title: Partition of India

text: The newly formed governments had not anticipated, and were completely unequipped for, a two-way migration of such staggering magnitude. Massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the new India-Pakistan border. Estimates of the number of deaths vary, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 2,000,000. The worst case of violence among all regions is concluded to have taken place in Punjab.


title: Partition of India

text: The partition of British India split the former British province of Punjab between the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The mostly Muslim western part of the province became Pakistan's Punjab province; the mostly Hindu and Sikh eastern part became India's East Punjab state (later divided into the new states of Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh). Many Hindus and Sikhs lived in the west, and many Muslims lived in the east, and the fears of all such minorities were so great that the partition saw many people displaced and much inter-communal violence. Some have described the violence in Punjab as a retributive genocide. Total migration across Punjab during the partition is estimated at 12 million people; around 6.5 million Muslims moved into West Punjab, and 4.7 million Hindus and Sikhs moved into East Punjab.


title: Partition of India

text: Virtually no Muslim survived in East Punjab (except in Malerkotla and Nuh) and virtually no Hindu or Sikh survived in West Punjab.


title: Partition of India

text: Lawrence James observed that "Sir Francis Mudie, the governor of West Punjab, estimated that 500,000 Muslims died trying to enter his province, while the British High Commissioner in Karachi put the full total at 800,000. This makes nonsense of the claim by Mountbatten and his partisans that only 200,000 were killed": [James 1998: 636].


title: Partition of India

text: During this period, many alleged that Tara Singh was endorsing the killing of Muslims. On 3 March 1947, at Lahore, Singh, along with about 500 Sikhs, declared from a dais "Death to Pakistan." According to political scientist Ishtiaq Ahmed:On March 3, radical Sikh leader Master Tara Singh famously flashed his kirpan (sword) outside the Punjab Assembly, calling for the destruction of the Pakistan idea prompting violent response by the Muslims mainly against Sikhs but also Hindus, in the Muslim-majority districts of northern Punjab. Yet, at the end of that year, more Muslims had been killed in East Punjab than Hindus and Sikhs together in West Punjab.


title: Partition of India

text: Nehru wrote to Gandhi on 22 August that, up to that point, twice as many Muslims had been killed in East Punjab than Hindus and Sikhs in West Punjab.


title: Partition of India

text: Territory comprises the contemporary subdivisions of Punjab, Pakistan and Islamabad Capital Territory.


title: Partition of India

text: Territory comprises the contemporary subdivisions of Punjab, India, Chandigarh, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh.


title: Partition of India

text: The province of Bengal was divided into the two separate entities of West Bengal, awarded to the Dominion of India, and East Bengal, awarded to the Dominion of Pakistan. East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan in 1955, and later became the independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. The districts of Murshidabad and Malda, located on the right bank of the Ganges, were given to India despite having Muslim majorities. The Hindu-majority Khulna District, located on the mouths of the Ganges and surrounded by Muslim-majority districts, were given to Pakistan, as were the eastern-most Chittagong Hill Tracts.


title: Partition of India

text: Thousands of Hindus, located in the districts of East Bengal, which were awarded to Pakistan, found themselves being attacked, and this religious persecution forced hundreds of thousands of Hindus from East Bengal to seek refuge in India. The massive influx of Hindu refugees into Calcutta affected the demographics of the city. Many Muslims left the city for East Pakistan, and the refugee families occupied some of their homes and properties.


title: Partition of India

text: Total migration across Bengal during the partition is estimated at 3.3 million: 2.6 million Hindus moved from East Pakistan to India and 0.7 million Muslims moved from India to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).


title: Partition of India

text: The sparsely populated Chittagong Hill Tracts were a special case. Located on the eastern limits of Bengal, it provided the Muslim-majority Chittagong with a hinterland. Despite the Tracts' 98.5% Buddhist majority in 1947 the territory was given to Pakistan.


title: Partition of India

text: At the time of partition, the majority of Sindh's prosperous upper and middle class was Hindu. The Hindus were mostly concentrated in cities and formed the majority of the population in cities including Hyderabad, Karachi, Shikarpur, and Sukkur. During the initial months after partition, only some Hindus migrated. However, by late 1947 and early 1948, the situation began to change. Large numbers of Muslims refugees from India started arriving in Sindh and began to live in crowded refugee camps.


title: Partition of India

text: On 6 December 1947, communal violence broke out in Ajmer in India, precipitated by an argument between


title: Partition of India

text: some Sindhi Hindu refugees and local Muslims in the Dargah Bazaar. Violence in Ajmer again broke out in the middle of December with stabbings, looting and arson resulting in mostly Muslim casualties. Many Muslims fled across the Thar Desert to Sindh in Pakistan. This sparked further anti-Hindu riots in Hyderabad, Sindh. On 6 January anti-Hindu riots broke out in Karachi, leading to an estimate of 1100 casualties. The arrival of Sindhi Hindu refugees in North Gujarat's town of Godhra in March 1948 again sparked riots there which led to more emigration of Muslims from Godhra to Pakistan. These events triggered the large scale of exodus of Hindus.


title: Partition of India

text: Despite the migration, a significant Sindhi Hindu population still resides in Pakistan's Sindh province, where they number at around 2.3 million as per Pakistan's 1998 census. Some districts in Sindh had a Hindu majority like Tharparkar District, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar and Badin, but these have decreased drastically due to persecution.


title: Partition of India

text: Due to the religious persecution of Hindus in Pakistan, Hindus from Sindh are still migrating to India.


title: Partition of India

text: An estimated 642,000 Muslims migrated to Pakistan, of which 75% went to Karachi largely due to business interests. The 1951 Census registered a drop of the Muslim population in the state from 13% in 1941 to 7% in 1951.


title: Partition of India

text: The number of incoming refugees was also quite large, with over a million people migrating to Gujarat.


title: Partition of India

text: For centuries Delhi had been the capital of the Mughal Empire from Babur to the successors of Aurangzeb and previous Turkic Muslim rulers of North India. The series of Islamic rulers keeping Delhi as a stronghold of their empires left a vast array of Islamic architecture in Delhi, and a strong Islamic culture permeated the city. In 1911, when the British Raj shifted their colonial capital from Calcutta to Delhi, the nature of the city began changing. The core of the city was called ‘Lutyens’ Delhi,’ named after the British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, and was designed to service the needs of the small but growing population of the British elite. Nevertheless, the 1941 census listed Delhi's population as being 33.2% Muslim.


title: Partition of India

text: As refugees began pouring into Delhi in 1947, the city was ill-equipped to deal with the influx of refugees. Refugees "spread themselves out wherever they could. They thronged into camps ... colleges, temples, "gurudwaras", "dharmshalas", military barracks, and gardens." By 1950, the government began allowing squatters to construct houses in certain portions of the city. As a result, neighbourhoods such as Lajpat Nagar and Patel Nagar sprang into existence, which carry a distinct Punjabi character to this day. However, as thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees from Punjab fled to the city, upheavals ensued as communal pogroms rocked the historical stronghold of Indo-Islamic culture and politics. A Pakistani diplomat in Delhi, Hussain, alleged that the Indian government was intent on eliminating Delhi's Muslim population or was indifferent to their fate. He reported that army troops openly gunned down innocent Muslims. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru estimated 1,000 casualties in the city. However, other sources claim that the casualty rate was 20 times higher. Gyanendra Pandey's 2010 account of the violence in Delhi puts the figure of Muslim casualties in Delhi at between 20,000 and 25,000.


title: Partition of India

text: Tens of thousands of Muslims were driven to refugee camps regardless of their political affiliations, and numerous historical sites in Delhi such as the Purana Qila, Idgah, and Nizamuddin were transformed into refugee camps. In fact, many Hindu and Sikh refugees eventually occupied the abandoned houses of Delhi's Muslim inhabitants.


title: Partition of India

text: At the culmination of the tensions, total migration in Delhi during the partition is estimated at 830,000 people; around 330,000 Muslims had migrated to Pakistan and around 500,000 Hindus & Sikhs migrated from Pakistan to Delhi. The 1951 Census registered a drop of the Muslim population in the city from 33.2% in 1941 to 5.3% in 1951.


title: Partition of India

text: In several cases, rulers of princely states were involved in communal violence or did not do enough to stop in time. Some rulers were away from their states for the summer, such as those of the Sikh states. Some believe that the rulers were whisked away by communal ministers in large part to avoid responsibility for the soon-to-come ethnic cleansing. However, in Bhawalpur and Patiala, upon the return of their ruler to the state, there was a marked decrease in violence, and the rulers consequently stood against the cleansing. The Nawab of Bahawalpur was away in Europe and returned on 1 October, shortening his trip. A bitter Hassan Suhrawardy would write to Mahatma Gandhi:


title: Partition of India

text: With the exceptions of Jind and Kapurthala, the violence was well organised in the Sikh states, with logistics provided by the durbar. In Patiala and Faridkot, the Maharajas responded to the call of Master Tara Singh to cleanse India of Muslims. The Maharaja of Patiala was offered the headship of a future united Sikh state that would rise from the "ashes of a Punjab civil war." The Maharaja of Faridkot, Harinder Singh, is reported to have listened to stories of the massacres with great interest going so far as to ask for "juicy details" of the carnage. The Maharaja of Bharatpur State personally witnessed the cleansing of Muslim Meos at Khumbar and Deeg. When reproached by Muslims for his actions, Brijendra Singh retorted by saying: "Why come to me? Go to Jinnah."


title: Partition of India

text: In Alwar and Bahawalpur communal sentiments extended to higher echelons of government, and the prime ministers of these States were said to have been involved in planning and directly overseeing the cleansing. In Bikaner, by contrast, the organisation occurred at much lower levels.


