Adolf Hitler and the German State

             War, pestilence, and disease just to name a few of the problems facing Germany in 1919. The Germans had been forced to submit to the Treaty of Versailles and surrender after experiencing heavy casualties. Also, the economic downturn post- World War I caused inflation rates to skyrocket thus devastating all classes of Germans with the working class felt the financial strain the hardest.
             On November 11th 1918, Germany signed the armistice with the allies, effectively ending the war, but Germany's problems were just beginning. In the later years of the war, Germany had began to run out of food, and as such by the war's end there was widespread starvation, with millions dead from lack of food. This was made worse by the face that Germany had near enough bankrupted itself through the war effort, leading to economic crisis, which only got worse in the following years. The other major problem was that Germany still had millions of soldiers when the war ended, who were told to simply pack up and go home. Many of these soldiers were young, and most had done nothing else but fight. They were born and bred to kill and Hitler preyed on that mindset (Evans, 43). An economically worn out country with little to no job opportunities waiting for them. As such, most of these soldiers turned to rebellion, becoming the right-wing group known as the Freikorps, which committed murders, assaults, and general anarchy in post-war Germany.
             Germany's political and economic problems were only going to get worse following the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The treaty imposed numerous provisions on Germany, the main ones being Article 231 also known as The War Guilt Clause which stated that Germany had to accept full responsibility for the war and the damage it caused (Sax & Kuntz, 27). This article required Germany to pay reparations "to the Allied countries for their losses in the war" placing a heavy financial burden on the Germany people (Sax & Kuntz, 27)....

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