Germany in the 20th century
Weimar Republic 1919–1933
On November 10, 1918, a provisional government was formed with the Council of People's Representatives . The next day the fighting was stopped by a ceasefire . On December 16, 1918, a meeting of the workers 'and soldiers' councils , the Reichsrätekongress, took place in Berlin .
The majority approved the transition to a democratic order. Numerous reforms also came into force: universal and women's suffrage was introduced, as was the 8-hour day. In January 1919 the KPD was founded and the Spartacus uprising , which was suppressed by the Freikorps . The communist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered.
The National Assembly was elected on January 19 and met on February 6, not in troubled Berlin, but in Weimar , hence the name Weimar Republic. The National Assembly elected Friedrich Ebert as Reich President and Philipp Scheidemann as Reich Chancellor. According to the Weimar Constitution , the German Reich was a parliamentary democracy. However, the constitution saw a strong Reich President as a substitute emperor and he could elect the Reich Chancellor , dissolve the Reichstag and issue emergency ordinances with which even basic rights could be suspended. Unlike the Basic Law , the Weimar Constitution could be completely changed by a qualified majority .
On June 28, 1919, Germany had to sign the Versailles Treaty : Germany had to cede numerous areas, especially in the east (which then passed to the new state of Poland), as well as submit all of its colonial possessions to the League of Nations . The unification of Germany with Austria was prohibited. Germany and its allies were given sole war guilt; reparation claims were made but not yet contractually stipulated ( see: German reparations after the First World War ). The Saar area was subordinate to the League of Nations and the Rhineland was a demilitarized zone. There were also massive restrictions on the German army. This contract was felt to be unfair in Germany.
The lack of democratic reforms in the military, judiciary and administration, the Treaty of Versailles and the stab in the back legend were a heavy legacy for the new German state, which was a republic without republicans .
The Weimar Republic is divided into 3 phases. The first few years are known as the crisis years . In 1920 there was the Kapp Putsch , which ended after a few days. The political murders of Matthias Erzberger and Walther Rathenau also fell during this period . In the Reichstag election in 1920 there were large votes for right and left parties.
In 1921 the Reichswehr was created and in 1922 Germany and the Soviet Union began diplomatic relations with the Treaty of Rapallo .
With the occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923, France intended to collect outstanding reparations claims. The Reich government financially supported the outbreak of the Ruhr War . In the following months there was a runaway inflation , which was only ended in November by a currency reform . Bavaria became a reservoir for right-wing conservative forces. The Hitler putsch failed, but it helped Hitler to gain prominence.
In 1924 the phase of relative stability began , with economic recovery and political stabilization, although no government had a majority in the Reichstag. Despite all the tensions and conflicts in the young republic, democracy seemed to triumph. The reorganization of the currency and the US loans pouring into the country as a result of the Dawes Plan ushered in a phase of relative economic and political stabilization, the so-called Roaring 20s . The German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann tried to get closer together with his French colleague Aristide Briand . At the same time he tried a step-by-step revision of the Versailles treaties, which was evident in the Locarno treaties in 1925 and Germany's admission to the League of Nations in 1926. Friedrich Ebert died in February 1925, and Paul von Hindenburg , who was still loyal to the emperor, was elected as his successor .
The outbreak of the global economic crisis ushered in the beginning of the end of the Weimar Republic and in 1930 the last phase of the Weimar Republic began. In the summer of 1932, the number of unemployed reached 6 million. From 1930, only presidential cabinets ruled in Germany . The radicalization of the political situation led to street battles between the NSDAP and the KPD . In 1931 right-wing forces united in the Harzburg Front , the NSDAP became the strongest force in the Reichstag elections on July 31, 1932. On January 28, 1933, Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher announced his resignation.
