“The Short 20th Century” is a term coined by the British historian Eric Hobsbawm in order to simplify the division of history into characteristic epochs instead of centuries. Hobsbawm’s “short twentieth century” covers the period from the beginning of the First World War in 1914 to the end of the Cold War in connection with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 .

The short twentieth century began with a series of setbacks in the form of world wars, economic crises and setbacks for democracy.

The time of World War II

The decades from the outbreak of World War I to the end of World War II were a catastrophic period in human history.

During the First World War , the countries involved mobilized (gathered) their resources and put large sections of their population under arms. The factories of the new industrial society could now supply the armies with more and more deadly weapons than ever before. The result was disastrous. More than ten million people died and even more were injured.

The interwar period – the time between the two world wars – was also dramatic and can be seen as a longer period of uncertain ceasefire. The world never had time to calm down after the First World War. Many countries struggled with unresolved social and national conflicts. In Russia , the Communists took over and formed the Soviet Union . After the stock market crash of 1929, the United States ended up in a deep crisis that spread around the world. And in Germany , Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seized power and created one of the most brutal dictatorships in history .

After only two decades of peace, it was time for an even greater world war.

World War II  included several small and large conflicts that were fought in different parts of the world and became the most extensive and bloodiest conflict in human history to date. During the war, about 60 million people lost their lives, of which about thirteen million in the Nazi genocide .

The United States and the Soviet Union were the great winners of World War II. When the war ended, both countries still had very large military and economic resources. The United States and the Soviet Union therefore came to dominate world politics during the post-war period.

Cold War

The period after World War II in 1945 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 is sometimes called the  post-war period . The period was marked by the  Cold War,  which was a showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union.

During the post-war period, the two superpowers shared or competed for power over the world while threatening each other with nuclear weapons . The Cold War meant that for decades after 1945, humanity had to live with a constantly imminent threat of nuclear war. The conflict was at times close to turning into a third world war, but slowed down over time as it became clearer that the Soviet Union could not compete with US economic capacity.

Colonial liberation

After World War II, many colonies took the opportunity to break away from the old European colonial powers . The conflicts of the post-war period were therefore often about the struggle for the liberation of the colonies . The enormous colonial empires that several European powers had built up during the long 19th century were shaken and collapsed.

In just a few decades, from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, almost all European colonies in Africa and Asia became independent.

The United Nations and the European Union – the great post-war peace project

By the end of World War II, large parts of Europe were in ruins. About 60 million people had died. In just a few decades, Europe and the world had endured two world wars. This could never be repeated!

It was now – in October 1945 shortly after World War II – that the new United Nations (UN) security organization was born. At the start, 51 states were members and thus promised “to save future generations from the scourge of war”, as stated in the introduction to the UN Charter. Today (2021) the number of members has increased to 193.

In addition to the UN, whose organization is open to all countries in the world, a completely European organization was also founded in Europe, the so-called Coal and Steel Community, which was later developed into the European Union (EU) . The original purpose of the Coal and Steel Community (ie the EU in its earliest stages) was to end the wars between Europe’s countries that had repeatedly caused so much human suffering. In the 1950s, therefore, a number of European countries began economic and political cooperation to preserve peace. The EU project has since grown in scope and today involves almost all European countries.

Economic growth

After 1945, capitalism, the welfare state and the rule of law gained a foothold, not only in the Western world but also in many former European colonies.

Between the years 1945-1973, the world economy turned upwards at the same time as the prosperity of the people increased. During these years, many countries succeeded in building welfare systems with security for all. The incredible economic growth and social transformation that took place during the period has probably changed human society more than any other equally short period in human history.

In the decades following the oil crisis in 1973 , the rich part of the world was hit by economic fluctuations and several major economic crises. During the latter part of the 20th century, therefore, many countries found it difficult to make the tax money sufficient for welfare.

Europe is losing its leading role

The dramatic development of events during the short 20th century resulted in Europe, after the Second World War, losing its leading role as the world’s economic and cultural hub. The countries that once looked across the world’s oceans to Europe are now turning them in other directions. The United States and the Soviet Union became the new and sole superpowers.

