Sunday, March 22, 2009
Compare the political responses to the Great Depression in the U.S., Britain, France and Germany.
Both the United States and Britain stuck to the system of parliamentary representation and democracy and even France went along with the idea of republic. In all three countries, socialist idea advanced rapidly, and indeed socialists led the countries for a period of time. In the end, however, they were all sticking to their basic structure of the political system. In Germany, on the other hand, people were desperate of a leader who would order and "solve" the problems for them. They were so desperate that they were willing to sacrifice some liberty and other "isms."
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3 comments:
was it only desperation, or were their some underlying reasons there? Germany Wasn't just desperate, I think they wanted a dynamic leader who wasn't like the rest of Western Europe and democracy, but maybe was better, or so they may have thought.
I think both of you are correct. I mean, Germany had gotten its butt kicked in World War one not on the battlefield, but by treaties signed by unimpressive men. The Army was in effect stabbed in the back by its own leadership. The weimar republic was therefore constantly under attack by its own people. Social unrest grew. The treaty of Versailles and then the French invasion of the Ruhr valley just put them over the top. They were desperate for a better representation, one that wasn't democratic, one that was purely german and one was on their side, sharing the same angry feelings. And Hitler provided them that.
Personally, I think the German fixation with Hitler was the old version of submission to authority to solve all your problems that is apparent in most German nationalism
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