Period of National Socialism 1933–1945
- Main article: Period of National Socialism , German Reich 1933-1945
On January 30, 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor and the seizure of power began. This dissolved the Reichstag and called new elections. The Reichstag burned on February 27, the circumstances have not yet been fully clarified. As a result, the "Emergency Ordinance for the Protection of People and Empire", d. H. pass the law to remedy the misery of the people and empire , which restricted fundamental rights . Numerous political opponents were arrested and the KPD banned. Although the NSDAP did not achieve its own majority in the Reichstag in the elections, an enabling law was passed giving the government legislative powers .
In the following months, followed by the DC circuit of the countries and of the press , the dissolution of the trade unions and parties. The first concentration camps for the imprisonment of politically unpleasant people came into being. In April 1933 the boycott of Jewish businesses and the removal of Jewish officials from civil service began. On May 10, 1933, “shameful” and “un-German” literature was burned. In August, the Protestant regional churches were merged into one imperial church under the direction of an imperial bishop , just as Germany concluded a concordat (contract) with the Vatican . Above all, the German Christians were devoted to Führer in the Reich Church, whereas a pastors' emergency association was formed in September .
In the period that followed, Nazi organizations such as the Hitler Youth , SS , German Labor Front , KdF and others penetrated life . The unemployment was eliminated, as was highway expansion progressing swiftly, but mainly served the preparations for war.
In 1934 the judiciary and in the so-called Röhm Putsch the own party were brought into line. Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934, whereupon Hitler was appointed leader and Reich Chancellor and the Reichswehr was sworn in on him. The road to dictatorship was thus completed.
In 1935 the Saarland came back to the Reich. The race laws were passed at the Nuremberg Rally . In 1936 the Wehrmacht invaded the demilitarized Rhineland. From 1 to 6 August 1936, the Summer Olympics took place in Berlin , which were staged as a propaganda show . The four-year plan of 1936 was supposed to make Germany ready for war by 1940 at the latest and pointed the way to a planned economy .
Now the realization of the Greater German Reich took place . In 1938, Hitler forced Austria to join Germany. In September Hitler threatened an attack on Czechoslovakia , and the Sudetenland was left to Germany. On the 9th / 10th November 1938 were in the Kristallnacht , more than 1,400 synagogues set on fire, destroyed more than 7,000 Jewish shops and arrested thousands of Jews. Around 90 Jews died as a result of abuse or were murdered. In March 1939, after Slovakia broke up , Hitler marched into "remaining Czech Republic ", from which the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia arose. Also in that month the Memelland came from Lithuania to Germany again.
The attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 ultimately triggered World War II . The victory over Poland in September 1939 and Denmark , Norway , the Netherlands , Belgium , Luxembourg and France in April – June 1940 marked the epoch of the Blitzkrieg . An invasion of Great Britain failed, and they contented themselves with bombing industrial cities in central England, for example Coventry . 1940/ 41 were - along with Italy - Yugoslavia and Greece conquered and divided ( Albania was occupied by Italy since 1939). Hungary , Romania and Bulgaria were won as allies.
Germany's opponents of the war worked together from the start, and the Atlantic Charter was signed. At the major war conferences in Casablanca , Tehran and Yalta, as well as at other meetings, the Western powers agreed on how to proceed and the post-war order.
From January 1941 Germany fought together with Italy in North Africa . The attack on the Soviet Union took place on June 22, 1941 , and Hitler declared war on the USA on December 11, 1941 . In November 1942 the Red Army surrounded Stalingrad and on February 2nd the 6th Army surrendered in the enclosed city. The Battle of Stalingrad marked the turning point on the European theater of war. By the end of 1943, most of the territory of the Soviet Union had been retaken from it. On May 13, 1943, the Axis powers in North Africa had to surrender. Allied troops landed in Italy in July 1943 and Mussolini was overthrown.
