The Peace That Wasn't

WEBVTT
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The Ripple Effect, a history podcast hosted by
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David Albano. World War II, the interwar road
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to catastrophe. Episode 1, The Peace That Wasn't.
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So let me take you back to the Hall of Mirrors
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at the Palace of Versailles. It's France on June
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28th, 1919. It's exactly five years to the day
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after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
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in Sarajevo set the First World War in motion.
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German representatives are brought into this
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ornate Gilded Hall to sign the treaty that will
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formally end that war. They have had no seat
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at the table where its terms were actually drafted.
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The document has already been negotiated amongst
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the victorious Allied powers, and the German
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delegation, arriving in Paris months earlier,
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is presented with a draft treaty running to 440
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articles. Among them, a clause the world will
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come to know as the War Guilt Clause. formerly
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requiring Germany and her allies to accept responsibility
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for, in the treaty's own words, all the loss
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and damage to which the allied and associated
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governments and their nationals have been subjected
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to as a consequence of the war imposed upon them
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by the aggression of Germany and her allies.
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The German delegation Excluded from the face
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-to -face negotiations that produced the draft,
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responded with extensive written objections in
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the form of a formal counter -memorandum, challenging
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the treaty's terms clause by clause. These written
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protests produced a period of further negotiation
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and a small number of amendments to the original
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draft before the final text was presented as
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effectively non -negotiable. As later historian
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accounts describe it, the German government protested
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that the treaty had, in its substance, been dictated
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to them rather than negotiated with them. Whatever
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the treaty's authors intended, the peace signed
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in this room on that summer afternoon in 1919
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would not, in the end, secure the lasting peace
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its architects had promised. Two decades later,
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almost to the month, the German army would invade
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Poland and the war that treaty was meant to prevent
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from ever happening again. would begin all over.
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Welcome to The Ripple Effect. I'm David Albano.
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This is going to be our first episode exploring
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World War II. We open with episode one, The Peace
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That Wasn't. The story of how a flawed and deeply
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resented peace settlement became one important
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source of interwar instability, and how revolution,
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economic catastrophe, political choices, and
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extremist movements combined over the following
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15 years to turn that instability into something
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far, far more dangerous. Part 1. An Idealist's
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Peace Compromised. Chapter 1. 14 Points and a
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New World Order. Before there was a Treaty of
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Versailles, there was a vision considerably more
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idealistic than the document the world actually
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received. On the 8th of January 1918, with the
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First World War still grinding on, American President
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Woodrow Wilson addressed the United States Congress
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to lay out a 14 -point framework for the peace
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he believed should follow the war's end. Wilson's
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plan called for open diplomacy conducted in full
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public view rather than secret treaties, freedom
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of navigation on the world's seas, the reduction
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of trade barriers, a fair and impartial adjustment
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of colonial claims, and running through the entire
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document a growing Wilsonian commitment to national
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self -government and the consent of governed
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peoples, although the 14 points themselves applied
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that principle unevenly and never promised universal
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colonial independence. Wilson's 14th. And probably
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the most important point called for what he termed
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a general association of nations, offering mutual
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guarantees of political independence and territorial
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integrity to great and small nations alike. This
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was the seed of what became the League of Nations,
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an international body explicitly designed to
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provide a system of collective security capable
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of resolving disputes between nations diplomatically
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before they escalated into the kind of catastrophic
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continent -wide war the world had just endured.
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Wilson traveled to Paris in December of 1918
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to personally advocate for his plan at the peace
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conference that followed, becoming the first
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sitting American president to visit Europe while
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in office. Theodore Roosevelt had already traveled
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to Panama in 1906, but no predecessor had ever
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crossed the Atlantic. What Wilson found in Paris,
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however, was a coalition of Allied leaders considerably
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more focused on national security, compensation
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and their own country's immediate interests than
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on the even -handed principal peace his 14 points
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had envisioned. Chapter 2. What the Big Four
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Actually Wanted The Paris Peace Conference's
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most consequential decisions were made not by
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the full assembly of Allied nations, but by a
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small inner circle of leaders historians commonly
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refer to as the Big Four. Woodrow Wilson himself,
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representing the United States, David Lloyd George
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of Great Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France,
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and Vittorio Orlando of Italy. The European members
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of this group were driven first and foremost
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by national security, compensation, and their
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own country's immediate interests. priorities
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that often conflicted directly with the more
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universal principles of Wilson's 14 points, ensuring
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each of their own nation's future security and
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extracting meaningful compensation for the devastation
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four years of war had inflicted on their own
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populations and territories. Clemenceau's position
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reflected France's particular and entirely understandable
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anxiety. France had suffered the war's fighting
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on its own soil. with vast stretches of its northern
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industrial and agricultural land reduced to ruin.
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And Clemenceau was determined that Germany, France's
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neighbour and the aggressor in his government's
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assessment, should never again possess the capacity
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to threaten French security. Wilson found himself
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compelled to compromise repeatedly on his principles
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in order to preserve the one element of his plan
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he considered truly indispensable, the League
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of Nations. Self -determination, intended as
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a universal principle, was applied selectively,
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most visibly in parts of Central and Eastern
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Europe, and even there, inconsistently. Outside
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Europe, its application was weaker. Germany's
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former Pacific island possessions became league
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mandates administered by powers, including Japan.
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While Germany's least rights in China's Shandong
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province, railways and economic privileges rather
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than a formal colony, were transferred to Japan
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rather than immediately restored to China. This
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is one of the most contentious decisions at Paris
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and the reason China refused to sign the treaty,
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a decision that carried its own significant consequences
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for the later war in the Pacific. The Finnish
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Treaty of Versailles did preserve Wilson's League
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of Nations, forming the first 26 articles of
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the document as the League's founding covenant.
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but it wrapped that institution inside a settlement
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containing security restriction and reparations
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provisions considerably harsher than Wilson had
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originally envisioned. The war guilt clause and
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reparations demands were considerably broader
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than Wilson had ever wanted. Wilson accepted
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the principle that Germany should compensate
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civilian war damage, which was already implicit
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in the armistice terms, but he resisted broader
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attempts to make Germany pay the general costs
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of the war. The wider Paris settlement extended
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well beyond Germany. Further treaties were concluded
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with Germany's former wartime partners across
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the same period. The Treaty of Saint -Germain
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-en -Laye, imposing significant territorial and
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economic burdens on the newly separated state
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of Austria. The Treaty of Neuilly -sur -Seine,
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under which Bulgaria ceded western Thrace and
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lost its direct outlet to the Aegean Sea. The
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Treaty of Trianon, under which Hungary lost approximately
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72 % of its pre -war territory, including regions
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with substantial ethnic Hungarian populations,
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and the Treaty of Sevra, intended to dismantle
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the remaining Ottoman Empire's territorial holdings
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across Asia Minor and the Middle East. Sevra,
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however, was never actually ratified. Turkish
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nationalist forces under Mustafa Kemal rejected
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its terms and fought a war of independence against
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it. And the treaty was ultimately superseded
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entirely by the Treaty of Lausanne, signed in
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July 1923, which recognized the new Turkish Republic's
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sovereignty on considerably more favorable terms
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than Severe would have allowed. The Treaty of
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Versailles imposed a severe settlement on defeated
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Germany. Under its terms, Germany lost approximately
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13 % of its pre -war European territory, was
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required to demilitarize the Rhineland region
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border in France, and saw its army restricted
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to just 100 ,000 men with conscription forbidden
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entirely and its navy and air force sharply curtailed.