During the latter part of the 20th century, in connection with the increasing globalization , the industries that once started in Europe also began to move from there.

The short 20th century has perhaps most of all been the century of the United States. It was a time of prosperity and triumph for the United States, which in the second half of the 20th century became the world’s richest and most powerful state.

The age of extremes

The short 20th century has been the century of mass death. Never before in history have so many people died as a result of war and persecution. Not even if you add up all the other centuries. Historians have calculated that about 187 million people lost their lives during the period as a result of other people’s decisions.

But the world’s population has nevertheless increased enormously during the period. In 1910 there were 1750 million people on earth and by 1990 the number had increased to 5,270 million people. The world’s population had grown three times in just 80 years. The world was also incomparably much richer in the 1990s than at the beginning of the century. And the young people of the 1990s were taller, heavier and more well-fed than their older relatives.

During the second half of the 20th century, most people could probably also be considered literate, which is something unique in world history. At the same time, humanity was much better educated at the end of the period than in 1914.

The sharp increase in the level of education contributed to making the 20th century a time of technological progress unparalleled in world history. Perhaps the most dramatic and practical consequence of this was the revolution in transport and communications, which largely wiped out time and space. The world became global. Globalization has bound the countries and peoples of the world together and created a more common economy, culture, politics and environment.

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November 9, 1989 was the day the Berlin Wall fell. Then one of East Germany’s party leaders appeared on TV and announced that the East Germans could now travel freely wherever they wanted without permission and without giving any reason.

The Berlin Wall would stop the mass exodus to the west

The Berlin Wall was a wall that began to be built in 1961 between West Berlin and East Berlin. The decision to build the wall was made by the East German government. To the public, the decision came as a complete surprise. From now on, no one was allowed to pass the two halves of the city without permission.

The wall was built for economic and political reasons. The Berlin Wall was built after the increasing flow of refugees from east to west became a major concern for East Germany . In the years 1949-1961, 2.7 million people fled to the west via Berlin.

Because many of the refugees were highly educated people – doctors, teachers, engineers, technicians and others. this emigration must have been very noticeable for the East German Republic.

The wall divided Berlin

At first it was a low wall that many could easily escape over. But it was expanded over the years. Houses were cleared to the ground so that a 100 meter wide zone was formed along the wall so that the border personnel could more easily guard the wall.

The wall ran from north to south and divided the city of Berlin into two halves. The total length around West Berlin was 46 kilometers. It has been estimated that a smaller town could have been built with the material used for the wall. And the barbed wire would last a lap around the earth.

For West Berlin, the consequences of the wall were also negative. Many young people left West Berlin and moved to West Germany. West Berlin therefore had a fairly aged population. 22 percent of the population was over 65 years old. In the rest of West Germany, the corresponding figure was 12 percent.

Almost impossible to escape to the west

With the advent of the Berlin Wall, it became virtually impossible for East Germans to get to the West. About 80 border crossings were closed and windows re-walled. Later, a strip several hundred meters wide on the east side was cleared to make way for obstacles and surveillance facilities. Before the border was completely closed again, over the years, more than 5,000 people still managed to escape, of which 574 were East German so-called public police.

The number of people shot to death by the East German border guards in connection with escape attempts at the Berlin Wall was 239 people.

The Berlin Wall opens

During the autumn of 1989, hundreds of thousands of East Germans fled to the West via Hungary, Prague and Warsaw. Demonstrations for democracy erupted in several East German cities. On November 9, 1989, the hard-pressed East German government decided to open Berlin for free passage. To great cheers, people from both parts of the city celebrated the newfound freedom.

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By 1923, the prevailing hyperinflation and the many strikes had resulted in economic and social chaos throughout Germany. Hitler now realized that the time was ripe for a coup. The French Ruhrock occupation had ignited the Germans’ national feelings, especially in Bavaria, where Hitler was.

Hitler at the beer cellar Sterneckerberäu

Adolf Hitler returned to Munich in 1919. He got a job with his old regiment because his captain thought he had mental problems and felt sorry for him.

