As we continue with our study of the years between WWI & WWII, today we looked at Germany between the wars. The Weimar Republic was a democratic German government that was ultimately ineffective because of its crippling war debt and political instability. The Treaty of Versailles required Germany to pay war reparations and, in the early 1920s, the Weimar Republic began printing large amounts of money to pay its debt. This, however, made the currency worthless. These operations continued until 1929, when the Wall Street stock market collapsed, leading to the Great Depression . This spurred foreign countries to stop lending Germany money. During this period, Adolf Hitler was able to rise from political obscurity and become chancellor of Germany. Eventually, he was able to declare that the Nazi Party was the only party in the country because he was able to convince enough Germans he would reverse the Treaty of Versailles. Most of Germany's people agreed that the treaty was the root cause of Germany's economic issues. There are many lessons to learn from this. One is that treaties need to be based on peace and not punishment. Also, people should never look towards authoritarian dictators to solve their country's or their individual needs.