In the meantime, the Wannsee Conference took place in January 1942 , in which the final solution to the Jewish question was decided. Since the conquest of Poland in 1939, the Jews there had been forced to move to ghettos and do forced labor ; from September 1941, Jews had to wear the yellow star. The Holocaust began with the establishment of extermination camps in occupied Eastern Europe . By the end of the war, around six million Jews and European Roma had been murdered as part of the National Socialist extermination policy. Other victims of persecution were homosexuals , so-called antisocials , political opponents, determined Christians , Jehovah's Witnesses and the peoples of the areas occupied by Germany, mostly the Slavic peoples . The countries of Eastern Europe in particular suffered from the German occupation; many towns and villages were destroyed as part of the " scorched earth policy "; the majority of Soviet prisoners of war starved to death or frozen to death in German captivity, and many millions of people from Poland and the Soviet Union were deported “to the Reich” for forced labor . The plans of the Nazi leadership, especially that of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler , provided for the rigorous plundering and exploitation of the conquered eastern areas and the murder or expulsion of the population living there. ( See also: General Plan East , Hunger Plan , Program Heinrich , Poland Decrees , Polish Criminal Law Ordinance , Eastern Workers , Youth Concentration Camps .)
In 1943 the Allies began bombing German cities. Around 300,000 civilians were killed by the end of the war.
At the end of 1944, the German population began to flee the eastern regions from the advancing Red Army . 1945000000 German made were then Eastern Europe sold , as well as millions of Poles from the territory of modern Belarus and Ukraine were forcibly relocated.
In 1944 the Red Army was able to conquer large parts of south-eastern Europe . On June 6th the Allied invasion of Normandy began . On July 20, an assassination attempt and thus a coup against Hitler failed . At the end of January / beginning of February 1945 the Yalta Conference between the USA , Great Britain and the USSR took place, at which resolutions on post-war Germany were passed. In April 1945 the allied troops marched into Germany. On April 16, the Red Army began the attack on Berlin. Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30th in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery . He named Karl Dönitz as his successor as Reich President . On May 7 and 9, 1945, the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) signed the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces to the Western Allies and Soviets .
This ended the Second World War , which Germany unleashed and killed around 60 million people in Europe.
Occupied Germany from 1945 to 1949
- Main article: Germany 1945 to 1949
The victorious powers USA , Great Britain and USSR met in July / August 1945 for the Potsdam Conference . There they agreed on the principles of democratization, denazification, demilitarization, decentralization and dismantling for their policy towards Germany, which had been divided into four zones of occupation .
A joint administrative body, the Allied Control Council, was formed for Germany, and Berlin was given a joint city administration. It began the removal of rubble and reconstruction, the democratization, the formation of federal states and parties. In October 1945, part of the denazification process, the Nuremberg war crimes trials began , which ended with numerous death sentences against Nazi leaders.
The occupying powers went their own way in their zones, with the western powers working more and more together. In 1947 several attempts to find an agreement on the future of Germany took place, which failed. From then on, the Western powers endeavored to found their own West German state.
In the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) the course for socialism was set very soon . The land reform led to numerous expropriations. As part of the popular front policy , parties were initially allowed, but after the forced unification of the SPD and KPD to form the SED , key positions were filled with communists. With the German Economic Commission , a pre-state body was created in 1947 , which was soon given competencies to control the economy.
The British and US zones merged to form the bizone in early 1947 . Reconstruction began in 1947 with the Marshall Plan , but the East had to refuse this aid under Soviet pressure. A pre-state organ was also created with the Economic Council .
On June 20, 1948, a currency reform took place in the western zones with the introduction of the D-Mark . It formed the basis for the market economy and the economic miracle . In return, a currency of its own was introduced in the Soviet Zone on June 23 . On June 24, the Western powers introduced the D-Mark in West Berlin as well, and the Soviets responded with the Berlin blockade . Berlin was supplied from the air for months. The Soviets lifted the blockade on May 12, 1949, and West Berlin remained part of the western world. But Berlin always remained at the center of the politics of the victorious powers.
