Failed post-war stabilization and totalitarian alternatives to liberal capitalism:  The Rise of the Fascist Dictatorships in Central Europe
 
 I) Post WWI economic instability and stabilization
 
 hyper-inflation in wake of war
 state welfare policies as strategy for stabilizing society
 USA's Dawes Plan (1924) helped restore European economy, 1925-October 1929 "boom"
 
 II) Post-war instability and Fascism in Italy
 
Combination of post-war inflation, unemployment, and labor unrest in the North with rural unrest in the South
 
Lockouts and worker takeovers of factories in 1920, growing class tensions
 
Rising middle class and lower middle class support for extreme nationalists in 1920-21
 
Benito Mussoloni's fascist party:

anti-liberalism

anti-democracy

anti-Marxist

Emphasis on the need to fight and struggle/ national (blood) bonds
 
 1921 fascist gains in parliament
 
 1922 socialists' general strike backfires, leads to more fascist influence
 
 fall 1922, fascist victories in city council elections
 
 1922 March on Rome, King asks Mussolini to form a new government
 
 1924 elections give fascists control over parliament
 
 1924-1927, foundations of Fascist dictatorship in Italy:

Violence and new laws used to destroy political opposition
 
Multi-year state economic planning combines as capitalist economy with goal of

"autarky"--a self-sufficient economy.
 
"Cult of personality" of Mussolini, "El Duce"--the dictator who must be followed blindly.
 

 III) The German (Weimar) Republic and the collapse of democracy in Germany
 
 Weimar Constitution (1919) and the German multi-party democratic system
 
 Hyper inflation and economic chaos, 1919-1923
 
Attacks on democracy in the early 1920s:

From the far left (communist revolts in 1919, 1920)

From the far right (freikorps,1920 Kapp uprising, 1923 "Beer Hall" uprising,

            Hitler, stab in the back myth)
 
1924, peak of first wave of ultra-nationalism
 
Dawes plan and economic stabilization, decline of ultra nationalistic right wing politics
 
mid-1920s political situation: 

            Governments led by center-moderate right wing political party coalitions

Influence of Social Democratic Labor Party, with 1/3 of all votes.

            By 1928, lower middle class, middle class voters reject policies of cooperation

with the SDs, stop voting for the centrist parties. 

By 1928, SDLP votes stable, center-right votes decline, and votes increase for the

            far left (Communists) and far right (Nazis)

 

impact of 1929 economic crisis

Fall 1929 NY stock market crash and world-wide depression hit Germany
Elites looking for a way to remove the Socialists, but can't out vote them
Growing popular support for Nazis

Basic ideas of Hitler and Nazis:

anti-liberalism

anti-communism

racial struggle as the means of uniting the "national community"

Aryan racial purity

"Jewish-Bolshevism" (Jews and Communists) as the great enemy of the German

people,

establishing a "greater Germany"

repudiating the Versailles Treaty

German dominance over middle Europe and middle Africa

"living space" and German colonization in Eastern Europe 
 

Political crisis of 1930-1932:

No one party or coalition of parties can build a majority in parliament;

President Hindenburg appoints three different chancellors in a row in 1930-1932;

None of these can find a way to build a majority bloc, two biggest parties are the

   Social Democrats and the Nazis, who are enemies.

Elites want to get rid of the Social Democrats, but don't trust Hitler.
 
January 1933, President Hindenburg appoints Hitler as Chancellor, Hitler forms a Nazi-Nationalist government.