The end of the First World War marked the beginning of a period of political and economic instability in Germany. As a result of this instability, many small, extremist political groups appeared.
This section will explore how democracy collapsed and one such party, the NSDAP, or Nazi Party, rose to power in Germany.
Germany after the First World War. The monarchy is at an end. In Weimar, the country adopts a new constitution. But the young republic stands on shaky ground. Germans have grown up under the Kaiser's rule, and many reject democracy, which they associate with military defeat and the humiliations of the enforced peace treaty of Versailles. Consequences of the war – chaos, hunger, immense state debt and increasingly breathtaking devaluation of the currency – are blamed not on the failed empire, but on the democratic parties.
Until 1923, Germany is under the "dictatorship of the street": conditions close to civil war threaten the country with collapse. Revolutions and revolts from right and left almost always lead to the imposition of martial law. . Even later, violence and demonstrations by uniformed associations are still a political fact of life.
Only from 1924 to 1929 – a phase of political and economic stabilization – does the Republic appear to flourish.