Lecture 5: The Weimar Republic and the Nazi "Seizure" of Power

1. Preliminary
   • Film tonight, 7:30, Campbell Hall: "The Last Days" (1½ hours, plus discussion)
   • Next Tuesday, 7pm, Multicultural Center Lounge: "The Unmasking of Hate in America"
   • Clarification of journal assignment
   • Flora Lewis' claim that Jews bear a "special responsibility" to help Bosnian refugees (R3)
2. Film excerpt (15-20 mins.): Erwin Leiser, "Mein Kampf" (1961): serious documentary
   • Beginning="Berlin 1945"
   • Cut to Berlin, July 1914 (World War I)
   • Ostara, Lanz von Liebenfels
3. Narratives of German history, 1806-1914, 1914-1920: Two developments since 1871
   1. "late" but rapid industrialization with strong workers' movement ("from below")
   2. progressive social welfare system instituted paternalistically "from above"
      • tensions between 1) and 2) can be seen (in different ways) as basis of Hitler's success
      • question of continuities (graph of changing party strengths; reader p. 11 and textbook p. 81)
      • Critical junctures
        • 1888: William I (1797-1888), Frederick III (1831-1888), William II (1859-1941)
        • World War I (1914-1918); Russian Revolution (1917) Versailles Peace Treaty (June 1919)
        • German Revolution, Nov. 1918: Karl Liebknecht (KPD) vs. Friedrich Ebert (SPD)
        • Versailles terms; reparations, inflation and 1923 hyperinflation; occupation of Ruhr
          Hitler's putsch (Nov. 1923), trial (1923-4), imprisonment at Landsberg and "Mein Kampf"
4. Phases of "Weimar Republic"
   • 1919-1923: inflation (ended by Stresemann: chancellor and foreign minister)
     • 1923: French and Belgians enforce Versailles payments
     • November: coup d'etat attempt by Hitler and Ludendorff in Munich
   • 1924-28: progressive period (again: under dark clouds)
     • 1924-1929: stable (Ebert dies 1925, replaced by Hindenburg; Stresemann dies 1929)
   • 1930: Great Depression reaches Germany: deflationary policy of appointed chancellor Brüning
     • 1930-1933: depression, unemployment