Germany in the 1920s Germany Term Paper

" The consolidation of the nation-states meant first the union of pre-existing states, and second the creation of new ties between the government and the governed. Seton-Watson traces the beginnings of the trend toward the formation of a German nation some four or five centuries before it actually occurred, and he notes that such things as the religious wars of the sixteenth century retarded any progress in this direction. After Napoleon, there were 39 states in Germany:

The German Confederation which now replaced the defunct Holy Roman Empire... had no central parliament... All the states were ruled by German governments... There was thus no question of Germans suffering from foreign rule. The problem was not independence but unity. (Seton-Watson 93)

The national identity of Germany developed slowly and in stages. Even after World War I, while Germany had become a republic, the old internal state boundaries were maintained, with considerable powers still devolving to the state governments (Seton-Watson 99).

The stringent conditions imposed on Germany at the end of the first war increased the bitterness and caused the people to be more willing to follow any leader who could promise them a return to glory. In addition, Germany faced a number of problems that seemed also to have been visited upon her by a vengeful Europe. Germany suffered a political crisis that also led to an economic catastrophe: "Weakened by the loss of territory and resources, saddled with massive war debts and escalating government deficits, the German currency collapsed" (Overy and Wheatcroft 24). Germany experienced a period of hyperinflation, and the government blamed these problems on reparations and the economic vindictiveness of the Allies. The real cause was the impossibility of paying for the massive war effort and reconstruction from an economy so reduced in size by the aftermath of the war, but the perception still pertained that the Allies had caused this situation out of vengeance. It did not help that the victor powers had to meet at Versailles once more and restore the German currency to a better state, along with the creation of a new schedule for reparations payments. This only added to the sense that Germany's fate was controlled externally, an idea exploited by many as a reason to hate the Jews, supposedly the group controlling European banking and so punishing Germany.

Works Cited

Overy, Richard and Andrew Wheatcroft. The Road to War. New…