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The WEIMAR REPUBLIC and ADOLF HITLER

Germany benefited from Britain's coal strike in 1926, Germany moving into coal markets that had belonged to the British. And trade improved for Germany when the "Spirit of Locarno" spread to economic circles. Nevertheless -- unlike before the war -- Germany was an importer of capital, much of it from the United States in the form of loans and investments. Foreign investors bought German securities and deposited much money in German banks, helping supply Germany with capital for industrial expansion and local construction.

German industries were consolidating, eight of the principal chemical and dye firms merging into the famous I. G. Farben Corporation, which monopolized the chemical business in Germany, Central Europe and elsewhere. Iron, coal and steel companies merged with the great steel combine, United Steel Works. German industry's modernization of equipment was the envy of the world -- a modernization that was to serve Germany in the thirties under Hitler.

The German mark became one of Europe's more stable currencies. Industrial output increased, along with exports. And wages rose for the average German. The German public began buying radios, electronic household goods, automobiles, and tickets to movies. Germany began building municipal swimming pools, stadiums, public squares, dance halls, convention centers, hotels, airports, theaters and museums.

Germany was now a nation "on the go," functioning well enough to earn the respect that it had not had since the time of Bismarck, with Germans seen from abroad not so much as "the Huns" of the Great War but more as hardworking, dependable people and as leaders in the world in art, the theater, cinema, literature and science. Abroad, historians and others were revising their opinions about World War I, while the Germans were recognized for their scholarship in the social and natural sciences, with Max Weber in sociology, Friedrich Meinecke in history, Albert Einstein in physics and Max Planck in mathematics.

A new law was passed in Germany, with help from conservatives, that set up a system of unemployment insurance, drawn from funds amassed by employers and employees -- a program that would protect a person for six months after losing his job. A system of labor boards was created for the mediation of labor disputes.

And with the good times came hedonism, especially in Berlin. There, as in Britain and the United States, were flappers, women smoking and wearing shorter skirts. American jazz drove the waltz from the ballrooms. The Charleston and Black Bottom were danced. In the cabarets, comedians ridiculed everyone. There were transvestite balls, a few boy prostitutes and some women who were described as engaging in "every form of perversion." Again, conservatives and rural folks were appalled with the big city. They called Berlin a cesspool.

Many -- but not all -- National Socialists were also appalled by the immorality, the National Socialists referring to what was happening in Berlin as the Bolshevization of culture, while the Communists described it as capitalist decadence. Hitler was also appalled. He was opposed also to suggestive advertising and anything else that stimulated unclean thoughts and unhealthful living.

Meanwhile, the good times were not secure. The economic boom was built on less than a solid foundation. Despite the prosperity, Germany's middle class was making only limited recovery from its financial devastation by the hyperinflation of 1923. In 1928, German agriculture had only reached its prewar level and remained stagnate, despite protective tariffs. Too much of the boom was built on foreign capital, with German entrepreneurs not accumulating enough of their own working capital. Germans were accumulating debts. Labor unions were forcing up wage rates, and a spiraling rise in wages and prices appeared. Modernization of equipment was resulting in a decreased need of skilled workers. And by 1929 three million had lost their jobs.

The Prospect for Peace

The rise in prosperity had not diminished Germany's dislike for reparation payments. In 1928, Stresemann requested a revision of the Dawes Plan. And in 1929, a new plan was laid, called the Young Plan, named after the chair of the committee established to create the plan, Owen D. Young of the United States. In the Young Plan a date was set for the withdrawal of Allied forces from Germany, to begin in September 1929 and to be completed no later than June 30, 1930. Reparation payments were to be spread to 1988. However reasonable this may have seemed to those other than the Germans, any reminder or agreement concerning the reparations payments angered the most Germans, and this was a propaganda opportunity for the super-nationalists. Germany's wealthy Nationalist party politician and newspaper publisher, Alfred Hugenburg, formed a national committee to fight the plan. Among those he asked to join was Adolf Hitler, and this gave Hitler an opportunity for nationwide publicity.

With German industry modernizing and Hitler waiting in the wings, hope for peace in Europe depended upon the continuation of reasonably adequate well-being in Germany. And peace would be served too by power in Germany being in the hands of moderates. But the presidency in Germany remained in the hands of Hindenburg, who was 82 in 1930 and even less creative in mind than he had been in 1918. And Hindenburg still hated those moderate socialists who might have served in maintaining the republic. Elections had reduced the number of National Socialists in parliament to twelve, and the Social Democrats held 152 seats in Parliament, making them the largest party. But not wanting to create a government with Socialists, Hindenburg would side with those who looked for leadership among the rightwing of Germany's politicians.

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Copyright © 1998 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.