Thursday, January 7, 2010

Corbett-Failures of Wiemar led to Rise of Hitler

The failures of the Wiemar government and the German peoples' bitter post war sentiments helped led to the rise of Hitler and Nazi Party. The rise of Hitler was due to several prime conditions and key methods.

The main condition that led to Hitler's rise were the short-comings of the Wiemar government. The Wiemar were an infant democracy and for several years the people were content with the government but most were still upset about the conditions of the treaty of Versailles and Hitler would later use this against the Wiemar. But there were several other events that would lead to the people turning toward the Nazis looking for a leader. Due to the conditions of the treaty of Versailles, Germany had to pay reparations that were impossible for them to pay and the country suffered extreme inflation. Along with the inflation up employment began to rise, reaching 5.5 million. The US was able to lend Germany money but when they suffered a depression of their own, the German economy fell apart again. As this is happening Hitler knows that he won't have to change the platform of his party, simply wait for the people to change their minds. Hitler wanted to restore Germany to its prior glory. And with the current events the German people were not as forgiving of the Wiemar as before. The German people used to be proud and Hitler used this notion to help turn the people away from the Wiemar. After all it was the Wiemar that ended the war and accepted the terms of the treaty of Versailles, and no self-respecting country would allow such treatment. Germany was no longer considered a force to be reckoned with and the German people were not happy about this. This is where Hitler's Nazi Youth Camps would help him gain popularity. The camps taught young German boys about living the way German's had before, teaching youth "the good ole way" and instilling national pride. And he was able to shape a younger voting pool, when these young men became able to vote, they would naturally vote for the Nazi party. Even at the time of youth camps, the Nazi party and Hitler were still relatively unknown, but as the economic downturn came in after the mid-late 20s people would look for someone who would introduce change. As the economy began experience its second downturn, Hitler was there talking about national pride and giving speeches about how great the German people were. Hitler told the people that Germans were superior and of course people would rather Hitler lead than the Wiemar. The thought is, if the German people are so great why are they struggling with unemployment, an economic depression, and invasion from France and Belgium? And logically the people to blame are the Wiemar, especially when Hitler wants things to be simple, the people should live simpler lives like in the past and there isn't anything negative about that.
Hitler understood how upset the people were and he used those feelings to help gain power. His propaganda blamed the Wiemar government for being weak and accepting the terms of the treaty of Versailles, eventhough they were threatened with invasion. Hitler also used images with strong national pride. Even when Hitler spoke he had much passion and he was able to move people and manipulate them; he manipulated an entire nation.
In short, Hitler used the shortcomings of the Wiemar government to build up his reputation and used the bitter German post-war sentiments to strengthen his platform of restoring Germany and becoming a powerful nation once more.

2 comments:

  1. You started off with a clear thesis that showed me exactly what would be said in the paper. You gave detailed explanations how the weimar failed and how that would help aid Hitler in his rise to power. I feel like the essay is still narrative though. I didnt recognize very much analysing of the methods or conditions. You seemed to basically just tell the facts. If you would have just given the main ideas of what happened and then analyzed them, your paper would probably score higher. I would give it a 10 though because you did give a lot of relevant information.

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  2. Right off the bat you stated your main thesis which was great. Through your paper though some things started becoming narrative. You do include some detailed analyzations but others are vague. In some situations you could have further explained his intentions which could have provided further analyzations. Overall i believe your post deserves a high 10!

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