To what extent was the Nazi party responsible for the collapse of the Weimar Republic in the period 1929 - 1933?

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Minh Pritchard        History        Gavin Scrase

To what extent was the Nazi party responsible for the collapse of the Weimar Republic in the period 1929 – 1933?

  • The situation in Germany before 1929

After the war Germany had been force to sign clause 231 and in 1923 a reparations bill was set at £6600m, the economy was in ruins after the Weimar republic failed to act on the inflation of the currency and so printed more money to which lead to hyperinflation. The Ruhr was invaded by the French, which had Germany’s richest coal mines and weakened the economy. The military was severely weakened and the Weimar constitution was weak as no party had a majority within the Reichstag.

There was unrest within the country as there was the Kapp putsch in 1920, led by Wolfgang Kapp and General Ludendorff later the Munich putsch led Hitler.         

By the time Gustav Stresemann had came along things started to get better, he introduced the new Rentenmark which stabilised the economy and sorted out the hyperinflation. Stresemann looked for strong international relations and had the Treaty of Versailles revised and sorted out loans with the USA to pay it debts to allies and finance economical recovery.

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  • The impact of the Great Depression

Before 1929 the economic recovery of Germany was beginning show as people were living better lives and gaining for money from work however, in 1929 stocks and shares fell rapidly damaging the American economy and damaging the world economy which led to the great depression. Unemployment rose dramatically. In September 1929 1.3 million employable workers were unemployed, for September 1930 the figures rose to 3 million 17.7% of population, in September 1931 the figure was 4.35 million and by 1932 unemployment escalated to 6 million. After the Wall Street crash the USA ...

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