How to Write Better Essays

B Economy in Ruins

1. Broken by War


2. Damaged by reparations


3. Economic slump in Europe
   
   
   • inflation in Germany reached its height when Govt
     printed money to pay strikers resisting French occupation
     of Ruhr
   
   
   
   

Effects:

(a) Middle-class savings wiped out – sold possessions

at low prices

(b) Young, old & sick suffered most

e.g. Berlin – 31% of children with diseases

related to malnutrition

• 8.2% had rickets
  (c) Discontented flocked to Nazism – re. Hitler ’s
  confidence in staging the Munich Putsch in 1923

C Weakness of Weimar Republic

• didn’t appear to be working, therefore Hitler ’s propaganda
  all the more effective & appeared that only effective govt =
  autocratic govt


• no party could get a majority:

1. Proportional representation:

(a) extreme parties survived – gave representation to all

parties, even the smallest

(b) large number of parties – therefore difficult for one to

obtain overall majority

e.g. even Hitler in July 1932 landslide only obtained

little more than third of the seats

98 Research

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