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Ziqi

Lesson 3

To stab someone in the back means to go behind someone’s back and commit acts of betrayal with dishonesty. General Ludendorff's notion of a stab in the back was a phrase used to refer to the incident where the Germans lost in the World War 1. It was claimed that indeed the German Army was stabbed in the back by the civilians on the home front during the war. The civilians who overthrew the monarchy in the German revolution of 1918 to 1919 were also among the forefront to betray the German Army in the war.

The Weimar revolution is thus viewed as a product of the betrayal to the Germans during the Nazi revolution. Thus the Weimar revolution began to be seen as a product of corruption, persecution, and degeneracy. The betrayal of the German Amy is a notion that has been rejected by the Germans. Germans detest the issue of being stabbed in the back but instead claim that the German Army towards the end of the year 1918 began to fail. That is the reason they lost the battle but were not betrayed whatsoever.

The notion of being stabbed in the back was drawn from the comparison of how in Richard Warner’s opera, Hagen betrays his enemy Siegfried by murdering him by driving a spear in his back. Germany had been a military dictatorship country having a Supreme High Command and General Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg as commander in chief. The efforts of the Germans were domed in the war in 1918 after which the country’s administration was changed to a civilian government.

The war proceeded at the waterfront, and things would get worse by the day. Help was sought from the American President at the time, Woodrow Wilson. The idea of the stab in the back was then created after the fateful loss of the Germans in the war. Ludendorff was dining with the head of the British Military Mission in Berlin, British General Sir Neil Malcolm when he was asked to give his honest views as to why the Germans had lost terribly in the war. He went ahead to give his reasons and excuses. He claimed that the home front was to blame as it had failed his army. Malcolm began to ask him leading questions like if they German Army was stabbed in the back. His response made the Sir Neil to strongly believe that Ludendorff was leaning on to Germans being stabbed in the back, and from then on the phrase originated and had been used over the decades to describe the lost battle by the Germans in the War.

After the war, Germany was characterized by chaos in its economy, politics and the social life in the country. In the effort to dissipate the effects of the war, Weimar Republic was born which was more of a political experiment. The Weimar Republic was established at the end of World War 1 in 1918 when German lost and in 1918 during the rise of the Nazism. The Weimar Republic was a bold move that was ideally aimed to bring reforms and repair the liberal democracy to a country that had suffered and lost in the rule of militarism and authoritarian monarchy.

The earlier years of the Weimar Republic were characterized by chaos as the effects and wounds from the war were visibly fresh. A lot of suffering was between throughout the nation. Poor economic conditions add political instability reigned high. In the mid-1920s positivity was close by and the nation began to be referred to as Golden age of Weimar.

The country was now recovering slowly and being restored back to economic, social and political stability. However, during the great depression of 1930, Weimar began to fail and succumbed to Nazi totalitarism in late 1933. Among the factors that led to the downfall of Weimar Republic was the theory of General Ludendorff of a stab in the back.

The conspiracy theory led to mistrust of the government authority, especially during the post-war period. The public viewed the newly created Republic of Weimar through the lenses of the lost war. The relationship between the civil government and the military command did not foster any good relations by the same fear of going behind each other’s back. The theory led to mistrust and lost of a willingness to give the Weimar Republic some opportunity to thrive. The civil government and military command systems viewed each other as treacherous troops and unpatriotic.

Secondly, the general seemed to protect his troops and commanders by use of the theory. This brought more harm than god to the newly created Weimar Republic. Despite the creation of Weimar, military commanders such as Ludendorff and Hindenburg maintained their status. This only brought mistrust upon the Republic from the public and other government officials. Disunity was easy to come by, and sooner of late the Weimar Republic could be seen succumbing to division, corruption and social evils starting from the administrative positions.

References

Chickering, Rodger (2004). Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fraser, Lindley (2010). Germany between Two Wars: A Study of Propaganda and War-Guilt. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 16.

Kolb, Eberhard (2005). The Weimar Republic. New York: Routledge. p. 140.

Watson, Alexander (2008). Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale, and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914–1918. Cambridge: Cambridge Military Histories.