and Ludendorff was arrested. The coup was a failure!
Hitler was also quickly arrested and stood trial for treason. He received a five year prison sentence. He served only six months, but that was long enough to pen his famous book Mein Kampf, (My Struggle) which subsequently received national and international recognition. Perhaps because of the time for reflection behind bars, while he thought and Rudolph Hess wrote, he at last decided to take control of Germany through the legitimate political approach. Even so, he never abandoned his anti-democratic ideology. To the future dismay of the world, he would eventually succeed.
In the meantime, Gustav Stresemann was appointed chancellor. Not particularly enamored of Weimar, he formed his own party, the German People’s Party comprised of a coalition of several parties which Stresemann hoped would protect Weimar against what he felt were the dangers of parties operating at the extreme right and left of the political spectrum. Stresemann was responsible for introducing a new currency, the Rentenmark, ending the tragic hyperinflation that was strangling Germany. At the same time he fended off threats from Adolph Hitler’s Nazis and the Communists. Stresseman is given credit for ushering in a much improved outlook for Germany.
Sam had grown into a fine looking young man. With the war over, he resumed in earnest his swimming program, and his muscular definition showed the result.
In Sam’s freshman year at college in 1919, while studying one night, a classmate approached him and said, “Let’s go to the nurse’s dance.”
“What nurse’s dance?” Sam asked.
“From the nursing school here.”
“I’m studying,” said Sam without looking up.”
To make a long story short, Sam’s persistent friend prevailed, and they went to the dance hall. Sam’s life changed that night. As he tells the story, “I walked through the door and happened to look to my left, and I was immediately struck numb. There sitting against the wall was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was sitting there with a long green skirt that stretched about four inches beyond her knees. She was also wearing a similar colored sweater under which a white unbuttoned collar extended around her neck. There was no makeup on her face, and believe me she didn’t need any. When I saw her, I just stopped and stared. She saw me and quickly looked away. She had straight brown hair extending almost shoulder length. I drew up the courage to ask her to dance. She said yes. When she stood up, my estimate was that she was about three or four inches shorter than me. My heart thumped. I think I fell in love on the spot”
Four years later in 1922, when Sam was starting medical school at the Charite-Universitatsmedizin, Berlin, he and Eva Gold married. Sam was 26 years of age; Eva was 22.
Albert took a different course. He was five feet and nine inches tall with brown hair and brown eyes, already showing some early signs of baldness like his grandfather. He joined his good friend in swimming upon his return from war and also built up his muscular definition. Albert perceived another benefit of this exercise and that was a slowly progressive reduction and improvement of the intermittent anxiety episodes he experienced, which had been diagnosed as “shell shock” by the military doctors.
After graduation, Albert took leave of his friend Sam, as he had been accepted at Oxford University where he would pursue an advanced degree in finance as his father had before him.
When he left, the two families had a going away party for him and then saw him off at the train station. He said to Sam, “I’m going to miss you, buddy.”
“Me too,” answered Sam, “We’ll keep in touch.” They hugged.
“Do me a favor, Sam, Write me at least once a week and keep me up to date on conditions in Germany. There’s lots of trouble now, and I appreciate it if you will do that.”
“That’s a guarantee, Al. My pleasure, and you do the same for me about Great Britain, or wherever else you end up,” said Sam.
They shook hands, and separated again like they had during World War I, more than likely for another four years. It was 1926.
Oxford University is the oldest English speaking college in the world. They started admitting women in 1920. This was good timing for Albert as he repeated Sam’s performance and fell in love at first site; this time with a classmate, Adele Meyers. She sat next to him in class, and was as drawn to him as he was to her. Adele was five feet and three inches tall with blond hair and blue eyes. Following past practice, now Al followed Sam down the aisle, which he did happily with all family members, and also Sam and Eva present.
Stresemann’s influence on the Weimar Republic prevailed positively, and in the next five to six years he worked tirelessly with Germany’s former enemies, Great Britain and France, trying to modify some of the Treaty of Versailles mandates. Most importantly, Stresemann agreed with the conclusions of the Dawes Plan proposed by American Charles Dawes. The plan was an attempt in 1924 to solve the World War I reparations debacle which had bedeviled international politics following the First World War and the Versailles treaty. This helped alleviate the crushing financial burden imposed on Germany. Germany also received loans from America, which proved to be a major economic benefit. The Dawes plan was formed for the purpose of stabilizing the hyperinflated German Economy.
Stresemann died prematurely, and a grateful nation mourned his passing.
Throughout all this period of progressive prosperity coupled with the fact that after Hitler’s imprisonment he was not allowed to give speeches, the citizenry lost interest in the Nazi Party. Hitler now had an uphill battle in his goal of transforming Germany to his way of thinking; a dictatorship with Adolph Hitler as dictator.
CHAPTER 13
The Collapse of Weimar 1919…1923
The New York stock market crash of October 24, 1929 plunged the United States into the Great Depression resulting in multiple business failures and sky-rocketing unemployment. As the United States banks began to fail, they called in their German loans sparking a world-wide depression. Germany suffered the most, and within two years the country went from virtually full employment to a third of the workforce unemployed.
Prior to this time, the Nazi Party was one of the many in the Weimar Republic good times of the mid to late twenties. The citizens barely noticed the Nazis who never garnered more than 3 percent of the vote. With the depression’s impact and the Nazi organization built up by Hitler and his new propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels through the twenties, the desperate citizens now turned to the Nazis in droves, and by 1932 they garnered just under one third of the vote making them the largest party in the parliament; the Communists were second. The time was right for Hitler to achieve power legitimately.
In May of 1928, an election gave the Nazi Party less than 3% of the vote equating to 12 seats in the Reichstag. Two of the minority parties were the Nazis and the Communists. In early 1930, they became involved in street violence which killed many.
Horst Wessel, a Nazi party member, wrote a song that became famous as a Nazi emblem. He apparently had an altercation with his landlady, a Communist Party member. She notified a friend who shot Wessel. He lingered for a while and died of his wounds. Goebbels turned this into a propaganda coup for the Nazi party and they became the second largest party in the Bavarian Reichstag with 107 seats and 18.3 percent of the vote. The Nazis tasted blood and intensified their propaganda, going so far as to give the world a preview of what to expect if they gained power. In October, 1930, they smashed windows of Jewish owned stores at Potsdamer Platz, an important public square in Berlin. In the meantime, against the background of the Great Depression, the Communists
