🏛️ Year 10 History

The Weimar Republic, 1919–1924

Founding of the Weimar Republic

• November 1918: Germany lost WWI. The Kaiser abdicated. A new democratic republic was declared — the Weimar Republic (named after the city where the constitution was written).
• The "stab in the back" myth (Dolchstoßlegende): right-wing nationalists claimed Germany had not been defeated militarily but had been betrayed by civilians (Jews, socialists, politicians) who "stabbed" the army in the back. A powerful and destructive lie that Hitler would exploit.
• Proportional representation: the Weimar constitution gave every party seats in the Reichstag proportional to their share of the vote. This made it nearly impossible for one party to govern alone — coalition governments were unstable.
• Article 48: allowed the President to rule by emergency decree without the Reichstag. Intended as a safeguard; later exploited to undermine democracy.

The Treaty of Versailles (1919)

• The Weimar Republic was forced to sign the Treaty. Many Germans called these politicians the "November criminals" — a poisonous association that delegitimised the republic from the start.
• Terms: Germany accepted sole blame for the war (War Guilt Clause, Article 231); paid £6.6 billion in reparations; lost 13% of its land (Alsace-Lorraine to France, the Polish Corridor, Danzig); army limited to 100,000 men, no air force, no submarines; Rhineland demilitarised.
• German reaction: humiliation and outrage. The "diktat" (dictated peace) was seen as unjust — Germany had not been invited to negotiate.

Challenges to the Weimar Republic 1919–1923

• Spartacist Revolt (January 1919): communist uprising led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Crushed by the Freikorps (right-wing paramilitary). Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered.
• Kapp Putsch (March 1920): right-wing nationalist coup. The army refused to fire on the Freikorps rebels. Workers saved the republic with a general strike — shutting down Berlin. Kapp fled.
• Hyperinflation (1923): Germany defaulted on reparations payments. France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr (Germany's industrial heartland) in January 1923. Germany responded with passive resistance (workers went on strike). The government printed money to pay the strikers. Result: catastrophic hyperinflation. Prices doubled every few days. Savings became worthless overnight. A wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread. The middle classes were devastated — their savings wiped out.
• Munich Putsch (November 1923): Hitler's attempt to seize power. Failed — Hitler arrested, tried for treason, sentenced to 5 years (served 9 months in Landsberg Prison where he dictated Mein Kampf). Made him nationally known.

Weimar: Recovery and Collapse

The Stresemann Era (1924–1929)

• Gustav Stresemann became Chancellor in August 1923, then Foreign Minister until his death in 1929. A period of relative stability.
• Rentenmark (November 1923): a new currency backed by land and industrial assets, replacing the worthless mark. Stopped hyperinflation immediately.
• Dawes Plan (1924): American loans to Germany to help pay reparations. Reparations restructured. Ruhr evacuated. German economy begins to recover.
• Locarno Pact (1925): Germany agreed its western borders. Accepted into the League of Nations (1926). Germany was being reintegrated into Europe — a sign of growing international respect.
• The "Golden Twenties": Berlin's cultural flowering — Expressionist art, Bauhaus architecture, cabaret culture, Marlene Dietrich, Otto Dix. But this prosperity was fragile — dependent on US loans.
• Young Plan (1929): reparations reduced and extended. Stresemann died in October 1929. One month later: Wall Street Crash.

The Impact of the Great Depression

• October 1929: Wall Street Crash in the USA. US banks recalled loans from Germany. German banks collapsed. Unemployment: 3 million (1930) → 6 million (1932). One in three workers without a job.
• The Weimar Republic's coalition governments collapsed one after another — nobody could agree on how to respond. By 1930, Hindenburg was ruling by emergency decree (Article 48). Democracy was collapsing.
• Extremist parties thrived: the Nazi Party's seats in the Reichstag rose from 12 (1928) to 107 (1930) to 230 (July 1932 — the largest party).

The Nazi Rise to Power

Why People Voted Nazi

• Economic desperation: the unemployed, the ruined middle classes, farmers crushed by falling agricultural prices
• Fear of communism: the Nazi Party portrayed itself as the bulwark against a communist takeover
• Nationalism and resentment of Versailles: Hitler promised to tear up the treaty and restore German greatness
• Hitler's personal charisma and propaganda: powerful oratory, emotional rallies at Nuremberg, Goebbels's mass media campaigns
• SA (Stormtroopers): street violence intimidated opponents and created an impression of strength and order

Hitler Becomes Chancellor — January 1933

• Von Papen persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor, believing the Nazis could be "controlled." A catastrophic misjudgement.
• Reichstag Fire (February 1933): the Reichstag was set on fire. A Dutch communist (Marinus van der Lubbe) was arrested. Hitler used it to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree — suspending civil liberties. Communists were arrested en masse.
• Enabling Act (March 1933): passed with SA men surrounding the Reichstag and intimidating opposition deputies. Gave Hitler the power to pass laws without the Reichstag for 4 years. The death of German democracy.

Consolidation of Power

• Gleichschaltung (co-ordination): all institutions brought under Nazi control — trade unions dissolved, other political parties banned (July 1933), state governments abolished
• Night of the Long Knives (June 1934): Hitler ordered the SS to murder the SA leadership (including Ernst Röhm), potential rival conservatives, and personal enemies. Over 85 killed. Demonstrated that Hitler would use murder to secure his power. The army and conservative establishment were relieved — and complicit.
• Death of Hindenburg (August 1934): Hitler combined the roles of President and Chancellor, becoming "Führer." The army swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler rather than to Germany.

