Essay about Friedrich Ebert: A Polarizing Figure in German History

Around the time, he was trying to gain support for the Nazi party the mood of Germany was not too particularly great. The depression's effects had hit Germany and its people hard with millions of people losing their jobs. Still fresh in the German people’s minds was the humiliating loss of WWI. Also, people did not like the Weimar Republic government because it agreed to the terms of The Treaty of Versailles. Due to this, the German people lacked confidence in the Weimar Republic. These conditions provided the chance for the rise of a new leader, Adolf Hitler, and his party, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or the Nazi party. Due to Hitler’s extravagant speeches, he was able to attract many followers to the Nazi party. In the article, it states “Hitler was a powerful and spellbinding speaker who attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change”, but this quote doesn’t even show how impactful the speeches really were. The article later states that “The party's rise to power was rapid... the Nazis were practically unknown, winning only 3 percent of the vote to the Reichstag (German parliament) in elections in 1924. In the 1932 elections, the Nazis won 33 percent of the votes, more than any other

The Weimar Republic would have continued to be a functional government far longer than achieved if not for the defeat of WWI, the economic burdens imposed by the Versailles Treaty, and the flawed Article 48 which all contributed to the down fall of Germany’s first attempt at a legitimate Democracy. This paper will argue that the societal, economical, and constitutional aspects all played a role in the hopeless Democracy Germany attempted which ultimately lead Germany into a totalitarian state that would further shake the world with the rise of the NSDAP and Adolf Hitler.

Germany started out as a divided nation fighting for dominance in Europe. Otto Von Bismarck was able to take this struggling complexity and unify it. During this process Bismarck turned the small country of Prussia into a powerhouse, growing the population from 11 to 18 million. Bismarck sprung from a landlord class and moved his way up the political ladder as realpolitik, realistic Politician. He was a man of simple ideals; he stressed duty, service, order, and the fear of God. These ideals along with manipulative tactics are what lead Bismarck on his journey of the unification of Germany, proving that without Bismarck’s diplomatic efforts between 1871 and 1890 Europe would not be the stabilized continent it is today.

The Collapse of Weimar and the Rise of Hitler In 1919, a defeated Germany was forced to abandon government under the Kaiser, who had fled to Belgium and adopt the Weimar, a democratic but flawed system. Soon after Hitler and the Nazi Party appeared, and years later the Weimar Republic fell. What accounted for the fall of the Weimar? My essay will prove that there was not a single reason, but in fact a series of events that lead to the collapse of the Weimar. President Ebert used the Freikorp, who were a rightwing mercenary unit, to put down the Spartacus uprising, a communist inspired revolution.

22. By taming the powerful corporations, improving living and working conditions, and creating more educational opportunities, progressives in all levels of government hoped to transform society and establish what they called “social justice.”

After World War I, Germany was in a deep hole and everyone looked to find a way out. The man who would bring hope and a purpose to Germans

Teniola Olafuyi The Gilded and Progressive eras are two historical eras constantly debated overtime. Historians argue that the Gilded and Progressive era should be categorized as a “Long Progressive Era”. Both eras has a long period of reform in social and political problems caused by industrialization. However, historians argue that there is less regulation of the government in the Gilded Age because the rise of monopolies and less rights for workers.

Prior to the progressive Movement there were many social and political conditions that existed in America. Without the progressive reform these problems would not have been solved - the most important progressive era reforms were: women’s suffrage, racism, and working conditions. While the Progressives differed in their assessment of the problems and how to resolve them, they generally shared in common the view that government at every level must be actively involved in these reforms. The existing constitutional system was outdated and must be made into a dynamic, evolving instrument of social change, aided by scientific knowledge and the development of administrative bureaucracy. The Progressives believed that these changes

Gustav Stresemann was undoubtedly significant to Germany in the 1920 and early 1930s. He was highly significant in the recovery of Germany after the Great Depression. However, during Germany’s recovery, Stresemann did not face many important issues at the time such as employment, military and social. This meant that he had a lot less support from the German public. Stresemann would have accomplished much more in the recovery of Germany if he had faced other issues which were being ignored.

