Reading about the Weimar Republic makes me sad that it ended. How a country so forward-thinking and progressive could make a complete U turn in a matter of a few years is tragic.
What would have happened here had the Great Depression not been as bad as it was? Instead of the Nazis coming to power due to massive economic turmoil, what if there was only a minor recession and Weimar survived? Would this even have been possible?
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Yes, the Weimar could have survived if they made Otto Wels chancellor and joined multiple parties to form an anti-fascist coalition.
if the leftist hadnt dont what leftist do best, devolve into infighting, and had instead presented a united front to hitler
The Communists were anti-democratic agents of Stalin. They were never a potential ally to the SPD.
It's not really that surprising.
Protip for future politicians: if it looks like times are gonna be tough, relax, retire, don't campaign, lose an election. There's nothing you could have done about the state of the world, there's nothing your opposition could have done, but they're gonna take all the blame anyways.
>How a country so forward-thinking and progressive
That's mostly a myth. Yes, intellectuals, left-wing politicians and artists were like this, but the majority of German population was conservative, authoritarian and backward.
A good example of this is how after Ebert's death they elected Hindenburg as the next president.
Weimar was an impoverished shithole with sky high unemployment, social malaise and political and economic instability. From 1919 to 1923 there was always some faggot trying to set off a coup (including Hitler himself), communists were assassinating people in broad daylight and trying to ignite a revolution, reaction wanted to revive the monarchy, expunge Versailles and plunge Germany into a new war against France, and your progressive utopia full of drugs, jazz and autistic jewish paintings was limited to a few districts of Berlin. Everywhere else in Germany was just shit.
Weimar was simply speaking a total catastrophe and it would've collapsed no matter who (nationalists, reactionaries, commies, etc) won in the end.
>communists were assassinating people in broad daylight and trying to ignite a revolution
Nonsense. Right-wing terrorism was much more common than left-wing terrorism. Nationalists even murdered some high ranking politicians, such as Rathenau and Erzberger.
>impoverished shithole with sky high unemployment
Exaggeration. The standard of living was rather high between 1924 and 1930.
> communists were assassinating people in broad daylight
Besides those cops in the early thirties not really. Right-wing terrorists even got lighter sentences. Hitler's failed coup and treason only got him a few years in jail.
>Besides those cops in the early thirties not really.
Really you're on Veeky Forums and you don't know who Horst Wessel was?
One other guy and his situation was different as he was an SA paramilitary soldier who got in street fights.
Yeah, SA was literally created to counter communist street violence and to protect Hitler and other speakers during rallies because communists kept assaulting them.
>Right-wing terrorism was much more common than left-wing terrorism.
>NO YOU!
A random Nazi turned into a martyr by the SA.
What about this?
historylearningsite.co.uk
>On the night of August 9th 1932, five men from the SA burst into the home of Konrad Pietrzuch, a Communist miner. Pietrzuch lived in Potempa in Upper Silesia. He was trampled to death in front of his mother. The five murderers did little to disguise themselves during the attack and they were quickly rounded up and arrested. At the end of the trial, they were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
>Conservative groups such as Stahlhelm and Konigin Luise Bund also expressed their support of the five men and petitioned von Hindenburg for a Presidential pardon.
>The Chancellor at the time, von Papen, was not keen to see the five murderers executed so soon after the crime as he feared a Nazi backlash across the nation and the Nazi Party certainly had the means at their disposal to escalate the street violence they already used to undermine the government. He also asked for a pardon.
In early 1930s Weimar democracy was already dead.
>forward-thinking and progressive
>the constitution allowed for a presidential dictatorship and the army was allowed to be a state within a state
>In early 1930s Weimar democracy was already dead.
More like it never existed.
People who want to portray Weimar as some kind of progressive utopia have literally no fucking idea what they're talking about. It's like those imbeciles who praise 1970s America because "music was fun" or some shit disregarding it was the single most depressing decade after the Great Depression.
People who want to portray Weimar as some kind of hellish nightmare have literally no fucking idea what they're talking about.
really? it was a sad turd with no viable future that pretty much continued after the end of WWII
Weimar Germany had a 20s cultural boom just like the US and Britain did until the great depression.
>protect
Is that why they beat up opponent politicians and beat up and killed union workers?
dw.com
>Between 1918 and 1922, it is estimated 354 political murders were committed by right-wing groups and 22 from leftist groupings.
I can't name a single prominent person killed by left-wing terrorists. Meanwhile the right assassinated Rathenau, Erzberger, Eisner, and apparently tried to assassinate Scheidemann.
Horst Wessel was just a random Nazi thug. It's not comparable.
Unions were pretty violent back then.
It was a hellish nightmare, literally try reading anything from Strasser's "Hitler and I" to Remarque's "Drei Kameraden" to understand what the general mood was, ranging from nihilist defeatism to straight up vitriolic rage. Early to mid 20s were marked by hyperinflation and late 20s and mid 30s felt the effect of the depression, suicide rates, crime and substance abuse was through the roof.
Culture is completely irrelevant when you don't have anything to eat.
>that pretty much continued after the end of WWII
What? Post war Germany was nothing like the Weimar Republic.
