Dolchstosslegende: Encyclopedia II - Dolchstosslegende - Motivation

Dolchstosslegende - Motivation

Many Germans who supported, fought in, or had otherwise known people lost in the enormously costly war, believed the causes for the German/Austrian involvement in the war were justified. They had hoped it would bring a restoration of past glory and a unified German nation-state. Instead, the war caused the deaths of 1,770,000 German soldiers and 760,000 German civilians, devastated the economy, and brought losses in both territory and national sovereignty.

Conservatives, nationalists and ex-military leaders sought others to blame. The common scapegoats were Weimar Republic politicians, socialists, communists, and "international Jewry" — a term referring to Jews with a perceived excess of wealth and influence. These "November criminals", nationalists alleged, had "stabbed them in the back" on the "home front," by either criticizing the cause of German nationalism, or by simply not being zealous-enough supporters of it. In essence the accusation was that the accused committed treason against the benevolent and righteous common cause.

These theories were given credence by the fact that when Germany surrendered in November 1918, its armies were still in French and Belgian territory - in fact earlier in 1918 the Michael offensive had come close to winning the war for Germany. In addition Germany had already won the war against Russia. This overlooked that the decisive defeat for the Central Powers lay further south, with the Allied breakout at Thessaloniki. This knocked Bulgaria out of the war immediately, and ultimately led to the collapse of Austria-Hungary, leaving Germany in a hopeless strategic position.

In addition, the belligerents were engaged in a new kind of war, and suddenly the performance of soldiers on the battlefield became marginalized. The industrialization of war had dehumanized the process, and made possible a new kind of defeat which the Germans suffered.

Non-combatants and homefront production became of great influence as a total war emerged. This caused many Germans to become extremely suspicious of their own population - especially those supportive of or involved in the Weimar Republic. There was a considerable amount of political tension prior to the war, especially due to the growing presence of socialists in the Bundesrat. This was a great concern for the absolutists in power. Some historians believe this to be one of the reasons Austria-Hungary committed itself to war even though diplomatic solutions had not been completely exhausted. Although there are many possible causes for World War I, some saw it as an opportunity to unite the nation with a decisive victory, diminishing the threat of social insurrection.

The outbreak of the war erased many of the divisions that had existed in German society initially; Roman Catholics, Jews, Lutherans, socialists, right-wingers and liberals were all overcome by the phenomenon of the "spirit of 1914". Yet, as the war dragged on, old divisions resurfaced. Suspicion of Catholics, Social Democrats and Jews grew as initial enthusiasms subsided and their national loyalty was questioned once again. Those who were profiting from the war were also subject to criticism, as well as industrial workers involved in labor strikes. Krupp himself was accused of manufacturing arms for both sides, which was extremely profitable. Individual interests were guided by the behavior of individuals in other sectors. As administrators meddled with the economy by introducing price ceilings and other measures, producers often responded by switching goods, thus creating shortages. This created a great amount of tension between urban and rural settings and, more importantly, exacerbated hardships and bred discord. In 1917, there were roughly five hundred strikes across Germany, resulting in over 2,000,000 total work days lost.

Still, civil disorder was a result of an inability to make ends meet, not a shortage of patriotism. While it is true that production slumped in 1917 and 1918, the nation had maximized its war effort and could take no more. Raw production figures confirm that Germany could not have possibly won a war of attrition against Britain, France and the United States combined. Despite its overwhelming power, Germany's industrial might and population were matched and outclassed by the Entente as a whole. Russia's exit in 1917 did little to change the overall picture, as the United States joined the war shortly thereafter on April 16, 1917. American industrial capacity overtook Germany's singlehandedly.

Nevertheless, this social mythos of domestic betrayal resonated among its audience, and its claims would codify the basis for public support for the emerging Nazi Party, under a severely racialist-based form of nationalism. The anti-Semitism was intensified by the Bavarian Soviet Republic, a Communist government which ruled the city of Munich for two weeks before being crushed by the Freikorps militia. Most of the Bavarian Soviet Republic's leaders were Jewish, a fact exploited by anti-Semitic propagandists to tar all Jews with the brush of "Communist treason".

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Motivation", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki