The Rise and Subsequent Fall of the Third Reich Essay

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.

Due to the failure of the Weimar Republic and general public dissatisfaction arising from poor economic conditions exacerbated by the Treaty of Versailles, coupled with the 1929 Wall Street Crash, German citizens were understandably desperate for change. Until this point in time the Nazi party, and Hitler, had been essentially unpopular. However, the economic situation ensured Hitler’s increasing popularity as the people looked toward more extreme but non-communist ideals. The initial consolidation of Nazi power in 1933 arose from key events such as the support of the Nationalist Party with the Nazis to form a coalition government, implementation of the Enabling

During WWII, Hitler had many motivations for ethnic cleansing. In his teens, Hitler lived on the streets of Vienna, the capital of Austria. He gained money by selling water color paintings he did in taverns and bars. During that time, he made no friends and had little food. Living there made him somewhat interested in the surrounding politics. Soon, he became obsessed with them. He always read a newspapers from a company called the Ostrara. In the articles, it argued about how Jews were unclean, and unfit for the German world. Hitler was drawn in. Later in his time living in Vienna, his mother passed away, and he immediately blamed the Jews for her death. Other germans, such as the Christian-social Mayor, Karl Lueger, also swayed to the anti-semitism side. The man had many negative outlooks on the Jewish people, and soon enough, Hitler picked it up, and became obsessed with anti-semitism. Hitler soaked up all of the hate for the Jews. The men and newspapers stated that the Jews, Slavs, darker skinned people, Gypsies and more, polluted their society and caused all of the worlds problems. The Germans thought that the purest race of all was the

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.

In addition to the damaging consequences of the First World War with the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles, certain features of Germany caused the state to be susceptible to the influence of this dangerous ideology. Along with the damage to the national ego as a result of the First World War, Germany had co-existing and conflicting highly modern strands of development forced to integrate with powerful remnants of archaic values and social structures, and had a deeply fractured parliamentary political system, and the weaknesses of this system reflected the social and political differences within the population. This shame and failure after World War I was superimposed onto a modern country which once had an advanced economy, a sophisticated state

With incompetent leadership and an unhappy nation, the German people began to realize that their country was in a vulnerable situation and began to look for stable alternatives to democracy. Hitler’s

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was a summary of Adolf’s journey from his boyhood to his final decision to end his life. Shirer successfully made his case as he laid down many points that proved the foolishness of the German citizen in becoming aroused by Hitler’s power and not reacting to stop him from getting any more powerful. The point of view must be addressed. Based on the author’s choice of words and writing, it was clear that he had found Hitler distasteful as he uses the words restless, bitter, demonic, and ruthless to describe the Fuhrer throughout the book. Therefore the writings in the book could have been influenced by the fact that he lived and worked in the Third Reich and witnessed Adolf Hitler’s rise of power first hand. The audience of the book, based on the difficulty of reading and the content, should be for young adults and older, historians, and for anyone interested in this topic. The book could be used for further research into this subject or simply for the pleasure of new information that have never been seen before in other famous Holocaust stories such as The Diary of Anne Frank. This book will definitely stimulate further conversation among historians and history lovers and historiography on this subject as the author’s thesis is quite controversial. Overall, I have liked the thoroughness of this book and all the interesting insights in which I have never come upon with other books talking about the Third Reich, I don’t recommend taking this

Even though Germany was left in a period of struggle and economic weakness after WW1, Adolf Hitler would take a stand by creating a party that would help refine the structure of the economy. This party, when abbreviated, was called Nazi, would also create harsh laws and unrelentless punishment. Due to the Nazi party’s quick growth, there was an immediate impact on lifestyle and politics for the people of Germany. The long term impact brought forth by the consequences or legacy of the Nazi party included a population decrease and an increase in deaths. To make both of these impacts, Hitler had to overcome many hard challenges.

