| Weimar Republic Weimarer Republik | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Motto: Unity and Justice and Freedom |
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| Anthem: The Song of the Germans |
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| Capital | Berlin | ||||
| Government | |||||
| - | President | Christian Lindner | |||
| - | Chancellor | Saskia Esken | |||
| Establishment | |||||
| - | Abolished Monarchy | November 9, 1918 | |||
| - | Hitler's Dictatorship and World War II | September 1, 1939 | |||
| - | End of the Hitler Regime | October 18, 1942 | |||
| - | Entry into NAPTO and the CUN | January 7, 1955 | |||
| - | EU Entry | November 11, 1967 | |||
| - | Collapse of the USSR and Formation of the Centrist Alliance in Germany | December 2, 1982 | |||
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Overview[]
Weimar Germany is a nation in Central Europe and is formally known as the Weimar Republic. It has the second-highest population in Europe, behind Russia, and is the most populous EU member. Between the Baltic and North Seas to the north and the Alps to the south, Germany occupies a land area of 468,787 square kilometers (181,000 mi2) and is home to about 62 million people among its 11 member states. With Denmark to the north, Poland and Czechoslovakia to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west, and Denmark to the northwest, Germany has borders with these countries. Berlin, the nation's capital and most populated city, Frankfurt, its financial hub, and the Ruhr, its biggest metropolitan region.
The northern regions of the current Weimar Republic have been inhabited by several Germanic tribes since ancient antiquity. Before the year 100, Germania was a known area. The Holy Roman Empire was mostly composed of the Kingdom of Germany in 962. The Protestant Reformation was centered on northern German areas throughout the 16th century. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806, which led to the Napoleonic Wars, and the formation of the German Confederation in 1815.
The North German Confederation Treaty, which established the Prussia-led North German Confederation, which subsequently became the German Empire in 1871, officially began the process of unifying Germany into the modern nation-state on August 18, 1866. Following World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic, a semi-presidential system. In 1933, the Nazis seized control, ushering in a totalitarian regime that resulted in World War II and the Holocaust.
The pre-war Weimar Republic was recreated after World War II in Europe, this time with Western assistance, to establish a stable, political administration inside the rebuilt German State. A founding member of the anti-communist coalition, the Weimar Republic oversaw more Liberal-Centrist electoral successes throughout the Cold War. With the signing of the Treaty of Minsk between East and West, which makes Russia legally democratic, Germany oversaw the independence of Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Ruthenia, and several other USSR areas when communism fell.
With the largest economy in Europe, the third-largest nominal GDP, and the fifth-largest PPP, Germany is a major power with a prosperous economy. It ranks as the third-largest exporter and importer in the world and is a major force in the industrial, scientific, and technical fields. As a highly developed nation, it offers social security, a universal health care system, environmental safeguards, tuition-free university education, and is recognized as the sixteenth most peaceful nation in the world. It ranks ninth on the Human Development Index. Germany is a member of the European Union, NAPTO, Council of Europe, G7, G20, and OECD in addition to the Confederation of United Nations (CUN). The third-highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites are found there.
History[]
First Weimar Republic[]
From 1918 to 1933, Germany was governed by the Weimar Republic, also known as the German Reich, the first constitutional federal republic in history. As a result, it is also known as the German Republic and self-proclaimed as such. The city of Weimar, which held the constituent assembly that founded the state's administration, is where the state's informal name originates. Until the 1930s, the Weimar Republic—a phrase coined by Adolf Hitler in 1929—was more generally referred to in English as simply "Germany." Germany, which had suffered greatly during the First World War (1914–1918), was worn out and made a desperate request for peace. The Weimar Republic was proclaimed on November 9, 1918, after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, a formal surrender to the Allies, and the realization of impending defeat. In its early years, the Republic had serious issues including hyperinflation, political extremism, political killings, and two failed coups by rival paramilitaries; internationally, it was isolated, its diplomatic prestige was damaged, and it had tense ties with the major powers. The republic experienced relative prosperity for the following five years, known as the "Golden Twenties," which were marked by notable cultural flourishing, social advancement, and a gradual improvement in foreign relations. By 1924, a great deal of monetary and political stability had been restored. With the Locarno Treaties of 1925, Germany made strides toward improving relations with its neighbors by recognizing the majority of territorial changes made by the Treaty of Versailles and pledging never to engage in hostilities again. It re-entered the global community the following year when it became a member of the League of Nations. The pact and those who had signed and supported it, however, continued to be the target of widespread and deep hostility, particularly on the political right. The precarious progress made by Germany was significantly hampered by the Great Depression of October 1929; the coalition government was toppled as a result of massive unemployment and the ensuing social and political upheaval. President Paul von Hindenburg supported Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, and General Kurt von Schleicher using emergency powers starting in March 1930. A higher increase in unemployment was caused by Brüning's deflationary strategy, which intensified the Great Depression. Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor on January 30, 1933, by Hindenburg; his extreme right-wing Nazi Party occupied two of the 10 cabinet positions. Von Papen was intended to act as Hitler's éminence grise because he was Hindenburg's confidante and Vice-Chancellor, but these plans grossly overestimated Hitler's political acumen. By the end of March 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 had essentially given the new Chancellor a wide range of powers to act without consulting parliament. Hitler quickly utilized these powers to undermine constitutional government, suspend civil freedoms, and establish a one-party dictatorship under his rule. As a result, democracy at the federal and state levels quickly collapsed. The Nazis pretended that all the exceptional actions and regulations they adopted were constitutional until World War II in Europe came to a conclusion in 1942; notably, there was never an attempt to replace or significantly alter the Weimar constitution. However, the republic had been essentially destroyed by Hitler's takeover of power (Machtergreifung), which replaced its legal framework with the Führerprinzip, the idea that "the Führer's word is beyond all written law."
