass meetings with good speakers 

are events and are often talked about for weeks, while in the big cities the effects of 


meetings with even three or four thousand people soon disappear. Local successes in 

which the National Socialists are running first or second are, surprisingly, almost 

invariably the result of the activity of the branch leader or of a few energetic 

members. 

Source L 

A breakdown of recent research on the social structure of the membership of The Nazi 

Party in various regions of Germany between 1925 and January 1933(in percentages) 

is given below. 

Region Lower 

Class 

Lower & 

Middle 

Middle 

Class 

Upper 

Middle 

Class & 

Upper 

Class 

Unknown 

Status 

Western Ruhr 50.8 38.3 1.0 6.5 

Hanover-South Brunswick 37.1 45.5 5.4 11.9 

Hesse-Darmstadt 39.4 50.1 4.0 6.5 

Wurttemberg-Hohenzollern 42.9 46.3 5.4 5.4 

Hesse-Nassau-South 41.6 45.5 4.3 8.6 

Posen-West Prussia 37.6 48.4 3.2 10.8 

TOTAL 41.9 45.9 4.6 7.6 

Source M 

No one doubts that National Socialism owes its electoral success to the old and new 

middle classes. Even if half of the young new voters since 1928 were to have voted 

National Socialist, that would only be around a million votes. The rising generation, 

therefore, can only partially explain the inflating of the NSDAP. 

…. It is not the great current of contemporary ideas which the middle classes have 

allowed to carry them along - it is worry and anxiety, which oppresses them. For 

years the middle class man has kept his head down or sought rescue … His special 

interests; he has gone with this party or that party, and it has always got worse. He 

has realised the futility of his splintered parties. 

(Theordore Geiger, ‘Panic in the Middle Class’, an article in the German journal, ‘Die 

Arbeit’, 1930) 


Source N 

Writing in 1934, a middle class member of the SA, reflects on how his family was 

affected by the Great Depression. 

I was born on 14 May 1910 in Wurselen of Catholic parents … Because of the 

financial crisis within my family - my father and three of my siblings had recently lost 

their jobs - I had to break off my studies. During the following years I tried to obtain 

a position commensurate with my education, but without success. Only some two 

years after my school exams was I able to obtain work at the Goulay mine, where I 

had previously worked frequently during my school holidays. Although the work has 

absolutely nothing to do with my training, I am none the less happy to be able to 

support my parents to a degree. My father is still unemployed and my brother only 

got back to work a couple of weeks ago. What I will achieve professionally and how I 

shall make use of my skills and knowledge is still not clear to me. 

Source O 

Albert Speer on why he joined, along with his mother, the National Socialist Party in 

1931. 

Here it seemed to me was hope. Here were new ideals, a new understanding, new 

tasks … The peril of communism which seemed inexorably on the way, could be 

checked, Hitler persuaded us, and instead of hopeless unemployment, Germany could 

move toward economic recovery. He had mentioned the Jewish problem only 

peripherally. But such remarks did worry me although I was not an anti-Semite … It 

must have been during these months that my mother saw an SA parade on the streets 

of Heidelberg. The sight of discipline in a time of chaos, the impression of energy in 

an atmosphere of universal hopelessness, seems to have won her over also. 

Source P 

Address by Hitler to German industrialists, January 1932. 

Unemployment is driving millions of Germans to look on Communism as the logical 

theoretical counterpart of their actual economic situation. We cannot cure this state 

of affairs by emergency decrees. There can only be one basic solution: a realisation 

that a flourishing economic life must be protected by a flourishing, powerful state. 

Today we stand at a turning-point in Germany’s destiny. Either we work out a 

body-politic as hard as iron from the conglomeration of parties, or Germany will fall 

into final ruin. 

Source Q 

The Nazi Propaganda department issues a directive during the presidential election 

campaign of Spring 1932. 

