The end of World War I in 1914 was one of the first great struggles that
Germany was about to face. While the war
was not fought on their soil and therefore did not create much damage to their
physical homeland, the damage done to their pocket books very great. After losing this war, the Allies were making
the Germans pay. They were forced to
give up a great deal of their land, and the requirements for demilitarization
left them with an army that was more like a police force that left Germany
incapable of defending itself (203).
This caused them much despair.
Not only were they attempting to recover from the war, but they were in
the midst of building their government, the Weimar democracy. However, due to the fact that the democracy
emerged, not as the product of an elected parliament and strong political
parties, but of a general staff at its wits’ end, and that it came into being
at the worst time, this democracy was not able to last for very long (197).
This once again left Germany lost and looking for a place to turn. It was often difficult for Germany to form an
identity because they were so often thrown around from government to
government, and the consistency they had once had as small individual states
was long gone. They were looking for something
that could give them consistency once again.
This is where the Nationalist Socialist party stepped in. It was quite easy for them to gain
power in
Germany because the people were so lost and looking for a leader. The things that the Nationalist Socialist
party talked about sounded very good to the Germans because at this time, they
had practically nothing. However, this
government was not all that they appeared to be. While Adolf Hitler truly did want Germany to
be successful, his tactics were far too extreme and created massive issues that
the entire world was offended by. This
is how the Second World War began. The
Germans, still trying to find their identity as a country, went along with the
things that Hitler did without much resistance. Although Germany put up a large fight, they
ultimately lost the war, and their leader committed suicide. They were once again left a broken country
with an identity crisis. They now had to
deal with the moral destruction wrought by the violent dictatorship, the war,
and full knowledge of the horrors of the mass murders committed in the
extermination camps, and somehow come back from this and form a functional
country (287). Additionally, Germany was
divided up into four parts after the Second World War ended, which made it hard
for Germans to form their own identities again because they were being ruled by
people who were not German. Each section was telling them how to run
their government, and putting the people they wanted into power there.
While all this was happening, the German people were scavenging for food
because there was such a shortage of the most basic goods, clothing, and
especially food (286). "Whether Germany even still existed as a
nation state was an open question, but one to which most Germans were heartily
indifferent. Surviving to the next day was what counted" (287).
They were rather unconcerned with the politics at the time, and more
concerned about living. Not knowing whether or not they would live to the
next day made it very hard for these people to consider what kind of life,
government, or morals they wanted their country to have. As this
continued and the fate of German government was being further discussed
among
the Allies, it was agreed up that every German adult was required to undergo
the "de-Nazification" process (289). However, in each different
zone, this looked very different, so all of the Germans were getting different
ideas of what it meant to be a citizen of the world. The American sect
was pushing a democratic view onto their zone, however the mass amounts of
questions on the questionnaire, arbitrary judgments in court, protests and more
were sending confusing messages to the Germans about what democracy was really
about. This also made it very hard for Germans to determine how they felt
about democracy or government policy in general. Finally though, after much time spent as a divided country, they were finally able to create an early form of the German Democratic Republic that had a permanent goal of creating a full German nation state (297). They would eventually be able to form their identity as a nation through this, although they still struggle with the morality of their rough history today.
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| Adolf Hitler truly believed that he was doing God's work by eliminating anyone who did not fit into the Aryan supremacy. He was actually a very Catholic and religious man. |
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| A man taking part in the "denazification program" by replacing things named after Hitler to be named after more noble men. |
Word Count: 780
Sources:
Schulze, Hagen. Germany: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998. Print.
http://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-kits/traveling-exhibitions/state-of-deception/denazification-program-in-germany
http://history.howstuffworks.com/world-war-ii/national-socialist-german-workers-party.htm
