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Hello class, today I am going to explain the situation in post-war Germany due to the rise

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of Nazism, this extreme ideology that emerged during the interwar period. What were the

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causes of Nazism in Germany? Well, in 1918, after Germany's defeat in the First World

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War, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and the Weimar Republic was founded with a democratic

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constitution. The Weimar Republic was led by Christian democrats and socialists, who

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became the most important political parties at that moment, and from the very beginning

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both of them had to deal with the discontent of broad sectors of the population. The discontent

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with the Weimar Republic was established from the very beginning because the Weimar Republic

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was threatened by revolutionary movements in the left and also in the right. The Weimar

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Republic was threatened by left-wing revolutionary movements like the communists and by several

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coup attempts by the extreme right. Maybe the most famous coup was organized by the

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Nazis in Munich, as I am going to explain very soon in this lesson. So, some Germans

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thought at that moment that the situation was pretty bad for the country because they

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thought that the Allies, such as Great Britain and France, forced Germany to sign the Treaty

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of Versailles, which was considered to be, for some Germans, to be a humiliation because

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many Germans considered the Treaty of Versailles humiliating because it accused Germany of

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causing the war. And actually, remember that Germany won the war in the East, they forced

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Soviet Russia to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and for this reason the Germans won the war

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in the East. They got the territories in the East, on the Eastern part of Europe, such

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as the Baltic countries, Poland, Czechoslovakia. However, when the war was over, the Allies,

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such as Great Britain, the United States, and France, forced Germany to sign the Treaty

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of Versailles, and as a consequence of that, Germany lost all of these territories one

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year later on, on Eastern Europe, in the conference in Paris. This is the origin of the theory

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of the stab in the back because some Germans thought at that moment that the politicians

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who signed the Treaty of Versailles were in reality traitors. They were considered to be

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traitors because they signed an agreement against the German population. This is the origin of the

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theory of the stab in the back that Adolf Hitler used in order to get the power, but I will explain

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that very soon. And also, we really need to pay attention to the post-war situation, which was

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terrible for Germany. The country was in absolute ruin with poverty and unemployment, and the war

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debts and reparations caused high inflation, which came with a sharp depreciation of the mark.

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Actually, if we pay attention to this chart, in 1919 one gold mark was 10 paper marks, but the

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same amount of money, one gold mark, was one trillion paper marks in 1923. So, imagine the

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situation for the common people, for the middle class, who lost all their life savings. Exactly,

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this is the moment when in Germany, due to the high hyperinflation, money didn't have any value,

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as you can see here on the streets. Children were playing with money because it didn't

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have any value. And actually, if you want to buy a piece of bread and also the newspaper,

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you really need to take at that moment a wheelbarrow to buy only one newspaper or a piece

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of bread. So, imagine the situation for the common people and the middle class at that moment.

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So, this situation was the perfect breeding ground for the origin of Nazism in Germany.

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Nazism emerged when Adolf Hitler was a former soldier in the First World War, as you can see

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here in the image. He became a spy for the state, for the Weimar Republic, when the war was over.

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And he was spying on this party, the National Workers' Party, whose main leader was Anton

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Dresler, because at that moment the Weimar Republic was a spy on the communists and also

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the state was spying on the far-right movements. Very soon, Adolf Hitler became familiar with the

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ideas of the National Workers' Party and he became the main leader of a new party. He changed the

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name for the National Socialist Workers' Party and the name of Nazism or Nazis came from that

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name. He changed also the flag, he took the red flag like the communists, but he put on them

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the swastika, which became the emblem of the Nazis at that moment. Very soon he received

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the support from ex or former soldiers from the First World War and he received the support from

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Ernst Röhm, who became the main leader of the Stormtroopers, which was a paramilitary group

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which gave the support and the help to Hitler in order to win the battle on the streets against the

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communists. So the National Socialist Workers' Party was the political party, but the SA or the

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Stormtroopers were the ex-soldiers, former soldiers who fought in the First World War

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and who gave his or their support to Hitler in order to quash, in order to stop the communists

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on the streets. Very soon, exactly the main enemy for the National Workers' Party and for the SA

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were the communists and for this reason they got the support from the middle class because they lost

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everything. They lost everything after the war and even more after the crisis in 1929

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and also they received the money, the Nazis, from some capitalists who were afraid of the communists.

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So Hitler at that moment, I'm going to explain now his rise to power. At that moment, Adolf Hitler,

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I'm talking about when Hitler was in Munich in 1923, at that moment Hitler thought that it was

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his chance, his opportunity to take the power. He thought that Munich was the perfect city,

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the perfect breeding ground for a revolution to take the power in order to expel the Weimar Republic

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and he organized a coup in Munich in 1923. However, regrettably for him, the coup ended in failure

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and Hitler was put in prison together with General Ludendorff and Ernst Röhm who gave the support to

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Hitler in order to take the power. However, as I said before, the coup, the first attempt to take

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the power using the tactic of a revolution ended in failure and Hitler was put in prison. He was put

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behind bars. But the security in the prison was very weak and together with his deputy, Rudolf Hess,

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Hitler wrote the Main Kampf, My Struggle. What were the main ideas in the Main Kampf? In the

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Main Kampf, he wrote his hatred for democracy and communism. He advocated against antisemitism

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and he declared the superiority of the Aryan race, of the German race. Also, he was in favor

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of a great empire to unite all German-speaking peoples, which was really important for Hitler

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because he began his expansionist policies to conquer, to take over Austria, Czechoslovakia

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and then Poland from these ideas which were contained in the Main Kampf. Also, Hitler became

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really popular in the country for this book because he promised everything for the working people.

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He promised them jobs, better wages and he blamed the Jews, the democrats and the communists

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for all problems that happened in Germany. So, it was true that Hitler was put in prison but for a

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short period of time because in the same year, in 1924, it was organized the trial against Hitler.

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Hitler thought that he could die after the trial but he used the trial as a way of propaganda

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to him and also for the party. Actually, it worked because before the trial, Adolf Hitler was

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only known probably in the south, in Munich, but after the trial, Hitler became widely known

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in the whole country, in Germany. Actually, the judges released him because he convinced the judges

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who were, by the way, extremely conservative. The establishment in Germany at that time was

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very, very conservative. I'm talking about the ones who were at the top of the judiciary system,

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of the political system and the economic system. All of them were extremely

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conservative and for this reason, they released Adolf Hitler very soon. He spent only some months

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in prison. However, at that moment, it was almost impossible for the Nazis to get the power

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because after the war, the United States gave a lot of loans to Germany to recover the economy

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and at that moment, when Hitler was released from prison, Stressman became the chancellor in Germany

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from 1925 to 1929. Stressman did pretty well because he stabilized the country. He received

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a lot of loans from the United States to recover the economy and for this reason, Adolf Hitler had

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to wait for his moment to take the power. His moment to take the power came when the economic

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recession, when the economic crisis emerged again in 1929 because, as you know, the crisis in the

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United States spread all over the world and it spread also to Yemeni and this is the chance

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that Hitler was waiting to take the power. Thank you for your attention.

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you