From 1914 to 1918 Germany and its main ally Austria-Hungary fought an exhausting war against Britain, France, Russia (until 1917) and the United States of America. By 1918 Germany was weary, the economy was fully stretched and food was becoming increasingly scarce. The entry of the United States into the war in 1917 meant that the Allies had a new source of manpower and materials at their disposal. The initial success of the German offensives of March and April 1918 opened the possibility of a German victory. By September 1918 it seemed that military defeat was inevitable.
In November 1918, the German Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate. Two months later the National Assembly met and set up the Weimar Republic. Before 1918 Germany was not a parliamentary democracy but an imperial monarchy ruled by the ancient hereditary ‘House of Hohenzollern’ the ruling house of Prussia. Weimar Republic was the name given to democratic Germany that emerged after the First World War and lasted until Hitler’s appointment. However, from its birth in 1919 until the start of the economic depression in 1929, the Weimar Republic was to face many challenges.
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The new socialist government of Weimar (SPD), whose constitution was adopted on July 30, 1919, entered a situation they by no means created. In June 1919, they voted to comply with the treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles was the peace settlement signed after World War One had ended in 1918 and in the shadow of the Russian Revolution and other events in Russia. The treaty was signed at the vast Versailles Palace near Paris. Of the many provisions in the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required “Germany to accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage” during the