Life in Nazi Germany

The Police State

• Gestapo (secret state police): created by Göring. Could arrest anyone, detain indefinitely, torture. Relied heavily on denunciations — ordinary Germans informing on neighbours and colleagues.
• SS (Schutzstaffel): Heinrich Himmler's elite force, responsible for policing, running concentration camps, and later the Holocaust. Answerable only to Hitler.
• Concentration camps: Dachau opened in 1933. Initially for political prisoners (communists, socialists, trade unionists). Later Jews, Roma, disabled people, homosexuals.
• Courts: judges were Nazi Party members or sympathisers. No independent judiciary. The People's Court tried "enemies of the state" with predictable outcomes.

Propaganda

• Joseph Goebbels: Minister of Propaganda. Controlled all media — newspapers, radio, film, theatre, art, music.
• Radio: cheap "people's receivers" made radio accessible to all. Hitler's speeches broadcast directly into homes.
• Leni Riefenstahl: directed Triumph of the Will (1935) — glorifying the Nuremberg Rally — and Olympia (1938). Masterpieces of propaganda filmmaking.
• Rallies: Nuremberg Rallies were massive spectacles designed to create a sense of overwhelming power and unity.
• Book burning (May 1933): "un-German" books by Jewish, communist, and pacifist authors were burned publicly.

Young People and Women

• Hitler Youth (boys 14–18): military drill, Nazi ideology, physical training. Membership made compulsory in 1936.
• League of German Girls (BDM): girls 14–18. Emphasis on physical fitness and preparation for motherhood.
• Women's role: the "Three Ks" — Kinder, Küche, Kirche (children, kitchen, church). Women encouraged to leave work, marry, and have many children. Lebensborn programme encouraged SS men to have children with "racially pure" women.
• Opposition: the Edelweiss Pirates and White Rose Group (Sophie and Hans Scholl) resisted but were isolated and severely punished.

Persecution and the Holocaust

Persecution of the Jews: Key Steps

• April 1933: boycott of Jewish businesses
• 1933–1934: Jews expelled from government jobs and the professions
• Nuremberg Laws (September 1935): Jews stripped of German citizenship; marriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews banned
• Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass", November 1938): organised pogrom — 7,500 Jewish shops smashed, 1,400 synagogues burned, 91 Jews killed, 30,000 Jewish men sent to concentration camps. Carried out by the SA and SS.
• 1939–1941: Jews forced into ghettos in occupied Poland. Mass shootings by Einsatzgruppen following the invasion of the Soviet Union (1941). Over 1.5 million shot in pits and ravines.
• Wannsee Conference (January 1942): senior Nazi officials planned the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" — the systematic murder of all Jews in Europe using extermination camps with gas chambers.
• Extermination camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek. Over 6 million Jews murdered by the end of the war. Genocide also of Roma, disabled people, Soviet POWs, political prisoners, homosexuals.

Medicine Through Time (Thematic Study)

Key Periods and Ideas

• Medieval period: dominated by the Church — disease as God's punishment. Four Humours theory (Galen) persisted. Little dissection (Church forbade it). Monasteries as centres of medical knowledge. The Black Death (1348) — miasma theory, flagellants, superstition.
• Renaissance: Vesalius (1543) — On the Fabric of the Human Body. Dissected human corpses; corrected Galen's errors. William Harvey (1628) — discovered blood circulation using experiment. Paré — improved surgery (ligatures instead of cauterising, soothing salve instead of boiling oil). Scientific method emerging.
• 18th–19th century: Jenner (1796) — smallpox vaccine (cowpox → immunity). Pasteur's Germ Theory (1861) — microorganisms cause disease. Koch — identified specific bacteria for specific diseases (TB, cholera). Lister — antiseptic surgery using carbolic acid. Nightingale — importance of clean hospital conditions.
• 20th century: Fleming (1928) — discovered penicillin (accident). Florey and Chain — developed it into an antibiotic drug (WWII context). Discovery of DNA (Crick and Watson, 1953). Blood transfusions (WWI), X-rays (Röntgen, 1895), transplants (1960s), genetic engineering, key-hole surgery, vaccines for polio, measles, COVID-19. NHS founded 1948.

Factors in Medical Change

• War: accelerated development of surgery, blood transfusions, penicillin, prosthetics, plastic surgery
• Science and technology: microscopes, X-rays, scanning technology, genetic tools
• Government: NHS (1948) made healthcare free at the point of need; vaccination programmes
• Individual genius: Harvey, Pasteur, Koch, Fleming — the role of the individual
• Communication: printing press spread ideas rapidly; internet enables global research collaboration
• Chance/accident: Fleming left his petri dish by an open window → mould killed bacteria → penicillin

Source & Interpretation Skills

Analysing Sources (GCSE Method)

• Content: what does the source actually say or show? Identify specific details.
• Origin: who created it, when, and where? What was the provenance?
• Purpose: why was it created? To inform, persuade, entertain, record?
• Usefulness: how useful is it for investigating a specific enquiry? Consider both what it tells you AND what it doesn't tell you (limitations).
• Provenance matters for reliability: a propaganda poster (Nazi Germany) is useful for understanding what the regime wanted people to believe — but not for establishing what people actually thought.

Evaluating Interpretations

• Historians disagree — that is the nature of the discipline. Their interpretations are shaped by the evidence they choose to emphasise, the questions they ask, and the time in which they write.
• To evaluate an interpretation: identify its main argument, consider the evidence it draws on, compare it with another interpretation, consider what each interpretation does or does not account for
• No interpretation is simply "right" or "wrong" — the best answers consider the relative strengths and limitations of each view with specific supporting evidence