The Weimar Republic 1918-1932

The Weimar Republic 1918-1932

Daniel W. Blackmon

IB HL History

Coral Gables Senior High

Max Pax: 10 / 1918

• Ludendorff's demand for an immediate armistice led to the formation of a new government on Oct. 3, 1918 by Prince Max of Baden.

Max Pax: 10 / 1918

• Max' primary task is to negotiate with Woodrow Wilson for an armistice. Labelled the Pacifist Prince by the public and the army, he is hampered by the inconsistent attitudes of Hindenburg and Ludendorff.

Max Pax: 10 / 1918

• Prominent in Max’ government are the Social Democrats, led by Friedrich Ebert.

The Kiel Mutiny: 10 / 18

• As the war ended, officers in the High Seas fleet concocted a plan to take the fleet out on a "death ride," challenge the Royal Navy, and go down in glory.


• The sailors refuse to do their duty to take the ships out. By November 3, the mutiny has spread to the city of Kiel itself, involving sailors and dockworkers.


• The port is shut down. The Social Democrats send representatives to try to head off a Bolshevik revolution and succeed. Clearly, German military units are no longer reliable.

The Bavarian Revolution 10 / 18

• Kurt Eisner, a Jewish Independent Socialist, deposes the Wittelsbach dynasty on November 7 and establishes and declares a republic with power held by a Council of Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers.

The Bavarian Revolution 10 / 18

• Eisner is not, however, a Bolshevik. Rosa Luxemburg despised him. He distrusted Lenin and Trotsky. There is no Red Terror at all.

Abdication of the Kaiser: 11/ 18

• Amidst great turmoil and confusion in the country, Max tried to save the monarchy, but the Kaiser hesitated to abdicate.

Abdication of the Kaiser: 11 / 18

• By Nov. 7, Ebert told Prince Max that if the Kaiser did not abdicate, a social revolution would be inevitable. He added that he did not want to see such a revolution occur.

the German Republic 11 / 18

• Ebert asks Max to resign and begins forming a Socialist-dominated government for the new German Republic.

the German Republic 11 / 18

• Ebert must negotiate the armistice, withdraw all German troops from France, arrange a nation-wide election in January to write a new constitution, keep the country from dismembering itself, and fight off an attempted Bolshevik-style coup from the radical left, the Spartacists.

The Spartacists 11 / 18

• Led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, the Spartacists had opposed participation in the war, and were ideologically close to the Bolsheviks.


• Lenin rejected the Social Democrats as true socialists (he regarded them as Marxist Revisionists, which they were) but accepted the Spartacists as comrades.

The Spartakists

• Lenin encourages this development with money and with the despatch of Karl Radek (a close confidant of Lenin and, like Luxemburg, a Polish Jew--the two disliked each other).

The Spartakists

• Tension exists among the Spartacists since Luxemburg rejects Lenin's use of terror and suppression of other socialist parties. Neither Liebknecht nor Luxemburg are prepared to accept Lenin's primacy.


• They will eventually organize themselves as the KPD (Communist Party of Germany).

Armistice November 11, 1918

• The Armistice agreement was signed in a railroad car in the Forest of Compiègne.

The Freikorps

• The Freikorps were paramilitary units owing loyalty to the brigade organizer, like the condottieri of the Italian Renaissance.

The Freikorps

• The pre-War Youth Movement (the Wandervogel) is an important shaping influence. The Movement represented a revolt of discontented bourgeois youth against the world of their parents.

The Freikorps

• The Movement emphasized a restless desire for action (of any kind, action for its own sake), a mystic fellowship of the Volk which absorbs the individual, and a willingness to follow a Führer, a Leader.

The Freikorps

• The second determining experience of the Freikorps was, of course, the War, and especially the creation of Sturmtruppen or Stoßtruppen.

The Freikorps

• These units were self-contained, with their own organic mortars, machine guns, and flame-throwers. Individuals were issued lighter carbines instead of the heavier Mauser rifle, and were permitted to carry pistols (previously the exclusive province of the officers).

The Freikorps

• Stormtroopers were the first to adopt the steel helmet. Their preferred weapon was the hand grenade. Discipline was strict, but not the traditional discipline unto death (Kadaverdisziplin) of the Imperial Army. Enlisted men used the Familiar Singular "du" in addressing their officers.

