The German empire underwent revolts during the end of WWI. They just missed the mark a bit. Instead of Willhelm II they should have gotten rid of Hindenburg, who starting 1916 was singlehandedly in charge of the German military and refused every peace offer until the empire was left without allies and struggled with countless internal revolts. Instead of taking the blame for prolonging the war he walked away smelling like roses, helped establish the Weimar Republic and played a key role in it to its end where he got cosy with the Nazis, directly aiding their rise to power.
In short, people tried to fix things, they got rid of Willhelm II and got Hitlers best buddy instead.
> The German empire underwent revolts during the end of WWI
By communists and far-right :) Where were the pro-democratic mainstream protests? It was the communists (USSR) and nazis (3rd Reich) who started WW2 after being unchecked for 2 decades.
> Instead of Willhelm II they should have gotten rid of Hindenburg, who starting 1916 was singlehandedly in charge of the German military and refused every peace offer until the empire was left without allies and struggled with countless internal revolts. Instead of taking the blame for prolonging the war he walked away smelling like roses, helped establish the Weimar Republic
Is this view mainsteam in modern Germany? Considering how popular the Stab-in-the-Back theory was in interwar period I would think prolonging the war more, letting german cities be occupied etc. - would have resulted in nazis losing popularity not gaining it. So if anything - Hindenburg mistake was the opposite - saving German infrastructure and lives at the cost of making Germans conspiracy theorists and nazis.
But nevermind the WW1 peace treaty. Nazis could have been stopped at many points. If socialists managed to work with communists for one thing (but then again - Germany was already training their army in secret in USSR at that point after Rapallo, so it's probably not realistic).
The problem is that Germans seemed to protest in favour of extremes more often and more violently than against them. So extremes won.
BTW it might seem like I single out Germans. But in my country - Poland - democracy failed in a very similar way in 1926. And people were at fault too. Keeping the country democratic is the responsibility of citizens.
The German empire underwent revolts during the end of WWI. They just missed the mark a bit. Instead of Willhelm II they should have gotten rid of Hindenburg, who starting 1916 was singlehandedly in charge of the German military and refused every peace offer until the empire was left without allies and struggled with countless internal revolts. Instead of taking the blame for prolonging the war he walked away smelling like roses, helped establish the Weimar Republic and played a key role in it to its end where he got cosy with the Nazis, directly aiding their rise to power.
In short, people tried to fix things, they got rid of Willhelm II and got Hitlers best buddy instead.