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Germany 1918-1945 - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Germany in chaos after loss and surrender in WW1. Many strikes and protests against the republic. Republic was blamed for the loss.
      - Friedrich Ebert put as president. He tried to reach out to different political groups and reduced working hours to 8 hours a day.
      - Despite Ebert's efforts, the republic faced lots of opposition as people didn't like them from the start.
      - The decision to sign the armistice to surrender and end the war was known as the 'Stab in the back' theory and the republic was known as the 'November criminals'.
    - - Under Weimar rule, women over the age of 20 were allowed to vote. There was freedom of speech and no dictatorship.
      - There was a parliamentary democracy in which the people under the Reichstag would vote to make decisions, rather than one leader making all the decisions.
- - - - The income of the German government was only one quarter of what it needed to be for the country to be able to pay reparations after the war, so more bank notes were printed.
      - Because of the printing of more bank notes, the currency dropped massively in value. Workers were paid in so much cash that they had to carry it home in wheelbarrows.
      - The French invaded the Ruhr, the industrial capital of Germany at the time and put the workers on strike. This meant that more money had to be printed to be able to pay the workers.
      - Children would play with the bank notes and they would be burned instead of fuel, as they were worth much less than fuel and coal at this point.
    - - Gustav Stresemann became chancellor in 1923 and was the one to fix all of Germany's economic problems.
      - The German Mark was useless as a result of the hyperinflation crisis of 1923.
      - Stresemann implemented a new currency called the Rentenmark and it was strictly controlled to be more stable.
      - The Reichsbank was introduced in 1924 and was handed control of the new currency. The Reichsmark replaced the Rentenmark permanently when the situation stabilised.
    - - The Dawes Plan
        
        Stresemann believed there was a chance to negotiate better terms for reparation payments with other countries. In 1923 Charles Dawes was sent to Germany by the USA to help the economic problems. The USA loaned 800 million gold marks, reparations lowered to 1000 million marks for the first 5 years, the payment rate would be reviewed over time, and the French agreed to withdraw troops from the Ruhr.
      - The Young Plan
        
        The total reparations bill was reduced to around 8 billion dollars, the reparations payments were to be made over 59 years at around the rate of 473 mil dollars per year, and Germany was only made to pay a third of the annual sum each year but it should pay the rest if it could afford to do so.
- - - - In 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. A Dutch communist was found at the scene with matches in his hand.
      - This was super helpful for the Nazis to gain votes during the upcoming election, as it gave people a reason to blame the communists. So less people voted for the communists and more voted for the Nazis as they put out propaganda to subtly get the people to vote for them.
    - - The Nazis wanted to make sure all of the German people heard 'The right message' so they used censorship to do this. Books by Jews were burned due to anti-Semitism, and any piece of anti-Nazi information in newspapers or other forms of media was banned immediately.
      - Goebbels was also in charge of propaganda, and the Nazis made sure that Hitler was displayed everywhere. On the propaganda posters, Nazi beliefs were displayed to try to apply to many different political groups. The propaganda with the beliefs was everywhere, so that German citizens would be subconsciously indoctrinated .
    - - Jews were treated horribly in Germany. Anti-Semitism was at its peak, and they were being persecuted every day. They weren't allowed to marry Aryans, or even own bicycles.
      - Concentration camps were introduced. In these concentration camps, Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and opposition were forced to work and they were tortured. Many died of diseases like typhus. They were given very little food and water, and sometimes none at all. Any person who made fun of Hitler or spoke bad about him would be reported by a Gestapo and sent to a Concentration Camp.
- - - - In WW2, Germany took control of much of Central and Western Europe, which was where most of the Jews were or had fled and migrated.
      - This meant that Hitler had control of most of the Jews. He would use his concentration camps to torture and persecute them further.
      - As the war progressed, Hitler turned these concentration camps into extermination camps. Jews and untermenschen were transported by train with no food or water and taken to the concentration camps to be gassed to death or worked to death and tortured.
      - The propaganda painted the extermination camps as just labour camps to the civilians back in Germany and occupied countries to ensure there was no rebellion or opposition.