title: Partition of India

text: In Alwar and Bharatpur, princely states of Rajputana (modern-day Rajasthan), there were bloody confrontations between the dominant, Hindu land-holding community and the Muslim cultivating community. Well-organised bands of Hindu Jats, Ahirs and Gurjars, started attacking Muslim Meos in April 1947. By June, more than fifty Muslim villages had been destroyed. The Muslim League was outraged and demanded that the Viceroy provide Muslim troops. Accusations emerged in June of the involvement of Indian State Forces from Alwar and Bharatpur in the destruction of Muslim villages both inside their states and in British India.


title: Partition of India

text: In the wake of unprecedented violent attacks unleashed against them in 1947, 100,000 Muslim Meos from Alwar and Bharatpur were forced to flee their homes, and an estimated 30,000 are said to have been massacred. On 17 November, a column of 80,000 Meo refugees went to Pakistan. However, 10,000 stopped travelling due to the risks.


title: Partition of India

text: In September–November 1947 in the Jammu region of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, a large number of Muslims were killed, and others driven away to West Punjab. The impetus for this violence was partly due to the "harrowing stories of Muslim atrocities", brought by Hindu and Sikh refugees arriving to Jammu from West Punjab since March 1947. The killings were carried out by extremist Hindus and Sikhs, aided and abetted by the forces of the Jammu and Kashmir State, headed by the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir Hari Singh. Observers state that Hari Singh aimed to alter the demographics of the region by eliminating the Muslim population and ensure a Hindu majority. This was followed by a massacre of Hindus and Sikhs starting in November 1947, in Rajouri and Mirpur by Pashtun tribal militias and Pakistani soldiers. Women were raped and sexually assaulted. Many of those killed, raped and injured had come to these areas to escape massacres in West Punjab, which had become part of Pakistan.


title: Partition of India

text: According to the 1951 Census of India, 2% of India's population were refugees (1.3% from West Pakistan and 0.7% from East Pakistan).


title: Partition of India

text: The majority of Sikh and Hindu Punjabi refugees from West Punjab were settled in Delhi and East Punjab (including Haryana and Himachal Pradesh). Delhi received the largest number of refugees for a single city, with the population of Delhi showing an increase from under 1 million (917,939) in the Census of India, 1941, to a little less than 2 million (1,744,072) in the 1951 Census, despite a large number of Muslims leaving Delhi in 1947 to go to Pakistan whether voluntarily or by coercion. The incoming refugees were housed in various historical and military locations such as the Purana Qila, Red Fort, and military barracks in Kingsway Camp (around the present Delhi University). The latter became the site of one of the largest refugee camps in northern India, with more than 35,000 refugees at any given time besides Kurukshetra camp near Panipat. The campsites were later converted into permanent housing through extensive building projects undertaken by the Government of India from 1948 onwards. Many housing colonies in Delhi came up around this period, like Lajpat Nagar, Rajinder Nagar, Nizamuddin East, Punjabi Bagh, Rehgar Pura, Jangpura, and Kingsway Camp. Several schemes such as the provision of education, employment opportunities, and easy loans to start businesses were provided for the refugees at the all-India level. Many Punjabi Hindu refugees were also settled in Cities of Western and Central Uttar Pradesh. A Colony consisting largely of Sikhs and Punjabi Hindus was also founded in Central Mumbai's Sion Koliwada region, and named Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar.


title: Partition of India

text: Hindus fleeing from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) were settled across Eastern, Central and Northeastern India, many ending up in neighbouring Indian states such as West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. Substantial number of refugees were also settled in Madhya Pradesh (incl. Chhattisgarh) Bihar (incl. Jharkhand), Odisha and Andaman islands (where Bengalis today form the largest linguistic group)


title: Partition of India

text: Sindhi Hindus settled predominantly in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan. Substantial, however, were also settled in Madhya Pradesh, A few also settled in Delhi. A new township was established for Sindhi Hindu refugees in Maharashtra. The Governor-General of India, Sir Rajagopalachari, laid the foundation for this township and named it Ulhasnagar ('city of joy').


title: Partition of India

text: Substantial communities of Hindu Gujarati and Marathi Refugees who had lived in cities of Sindh and Southern Punjab were also resettled in Cities of Modern-day Gujarat and Maharashtra.


title: Partition of India

text: A small community of Pashtun Hindus from Loralai, Balochistan was also settled City of Jaipur. Today they number around 1,000.


title: Partition of India

text: The 1951 Census of Pakistan recorded that the most significant number of Muslim refugees came from the East Punjab and nearby Rajputana states (Alwar and Bharatpur). They numbered 5,783,100 and constituted 80.1% of Pakistan's total refugee population. This was the effect of the retributive ethnic cleansing on both sides of the Punjab where the Muslim population of East Punjab was forcibly expelled like the Hindu/Sikh population in West Punjab.


title: Partition of India

text: Migration from other regions of India were as follows: Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa, 700,300 or 9.8%; UP and Delhi 464,200 or 6.4%; Gujarat and Bombay, 160,400 or 2.2%; Bhopal and Hyderabad 95,200 or 1.2%; and Madras and Mysore 18,000 or 0.2%.


title: Partition of India

text: So far as their settlement in Pakistan is concerned, 97.4% of the refugees from East Punjab and its contiguous areas went to West Punjab; 95.9% from Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa to the erstwhile East Pakistan; 95.5% from UP and Delhi to West Pakistan, mainly in Karachi Division of Sindh; 97.2% from Bhopal and Hyderabad to West Pakistan, mainly Karachi; and 98.9% from Bombay and Gujarat to West Pakistan, largely to Karachi; and 98.9% from Madras and Mysore went to West Pakistan, mainly Karachi.


title: Partition of India

text: West Punjab received the largest number of refugees (73.1%), mainly from East Punjab and its contiguous areas. Sindh received the second largest number of refugees, 16.1% of the total migrants, while the Karachi division of Sindh received 8.5% of the total migrant population. East Bengal received the third-largest number of refugees, 699,100, who constituted 9.7% of the total Muslim refugee population in Pakistan. 66.7% of the refugees in East Bengal originated from West Bengal, 14.5% from Bihar and 11.8% from Assam.


title: Partition of India

text: NWFP and Baluchistan received the lowest number of migrants. NWFP received 51,100 migrants (0.7% of the migrant population) while Baluchistan received 28,000 (0.4% of the migrant population).


title: Partition of India

text: The Government undertook a census of refugees in West Punjab in 1948, which displayed their place of origin in India.


title: Partition of India

text: A study of the total population inflows and outflows in the districts of Punjab, using the data provided by the 1931 and 1951 Census has led to an estimate of 1.3 million missing Muslims who left western India but did not reach Pakistan. The corresponding number of missing Hindus/Sikhs along the western border is estimated to be approximately 0.8 million. This puts the total of missing people, due to partition-related migration along the Punjab border, to around 2.2 million.


title: Partition of India

text: Another study of the demographic consequences of partition in the Punjab region using the 1931, 1941 and 1951 censuses concluded that between 2.3 and 3.2 million people went missing in the Punjab.


title: Partition of India

text: Both sides promised each other that they would try to restore women abducted and raped during the riots. The Indian government claimed that 33,000 Hindu and Sikh women were abducted, and the Pakistani government claimed that 50,000 Muslim women were abducted during riots. By 1949, there were legal claims that 12,000 women had been recovered in India and 6,000 in Pakistan. By 1954, there were 20,728 Muslim women recovered from India, and 9,032 Hindu and Sikh women recovered from Pakistan. Most of the Hindu and Sikh women refused to go back to India, fearing that their families would never accept them, a fear mirrored by Muslim women.


title: Partition of India

text: Even after the 1951 Census, many Muslim families from India continued migrating to Pakistan throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s. According to historian Omar Khalidi, the Indian Muslim migration to West Pakistan between December 1947 and December 1971 was from Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. The next stage of migration was between 1973 and the 1990s, and the primary destination for these migrants was Karachi and other urban centres in Sindh.


title: Partition of India

text: In 1959, the International Labour Organization (ILO) published a report stating that from 1951 to 1956, a total of 650,000 Muslims from India relocated to West Pakistan. However, Visaria (1969) raised doubts about the authenticity of the claims about Indian Muslim migration to Pakistan, since the 1961 Census of Pakistan did not corroborate these figures. However, the 1961 Census of Pakistan did incorporate a statement suggesting that there had been a migration of 800,000 people from India to Pakistan throughout the previous decade. Of those who left for Pakistan, most never came back.


title: Partition of India

text: Indian Muslim migration to Pakistan declined drastically in the 1970s, a trend noticed by the Pakistani authorities. In June 1995, Pakistan's interior minister, Naseerullah Babar, informed the National Assembly that between the period of 1973–1994, as many as 800,000 visitors came from India on valid travel documents. Of these only 3,393 stayed. In a related trend, intermarriages between Indian and Pakistani Muslims have declined sharply. According to a November 1995 statement of Riaz Khokhar, the Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi, the number of cross-border marriages has dropped from 40,000 a year in the 1950s and 1960s to barely 300 annually.


title: Partition of India

text: In the aftermath of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, 3,500 Muslim families migrated from the Indian part of the Thar Desert to the Pakistani section of the Thar Desert. 400 families were settled in Nagar after the 1965 war and an additional 3000 settled in the Chachro taluka in Sindh province of West Pakistan. The government of Pakistan provided each family with 12 acres of land. According to government records, this land totalled 42,000 acres.


title: Partition of India

text: The 1951 census in Pakistan recorded 671,000 refugees in East Pakistan, the majority of which came from West Bengal. The rest were from Bihar. According to the ILO in the period 1951–1956, half a million Indian Muslims migrated to East Pakistan. By 1961 the numbers reached 850,000. In the aftermath of the riots in Ranchi and Jamshedpur, Biharis continued to migrate to East Pakistan well into the late sixties and added up to around a million. Crude estimates suggest that about 1.5 million Muslims migrated from West Bengal and Bihar to East Bengal in the two decades after partition.