There is clear evidence for and against the Second Reich being democratic, though in the years it only reaches "Nascent Democracy", even if that. However, on the whole the Second Reich is most definitely based around Kaiser therefore quite far from democracy. Kaiser shows his power all throughout the three case studies; Hottentot Elections, Daily Telegraph Affair and the Zabern Crisis. As well as that it is clear from the Constitutional Theory that there is little to no democracy and that there is Kaiser Absolutism.

The rise and subsequent take-over of power in Germany by Hitler and the Nazi Party in the early 1930s was the culmination and continuation not of Enlightenment thought from the 18th and 19th century but the logical conclusion of unstable and cultural conditions that pre-existed in Germany. Hitler’s Nazi Party’s clear manipulation of the weak state of the Weimar Republic through its continued failure economically and socially, plus its undermining of popular support through the signing the Treaty of Versailles all lead to the creation of a Nazi dictatorship under the cult of personality of Hitler. This clear take-over of power and subsequent destruction of any

The Weimar Constitution was a genuine attempt to create a perfect democratic country. In his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), American historian William L. Shirer described the Weimar Constitution as "on paper, the most liberal and democratic document of its kind the twentieth century had ever seen ... full of ingenious and admirable devices which seemed to guarantee the working of an almost flawless democracy.” The constitution guaranteed equal rights to the German people, yet also contained the fundamental structural flaws that would play a major part in the Republic 's downfall (and thus the Nazi Party’s rise). Two clear examples of such weaknesses were the use of an excessively proportional electoral system and the

The Nazi party affected many people around the world through both the Holocaust and World War II. Hitler had a plan to exterminate all the Jews, and propelled this idea through the Holocaust putting Jews in concentration camps and killing them. Hitler's evil plan caused one of the world's biggest tragedies, World War II.

The dominant political figure of German history in the twentieth century, Adolf Hitler, was born in a lower middle class family in the provincial Austrian town of Braunau am Inn on 20 April 1889. In 1907 Hitler applied to enter the Vienna Academy of Art but his application was rejected. After the death of his mother Klara, Hitler decided to move to Vienna. He drifted from job to job, often selling sketches or painting scenes of Old Vienna and it was a period that he himself later called the most miserable period of his life. Many of Hitler’s views of the world were shaped by his experiences on the streets of Vienna and it is probable that his violent anti-Semitism dates from this time.

Following the collapse of the Third Reich, Germany was facing an uncertain future. It was divided amongst four nations with different ideas on how to handle the Nazis who remained and what to do about the future. The Potsdam Agreement dictated how the remains of Germany were to be divided amongst the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and France. It also dictated that Nazi influences were to be purged, with Nazi laws being repealed and war criminals put to trial and punished for their actions.[1] In the American-occupied zone, one of the major projects undertaken by the United States government was to denazify their region. Despite the denazification process being a major point of focus for the United States, the process was slow, inconsistent, and poorly executed. As a whole, the American attempt to denazify their German territory was a failure due to several factors, most of which stemmed from the fact that the United States attempted to use judicial systems to shape their ideal political system. They removed anyone in power during the Third Reich from power, and set up a series of questionnaires and trials to punish those with Nazi connections. The tribunal system was slow, inefficient, and Americans and Germans had different ideas of how severe punishments should be. As a result, a fraction of the perpetrators they wished to punish actually ended up receiving any repercussions, those that did were not punished for years. Many German civil servants were

Nazi Germany was between the dates of 1933-1939. Throughout this essay, Conditions in Germany when Hitler came to power including the impact of the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression and the weakness of the Weimar republic, will be discussed. The Concept of a Totalitarian State and how Hitler and the Nazi party developed in Germany through the use of force, controlled education, militarism, propaganda, economic policies, and no political opposition. Some of the Positives that came from Nazi Germany were increased prosperity including full employment and economic growth, regaining lost territories, increased national prestige and pride, and the hosting of 1936 Olympics. Some of the Negatives that came from Nazi Germany were Persecution of minorities, loss of personal freedoms, economic growth focused on the military, and expansionism as a path to war. This essay will re-state weather Nazi Germany was an overall positive or negative experience for people in Germany.