III.

Effects of World War I

The immediate origins of National Socialism are to be found in the consequences of the German defeat in World War I (1914-1918). Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was charged with sole responsibility for the war, stripped of its colonial empire, and forced to pay heavy reparations. German political and economic life was seriously disrupted as a result of the treaty. Severe inflation, which reached its climax in 1923, all but destroyed the German middle class, leaving many of its impoverished and despairing members vulnerable to the appeals of radical political groups that sprang up in the postwar years. Only a few years after some measure of economic stability and progress had been achieved, the worldwide economic crisis that began in 1929 plunged Germany into an apparently hopeless depression. During these years the democratic Weimar Republic was subjected to increasing attack from both left and right. The republic proved unable to cope effectively with the desperate condition of the country. By 1933 the majority of German voters supported one or the other of the two major totalitarian parties, the Communist and the National Socialist.