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France's premier, Georges Clemenceau, pressed
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strongly for substantial German reparations and
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restrictions designed to protect France from
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a rapid German economic and military recovery
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that might. within a generation produce a renewed
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war against France. At the treaty center sat
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Article 231, popularly known as the War Guilt
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Clause. The clause did not, in its legal text,
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use the word guilt at all. It was drafted and
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understood by the Allied negotiators who wrote
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it, primarily as a legal mechanism to establish
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the responsibility of Germany and her Allies
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for reparations payments, rather than as a moral
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condemnation of Germany alone. To the German
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public, and much of the German political class,
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however, the distinction meant little, and Article
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231's address to Germany specifically as the
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party accepting responsibility on the Central
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Powers' behalf reinforced this impression. The
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clause was overwhelmingly experienced and interpreted
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within Germany as a direct humiliating declaration
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that Germany alone bore responsibility for a
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war that had, in reality, involved a complex
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web of alliances, mobilizations and miscalculations
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across the whole of Europe. Chapter 4. A Debt
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Without an End The reparations bill that followed
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from Article 231 was immense, at least on paper.
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A reparations commission convened in 1921 fixed
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Germany's headline reparations liability at 132
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billion gold marks, which is around 33 billion
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US dollars at the time. Germany was immediately
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expected to service A and B bonds totaling 50
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billion gold marks. A further 82 billion consisted
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of contingent C bonds whose payment depended
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on Germany's future economic capacity. The politically
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explosive headline figure was therefore considerably
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larger than the burden Allied governments had
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realistically expected Germany to meet immediately,
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though the full 132 billion figure still became
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politically explosive within Germany the moment
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it was announced. The British economist John
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Maynard Keynes, who had personally attended the
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Paris peace negotiations as a Treasury representative
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before resigning in protest, published a scathing
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critique of the settlement the same year the
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treaty was signed. Keynes' assessment, still
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widely cited by most historians studying the
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treaty's economic consequences, was as blunt
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as it was direct. He said, I believe that the
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campaign for securing out of Germany the general
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cost of the war was one of the most serious acts
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of political unwisdom for which our statesmen
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have ever been responsible. Keynes' interpretation
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became significantly influential, and the combination
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of territorial loss military humiliation, and
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an open -ended reparations burden produced the
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kind of deep, lasting German resentment that
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most historians have consistently identified
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as fertile grounds for extremist political movements.
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Later historians, however, have challenged Keynes'
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conclusion that the reparations settlement was
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economically impossible or sufficient to explain
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Germany's later collapse. Sally Marks has argued
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the treaty was more workable and less economically
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crushing than its later reputation has suggested,
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and that reparations alone cannot carry the causal
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weight traditionally placed upon them. It would
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be an oversimplification to treat the treaty
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as a single sufficient cause of everything that
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followed. Historian Michael Nieberg cautioned
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against this monocausal explanation, pointing
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instead to a wider set of contributing factors.
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including the United States' refusal to join
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the League of Nations it had done so much to
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create and the rise of Stalin's regime in the
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Soviet Union. Nieberg's account of German reaction
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to the treaty allocation of blame is interesting.
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He said, to most Germans in 1919, and not just
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those on the right, blaming Germany specifically
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for the war made absolutely no sense. Nieburg's
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broader point is that the post -war treaties
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collectively redrew the map of Europe in ways
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that created their own new instabilities, replacing
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a smaller number of great powers with a considerably
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larger number of smaller, more fragile states,
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several of them, including Czechoslovakia and
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Poland, carved in part from the wreckage of the
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formal Austro -Hungarian Empire. This reshaping
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of the European map and the resentment it produced
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across multiple nations rather than Germany alone,
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forms an essential part of the backdrop against
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which the following decade and a half of European
00:13:55.889 --> 00:14:00.190
politics unfolded. Chapter 5. A League Without
00:14:00.190 --> 00:14:04.899
Its Author The final, and in many ways bitter
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irony of the Paris Settlement concerned the League
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of Nations, the institution Wilson had fought
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hardest to preserve. Returning home to seek the
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United States Senate's ratification of the treaty,
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Wilson met fierce resistance from Republican
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senators led by Henry Cabot Lodge, the chair
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of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Lodge
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and his allies focused their objections specifically
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on Article 10 of the League's Covenant, the collective
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security provision under which member states
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pledge to defend one another's territorial integrity
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and political independence against all external
00:14:38.730 --> 00:14:41.860
attack. Lodge and other Senators feared this
00:14:41.860 --> 00:14:44.279
commitment might entangle the United States in
00:14:44.279 --> 00:14:46.860
future conflicts and compromise Congress' own
00:14:46.860 --> 00:14:50.500
constitutional control over decisions about war.
00:14:51.259 --> 00:14:53.879
Wilson refused to accept the compromises and
00:14:53.879 --> 00:14:56.919
reservations Lodge's faction demanded, and the
00:14:56.919 --> 00:14:59.679
treaty ultimately failed to secure the two -thirds
00:14:59.679 --> 00:15:03.039
Senate majority required for ratification. The
00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:05.240
United States never joined the League of Nations
00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:08.470
it had proposed and helped design. A significant
00:15:08.470 --> 00:15:11.009
absence from an organization meant to anchor
00:15:11.009 --> 00:15:13.710
collective global security, which contributed
00:15:13.710 --> 00:15:16.389
directly to the League's practical weakness when
00:15:16.389 --> 00:15:18.470
it was actually tested by acts of international
00:15:18.470 --> 00:15:33.710
aggression through the 1930s. By late 1922, Germany
00:15:33.710 --> 00:15:35.990
was already falling behind on the reparations
00:15:35.990 --> 00:15:39.000
payment the Treaty of Versailles required. defaulting
00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:41.679
specifically on deliveries of coal and timber
00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:44.639
owed to France. France and Belgium responded
00:15:44.639 --> 00:15:48.100
on the 11th of January 1923 by sending around
00:15:48.100 --> 00:15:51.799
60 ,000 troops to occupy the Ruhr, Germany's
00:15:51.799 --> 00:15:54.320
principal industrial heartland, seizing control
00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:57.120
of the region's mines, factories and railways
00:15:57.120 --> 00:15:59.799
to extract the resources Germany had failed to
00:15:59.799 --> 00:16:03.149
deliver. France and Belgium argued that Germany's
00:16:03.149 --> 00:16:05.710
default entitled them to impose sanctions under
00:16:05.710 --> 00:16:08.490
the Treaty of Versailles. That legal interpretation
00:16:08.490 --> 00:16:11.789
was contested at the time. Britain, which opposed
00:16:11.789 --> 00:16:14.330
the occupation, argued Versailles authorized
00:16:14.330 --> 00:16:17.029
economic and financial sanctions, but not the
00:16:17.029 --> 00:16:20.649
unilateral military occupation of the Ruhr. The
00:16:20.649 --> 00:16:22.950
German government, led by Chancellor Wilhelm
00:16:22.950 --> 00:16:25.490
Kuhnow, responded by calling on Ruhr workers
00:16:25.490 --> 00:16:28.529
to engage in passive resistance, a coordinated
00:16:28.529 --> 00:16:31.250
general strike intended to deny the occupying
00:16:31.250 --> 00:16:33.970
French and Belgian forces the economic output
00:16:33.970 --> 00:16:36.769
they had come to extract. France and Belgium
00:16:36.769 --> 00:16:38.970
met this resistance by bringing in their own
00:16:38.970 --> 00:16:41.389
replacement workers and arresting German strike
00:16:41.389 --> 00:16:43.970
leaders and police officers, and the resulting
00:16:43.970 --> 00:16:47.259
standoff turned violent. Over the following eight
00:16:47.259 --> 00:16:50.360
months, 130 German civilians were killed by French
00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:53.940
and Belgian troops, and as many as 150 ,000 Germans
00:16:53.940 --> 00:16:56.600
were expelled or deported from the occupied districts.
