As I gaze at the world around me I think to myself, what has become of the land we used to love and adore? The country we used to be proud to call our own and be ready to stand up and defend it? I don’t have much energy to stand anymore from the lack of food in my belly. The birds don’t even sing for they are too hungry, as am I. I wake up every morning wishing it were all a dream, a horrible nightmare. That my belly and that of my children’s were full and that my husband was home again in my arms.
As a middle-aged single mother of two starving children, I’m not able to earn enough money nor am I given enough land to support my family. We spend our days scouring for lost or unwanted food tossed out in the streets, though there is little to find. As I no longer have a job because the government felt the need to shut down all of the factories and businesses because they were afraid of a strike (Belk notes). Was it really necessary to shut down all of them?! They already sent my husband to war so I had to take up a job to put food on the table and now he’s going to take that away too? Even if, by God’s grace, my husband was sent back to me, he wouldn’t be able to support our family because there are no longer any jobs available (Belk notes). I mean is this some sort of sick joke thought up to entertain those who are living well and fat, because I’m not laughing? I’m starving! And so is my family. Seeing as all of the factories were shut down, Russia stopped bringing in money to pay off the $66 billion reparations from World War 1 (Belk notes). How do they expect us to pay them back if you take away our jobs so we can’t make any money in the first place? Their brilliant idea to fixing this problem was printing more money which only succeeded in making the country poorer. More money doesn’t make the debt go away, it only makes the value of money diminish and causes inflation (Belk notes). My children and I had to take three wheelbarrows full of money to the store yesturday to buy one bloody gallon of milk! One gallon!
I thought the Weimer Government was supposed to be preventing this? They were supposed to be on our side! After what happened to Russia you’d think they’d be more careful of whom they placed in power. I used to respect the Weimer Government, I had faith that they were going to protect us from the evil of communism with their Social, German, and Centre parties who wanted a democracy and to give us, the people, power! (Belk notes). What a splendid idea! I was a part of that 76.2% that voted for them and believed that they would change Russia for the better (Belk notes). I was sadly mistaken. After the uprisings and rebellions began, the left-wing radicals, who wanted communism and were willing to obtain it by any means necessary, slowly began taking over. Thus the loss of our food, land, jobs, and pride. Maybe none of this would have happened if the Weimer Government had never signed that Armistice taking us out of the war in the first place. Did they even consider the effects the Treaty of Versailles would have on us? The people, the faithful citizens who live and die here everyday by the hands of our own government. What will become of Germany if this continues on? And if there is change to come, will I live to see that day?
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Your words are moving. I feel your pain as a fellow German citizen. I agree that we should not have gotten out of the war, we should have continued on. A couple miles from Paris, Russia out of the way, and all of the effort put into the war, you would have thought that we would win and at least GAIN something of all that turmoil. Instead, we ran away and allowed the Treaty of Versailles to take over our lives. We had no means to deal with all of the consequences of the treaty. No fertile land, industrious lands gone, and then the only industry we have is not used. On top of this, we have a humungous debt that is seemingly impossible to pay at this point and time. I'm sure that you as a starving widow of two children, you would not want to be told you need to pay the government anything more. Your husband's life was a large price to pay in the efforts of a war that we ended up giving up on. I too lost many good friends in the war, and am thankful to have my family at home with me. My condolences.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I feel that if you were in their position, see the world through the Weimar's eyes, what would you see? That all of the people are angry, you have no means to make anything better, and are floundering around. This obviously is not how we want the government to be, but it's hard to say what WOULD be a good thing for them to do. They SHOULD have won the war, but now? What can they do? I suppose you make a good point of not wanting all of the factories shut down, I agree with that. I also agree that the inflation was not a good idea. Yes, they have made many mistakes, but what would you have them do now?