After World War I in 1918, Germany was a nation with political and social problems. German politicians had signed a document on November 11, 1918, which made Germany a republic, a form of Democracy. This upset many of the communists and socialists and in January 1919, many were rounded up and murdered in Berlin and Munich by German soldiers.

With Germany’s new government, it allowed the Generals to maintain rank and privilege in return for the government’s support of the young Republic and opposition toward Marxism.

On June 28, 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed. This meant that Germany was forced to take the blame for causing the war and had to pay for all the war damages; as well as give up some land to France and Poland and was also forbidden to have any submarines or military aircraft.

This upset many Germans who felt humiliated in front of the whole world for their defeat.

In Central Africa, the small country of Rwanda was faced with a similar situation in 1994, when two ethnic groups, the Hutu and Tutsi faced controversy surrounding their beliefs. Over 800,000 Tutsis were killed by the Hutu militia, and the killing only ended when the Tutsi rebels invaded from neighboring countries and defeated the Hutus to stop the genocide.

At the end of World War II, the monarchy was abolished and the communist party leader Marshal Tito proclaimed the country the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, and named himself the Prime Minister. When Tito died in 1980, the federation he ruled fell apart. A new Serbian leader named Sloboden Milosevic was a former Communist turned nationalist, who used religious hatred to gain power. The three ethnic groups of this nation, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, showed a lot of hostility towards each other as neighboring communist governments collapsed at the end of the 1980s, leading to a war in the 1990s. Many of the Christian Serbs in Kosovo were singled out once again as the minority and claimed of being mistreated by the Albanian Muslim majority. In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia, which resulted in a civil war. In 1992, the Serbs systematically rounded up Bosnian Muslims and were shot, terrorized, and forced to flee their homes. There were secret camps, mass killings, destruction of Muslim property, and open genocide amongst the Muslims. In 1995, after three weeks of negotiation talks, a peace accord was declared. However, over 200,000 Muslim civilians had already been murdered, 20,000 were missing, and 2,000,000 had become refugees. The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Holbrooke stated that it was, “the greatest failure of the West since the 1930’s.”

After his release in 1924, Hitler had a new plan; to be elected President of Germany. His Nazi party was by now unorganized and hurting for some leadership, so Hitler hurriedly tried to put the party back together. He divided the party into 2 parts. One was dedicated to undermining and plotting to overthrow the German government that was still a democratic republic. The other half was designed to take over the government as soon as it was overthrown.

For many Americans today, it’s sometimes hard to believe that the events of the Depression could have led to the result of Hitler coming to power and the events that follow. However, many Americans are feeling that same frustration after the September 11th attack, that the German’s felt during the Depression. Many people’s frustration was resulting in hatred and discrimination toward those who were American citizens but yet came from a different background. Several people, not realizing it, wanted a change so badly that they would result to hunting down innocent people in order to regain some of their freedom back. Maybe today more than ever, we’re starting to realize what it’s like to be in a difficult situation, needing somewhere to turn to in order to place the blame or perhaps find some answers.

The democratic view of freedom, is to do what one wants but not at the expense of others’ freedom. Even though Democracy is always changing, it still equals freedom in most cases. The Nazis had a different view on freedom, however. They believed that common good comes before the individual go

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