An outline, era by era

Germany

Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, division, reunification (1990)

20th Century · 1914 – 2000

Germany in the twentieth century went through more changes of regime than almost any other European country. The Weimar Republic, a democracy founded after defeat in the First World War, lasted from 1919 to 1933. It was followed by Nazi Germany, the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, which began the Second World War in Europe in 1939 and carried out the Holocaust, the murder of about six million Jews, along with the persecution and killing of many other groups.

After defeat in 1945 the country was occupied by the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France. In 1949 it was divided into two states: the Federal Republic of Germany (West) and the German Democratic Republic (East), which became front-line members of opposing Cold War blocs. The East German state collapsed in 1989 to 1990, and Germany was reunified on 3 October 1990. It is now the largest economy in the European Union, and its history of dictatorship and war shapes how Europeans think about democracy and memory.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Defeat in 1918 and the founding of the Weimar Republic

    Event

    What happened

    In autumn 1918 Germany's army is losing on the Western Front. Sailors mutiny at Kiel in early November, revolution spreads, and on 9 November Philipp Scheidemann proclaims a republic while Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates and goes into exile in the Netherlands. The armistice is signed on 11 November. A national assembly meeting at Weimar adopts a democratic constitution in August 1919.

    The rest is history

    The new republic had to accept the Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919, which took territory, limited the army and required reparations. Many Germans resented it, and the republic's opponents on both left and right used that resentment against it. The Weimar constitution gave women the vote and guaranteed wide civil rights, but its system of proportional representation and its emergency powers later proved a weakness. The republic faced uprisings, political murders and the hyperinflation of 1923 in its first years.

    Sources

    1. BookMommsen, Hans. The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
    2. BookKolb, Eberhard. The Weimar Republic. London: Routledge, 2005.
    3. PrimaryTreaty of Versailles. Peace treaty between the Allied powers and Germany, signed 28 June 1919.

  2. Hyperinflation and the crisis of 1923

    Event

    What happened

    In January 1923 France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr after Germany falls behind on reparations deliveries. The government backs passive resistance and pays workers by printing money. Prices rise at extraordinary speed through the year, and by November the mark is almost worthless. In November Hitler's Nazi Party also attempts a failed coup in Munich, the Beer Hall Putsch.

    The rest is history

    The crisis ended when a new currency, the Rentenmark, was introduced in late November 1923 and the Ruhr struggle was abandoned. Many savers lost most of their wealth, which damaged middle-class trust in the republic. The Dawes Plan of 1924 rescheduled reparations and brought American loans, and a period of relative stability followed. Hitler was tried and sentenced to five years, serving about nine months in Landsberg prison, where he wrote Mein Kampf.

    Sources

    1. BookFeldman, Gerald D. The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914-1924. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
    2. BookWiddig, Bernd. Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

  3. The Great Depression and the Nazi rise to power

    Event

    What happened

    After the Wall Street crash of 1929, American loans dry up and German unemployment climbs to millions. In the Reichstag election of September 1930 the Nazi Party rises from under 3 per cent to about 18 per cent, and in July 1932 it becomes the largest party with about 37 per cent. On 30 January 1933 President Hindenburg appoints Hitler chancellor, at the head of a coalition government.

    The rest is history

    Within weeks the new government used the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933 to suspend civil rights by decree. The Enabling Act, passed on 23 March 1933 with the Social Democrats alone voting against, let the cabinet make laws without parliament. Other parties were banned or dissolved by July, and when Hindenburg died in August 1934 Hitler combined the offices of chancellor and president as Führer. Historians still debate how much weight to give the economic crisis, the weakness of the republic's institutions and the choices of conservative elites.

    Sources

    1. BookEvans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. London: Allen Lane, 2003.
    2. BookKershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris. London: Allen Lane, 1998.
    3. PrimaryGesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich (Enabling Act). German law, 24 March 1933, Reichsgesetzblatt I, p. 141.

  4. The persecution of the Jews, 1933 to 1941

    Event

    What happened

    From 1933 the Nazi state removes Jews from public life, beginning with a boycott of Jewish shops in April and a law excluding Jews from the civil service. The Nuremberg Laws of September 1935 strip German Jews of citizenship and ban marriage between Jews and non-Jews. On 9 to 10 November 1938, in the Kristallnacht pogrom, synagogues are burned and about 30,000 Jewish men are sent to concentration camps.

