Talk:Weimar Republic

This article is so bad, I won't even touch it. Maybe some body has a short blurb, that is more corrcet than this. User:Order May 16 10:00 am (AEST)

It is still below standard. User:Order May 30.

Thanks for pointing that out, the best way to solve this is to edit it and improve it yourself. --Colest 22:25, 29 May 2007 (EDT)

I don't know where to begin. I think this article cannot be fixed, but needs to be replaced first. And then we can start editing. User:Order May 30.

I can understand how you feel, I've been trying to organize the whole History category today and have come across some pretty bad articles. My only suggestion is to come up with some basic format of what you think this article should say/look like and replace what's already there. Unfortunately, we don't have a large enough editor base around here to sit around and wait for someone else to fix things, we have to be proactive. --Colest 22:36, 29 May 2007 (EDT)

I'm currently taking a class on the Holocaust, and I think that as the semester goes on, I will be able to contribute some more to this article. DanH 17:30, 13 June 2007 (EDT)

The feeling that the Germans had been betrayed internally when Germany surrendered in World War I (because the German public was under the impression that they were winning almost up until the point when they surrendered) led to the increasing of anti-Semitic propaganda which sort of set the seeds for what was to come with Hitler's government, because to extremist groups, the Jews served as a scapegoat for who supposedly betrayed Germany. I think this should be integrated into the article, especially as the very end hints at the economic failures of the Weimar Republic as setting the stage for Nazi Germany, and it wasn't just economics. I'd kind of like to hear from the other people who have been editing this as to how to best go about this. DanH 22:30, 13 June 2007 (EDT)

All four signers of the Armistice on November 11, 1918 had been assassinated within two years. RobS 12:43, 14 June 2007 (EDT)

Who were the four signers of the Armistice? I had thought there was only one signer for Germany.--Steve 14:20, 21 June 2007 (EDT)

Finding their names might take awhile, but they were referred to as the "November Criminals." On interesting sidelight is, despite Hitler & others who were outraged at the "betrayal", and sympathized with their murders in the immediate aftermath, by 1927 when Hitler was sitting in Landsberg prison, contemplating the real prospect of leading Germany someday and writing Mien Kampf, Hitler indirectly refers to their assassinations by stating something to the effect that assassination of political leaders is not good because of the instability it creates in the society. RobS 15:08, 21 June 2007 (EDT)

About the Inflation-Hitler link

The beginning of the article has been improved, but then it was mangled. Hyper-inflation was 1923, Hitler came to power in 1933, in between there was a time of prosperity. The Treaty of Versailles was never fully enforced, this means Germany never had to pay it in full, and by the 30s most of Germany's obligation had been waived. But it was a psychological disaster. The story line "treaty of Versailles caused hyper-inflation, hyper inflation caused Hitler" is so simplistic, it is wrong. User:Order 22 June

If someone is blaming the holocaust (and Nazism) on the victors of WW I, then we need to identify the historian or other analyst who is casting the blame. --Ed Poor ^Talk 12:40, 21 June 2007 (EDT)

More info

• The Treaty of Versailles was regarded in Germany as humiliating and incapable of fulfilment. People lost sight of the fact that it left the unified Germany created in 1870 basically intact and in the long run in a strategically strong position, with weak neighbours on its east. [1]

You might add that the terms of the treaty were renegotiated in the 1920s, and by the end most obligation had been waived. User:Order

How about you add that bit. You are the primary author; I am merely supplying editorial assistance! :-)

By the way,

• After England allied with the Entente forces in World War I (1914–1918), a disappointed Chamberlain accused his fatherland of treason to the Germanic race. During the war he wrote a series of Kriegsaufsätze as German propaganda; highly successful war-essays, which have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. The earnings went to the Red Cross. More than once he mentions in his essays the coming of a future leader, „the man with the lion's heart“ (26). In his essay Der Wille zum Sieg, 1916, he wrote: „Die Deutschen stehen bereit; ihnen fehlt nur der vom heiligen Geist eingesetzte Führer“ — The Germans are ready for it; all that is missing is a God-sent Führer (27). Furthermore he lays in his essays the foundation for what came to be known as the „Dolchstoßlegende“, the dagger-blow legend, that would play an important role in post-war Germany: the idea that some infamous („Niederträchtige“) elements within Germany would like to see Germany losing the war, and strive after the destruction of the empire (28). In contradistinction to what certain historians claim, this point of view isn't entirely unjustified: it was felt within anti-imperial circles that if Germany would win, Kaiser Wilhelm's position would be stronger than ever, and „life would become impossible“: „Wenn Deutschland den Krieg gewinnt, dann bleibt das wilhelminische System und dann ist das Leben unmöglich“. [2]

The above quote talks about the dagger-blow. --Ed Poor ^Talk 13:23, 21 June 2007 (EDT)

We don't need a link to Wikipedia at all. Karajou 14:24, 21 June 2007 (EDT)

Do you think we should include information on how the Nazi party played on some of the factors mentioned elsewhere in the article to slowly rise to power? DanH 14:33, 21 June 2007 (EDT)