This is virtually the only big left wing political attack of the Weimar years. The right-wing attackers were usually given more lenient sentences too.
The point of the post was that Germany as a whole was a dismal violent shithole, not whether the communists or the nazis were more violent. Maybe next time try using your brain when reading in context.
Yes but the US and UK also fell into hard times like that. Weimar Germany was nothing particularly different.
Like I said, this is a huge exaggeration. It was pretty bad during the hyperinflation and in early 1930s, but it wasn't a hellish shithole.
German Empire was better, desu.
Germany felt it harder because the depression in America killed the Dawes plan and subsequently crashed German economy as well.
Well no shit. Better in literally every single aspect. Also cool footage: youtube.com
Right after the war there were polls asking people which period in modern German history was the best. Most people picked the German Empire.
In late 50s the most popular answer was current times.
Now watch Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt from 1927. Hardly hellish nightmare.
Witness accounts are on my side, statistic are on my side too. You have provided zero arguments so far, people weren't living in some kind of blissful paradise, the average German didn't give a single flying fuck about Lang, Murnau, Ernst or coked up dancers in the cabarets of Berlin.
>current times
I guess most people that remembered the good times were dead by then.
>blissful paradise
>hellish shithole
>no inbetween
bruh
>statistic are on my side too.
Show me some statistics then. And no one said they were living in blissful paradise. But between 1924 and 1930 Germany was a great place to live in.
Noone claimed it was perfect, just that it was about as well off as any other Euro nation could be.
1950s Germany enjoyed a great economic boom.
en.wikipedia.org
It was even a greater miracle than Hitler's "miracle". Adenauer and Erhard's policies made CDU/CSU the most popular party in the history of Germany and in 1957 elections they won 50% seats in Bundestag. Even Hitler and his party was never that successful.
So? Who idolises Depression-era America or Britain either?
hobo enthusiasts?
The German Empire may have been better (it had a functioning, if cautious parliamentary system) if it weren't so woven through the seams with Prussianism.
I've always been surprised at how long it took for the Great War to break out. It could've been far sooner, even as early as the 19th Century if something like the Moroccan incident had gone the wrong way.
Bismarck.
Except that's wrong, hyperinflation ended in 1924 and by unemployment soon skyrocketed way over 10% again. There were maybe two or three years at best when Weimar Germany wasn't total shit.
Nonsense. Off the top of my head, France or Czechoslovakia didn't completely crater like Germany did.
Noone idolizes them but atleast they didn't have to get a fascist, genocidal maniac into power.
Hitler wasn't a fascist.
Now what about GDP per capita? And I think you should compare it with other countries from the same period.
>Hitler wasn't a fascist.
what was he?
National socialist.
Weimer was a little pet project by the (((frankfurt))) school. When hitler came into power they fucked off to america to start over and now we're living in the 1984 hellhole.
Strasser was a national socialist. Hitler was a fascist.
I don't know, but I also don't take any GDP assessment of any period before Bretton Woods seriously for obvious reasons.
Commies and facists justifying their bullshit that brought weimar down the thread.
Except most of those theorists held little political weight.
Don't you have school tomorrow?
>Strasser was a NatSoc, Hitler wasn't
Well, that's one way to look at it. Still though, Hitler wasn't fascist. Fascism was based on a state worship (quite literally), Hitlerism was a race worship with the state being secondary.
The race and the state were the same thing under Hitler.
today were living in the "forward-thinking and progressive" way OP so eloquently put it and now were going the way of Wiemer, funny that history repeats itself huh?
It indeed does. The media is now parroting how it's okay to "punch nazis" much like the Weimar communists did in the early 20s.
Except modern America is nothing like the Weimar society. The economy, culture and society are nothing alike.
>Fascism was based on a state worship
that seems like an oversimplification of fascism
there are a lot of things the national socialist party did that were pretty fascist
I hate comparisons like this. They are always so uneducated and ignorant. No, modern Europe/USA is nothing like Weimar Republic/Roman Empire. Virtually everything about our worlds is different.
Modern America doesn't have a casually anti-semitic majority, for one.
Rome comparisons are always a total meme, but there's plenty of parallels with Weimar.
I'd highly advise you to stop learning history and politics from /pol/ memes
>Weimar communists
They were social democrats
Not at all. Explain your actual reasoning though.
There were communist groups but they didn't have much clout and were a few street gangs.
No, communists really. Social democrats were the establishment, communists were kind of like the modern antifa that feels the establishment left is not true left. And I would really want to advise the antifas and assorted commies not to try and start any shit because it will backfire horribly like it always does for them.
Only very superficial parallels.
For example in Weimar Republic the only ones that cared about democracy were social democrats. Junkers, industrialists, the aristocracy, the army, right wing parties and the communists all wanted to destroy it.