title: Partition of India

text: Due to religious persecution in Pakistan, Hindus continue to flee to India. Most of them tend to settle in the state of Rajasthan in India. According to data of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, just around 1,000 Hindu families fled to India in 2013. In May 2014, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, revealed in the National Assembly of Pakistan that around 5,000 Hindus are migrating from Pakistan to India every year. Since India is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention, it refuses to recognise Pakistani Hindu migrants as refugees.


title: Partition of India

text: The population in the Tharparkar district in the Sindh province of West Pakistan was 80% Hindu and 20% Muslim at the time of independence in 1947. During the Indo-Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971, an estimated 1,500 Hindu families fled to India, which led to a massive demographic shift in the district. During these same wars, 23,300 Hindu families also migrated to Jammu Division from Azad Kashmir and West Punjab.


title: Partition of India

text: The migration of Hindus from East Pakistan to India continued unabated after partition. The 1951 census in India recorded that 2.5 million refugees arrived from East Pakistan, of which 2.1 million migrated to West Bengal while the rest migrated to Assam, Tripura, and other states. These refugees arrived in waves and did not come solely at partition. By 1973, their number reached over 6 million. The following data displays the major waves of refugees from East Pakistan and the incidents which precipitated the migrations:


title: Partition of India

text: In 1978, India gave citizenship to 55,000 Pakistani Hindus. By the time of the 1998 Census of Pakistan, Muslims made up 64.4% of the population and Hindus 35.6% of the population in Tharparkar.


title: Partition of India

text: Around 70,000 Hindus migrated to India due to increased persecution in the aftermath of the riots and mob attacks in response to Demolition of the Babri Masjid.


title: Partition of India

text: In 2010, a Berkeley, California and Delhi, India-based non-profit organization, The 1947 Partition Archive, began documenting oral histories from those who lived through the partition and consolidated the interviews into an archive. As of June 2021, nearly 9,700 interviews are preserved from 18 countries and are being released in collaboration with five university libraries in India and Pakistan, including Ashoka University, Habib University, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Guru Nanak Dev University and Delhi University in collaboration with Tata Trusts.


title: Partition of India

text: In August 2017, The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust (TAACHT) of United Kingdom set up what they describe as "the world's first Partition Museum" at Town Hall in Amritsar, Punjab. The Museum, which is open from Tuesday to Sunday, offers multimedia exhibits and documents that describe both the political process that led to partition and carried it forward, and video and written narratives offered by survivors of the events.


title: Partition of India

text: A 2019 book by Kavita Puri, "Partition Voices: Untold British Stories", based on the BBC Radio 4 documentary series of the same name, includes interviews with about two dozen people who witnessed partition and subsequently migrated to Britain.


title: Partition of India

text: The partition was a highly controversial arrangement, and remains a cause of much tension on the Indian subcontinent today. According to American scholar Allen McGrath, many British leaders including the British Viceroy, Mountbatten, were unhappy over the partition of India. Lord Mountbatten of Burma had not only been accused of rushing the process through but also is alleged to have influenced the Radcliffe Line in India's favour. The commission took longer to decide on a final boundary than on the partition itself. Thus the two nations were granted their independence even before there was a defined boundary between them.


title: Partition of India

text: Some critics allege that British haste led to increased cruelties during the partition. Because independence was declared "prior" to the actual partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new border. It was a task at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order; many died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. What ensued was one of the largest population movements in recorded history. According to Richard Symonds, at the lowest estimate, half a million people perished and twelve million became homeless.


title: Partition of India

text: However, many argue that the British were forced to expedite the partition by events on the ground. Once in office, Mountbatten quickly became aware that if Britain were to avoid involvement in a civil war, which seemed increasingly likely, there was no alternative to partition and a hasty exit from India. Law and order had broken down many times before partition, with much bloodshed on both sides. A massive civil war was looming by the time Mountbatten became Viceroy. After the Second World War, Britain had limited resources, perhaps insufficient to the task of keeping order. Another viewpoint is that while Mountbatten may have been too hasty, he had no real options left and achieved the best he could under difficult circumstances. The historian Lawrence James concurs that in 1947 Mountbatten was left with no option but to cut and run. The alternative seemed to be involved in a potentially bloody civil war from which it would be difficult to get out.


title: Partition of India

text: Conservative elements in England consider the partition of India to be the moment that the British Empire ceased to be a world power, following Curzon's dictum: "the loss of India would mean that Britain drop straight away to a third-rate power."


title: Partition of India

text: Venkat Dhulipala rejects the idea that the British divide and rule policy was responsible for partition and elaborates on the perspective that Pakistan was popularly imagined as a sovereign Islamic state or a 'New Medina', as a potential successor to the defunct Turkish caliphate and as a leader and protector of the entire Islamic world. Islamic scholars debated over creating Pakistan and its potential to become a true Islamic state. The majority of Barelvis supported the creation of Pakistan and believed that any co-operation with Hindus would be counter productive. Most Deobandis, who were led by Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, were opposed to the creation of Pakistan and the two-nation theory. According to them Muslims and Hindus could be a part of a single nation.


title: Partition of India

text: In their authoritative study of the partition, Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh have shown that the partition was not the inevitable end of the so-called British 'divide and rule policy' nor was it the inevitable end of Hindu-Muslim differences.


title: Partition of India

text: A cross-border student initiative, "The History Project", was launched in 2014 to explore the differences in perception of the events during the British era, which led to the partition. The project resulted in a book that explains both interpretations of the shared a history in Pakistan and India.


title: Partition of India

text: The partition of India and the associated bloody riots inspired many in India and Pakistan to create literary, cinematic, and artistic depictions of this event. While some creations depicted the massacres during the refugee migration, others concentrated on the aftermath of the partition in terms of difficulties faced by the refugees in both sides of the border. Works of fiction, films, and art that relate to the events of partition have continued to be made to the present day.


title: Partition of India

text: Salman Rushdie's novel "Midnight's Children" (1980), which won the Booker Prize and The Best of the Booker, wove its narrative based on the children born with magical abilities on midnight between 14 and 15 August 1947. "Freedom at Midnight" (1975) is a non-fiction work by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre that chronicled the events surrounding the first Independence Day celebrations in 1947.


title: Partition of India

text: The novel "Lost Generations" (2013) by Manjit Sachdeva describes the March 1947 massacre in rural areas of Rawalpindi by the Muslim League, followed by massacres on both sides of the new border in August 1947 seen through the eyes of an escaping Sikh family, their settlement and partial rehabilitation in Delhi, and ending in ruin (including death), for the second time in 1984, at the hands of mobs after a Sikh assassinated the prime minister.


title: Partition of India

text: The partition has been a frequent topic in film. Early films relating to the circumstances of the independence, partition and the aftermath include:


title: Partition of India

text: From the late 1990s onwards, more films on the theme of partition were made, including several mainstream ones, such as:


title: Partition of India

text: The biographical films "Gandhi" (1982), "Jinnah" (1998), "Sardar" (1993), and "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" (2013) also feature independence and partition as significant events in their screenplay.


title: Partition of India

text: The early members of the Bombay Progressive Artist's Group cited the partition as a key reason for its founding in December 1947. Those members included F. N. Souza, M. F. Husain, S. H. Raza, S. K. Bakre, H. A. Gade, and K. H. Ara, who went on to become some of the most important and influential Indian artists of the 20th century.


title: Partition of India

text: Contemporary Indian artists that have made significant artworks about the partition are Nalini Malani, Anjolie Ela Menon, Satish Gujral, Nilima Sheikh, Arpita Singh, Krishen Khanna, Pran Nath Mago, S. L. Parasher, Arpana Caur, Tayeba Begum Lipi, Mahbubur Rahman, Promotesh D Pulak, and Pritika Chowdhry.


title: Partition of India

text: Project Dastaan is a peace-building initiative that reconnects displaced refugees of the partition in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh with their childhood communities and villages through virtual reality digital experiences.


title: Leslie Mann

text: Leslie Jean Mann (born March 26, 1972) is an American actress. She has appeared in numerous films, including "The Cable Guy" (1996), "George of the Jungle" (1997), "Big Daddy" (1999), "Knocked Up" (2007), "17 Again" (2009), "Funny People" (2009), "This Is 40" (2012), "Blockers" (2018) and "" (2020).


title: Leslie Mann

text: Mann was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in Newport Beach. She was raised by her mother, Janet, who led design and quality programs for eight years at Ayres Hotel group. Mann has stated of her father, "My dad is...I don't really have one. I mean, he does exist, but I have zero relationship with him." She has two siblings and three older step-brothers. Her maternal grandmother, Sadie Viola Heljä Räsänen, was the daughter of Finnish immigrants.


title: Leslie Mann

text: Mann has said that she was "very shy, kind of pent-up" during her youth. She graduated from Corona del Mar High School, and studied acting at the Joanne Baron / D.W. Brown Acting Studio and alongside comedy improv troupe The Groundlings. She attended college and studied communications, but dropped out before graduating.


title: Leslie Mann

text: Mann began her career at 18, appearing in a number of television commercials. In 1996, she appeared in "The Cable Guy", followed with performances in "Freaks & Geeks", Sam Weisman's "George of The Jungle" alongside Brendan Fraser, "Big Daddy" with Adam Sandler, "Orange County" opposite Jack Black, and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" with Steve Carell.