On March 20, 1948, the Soviets left the Allied Control Council, and in June the Trizone was formed . On July 1, 1948, the Western powers handed over the Frankfurt documents to the 11 Prime Ministers of the Trizone , an invitation to form a constituent assembly. At the Rittersturz conference from 08. – 10. In July 1948 in Koblenz , the minister-presidents of the three western occupation zones discussed and finally decided to found the Federal Republic of Germany . At the constitutional convention on Herrenchiemsee , an "expert committee for constitutional questions" advised , which should provide the basis for the work of the parliamentary council . This met on September 1 in Bonn and drafted the Basic Law by May 8, 1949 . After this was decided by all states except Bavaria and approved by the Western powers, it was announced on May 23, 1949. The Federal Republic of Germany was thus created.
At the end of May / beginning of June 1949 the 3rd German People's Congress took place in the Soviet Zone. The members elected the 2nd German People's Council as a permanent body. The People's Congress unanimously adopted the constitution it had drawn up for a “German Democratic Republic” . The GDR was founded on October 7, 1949.
See also: History of the GDR , legal situation of the German Reich after 1945
The Federal Republic of Germany 1949–1990
- Main article: History of the Federal Republic of Germany (until 1990)
On August 14, 1949, the elections for the first German Bundestag take place, the CDU / CSU becomes the strongest parliamentary group, followed by the SPD . Konrad Adenauer is mid-September to the Chancellor , Theodor Heuss the President elected. In November, with the Petersberg Agreement, West Germany embarks on the road to sovereignty. Almost a year and a half before it was abolished in the GDR, food rationing was abolished in the Federal Republic on January 16, 1950.
The Adenauer government determined the integration of the West , rearmament and the economic miracle of the Federal Republic. It raises the claim to sole representation for the whole of Germany and punishes other countries with breaking off diplomatic relations if they establish relations with the GDR ( Hallstein Doctrine ). Nevertheless, in 1955 she signed a treaty with the Soviet Union so that the last German prisoners of war could return home. Also kicking this year Germany treaty into force of the Occupation Statute some of the - picking Allied rights , however, still apply - and the Federal Republic joins the NATO at. In this context, the Bundeswehr is being formed and there are protests against rearmament.
In 1952 , the Federal Republic of Germany co-founded the coal and steel union , the forerunner of the EC . In 1951 and 1956, the right-wing radical SRP and the KPD are the only party bans in the Federal Republic issued by the Federal Constitutional Court . In 1957 Saarland becomes a federal state of the Federal Republic of Germany . In March 1957 the EEC was founded with the Treaty of Rome . In November 1959 the SPD finally turned away from Marxism with the Godesberg program and affirmed the liberal and democratic basic order of the Federal Republic. In 1959 Heinrich Lübke succeeds Theodor Heuss as Federal President. Until the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, millions of refugees from the GDR came to the Federal Republic of Germany. Since there was a shortage of workers in Germany's economic miracle, guest workers were increasingly taken on. In October 1962, Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss was forced to resign as a result of the Spiegel affair . In January 1963, the Élysée Treaty between the Federal Republic and France was signed, which brought about a reconciliation with the former archenemy. Adenauer resigned as Federal Chancellor on October 15, 1963.
He is succeeded by the " father of the economic miracle " Ludwig Erhard . In the course of an economic crisis, his reputation deteriorated and he resigned on December 1, 1966. His successor is Kurt Georg Kiesinger , who forms a grand coalition of CDU / CSU and SPD. This was only understood as a temporary solution, but it achieved success in economic and domestic politics. In 1968 she passed the emergency constitution . The failure to deal with the Nazi past, the lack of education , the protest against the Vietnam War , the hippie movement and the social order perceived as outdated brings v. a. the resistance of the student youth with it. As a result, everyday West German culture and political life changed significantly. Some of the protest students later switched to radical left-wing terrorism and founded the RAF , among other things .