… Hitler poster. The Hitler poster depicts a fascinating Hitler head on a completely 

black background. Subtitle: white on black - ‘Hitler’. In accordance with the 

Fuhrer’s wish this poster is to be put up only during the final days (of the campaign). 


Since experience shows that during the final days there is a variety of coloured 

posters, this poster with its completely black background will contrast with all the 

others and will produce a tremendous effect on the masses … 

Source R 

Extracts Goebbel’s Diary on the closing days of Bruning’s cabinet. 

8 May 1932: On Saturday the delegates come and give us some information. The 

Fuhrer has an important interview with Schleicher in the presence of a few gentlemen 

of the President’s immediate circle. 

All goes well. The Fuhrer has spoken decisively. Bruning’s fall is expected shortly. 

The President of the Reich will withdraw his confidence from him. 

The plan is to constitute a Presidential Cabinet. The Reichstag will be dissolved. 

Repressive enactments are to be cancelled. We shall be free to go ahead as we like 

and mean to outdo ourselves in propaganda. 

11 May 1932. The Reichstag drags on. Groener’s position is shaken. The army no 

longer supports him. Even those with most to with him urge his downfall. 

This is the beginning; once one of these men falls, the whole Cabinet, and with it the 

system, will crash. Bruning is trying to salvage what he can. 

Source S 

From a conversation between Hitler and Hindenburg on 13 August 1932. 

The President of the Reich opened the discussion by declaring to Hitler that he was 

ready to let the National Socialist Party and their leader Hitler participate in the 

Reich government and would welcome their Cupertino. He then put the question to 

Hitler whether he was prepared to participate in the present government of von 

Papen. Herr Hitler declared that … His taking part in Cupertino with the existing 

government was out of the question. Considering the importance of the National 

Socialist movement he must demand the full and complete leadership of government 

and state for himself and his party. 

Source T 

Extract from a report of the Reich Minister of the Interior, summer, 1932. 

Looked at politically, objectively, the result of the election is so fearful because it 

seems clear that the present election will be the last normal Reichstag election for a 

long time to come. The so-called race of thinkers and poets is hurrying with flags 

flying towards dictatorship and thus towards a period that will totally be filled with 

severe revolutionary disturbances. The elected Reichstag is totally incapable of 

functioning, even if the Centre goes in with the National Socialists, which it will do 

without hesitation if it seems in the interests of the party… The one consolation could 

be the recognition that the National Socialists have passed their peak… But against 

this stands the fact that the radicalism of the right has unleashed a strong radicalism 

on the left. The communists have made gains almost everywhere and thus internal 

political disturbances have become exceptionally bitter. 


ACTIVITIES 

Essays 

1. How important was Adolf Hitler in the rise of the Nazi Party? 

2. Why did Hitler adopt a new political strategy after 1923? 

3. Why did the National Socialist Party remain a fringe political party until the 

Election of September 1930? 

4. Who voted for the NSDAP? 

5. How important was the political activism of the Nazi Party members in securing 

power in January 1933? 


1. Explain the significance of Hitler’s speech to German industrialists in January 

1932 in Source P? 

2. Discuss the strategy outlined in Source S for securing power for the Nazis in 

relation to events in 1932 and 1933. 

3. In what ways do Sources B and O agree on the appeal of the Nazis? 

4. Compare and contrast the views expressed in Sources D and E on the 

‘representative individual’ and ‘the masses’. 

5. How far do Sources F and H agree on the electoral strategies adopted by Hitler 

and the Nazis after 1924? 

6. To what extent do Sources K and L agree on who voted for the Nazis? 


PART THREE: THE THIRD REICH - SOURCES 

SECTION ONE: POLITICS AND ECONOMICS - 1933-39 

Source A 

Ludendorff to Reich President Hindenburg in late January 1933. 

You have delivered up our holy German Fatherland to one of the greatest 

demagogues of all time. I solemnly prophesy that this accursed man will cast our 

Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery. Future 

generations will damn you in your grave for what you have done. 