title: Leslie Mann

text: In 2007, Mann starred alongside Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd in Judd Apatow's comedy "Knocked Up", which grossed more than $218 million worldwide. Her performance brought rave reviews and a "Best Supporting Actress" nomination from the Chicago Film Critics Association. The film won the People's Choice Award for "Favorite Movie Comedy", was named one of AFI's "Top Ten Films of the Year", and received a "Best Comedy" nomination from the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards.


title: Leslie Mann

text: In 2009, Mann reunited with her "Big Daddy" co-star Adam Sandler and "Knocked Up" co-star Seth Rogen for Apatow's "Funny People". This film was named to many of the year's top ten lists, including "The New Yorker" and "The New York Times". "Elle" writer Mickey Rapkin said that "[Mann] owns the second half of 2009's "Funny People", where her character does the most unlikely thing a woman can do in a major studio picture: has an affair with an ex-boyfriend on a whim." That same year, Mann also starred in Burr Steers' successful comedy "17 Again" opposite Zac Efron and Matthew Perry, which grossed over $125 million worldwide.


title: Leslie Mann

text: She was also seen in the indie hit "I Love You Phillip Morris" alongside Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. It premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and, on release, received critical acclaim, including a "Best Comedy" nomination for a 2011 Broadcast Film Critics Association Award.<ref name="I Love You Phillip Morris / IMDB Awards"></ref> Mann also starred alongside Elizabeth Banks in the film "What Was I Thinking?", based on the book by Barbara Davilman and Liz Dubelman, which was filmed in 2009 but never released.


title: Leslie Mann

text: In 2011, Mann starred opposite Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman in David Dobkin's comedy "The Change-Up." She also lent her voice to "Linda", the main human character in Carlos Saldanha's animated film "Rio", which earned over $484 million worldwide and also featured vocal performances by Jamie Foxx and Anne Hathaway; as well as to Jonah Hill's animated FOX television series "Allen Gregory", as the title character's second-grade teacher.


title: Leslie Mann

text: Mann continued her voice performance work in 2012 with her role in "ParaNorman", an animated 3D stop-motion film from Chris Butler and Sam Fell.


title: Leslie Mann

text: In December 2012, she appeared opposite Paul Rudd in Apatow's "This Is 40", the sequel to "Knocked Up". The movie reunited the trio from the first film, with Mann and Rudd reprising their characters. The sequel was written and directed by Judd Apatow, and included the couple's two daughters in the cast. In contrast to "Knocked Up", "This Is 40" centered squarely on Mann's character and her family. An early response to Mann's performance from "Elle Magazine" states that "[she] doesn't just walk off with scenes—she steals the show". Mann was nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy by the Broadcast Film Critics Association for "This Is 40".


title: Leslie Mann

text: In 2013, Mann appeared in Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring", with Emma Watson. Inspired by actual events, the film follows a group of fame-obsessed L.A. teenagers who burgled celebrity homes by tracking their whereabouts on the Internet.


title: Leslie Mann

text: In 2018, Mann starred as a single mother in the sex comedy "Blockers" and reunited with Steve Carell in "Welcome to Marwen".


title: Leslie Mann

text: On June 9, 1997, Mann married director and producer Judd Apatow, whom she met while auditioning for "The Cable Guy". Apatow, one of the film's producers, read the lines to auditioning actresses as a stand-in for Jim Carrey. Mann and Apatow have two daughters, Maude and Iris, who both appeared in the films "Knocked Up", "Funny People", and "This Is 40" as the children of Mann's characters. In 2017, Mann and elder daughter Maude appeared together in commercials for Jergens Skin Care products.


title: Leslie Mann

text: Mann and Apatow are both longtime supporters of the nonprofit organization 826LA, which focuses on encouraging and developing the writing skills of disadvantaged youth. They are also involved with the UCLA Rape Treatment Center's Stuart House, which serves sexually abused children and their families. Mann and Apatow's philanthropic contributions were honored in 2012 by the Bogart Pediatric Cancer Research Program, which awarded them the 2012 "Children's Choice Award" for their work with children and families dealing with pediatric cancer. In 2009, they were also recognized by The Fulfillment Fund, which honored them at its annual benefit gala.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The Weimar Republic ( ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic (). The state's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar, which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" (a term introduced by Adolf Hitler in 1929) not commonly used until the 1930s.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Following the devastation of the First World War (1914–1918), Germany was exhausted and sued for peace in desperate circumstances. Awareness of imminent defeat sparked a revolution, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, formal surrender to the Allies, and the proclamation of the Weimar Republic on 9 November 1918.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In its initial years, grave problems beset the Republic, such as hyperinflation and political extremism, including political murders and two attempted seizures of power by contending paramilitaries; internationally, it suffered isolation, reduced diplomatic standing, and contentious relationships with the great powers. By 1924, a great deal of monetary and political stability was restored, and the republic enjoyed relative prosperity for the next five years; this period, sometimes known as the Golden Twenties, was characterised by significant cultural flourishing, social progress, and gradual improvement in foreign relations. Under the Locarno Treaties of 1925, Germany moved toward normalising relations with its neighbours, recognising most territorial changes under the Treaty of Versailles and committing to never go to war. The following year, it joined the League of Nations, which marked its reintegration into the international community. Nevertheless, especially on the political right, there remained strong and widespread resentment against the treaty and those who had signed and supported it.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The Great Depression of October 1929 severely impacted Germany's tenuous progress; high unemployment and subsequent social and political unrest led to the collapse of the coalition government. From March 1930 onwards, President Paul von Hindenburg used emergency powers to back Chancellors Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen and General Kurt von Schleicher. The Great Depression, exacerbated by Brüning's policy of deflation, led to a greater surge in unemployment. On 30 January 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor to head a coalition government; Hitler's far-right Nazi Party held two out of ten cabinet seats. Von Papen, as Vice-Chancellor and Hindenburg's confidant, was to serve as the "éminence grise" who would keep Hitler under control; these intentions badly underestimated Hitler's political abilities. By the end of March 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 had used the perceived state of emergency to effectively grant the new Chancellor broad power to act outside parliamentary control. Hitler promptly used these powers to thwart constitutional governance and suspend civil liberties, which brought about the swift collapse of democracy at the federal and state level, and the creation of a one-party dictatorship under his leadership.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Until the end of World War II in Europe in 1945, the Nazis governed Germany under the pretense that all the extraordinary measures and laws they implemented were constitutional; notably, there was never an attempt to replace or substantially amend the Weimar constitution. Nevertheless, Hitler's seizure of power ("Machtergreifung") had effectively ended the republic, replacing its constitutional framework with "Führerprinzip", the principle that "the Führer's word is above all written law".


title: Weimar Republic

text: The Weimar Republic is so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar from 6 February 1919 to 11 August 1919, but this name only became mainstream after 1933.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Between 1919 and 1933, no single name for the new state gained widespread acceptance, thus the old name was officially retained, although hardly anyone used it during the Weimar period. To the right of the spectrum, the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model and were appalled to see the honour of the traditional word "Reich" associated with it. Zentrum, the Catholic Centre Party, favoured the term (German People's State), while on the moderate left Chancellor Friedrich Ebert's Social Democratic Party of Germany preferred (German Republic). By the mid-1920s, most Germans referred to their government informally as the , but for many, especially on the right, the word "" was a painful reminder of a government structure that they believed had been imposed by foreign statesmen, along with the relocation of the seat of power to Weimar and the expulsion of Kaiser Wilhelm in the wake of massive national humiliation.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The first recorded mention of the term (Republic of Weimar) came during a speech delivered by Adolf Hitler at a Nazi Party rally in Munich on 24 February 1929. A few weeks later, the term was first used again by Hitler in a newspaper article. Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The continued use of the term 'German Empire', "Deutsches Reich", by the Weimar Republic ... conjured up an image among educated Germans that resonated far beyond the institutional structures Bismarck created: the successor to the Roman Empire; the vision of God's Empire here on earth; the universality of its claim to suzerainty; and a more prosaic but no less powerful sense, the concept of a German state that would include all German speakers in central Europe—'one People, one Reich, one Leader', as the Nazi slogan was to put it.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The old black-red-gold tricolor was named as the national flag in the Weimar Constitution. It was abolished in 1935 after the Nazi Party seized the power. The coat of arms was initially based on the "Reichsadler" introduced by the Paulskirche Constitution of 1849, and announced in November 1911. In 1928, a new design by Karl-Tobias Schwab was adopted as national coat of arms, which was used until being replaced by Nazi's "Reichsadler" in 1935, and readopted by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950.


title: Weimar Republic

text: After the dissolution of the army of the former German Empire, known as the "Deutsches Heer" (simply "German Army") or the "Reichsheer" ("Army of the Realm") in 1918; Germany's military forces consisted of irregular paramilitaries, namely the various right-wing "Freikorps" ("Free Corps") groups composed of veterans from the war. The "Freikorps" units were formally disbanded in 1920 (although continued to exist in underground groups), and on 1 January 1921, a new "Reichswehr" (figuratively; "Defence of the realm") was created.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The Treaty of Versailles limited the size of the "Reichswehr" to 100,000 soldiers (consisting of seven infantry divisions and three cavalry divisions), 10 armoured cars and a navy (the "Reichsmarine") restricted to 36 ships in active service. No aircraft of any kind was allowed. The main advantage of this limitation, however, was that the "Reichswehr" could afford to pick the best recruits for service. However, with inefficient armour and no air support, the "Reichswehr" would have had limited combat abilities.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Privates were mainly recruited from the countryside, as it was believed that young men from cities were prone to socialist behaviour, which would fray the loyalty of the privates to their conservative officers.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Although technically in service of the republic, the army was predominantly officered by conservative reactionaries who were sympathetic to right-wing organisations. Hans von Seeckt, the head of the "Reichswehr", declared that the army was not loyal to the democratic republic, and would only defend it if it were in their interests. During the Kapp Putsch for example, the army refused to fire upon the rebels. The vulgar and turbulent SA was the "Reichswehr's" main opponent throughout its existence, openly seeking to absorb the army, and the army fired at them during the Beer Hall Putsch. With the ascendance of the SS, the "Reichswehr" took a softer line about the Nazis, as the SS presented itself as elitist, respectable, orderly, and busy reforming and dominating the police rather than the army.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In 1935, two years after Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the "Reichswehr" was renamed the "Wehrmacht" (Defense Force). The "Wehrmacht" was the unified armed forces of the Nazi regime, which consisted of the "Heer" (army), the "Kriegsmarine" (navy) and the "Luftwaffe" (air force).


