Weimar Germany overview - OCR AWorld War Two and its aftermath, 1939-1955
Depression brought instability to the Weimar Republic from 1929, which led to Nazi dictatorship. War then brought disaster for the German people: invasion, defeat, occupation and ultimately partition.
The period ended in disaster for the German people. Despite Germany鈥檚 early successes, after 1942, World War Two brought rationing, bombing raids and labour shortages. Once the tide of war turned, from 1943 onwards, these difficulties intensified. In particular, the Allied bombing campaign had a brutal impact on the civilian population with hundreds of thousands killed, injured and displaced.
Opposition to the Nazis flared, culminating in an attempt by army officers to assassinate Hitler in 1944. The eventual invasion of Germany in 1945, by the USSR from the East and Britain, the USA and France from the West, brought total collapse and eventual occupation by the four Allies.
Germany was now at the centre of the emerging Cold War, an ideological battle between the communistSupporters of the communist movement or party. USSR and capitalistThe economic idea that countries should be run based on private business, trade, stocks and shares, and profit. USA. It was divided into two separate states, East and West Germany, in 1949. Whilst Germans in the West enjoyed a restored democracy and a miraculous economic recovery, their neighbours in the East saw their economy plundered by the USSR as reparation for the war and found themselves under a communist dictatorship.