The War Increased Rather Than Narrowed Germany’s Political and Social Divisions. How Far Do You Agree with This Statement?

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The War increased rather than narrowed Germany’s political and social divisions. How far do you agree with this statement? Political and social divisions were nullified by the Enabling Act known as the Burgfrieden. This unified all political parties under one banner and national unity was based upon a shared suffering. However as the war progressed and more issues became apparent, the divide between the rich and the poor and the left and the right wing became vaster. Before the war had commenced liberals and socialists were aggravated with German democracy. Germany portrayed itself as a democratic state, however all the power belonged to the elite. Kaiser Wilhelm II even boasted that he had never read the constitution. Therefore Liberals wanted constitutional reform and more power to be given to the Reichstag. Whereas socialists demanded social reform and power to the workers and trade unions. However conservatives, such as Bismarck wanted to conserve to the Junkers – the elite class. To do this he proposed the Anti-Socialist Law in 1879 and also passed the Tariff Law, which appeased the liberals. The years leading up to the war the German people were dreading it, there were protests in Berlin in July 1914. The proletariat knew that they would have to bear the brunt of the war. However once the war broke out, the government played on the German’s people nationalism as he presented the war as defensive one against Slav aggression. The Enabling Act known as Burgfrieden was passed. The Act promoted national unity. All political parties joined together, and the Socialists fell into line as it was the popular view at the time. The divide between political parties and the difference in class no longer existed. However this doesn’t last for long as the problems on the Home front increased. Germany were unable to manage their home front effectively during the war. Due to
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