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HIST 2509 A History of Germany
Lecture W3-1
Defeat, Revolution,
and the Early Republic
TA Office Hours
Meaghan Harris (L-Z 2% applied to final grade)
Email: [email protected]
437 Paterson Hall
Tuesday January 17 11:30-1:00
Friday January 20 1:00-2:30
Tuesday January 24 11:30-1:00
TA Office Hours
Margaret Watts (A-G 2% not applied -- I will do this on spreadsheet, no worries!)
Email: [email protected]
1302 Dunton Tower
Wednesday January 18, 25 12-1pm
Friday January 20, 27 10-11am
Today’s Main Themes
• promises made, promises kept?• total war at home and away• truly a stab in the back?• postwar chaos
=understanding the weaknesses of Weimar
I. Peace in the Castle?
a. total war on the home/front
-from mythic victories early on
(Tannenburg, Masurian Lakes 1914)
-to Langemarck 1914 and the slaughter of 1916
(Verdun, Somme, Jutland, and the Brusilov Offensive)
I. Peace in the Castle?
a. total war on the home/front
-to Langemarck 1914
and the slaughter of 1916
(Verdun, Somme, Jutland,
and the Brusilov Offensive)
FROM REINHARD DITHMAR, DER LANGEMARCK-MYTHOS IN DICHTUNG UND UNTERRICHT (Neuwied Luchterhand, 1992). This image of a singing student volunteer appeared in a Nazi-era book.
I. Peace in the Castle?
a. total war on the home/front
-Hindenburg Programme 1916
-industrial refashioning
-scarcity and urban unrest
"Wir lassen uns nicht aushungern!”Verein für Kindervolksküchen und Kinderhorte, 1915
I. Peace in the Castle?
-"Turnip Winter 1916/17
-Ersatzbrot; newspaper nappies
-750,000 die due to
starvation alone
I. Peace in the Castle?
b. new fault lines to contend with
-despite initial support for the war, the 1915 Manifesto
-hatred by 1916, from the left but meandering to the centre
-Kaiser's 1917 Easter Speech and promised reforms
-last-ditch offensive, mutiny, and finally defeat
Armistice
Graphic depiction after 1918 of Matthias Erzbergerin Compiegne France with Ferdinand Foch
II. The Face of Defeat
a. 1918/19 Revolution and temporary government
-from Brest-Litovsk
-to the streets of Berlin
-worker's, soldier's, sailor's councils
-abdication of the Kaiser
-general strike
-revolution
At the dutch border
II. The Face of Defeat
Philipp Scheidemann
proclaims a republic
in Berlin
November 9, 1918
DHM Photo
So does
Karl Liebknecht --
A socialist republic
at the Berlin PalaceReichstag
Warp Ahead: the Stadtschloss
1945 The Liebknecht Portal
Palast der Republik
Battleground Berlin
Freikorps Communist soldiers
The Landwehrkanal murders
Post-murder celebrations January 15, 1919, Eden Hotel Berlin
Postwar Commemoration
Freikorps paraphernalia
Liebknecht, Luxemburg and Thaelmann: GDR’s martyrswww.arbeiterfotografie.com/reportage
II. The Face of Defeat
b. the Weimar Constitution – the Basic Law
-finally, a solution to the German Question?
-women’s suffrage
-universal manhood suffrage
c. the Versailles Diktat
-Wilson’s 14 points
-the dictated peace
-reparations
-John Maynard Keynes
September 1, 1923
A woman feeds a stovepipe with RMFrom the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Archive
III. The Unsung Republic
a. putsches and coups
b. assassinations
c. inflation
d. reparations and Ruhr occupation
e. gradual international acceptance at least for a time
-Kapp-Putsch 1920, Luettzow Putsch
-Beer Hall 1923
-Thuringia
and Saxony
a. putsches and coups
Kapp-Putschists spreading leaflets in front of Reichs Chancellery in Berlin DHM Berlin, 13. März 1920
b. assassinations
Enzenberger Rathenau
Eisner
-passive resistance
-Rhineland Bastards
Hands off the Ruhr!
Anti-French placard
by Theo Matejko
from 1923
DHM
c. inflation 1923d. reparations and Ruhr and Rhineland Occupation
-the infirm
-600,000 war widows
-2.7 million veterans
-6 million children
lost one or both parents
-rift between l and r gone?
e. stabilization and acceptance 1923-29f. integration: healing of past wounds?
From the series, Victims of the First World War, 1933