Postwar Europe: A Worldwide Depression. Unstable New Democracies After WWI countries who for centuries had been ruled by kings and emperors attempted.

Postwar Europe:A Worldwide Depression

Unstable New Democracies

• After WWI countries who for centuries had been ruled by kings and emperors attempted democracy.

• However there were so many political parties often times that it was impossible for one party to win a majority.– Coalition government

• Temporary alliance of several governments

Can you save us?

• The weakness of the governments led people to look for answers elsewhere.

• Willing to give up democratic government for authoritarian leadership.– One leader who held all the

power, not elected.Storm Ahead

Weimar Republic

• Inflation– No wartime taxes– Print a bunch of

money!!• Loaf of bread– 1918 = less than one

mark– 1922=160 marks– 1923= 200 billion

marks

Dawes Plan

Peace?

Gustav Stresemann (Germany)

Foreign Minister Aristide Briand (France)

Kellogg- Briand Pact- prohibiting the use of war as "an instrument of national policy" except in matters of self-defense

Stock Market Crash

Germany’s Answer

• Fascism• Adolph Hitler-

promises, promises• Chancellor 1932– Structured economy

toward the military/war

• Everyone had jobs but wages still low

Great Britain

• Hit hard by depression– Economic output fell 25%

• National Government– High tariffs– Increased taxes– Lowered interest rates

• Slow recovery

France

• More self-sufficient• 1935 1 million

unemployed• Popular Front– Coalition

• Series of reforms but unemployment still high

• Democracy remains

Scandinavia• Government –

socialist ideals• “middle way”

between communism or fascism

• Lost of government sponsored public works

United States Hero:FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT- 1932

Roosevelt remained vague on the campaign trail, promising only that under his presidency government would act decisively to end the Depression.

NEW DEAL• New Deal-1(1933-35)

– The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), passed in 1933

– government sought to stimulate increased farm prices by paying farmers to produce less.

– It did little for smaller farmers and led to the eviction and homelessness of tenants and sharecroppers whose landlords hardly needed their services under a system that paid them to grow less

• Aimed at restoring the economy from the bottom up

• The Works Progress Administration was a huge federal jobs program that sought to hire unemployed breadwinners for the purpose strengthening their family's well-being as well as boosting consumer demand.

• National Labour Relations Act of

1935

New Deal (1935-40s)

CCC Mammoth Cave, KY

CCC Natural BridgePine Mountain

Soviet Union (Russia)

• Communist -Totalitarianism

• Building an industrial society

• “socialism in one country”

• Five Year Plan– Pure command economy– Exiled millions

• Great Purge

Joseph Stalin

Japan• The Great Depression hit Japan

• The Japanese economy shrank by 8% 1929–31

• Aggressive military• The invasion and subjugation of

Manchuria into a Japanese puppet-state in September 1931, thus providing Japan with raw materials and energy, the Japanese economy was able to recover by 1932 and continued to grow.