The Great Depression had an impact on many countries of Europe, mainly because each country depended on the other for supplies and trading. When the United States got hit with the depression, the rest of the world was affected too since, at the time, the U.S was the country that gave all the loans. Germany was a country that was receiving loans from America in order to pay war reparations to the Allies. Germany already weakened by the penalties imposed after WW1 was in a very vulnerable position and when the great depression came, it sank much quicker and much deeper into an economic crisis which had significant influence on unemployment in the country and economic depravity which ultimately led to the rise of nationalism and the extremes and Nazism.
Unemployment and poverty were the main factors during the Great Depression and struck Germany during that time. The government responded to the depression by cutting back in production and consumption, cutting public services and used emergency powers to maintain order. There was decreased trade amongst the countries, and therefore the unemployment increased since many had lost their jobs in the trading industry as well as the publication of free press. The depression significantly affected the middle class people in German whose poverty and unemployment benefits had been banned. The people reacted to this fact by organizing protests and demonstrations against the government. They began to doubt the democratic government and turned to different political structures like communist and nationalist parties.
The Great Depression weakened the Weimar Republic. People were evidently not satisfied with their government’s policies and turned to the extremes. The rise of the extreme Parties like communist and nationalist parties occurred due to the economic depravity in Germany. Germany was affected by the Great Depression due to the disruption in world trade. The Wall Street crash, therefore the economic crash in U.S.A, led to the collapse of German economy. The economic depravity caused very high levels of unemployment and a feeling of despair among the German people who, at the same time, had suffered the disillusionment of defeat and humiliation after the Great War. All these factors led the German people to the arms of extremism and the rise of the communists and the national socialists was inevitable. However, it seemed that the national socialist party, which later was called the Nazi party, gained more votes during elections in the time of the Great Depression because of their strong leader who had the gift of motivating his people.
Hitler was the leader of the Nazis and of course proved to be the strongest figure who managed to arouse a strong feeling of nationalism and militarism among the Germans. The Great Depression was a gift to the Nazis. The Nazis had a resolution for every problem and every frustration they came across and used this devastating event as an advantage to express a radical change in the government. Hitler had the ability to manipulate, and others may say brainwash, the German people and in a time like this he had taken advantage of it delivering powerful and touching speeches. His ideas at the time and his gift in leadership seemed to be the answer to Germany’s problems. He used propaganda in order to dismantle the communist party and gain all the votes he could. Not only was it easy for him to take down the communist party, but he also demolished the Weimar Republic easily due to the anger held by the people towards their democratic government after the Locarno Treaty signed by Stresseman. The signing of this treaty meant that he, as a leader of Germany, had stabbed his people at the back for betraying years of resistance towards the Allied Powers. However, Hitler managed to win most of the people’s trust and handle it in his own way. Therefore Hitler’s skills proved that his dominance of the Nazis was complete.
The Great Depression largely impacted Europe, especially Germany due to the fact that she was already imposed many war reparations formerly. Germany was affected by the Great Depression by having her people going against the government and protesting for food and going on strikes due to the Republic’s poor policy responses. The rise of the extremism, such as Communism and National Socialism, therefore occurred since people were tired of living in such bad conditions put by the Weimar. Hitler was the leader of the National Socialist Party who gained the trust and support of most of the Germans and eventually came to a rise due to the unfortunate event of the Great Depression. The decline of the German economy became a reason for the Nazi to raise and prosper, by promising the people a better life and taking down communism. Therefore the Great Depression could be considered as one of the main factors of the Second World War.
