Summary Complete Germany (Democracy and Dictatorship) GCSE notes for AQA and Edexcel
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Oxford AQA History for GCSE
A highly detailed, yet concise summary of the entirety of the GCSE Germany (Democracy and Dictatorship) course, ideal for both AQA and Edexcel GCSE students. It is 36 pages, covering the whole course in 10,000 words. I used these notes to get a Grade 9 in my AQA History GCSE so I can confirm that t...
Grade 9 GCSE AQA History Germany Condensed Mindmap (1890-1945 Democracy and Dictatorship)
AQA History GCSE (9-1) Germany 1890-1945 Notes
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Germany before WWI
Notes:
• Prussia was the most powerful Germanic state
• Militarism - the belief in a strong armed forces - was very important to Prussia
• when Germany was unified, the German army consisted of the Prussian generals,
army officers and their tactics, with the German Kaiser as its supreme commander
• the Kaiser had advisors, including the chief minister, the Chancellor
• the parliament was made of people voted by the men aged over 25 and it was
known as the Reichstag
• an early problem with the Kaiser is that he had the power to ignore any decisions
discussed by his ministers, parliament and the Bundesrat (representatives of states)
• Kaiser Wilhelm II became Kaiser when Britain was the world’s most powerful country
in 1888
o they had the largest empire, dominated world trade and had a superior naval
force
• Wilhelm wanted the same success for Germany and so began industrialisation,
building up Germany’s industry, and by 1913, Germany was producing more iron,
steel and coal as Britain
• industrialisation made many landowners, business and factory owners very rich and
so had a lot of influence with the Kaiser
• many workers were unhappy with the working conditions, wages and more people
joined trade unions and organised strikes to force the Kaiser and his men to improve
their conditions
• many workers voted for a new political party called the Social Democratic Party
(SDP)
• socialism was the idea that power and wealth should be divided equally among the
people
• the SDP hoped that the Kaiser would share more of his power, allowing the
Reichstag to make more social reforms to improve working conditions
• 1 in every 3 German voted for the SDP but there were some socialists who wanted to
rebel, start a revolution, take over the country, and allow cities to be governed by a
council of workers
• Wilhelm also wanted to have an empire and his idea, known as Weltpolitik (world
policy) encouraged him to take over nations in Africa in the late 1800s
• in a debate in the Reichstag in 1897, Prince Bernhard von Bulow, a German politician
responsible for foreign affairs stated ‘In one word: we wish to throw no-one into the
shade, but we demand our place in the sun’
• the Kaiser wanted a large navy as he thought it would help him take over more
countries and ensure the security of the German Empire as he envied the British
navy
• a series of Naval Laws, introduced between 1898 and 1912 saw the Germany navy
increase rapidly in size, but this was very costly
• taxes had to be raised and money was borrowed, meaning Germany would be in
debt for a long time
,Germany and WWI
Notes:
• there were food, medicine and clothing shortages in Germany as the British used
their navy to stop supply ships getting into Germany’
• 763,000 people died of starvation during the war
• in 1915, 500 women gathered in front of the German parliament buildings and said
they wanted their men to come back from the trenches
• in 1916, 10,000 workers assembled in Berlin to shout ‘Down with the war, down with
the government!’
• by 1918, Germany was close to collapse as the Germans were surviving on turnips
and bread, a there was a flu epidemic
• in October 1918 General Ludendorff told the Kaiser that they would never win a war,
and that the allies would look more kindly on them if the country became
democratic - with the Kaiser sharing more of his power
• the Kaiser did so but it was too late and more demonstrations were held and there
was talks of a revolution
• on the 28th October 1918, sailors on the German navy refused to fight from Kiel in
northern Germany
• news of the mutiny spread and in ports nearby other sailors refused to follow orders
• even the soldiers that were sent to deal with them joined to sailors and workers,
taking over towns and setting up special councils to run them
• in just six days, these councils were governing cities all across Germany, such as in
Hamburg and Munich
• the Kaiser had lost control and the respect of his army generals and abdicated on the
9th November, secretly leaving Germany
• Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the SDP took the Kaiser’s place, promising to hold
elections soon and that if the German people wanted him they could vote for him,
and declared the end of the war
• on the 11th November 1918, Germany surrendered and WWI was over
Impact of the war on Germany:
Economy
• Germany borrowed money, for example, from the US that they needed to pay back
• Germany lent some money to its allies
• the war left 600,000 widows and 2 million fatherless children, meaning war pensions
would be very costly
• German factories were suffering as they had been producing guns, bullets and shells
rather than exporting goods to make money
,Society
• some factory owners made a fortune from the government, while the workers had
pay restrictions
• women worked in the factories during the war, which some people felt would
damage traditional family values
Politics
• before the war Germany had a stable, rich economy but now there was mutiny and a
revolution
• many ex-soldiers felt Germany could have won the war and felt betrayed by the
politicians (the November Criminals) who ended it, and therefore refused to support
them
, Weimar Republic
Notes:
• the Weimar Republic was a period of time where Germany was run from the town of
Weimar and had no emperor or Kaiser in charge
• one of the first action Friedrich Ebert did was sign an armistice to end the war and
then he ordered improvements for working conditions, help for the unemployed,
housing and increased food supplies
• he declared that Germany would be a democratic republic now and there would be
no Kaiser
• one of the political groups was the Spartacus League who believed in communism
and wanted Germany to be run by a small council of soldiers rather than a
parliament
• on 6th January 1919, the Spartacus tried to take over Berlin by roaming the streets,
firing guns and taking over important building
• Ebert sent a group of 2000 ex-soldiers known as the Free corps to attack the
Spartacus
• after 3 days of street fighting, the Free Corps recaptured the important buildings and
arrested Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the Spartacus leaders
• they were beat brutally and murdered, meaning the Spartacus League’s revolt was
over
• in late January 1919 the promised election was held and the SDF won the vote,
meaning Ebert was the president of Germany
• because of all the violence he held a meeting in Weimar with all the newly elected
politicians on the 11 February 1919
• they drew up the Weimar Constitution which was a set of rules for how Germany
would be governed, making it one of the most democratic countries anywhere in the
world
• the new constitution was very fair and all Germans had equal votes
o even women over the age of 20 could vote (28 in Britain) showing how
forward-thinking they were
• There were some problems though:
o Proportional representation
▪ this meant that lots of different political parties were able to win
seats in the Reichstag
▪ sometimes there were over 20 different political parties, making it
very difficult to make decisions and introduce laws
▪ between 1919 and 1933 no political party ever won more than half
the votes in any election, meaning they did not get more than half the
seats
▪ with no majority, the leading party had to deals with smaller groups
to get anything done, make law-making a very slow process at all
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