Germany before Hitler

in #history8 years ago (edited)

To understand why Hitler came to power you only need to research the conditions which were created in Germany after their defeat in World War I.

In the first year after World War I Germany almost completely fell into a state of civil war, with communist revolutionaries and nationalists/loyalists openly fighting and killing each other in public. The country was completely divided and some cities and districts declared themselves independent Soviet councils/republics. Germany was very close to seeing a total communist take-over, until the Emperor abdicated and the Social Democrats took over and established the Weimar Republic, using government forces and paramilitaries to knock down the revolutionaries to prevent a full Soviet-style takeover.

The years that followed saw more civil strive, rightwing paramilitaries, monarchists fighting the government, socialist and communist uprisings, hyperinflation, strikes, even a short-lasted coup 'd'etat by rightwing nationalists. All in all, Germany was still in ruins. Only after 1924 a shortlasted peace came into existence, but conditions were far from favorable. The period from here until the coming of Hitler is actually quite similar to the Western world today, there was massive social liberalization, pornography was rampant, homosexuality and transgenderism were common parts of nightlife in the urban areas. Even bestiality and pedophilia was not uncommon. But poverty was still much more rampant, and tens of thousands of young and elderly women were forced into prostitution, sometimes even mother and daughter and children. It was literal Sodom and Gomorrah on earth. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, Germany was hit the most. Centuries old German dynasties lost all their wealth and millions of Germans lost their savings, unemployment skyrocketed and poverty rose to an extreme. One reason why Hitler would later confiscate the wealth of Jewish-Germans, was because, according to them, it was karma, as "International world-Jewry" had caused the depression and Jewish bankers had profited from it. It was a perfect environment for these opinions to grow, and for Hitler to rise to power. In my opinion, the Germans cannot be blamed for seeing in Hitler a solution to all their problems during that time, considering the hardships they went through the decade before. The vast majority of us would have done the same at that time.