Source B 

Hitler’s ‘Appeal to the German People’ on 31 January 1933. 

The task before us is the most difficult which has faced German statesmen in living 

memory. But we all have unbounded confidence, for we believe in our nation and in 

its eternal values. Farmers, workers, and the middle class must unite to contribute 

the bricks wherewith to build the new Reich. 

The National Government will therefore regard it as the first and supreme task to 

restore to the German people unity of mind and will … 

We, men of this Government, feel responsible to German history for the reconstitution 

of a proper national body so that we may finally overcome the insanity of class and 

class warfare. We do not recognise classes, but only the German people, its millions 

of farmers, citizens and workers who together will either overcome this time of 

distress or succumb to it. 


1983) 

Source C 

Goering on 2 March 1933 

My main task will be to stamp out the Communist pestilence. I am going over to the 

offensive all down the line … The Communists never expected 2,000 of their 

top-swindlers to be sitting under lock and key just 48 hours later … I don’t need the 

fire in the Reichstag to take action against Communism, and it’s no secret either that 

if it had been up to Hitler and me the culprits would already be swinging from the 

gallows. 

(The Hitler State, Martin Broszat, Longman, 1981) 


Source D 

A Nazi theorist explains that Hitler’s dictatorship is not ‘legal’. 

The office of Fuhrer has developed out of the National Socialist movement. In its 

origins it is not a state office. The office of Fuhrer has grown out of the movement 

into the Reich … The position of Fuhrer combines in itself all sovereign power of the 

Reich: all public power in the state as in the movement is derived from the Fuhrer’s 

power …’Fuhrer power’ is comprehensive and total: it unites within itself all means 

of creative political activity: it embraces all spheres of national life. 

(from Politics and Economics in the Nazi State, 1933-45, G Layton, Hodder and 

Stoughton 1992) 

Source E 

Vice Chancellor von Papen on Hitler’s rule in November 1933. 

We, your nearest and most intimate colleagues, are still spellbound by the 

unparalleled, most overwhelming recognition, a nation has ever rendered its leader. 

In nine months the genius of your leadership and the ideals which you newly placed 

before us have succeeded in creating, from a people internally torn and without hope, 

a Reich united in hope and faith in its future. Even those who hitherto stood apart 

have now unequivocally professed their loyalty to you … 

(from National Socialist Rule in Germany, Norbert Frei, Blackwall, 1993) 

Source F 

A contemporary on the responsibility for the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934. 

The suppression of the Rohm revolt has been like a purifying thunderstorm. The 

nightmare which has burdened the people has been followed by a liberating sign of 

relief … Wide sections of the population, however, have been deeply shocked by the 

shooting of persons completely unconnected with the Rohm revolt. It is realised that 

these were excesses, which took place without the knowledge and against the will of 

the Fuehrer and leading figures. 


Source G 

Albert Speer on Hitler’s lifestyle in the 1930s. 

When, I would often ask myself, did he really work ? Little was left of the day; he 

rose late in the morning, conducted one or two official conferences; but from the 

subsequent dinner on he more or less wasted his time until the early hours of the 

evening. His rare appointments in the late afternoon were imperilled by his passion 

for looking at building plans. The adjutants often asked me: ‘please don’t show any 

plans today’… In the eyes of the people Hitler was the Leader who watched over the 

nation day and night. This was hardly so … According to my observations, he often 

allowed a problem to mature during the weeks when he seemed to be entirely taken up 

with trivial matters. Then after the ‘sudden insight’, he would spend a few days of 

incisive work giving final shape to his solution … Once he had come to a decision, he 

lapsed again into his idleness. 

(from Hitler and Nazism, Jane Jenkins, Longman, 1998) 


Source H 

Hitler speaks to Party officials on 29 April 1937. 

