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February 10-12, 2017 // bosmun.org
MINIGUIDE
UNITED STATES SENATE, 1933
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United States Senate, 1933
The 73rd Congress met from March of 1933 to January 1935 during the first two years of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt’s presidency. FDR would go on to be president until his death in 1945, making him
the longest sitting president in United States history. In both the Senate and the House, the democratic
party was the majority party.. The President of the Senate, also the Vice President of the United States,
was John Nance Garner who had concluded his time as the Speaker of the United States House of
Representatives right before being appointed into his new position. The Speaker of the House was
Henry Thomas Rainey, who had been a member of the House since 1903. When FDR became
president in March of 1933, his First One Hundred Days in office began total reconstruction of the
nation after participating in a devastating World War (1914-1918) and experiencing the Great
Depression (began in October of 1929). He instilled a new confidence in the nation with his inaugural
address after consoling them about the hardships they had endured and placing optimism within them
for the future.
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Topic 1
The Rise of Hilter and the Nazi
Party in Post-World War I Germany
World War One had left the continent of Europe completely destroyed. Populations had been
decimated, economies were in shambles, and debts were owed. Germany, as the defeated country,
was blamed entirely for the destruction that the war caused. Both France and Great Britain sought
revenge as they drafted the infamous Treaty of Versailles that would send an already reeling Germany
further into the spiral of economic downturn and political fracture. Germany was ripe for revolution.
The Treaty of Versailles was an improper way to end the first world war. As part of the
provisions, Germany would be fully responsible for all debt from the war as well as cede the AlsaceLorraine territory to France and refrain from remilitarization. In the end, Germany was charged with $20
billion gold marks-an amount they could not handle. Unemployment soared. Income taxes, which
made up about 53% of all tax revenue in Germany, dropped to about half of that number. Exports
were being heavily taxed by Germany’s European neighbors as the age of protectionism set in around
the world. The established parties, to their credit, attempted to respond to the crisis. They flooded the
market with German currency in an effort to increase liquidity. This led to more chaos. Hyperinflation
set in and the mark became worth less than the paper it was printed on. Wheelbarrows full of money
could not even buy a loaf of bread. When the rest of the world had their own economic problems
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beginning in the late 1920’s, they demanded immediate reparation payments from Germany. The
German economy was on the brink of collapse. It was at this weak and vulnerable point that Hitler and
his Nazi party took their chance.
The Nazi party, know in Germany as the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP),
was just a small splinter party up until 1933. They came from the previously established German
Workers Party that advocated in particular for the lower and middle classes. Their support was based
off of their promise to fix Germany’s economic woes. They were very popular in rural Germany and
began working their way in towards population centers in a strategy they labeled the rural strategy. By
1928, the NSDAP only had 26 representatives as compared to the German Centre party’s 300 seats.
The economy began to recover with the help of Gustav Stresemann and it looked as though the Nazi
party would ever get their chance. In 1929, Gustav Stresemann dies suddenly from a stroke, the
United States hits its Great Depression and Germany goes spiraling once again. It was at this moment
that a prominent leader in the party, Adolf Hitler, made his move. He puts the blame of economic
downturn on the rising communist party and the local Jewish population. He harnessed Germany’s
suffering and pain and turned it into anger and revenge. In 1933, the NSDAP swept into power and
Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany. He then used his power to declare a state of emergency
when the Reichstag was set on fire on February 27th, 1933. Under this state of emergency, he
suspended rights to German citizens and took complete control.
Across the ocean, the United States was dealing with its own economic downturn. The Great
Depression was in full swing and the country has just elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the hope
that he can reverse the tide of the economy. After World War One, we had shut our doors to our
European neighbors and began an age of protectionism and isolationism that were fully broadcasted in
our decision not to join the League of Nations. Though the U.S. doesn’t believe it is their job to solve
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European affairs, the situation in Germany seems to be echoing the back to a pre-1914 Germany that
is leaving the country fearful of plunging into another war
+ Research Questions
1. Does the United States have a place in European affairs?
2. Does the United States have certain commitments to its allies such as France and Great
Britain?
3. Is communism or fascism more of a threat to the United States?
+ Sources & Further Readings
Fischer, Conan. Stormtroopers: A Social, Economic, and Ideological Analysis, 1928-35.
Routledge, 2014.
National Archive. “The Treaty of Versailles.” Last modified n.d.,
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/greatwar/g5/cs2/background.htm. BBC.
“The Treaty of Versailles. Accessed December 2nd, 2016.
Waddy, Helena. Oberammergau in the Nazi Era: The Fate of a Catholic Village in Hitler's
Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2010.
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Topic 2
Economic Reform After WWI
World War I left a majority of the world’s large industrialized nations in financial ruin. Defeated
nations such as Germany had to transition to new governments with the consequences of loss still
hanging over their heads. Victorious nations such as the United Kingdom found themselves facing the
bill for a war that had lasted years longer and costed far more than anyone had expected from the
outset. One nation remained an outlier to all this - the United States. Far from the actual fighting, the
US spent more of the war as a financier than a combatant. By the war’s conclusion, the position of
global economic powerhouse, previously a role held by the British Empire, was beginning to shift to the
United States.
Although in the duration of the war the US economy suffered recession, an economic boom
occurred between 1914 to 1918 due to Europe’s purchases of warfare goods from the US. By the
early 1920s the economy began to stabilize, as a Republican-dominated Washington took a mostly
hands-off approach to economic matters. Most sectors around this time boomed as technological
advances such as widespread electricity helped the US moved toward the consumer economy it is
today. The strong US economy shaped by the war, suffered several setbacks. It then blossomed into
the Roaring 20s that crashed with the stock market in 1929. One notable exception is agriculture,
which never rebounded to its wartime prosperity and would only suffer more in the 1930s.
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The speculative idealism that characterized Wall Street in 1920s came to a literal crash in
October of 1929. 40 percent of the paper values of common stock were wiped out, and by 1933 one
in four Americans were unemployed. 1932 saw the Presidential race between Republican incumbent
Herbert Hoover and the Democratic challenger, New York governor Franklin Roosevelt. Hoover blamed
the newfound ‘Great Depression’ on the global economy and political realities of the new postwar
world and argued for a more natural economic recovery, while Roosevelt argued that Republican
policies of the 1920s were to blame, and that only strong recovery actions taken with the power of the
Federal government could save the US economy.
The effect of the World War I on the American economy, coupled with the Great Depression
caused the incline towards isolationism in American public opinion and policy. This movement
advocated for non-involvement in European and Asian conflicts, as America took measures to avoid
political and military conflicts across the oceans. They however expanded economically to Latin
America. After the World War I, the Congress rejected US membership into the League of Nations,
which was a forum created to resolve international disputes. This caused the League to be ineffectual
against militarism primarily due to USA’s decision not to partake.
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+ Research Questions
1. Which actions of the US government during the 1930s helped the US economy? Which actions
hurt the US economy?
2. What impact did the postwar slump have on the economy?
3. How did isolationism impact the US economy and its standing before World War II?
+ Sources for Further Readings
"Milestones: 1937–1945 - Office of the Historian." U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State,
n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2016.
"The Economics of World War I." The Economics of World War I. National Bureau, n.d. Web. 04 Dec.
2016.
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