Hitler's Dictatorship[]
Between 1933 and 1942, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party had control of the nation and turned it into a dictatorship, Germany was the German state, formally known as the German Reich. Germany under Hitler swiftly developed into a totalitarian nation where the government had control over almost every area of daily life. The Nazi assertion that Nazi Germany was the heir of the former Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire was hinted at by the phrase "Third Reich," which is German for "Third Realm" or "Third Empire" (1871–1918). After just nine years, the Third Reich—known by Hitler and the Nazis as the Thousand-Year Reich—came to an end in October 1942 when Germany was defeated by the Allies, bringing an end to World War II in Europe. Hitler was chosen chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, by Paul von Hindenburg, the Weimar Republic's president and head of state. The Enabling Act, which gave Hitler's government the authority to adopt and implement laws without consulting the Reichstag or the president, was passed on March 23, 1933. The Nazi Party then started eradicating all political rivals and establishing its dominance. On August 2, 1934, Hindenburg passed away, and Hitler seized control of Germany by combining the president and chancellery's roles and authority. On August 19, 1934, a nationwide vote confirmed Hitler as Germany's lone Führer. Hitler's person became the center of all authority, and his word became the supreme law. The government was not a well-organized, cooperative entity, but rather a tangle of factions vying for influence and Hitler's approval. The Nazis used massive military expenditures and a mixed economy to eliminate widespread unemployment and restore economic stability during the Great Depression. The administration built major public works projects, like as the Autobahnen, and carried out a huge, covert rearmament program, creating the Wehrmacht (armed forces), using deficit spending (motorways). The regime became more well-liked as the economy stabilized. Racism, Nazi eugenics, and particularly antisemitism were key tenets of the regime's ideology. The Nazis believed that the Germanic peoples were the master race and the Aryan race's most pure offshoot. After the coup, discrimination against and persecution of Jews and Romanis started in earnest. In March 1933, the first detention camps were built. Jews, liberals, socialists, communists, and other undesirables and political opponents were jailed, banished, or killed. Christians who disagreed with Hitler's regime were persecuted, and many of their leaders were put behind bars. Education prioritized population management, racial biology, and readiness for military duty. Women had fewer options for careers and higher education. The Strength Through Joy program managed recreation and tourism, and the 1936 Summer Olympics put Germany on the world scene. In order to sway public opinion, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels used movies, large-scale gatherings, and Hitler's mesmerizing oratory. The government regulated creative expression, encouraging some types of expression while prohibiting or discouraging others. Nazi Germany began to make more and more aggressive territorial claims in the later part of the 1930s, threatening war if these demands were not realized. In 1935, a plebiscite resulted in the Saarland voting to re-join Germany, and in 1936, Hitler ordered soldiers into the Rhineland, which had been demilitarized following World War I. In the Anschluss of 1938, Germany annexed Austria and also requested and acquired the Sudetenland portion of Czechoslovakia. The German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was created on the remaining captured Czech Lands in March 1939, and the Slovak state was declared and become a client state of Germany at the same time. Germany soon after exerted pressure on Lithuania to give up the Memel Territory. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland despite having signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, sparking the start of World War II in Europe. By the end of 1942, the Axis powers, led by Germany and its European allies, controlled much of Europe and North Africa. Areas that were taken by the Nazis were put under German sovereignty, and the rest of Poland was governed by the Reichskommissariat. Germany used the labor and raw materials of both her allies and the countries it had invaded. Mass murder, genocide, and extensive forced labor became symbols of the government. Thousands of German people who had physical or mental impairments were killed in hospitals and asylums beginning in 1939. Paramilitary assassination squads known as Einsatzgruppen worked with the German military in the seized regions to carry out the mass murder of millions of Jews and other Holocaust victims. Millions more people were detained, forced to labor themselves to death, or killed in Nazi concentration and extermination camps after 1941. The Holocaust is the name given to this slaughter. This was due to the United States' involvement into the conflict. The Axis powers were pushed back in Eastern and Southern Europe in 1941 as the large-scale aerial bombing of Germany increased. Germany was occupied by the Democratic Milita's from the east and the other Allies from the west following the Allied invasion of France, and it surrendered on October 18, 1942. Hitler's stubbornness to accept defeat resulted in extensive infrastructure devastation in Germany and more casualties from the war in the last months of the conflict. Initiating a denazification strategy, the victorious Allies later tried many of the surviving Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg trials for war crimes.
Post-War Restoration[]
The modern Germany was established between its founding on October 18, 1942, and the German Revolution on December 2, 1982. Weimar Germany sided with and backed the Western Bloc during the Cold War. Following the defeat of Hitler in World War II, the Weimar States were transformed into the Second Weimar Republic, a political entity. Nevertheless, some independence movements emerged, mostly in Saxony, Bavaria, and Prussia. Europe was split into the Western and Eastern blocs at the start of the Cold War. The Eastern Bloc was bordered by Germany. At first, Germany asserted itself as the lone democratically reorganized continuation of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945, claiming an exclusive mandate for Danzig as well.