    The rest is history

    After the invasion of Poland in 1939 and of the Soviet Union in June 1941, persecution turned into mass murder, first by shooting squads and then in extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka. The Wannsee Conference of January 1942 coordinated the administration of the plan. About six million Jews were killed by 1945, along with Roma, disabled people, Soviet prisoners of war and many others. The Nuremberg trials of 1945 to 1946 prosecuted leading Nazis, and the Holocaust remains central to German public memory.

    Sources

    1. BookFriedländer, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 1: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.
    2. BookBrowning, Christopher R. The Origins of the Final Solution. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
    3. PrimaryReichsbürgergesetz (Reich Citizenship Law). German law, 15 September 1935, Reichsgesetzblatt I, p. 1146.

  5. The invasion of Poland and the Second World War

    Event

    What happened

    In March 1938 Germany annexes Austria, and in September 1938 the Munich Agreement gives it the Sudetenland. German troops occupy the rest of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939. On 23 August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact with a secret protocol dividing eastern Europe. On 1 September German forces invade Poland, and Britain and France declare war two days later.

    The rest is history

    Germany won quick victories in Poland, Scandinavia and, in 1940, France, but failed to defeat Britain. The invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the war with the United States from December 1941 turned the war into a struggle Germany could not win. Hitler killed himself on 30 April 1945, and Germany surrendered unconditionally on 7 to 8 May. Tens of millions of people died in the war in Europe, and German cities lay in ruins.

    Sources

    1. BookWeinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
    2. BookKershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis. London: Allen Lane, 2000.
    3. PrimaryTreaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), with secret additional protocol, 23 August 1939.

  6. Occupation and the division into two states

    Event

    What happened

    At Potsdam in July to August 1945 the victors confirm that Germany will be occupied in four zones, with Berlin also split into four sectors. Disputes over reparations and currency grow. In June 1948 the Western powers introduce a new currency, and the Soviet Union blockades West Berlin, which the Allies supply by air until May 1949. The Federal Republic is founded in May 1949 and the German Democratic Republic in October 1949.

    The rest is history

    The division of Germany became one of the main fault lines of the Cold War. West Germany, led by Konrad Adenauer, joined NATO in 1955 and the European Economic Community in 1957, and its economy recovered rapidly. East Germany was a one-party state under the Socialist Unity Party, tied to the Soviet Union through the Warsaw Pact. Germany's eastern territories beyond the Oder-Neisse line were given to Poland and the Soviet Union, and millions of Germans were expelled or fled.

    Sources

    1. BookFulbrook, Mary. A History of Germany 1918-2014: The Divided Nation. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.
    2. PrimaryPotsdam Agreement. Protocol of the Berlin Conference of the Three Heads of Government, 2 August 1945.

  7. The Berlin Wall and the divided Germany of the 1960s

    Event

    What happened

    By 1961 about 2.5 to 3 million people have left East Germany for the West, many of them through Berlin. On 13 August 1961 East German forces close the sector border and begin building a wall. Over the following decades the border fortifications grow, and people who try to cross are shot or arrested. West Germany's Ostpolitik of the 1970s under Willy Brandt seeks contact with the East, leading to the Basic Treaty of 1972.

    The rest is history

    The Wall stopped mass emigration and stabilised the East German state for a time. Brandt's policy led to mutual recognition in practice and to more travel and trade between the two states, and both joined the United Nations in 1973. The Berlin Wall itself, and its fall, are treated in a separate entry. The dates of the later 1980s show how far the system came to depend on loans and on Soviet tolerance.

    Sources

    1. BookMajor, Patrick. Behind the Berlin Wall: East Germany and the Frontiers of Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
    2. BookSarotte, Mary Elise. Dealing with the Devil: East Germany, Détente, and Ostpolitik, 1969-1973. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

  8. Reunification in 1990

    Event

    What happened

    After the opening of the border in November 1989, East Germany holds its first free elections in March 1990. A currency union follows on 1 July 1990. The Two Plus Four Treaty, signed in Moscow on 12 September 1990 by the two German states and the four wartime Allies, restores full sovereignty to Germany. On 3 October 1990 the East German states join the Federal Republic.