title: Weimar Republic

text: Hostilities in World War I took place between 28 July 1914 and 11 November 1918, during which over 70 million military personnel were mobilised; the war ended with 20 million military and civilian deaths—exclusive of fatalities from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which accounted for millions more—making it one of the largest and deadliest wars in history.


title: Weimar Republic

text: After four years of war on multiple fronts in Europe and around the world, the final Allied offensive began in August 1918, and the position of Germany and the Central Powers deteriorated, leading them to sue for peace. Initial offers were rejected by the Allied Powers, and Germany's position became more desperate. Awareness of impending military defeat sparked the German Revolution, proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and German surrender, marking the end of Imperial Germany and the beginning of the Weimar Republic.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In October 1918, the constitution of the German Empire was reformed to give more powers to the elected parliament. On 29 October, rebellion broke out in Kiel among sailors. There, sailors, soldiers, and workers began electing Workers' and Soldiers' Councils ("Arbeiter und Soldatenräte") modelled after the Soviets of the Russian Revolution of 1917. The revolution spread throughout Germany, and participants seized military and civil powers in individual cities. The power takeover was achieved everywhere without loss of life.


title: Weimar Republic

text: At the time, the Socialist movement which represented mostly labourers was split among two major left-wing parties: the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which called for immediate peace negotiations and favoured a soviet-style command economy, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) also known as "Majority" Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), which supported the war effort and favoured a parliamentary system. The rebellion caused great fear in the establishment and in the middle classes because of the Soviet-style aspirations of the councils. To centrist and conservative citizens, the country looked to be on the verge of a communist revolution.


title: Weimar Republic

text: By 7 November, the revolution had reached Munich, resulting in King Ludwig III of Bavaria fleeing. The MSPD decided to make use of their support at the grassroots and put themselves at the front of the movement, demanding that Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicate. When he refused, Prince Max of Baden simply announced that he had done so and frantically attempted to establish a regency under another member of the House of Hohenzollern. Gustav Noske, a self-appointed military expert in the MSPD, was sent to Kiel to prevent any further unrest and took on the task of controlling the mutinous sailors and their supporters in the Kiel barracks. The sailors and soldiers, inexperienced in matters of revolutionary combat, welcomed him as an experienced politician and allowed him to negotiate a settlement, thus defusing the initial anger of the revolutionaries in uniform.


title: Weimar Republic

text: On 9 November 1918, the "German Republic" was proclaimed by MSPD member Philipp Scheidemann at the "Reichstag" building in Berlin, to the fury of Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the MSPD, who thought that the question of monarchy or republic should be answered by a national assembly. Two hours later, a "Free Socialist Republic" was proclaimed, away, at the "Berliner Stadtschloss". The proclamation was issued by Karl Liebknecht, co-leader (with Rosa Luxemburg) of the communist Spartakusbund (Spartacus League), a group of a few hundred supporters of the Russian Revolution that had allied itself with the USPD in 1917. In a legally questionable act, Imperial Chancellor ("Reichskanzler") Prince Max of Baden transferred his powers to Friedrich Ebert, who, shattered by the monarchy's fall, reluctantly accepted. In view of the mass support for more radical reforms among the workers' councils, a coalition government called "Council of the People's Deputies" ("Rat der Volksbeauftragten") was established, consisting of three MSPD and three USPD members. Led by Ebert for the MSPD and Hugo Haase for the USPD it sought to act as a provisional cabinet of ministers. But the power question was unanswered. Although the new government was confirmed by the Berlin worker and soldier council, it was opposed by the Spartacus League.


title: Weimar Republic

text: On 11 November 1918, an armistice was signed at Compiègne by German representatives. It effectively ended military operations between the Allies and Germany. It amounted to German capitulation, without any concessions by the Allies; the naval blockade would continue until complete peace terms were agreed.


title: Weimar Republic

text: From November 1918 to January 1919, Germany was governed by the "Council of the People's Deputies", under the leadership of Ebert and Haase. The Council issued a large number of decrees that radically shifted German policies. It introduced the eight-hour workday, domestic labour reform, works councils, agricultural labour reform, right of civil-service associations, local municipality social welfare relief (split between "Reich" and States) and national health insurance, reinstatement of demobilised workers, protection from arbitrary dismissal with appeal as a right, regulated wage agreement, and universal suffrage from 20 years of age in all types of elections—local and national. Ebert called for a "National Congress of Councils" ("Reichsrätekongress"), which took place from 16 to 20 December 1918, and in which the MSPD had the majority. Thus, Ebert was able to institute elections for a provisional National Assembly that would be given the task of writing a democratic constitution for parliamentary government, marginalising the movement that called for a socialist republic.


title: Weimar Republic

text: To ensure his fledgling government maintained control over the country, Ebert made an agreement with the OHL, now led by Ludendorff's successor General Wilhelm Groener. The 'Ebert–Groener pact' stipulated that the government would not attempt to reform the army so long as the army swore to protect the state. On the one hand, this agreement symbolised the acceptance of the new government by the military, assuaging concern among the middle classes; on the other hand, it was thought contrary to working-class interests by left wing social democrats and communists and was also opposed by the far right who believed democracy would make Germany weaker. The new "Reichswehr" armed forces, limited by the Treaty of Versailles to 100,000 army soldiers and 15,000 sailors, remained fully under the control of the German officer class, despite their nominal re-organisation.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The Executive Council of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils, a coalition that included Majority Socialists, Independent Socialists, workers, and soldiers, implemented a programme of progressive social change, introducing reforms such as the eight-hour workday, the releasing of political prisoners, the abolition of press censorship, increases in workers' old-age, sick and unemployment benefits, and the bestowing upon labour the unrestricted right to organise into unions.


title: Weimar Republic

text: A number of other reforms were carried out in Germany during the revolutionary period. It was made harder for estates to sack workers and prevent them from leaving when they wanted to; under the Provisional Act for Agricultural Labour of 23 November 1918 the normal period of notice for management, and for most resident labourers, was set at six weeks. In addition, a supplementary directive of December 1918 specified that female (and child) workers were entitled to a fifteen-minute break if they worked between four and six hours, thirty minutes for workdays lasting six to eight hours, and one hour for longer days. A decree on 23 December 1918 established committees (composed of workers' representatives "in their relation to the employer") to safeguard the rights of workers. The right to bargain collectively was also established, while it was made obligatory "to elect workers' committees on estates and establish conciliation committees". A decree on 3 February 1919 removed the right of employers to acquire exemption for domestic servants and agricultural workers.


title: Weimar Republic

text: With the "Verordnung" of 3 February 1919, the Ebert government reintroduced the original structure of the health insurance boards according to an 1883 law, with one-third employers and two-thirds members (i.e. workers). From 28 June 1919 health insurance committees became elected by workers themselves. The Provisional Order of January 1919 concerning agricultural labour conditions fixed 2,900 hours as a maximum per year, distributed as eight, ten, and eleven hours per day in four-monthly periods. A code of January 1919 bestowed upon land-labourers the same legal rights that industrial workers enjoyed, while a bill ratified that same year obliged the States to set up agricultural settlement associations which, as noted by Volker Berghahn, "were endowed with the priority right of purchase of farms beyond a specified size". In addition, undemocratic public institutions were abolished, involving, as noted by one writer, the disappearance "of the Prussian Upper House, the former Prussian Lower House that had been elected in accordance with the three-class suffrage, and the municipal councils that were also elected on the class vote".


title: Weimar Republic

text: A rift developed between the MSPD and USPD after Ebert called upon the OHL (Supreme Army Command) for troops to put down a mutiny by a leftist military unit on 23/24 December 1918, in which members of the "Volksmarinedivision" (People's Army Division) had captured the city's garrison commander Otto Wels and occupied the "Reichskanzlei" (Reich Chancellery) where the "Council of the People's Deputies" was situated. The ensuing street fighting left several dead and injured on both sides. The USPD leaders were outraged by what they believed was treachery by the MSPD, which, in their view, had joined with the anti-communist military to suppress the revolution. Thus, the USPD left the "Council of the People's Deputies" after only seven weeks. On 30 December, the split deepened when the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was formed out of a number of radical left-wing groups, including the left wing of the USPD and the Spartacus League group.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In January, the Spartacus League and others in the streets of Berlin made more armed attempts to establish communism, known as the Spartacist uprising. Those attempts were put down by paramilitary "Freikorps" units consisting of volunteer soldiers. Bloody street fights culminated in the beating and shooting deaths of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht after their arrests on 15 January. With the affirmation of Ebert, those responsible were not tried before a court-martial, leading to lenient sentences, which made Ebert unpopular among radical leftists.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The National Assembly elections took place on 19 January 1919; it was the first time women were allowed to vote. In this time, the radical left-wing parties, including the USPD and KPD, were barely able to get themselves organised, leading to a solid majority of seats for the MSPD moderate forces. To avoid the ongoing fights in Berlin, the National Assembly convened in the city of Weimar, giving the future Republic its unofficial name. The Weimar Constitution created a republic under a parliamentary republic system with the "Reichstag" elected by proportional representation. The democratic parties obtained a solid 80% of the vote.


