Weimar Germany in the context of "Abdication of Wilhelm II"

Economic collapse, also called economic meltdown, is any of a broad range of poor economic conditions, ranging from a severe, prolonged depression with high bankruptcy rates and high unemployment (such as the Great Depression of the 1930s), to a breakdown in normal commerce caused by hyperinflation (such as in Weimar Germany in the 1920s), or even an economically caused sharp rise in the death rate and perhaps even a decline in population (such as in countries of the former USSR in the 1990s). Often economic collapse is accompanied by social chaos, civil unrest and a breakdown of law and order.

The Frontier March of Posen–West Prussia (German: Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen; Polish: Marchia Graniczna Poznańsko-Zachodniopruska) was a province of Prussia that existed from 1920 (de facto) and 1922 (de jure) until its dissolution in 1938. It comprised most of the former territory of West Prussia and parts of the Province of Posen that had remained within Germany following the territorial losses to the Second Polish Republic after the Greater Poland Uprising, and confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles. The province was created in 1922 as part of the Free State of Prussia within Weimar Germany, incorporating three remaining non-contiguous territories of the former provinces of Posen and West Prussia.

Schneidemühl (present-day Piła) served as the provincial capital. From 1934 onwards, the province came under the de facto administration of the Province of Brandenburg, and on 1 October 1938, the territory was officially dissolved by Nazi Germany. Its lands were subsequently incorporated into the neighbouring provinces of Pomerania, Brandenburg and Silesia. Following the end of World War II and the redrawing of borders, the entire area of the former province was incorporated into Poland, lying east of the Oder–Neisse line.

Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act (either by private business or by union workers). When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Occasionally, strikes destabilize the rule of a particular political party or ruler; in such cases, strikes are often part of a broader social movement taking the form of a campaign of civil resistance. Notable examples are the 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard and the 1981 Warning Strike led by Lech Wałęsa. These strikes were significant in the long campaign of civil resistance for political change in Poland, and were an important mobilizing effort that contributed to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of communist party rule in Eastern Europe. Another example is the general strike in Weimar Germany that followed the March 1920 Kapp Putsch. It was called by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and received such broad support that it resulted in the collapse of the putsch.

Frederica of Hanover (German: Friederike Luise; Greek: Φρειδερίκη Λουΐζα, romanized: Phreideríkē Louḯza; 18 April 1917 – 6 February 1981) was Queen of Greece from 1 April 1947 until 6 March 1964 as the wife of King Paul and the Queen Mother of Greece from 6 March 1964, when her son Constantine II became King, until 8 December 1974, when the monarchy was officially abolished after a referendum.

Granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II and daughter of Duke Ernest Augustus of Brunswick, Frederica was born a few months before the fall of the German Empire. Her family overthrown, she grew up between Austria and Weimar Germany, where her father owned large properties. As a teenager, she joined the Hitler Youth in 1933, before leaving to complete her studies for the next two years in the United Kingdom and then Italy. In Florence, she was received by Princess Helen of Greece and Denmark, at whose house she met the Crown Prince of Greece, Paul. The two fell in love and married two years after the restoration of the monarchy in Greece. In the years that followed, she gave birth to three children, Sophia in 1938, Constantine in 1940 and Irene in 1942.

The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (German: Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK) was a transnational advocacy group and civil rights organization founded by Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin in May 1897, to campaign for the legal rights and social recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and against their institutionalized discrimination and persecution in Western societies. It was the first LGBT rights organization in history. The motto of the organization was Per scientiam ad justitiam ("Through science to justice"), and the committee included representatives from various professions. The committee's membership peaked at about 700 people. In 1929, Kurt Hiller took over as chairman of the group from Hirschfeld. At its peak, the WhK had branches in approximately 25 cities in Weimar Germany, the Republic of Austria, and the Netherlands.

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (Hungarian: [ˈblɒʃkoː ˈbeːlɒ ˈfɛrɛnt͡s ˈdɛʒøː]; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), better known by the stage name Bela Lugosi (/ləˈɡoʊsi/ lə-GOH-see; Hungarian: [ˈluɡoʃi]), was a Hungarian–American actor. He was best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the horror film classic Dracula (1931), Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939) and his roles in many other horror films from 1931 through 1956.

Lugosi began acting on the Hungarian stage in 1902, appearing in more than 170 productions. Beginning in 1917, he performed in Hungarian silent films. During World War I, he served as an infantry officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army from 1914 to 1916. After the failed Hungarian Communist Revolution of 1919, Lugosi was forced to emigrate to Germany due to his Socialist party activities. He acted in several films in Weimar Germany, before arriving in New Orleans as a seaman on a merchant ship, then making his way north to New York City and Ellis Island.

The Polish Corridor (German: Polnischer Korridor; Polish: korytarz polski), also known as the Pomeranian Corridor, was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia (Pomeranian Voivodeship, Eastern Pomerania), which provided the Second Polish Republic with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Weimar Germany from the province of East Prussia. At its narrowest point, the Polish territory was just 30 km wide. The Free City of Danzig (now the Polish cities of Gdańsk, Sopot and the surrounding areas), situated to the east of the corridor, was a semi-independent German speaking city-state forming part of neither Germany nor Poland, though united with the latter through an imposed union covering customs, mail, foreign policy, railways as well as defence.

After Poland lost Western Pomerania to Germany in the late 13th century, the area of Eastern Pomerania with the strategically important port of Gdańsk remained a narrow strip of land giving Poland access to the Baltic Sea and was also sometimes referred to as Pomeranian corridor.

Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (Yiddish: הערשל פײַבל גרינשפּאן; German: Hermann Grünspan; 28 March 1921 – last rumoured to be alive in 1945, declared dead in 1960) was a Polish-Jewish expatriate born and raised in Weimar Germany who shot and killed the Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath on 7 November 1938 in Paris. The Nazis used this assassination as a pretext to launch Kristallnacht, "The Night of Broken Glass", the pogrom of 9–10 November 1938. Grynszpan was seized by the Gestapo after the Fall of France and brought to Germany; his further fate remains unknown.

It is generally assumed that Grynszpan did not survive World War II, and he was declared dead in absentia by the West German government in 1960. This was done at the request of his parents, who said they had not heard anything from him in over 15 years, which was out of character for him. However, this remains a matter of dispute: Kurt Grossman claimed in 1957 that Grynszpan lived in Paris under another identity. A photograph of a man resembling Grynszpan was cited in 2016 as evidence to support the claim that he was still alive in Bamberg, Germany, on 3 July 1946.