It is always hard if someone says, ‘only one person can command; one commands and 

the rest must obey’ … In a genuine Fuhrer State, it is now, let’s say, the honour of 

him who leads that he also assumes responsibility … Today the people are happier in 

Germany than anywhere else in the world. They only become uncertain if there is no 

leadership … I saw the madness of the belief that the ordinary man does not want 

any leadership in the first place, I saw this never more starkly than during the war. If 

a company is faced with a critical situation, the company only has one wish, that it 

has a decent company commander, and then it will rely on him. 


Source I 

Memorandum on the Four Year Plan of August 1936. 

… I therefore draw up the following programme for a final provision of our vital 

needs: 

I. Parallel with the military and political rearmament and mobilisation of our 

nation must go its economic rearmament and mobilisation … There is only one 

interest, the interest of the nation; only one view, the bringing of Germany to the 

point of political and economic self-sufficiency. 

II. … foreign exchange must be saved in all those areas where our needs can be 

satisfied by German production. 

III. … German fuel production must now be stepped up with the utmost speed and 

brought to final completion within 18 months. 

IV. The mass production of synthetic rubber must also be organised and achieved 

with the same urgency. 


Source J 

Hjalmar Schacht, Economics Minister, on Hitler’s view of economics. 

As long as I remained in office, whether at the Reichsbank or the Ministry of 

Economics, Hitler never interfered with my work. He never attempted to give me any 

instructions, but let me carry out my own ideas in my own way and without criticism 

… However, when he realised that the moderation of my financial policy was a 

stumbling block in his reckless plans (foreign policy), he began, with Goering’s 

connivance, to go behind my back and counter my arrangements. 


Source K 

In July 1938 an SPD analyst comments on Nazi economic policy. 

… Under the lash of the dictatorship, the level of economic activity has been greatly 

increased. The exploitation of labour has been increased; female employment has 


een increased despite the totally contradictory Nazi ideal of womanhood; and a 

large number of Mittelstandlern (self-employed people) have been transformed into 

wage-labourers despite the totally contradictory Nazi ideal of their status … 



ACTIVITES 

Essays 

1. What part did legality play in the consolidation of power by the Nazis between 

1933 and 1934? 

2. To what extent was the ‘leadership principle’ implemented after 1933? 

3. Was Adolf Hitler a weak dictator or master of the Third Reich? 

4. ‘The Nazis’ economic policies of 1934-1939 were the chief cause of the war that 

began in September 1939.’ Do you agree? 

5. To what extent did the introduction of the Four Year Plan in 1936 change the 

German economy? 


1. How accurate is Ludendorff’s prophecy in Source A? 

2. Why does Hitler make an ‘Appeal to the German People’ in Source B? 

3. Why did the author of Source E extol the virtues of Adolf Hitler? 

4. Was the opinion expressed in Source F on the Rohm Revolt held by the majority 

of the German people? 

5. What light does Source G shed on Hitler’s lifestyle? 

6. Compare Sources E, G and H about the nature of Hitler’s rule? 

7. What light do Sources I and J shed on Hitler’s economic policies? 


SECTION TWO: THE NAZI SOCIAL AND RACIAL REVOLUTION: 

1933-1939 

Source A 

The German Labour Front is set up in 1933. 

The German Labour Front is the organisation for all working men, irrespective of 

their economic or social standing. In it the worker shall stand alongside the 

employer, no longer separated into groups and associations which serve to perpetuate 

special economic or social distinctions or interests. In the German Labour Front a 

person’s worth will be the deciding factor, be he worker or employer … 

(The Hitler State, Martin Broszat, Longman, 1981) 

Source B 

Robert Ley on the Nazi work ethic in 1936. 

There is one thing we must understand if we are to comprehend the greatness of this 

time: we are not dealing with a new state system, or a new economic system… 

Human being are being transformed … National Socialism has the power to free the 

German people, the individual German, from the injuries inflicted on him which have 

prevented from performing his task … Of course we do not have a comfortable life. 

