Weimar Breakdown Nazi Foundations

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The Social Democrats desired order, foremost, and when armed uprisings took place in Berlin, they would turn against the socialists and communists that brought them to power. Popular leaders were killed on the “left” and the counter revolutionary “freikorps” (anti-Marxist, anti-Semitic, anti-liberal, and “fiercely right wing”) would attack Poles and suspected Bolsheviks.

Because of the racism and polarization in politics, there was nearly another civil war.  Debt and social welfare obligations would eventually bankrupt the country.

Severe hyperinflation of the currency would cause the government to print more and more money, and it eventually became worthless.  The Great Depression would come along, ruining economies globally, and this would be the breaking point for the Weimar Republic which would see massive unemployment; all of these troubles, ingredients for revolution.

The Left had failed in their attempt at governance, and the conservatives got their chance. Hitler and his policies were popular with a broad variety of people, especially the working class.  As the National Socialist party began to win a place in government, the grabbed at every power chance they could.  Hitler would be made Chancellor in 1933 in an attempt by the German President to create a conservative coalition government.  Soon after his appointment, the Reichstag fire occurred and Hitler jumped on the opportunity for him and the Nazis to lead.  He asked for and received broad unprecedented powers, and by the fall of that year, when the dust cleared, Germany was a one-party state.

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