The Freikorps

• These units also produced a very large ratio of officers to men (as high as 1:4), chiefly lieutenants and captains--all unmarried men under 25 years of age, usually from outside the ranks of the traditional officer corps

The Freikorps

• . They were made up largely of veterans, many of whom came from elite shock troop formations. Their officers were primarily from the shock troops. They are heavily armed, very skilled and professional, nihilistic, violent, viciously anti-democratic and anti-Bolshevik..

The Freikorps

• Many of them will end up in Hitler’s SA. Although they despised Ebert, they were very happy to kill Spartacists. Lenin did not have to face anything like them in Russia.

The Freikorps

• The German novelist, Ernst Jünger may be taken as the spokesman for the Freikorps.

The Freikorps

• In 1914, this sensitive university student marched to war, writing in his diary: "Surely this day that God has given/ Was meant for better uses than to kill." (Waite 23)

The Freikorps

• By 1916, at 21 years of age, Jünger has been wounded 20 times, wears the coveted Pour le Mérite, Imperial Germany's highest decoration, and now commands a Stormbattalion. He is a hard and ruthless killer:

Ernst Jünger: “Storm of Steel”

• "The turmoil of our feelings was called forth by rage, alcohol and the thirst for blood. As we advanced heavily but irresistibly toward the enemy lines, I was boiling over with a fury which gripped me -- it gripped us all-- in an inexplicable way. The overpowering desire to kill gave me wings.


• Rage squeezed bitter tears from my eyes . . . Only the spell of primaeval instinct remained. . . . . Combat during the World War also had its great moments.


• Everyone knows that who has ever seen these princes of the trenches in their own realm, with their hard, set faces and blood-shot eyes; brave to the point of madness, tough, quick to leap forward or back.


• Trench warfare is the bloodiest, wildest, most brutal of all warfare and it produced its own type of men--men who grew into their Hour--unknown, crazy fighters.


• Of all the stimulating moments of war, none is so great as the meeting of two Schok Troop Leaders in the narrow confines of a trench. There is no retreat and no mercy then. Blood wrings forth from their shrill war cries which are wrenched from the heart like a nightmare. . . .


• This is the New Man, the storm soldier, the elite of Mitteleuropa. A completely new race, cunning, strong, and packed with purpose. What first made its appearance openly here in the War will be the axis of the future around which life will whirl faster and ever faster . . .


• The glimmering sunset of a declining period is, at the same time, the morning light of another day in which men are called to new and harder battles.


• Far behind them await the mighty cities, the hosts of machines, the nations whose iner foundations will be torn asunder by the attacks of the New Man--of the audacious. the battle-proven, the man merciless both to himself and to others.


• This war is not the end. It is only the call to power. It is the forge in which the world will be beaten into new shapes and new associations. New forms must be molded with blood, and power must be seized with a hard fist. . . . .


• War, the Father of all things, is also our father. he hammered us, chiselled us, hardened us into that which we now are. And forever, as long as the wheel of life still turns in us,


• War will be the axis on which it revolves. He trained us for war, and warriors we will remain as long as we draw the breath of life." (Waite 23, 26, 28, 22)

The Freikorps

• The chief sources of recruits were the Stormtroop battalions from the War and idealistic university students. Units brought over from the Stormtroop battalions their Imperial insignia:

The Freikorps

• the most common were acorns and oakleaves (Germanic symbols for courage and loyalty) and the death's head (taken from Blücher's hussars in 1814 and adopted by Himmler's SS).

The Freikorps

• The colors adopted were the Imperial black-white-red rather than the black-red-gold of the Revolution of 1848 and the Weimar Republic

The Freikorps

• (note that Hitler very carefully chose black, white, and red for the Nazi flag: the black swastika on a white field to tie the Nazis to the Germanic past, the red field to symbolize revolution)

The Freikorps

• The "Ehrhardt Song" of one of the largest, most famous, and most ferocious Freikorps is illustrative:

The Freikorps

• Stolz tragen wir die Sterne• Und unsern Totenkopf,• Wikingersschiff am Ärmel,• Kaiserkron im Knopf.

