How a Myth Carried Germany into the 1930s

In historical texts.....you might rarely come across the German phrase: 'Dolchstoßlegende', which translates back over to the phrase: stab in the back myth.  This is one of those historical essays that I'll write to tell a little piece of German history.

So, when we come to the end of WW I.....things get messy with the German loss, and the humiliation factor surges to an absolute maximum level.

The best sense to view the 'myth' is that when German men returned from the war, they felt a need to create a blame scenario for the loss.  Political folks and journalists in various ways helped to carry the myth to the people and it was routinely discussed.

Blaming the shift away from the Kaiser and the monarchy-style government?  As the war ended, it was a fairly quick way in which the Kaiser was forced to leave and a republic government was put into place as the savior.  The thought by the war veterans is that these pro-republic folks....were always intent on dismissing the Kaiser and they probably helped to make the German effort in the war to be doomed failure.

The question of the pro-republic intent?  There is no doubt that anti-monarchy and anti-Kaiser enthusiasm existed prior to 1914.  But the length of this war and the great losses to society (in the range of 2.2 to 2.8 million men)....triggered a public disbelief over the Kaiser's stance. 

As for the question of this myth lingering throughout the 1920s of Germany?  I would imagine if you walked into any beer-hall and veterans were in attendance....the topic got brought up.  There's no doubt that it interfered with the progress of the Weimar Republic, and helped in some ways to deliver the Nationalist-Socialist agenda to the German people in 1930. 

Trying to explain this in modern times?  Imagine some event occuring and total disbelief is the end-result.  Then the disbelief reaches a level where you chat about this daily and it interferes with you or your associates 'moving ahead' or getting over the dramatic turn of events (like a Trump win in November of 2016), and out of this....some myth carries itself through the routine of each day.  You seek a blame tool to convince yourself of the great loss in life or trust.  That's pretty much how 1919 went with this myth.