562Chapter 28and Antonio Salazar in Portugal (ruled 1926–68); and
the wartime dictatorship of Marshal Henri Pétain in
France (ruled 1940–45) are the characteristic regimes
of the era. World War II accelerated this trend, and
by 1941 only five parliamentary democracies sur-
vived in Europe: Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Sweden,
and Switzerland.German Democracy in the 1920s:
The Weimar Republic
After the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, a
provisional government held elections for a constituent
assembly to meet in the Saxon city of Weimar and cre-
ate a German republic. This provisional government
put down the Sparticist revolt of German Communists
at Berlin in January 1919 and accepted the responsibil-
ity for signing the Versailles Treaty in June 1919. Con-
sequently, the Weimar Republic began life in the
summer of 1919 detested by both the communist left
and the nationalist right. The Weimar constitution con-
tained universal suffrage, proportional representation,
popular referenda, the abolition of aristocratic privi-
lege, and basic individual freedoms. It entrusted the
government to a chancellor, who needed the support of
a majority in the Reichstag, but it also created a seven-
year presidency with special powers to suspend the
constitution during emergencies.
Right-wing opposition to the Weimar Republic
flourished immediately and dominated the early 1920s.
Paramilitary leagues of war veterans, known as the
Freikorps(Free Corps), remained a violent factor in Ger-
man politics. Extremists assassinated the socialist pre-
mier of Bavaria in 1919, then Matthias Erzberger (who
had bravely accepted the job of signing the Versailles
Treaty) in 1921, and Walter Rathenau (the foreign min-
ister) in 1922. Freikorpstroops supported monarchists in
seizing control of Berlin in the Kapp Putsch(coup) of
1920, and the German army refused to fire on them;
the Putschwas only blocked by a general strike of Berlin
workers. Nationalists blamed republicans for a sup-
posed civilian betrayal of the German army in 1918—
the “stab-in-the-back” (or Dolchstoss) myth of the
German defeat—even though their military hero, Gen-
eral Ludendorff, had been the person who admitted
that military victory was impossible and called for
peace. Ludendorff participated in what became the
most famous right-wing conspiracy of the 1920s, the
Munich Beer Hall Putschof November 1923. This at-
tempted coup introduced the world to Adolf Hitler and
his small National Socialist German Workers’ Party
(“Nazi” as a contraction). The Beer Hall Putschwas eas-
ily stopped and Hitler was convicted of high treason
and sentenced to prison for five years, where he dic-
tated Mein Kampf(My Struggle) before his early release
(see document 28.2). Hitler’s book was a muddle of ha-
treds (of Communism, Jews, the Versailles Treaty,
democracy, and the Weimar Republic), stating the
right-wing agenda; initially it found few readers.
The success of parliamentary democracy in Ger-
many depended upon winning the support of the mid-DOCUMENT 28.2
Hitler: Anti-Semitism in Mein
Kampf(1925)
The first part of Mein Kampffrom which the following ex-
cerpt is taken, was written during Hitler’s imprisonment and
published in 1925. It provided unmistakable indications of his
racist thoughts and intentions. Hitler asserted that the Jews
were lowest of all the races, who destroyed the civilization of
other races; they were responsible for World War I and for the
Bolshevik revolution.There were few Jews in Linz. In the course of the
centuries their outward appearance had become
Europeanized and had taken on a human look; in
fact, I even took them for Germans....
Then I came to Vienna.... Once, as I was
strolling through the Inner City, I suddenly en-
countered an apparition in a black caftan and black
hair locks. Is this a Jew? was my first thought....
The longer I stared... the more my question as-
sumed a new form: Is this a German?
The cleanliness of this people, moral and oth-
erwise, I must say, is a point in itself. By their very
exterior you could tell that these were no lovers of
water, and, to your distress, you often knew it with
your eyes closed....
I became acquainted with their activity in the
press, art, literature, and the theater.... Nine-
tenths of all literary filth, artistic trash, and theatri-
cal idiocy can be set to their account....
Then a flame flared up within me.... Hence,
today I believe that I am acting with the will of the
Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the
Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
Hitler, Adolph.Mein Kampf.Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943.