Part 2/15:
The emergence of the German republic in November 1918 signaled a monumental shift in German history, but the nascent democracy faced immediate and relentless turmoil. From leftist uprisings and right-wing coup attempts to political assassinations by fervent nationalists, the early years of the Weimar Republic were marked by instability and crisis. Compounding these political upheavals were the severe economic hardships inflicted by the Treaty of Versailles, which imposed occupation, disarmament, reparations, and territorial losses. Nowhere was this economic turmoil more evident than in 1921, when Germany grappled with the world's most infamous case of hyperinflation and the contentious division of Upper Silesia between Germany and Poland.