The great depression

 In 1929 the Wall Street Crash led to a worldwide depression. Germany suffered more than any other nation. The economic depression was a public fear that shocked the whole world. The economic depression was the Great depression of 1929 which lasted ten years and forced millions into unemployment, homelessness, and near starvations. As a result of the recall of US loans, which caused its economy to collapse. Unemployment rocketed, poverty soared and Germans became desperate. This led to a chain of events that ended in the destruction of German democracy. In 1932, the US was also hit by the Great depression. 15 million people, more than 20 percent of the US population at the time, were all unemployed, compared to  Germany, the whole population of Germany were affected by the Great depression. The unemployment numbers of people began off from 1.4 million to over 2 million. By the time hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, one in three Germans were unemployed, with the number hitting from 2 million to 6.1 million.

The treaty of Versailles was made to take the power away from Germany. The number of soldiers in the German army went from 6 million to 100 thousands. The treaty got rid of their submarines, military aircraft and artillery and reduced their navy to 6 small battleships. They also had to pay for the cost of the war they caused in WW1. Germany’s WW1 was so crushing, it took them 92 years to pay off. Hitler also agreed to take no military action without further discussion, and Chamberlain agreed to try to persuade his cabinet and the French to accept the results of a plebiscite in the Sudetenland.

 

For New Zealand, as for most of the world outside Russia, the great depression of the early 1930s was the most broken economic experience ever recorded. The wall street crash of October 1929 generally recognised as the event that triggered the Great Depression.