The Freikorps

The Freikorps

• Hakenkreuz am Stahlhelm,• Schwarzweissrot das Band,• Die Brigade Ehrhardt• Werden wir genannt.

• Proudly we wear the stars,

• And our death's head, too,

• Viking ship on the sleeves,

• Emperor's crown on the buttons.

The Freikorps

• Swastika on our steel helmets,

• Black, white, red our ribbon

• The Brigade of Ehrhardt

• That is our name. (Carsten 87)

The Spartacist Revolt: 1/6/19

• The Spartacists, led by Liebknecht and Luxemburg, quite deliberately set out to destroy the government by agitation, strikes, and armed bands.


• When Germany was severely torn by civil war, then the Spartakists could take over. The Spartakists attempt their coup d'etat on January 6, 1919 in Berlin.

The Spartakist Revolt

• The beginning was a huge demonstration of workers, which was addressed by Karl Liebknecht, Georg Lebedour of the Independent Socialists, and Ernst Däumig of the Revolutionary Shop Stewards.


• They form a coalition and call for a general strike to overthrow Ebert's government and place Germany "in the vanguard of the international proletarian revolution." (Watt 256)


• The situation in Berlin appeared to be very similar to Petrograd in October 1917.


• Workers seize most newspapers, the train stations, place riflemen on the Brandenburger Tor and attack the Reichstag. In Bremen, a soviet republic is proclaimed. There are uprisings in Brunswick, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and Nuremburg.


• Ebert is convinced that no reconciliation with the far left Socialists is possible. He believes that the first duty of his government was to survive. Noske escapes the city to Dahlem, where he begins collecting Freikorps. Ebert calls in the Reinhard Brigade.


• On January 9-10, the Freikorps begin the reconquest of Berlin at the chief Socialist newspaper.


• .The night before, the Freikorps commander disguised himslef and walked into the building to reconnoiter its defenses.


• .Using mortars, howitzers, flame throwers, machine guns and tanks the Freikorps storm (what as left of) the building. The defenders attempted to surrender.


• When one commander asked what he should do with the prisoners, the reply was “Have you run out of ammunition?”

• The Freikorps shot 300 prisoners down. (Watt 262)


• Liebknecht and Luxemburg are captured and murdered. One legacy of the Spartacist Week is that the Socialist government is now permanently compromised in the eyes of the radical Left


• Noske systematically uses the Freikorps to stamp out revolution in Bremen, Hamburg, Halle, Leipzig, Thuringia, Brunswick, and the Ruhr. (Holborn 531)


• The seaports are particularly important to the country, sicne food shipments could enter only through them. Savage scenes on both sides occur. However, the Freikorps are much more ruthless and proficient.


• Heavily outnumbered by the revolutionary militias, they are nevertheless successful everywhere, and their victory is usually accompanied by a vicious White Terror.

The Bavarian Counterrevolution

• April 1918

• Kurt Eisner was assassinated by an extreme right wing nationalist.


• Munich dissolves in shambles. Three groups jockey for position: the Majority Socialists, led by Adolf Hoffmann, the Coffeehouse Anarchists, led by the poet Ernst Toller,


• and the Communists, led by the Russian agents Towia Axelrod, Max Levien, and Eugen Leviné, along with the German Rudolf Egelhofer, a psychotic.


• A "government" of the Coffeehouse Anarchists is established. The Coffeehouse Anarchists are eccentric, to say the least.


• Their Commissar for Foreign Affairs was a lunatic. (He complained in a wire to Lenin that his predicessor had absconded with the key to his toilet) They last 6 days..


• The Communists then take over. A Red Terror ensues. The Weimar Socialists sent in the Freikorps, who brutally crush the Communists.

The Munich Red Terror

• Axelrod, Levien, and Leviné are Russian born and Russian agents. Axelrod is a Russian diplomat. Levien quite consciously wants to copy Lenin, right down to the use of the Red Terror.


• A Red Terror ensues. The Red Army organized by Egelhofer plundered the city. It is one of the best paid armies in history, not to mention free food, liquor, and prostitutes. It numbers about 20,000.


