Before we can explore causes, we first need to define what we mean by The Great Depression The Great Depression was a global economic crisis that may have been triggered by political decisions (war reparations post-World War I), protectionism (Congressional tariffs on European goods) or by speculation .Worldwide, there was increased unemployment, decreased government revenue, a drop in international trade. Its kickoff in the U.S. economy was “Black Thursday," October 24, 1929. That's when 12.9 million shares of stock were sold in one day. It was triple the usual amount. At the height of the Great Depression in 1933, more than a quarter of the US labor force was unemployed.
However, Roosevelt was facing a much worse scenario with an unemployment rate of nearly 25% after the stock market crash of 1929. President Roosevelt not only passed one bill, but by March 9th, 1933 within his first hundred days in office he was able to
However, there was no unilateral view on how to tackle the Depression and so the Weimar Governments between the years of 1928 and 1933 went through 4 different Chancellors before Hitler and his Nazi Party finally took over in January 1933 with public support. During the Depression, millions of people lost their jobs and there was poverty, hunger and homelessness. Carr writes that “unemployment grew by leaps and bounds” whilst Lacey and Shephard note that “for the unemployed this was a time of extreme poverty”. Betwen 1930 and 1932, 18,000 farmers and 50,000 businesses had gone bankrupt. The depression reminded H. Hauser “of the war, of the worst period of starvation in 1917 and 1918, but even then people paid for potatoes”.
After World War 1 Germany was hit with a three year period of hyperinflation during the reign of the Weimar Republic which started in 1921 and ended in 1924. Hyperinflation meant that the money was virtually worthless therefore prices shot up. Workers needed wheelbarrows to carry their notes as there was so much of it. Wages began to be paid daily instead of weekly. In this essay I will discuss if hyperinflation was completely caused by the Treaty of Versailles (1918-19).
Hitler’s rise to power in January of 1933 was not something which suddenly occurred overnight. Despite a rapid turn of events which lead to Hitler’s appointment of Chancellor (subsequently leading to the Nazi dictatorship), there were multiple turning points which enabled Hitler to gain power through clever manipulation of situations he was not responsible for and the use of his associates to his advantage. By 1929 Germany stumbled upon a calamity when the Wall Street crash occurred, affecting global economies. As most of the German loans were from America disaster struck when these were cut. Unemployment hurtled upwards from 1.5 million to 4.3 million in just one year and had risen to 6 million by 1932.
But Hitler’s person and political success was the result of desperate industrialists, his excellent handling of the relationship with the army and sheer misfortune. By holding the economic crisis of 1929 and the hyperinflation of the early 1920s responsible for undermining the German people’s confidence in moderate political parties, historian Erich Eyck points out a very important correlation. His argument is supported by the fact that the first big electoral win of the Nazi party –gaining 6.5% of the votes in May 1924– was just right after the hyperinflation of the German Paper Mark reaching a peak. Accordingly, in the next 4 –financially peaceful– years their popularity dropped to 3 and even to 2.6%. Such was the case after the 1929 economic crisis, receiving the support of shocking 37.3%, just in the month when the unemployment rate reaches its highest point with 24.6%.
(cite) According to David Whitten a Professor at Auburn University, the unemployment rate in 1893 exceeded ten percent. Then, on October 29, 1929, America experienced an economic meltdown, it was dubbed “Black Tuesday.” This was do to the crash of the U.S. stock market. The Dow opened that day at 299.6, but crashed 68.9 points to close at 230.7, losing 23 percent of its value. (cite) “Black Tuesday” would give
Due to the fact, only the USA was able to produce manufactured goods and agricultural exports for more than a decade. The Great Depression The stock market collapsed in 1929. As a result, it wipe out about 40 percent of the paper values of common stock (Gene, 2008). However, people continued to issue optimistic predictions for economy of the USA. Then, Countless number of individuals lost their life savings along with the Depression.
How successful were the Five-Year Plans in transforming Russian industry in the years to 1941? All of the Five –Year Plans had some successes and some failures about whether they managed to transform Russian industry in the years to 1941. Some of the problems with the plans lay with the government and Stain, whereas some are affected by whether or not the workers did the right thing. The first Five-Year Plan was slightly successful in transforming Russian industry from 1928 to 1932, by increasing the yearly rate of economic growth to 14%, which was staggering considering America and Europe were in a state of economic depression. America had only just experienced the Wall Street Crash, which took place at the end of October 1929, and was making 12,000 people redundant every day, whereas in Russia, virtually no one was unemployed.
How Far Did the Economy create Opportunities for Hitler and the Nazi’s 1924-29? The Economy in Germany helped create several opportunities for Hitler and the Nazi’s to gain acclaim and greater sway with the German people. However I don’t believe that some of the bigger opportunities for Hitler to gain power came specifically from the economy. The German Economy was in a bad way throughout the years 1924-1929. the economy had only just recovered from the tragic and disastrous hyperinflation of 1923 which saw the country crippled and the German currency plummet in value to as low 20,000 million marks to the point, considering that 5 years previous it was only 20 marks to the pound this was unbelievably bad. This however was supposedly solved by the intervention of the Dawes Plan of August 1924.