Life on this earth is hard and must be earned through struggle, and earned every day 

afresh. All we can do is to give you the strength for this struggle, to make you 

inwardly strong. We can give the worker physical and spiritual health, healthy 

housing, and a proper livelihood with which to maintain himself and his children. 

Above all, thanks to Kraft durch Freude, we can offer him a great deal to nourish his 

spirit. 

(Fascism, Roger Gribbon (Ed), Oxford University Press, 1995) 

Source C 

An interview with an unnamed member of the Nazi Party in 1936. 

… for five years I remained unemployed and I was broken both in body and spirit and 

I learned how stupid were all my dreams in those hard days at university. I was not 

wanted by Germany…then I was introduced to Hitler. You won’t understand and I 

cannot explain either because I don’t know what happened, but life for me took on a 

tremendous new significance … I have committed myself, body, soul and spirit, to 

this movement … I can only tell you that I cannot go back. I cannot question, I am 

pledged. I beg you not to try to set up conflict in my mind. 



Source D 

The Nazi agricultural ‘expert’, Walter Darre, romanticises the peasantry. 

At the bottom of his heart the true peasant …has only a deep mostly silent contempt 

for the city dweller or non-farmer … The peasant directs the farm, he is the head, the 

other limbs; but all together they are visible for the farm … To be a peasant therefore 

means to have a feeling for the organic and interplay of forces in the work as a whole. 

(cited in Nazi Ideology before 1933- a Documentation, B Millar Lane and L J Rupp 

(eds), Manchester 1978) 

Source E 

A Nazi Party statement of March 1930, possibly written by the Strasser brothers, 

emphasises the peasantry will find their place within a broadly based movement. 

The present distress of the farmers is part of the distress of the entire German people. 

It is madness to believe that a single occupational group can exclude itself from the 

German community which shares in the same fate; it is a crime to set farmers and city 

dwellers against one another, for they are bound together for better or for worse. 

… The old ruling political parties which led our people into slavery cannot be the 

leaders on the road to emancipation. 

The war of liberation against our oppressors and their taskmasters can be 

successfully led only by a political liberation movement which, although it fully 

recognises the significance of the farmers and of agriculture for the German workers 

as a whole, draws together the consciously German members of every occupation and 

rank. 

This political liberation movement of the German people is the National Socialist 

German Workers’ Party. 

Source F 

At the Nuremberg Rally of September 1934 Hitler comments on the place of women 

in Nazi society. 

If one says that man’s world is the State, his struggle, his readiness to devote his 

powers to the service of the community, one might be tempted to say that the world of 

woman is a smaller world. For her world is her husband, her family, her children 

and her house. But where would the greater world be if there were no one to care for 

the small world ? … Providence has entrusted to women the cares of that world 

which is peculiarly her own … Every child that a woman brings into the world is a 

battle, a battle waged for the existence of her people. 


Source G 

A school pupil comments on life in the mid 1930s. 

No one in our class ever read Mein Kampf. I myself had only used the book for 

quotations. In general we didn’t know much about National Socialist ideology. Even 

anti-Semitism was taught rather marginally at school, for instance through Richard 

Wagner’s essay The Jews in Music – and outside school the display copies of Der 

Sturmer made the idea seem questionable, if anything… Nevertheless, we were 

politically programmed: programmed to obey orders, to cultivate the soldierly 

‘virtue’ of standing to attention and saying ‘Yes, Sir’, and to switch our minds off 

when the magic word ‘fatherland’ was uttered and Germany’s honour and greatness 

were invoked. 

(from Inside Nazi Germany, D Peubert, Batsford, 1987) 

Source H 

A Nazi publication on youth in 1938. 

