The Weimar Republic and World War II
Political upheaval, reparations and the loss of territory led to economic instability and hyperinflation in the early 1920s. In the 1932 Reichstag elections, the National Socialist Party (*****) led by Adolf Hitler, gained the largest share of the popular vote and at the beginning of 1933 Hitler was appointed Chancellor. Within weeks of taking office Hitler turned Germany into a dictatorship. Germany under Hitler set off World War II. It ended six years later, in spring 1945, with Germany's capitulation.