Citizenship for Minorities in 20th Century Germany: A Tumultuous Past

Directly after the first world war, many of the former nobility and government leaders were upset by the terms imposed on Germany in the treaty of Versailles. The demands temporarily limited the might of the German economy. Pictured are: 20% reduction in production regions, 10% reduction in population, 1/3 reduction in coal production, ¼ reduction of bread, wheat, and potato production, 4/5 reduction of iron ore mining, and all of Germany’s former navy and colonies. The upper class alone presented little threat to the Weimar Republic, but the opinion of the workers turned when mass inflation rocked the economy in the mid-1920s, resulting in an exchange rate of 4 billion marks, formerly one of Europe's strongest currencies, comparable to the pound before the first world war, to one U.S. dollar[2], and as pictured above, even the most basic produce goods skyrocketed to prices such as 50,000 marks for a loaf of bread, resulting  in a temporary barter economy reminiscent of Medieval Europe. The Global recession of 1929 further soured relations between the government and the workers. Most of the middle class of Germany at the time had one goal to the rest of society: to make them think they were more wealthy then they were, resulting in most of the middle class siding with the former nobility against the Weimar government. It is thought by many historians that if either one of these events: either outrage over the treaty of Versailles or German hyperinflation during the 20s, happened without the other, it would  not have been enough to induce the reign of terror in Germany suffered under the Third Reich throughout the 1930's, but the two in conjunction proved too destructive.

 

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