Treaty of Versailles war guilt clause hyperinflation during the early 1920s the French occupied the Ruhr region Great Depression stab-in-the-back legend Greater Germany Alsace-Lorraine Sudetenland Baltic states Lebensraum Central and Eastern Europe Ruhr World War I Soviet Union
At the end of World War I, German citizens felt that their country had been humiliated as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, which included a war guilt clause and forced Germany to pay enormous reparations payments and forfeit territories formerly controlled by the German Empire and all its colonies. The pressure of the reparations on the German economy led to hyperinflation during the early 1920s. In 1923 the French occupied the Ruhr region when Germany defaulted on its reparations payments. Although Germany began to improve economically in the mid-1920s, the Great Depression created more economic hardship and a rise in political forces that advocated radical solutions to Germany's woes. The Nazis, under Hitler, promoted the nationalist stab-in-the-back legend stating that Germany had been betrayed by Jews and Communists. The party promised to rebuild Germany as a major power and create a Greater Germany that would include Alsace-Lorraine, Austria, Sudetenland, and other German-populated territories in Europe. The Nazis also aimed to occupy and colonize non-German territories in Poland, the Baltic states, and the Soviet Union, as part of the Nazi policy of seeking Lebensraum ("living space") in Central and Eastern Europe.