Here Hitler came to act as an agent for the Swedish Armed Forces’ political intelligence. His duties included keeping control of various extreme political organizations. On September 19, 1919, he was asked to visit an odd little group called the National Socialists, which was based in a beer cellar. It was Hitler’s first visit to the Sterneckerberäu beer cellar. 

There in a small room a meeting was held. With frothy beer mugs, the guests listened to various speeches. The sails were pounded on the table in applause or thrown at the speaker at will. The group’s leader, Anton Drexler, gave him a written booklet. The mood was chaotic, but it suited Hitler. He was seized by the speeches and the content of the scripture. The ideas seemed to be consistent with his own somewhat hazy thoughts of hatred and conspiracy. The audience shouted in agreement and slammed the sails on the table.

For the guests in the beer cellar, Hitler’s speech was nothing new. They had – like millions of other Germans – heard the same opinions several times before. What was new to the audience was Hitler’s art of speech and the way he presented his arguments. He expressed exactly what everyone felt in a simple but very captivating way.

Here in a worn Bavarian beer cellar, Hitler thus, through the irony of fate, had his thoughts confirmed and he was thereby carried on towards his later takeover.

Hitler soon joined Drexler’s group. In his propaganda , Hitler demanded that everyone who was of “German blood” be gathered in a Greater Germany. The peace of Versailles was to be torn up. In addition, he made many promises to the workers, to the small business owners, to the anti-Semites. But all Jews would lose their German citizenship. They would not be allowed to be employed in the public sector. The goal was for all Jews to be deported from Germany.

Hitler and Rosenberg

The time was now ripe for Adolf Hitler’s actions. He spoke of the “November Criminals” (those who accepted the Treaty of Versailles) against Germany and the vengeful demands of the Allies. His anger was directed at the Bolsheviks, but above all at the Jews. He was convinced that the Jews were to blame for everything.

Another man also appeared in the arena. His name was Alfred Rosenberg. He came from Estonia and was a fanatical anti-Semite and anti-Marxist (anti-communist). He was an architect by profession and, like Hitler, artistically oriented.

Rosenberg became the party’s foremost theorist and formulated its racial ideology : “the superiority of the Germanic race and its inherited right to rule; the sacred beauty of violence and war; the biological and spiritual inferiority of the Jews”.

In his obscure and contradictory work Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts , Rosenberg emphasizes the struggle between a good and an evil principle. The good principle is embodied in the “Nordic race” and the evil principle in the “Jewish race”. According to Rosenberg, throughout history there has been opposition between the Aryans and the Semites. He blindly believed in the superiority of the Nordic race and in the danger of racial mixing. Foreign racial elements must be removed from the German people and the Jews were, in Rosenberg’s conceptual world, a foreign element in Europe. Every German belongs forever to the German race or simply the people, “das Volk”.

The question of race is thus fundamental to National Socialist ideology . “The racial core of a nation constitutes its characteristic, original and unchanging destiny.” The laws of the race were in the blood, in the “race soul”, of each individual. According to the Nazis, race is a biological concept. A human being is born a German or a Jew or belongs to another race. She can never change this fact. According to the Nazis, a society that does not exist based on race cannot exist.

Hitler as a speaker and demagogue

The soil was thus good in interwar Germany for movements with a German national and anti-Semitic orientation. Hitler managed with his fiery speech art and fanatical fervor to win many supporters of the German Labor Party. A contemporary observer says that no intellectual clarity can be expected from Hitler. But he is honest in the way that he himself believes what he says. That does not stop him from saying one minute with glowing faith and claiming something else the next minute with the same fanaticism. In his speeches, he moves rigidly from one phrase to another. After a while he gets up to speed. Eventually he reaches that stage, when he does not know what to say. Then he interrupts the speech and shouts “Heil Deutschland!” or “Victory! Victory!”.

Hitler put forward only a few theses at a time. Even the most obvious lie can appear to be true if it is repeated only often enough. His motto was: Never hesitate, never nuance, never suggest that the opponent’s opinion may have any value or even be reasonable. Attack, attack, attack! He also framed his speeches with marching music, singing, chanting choirs and large, colorful flagpoles. In addition, he made sure to make dramatic entrances. It was common to let someone else start a speech, and when Hitler appeared at the door, the speaker interrupted in the middle of a sentence. During the audience’s “Heil-rop”, Hitler slowly stepped up to the podium. His speeches were intended for the masses, not for a small intimate audience.

