How far was the economic slump in Germany responsible for the remarkable rise in support for the Nazi party in the years 1928-32? Germany’s economic slump was a major factor in the Nazi’s good fortunes; however it was by no means the only factor which contributed to their rise in support. Linked with the poor economic climate, the political situation was in a dire condition, with no party apparently able to find a solution to Germany’ problems. A societal shift away from support for democracy also enhanced the NSDAP’s support as they seemed to offer a new hope to the public. The elite undermined Weimar as a result of their traditional values and hatred of democracy.
What Evans means by this is that the desperation of the people led them to polarising their votes and seeing radical leaders like Hitler as a solution to the mess that Germany had become. Hitler took advantage of this, and from there was able to play a huge role in the collapse of the Weimar Republic. The economic strain that Germany was placed under was also a major impact of the Depression on the collapse of the Republic. Firstly, the Depression had the obvious impact of the debt rising and the banking crises however, there were a number other impacts. Germany relied heavily on international trade for resources; almost one third of their resources came from overseas.
They didn’t get a majority government in 1910 like they did in 1906 which led them to think that social reform was the way to gain votes. Many politicians who came from modest backgrounds also wanted to “wage war” on poverty as they saw it as the scourge of modern day Britain and it was the governments job to fix
Hitler also thought that since the government was just developing it would have been a good time to seize power and take over the government. Finally, Hitler attempted the Munich Putsch also to gain support from the streets but this had failed him. I agree with the statement ‘the Reichstag Fire more important than the Enabling Act in allowing Hitler to consolidate power’ because of several reasons. Firstly, without the Reichstag Fire there wouldn’t have been an Enabling Act. The Reichstag Fire led to the Enabling Act because Hitler had managed to convince Hindenburg that it was a ‘communists uprising’.
Growth of support for facism was a reason for Mussolinis appointment as Prime Minister,however there were many other reasons for Mussolinis appointment as PM, but growth of support was very important for him. The war and the mutilated victory, had an affect on Mussolinis appointment as PM. The main reason wad that the nationalists were bitterly disappointed that italy didn’t make any gains during the war. The nationalists claimed that Italy had been betrayed by the Liberal government, this shows that the nationalists might have wanted to overthrow the Liberal government and therefore supported Mussolini before he was appointed. This links into the title point that Mussolini had a wide support base and that it was growing.
What came along the effects of The Depression was the soaring unemployment rate as well as the poor living and working conditions that much of the population had to endure, this caused the people of Germany to look to the government for support. When the republic failed to help their people, the citizens of Germany turned away from the government and instead turned to the the Nazi party, with its nationalistic ideology which seemed promising and an appealing alternative to the Weimer
The limited nature of the revolution was one of the main factors which weakened prospects for democracy, when Ebert was trying to form a government he still had a problem that the radical communists were still looking to turn Germany into a communist state similar to the Soviet Union and thus to put down this rebellion and get support of the army he made an agreement with Groener. The agreement was that the army would support the government if the army and civil service were left unchanged. This was the main reason that democracy was irreversibly weakened, because the civil service and army generals were all right-wing conservatives providing a powerbase for the radical right. This limited democracy because the radical right thought that democracy was weak and indecisive, the radical right though was weakened because the radical left was way more powerful initially in post war Germany, but the radical right would help democracy until the radical left was no longer a threat and would act as ticking time bomb of support. This could have acted as a powerbase for the Kapp Putsch and the eventual rise of the Nazis.
The failure of the Weimar Republic to fix the increasingly pressing problems of Germany consequently contributed massively to their downfall, as it demonstrated their weakness. By the early 1930s the German people were resentful of their government because of the economic issues caused by the Great Depression and Wall Street Crash. For example industrial production in 1930 had dropped by 13% of what it was in 1928, and by 1932 it had dropped by 42%. This combined with the fact many Germans still had the effects of the economic problems of the early 1920s fresh in their minds caused declining support for moderate parties and therefore the Republic. This can evidently be seen from the election results as in 1928 the SPD had 29.8% of the vote and by 1932 this had dropped to 20.4%.
While the Great Depression started in the United States, it had a profound impact on several powerful European countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and France. These interdependent countries were traumatically affected by the United States’ failing market as they watched their own markets plunge into chaos. London’s Evening Standard reports that unemployment rates in the United Kingdom were up to seventy percent due to the drop in carrier ship production. The economy inside the United States was just as appalling as the countries it affected. During this time, the American dollar and trade was catastrophically weak.
Communism and capitalism was not really a big issue, the big issue was the Axis Powers. Conflicts started escalate when Germany was defeated. Germany was unified among the allies after the war but there were two distinct groups. Russia wanted control over Germany because they suffered the most out of anyone and they were the main reason the Nazis were defeated. They feared of a future German invasion.