The education for Germany, which is organised by the Hitler Youth itself in 

accordance with the Fuhrer’s will that ‘Youth must be led by youth’ … And just as 

the Hitler Youth is neither a league for pre-military training, nor a sports club, so it 

has no room, either, for the cultivation of a separate youth culture in musical groups 

and Hitler Youth Choirs, in literary clubs and theatrical societies. Whatever is 

happening within the new German youth happens exclusively in compliance with that 

great and unalterable law: the commitment to the Fuhrer is the commitment to 

Germany. 

(from Fascism, Roger Gribbon (Ed), Oxford University Press, 1995) 

Source I 

On German culture in 1938. 

Now, more than four years after the decisive change which German life experienced 

on 30 January 1933, the criteria and principles which had to be fought for then have 

penetrated the general spiritual awareness of the nation. It has long since become 

self-evident to the overriding majority of the German people that the norms which 

determine and shape our political life since 1933 must also, through a deep inner 

necessity, affect the whole spiritual and artistic life of the present and future of our 

people. 

This development, for which we must thank the cleansing of German cultural life from 

all distortions alien to its nature (artfremd), a process which gathered irresistible 

momentum after 1933 and is now complete … 

(from Fascism, Roger Gribbon (Ed), Oxford University Press, 1995) 


Source J 

In August 1939 Goebbels speaks on the value of the radio. 

Broadcasting has certain quite definite tasks to perform, particularly in view of the 

times in which we are living at this moment. What is needed is not heavy, serious 

programmes which, after all, only a fraction of the people can grasp: we must provide 

the broad masses and millions of our people, engaged as they are in a struggle for 

existence, with as much relaxation and entertainment, edification and improvement, 

as possible. 


Source K 

The SPD underground (SOPADE) in the 1930s observes the terror in Germany. 

Terror in its all-embracing form, in its totally inhuman brutality, remains concealed 

not only from those abroad; even in Germany itself there are certain circles of the 

population who have no inkling of what is occurring. It is not uncommon for a 

‘citizen’ who has absolutely no enthusiasm for the system but has little interest in 

politics, who crosses the road to avoid a swastika flag which he would be expected to 

salute, to put the following question with an undertone of accusation: ‘Do you 

personally know of anyone who is still in a concentration camp from then ?’ (By 

‘then’ is meant the take-over in 1933.) 


Source L 

An underground Socialist (SOPADE) witnesses peasant hostility to the regime in 

1934. 

The peasants, to a man, are angry about the Hitler system. Market days in the towns 

…almost assume the character of political meetings. Only a chairman is missing. 

Everything is discussed and grumbled about … The gendarmes behave as though 

they had not heard the market-goers. If known Nazis informers turn up, the most that 

happens is that people move along a bit and talk more quietly, but the informers can 

sense the mood of the peasants perfectly well. For a long while it has been impossible 

to speak of the peasants fearing the Nazis. On the contrary, known Nazis avoid the 

peasants, so as not to be called to account about when they finally intend to start 

turning their promises into reality. 



Source M 

Lloyd George in 1937 on how Hitler has regenerated Germany. 

Whatever one may think of his (Hitler’s) methods - and they are certainly not those of 

a parliamentary country - there can be no doubt that he has achieved a marvellous 

transformation in the spirit of the people, in their attitude towards each other, and in 

their social and economic outlook … As to his popularity, especially among the youth 

of Germany, there can be no manner of doubt. The old trust him; the young idolises 

him. It is not the admiration accorded to a popular leader. It is the worship of a 

national hero who has saved his country from utter despondency and degradation… 

(from Germany: The Third Reich, G layton, Hodder and Stoughton, 1992) 

Source N 

In a speech in 1937 Hitler claims to have created a Volksgemeinschaft. 

We in Germany have really broken with a world of prejudices. I leave myself out of 

account. I, too, am a child of the people; I do not trace my line from any castle: I 

come from the workshop … By my side stand Germans from all walks of life who 

once were workers on the land are now governing German states in the name of the 

Reich … It is true that men who came from the bourgeoisie and former aristocrats 

have their place in this Movement … We have not broken down classes in order to set 

new ones in their place: we have broken down classes to make way for the German 

people as a whole. 