title: Weimar Republic

text: During the debates in Weimar, fighting continued. A Soviet republic was declared in Munich but quickly put down by "Freikorps" and remnants of the regular army. The fall of the Munich Soviet Republic to these units, many of which were situated on the extreme right, resulted in the growth of far-right movements and organisations in Bavaria, including Organisation Consul, the Nazi Party, and societies of exiled Russian Monarchists. Sporadic fighting continued to flare up around the country. In eastern provinces, forces loyal to Germany's fallen Monarchy fought the republic, while militias of Polish nationalists fought for independence: Great Poland Uprising in Provinz Posen and three Silesian uprisings in Upper Silesia.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Germany lost the war because the country ran out of allies and its economic resources were running out; support among the population began to crumble in 1916 and by mid-1918 there was support for the war only among the die-hard monarchists and conservatives. The decisive blow came with the entry of the United States into the conflict, which made its vast industrial resources available to the beleaguered Allies. By late summer 1918, the German reserves were exhausted while fresh American troops arrived in France at the rate of 10,000 a day. Retreat and defeat were at hand, and the Army told the Kaiser to abdicate for it could no longer support him. Although in retreat, the German armies were still on French and Belgian territory when the war ended on 11 November. Ludendorf and Hindenburg soon proclaimed that it was the defeatism of the civilian population that had made defeat inevitable. The die-hard nationalists then blamed the civilians for betraying the army and the surrender. This was the "stab-in-the-back myth" that was unceasingly propagated by the right in the 1920s and ensured that many monarchists and conservatives would refuse to support the government of what they called the "November criminals".


title: Weimar Republic

text: In the four years following the First World War, the situation for German civilians remained dire. The severe food shortages improved little to none up until 1923. Many German civilians expected life to return to prewar normality following the removal of the naval blockade in June 1919. Instead, the struggles induced by the First World War persisted for the decade following. Throughout the war German officials made rash decisions to combat the growing hunger of the nation, most of which were highly unsuccessful. Examples include the nationwide pig slaughter, Schweinemord, in 1915. The rationale behind exterminating the population of swine was to decrease the use of potatoes and turnips for animal consumption, transitioning all foods toward human consumption.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In 1922, now three years after the German signing of the Treaty of Versailles, meat consumption in the country had not increased since the war era. 22 kg per person per year was still less than half of the 52 kg statistic in 1913, before the onset of the war. German citizens felt the food shortages even deeper than during the war, because the reality of the nation contrasted so starkly with their expectations. The burdens of the First World War lightened little in the immediate years following, and with the onset of the Treaty of Versailles, coupled by mass inflation, Germany still remained in a crisis. The continuity of pain showed the Weimar authority in a negative light, and public opinion was one of the main sources behind its failure.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The growing post-war economic crisis was a result of lost pre-war industrial exports, the loss of supplies in raw materials and foodstuffs due to the continental blockade, the loss of the colonies, and worsening debt balances, exacerbated by an exorbitant issue of promissory notes raising money to pay for the war. Military-industrial activity had almost ceased, although controlled demobilisation kept unemployment at around one million. In part, the economic losses can also be attributed to the Allied blockade of Germany until the Treaty of Versailles.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The Allies permitted only low import levels of goods that most Germans could not afford. After four years of war and famine, many German workers were exhausted, physically impaired and discouraged. Millions were disenchanted with what they considered capitalism and hoping for a new era. Meanwhile, the currency depreciated, and would continue to depreciate following the French invasion of the Ruhr.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The treaty was signed 28 June 1919 and is easily divided into four categories: territorial issues, disarmament demands, reparations, and assignment of guilt. The German colonial empire was stripped and given over to Allied forces. The greater blow to Germans however was that they were forced to give up the territory of Alsace-Lorraine. Many German borderlands were demilitarised and allowed to self-determine. The German military was forced to have no more than 100,000 men with only 4,000 officers. Germany was forced to destroy all its fortifications in the West and was prohibited from having an air force, tanks, poison gas, and heavy artillery. Many ships were scuttled, and submarines and dreadnoughts were prohibited. Germany was forced under Article 235 to pay 20 billion gold marks, about 4.5 billion dollars by 1921. Article 231 placed Germany and her allies with responsibility for causing all the loss and damage suffered by the Allies. While Article 235 angered many Germans, no part of the treaty was more fought over than Article 231.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The German peace delegation in France signed the Treaty of Versailles, accepting mass reductions of the German military, the prospect of substantial war reparations payments to the victorious allies, and the controversial "War Guilt Clause". Explaining the rise of extreme nationalist movements in Germany shortly after the war, British historian Ian Kershaw points to the "national disgrace" that was "felt throughout Germany at the humiliating terms imposed by the victorious Allies and reflected in the Versailles Treaty...with its confiscation of territory on the eastern border and even more so its 'guilt clause'." Adolf Hitler repeatedly blamed the republic and its democracy for accepting the oppressive terms of this treaty. The Republic's first "Reichspräsident" ("Reich President"), Friedrich Ebert of the SPD, signed the new German constitution into law on 11 August 1919.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The new post-World War Germany, stripped of all colonies, became 13% smaller in its European territory than its imperial predecessor. Of these losses, a large proportion consisted of provinces that were originally Polish, and the Imperial Territory of Alsace–Lorraine, seized by Germany in 1870, and where Germans constituted a majority within the Alsatian portion of said imperial province and also within half of Lorraine.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The occupation of the Rhineland took place following the Armistice with Germany of 11 November 1918. The occupying armies consisted of American, Belgian, British and French forces.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In 1920, under massive French pressure, the Saar was separated from the Rhine Province and administered by the League of Nations until a plebiscite in 1935, when the region was returned to the "Deutsches Reich". At the same time in 1920, the districts of Eupen and Malmedy were transferred to Belgium (see German-Speaking Community of Belgium). Shortly after, France completely occupied the Rhineland, strictly controlling all important industrial areas.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The actual amount of reparations that Germany was obliged to pay out was not the 132 billion marks decided in the London Schedule of 1921 but rather the 50 billion marks stipulated in the A and B Bonds. Historian Sally Marks says the 112 billion marks in "C bonds" were entirely chimerical—a device to fool the public into thinking Germany would pay much more. The actual total payout from 1920 to 1931 (when payments were suspended indefinitely) was 20 billion marks, worth about US$5 billion or £1 billion stg. 12.5 billion was cash that came mostly from loans from New York bankers. The rest was goods such as coal and chemicals, or from assets like railway equipment. The reparations bill was fixed in 1921 on the basis of a German capacity to pay, not on the basis of Allied claims. The highly publicised rhetoric of 1919 about paying for all the damages and all the veterans' benefits was irrelevant for the total, but it did determine how the recipients spent their share. Germany owed reparations chiefly to France, Britain, Italy and Belgium; the US Treasury received $100 million.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In the early post-war years, inflation was growing at an alarming rate, but the government simply printed more currency to pay debts. By 1923, the Republic claimed it could no longer afford the reparations payments required by the Versailles Treaty, and the government defaulted on some payments. In response, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr region, Germany's most productive industrial region at the time, taking control of most mining and manufacturing companies in January 1923. Strikes were called, and passive resistance was encouraged. These strikes lasted eight months, further damaging both the economy and society.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The strike prevented some goods from being produced, but one industrialist, Hugo Stinnes, was able to create a vast empire out of bankrupt companies. Because the production costs in Germany were falling almost hourly, the prices for German products were unbeatable. Stinnes made sure that he was paid in dollars, which meant that by mid-1923, his industrial empire was worth more than the entire German economy. By the end of the year, over two hundred factories were working full-time to produce paper for the spiraling bank note production. Stinnes' empire collapsed when the government-sponsored inflation was stopped in November 1923.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Since striking workers were paid benefits by the state, much additional currency was printed, fuelling a period of hyperinflation. The 1920s German inflation started when Germany had no goods to trade. The government printed money to deal with the crisis; this meant payments within Germany were made with worthless paper money, and helped formerly great industrialists to pay back their own loans. This also led to pay raises for workers and for businessmen who wanted to profit from it. Circulation of money rocketed, and soon banknotes were being overprinted to a thousand times their nominal value and every town produced its own promissory notes; many banks and industrial firms did the same.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The value of the "Papiermark" had declined from 4.2 marks per U.S. dollar in 1914 to one million per dollar by August 1923. This led to further criticism of the Republic. On 15 November 1923, a new currency, the "Rentenmark" (RM), was introduced by Stresemann at the rate of one trillion (1,000,000,000,000) "Papiermark" for one "Rentenmark", an action known as redenomination. At that time, one U.S. dollar was equal to "RM" 4.20. Reparation payments were resumed, and the Ruhr was returned to Germany under the Locarno Treaties, which defined the borders between Germany, France, and Belgium.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In the wake of the Treaty of Versailles which placed the responsibility for the outbreak of the war entirely on Germany and imposed crushing reparations upon Germany because of it, the question of German war guilt became a central point of debate in Germany both among politicians and historians, and also among the general public. The war guilt question pervaded the entire history of the Weimar Republic. Weimar embodied this debate until its demise, after which it was subsequently taken up as a campaign argument by the Nazi Party. This debate also took place in other countries involved in the conflict, such as in the French Third Republic and the United Kingdom.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Entire organizations were formed in Germany chiefly to consider this question, including the War Guilt Section () and the Center for the Study of the Causes of the War (); existing institutions such as the Potsdam Reichsarchiv spent significant resources researching or propagandizing about it.


title: Weimar Republic

text: While the war guilt question made it possible to investigate the deep-rooted causes of the First World War, although not without provoking a great deal of controversy, it also made it possible to identify other aspects of the conflict, such as the role of the masses and the question of Germany's special path to democracy, the "Sonderweg".


