The Great Depression
Learn about the Great Depression — the devastating global economic crisis of the 1930s that caused mass unemployment and fueled the rise of extremism.
The Great Depression (1929–1939) was the most severe economic downturn in modern history. Beginning with the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, it spread from the United States to engulf the entire global economy, causing mass unemployment, bank failures, and social upheaval on an unprecedented scale.
The causes were complex: overproduction in industry and agriculture, speculative excesses in the stock market, weakness in the banking system, declining international trade, and policy mistakes by governments and central banks that deepened rather than alleviated the crisis. In the United States, unemployment reached 25%. In Germany, it was even worse — over 30% — creating the desperate conditions that Hitler exploited.
The political consequences were profound. In the United States, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal expanded the role of government in the economy through public works, financial regulation, and social safety nets. In Germany, economic despair helped propel Hitler to power. In Japan, the economic crisis strengthened the hand of militarists who argued that imperial expansion was necessary for national survival. The Great Depression demonstrated the fragility of the global capitalist system and permanently transformed the relationship between governments and their economies.