00:17:03.820 --> 00:17:06.240
To fund both its support for its striking rural
00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:09.180
workers and its own basic governmental obligations
00:17:09.180 --> 00:17:11.440
amid the collapse of its principal industrial
00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:14.640
tax base, the German government resorted to printing
00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:17.380
dramatically increased quantities of paper currency,
00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:20.460
a practice that had already been underway in
00:17:20.460 --> 00:17:23.480
more limited form since the war, but which now
00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:25.859
accelerated into one of the most extreme currency
00:17:25.859 --> 00:17:30.609
collapses in modern economic history. which had
00:17:30.609 --> 00:17:33.009
stood at roughly 4 .2 to the American dollar
00:17:33.009 --> 00:17:36.670
before the First World War, fell to 162 marks
00:17:36.670 --> 00:17:40.470
to the dollar by early 1922, then to more than
00:17:40.470 --> 00:17:42.750
7 ,000 marks to the dollar by the end of that
00:17:42.750 --> 00:17:45.869
year. The collapse that followed the Ruhr occupation
00:17:45.869 --> 00:17:48.509
was of a different order of magnitude entirely.
00:17:49.140 --> 00:17:52.759
The mark fell to 160 ,000 to the dollar by July
00:17:52.759 --> 00:17:57.460
1923, to 242 million to the dollar by October,
00:17:58.329 --> 00:18:01.730
and to an almost incomprehensible 4 .2 trillion
00:18:01.730 --> 00:18:04.450
marks to the dollar by the 20th of November,
00:18:04.750 --> 00:18:09.670
1923. The consequences of this collapse were
00:18:09.670 --> 00:18:13.329
severe. Ordinary Germans were paid daily, sometimes
00:18:13.329 --> 00:18:15.789
twice daily, and they rushed to spend their wages
00:18:15.789 --> 00:18:18.069
before the currency's value eroded even further.
00:18:18.390 --> 00:18:20.589
Something we can see in photographs from the
00:18:20.589 --> 00:18:23.650
time, showing German citizens transporting bundles
00:18:23.650 --> 00:18:26.089
of near -worthless banknotes and wheelbarrows
00:18:26.089 --> 00:18:28.210
to purchase even the most basic of groceries.
00:18:29.549 --> 00:18:32.089
For example, the price of a loaf of bread, which
00:18:32.089 --> 00:18:34.490
had cost a fraction of a single mark before the
00:18:34.490 --> 00:18:38.289
war, reached 201 billion marks by November of
00:18:38.289 --> 00:18:42.329
1923. Ordinary Germans living on fixed incomes,
00:18:42.529 --> 00:18:44.930
particularly pensioners and low -wage earners,
00:18:44.950 --> 00:18:47.490
saw their life savings rendered essentially worthless
00:18:47.490 --> 00:18:50.549
within a matter of months, while some debtors
00:18:50.549 --> 00:18:52.950
and larger landholders benefited from being able
00:18:52.950 --> 00:18:55.630
to discharge long -standing debts in currency
00:18:55.630 --> 00:19:00.349
that had become almost valueless. John Maynard
00:19:00.349 --> 00:19:03.049
Keynes, whose earlier warnings about the reparations
00:19:03.049 --> 00:19:05.789
settlement, continued tracking the crisis closely
00:19:05.789 --> 00:19:10.200
as it unfolded. Writing in mid -1923, Keynes
00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:13.299
identified the Ruhr occupation's economic mechanism.
00:19:13.900 --> 00:19:16.980
He said, the economic effect of the Ruhr occupation
00:19:16.980 --> 00:19:20.339
is cumulative and gets worse by lasting longer,
00:19:20.660 --> 00:19:23.400
mainly because of the enormous expenditure in
00:19:23.400 --> 00:19:25.640
which the support of the Ruhr industrialists
00:19:25.640 --> 00:19:29.519
and workers involves the Berlin government. Chapter
00:19:29.519 --> 00:19:34.920
8. A Failed Pooch and a Lesson Learned The economic
00:19:34.920 --> 00:19:38.440
and political chaos of 1923 provided the backdrop
00:19:38.440 --> 00:19:41.380
against which Adolf Hitler made his first unsuccessful
00:19:41.380 --> 00:19:44.990
attempt to seize national power. On the 8th and
00:19:44.990 --> 00:19:48.630
9th of November of 1923, Hitler and a group of
00:19:48.630 --> 00:19:51.069
armed followers attempted to seize control of
00:19:51.069 --> 00:19:53.609
a Munich Beer Hall meeting attended by senior
00:19:53.609 --> 00:19:56.240
Bavarian government officials. hoping to spark
00:19:56.240 --> 00:19:58.880
a broader march on Berlin, modeled explicitly
00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:02.019
on Mussolini's successful march on Rome the previous
00:20:02.019 --> 00:20:06.000
year. The Ruhr crisis and the accompanying hyperinflation
00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:08.720
were among the many causes of the Beer Hall Putsch,
00:20:08.779 --> 00:20:11.319
which collapsed within a day when Bavarian police
00:20:11.319 --> 00:20:14.400
fired on Hitler's marchers, killing 16 of them
00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:16.880
and leading to Hitler's arrest and eventual trial
00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:20.640
for treason. Hitler served less than nine months
00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:22.640
of a five -year sentence before his release.
00:20:23.279 --> 00:20:25.440
But the failed pooch produced a lasting strategic
00:20:25.440 --> 00:20:28.059
lesson he applied with strong discipline across
00:20:28.059 --> 00:20:30.920
the following decade. Rather than attempting
00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:33.660
to seize power by force again, Hitler committed
00:20:33.660 --> 00:20:36.380
the Nazi party to a path of outwardly constitutional
00:20:36.380 --> 00:20:39.400
political action, building electoral support
00:20:39.400 --> 00:20:42.079
and cultivating alliances with Germany's existing
00:20:42.079 --> 00:20:44.740
conservative establishment, a path that would
00:20:44.740 --> 00:20:46.880
eventually deliver him the office of chancellor
00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:51.119
in January 1933, not through any outright electoral
00:20:51.119 --> 00:20:53.490
mandate, but through a negotiated arrangement
00:20:53.490 --> 00:20:56.289
among conservative elites who believed they could
00:20:56.289 --> 00:21:00.779
contain and control him. Now before we follow
00:21:00.779 --> 00:21:03.579
Hitler into electoral politics, I want to highlight
00:21:03.579 --> 00:21:06.220
that the Depression did not create Nazi ideology.
