How Did the Second Reich Collapse

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Essay: How and why did the second Reich Collapse? In this essay i am going to be analysing how and why the second Reich collapsed in Germany. I will look at the strengths of weaknesses of the government and explain why certain factors led to its downfall. The second Reich was made up of 25 states which were all unified in order to form the second Reich the reasons it were unified were that Germany had a hostile threat from its neighbour Austria-Hungary therefore they would have a stronger military if the states were to unite as one. Also there was a growth in Nationalist interest and citizens started to become proud of German culture and language which encouraged them to unite as one. The final reason why the states united was because Prussia which was the leading German state had 3 successful wars against Demark, Austria and France this showed together they were a formidable military power which also contributed to why the states united. The second Reich was a autocratic government this means that the it was solely ruled by one person who is known as the Kaiser who at this time was Wilhelm II he had the ruling of all government decisions, under him were the Reichstag which were the countries parliament, the Reichsrat who represented the 25 states and could approve laws and The chancellor who was in charge of the government and was appointed personally by the Kaiser. All of these could be undermined by the Kaiser this is an Autocracy. The strengths of the second Reich were that it had made Germany one of the economic super powers of Europe, as by 1913 the population had grown by 50% and urbanisation started to occur meaning people started moving to the cities and industry began to boom. Also steel and coal production had increased on a massive scale meaning more money was going in to the economy and more jobs were available making Germany alot more economically
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