Gustav Heinemann becomes Federal President in March 1969 .
In September 1969 there was a change of power after the general election. The SPD and FDP form the social-liberal coalition under Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt . This government pursued a new Ostpolitik of rapprochement with the Eastern bloc states, v. a. to the GDR. This was initially heavily criticized, so that the CDU even dared a constructive vote of no confidence in 1972 because of a narrow majority , but lost. Domestic politics are shaped by the liberalization of the legal system, the expansion of the social network and the improvement of the educational system. In autumn 1973 the FR of Germany was hit by the oil crisis and the economic miracle was finally over. On May 6, 1974, Willy Brandt resigned as part of the Guillaume affair .
Helmut Schmidt became Federal Chancellor, Walter Scheel Federal President. The Ostpolitik was continued, and finally the signing of the Final Act of the CSCE in 1975 led to a progression of the policy of détente . Domestically, the state has to deal with the problem of left-wing terrorism on the part of the RAF. This culminated in 1977 with the murder of employer president Hanns Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of the Lufthansa Landshut plane ( German autumn ). But also the growing environmental and peace movement are focal points of this time. In 1979 Karl Carstens became Federal President. Due to growing tensions, the SPD / FDP coalition broke in September 1982.
On October 1, 1982, Helmut Kohl became Federal Chancellor by a constructive vote of no confidence, and the new CDU / CSU-FDP coalition was confirmed by the 1983 federal elections. In this election, the Greens are entering the Bundestag for the first time and become a political force. In 1984 Richard von Weizsäcker became Federal President. At the beginning of 1984 private television started in Germany, also in that year there was the Flick affair and the question of whether the republic could be bought. In 1986 the Chernobyl reactor disaster shook Europe. In September 1987, Erich Honecker , a GDR head of state and party leader, visited the Federal Republic of Germany for the first time.
After the peaceful revolution in the GDR and the approval of the victorious powers and both German parliaments, Germany was reunified on October 3, 1990 .
See also: Germany Treaty , Paris Treaties
The German Democratic Republic 1949–1990
- Main articles: History of the GDR , German Democratic Republic
The newly created People's Chamber appointed Wilhelm Pieck as President and Otto Grotewohl as Prime Minister. The actual ruler until 1971 was the general secretary of the SED , Walter Ulbricht . The capital was East Berlin , officially Berlin "Capital of the GDR".
In February 1950 the Ministry for State Security ( MfS , colloquially Stasi ) was founded. In July, the Oder-Neisse line was contractually established as the Polish western border in a treaty with the People's Republic of Poland . The first Volkskammer elections took place on October 15th. It was elected via a unified list, which according to official information received 99.3% of the votes; this election practice lasted until 1989.
On January 1, 1951, the first five-year plan began and in October most food was rationed. In the spring of 1952 the Stalin Note was debated in Germany , but it was ultimately rejected by the West. At the end of April the first state- owned enterprises (VEB) were formed from Soviet joint-stock companies (SAG) and the first LPG at the beginning of June .
In May 1953, the SED decided to raise labor standards. There was resistance. The Politburo of the SED exercised self-criticism and announced a “new course”, but the labor standards remained in place. On June 17th there was a popular uprising , which was bloodily suppressed with the help of Soviet troops. June 17th was celebrated in the FR of Germany until 1990 as the day of German unity.
On August 13, 1961, the GDR sealed off the borders with West Berlin and built the Berlin Wall , as around three million people had left the GDR between 1949 and 1961 .
In the mid-1960s to the early 1970s there was a rapprochement between GDR and FR Germany, triggered above all by Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt as part of his new Ostpolitik , which was initially heavily criticized by the CDU / CSU opposition . This led to the Basic Treaty of 1973. In May 1971 Walter Ulbricht was ousted, his successor as 1st Secretary of the SED was Erich Honecker . The two German states became members of the UN in 1973 . In May 1974 the permanent representations of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic were established in Bonn and East Berlin . As the conclusion of the CSCE , the Final Act of Helsinki was signed on August 1, 1975 by the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany . In November 1976 the songwriter Wolf Biermann was expatriated, which led to protests in the GDR.