Friedrich Ebert took over the Weimar Republic as its first leader, who received resistance from the Freikorps and the Spartacists. While he did, for the most part, defeat the communist threat from the spartacists and the threat from the Freikorps, many were infuriated when on November of 1918 he agreed to sign the treaty of Versailles, dooming all the public to pay the backlash of the armistice and causing them to loathe Ebert and the Weimar republic. Gustav Stresemann, in August of 1923, had taken over the Weimar republic. Many praised Stresemann seeing that he turned the economic problem around and he was competent enough to renegotiate reparations payments. Under his leadership times were prosperous, considering the economy and political stance were both stable, culture was free-spirited, and foreign policy was a great exultation for Stresemann because he was able to reverse some of the terms of the treaty of Versailles and remove British, French, and Belgian troops from the Rhineland. Nevertheless, the government under Stresemann had its downside such as the fact that his policies didn’t seem to cater to the middle class and peasant farmers of the time, many Germans did not like the moral decline that came with the break loose style of the culture, and the fact that Stresemann joined the league of nation infuriated most Germans as it inclined them to infer that he accepted the treaty of

The system of proportional representation was intended by the Weimar Republic to avoid the wasting of votes and to reduce political conflicts, causing many parties to gaining seats in the Reichstag. The quantity of political parties was multiplied and coalitions were made necessary. This resulted in unstable government and, consequently, frequent changes of government as each party had different aims. This was reflected in 376 political assassinations up to 1923. Similarly, despite being from the democratic left, during the early 1920s Friedrich Ebert relied heavily on the traditionally right-wing army and Freikorps in order to keep control of the country. Conservative attitudes tended to overemphasise the threat from the left, whilst the threat from the right was severely under estimated. The rise of a multitude of small trivial parties, many of which represented the extreme ends of the political

Otto Von Bismarck was a great leader in the unification of Germany. His skill as a diplomat was unrivalled during his reign as chancellor of Prussia. The mastery he showed in foreign policy was such that he was able to outwit all other powers and make their leaders appear inadequate.

When one thinks of the most evil and powerful person through history, one often thinks of Adolf Hitler. However, most of the feats accomplished by Hitler would have been impossible without the help of his lesser known right-hand man, Heinrich Himmler. Deemed “the second most powerful man in Germany during World War II” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), he helped Hitler carry out his brutal genocide of the Jewish religion. Heinrich Himmler played an extremely important role in the Holocaust.

Long before our time, two prominent German philosophers emerged at the forefront of ideology and thinking. These two men were Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche who pioneered the idea of truths, religion, reality, etc. Karl Marx’s essay, “The German Ideology,” otherwise known as Marxism, focused upon the materialistic processes that brought life into our world and the abuse of the burgeouse on the proletariat. This theory later went on to found the core beliefs of communism and played a fundamental role in the world. His theory raised questions of equality, justice, and division of labor which became

In 1883, the patriarch of the Marx family, Heinrich Marx, died. With his fathers' death, Karl now had to learn how to make his own living. Not being someone who ever "got his hands dirty," Marx decided to become a lecturer at the university level. Once finished with his doctorial thesis on the philosophy of Epicurus, Karl turned to his mentor, Bruno Bauer, whom he hoped would be able to help him get a job as a professor at Bonn. Marx was soon notified that Bauer had been removed from his position due to his outspoken atheism ². Marx was unable to find a position due to his connections with Bauer. Marx's connections with Bauer were not the only problem keeping him from receiving a lecture's job; Marx had joined a group called the "Left Hegelians." This circle of intellectuals sought to draw atheistic and revolutionary conclusions from Hegel's philosophy ³. Marx soon decided on a profession; journalism. He soon found that his extreme political views kept him from being hired. Marx decided to move to Cologne, where the city's liberal opposition movement was fairly strong. Once in Cologne Marx began writing for a newspaper called Rhenish Zeitung, soon Marx became the editor. Once in Cologne, Marx surrounded with a group of intellectuals whom he found shared many of his