00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:10.220
Long before 1929, the movement was explicitly
00:21:10.220 --> 00:21:13.619
anti -democratic, ultra -nationalist, racist,
00:21:13.779 --> 00:21:16.539
and anti -Semitic. Hitler and the Nazi party
00:21:16.539 --> 00:21:19.920
already advocated authoritarian government. territorial
00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:23.079
expansion, and the exclusion of Jews from German
00:21:23.079 --> 00:21:26.079
citizenship. What economic catastrophe changed
00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:28.160
was not principally what the Nazis believed,
00:21:28.559 --> 00:21:31.460
it changed how many Germans were prepared to
00:21:31.460 --> 00:21:35.609
listen. The immediate hyperinflation crisis was
00:21:35.609 --> 00:21:38.670
resolved in two distinct stages. First, in November
00:21:38.670 --> 00:21:41.670
of 1923, the German government introduced an
00:21:41.670 --> 00:21:45.089
entirely new currency, the Rentenmark, backed
00:21:45.089 --> 00:21:47.970
not by gold, but by a notional mortgage on German
00:21:47.970 --> 00:21:50.849
industrial and agricultural land. a confidence
00:21:50.849 --> 00:21:52.950
-restoring measure that halted the currency's
00:21:52.950 --> 00:21:55.529
collapse within weeks and remains the immediate
00:21:55.529 --> 00:21:59.069
technical fix for the hyperinflation. Only in
00:21:59.069 --> 00:22:01.509
the following year did the internationally negotiated
00:22:01.509 --> 00:22:05.829
Dawes Plan of 1924 address the reparations and
00:22:05.829 --> 00:22:08.029
international finance dimension of the crisis,
00:22:08.710 --> 00:22:11.170
restructuring Germany's reparation schedule onto
00:22:11.170 --> 00:22:13.670
more sustainable terms and persuading France
00:22:13.670 --> 00:22:16.430
and Belgium to withdraw from the Ruhr by August
00:22:16.430 --> 00:22:20.789
1925. Fiscal reform. The end of passive resistance,
00:22:21.269 --> 00:22:24.329
monetary stabilization, and restored confidence
00:22:24.329 --> 00:22:27.329
all mattered too. The Ruhr crisis nonetheless
00:22:27.329 --> 00:22:30.009
contributed measurably to the growth of radical
00:22:30.009 --> 00:22:32.970
right -wing political movements in Germany, planting
00:22:32.970 --> 00:22:35.529
seeds of public grievance and economic trauma
00:22:35.529 --> 00:22:38.009
that would resurface with even greater political
00:22:38.009 --> 00:22:40.750
force once the Great Depression struck at the
00:22:40.750 --> 00:22:50.880
end of the following decade. The years immediately
00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:54.220
following the 1923 crisis produced what is commonly
00:22:54.220 --> 00:22:57.940
called the Weimar Republic's Golden Age, a period
00:22:57.940 --> 00:23:00.880
of real, if ultimately fragile, recovery closely
00:23:00.880 --> 00:23:03.359
associated with one of the republic's most important
00:23:03.359 --> 00:23:07.079
stabilizing statesmen, Gustav Strassmann, who
00:23:07.079 --> 00:23:09.619
served briefly as chancellor during the hyperinflation
00:23:09.619 --> 00:23:12.700
crisis, overseeing the introduction of the Rettenmark.
00:23:13.180 --> 00:23:15.460
before returning in office as Foreign Minister
00:23:15.460 --> 00:23:19.940
continuously from 1923 until his death in 1929.
00:23:20.900 --> 00:23:23.160
Stresemann's government helped steer Germany
00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:25.460
through acceptance of the American -backed Dawes
00:23:25.460 --> 00:23:29.259
Plan in 1924, restructuring Germany's reparation
00:23:29.259 --> 00:23:31.660
schedules and stabilizing the country's finances
00:23:31.660 --> 00:23:35.519
more widely. This was followed in October 1925
00:23:35.519 --> 00:23:38.200
by the Locarno Treaties, which were a set of
00:23:38.200 --> 00:23:40.880
agreements with France, Belgium, Britain, and
00:23:40.880 --> 00:23:44.289
Italy. Negotiated through German, British, French,
00:23:44.450 --> 00:23:47.289
and American diplomacy was Stresemann playing
00:23:47.289 --> 00:23:50.230
a major role, under which Germany formally accepted
00:23:50.230 --> 00:23:52.950
its western borders and pledged to resolve future
00:23:52.950 --> 00:23:56.730
disputes peacefully rather than by force. The
00:23:56.730 --> 00:23:59.170
Locarno Treaty's significance extended beyond
00:23:59.170 --> 00:24:02.470
just territorial provisions. The agreement was
00:24:02.470 --> 00:24:04.670
hailed internationally as proof that Germany
00:24:04.670 --> 00:24:06.890
was becoming a respected member of the international
00:24:06.890 --> 00:24:10.130
community once again. and it directly paved the
00:24:10.130 --> 00:24:12.410
way for Germany's admission to the League of
00:24:12.410 --> 00:24:15.009
Nations, with a permanent seat on its governing
00:24:15.009 --> 00:24:19.119
council in September of 1926. This was a remarkable
00:24:19.119 --> 00:24:21.660
turnaround for a nation that barely seven years
00:24:21.660 --> 00:24:24.099
earlier had been excluded from the League entirely
00:24:24.099 --> 00:24:27.079
as a defeated aggressor of the First World War.
00:24:27.839 --> 00:24:30.799
Historian David T. Murphy described the difficult
00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:33.599
domestic political environment in which Stresemann
00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:37.539
achieved these results. Murphy says, Stresemann,
00:24:37.599 --> 00:24:39.980
as the chief architect of German foreign policy
00:24:39.980 --> 00:24:42.779
for the better part of a decade, was acutely
00:24:42.779 --> 00:24:45.500
conscious of the constrictions imposed upon him
00:24:45.500 --> 00:24:50.109
by this volatility of public opinion. Economically,
00:24:50.130 --> 00:24:53.690
the period from 1925 up until the end of 1928
00:24:53.690 --> 00:24:57.640
saw measurable prosperity. German industry was
00:24:57.640 --> 00:25:00.279
substantially re -equipped, industrial production
00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:04.099
boomed, wages rose, and unemployment fell substantially.
00:25:04.730 --> 00:25:08.289
averaging around 1 .5 million during 1927 and
00:25:08.289 --> 00:25:12.490
falling further during parts of 1928. These statistics
00:25:12.490 --> 00:25:15.190
are going to be in stark contrast to the 6 million
00:25:15.190 --> 00:25:17.670
Germans who will later become unemployed during
00:25:17.670 --> 00:25:20.720
the Depression's peak. This recovery, however,
00:25:20.940 --> 00:25:24.079
rested on a foundation that was precarious. It
00:25:24.079 --> 00:25:26.180
was financed substantially through short -term
00:25:26.180 --> 00:25:29.279
foreign loans, which were overwhelmingly American
00:25:29.279 --> 00:25:32.359
in origin. They were extended to German banks
00:25:32.359 --> 00:25:34.440
and municipalities on the assumption that the
00:25:34.440 --> 00:25:37.240
underlying American economy and the flow of American
00:25:37.240 --> 00:25:40.859
capital would continue indefinitely. When the
00:25:40.859 --> 00:25:44.400
Wall Street crash of October 1929 abruptly ended
00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:47.440
that flow of capital, German banks calling in
00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:49.880
loans and foreign leaders withdrawing their own
00:25:49.880 --> 00:25:53.099
capital simultaneously, the Golden Age's foundations
00:25:53.099 --> 00:25:57.500
collapsed within months. Thresman himself died
00:25:57.500 --> 00:26:01.529
suddenly on the 3rd of October 1929. just three
00:26:01.529 --> 00:26:03.910
weeks before Black Thursday and the Wall Street
00:26:03.910 --> 00:26:07.369
crash that followed on the 24th and 29th of October.
