Weimar and Nazi Germany, 1918–45

Background: Weimar Republic, 1918–33

The Weimar Republic was established in 1919 following the end of the First World War and abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The republic faced various challenges including economic instability, political violence, and a lack of popular support.
The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 burdened Germany with substantial war reparations, loss of territory and colonial holdings, and restrictions on its military capabilities.

The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party), led by Adolf Hitler, emerged as a powerful political faction in the Weimar Republic.
The party exploited public discontent with the Weimar government, post-war humiliation, and economic instability to gain support.
Hitler attempted a coup in Munich in 1923, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, which failed but increased his notoriety.
After a period of imprisonment, during which Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, he adopted a more strategic approach to gaining power, using legal means and mass mobilisation.

In 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor and the Nazi Party began to consolidate its power in a process known as Gleichschaltung.
In the following years, Hitler established a totalitarian state, with all aspects of life conforming to Nazi ideology.
Anti-Semitic policies were implemented, progressively stripping Jews of their rights, culminating in the Nuremberg Laws in 1935.
The Nazi regime heavily invested in military rearmament and infrastructure projects like the Autobahn, greatly reducing unemployment.
Hitler perceived the Treaty of Versailles as a humiliation and began to openly violate its terms, remilitarising the Rhineland and annexing Austria and the Sudetenland under the policy of Lebensraum.

The invasion of Poland in 1939 marked the beginning of World War II.
During the war, the Nazis implemented the Final Solution, the systematic genocide of six million Jews in the Holocaust.
The Nazi regime also persecuted and killed millions of other people they deemed racially inferior or politically undesirable.
By the end of the war in 1945, Germany was occupied by Allied forces and the Nazi regime collapsed.

The period of Weimar and Nazi Germany had a profound and lasting effect on German and world history.
The failure of the Weimar Republic contributed to the rise of extremism and ultimately the establishment of a totalitarian regime under the Nazis.
The atrocities committed by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust led to a universal commitment to prevent genocide and resulted in the establishment of international human rights frameworks.
The post-war division of Germany into East and West marked the beginning of the Cold War era.