Source O 

In May 1939 a local government official comments on the popularity of the regime. 

There was hardly a shop window to be seen without a display of the Fuhrer’s portrait 

and the victorious symbols of the new Reich. The numerous celebrations were very 

well attended in the garrison towns the population was especially captivated by the 

military parades. Everywhere was a happy celebration of people, who were not in the 

slightest disturbed by the agitation incited in the nations which surround us, because 

they know their fate is safe in the Fuhrer’s hands. 


Source P 

The Socialists (SOPADE) in exile comment on Kristallnacht in November 1938. 

The brutal measures against the Jews have caused great indignation among the 

population. People spoke their minds quite openly, and many Aryans were arrested 

as a result. When it became known that a Jewish woman had been taken from 

childbed, even a police official said that this was too much: ‘Where is Germany 

heading, if these methods are being used?’ As a result, he was arrested too … After 

the Jews, who are going to be the next victims? That is what people will be asking. 

Will it be the Catholics? 



Source Q 

Himmler on the Jewish question in the early 1940s. 

The painful decision had to be taken, to remove this people from the face of the earth. 

For the organisation that had to perform it, this was the hardest task we have ever 

faced. It has been performed, I believe I may say, without our men and leaders 

suffering any harm of mind or spirit … That is all I wish to say about the Jewish 

question. You know how things stand, and you will keep the knowledge to yourselves. 

Source R 

Hitler to Speer in March 1945. 

If the war is to be lost, the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no 

need to consider the basis of even a most primitive existence any longer. On the 

contrary it is better to destroy even that, and to destroy it ourselves. The nation has 

proved itself weak, and the future belongs solely to the stronger Eastern nation. 

Besides, those who remain after the battle are of little value; for the good have fallen. 


ACTIVITIES 

Essays 

1. How successfully did the Nazi regime promote harmony and remove class 

conflict in the Third Reich? 

2. To what extent did the Nazis succeed in attracting support from German workers 

in the period 1929 to 1939? 

3. Discuss the role of women and the family in the Third Reich. 

4. Discuss the reaction of the German people to the persecution of the Jews? 

5. How far was resistance possible within the Third Reich, and what forms did it 

take? 


1. How far would German workers have agreed with the views expressed in Source 

B? 

2. Does Source C accurately reflect the popularity of the Third Reich? 

3. What light does Source K shed on the nature of repression in Hitler’s Germany? 

4. Discuss the views on the peasantry expressed in Sources D and E? 

5. How far do Sources F and G agree on the position of German youth in the Third 

Reich? 

6. Contrast the views expressed by Hitler on the German people in Sources N and 

R. 


SECTION THREE: HITLER’S FOREIGN POLICY: 1933-1939 

Source A 

Hitler on German foreign policy in ‘Mein Kampf’. 

Germany will either be a world power or there will be no Germany. And for world 

power she needs magnitude which will give her the position she needs in the present 

period, and life to her citizens. And so we National Socialists consciously draw up a 

line beneath the foreign policy tendency of our pre-war period … We stop endless 

German movement to south and west, and turn our gaze towards land in the east. At 

long last we break off the colonial and commercial policy of the pre-war period and 

shift to the soil policy of the future. 

Source B 

Hitler’s first major ‘peace speech’ on 17 March 1933. 

Speaking deliberately as a German National Socialist, I desire to declare in the name 

of the national Government, and of the whole movement of national regeneration, that 

we in this new Germany are filled with deep understanding for the same feelings and 

opinions and for the rightful claims to life of the other nations … Our boundless love 

for and the loyalty to our own national traditions makes us respect the national 

claims of others and makes us desire from the bottom of our hearts to live with them 

in peace and friendship. We therefore have no use for the idea of Germanization. 