title: Weimar Republic

text: The war guilt debate motivated numerous historians such as Hans Delbrück, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, and Gerhard Hirschfeld to take part. In 1961, German historian Fritz Fischer published "Germany's Aims in the First World War", in which he argued that the German government had an expansionist foreign policy and had started a war of aggression in 1914. Fischer's thesis ignited a furious debate in Germany, which became known as the Fischer controversy.


title: Weimar Republic

text: A century after the original events, this debate continues among historians into the 21st century. The main outlines of the debate include: how much room to maneuver was available diplomatically and politically; the inevitable consequences of pre-war armament policies; the role of domestic policy and social and economic tensions in the foreign relations of the states involved; the role of public opinion and their experience of war in the face of organized propaganda; the role of economic interests and top military commanders in torpedoing deescalation and peace negotiations; the theory; and the long-term trends which tend to contextualize the First World War as a condition or preparation for the Second, such as Raymond Aron who views the two world wars as the new Thirty Years' War, a theory reprised by Enzo Traverso in his work.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The Republic was soon under attack from both left- and right-wing sources. The radical left accused the ruling Social Democrats of having betrayed the ideals of the workers' movement by preventing a communist revolution and sought to overthrow the Republic to do so themselves. Various right-wing sources opposed any democratic system, preferring an authoritarian monarchy like the German Empire. To further undermine the Republic's credibility, some right-wingers (especially certain members of the former officer corps) also blamed an alleged conspiracy of Socialists and Jews for Germany's defeat in the First World War.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In the next five years, the central government, assured of the support of the Reichswehr, dealt severely with the occasional outbreaks of violence in Germany's large cities. The left claimed that the Social Democrats had betrayed the ideals of the revolution, while the army and the government-financed "Freikorps" committed hundreds of acts of gratuitous violence against striking workers.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The first challenge to the Weimar Republic came when a group of communists and anarchists took over the Bavarian government in Munich and declared the creation of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. The uprising was brutally attacked by "Freikorps", which consisted mainly of ex-soldiers dismissed from the army and who were well-paid to put down forces of the Far Left. The "Freikorps" was an army outside the control of the government, but they were in close contact with their allies in the Reichswehr.


title: Weimar Republic

text: On 13 March 1920 during the Kapp Putsch, 12,000 "Freikorps" soldiers occupied Berlin and installed Wolfgang Kapp, a right-wing journalist, as chancellor. The national government fled to Stuttgart and called for a general strike against the putsch. The strike meant that no "official" pronouncements could be published, and with the civil service out on strike, the Kapp government collapsed after only four days on 17 March.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Inspired by the general strikes, a workers' uprising began in the Ruhr region when 50,000 people formed a "Red Army" and took control of the province. The regular army and the "Freikorps" ended the uprising on their own authority. The rebels were campaigning for an extension of the plans to nationalise major industries and supported the national government, but the SPD leaders did not want to lend support to the growing USPD, who favoured the establishment of a socialist regime. The repression of an uprising of SPD supporters by the reactionary forces in the "Freikorps" on the instructions of the SPD ministers was to become a major source of conflict within the socialist movement and thus contributed to the weakening of the only group that could have withstood the Nazi movement. Other rebellions were put down in March 1921 in Saxony and Hamburg.


title: Weimar Republic

text: One of the manifestations of the sharp political polarisation that had occurred were the right-wing motivated assassinations of important representatives of the young republic. In August 1921, Finance Minister Matthias Erzberger and Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau were murdered by members of the Organisation Consul. While Erzberger was attacked for signing the armistice agreement in 1918, Rathenau as foreign minister was responsible, among other things, for the reparations issue. He had also sought to break Germany's isolation after World War I through the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo with the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. However, he also drew right-wing extremist hatred as a Jew (see also Weimar antisemitism). The solidarity expressed in large, public funeral processions for those murdered, and the passage of a were intended to put a stop to the right-wing enemies of the Weimar Republic. However, right-wing state criminals were not permanently deterred from their activities, and the lenient sentences they were given by judges influenced by imperial conservatism were a contributing factor.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In 1922, Germany signed the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Russia, which allowed Germany to train military personnel in exchange for giving Russia military technology. This was against the Treaty of Versailles, which limited Germany to 100,000 soldiers and no conscription, naval forces of 15,000 men, twelve destroyers, six battleships, and six cruisers, no submarines or aircraft. However, Russia had pulled out of the First World War against the Germans as a result of the 1917 Russian Revolution and was excluded from the League of Nations. Thus, Germany seized the chance to make an ally. Walther Rathenau, the Jewish Foreign Minister who signed the treaty, was assassinated two months later by two ultra-nationalist army officers.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Further pressure from the political right came in 1923 with the Beer Hall Putsch (aka Munich Putsch), a failed power seizure staged by the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler in Munich. In 1920, the German Workers' Party had become the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), or Nazi Party, which would eventually become a driving force in the collapse of Weimar. Hitler named himself as chairman of the party in July 1921. On 8 November 1923, the "Kampfbund", in a pact with Erich Ludendorff, took over a meeting by Bavarian prime minister Gustav von Kahr at a beer hall in Munich.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Ludendorff and Hitler declared that the Weimar government was deposed and that they were planning to take control of Munich the following day. But the 3,000 rebels were no match yet for the Bavarian authorities. Hitler was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for high treason, the minimum sentence for the charge. However, Hitler served less than eight months, in a comfortable cell, receiving a daily stream of visitors, until his release on 20 December 1924. While in jail, Hitler dictated "Mein Kampf", which laid out his ideas and future policies. Hitler now decided to focus on legal methods of gaining power.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Gustav Stresemann was "Reichskanzler" for 100 days in 1923, and served as foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, a period of relative stability for the Weimar Republic, known in Germany as "Goldene Zwanziger" ("Golden Twenties"). Prominent features of this period were a growing economy and a consequent decrease in civil unrest.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Once civil stability had been restored, Stresemann began stabilising the German currency, which promoted confidence in the German economy and helped the recovery that was so greatly needed for the German nation to keep up with their reparation repayments, while at the same time feeding and supplying the nation.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Once the economic situation had stabilised, Stresemann could begin putting a permanent currency in place, called the "Rentenmark" (October 1923), which again contributed to the growing level of international confidence in the Weimar Republic's economy.


title: Weimar Republic

text: To help Germany meet reparation obligations, the Dawes Plan was created in 1924. This was an agreement between American banks and the German government in which the American banks lent money to German banks with German assets as collateral to help it pay reparations. The German railways, the National Bank and many industries were therefore mortgaged as securities for the stable currency and the loans.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Germany was the first state to establish diplomatic relations with the new Soviet Union. Under the Treaty of Rapallo, Germany accorded it formal ("de jure") recognition, and the two mutually cancelled all pre-war debts and renounced war claims. In October 1925 the Treaty of Locarno was signed by Germany, France, Belgium, Britain, and Italy; it recognised Germany's borders with France and Belgium. Moreover, Britain, Italy and Belgium undertook to assist France in the case that German troops marched into the demilitarised Rhineland. Locarno paved the way for Germany's admission to the League of Nations in 1926. Germany signed arbitration conventions with France and Belgium and arbitration treaties with Poland and Czechoslovakia, undertaking to refer any future disputes to an arbitration tribunal or to the Permanent Court of International Justice. Other foreign achievements were the evacuation of foreign troops from the Ruhr in 1925. In 1926, Germany was admitted to the League of Nations as a permanent member, improving her international standing and giving the right to vote on League matters.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Overall trade increased and unemployment fell. Stresemann's reforms did not relieve the underlying weaknesses of Weimar but gave the appearance of a stable democracy. Even Stresemann's German People's Party failed to gain nationwide recognition, and instead featured in the 'flip-flop' coalitions. The Grand Coalition headed by Muller inspired some faith in the government, but that did not last. Governments frequently lasted only a year, comparable to the political situation in France during the 1930s. The major weakness in constitutional terms was the inherent instability of the coalitions, which often fell prior to elections. The growing dependence on American finance was to prove fleeting, and Germany was one of the worst hit nations in the Great Depression.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The 1920s saw a remarkable cultural renaissance in Germany. During the worst phase of hyperinflation in 1923, the clubs and bars were full of speculators who spent their daily profits so they would not lose the value the following day. Berlin intellectuals responded by condemning the excesses of what they considered capitalism and demanding revolutionary changes on the cultural scenery.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Influenced by the brief cultural explosion in the Soviet Union, German literature, cinema, theatre and musical works entered a phase of great creativity. Innovative street theatre brought plays to the public, and the cabaret scene and jazz bands became very popular. According to the cliché, modern young women were Americanized, wearing makeup, short hair, smoking and breaking with traditional mores. The euphoria surrounding Josephine Baker in the metropolis of Berlin for instance, where she was declared an "erotic goddess" and in many ways admired and respected, kindled further "ultramodern" sensations in the minds of the German public. Art and a new type of architecture taught at "Bauhaus" schools reflected the new ideas of the time, with artists such as George Grosz being fined for defaming the military and for blasphemy.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Artists in Berlin were influenced by other contemporary progressive cultural movements, such as the Impressionist and Expressionist painters in Paris, as well as the Cubists. Likewise, American progressive architects were admired. Many of the new buildings built during this era followed a straight-lined, geometrical style. Examples of the new architecture include the Bauhaus Building by Gropius, Grosses Schauspielhaus, and the Einstein Tower.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Not everyone, however, was happy with the changes taking place in Weimar culture. Conservatives and reactionaries feared that Germany was betraying its traditional values by adopting popular styles from abroad, particularly those Hollywood was popularising in American films, while New York became the global capital of fashion. Germany was more susceptible to Americanization, because of the close economic links brought about by the Dawes plan.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In 1929, three years after receiving the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize, Stresemann died of a heart attack at age 51. When the New York Stock Exchange crashed in October 1929, American loans dried up and the sharp decline of the German economy brought the "Golden Twenties" to an abrupt end.