>Social democrats were the establishment, communists were kind of like the modern antifa
Not really. Germany was still dominated by the old, conservative Prussian establishment, which, by the way, Nazis hated as well. Communists split from social democrats during WWI because they saw the war as a pointless imperialistic conflict
>nihlism and defeatism culture rampant
>welfare state
>political divisions increasing by the year
>modern "art"
>sex pushed on youth and population general
>nobody wants to work/can find work
>huge amounts of private loans and debts
>banks give out shady loans
>prices constantly inflated
>destruction of traditional ideals
The urban/rural divide for example. You can find plenty of parallels with Trump, not regarding his policies obviously, but the way he ran his campaign was very similar to tne nazis: the SPD and the commies alike were campaigning mostly in cities, the rural voters were completely forgotten. Even the nazis started out like that, being active mostly in urban Bavaria. Then Strasser caused a shift when he as a gauleiter started devoting significant attention to rural Prussia and promising them significant social reform, bringing back jobs and strengthening their safety nets. The average Hitler voter was poor, rural, protestant and a woman, and this ended up winning him the election.
You can see a clear parallel with modern American politics - Hillary was campaigning as if she was running for the president of California. Democrats acted like San Francisco and New York are all there is to America, and then the real America woke the fuck up and slapped them in the face. Much like rural Prussia did in Weimar Germany.
Vague nonsense. You can describe late 19th century with the same words. You can also describe 1970s-1980s with the same words. And yet, nothing changed. There is no Hitler.
The city and farmland divide has existed in most societies. There were bourgeois and worker divides amongst most parties going back to the French Revolution.
nihilism isn't taken seriously outside of edgy teenagers. Welfare is intended for those in distress not to live on. Those people who misuse it are abusing its purpose. Both party's politics are virtually the same. Art was more political in nature but that isn't bad. Sex wasn't pushed on youth in any particularly big way. "Traditional ideals" is vague and progressive and anti-authoritarian ideals like not sacrificing innocent young people for the war you started are nothing bad.
>The city and farmland divide has existed in most societies.
Is that all you got from the post? You should try not to be disingenuous like this when I wrote a wall of text explaining the parallel in detail.
The exact situation you described has occurred in most societies. The workers and bourgeoisie very rarely see eye to eye.
That's probably true for most populists. The similarities exist because Nazi party wasn't completely unique. What was unique was the role of the conservative establishment, German constitution (Article 48), external influences (Great Depression, Soviet threat), internal threats (Communist revolution) and many other factors.
99% of my post was about the campaign strategy, user.
>You can describe late 19th century with the same words.
not even close
>You can also describe 1970s-1980s with the same words
thats my point, everything after the 60's has been moving into progressive territory.
>nihilism isn't taken seriously outside of edgy teenagers.
Overall happiness is the worst it has ever been.
i meant that the family unit is being socially destroyed, gays/trannies are being promoted and pushed onto younger people.
>Populist politicians who target workers and farmers have never existed before except in Weimar Germany when Hitler came to power
>the family unit is being destroyed
It wasn't in the Weimar era.
>trannies are being promoted
There was like one tranny in all of Weimar Germany and like a handful of people actually believed that stuff. Traditional genders were the norm in Weimar Germany.
>In 1921 Hirschfeld organised the First Congress for Sexual Reform, which led to the formation of the World League for Sexual Reform.
en.wikipedia.org
>Hirschfeld co-wrote and acted in the 1919 film Anders als die Andern ("Different From the Others"), in which Conrad Veidt played one of the first homosexual characters ever written for cinema. The film had a specific gay rights law reform agenda
How many members did it have? How influential was it? Most Weimar era entertainment enforces traditional gender roles. That man was a nobody.
>not even close
en.wikipedia.org
>This period was widely thought to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning.[1] The "spirit" of fin de siècle often refers to the cultural hallmarks that were recognized as prominent in the 1880s and 1890s, including ennui, cynicism, pessimism, and "...a widespread belief that civilization leads to decadence."[2]
>The major political theme of the era was that of revolt against materialism, rationalism, positivism, bourgeois society, and liberal democracy.[5] The fin-de-siècle generation supported emotionalism, irrationalism, subjectivism, and vitalism,[6] while the mindset of the age saw civilization as being in a crisis that required a massive and total solution.[5]
It was even worse than today.
"progressive" is always a relative descriptor. Compared to most of its neighbours at the time, it was somewhat more progressive.
>there are actually people on Veeky Forums who judge history by their limited contemporary understandings of the world
so maybe two or three things are similar out of all the things i listed
why call him a nobody if you dont even know how influential he was?
That was a rhetorical question, you literal retard. That guy had no big effect on society, culture or politics of the time.
>here's a fact from my ass
Link any media or statistics that back up his effect on culture or politics of the time. How many people were even his followers?
Pretty sure he's saying that people 150 years ago already acted like you did. Your world view is essentially a misconception of the "good old days"
Most things are the same. The political situation was even more radicalized with anarchists assassinating rulers all over the Europe.
>"good old days"
It's probably the oldest myth in human history.
It's not a myth. Society has been degenerating ever since Socrates.
the spartacus revolt and various other communist practically plunged it into civil war
modernhistoryproject.org
no he's saying i was being to generalized and he's right about some of the points I made but honestly i dont feel like putting that much work into a mongolian underwater basket weaving forum.
Not really, most workers were SPD supporters and SPD was anti-communist.