Hitler managed to exert a hypnotic power on the audience. An eyewitness says that the masses rose as a person and shouted “Heil” when Hitler appeared. His pale face expressed an inner fanaticism. Hitler himself said of his ability to enchant the masses: “The mass is a woman. He who does not understand the female character of the mass can never be a good speaker. Ask yourself what a woman expects from a man. Clarity, determination, power, action. “

The beer cellar coup 1923

In 1923, Hitler considered the time was ripe for a coup in the Weimar Republic. Inflation had resulted in economic chaos . The French Ruhrock occupation had ignited the Germans’ national feelings, especially in Bavaria. The leaders there, Gustav von Kahr and von Lossow, were right-wing nationalists and had connections with the free unions and also with Hitler’s National Socialists.

The coup was to begin on the evening of November 8 at Bügerbräukeller. That is when von Kahr would speak there at a large public meeting. It was snowing outside and the wind was biting. Hitler himself had headaches and toothaches. But that was it. By telephone, Hitler had informed the SA leaders to keep their men on standby (read about SA in part 3 of the article series). They wore their field-gray uniforms with swastika bracelets and revolver belts.

Alfred Rosenberg was on the editorial board of the newspaper Völkischer Beobachter . Suddenly the door slammed open and a pale excited Hitler in a trench coat rushed in. The hour had come. Tonight it was going to happen. They were to take pistols and meet at seven o’clock outside Bügerbräukeller. Then Hitler and General Ludendorff left in their respective cars. Hitler bought himself some beer while impatiently waiting for the armed SA men to arrive. At nine o’clock they came and surrounded the room.

In the middle of von Kahr’s speech, the armed SA men stormed in. Hitler fired a pistol at the roof, declaring that the national revolution had begun. To many present, Hitler made a drunken and ridiculous impression. Göring and his men also streamed in, all armed.

Hitler managed to get von Kahr and von Lossow out into a side room where he tried to persuade them to take part in a coup against the national government. They were intimidated by the desperate Hitler and pretended to support him. But as soon as they escaped from Hitler, they called the National Guard to help quell the uprising. Ludendorff, however, clung to Hitler.

At ten o’clock, trucks arrived with men in the national army’s green uniforms and armed with heavy machine guns. When the coup plotters discovered the “betrayal” of Kahrs and Lassow, they left the Bügerbräukeller to seek support for their cause among the people on the streets of Munich. Hitler, Ludendorff, Göring and Streicher marched in the lead for a few thousand men along Residenzstrasse.

The Swedish National Guard approached and fired a shot. The merchants responded to the fire and panic broke out among the marchers. Some say that Ludendorff stood up while Hitler threw himself down and took cover. Other eyewitnesses believe that both Ludendorff and Hitler threw themselves on the ground to try to sew away the bullet rain. Ludendorff, however, marched to the police who arrested him. Hitler fled pale in the face and with an injured arm. Göring was lying on the street with a bullet in the abdomen. He was carried to Residenzstrasse 25 and one of the coup plotters rang the doorbell. The owner opened and promised to provide help and protection to the injured. “But I want to draw your attention to the fact that this is a Jewish house,” he said. Göring was carried up the stairs and given first aid. He was then allowed to remain until his friends picked him up.

The coup was over but the victorious National Guard was met by shouts such as “Jewish defender”, “traitor to the fatherland”, “bloodhounds” and “Heil Hitler” …

Did you know that:

• Hitler is often described as short, but he was of normal height. He was 173 cm tall and weighed about 70 kg. The surroundings thought from the beginning that his mustache was outdated and they suggested that he let it grow to the sides. But he replied: “If short mustaches are not popular now, they will be later, because I wear one.”
• After the failed coup attempt in Munich in 1923, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison. Before he was imprisoned, he tried to take his own life, but one of his friends, Helena Hanfstaengl, twisted the revolver out of his hand and stopped him. Hitler only needed to serve nine months of his sentence.

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