00:26:07.930 --> 00:26:10.990
His death removed on the eve of the crisis that
00:26:10.990 --> 00:26:13.650
would engulf German politics within weeks, one
00:26:13.650 --> 00:26:16.089
of Weimar Germany's most important advocates
00:26:16.089 --> 00:26:18.990
of political moderation and international reconciliation.
00:26:20.009 --> 00:26:22.710
As a ripple effect, this would become an extraordinarily
00:26:22.710 --> 00:26:25.950
unfortunate moment as his death occurred just
00:26:25.950 --> 00:26:28.250
as the Communist Party was pulling from one side
00:26:28.250 --> 00:26:31.549
and the Nazi Party from the other. Looking back,
00:26:31.589 --> 00:26:34.109
we can now see how consequential and unfortunate
00:26:34.109 --> 00:26:40.890
this coincidence of timing would become. While
00:26:40.890 --> 00:26:49.089
the Paris Peace Conference was still being negotiated,
00:26:49.549 --> 00:26:52.549
an entirely separate upheaval was already reshaping
00:26:52.549 --> 00:26:54.869
the political calculations of every government
00:26:54.869 --> 00:26:59.609
in Europe. The Russian Revolution of 1917 Both
00:26:59.609 --> 00:27:02.029
the February Revolution that toppled the centuries
00:27:02.029 --> 00:27:05.190
-old rule of the Romanov dynasty, followed by
00:27:05.190 --> 00:27:07.609
the more radical October Revolution that brought
00:27:07.609 --> 00:27:10.890
Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik party to power, had,
00:27:11.150 --> 00:27:13.670
by the time the Versailles negotiators sat down
00:27:13.670 --> 00:27:17.309
in 1919, already plunged Russia into a brutal
00:27:17.309 --> 00:27:20.029
civil war and produced the world's first successful
00:27:20.029 --> 00:27:23.589
Marxist state, which in 1922 would become the
00:27:23.589 --> 00:27:26.819
Soviet Union. The new Soviet state's sweeping
00:27:26.819 --> 00:27:30.319
social, political, and economic reforms unsettled
00:27:30.319 --> 00:27:32.819
Western democratic governments profoundly in
00:27:32.819 --> 00:27:35.279
the years that followed. Not only because of
00:27:35.279 --> 00:27:37.619
what was happening inside Russia's borders, but
00:27:37.619 --> 00:27:40.180
because Lenin's Bolshevik government openly proclaimed
00:27:40.180 --> 00:27:42.599
its ambition to spread revolution internationally,
00:27:43.099 --> 00:27:46.299
presenting itself as a model other nations' working
00:27:46.299 --> 00:27:50.039
class might follow. This fear of contagion shaped
00:27:50.039 --> 00:27:52.700
Western governments' calculations for the next
00:27:52.700 --> 00:27:56.660
two decades. Fear of communism became one significant
00:27:56.660 --> 00:27:59.319
factor which shaped Western policy across the
00:27:59.319 --> 00:28:03.259
1920s and 1930s. It made some conservative politicians
00:28:03.259 --> 00:28:05.960
much more receptive to right -wing authoritarian
00:28:05.960 --> 00:28:09.119
regimes, including Adolf Hitler and the Nazi
00:28:09.119 --> 00:28:12.319
Party. And crucially, it contributed to distrust
00:28:12.319 --> 00:28:15.019
of the Soviet Union as a potential ally against
00:28:15.019 --> 00:28:18.500
Hitler later in the 1930s. But it was not the
00:28:18.500 --> 00:28:21.150
only cause of future appeasement. which was also
00:28:21.150 --> 00:28:23.650
reflected in lingering memories of the First
00:28:23.650 --> 00:28:26.930
World War slaughter, significant doubts about
00:28:26.930 --> 00:28:30.309
British and French military preparedness, European
00:28:30.309 --> 00:28:33.789
economic weakness, competing imperial commitments,
00:28:34.170 --> 00:28:37.650
American isolationism, and a belief amongst some
00:28:37.650 --> 00:28:39.970
Western leaders that some of the German revisions
00:28:39.970 --> 00:28:42.730
of Versailles were actually legitimate. Anti
00:28:42.730 --> 00:28:45.089
-communism was not the single explanation for
00:28:45.089 --> 00:28:47.720
appeasement. but it did form an important part
00:28:47.720 --> 00:28:50.099
of the political environment in which appeasement
00:28:50.099 --> 00:28:54.380
actually developed. Chapter 11. An Anxiety with
00:28:54.380 --> 00:28:58.529
Real Consequences This anxiety about communism's
00:28:58.529 --> 00:29:00.990
spread was not confined to abstract diplomatic
00:29:00.990 --> 00:29:04.809
calculation. Communist uprisings did occur elsewhere
00:29:04.809 --> 00:29:06.970
in Europe in the years immediately following
00:29:06.970 --> 00:29:09.809
the Russian Revolution, including short -lived
00:29:09.809 --> 00:29:12.829
attempts in Germany and Hungary, and though each
00:29:12.829 --> 00:29:15.329
was eventually suppressed, their occurrence confirmed
00:29:15.930 --> 00:29:18.150
at least in the minds of many conservative and
00:29:18.150 --> 00:29:21.089
centrist European politicians, that the Bolshevik
00:29:21.089 --> 00:29:23.789
model represented an act of threat rather than
00:29:23.789 --> 00:29:27.109
a distant curiosity confined just within Russia's
00:29:27.109 --> 00:29:30.150
own borders. Now this fear ran directly alongside,
00:29:30.430 --> 00:29:32.890
and I guess in some respects reinforced, the
00:29:32.890 --> 00:29:36.069
economic anxieties of a Europe already destabilized
00:29:36.069 --> 00:29:37.869
by the Great Depression's mass unemployment.
00:29:38.890 --> 00:29:41.630
And this proved, in Germany specifically, to
00:29:41.630 --> 00:29:44.190
be a Europe in which both communist and fascist
00:29:44.190 --> 00:29:46.910
movements found fertile political grounds simultaneously,
00:29:47.529 --> 00:29:50.269
each presenting itself to different constituencies
00:29:50.269 --> 00:29:53.049
as the only effective bulwark against the other.