title: Weimar Republic

text: A wide range of progressive social reforms were carried out during and after the revolutionary period. In 1919, legislation provided for a maximum working 48-hour workweek, restrictions on night work, a half-holiday on Saturday, and a break of thirty-six hours of continuous rest during the week. That same year, health insurance was extended to wives and daughters without their own income, people only partially capable of gainful employment, people employed in private cooperatives, and people employed in public cooperatives. A series of progressive tax reforms were introduced under the auspices of Matthias Erzberger, including increases in taxes on capital and an increase in the highest income tax rate from 4% to 60%. Under a governmental decree of 3 February 1919, the German government met the demand of the veterans' associations that all aid for the disabled and their dependents be taken over by the central government (thus assuming responsibility for this assistance) and extended into peacetime the nationwide network of state and district welfare bureaus that had been set up during the war to coordinate social services for war widows and orphans.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The Imperial Youth Welfare Act of 1922 obliged all municipalities and states to set up youth offices in charge of child protection, and also codified a right to education for all children, while laws were passed to regulate rents and increase protection for tenants in 1922 and 1923. Health insurance coverage was extended to other categories of the population during the existence of the Weimar Republic, including seamen, people employed in the educational and social welfare sectors, and all primary dependents. Various improvements were also made in unemployment benefits, although in June 1920 the maximum amount of unemployment benefit that a family of four could receive in Berlin, 90 marks, was well below the minimum cost of subsistence of 304 marks.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In 1923, unemployment relief was consolidated into a regular programme of assistance following economic problems that year. In 1924, a modern public assistance programme was introduced, and in 1925 the accident insurance programme was reformed, allowing diseases that were linked to certain kinds of work to become insurable risks. In addition, a national unemployment insurance programme was introduced in 1927. Housing construction was also greatly accelerated during the Weimar period, with over 2 million new homes constructed between 1924 and 1931 and a further 195,000 modernised.


title: Weimar Republic

text: In 1929, the onset of the depression in the United States of America produced a severe economic shock in Germany and was further made worse by the bankruptcy of the Austrian Creditanstalt bank. Germany's fragile economy had been sustained by the granting of loans through the Dawes Plan (1924) and the Young Plan (1929). When American banks withdrew their line of credit to German companies, the onset of severe unemployment could not be abated by conventional economic measures. Unemployment thereafter grew dramatically, at 4 million in 1930, and in September 1930 a political earthquake shook the republic to its foundations. The National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), until then a minor far-right party, increased its votes to 19%, becoming Germany's second largest party, while the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) also increased its votes; this made the unstable coalition system by which every chancellor had governed increasingly unworkable. The last years of the Weimar Republic were marred by even more systemic political instability than previous years, as political violence increased. Four Chancellors (Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, Kurt von Schleicher) and, from 30 January to 23 March 1933, Hitler governed through presidential decree rather than through parliamentary consultation. This effectively rendered parliament as a means of enforcing constitutional checks and balances powerless.


title: Weimar Republic

text: On 29 March 1930, after months of lobbying by General Kurt von Schleicher on behalf of the military, the finance expert Heinrich Brüning was appointed as Müller's successor by "Reichspräsident" Paul von Hindenburg. The new government was expected to lead a political shift towards conservatism.


title: Weimar Republic

text: As Brüning had no majority support in the "Reichstag", he became, through the use of the emergency powers granted to the "Reichspräsident" (Article 48) by the constitution, the first Weimar chancellor to operate independently of parliament. This made him dependent on the "Reichspräsident", Hindenburg. After a bill to reform the Reich's finances was opposed by the "Reichstag", it was made an emergency decree by Hindenburg. On 18 July, as a result of opposition from the SPD, KPD, DNVP and the small contingent of NSDAP members, the "Reichstag" again rejected the bill by a slim margin. Immediately afterward, Brüning submitted the president's decree that the "Reichstag" be dissolved. The consequent general election on 14 September resulted in an enormous political shift within the "Reichstag": 18.3% of the vote went to the NSDAP, five times the percentage won in 1928. As a result, it was no longer possible to form a pro-republican majority, not even with a grand coalition that excluded the KPD, DNVP and NSDAP. This encouraged an escalation in the number of public demonstrations and instances of paramilitary violence organised by the NSDAP.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Between 1930 and 1932, Brüning tried to reform the Weimar Republic without a parliamentary majority, governing, when necessary, through the President's emergency decrees. In line with the contemporary economic theory (subsequently termed "leave-it-alone liquidationism"), he enacted a draconian policy of deflation and drastically cutting state expenditure. Among other measures, he completely halted all public grants to the obligatory unemployment insurance introduced in 1927, resulting in workers making higher contributions and fewer benefits for the unemployed. Benefits for the sick, invalid and pensioners were also reduced sharply. Additional difficulties were caused by the different deflationary policies pursued by Brüning and the "Reichsbank", Germany's central bank. In mid-1931, the United Kingdom abandoned the gold standard and about 30 countries (the sterling bloc) devalued their currencies, making their goods around 20% cheaper than those produced by Germany. As the Young Plan did not allow a devaluation of the "Reichsmark", Brüning triggered a deflationary internal devaluation by forcing the economy to reduce prices, rents, salaries and wages by 20%. Debate continues as to whether this policy was without alternative: some argue that the Allies would not in any circumstances have allowed a devaluation of the "Reichsmark", while others point to the Hoover Moratorium as a sign that the Allies understood that the situation had changed fundamentally and further German reparation payments were impossible. Brüning expected that the policy of deflation would temporarily worsen the economic situation before it began to improve, quickly increasing the German economy's competitiveness and then restoring its creditworthiness. His long-term view was that deflation would, in any case, be the best way to help the economy. His primary goal was to remove Germany's reparation payments by convincing the Allies that they could no longer be paid. Anton Erkelenz, chairman of the German Democratic Party and a contemporary critic of Brüning, famously said that the policy of deflation is:


title: Weimar Republic

text: In 1933, the American economist Irving Fisher developed the theory of debt deflation. He explained that a deflation causes a decline of profits, asset prices and a still greater decline in the net worth of businesses. Even healthy companies, therefore, may appear over-indebted and facing bankruptcy. The consensus today is that Brüning's policies exacerbated the German economic crisis and the population's growing frustration with democracy, contributing enormously to the increase in support for Hitler's NSDAP.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Most German capitalists and landowners originally supported the conservative experiment more from the belief that conservatives would best serve their interests rather than any particular liking for Brüning. As more of the working and middle classes turned against Brüning, however, more of the capitalists and landowners declared themselves in favour of his opponents Hitler and Hugenberg. By late 1931, the conservative movement was dead and Hindenburg and the "Reichswehr" had begun to contemplate dropping Brüning in favour of accommodating Hugenberg and Hitler. Although Hindenburg disliked Hugenberg and despised Hitler, he was no less a supporter of the sort of anti-democratic counter-revolution that the DNVP and NSDAP represented. In April 1932, Brüning had actively supported Hindenburg's successful campaign against Hitler for re-election as "Reichspräsident"; five weeks later, on 30 May 1932, he had lost Hindenburg's support and resigned as "Reichskanzler".


title: Weimar Republic

text: Hindenburg then appointed Franz von Papen as new "Reichskanzler". Papen lifted the ban on the NSDAP's SA paramilitary, imposed after the street riots, in an unsuccessful attempt to secure the backing of Hitler.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Papen was closely associated with the industrialist and land-owning classes and pursued an extremely conservative policy along Hindenburg's lines. He appointed as "Reichswehr" Minister Kurt von Schleicher, and all the members of the new cabinet were of the same political opinion as Hindenburg. The government was expected to assure itself of the co-operation of Hitler. Since the republicans were not yet ready to take action, the Communists did not want to support the republic and the conservatives had shot their political bolt, Hitler and Hugenberg were certain to achieve power.


title: Weimar Republic

text: Because most parties opposed the new government, Papen had the "Reichstag" dissolved and called for new elections. The general elections on 31 July 1932 yielded major gains for the Communists, and for the Nazis, who won 37.3% of the vote—their high-water mark in a free election. The Nazi party then supplanted the Social Democrats as the largest party in the "Reichstag", although it did not gain a majority.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The immediate question was what part the now large Nazi Party would play in the Government of the country. The party owed its huge increase to growing support from middle-class people, whose traditional parties were swallowed up by the Nazi Party. The millions of radical adherents at first forced the Party towards the Left. They wanted a renewed Germany and a new organisation of German society. The left of the Nazi party strove desperately against any drift into the train of such capitalist and feudal reactionaries. Therefore, Hitler refused ministry under Papen, and demanded the chancellorship for himself, but was rejected by Hindenburg on 13 August 1932. There was still no majority in the "Reichstag" for any government; as a result, the "Reichstag" was dissolved, and elections took place once more in the hope that a stable majority would result.


title: Weimar Republic

text: The 6 November 1932 elections yielded 33% for the Nazis, two million voters fewer than in the previous election. Franz von Papen stepped down and was succeeded as Chancellor ("Reichskanzler") by General Kurt von Schleicher on 3 December. Schleicher, a retired army officer, had developed in an atmosphere of semi-obscurity and intrigue that encompassed the Republican military policy. He had for years been in the camp of those supporting the Conservative counter-revolution. Schleicher's bold and unsuccessful plan was to build a majority in the "Reichstag" by uniting the trade unionist left wings of the various parties, including that of the Nazis led by Gregor Strasser. This policy did not prove successful either.