Wow. I'm studying this right now. There are lots of sites you can look up for this info but briefly, the Germans 'lost' the war as a result of their signing of the Treaty of Versailles. This treaty outlined a number of very harsh penalties for Germany as punishment for causing the war. One of the penalties was reparations to be paid every 2 years to Britain and France. This alone just about crushed the nation. The Rhineland which was an area surrounding the Rhine River was demilitarised meaning German soldiers were not allowed to be based in the area. The French subsequently occupied this region and thus German funds had to be sent to support troops. In addition to this, the backlash against the Weimar Government, which was formed immediately after WWI, meant that workers were striking in the industrial regions, particularly the Ruhr Valley. The Weimar Government employed the Freikorps (militia style police unit) to calm the storm and in the process, 2000 workers were murdered. In the midst of all of this (around 1921-1922), Germany entered a period of hyper-inflation. Wages and prices soared out of control and eventually, money became entirely worthless and barter was common.It was around this time that in Munich, a small political party was gaining some recognition. The Nationalist Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP) was considered a nuisance left wing party and the Freikorps (who were very right-wing) sent a spy to infiltrate the party and gather information on their progress. The spy attended meetings and came to the realisation that the NSDAP was in fact not left wing, but quite the opposite and he found that the party shared the same views as the spy himself. The Freikorps spy joined their ranks as the 6th member and in 1924 Adolf Hitler became the leader of the party.