In 1983, the Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss granted the GDR a sensational billion-euro loan to ensure its stability, which was threatened by financial difficulties. In March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev , a relatively young man, came to the head of the Soviet Union who, with his ideas of glasnost and perestroika, was to completely change the Eastern bloc . This course was not supported by the rigid state and party leadership in the GDR. In September 1987 Erich Honecker made his first state visit to the Federal Republic of Germany.
In the summer and autumn of 1989, more and more citizens of the GDR fled via Hungary , which opened its border with Austria on May 2, 1989 and officially allowed GDR citizens to travel to Austria from September 11, 1989 , as well as via the embassies of the BR Germany in East Central European countries, especially in Prague . Since the GDR leadership did not want to understand the reshaping policy of the Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, they are increasingly destabilizing the GDR from within.
The worsening economic situation and the hopes of liberal change based on the Soviet perestroika policy, but disappointed by Honecker, led to regular protest demonstrations as part of the peace prayers of the Evangelical Church in 1989. Especially in Leipzig, these quickly expanded into large-scale demonstrations that remained peaceful. (To be separated from this are the protest demonstrations because of the forced transit of the embassy refugees from Prague and Warsaw , which led to wild riots in Dresden at the main train station .)
On October 18, 1989, Honecker had to resign under pressure from the street. A few days later the entire GDR government resigned. The Berlin Wall was opened on November 9th . The Monday demonstrations by the GDR population and the opening of the Wall ultimately led to the peaceful overthrow of the SED regime. Not only the unarmed Monday demonstrators remained peaceful, but also the armed organs of the GDR, which did not fire a shot at the Monday demonstrators. On October 3, 1990, according to the Unification Treaty, the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany under Article 23 of the old version of the Basic Law .
See also:
The reunified Germany since 1990
- Main article: History of Germany (since 1990)
After reunification, all-German federal elections were held for the first time in December 1990, Helmut Kohl became Federal Chancellor and remained so after the 1994 federal elections. The growing together of the two parts of the country, the implementation of necessary reforms in numerous areas and the growing together of the European states are the main issues in today's Germany.
In eastern Germany , the infrastructure has improved enormously since the fall of the Wall and some regions have developed well. Nevertheless, unemployment is high, especially in structurally weak regions. As a result, many young people in particular move to the West for lack of training or jobs. There are increasingly right-wing extremist tendencies. The PDS can unite numerous voices and has developed into an East German regional party.
In 1991, the government decided to move from Bonn to Berlin , most of which was completed in 1999. In 1994, Roman Herzog succeeded Richard von Weizsäcker as Federal President . He in turn was replaced by Johannes Rau in 1999 and Horst Köhler in 2004 . In recent years there have been repeated calls for a permanent German seat on the UN Security Council , which at first was viewed critically abroad, but later assessed as realistic. After reunification, the Bundeswehr took part in foreign missions for the first time .
In the 1998 federal election , the CDU / CSU-FDP coalition under Kohl was replaced by Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Gerhard Schröder . Another reason was the previous government's backlog of reforms. This was the first actual election of a federal government in the Federal Republic, previous changes of power were always a change of the coalition partner.
The new government from SPD - Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen tackled reform projects, but these were mostly defused by consensus, their effect is controversial. After a lot of money was poured into the state coffers with the auction of UMTS licenses in 2000 , the debt rose again in the following years due to an economic crisis. The coalition was confirmed by the federal election in 2002 , albeit only very tightly. In August 2002 the flood of the century on the Elbe and Danube caused considerable damage. In autumn 2004 there were major protests against the cross-party Hartz concept that is to be implemented on January 1, 2005.