00:29:53.690 --> 00:29:56.109
Germany's Communist Party also grew substantially
00:29:56.109 --> 00:29:58.750
during the Depression years alongside the rise
00:29:58.750 --> 00:30:01.509
of the Nazi Party, and the visible strength of
00:30:01.509 --> 00:30:03.630
the German Communist vote is one of the factors
00:30:03.630 --> 00:30:06.390
explaining why conservative elites preferred
00:30:06.390 --> 00:30:08.920
to see Hitler brought into government. rather
00:30:08.920 --> 00:30:20.109
than risk a further communist advance. The Weimar
00:30:21.549 --> 00:30:24.490
Republic, Germany's fragile democratic government,
00:30:24.609 --> 00:30:26.450
which was established in the aftermath of the
00:30:26.450 --> 00:30:29.970
Kaiser's abdication in 1918, had, by the late
00:30:29.970 --> 00:30:33.190
1920s, achieved a period of relative yet precarious
00:30:33.190 --> 00:30:36.420
economic stability. This period of comparative
00:30:36.420 --> 00:30:39.839
calm ended in late 1929 when a global economic
00:30:39.839 --> 00:30:43.319
contraction, intensifying sharply after the American
00:30:43.319 --> 00:30:46.079
stock market crash of October that year, struck
00:30:46.079 --> 00:30:48.440
the German economy with severity because the
00:30:48.440 --> 00:30:50.960
previous five years' recovery had depended so
00:30:50.960 --> 00:30:53.640
heavily on short -term American loans and foreign
00:30:53.640 --> 00:30:57.200
investment. Unemployment rose rapidly. Banks
00:30:57.200 --> 00:30:59.720
began to fail, and the fragile coalition governments
00:30:59.720 --> 00:31:02.339
that had managed to govern Weimar Germany through
00:31:02.339 --> 00:31:05.500
the 1920s find themselves unable to agree on
00:31:05.500 --> 00:31:09.599
a coherent policy response. As we've mentioned
00:31:09.599 --> 00:31:11.619
sort of leading up to this moment, the scale
00:31:11.619 --> 00:31:14.039
of the resulting economic collapse was severe.
00:31:14.700 --> 00:31:17.160
Germany's unemployment rate reached approximately
00:31:17.160 --> 00:31:22.019
30 % at its peak in 1932 and 1933, with close
00:31:22.019 --> 00:31:25.079
to 6 million Germans out of work. The number
00:31:25.079 --> 00:31:27.119
of Germans in full -time employment fell from
00:31:27.119 --> 00:31:31.000
20 million in mid -1929 to just 11 .5 million
00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:34.519
by January of 1933, a catastrophic contraction
00:31:34.519 --> 00:31:37.519
in the space of less than four years, striking
00:31:37.519 --> 00:31:40.059
a nation whose political institutions were still
00:31:40.059 --> 00:31:42.799
carrying the deep resentments left by the Versailles
00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:51.119
settlement barely a decade earlier. The Nazi
00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:53.559
party's electoral fortunes rose dramatically
00:31:53.559 --> 00:31:56.740
as Germany's economic and political crisis deepened.
00:31:57.059 --> 00:32:00.559
The party won just 12 seats in the 1928 Reichstag
00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:03.099
elections, a marginal political force at that
00:32:03.099 --> 00:32:06.380
point. But by September 1930, with the depression's
00:32:06.380 --> 00:32:08.759
effects now fully evident across German society,
00:32:09.220 --> 00:32:12.380
the Nazi party won 18 % of the national vote,
00:32:12.539 --> 00:32:14.880
becoming virtually overnight the second largest
00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:17.680
party in the German parliament. a result which
00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:19.579
sent shockwaves throughout the German political
00:32:19.579 --> 00:32:22.559
establishment, many of whom had not anticipated
00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:26.630
the scale of the shift. Even Adolf Hitler was
00:32:26.630 --> 00:32:28.789
entirely open and private about how directly
00:32:28.789 --> 00:32:31.109
his party's fortune depended on the nation's
00:32:31.109 --> 00:32:34.069
economic suffering. He said, Never in my life
00:32:34.069 --> 00:32:37.309
have I been so well disposed and inwardly contented
00:32:37.309 --> 00:32:39.950
as in these days, for hard reality has opened
00:32:39.950 --> 00:32:43.869
the eyes of millions of Germans. And by July
00:32:43.869 --> 00:32:47.990
1932, the Nazi party had won 230 seats in the
00:32:47.990 --> 00:32:50.789
Reichstag, more than any single party had won
00:32:50.789 --> 00:32:53.250
at any previous point during the entire Weimar
00:32:53.250 --> 00:32:56.009
period, though still short of an outright majority.
00:32:56.890 --> 00:32:59.269
A succession of short -lived chancellors appointed
00:32:59.269 --> 00:33:01.809
and dismissed by an aging President Paul von
00:33:01.809 --> 00:33:04.450
Hindenburg, exercising emergency constitutional
00:33:04.450 --> 00:33:07.829
powers, proved unable to build a stable governing
00:33:07.829 --> 00:33:10.730
coalition capable of managing the ongoing economic
00:33:10.730 --> 00:33:13.789
crisis or containing the Nazi Party's continued
00:33:13.789 --> 00:33:17.369
growth. Chancellor Heinrich Brüning, appointed
00:33:17.369 --> 00:33:20.210
in 1930, attempted to manage the crisis through
00:33:20.210 --> 00:33:23.089
austerity, cutting government spending and raising
00:33:23.089 --> 00:33:26.829
taxes, a policy that Whatever its economic logic,
00:33:27.029 --> 00:33:29.930
only deepened public suffering and further eroded
00:33:29.930 --> 00:33:32.430
support for the moderate political center in
00:33:32.430 --> 00:33:34.849
the years immediately preceding Hitler's appointment.
00:33:39.930 --> 00:33:49.240
The Nazi rise did not, however, continue uninterrupted.
00:33:49.640 --> 00:33:52.799
In a future Reichstag election in November 1932,
00:33:53.059 --> 00:33:55.660
the party lost around 2 million votes, falling
00:33:55.660 --> 00:34:00.059
from 37 % to 33 % of the national vote and from
00:34:00.059 --> 00:34:04.599
230 seats to 196. The Nazi party remained the
00:34:04.599 --> 00:34:07.140
largest single party in the Reichstag, but the
00:34:07.140 --> 00:34:09.380
setback punctured the appearance that Hitler's
00:34:09.380 --> 00:34:12.500
electoral rise had been unstoppable and was widely
00:34:12.500 --> 00:34:15.340
seen at the time, including within the Nazi movement,
00:34:15.559 --> 00:34:18.949
as a setback provoking internal pessimism. That
00:34:18.949 --> 00:34:21.550
change makes what happened only weeks later even
00:34:21.550 --> 00:34:24.230
more consequential. Hitler did not enter the
00:34:24.230 --> 00:34:26.570
chancellery at the peak of an irresistible electoral
00:34:26.570 --> 00:34:29.750
surge, but through political negotiations among
00:34:29.750 --> 00:34:32.309
conservative elites after his own party's momentum
00:34:32.309 --> 00:34:36.150
had stalled. Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor
00:34:36.150 --> 00:34:40.909
of Germany on the 30th of January 1933. Not through
00:34:40.909 --> 00:34:43.429
an electoral majority, which the Nazi party had
00:34:43.429 --> 00:34:45.929
never achieved in any free national election,
00:34:46.539 --> 00:34:48.579
but through a political deal negotiated among
00:34:48.579 --> 00:34:50.960
Germany's conservative political establishment.
