Because no significant part of the German nation was lost (or indeed even invaded) and no shot was fired in anger on German soil, many Germans felt that there was still a great deal of "fight" left in the German military and German people. Many (Adolf Hitler included) felt like the military had been "stabbed in the back" by a civilian government (the Weimar Republic that replaced the imperial regime of Kaiser Wilhelm II) that was secretly controlled by a Jewish cabal of profiteers.
Because of the remarkable levels of destruction--and the senselessness, the uselessness of that destruction, that loss--many lost faith in progress, democracy, and traditional sources of authority.
Because such large numbers of men went off to serve in the period's "Citizen" armies, there was a huge demand for new sources of labor as the industrial West geared up for "total war." One such source was middle-class women, many of whom were married. The photograph above is from France, but women flocked to factories in all the industrialized countries, including the Untied States.
Because of the advances of the Industrial Age, World War I was the first widespread governmental use of "scientific" (and racialized) propaganda.
The Treaty of Versailles, much of which was based on the ideas of retribution and revenge, provided a focal point around which Germans of all political stripes could unite. Wilson is the central figure below. The other two are Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd George of Great Britain.
>As we will see in the next section, the Russian Revolution(s) of 1917 were one of the most important and long lasting of the legacies of the First World War.
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