    The rest is history

    Reunification added about 16 million people to the 63 million of West Germany. Germany confirmed its border with Poland, accepted limits on its armed forces and stayed in NATO. The East's economy was reshaped quickly, and mass unemployment and a long gap in income between East and West followed. Berlin again became the capital, with the government moving there in 1999.

    Sources

    1. BookZelikow, Philip, and Condoleezza Rice. Germany Unified and Europe Transformed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
    2. PrimaryTreaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (Two Plus Four Treaty). Signed in Moscow, 12 September 1990.

  9. The stab in the back

    Popular belief

    The legend

    The German army, it is said, was never beaten in the field in 1918. Instead it was betrayed at home by socialists, Jews and revolutionaries who undermined the war effort and signed an armistice. This is the Dolchstoßlegende, the stab-in-the-back legend.

    The rest is history

    The story was spread after the war by officers and nationalist politicians. Paul von Hindenburg gave it weight when he spoke to a parliamentary committee in November 1919. In fact the German army was being pushed back in the summer and autumn of 1918, and the military leadership under Ludendorff itself asked for an armistice in late September 1918. The revolution began after the request, not before. The myth poisoned the republic's reputation, and the Nazis used it heavily.

    Sources

    1. BookBarth, Boris. Dolchstoßlegenden und politische Desintegration. Düsseldorf: Droste, 2003.
    2. PrimaryHindenburg's testimony to the Reichstag investigative committee, 18 November 1919.
    3. BookWatson, Alexander. Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I. London: Allen Lane, 2014.

  10. Hitler built the autobahns and ended unemployment

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that the Nazis ended mass unemployment by building the autobahn network and that Hitler invented the motorway. Supporters of this view treat the economy of the 1930s as a miracle.

    The rest is history

    Plans for motorways existed before 1933, and the first such road, between Cologne and Bonn, opened in 1932. The Nazi government did promote the autobahn, but it employed only a small share of the unemployed, and the building ran slowly. Unemployment fell mainly through the wider recovery, public works and, above all, rearmament, which was financed by hidden debt. Women were pushed out of jobs, and Jews and others were excluded from the statistics. The Nazi economy was heading for a crisis that war was meant to solve.

    Sources

    1. BookTooze, Adam. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. London: Allen Lane, 2006.
    2. BookEvans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power. London: Allen Lane, 2005.

  11. The Germans did not know

    Popular belief

    The legend

    After 1945 many Germans said they had known nothing of the camps or the killing of the Jews, and that the crimes were carried out by a small group in secret.

    The rest is history

    The claim became a common postwar defence. Historians have shown that the persecution was open: boycotts, the Nuremberg Laws and Kristallnacht took place in public, and the deportations were carried out from city streets. The army, police, railways and civil service all took part in the killings, and many soldiers wrote home about what they saw. Details of the gas chambers were more closely guarded, but rumours were widespread. How much ordinary people knew, and how far they approved, is still studied, and the answer varied by time and place.

    Sources

    1. BookBankier, David. The Germans and the Final Solution: Public Opinion under Nazism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.
    2. BookGellately, Robert. Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

  12. The Marshall Plan alone caused the German economic miracle

    Popular belief

    The legend

    West Germany's rapid recovery in the 1950s, the Wirtschaftswunder, is often credited entirely to American aid under the Marshall Plan.

    The rest is history

    Marshall Plan aid from 1948 mattered, but West Germany received less per head than several other countries, such as Britain and France. Many historians stress other factors: the currency reform of June 1948 and the removal of price controls under Ludwig Erhard, a skilled workforce, the arrival of millions of refugees as labour, strong export demand, and the debt settlement of 1953. The Marshall Plan helped by supplying raw materials and confidence at a key moment. Economists still debate how large its effect was. West German output roughly doubled between 1950 and 1960.

    Sources

    1. BookAbelshauser, Werner. Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte seit 1945. Munich: C.H. Beck, 2004.
    2. BookEichengreen, Barry. The European Economy since 1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.

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