Source C 

Hitler decides to remilitarise the Rhineland in 1936. 

In accordance with the fundamental right of a nation to secure its frontiers and 

ensure its possibilities of defence, the German Government has today restored the full 

and unrestricted sovereignty of Germany in the demilitarised zone of the Rhineland. 

Source D 

On 5 November 1937 Hitler allegedly outlines his foreign policy aims before the 

leaders of the armed services. (The Hossbach Memorandum.) 

The aim of German policy was to make secure and to preserve the racial community 

(Volksmasse) and to enlarge it. It was therefore a question of space … 

If we did not act by 1943-5, any year could, in consequence of a lack of reserves, 

produce the food crisis, to cope with the necessary foreign exchange was not 

available, and this must be regarded as a ‘warning of the regime’. Besides the world 

was expecting our attack and was increasing its counter measures from year to year. 

It was while the rest of the world was still preparing its defences (sich abriegele) that 

we were obliged to take the offensive… 

If the Fuhrer was still living, it was his unalterable resolve to solve Germany’s 

problems of space at the latest by 1943-5 


. 

Source E 

A Social Democrat comments on the Anschluss with Austria in March 1938. 

The atmosphere was similar to that on 30 th January 1933, when Hitler became Reich 

Chancellor. Everyone was carried away by this atmosphere. Only gradually did 

groups form here and there, and people began to discuss what had happened. You 

could hear people saying that war was now on the way and they were going home to 

pack and move out to the villages. But these were isolated voices. The general 

opinion in the groups was: ‘Let’s face it, Hitler is a great man, he knows what he 

wants and the world is scared of him.’ … Hitler’s prestige has risen enormously 

again and he is practically idolised … The western powers simply daren’t do 

anything against Germany, and even if they do, Germany is strong enough to get its 

own way. 


Source F 

On 22 August 1939 Hitler addresses his generals. 

Colonel-General von Brauchitsch has promised me to bring the war against Poland 

to a close with a few weeks. Had he reported to me that he needs two years or even 

only one year, I should not have given the command to march and should have allied 

myself temporarily with Britain instead of Russia for we cannot conduct a long war. 

To be sure a new situation has arisen. I experienced those poor worms Daladier and 

Chamberlain in Munich. They will be too cowardly to attack. They won’t go beyond 

a blockade. Against that we have our autarchy and the Russian raw materials. 

Poland will be depopulated and settled with Germans. My pact with the Poles was 

merely conceived of as gaining of time. As for the rest, gentlemen, the fate of Russia 

will be exactly the same as I am now going through with in the case of Poland. After 

Stalin’s death - he is a very sick man - we will break the Soviet Union. Then there 

will begin the dawn of the German rule of the earth. 

Source G 

Hitler threatens the Jews with annihilation in a Reichstag speech in January 1939. 

Today I will once more be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers in and 

outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations into a world war, then the 

result will not be the bolshevisation of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the 

annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe ! 


ACTIVITIES 

Essays 

1. Were there any guiding principles behind Hitler’s foreign policy? 

2. Was Hitler’s foreign policy, 1933-1939, merely a continuation of that of his 

Weimar predecessors? 

3. Why did Germany find itself at war with Britain and France in September 1939? 

4. Why was the outbreak of war in September 1939 not marked by uncontrolled 

enthusiasm in Germany? 

5. How far was Germany prepared for war in 1939? 


1. Does Source A accurately reflect Hitler’s foreign policy aspirations? 

2. What circumstances led to Hitler’s ‘peace speech’ in Source B? 

3. What light does Source C shed on Hitler’s foreign policy? 

4. Explain the significance of Source D, the Hossbach Memorandum. 

5. How far does Source E express the views of the German people? 

6. Why did Hitler make the speech in Source G in January 1939? 

7. Compare the views expressed in Sources B and F on Hitler’s Foreign policy?

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