00:34:51.559 --> 00:34:53.880
Conservative politicians surrounding President
00:34:53.880 --> 00:34:56.539
Hindenburg calculated that Hitler could be managed
00:34:56.539 --> 00:34:59.480
and contained within a coalition cabinet in which
00:34:59.480 --> 00:35:02.019
Nazi ministers held only a minority of positions,
00:35:02.260 --> 00:35:05.920
a serious miscalculation that would prove, within
00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:08.500
a very, very short period of time, to have handed
00:35:08.500 --> 00:35:10.840
Hitler the formal legal authority he required
00:35:10.840 --> 00:35:14.159
to begin dismantling German democracy from within.
00:35:15.110 --> 00:35:17.909
Hitler moved with speed to consolidate this initial
00:35:17.909 --> 00:35:21.489
precarious position into absolute power. The
00:35:21.489 --> 00:35:24.610
Reichstag fire of the 27th of February 1933,
00:35:25.489 --> 00:35:28.349
whatever its still historically debated origins,
00:35:28.510 --> 00:35:31.409
provided the pretext for the Reichstag fire decree,
00:35:31.789 --> 00:35:34.510
suspending numerous civil liberties and enabling
00:35:34.510 --> 00:35:37.090
the mass arrest of Communist Party members and
00:35:37.090 --> 00:35:39.269
other political opponents ahead of new elections
00:35:39.269 --> 00:35:42.530
held on the 5th of March. The Nazi party gained
00:35:42.530 --> 00:35:45.289
roughly 5 million additional votes compared with
00:35:45.289 --> 00:35:47.969
the previous election, but still fell short of
00:35:47.969 --> 00:35:50.570
a parliamentary majority, remaining dependent
00:35:50.570 --> 00:35:53.070
on its coalition partner, the German National
00:35:53.070 --> 00:35:55.590
People's Party, for a combined working majority.
00:35:56.210 --> 00:35:59.250
The subsequent enabling act, formally titled
00:35:59.250 --> 00:36:01.949
the Law to Remedy the Distress of People and
00:36:01.949 --> 00:36:04.789
Reich, was put to the Reichstag on the 23rd of
00:36:04.789 --> 00:36:08.849
March in 1933. They met in the Kroll Opera House
00:36:08.849 --> 00:36:11.070
after the fire -damaged Reichstag building still
00:36:11.070 --> 00:36:14.489
remained unusable. Passage required a two -thirds
00:36:14.489 --> 00:36:16.769
majority and Hitler's government secured it through
00:36:16.769 --> 00:36:19.389
a combination of exclusion and intimidation.
00:36:19.829 --> 00:36:23.889
All 81 communist deputies and 26 of the 120 social
00:36:23.889 --> 00:36:26.889
democrat deputies were also unable to attend,
00:36:27.110 --> 00:36:29.989
having been arrested or having fled Nazi persecution.
00:36:30.690 --> 00:36:34.090
Others detained under what the Nazi regime euphemistically
00:36:34.090 --> 00:36:38.239
termed protective custody. while SA and SS paramilitary
00:36:38.239 --> 00:36:40.739
members were stationed outside the chamber itself,
00:36:41.059 --> 00:36:43.599
specifically to intimidate the remaining representatives
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:47.769
into compliance. Otto Wells, chairing the Social
00:36:47.769 --> 00:36:50.690
Democratic Party, nonetheless rose to speak against
00:36:50.690 --> 00:36:54.369
the bill, the only party leader to do so. He
00:36:54.369 --> 00:36:56.570
attacked it for crushing what he described as
00:36:56.570 --> 00:37:00.230
the eternal ideas of democracy and freedom. His
00:37:00.230 --> 00:37:02.929
party's opposition proved isolated. When the
00:37:02.929 --> 00:37:06.230
final vote was tallied, 444 deputies had voted
00:37:06.230 --> 00:37:10.250
in favor and just 94, all of them social democrats,
00:37:10.449 --> 00:37:13.710
against. Germany's fragile constitutional order
00:37:13.710 --> 00:37:16.389
had been dismantled by an overwhelmingly, if
00:37:16.389 --> 00:37:19.329
coerced, majority. The legal mechanism through
00:37:19.329 --> 00:37:21.969
which Germany's democracy was formally, if not
00:37:21.969 --> 00:37:24.769
yet completely, ended within the first two months
00:37:24.769 --> 00:37:28.780
of Hitler's chancellorship. Chapter 15. A Government
00:37:28.780 --> 00:37:32.969
Lucky in Its Timing Hitler's early consolidation
00:37:32.969 --> 00:37:35.570
of power was assisted by an economic recovery
00:37:35.570 --> 00:37:38.389
already underway by the time he had taken office.
00:37:38.829 --> 00:37:41.429
According to historian Richard Evans, the timing
00:37:41.429 --> 00:37:43.510
of Hitler's appointment carried fortunate political
00:37:43.510 --> 00:37:46.849
advantage. And he says it quite simply, Hitler's
00:37:46.849 --> 00:37:50.860
government was lucky in its timing. Evans' fuller
00:37:50.860 --> 00:37:53.079
argument holds that a range of economic recovery
00:37:53.079 --> 00:37:56.079
programs had already begun under Hitler's immediate
00:37:56.079 --> 00:37:59.460
predecessors as Chancellor. And they were, by
00:37:59.460 --> 00:38:01.579
sheer coincidence of timing, finally beginning
00:38:01.579 --> 00:38:04.519
to reduce German unemployment at almost the moment
00:38:04.519 --> 00:38:07.880
Hitler had assumed office. This allowed the Nazi
00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:10.780
regime to claim credit for a recovery whose earliest
00:38:10.780 --> 00:38:13.400
foundations had already begun before Hitler had
00:38:13.400 --> 00:38:17.079
even assumed office. This gave the regime unusually
00:38:17.079 --> 00:38:20.000
favorable timing with Nazi public works, state
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:23.260
intervention, and increasingly rearmament, then
00:38:23.260 --> 00:38:25.840
accelerating and reshaping that recovery considerably
00:38:25.840 --> 00:38:29.030
further. The Nazi government reinforced this
00:38:29.030 --> 00:38:31.570
favorable narrative through direct public statement
00:38:31.570 --> 00:38:34.329
and through what Evans also describes as active
00:38:34.329 --> 00:38:36.710
manipulation of official unemployment statistics
00:38:36.710 --> 00:38:39.929
alongside new initiatives including public works
00:38:39.929 --> 00:38:42.969
programs, marriage loans, and employment policies
00:38:42.969 --> 00:38:45.710
encouraging women to leave paid work, serving
00:38:45.710 --> 00:38:48.789
both the regime's own pronatalist ideology and
00:38:48.789 --> 00:38:51.130
its efforts to reduce visible male unemployment.