• Among the nationalists whom the Red Army tries to arrest is Corporal Adolf Hitler.

• After this was over, he certainly became an informer on his fellow soldiers. A number were executed on his testimony.

The Munich White Terror

• The Social Democrats appealed for help. They get it, in the form of some of the toughest, most ruthless of the Freikorps, including the von Epp and Ehrhardt brigades.

Red resistance quickly collapses before these professionals


• Egelhofer orders the execution of his hostages. Some 20 prominent Münchner citizens are brutally murdered and mutilated.


• The Freikorps begin "cleansing" the city

• Egelhofer is shot on the spot.

• Leviné is shot


The Coffeehouse Anarchist Gustav Landauer is sadistically murdered--beaten, shot twice, and kicked to death (they quit shooting him because the bullets were ricocheting up off the cobblestones)


30 members of the St. Joseph's Society, a Catholic religious group, were executed. The Freikorps were not too choosy about their victims.

• Over 1,000 prsons wre executed within 6 days.

General Elections January 1919

• There were to be 423 deputies.

• .The Majority Socialists won 38% of the vote. This is a big victory for Ebert.

• .The Independent Socialists received 8% of the vote.


• .The Communists boycotted the election.


• ..The Catholic Centre Party received about 20% of the vote.– .Its leader is Mathias Erzberger


.The party was committed to private property, but favored large-scle social legislation and was critical of liberal capitalism. Their position was rigid on school and church questions. It is the only party to cross social class lines.


• .The German Democratic Party included the liberals, and won 19%


• .The German People's Party represented the right wing of German liberals. They would tolerate a republic but preferred a constitutional monarchy. They remianed suspicious of the Social Democrats. They are led by Gustav Stresemann. They win only 4%


• .The German National People's Party was composed of traditional conservatives. It included the large industrialists and landowners. They wanted a restoration of the monarchy.


• They poll 10%. Its most important leader is Alfred Hugenberg, an extremely wealthy reactionary who will help bankroll several right wing groups, including the Nazis. (Holborn 533-39, Watt 275-77)


• .The results of the voting meant that no government could be formed without the Majority Socialists, but Ebert would have to form coalitions with the Catholic Centre and German People's Party. A thorough-going Socialist program is out of the question.

The Weimar Government

• The new government elects Friedrich Ebert President.

• Philipp Scheidemann becomes Chancellor with 7 Social Democrat, 4 Catholic and 4 Democratic ministers.

The Weimar Government

• The two key tasks for the new government are:

• .writing a new constitution

• .the peace treaty.

The Weimar Constitution

• A strong President is created, with power to veto laws and submit them to referendum. The President also appointed and dismissed the Chancellor.

The Weimar Constitution

•Article 48 gave the President the power to suspend some civil rights, dissolve Parliament, and govern by decree in times of national emergency.

• The abuse of Article 48 paved the way for Hitler's seizure of power.

The Treaty of Versailles

• The Germans believed (with considerable justice) that the armistice had been on the basis of the Fourteen Points.


• Furthermore, they believed that they would have an opportunity to negotiate with the victors. To compound matters, on the issue of colonies and eastern borders, the Germans deluded themselves.


• Instead, they were handed a Diktat, a "Carthaginian Peace." Not only the German government but the German people felt a profound sense of outrage at the Treaty.


• It is my view that the Treaty of Versailles made another war inevitable. It can also be argued that forcing the Republic to sign the Treaty, the Allies gravely weakened the cause of democracy.


• Northern Schleswig is granted to Denmark after a plebescite.


• Alsace-Lorraine is given back to France (Point 8). Although 2/3s of the population was German speaking, the population clearly preferred to be French.

• Belgium is granted the districts of Eupen and Malmedy.


• France is given control over the coal-rich Saar valley for 15 years, at which time a plebescite would determine if the Saar were to return to Germany, be independent, or join France.


• The Saar had a population of 650,000 and 25% of Germany's coal reserves (more than France). France had at first demanded outright cession of the Saar, despite the fact that historically it had always been German.


