Impact of WWI on Germany

Political Challenges

• Many people were not fans of the new democratic government. They were in favor of having a Socialistic government.
• The German people were not were not ready to accept an instant change. The government went immediately from having a Kaiser to being democratic. The navy revolted against having a democratic government.

Social Challenges

• 600,000 women were widowed during the war. 2 million children were left fatherless. This created a generation that grew up without men around.
• There were huge gaps in the lifestyles between the rich and the poor. People were not happy about this and wanted something done to fix it- aka a classless society. They thought that Socialism sounded pretty good.
• Women started to take on jobs in the factories. This broke tradition and many were not happy about it. they thought that women should stay home and take care of the children, but because Germany had lost so many men, they need more people to take on the men's jobs.
• The majority of the German citizens did not their choice of democratic leaders. They thought they could not do good things for their country, so instead they leaned towards Socialism.

Economic Challenges

• The income average was one third of what it had been before the war. This caused a nasty selling/producing/buying circle, where as one thing went down, it took everything else with it.
• Germany had lost some of their key industrial and mineral rich land areas in the Treaty of Versailles. They lost the Saar valley, where their best natural resources were.
• Factory production was down by two thirds of what it had been prior to the war. This was because of the two points mentioned previously.
• the German workers had restrictions put on their pay, so the workers got poorer and the factory owners got richer.