00:38:52.329 --> 00:38:54.809
Whatever the precise mixture of authentic policy
00:38:54.809 --> 00:38:58.190
success and fortunate timing, the practical political
00:38:58.190 --> 00:39:01.510
effect was substantial. A German public exhausted
00:39:01.510 --> 00:39:04.190
by more than three years of economic catastrophe
00:39:04.190 --> 00:39:07.110
increasingly credited the new Nazi government
00:39:07.110 --> 00:39:09.449
with delivering the recovery earlier governments
00:39:09.449 --> 00:39:12.570
had proven unable to achieve, providing the kind
00:39:12.570 --> 00:39:15.269
of sustained public support Hitler's regime needed
00:39:15.269 --> 00:39:17.989
to complete its consolidation of totalitarian
00:39:17.989 --> 00:39:21.380
power across the following 18 months. By the
00:39:21.380 --> 00:39:24.639
summer of 1933, every political party other than
00:39:24.639 --> 00:39:27.139
the Nazi Party had been formally dissolved or
00:39:27.139 --> 00:39:29.679
banned, and independent trade unions had been
00:39:29.679 --> 00:39:32.780
abolished. President Hindenburg's death in August
00:39:32.780 --> 00:39:36.119
of 1934 removed the last constitutional office
00:39:36.119 --> 00:39:39.059
still formally standing above Hitler, an aging
00:39:39.059 --> 00:39:41.880
president who had, by this point, already signed
00:39:41.880 --> 00:39:44.739
the Reichstag Fire Decree, appointed Hitler in
00:39:44.739 --> 00:39:47.059
the first place, and offered very little resistance
00:39:47.059 --> 00:39:50.070
of his own. Hitler moved immediately to merge
00:39:50.070 --> 00:39:52.329
the offices of Chancellor and President into
00:39:52.329 --> 00:39:56.130
a single position, the Fuhrer of Germany, confirmed
00:39:56.130 --> 00:39:58.610
by a subsequent national plebiscite conducted
00:39:58.610 --> 00:40:01.389
under conditions that left German voters little
00:40:01.389 --> 00:40:08.179
actual freedom to dissent. Let's consider the
00:40:08.179 --> 00:40:10.719
interlocking chain of causation that we've traced
00:40:10.719 --> 00:40:13.800
across 15 years, or what I like to call ripple
00:40:13.800 --> 00:40:17.469
effects. An American president's idealistic vision
00:40:17.469 --> 00:40:20.170
for a just peace, built on collective security
00:40:20.170 --> 00:40:23.289
and national self -determination, survived the
00:40:23.289 --> 00:40:26.170
Paris negotiations in only partial, compromised
00:40:26.170 --> 00:40:29.309
form, preserved just enough in the League of
00:40:29.309 --> 00:40:32.230
Nations to leave the world believing a new mechanism
00:40:32.230 --> 00:40:35.949
preventing war now existed, while the same treaty's
00:40:35.949 --> 00:40:38.610
punitive terms and the United States' refusal
00:40:38.610 --> 00:40:41.570
to join the League ensured that mechanism would
00:40:41.570 --> 00:40:44.909
prove dangerously weak when it was tested. A
00:40:44.909 --> 00:40:47.170
revolution in Russia produced not only a new
00:40:47.170 --> 00:40:50.070
communist state, but a lasting Western fear of
00:40:50.070 --> 00:40:52.690
ideological contagion that would, across the
00:40:52.690 --> 00:40:55.269
following two decades, make Western governments
00:40:55.269 --> 00:40:57.489
reluctant to confront right -wing authoritarian
00:40:57.489 --> 00:41:01.539
movements they viewed as a lesser evil. And an
00:41:01.539 --> 00:41:04.119
economic catastrophe originating on the other
00:41:04.119 --> 00:41:06.280
side of the Atlantic Ocean struck an already
00:41:06.280 --> 00:41:09.400
politically fragile Germany. with such severity
00:41:09.400 --> 00:41:12.199
that within barely three years, it transformed
00:41:12.199 --> 00:41:15.340
a marginal extremist party into the second largest
00:41:15.340 --> 00:41:18.440
force in German politics, and within three more
00:41:18.440 --> 00:41:21.619
years, into the sole legal party of a one -party
00:41:21.619 --> 00:41:26.610
state. None of these forces, the Compromise Peace,
00:41:26.949 --> 00:41:30.409
the Revolution, or the Depression, operated in
00:41:30.409 --> 00:41:33.510
isolation from the others. Each compounded the
00:41:33.510 --> 00:41:36.710
instability the others had already created, producing,
00:41:37.030 --> 00:41:40.730
by January of 1933, a Germany in which authoritarian
00:41:40.730 --> 00:41:43.590
consolidation had become a real possibility,
00:41:44.030 --> 00:41:47.409
inside a wider European and global order whose
00:41:47.409 --> 00:41:49.590
principal instrument for preventing future war
00:41:49.590 --> 00:41:52.030
had already been structurally weakened by the
00:41:52.030 --> 00:41:54.769
absence of the United States and by the limits
00:41:54.769 --> 00:41:59.110
of collective security enforcement. The Strassmann
00:41:59.110 --> 00:42:03.050
period of 1924 to 1929 shows that this catastrophic
00:42:03.050 --> 00:42:06.090
outcome was never the only possible path available
00:42:06.090 --> 00:42:10.369
to interwar Germany. Real diplomatic reconciliation,
00:42:10.989 --> 00:42:14.309
real economic recovery, and real international
00:42:14.309 --> 00:42:17.070
reintegration were all achieved within less than
00:42:17.070 --> 00:42:19.449
a decade of the hyperinflation crisis' worst
00:42:19.449 --> 00:42:22.650
moments. Proof that the deep resentment Versailles
00:42:22.650 --> 00:42:25.630
had created were not, on their own, sufficient
00:42:25.630 --> 00:42:28.289
to guarantee the catastrophe that ultimately
00:42:28.289 --> 00:42:31.610
followed. The depression transformed the political
00:42:31.610 --> 00:42:34.369
possibilities. It did not decide the outcome.
00:42:35.050 --> 00:42:37.590
Economic collapse gave extremist movements an
00:42:37.590 --> 00:42:40.889
audience they had previously lacked. Nazi organization,
00:42:41.349 --> 00:42:43.590
propaganda, and political violence converted
00:42:43.590 --> 00:42:46.630
crisis into support, and finally the choices
00:42:46.630 --> 00:42:49.190
of a small circle around Hindenburg converted
00:42:49.190 --> 00:42:52.050
Hitler's electoral strength into executive power.
00:42:52.690 --> 00:42:55.650
What Hitler's Nazi regime did with that power,
00:42:55.730 --> 00:42:58.750
it had now fully secured, and how the wider world
00:42:58.750 --> 00:43:02.579
responded, or failed to respond, to the escalating
00:43:02.579 --> 00:43:04.940
series of crises that followed across the remainder
00:43:04.940 --> 00:43:08.159
of the 1930s is what I'd like to turn to next.
00:43:11.039 --> 00:43:14.099
That's the end of episode one of our series on
00:43:14.099 --> 00:43:17.300
World War II. In our next episode, we trace the
00:43:17.300 --> 00:43:19.440
chain of events from the Japanese invasion of
00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:21.900
Manchuria through to the attack on Pearl Harbor
00:43:21.900 --> 00:43:25.420
that turned a fragile, uneasy peace into a second
00:43:25.420 --> 00:43:28.119
global war, and we'll examine why the League
00:43:28.119 --> 00:43:30.679
of Nations and the policy of appeasement both
00:43:30.679 --> 00:43:33.760
failed to stop it. I'm David Albano, and I want
00:43:33.760 --> 00:43:34.780
to thank you for listening.