• France's motives were both economic and military. Under these terms, the bulk of the coal would go to France, French troops would police the district, and France hoped to manipulate the plebescite to at least gain Saar independence from Germany (as a French client state, of course)


• The Rhineland, with 6.5 million Germans and its heavy industry, is likewise placed under French administration for 15 years, with withdrawal contingent upon fulfillment of reparations payments, and is to be permanently demilitarized.


• France had originally demanded outright cession (with Alsace and the Saar, this would give them a continuous border along the Rhine River).


• Wilson had flatly refused to go along; French acquisition of the Rhineland would be an Alsace in reverse.


• Clemenceau got all that Wilson would accept, but Foch and Poincaré are outraged and plotted to seize the Rhineland anyway.


• An independent Poland with access to the sea (Point 13) is created. Poland is granted Upper Silesia (despite a plebescite that went German), the province of Posen,


• parts of East Prussia, and West Prussia, which gave it access to the sea, and separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany.


• The city of Danzig, which was 90% German, was made a free city under Polish administration. 2,000,000 Germans were thus incorporated in the Polish state.


• An Anschluß, the unification of Austria with Germany, was specifically banned. (Technically, this was part of the Treaty of Saint Germain with Austria) Germans noted (with justice) that the principle of self-determination was used only when it hurt Germany


• Germany gave up all colonies, which are acquired by the victors, technically under League of Nations mandate.

• Almost the entire German merchant marine was confiscated.


• At the time of the signing of the treaty, the Allies had not agreed on a figure. Germany was therefore required to sign a blank check.


• .In 1921, the bill was assessed at 216 billion gold marks (at the 1914 exchange rate of 4.2 gold marks / dollar, or $51.42 billion, which was several times as large as Germany's total national income. (Fest 138, Flood 178, 184)


• John Maynard Keynes left the conference and wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace which all-too accurately predicted that attempting to make Germany pay the full cost of the war would lead to Germany's economic collapse,


• which in turn would lead to the collapse of the Central European economy. This in turn would damage the Allies' economy and politically destabilize Germany.


• Article 231 stated "the Allied Governments affirm and Germanyu accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage [suffered by the Allies] as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and its allies." (Passant 156)


• This is the single most hated, and most disputed part of the entire treaty.


• Germany's army was reduced to 100,000 men, less than the police force of Imperial Germany. The German General Staff was outlawed. Seeckt simply changed the job titles and carried on.


• Germany was denied an air force. Germany used civil aviation--Lufthansa-- as a basis for a future air force. Well before the Nazis, the Germans were clandestinely developing new aircraft and theories. The Nazis simply accelerated the process.


• The German navy is confiscated, and further construction virtually banned.

• Germany was denied possession of heavy artillery, tanks, or submarines.

The Kapp Putsch May 1919

• The Freikorps, under the “leadership” of a bureaucrat named Wolfgang Kapp, staged a putsch in Berlin. The Army refuses to defend the government,

The Kapp Putsch May 1919

• so the Socialists call for a general strike, which topples Kapp in 4 days. The aftermath of the putsch involved civil war and bitter fighting around the country.

The Kapp Putsch

• There were Communist risings in the Ruhr and in Saxony and Thuringia. The forces involved in the "Army of the Ruhr" were substantial--about 50,000 armed workers. reconquer the districts, amid atrocities on both sides.

The Kapp Putsch

• The uprising was aimed both at the right-wing nationalists and the Social Democrats. (Flood 125-7, Fest 131)

The Kapp Putsch

• (this deep ideological division within the ranks of Socialism is an important reason for the failure of the Left to prevent the Nazi seizure of power. Toeing the Bolshevik line, the KPD fought the Social Democrats ferociously;

The Kapp Putsch

• Stalin branded the SDP as "social fascists;" cooperation against the Nazis was precluded--indeed, at times, the KPD cooperated with the Nazis against the Republic)

The Kapp Putsch

• An example of the attitudes is a letter sent home(!) by a young member of the Von Epp Free Corps: ". . . we staged our first attack . . . . No pardon is given. We shoot even the wounded. . . .

The Kapp Putsch

• Anyone who falls into our hands first gets the rifle butt and then is finished off with a bullet. . .

The Kapp Putsch

• We even shot 10 Red Cross nurses on sight because they were carrying pistols. We shot those little ladies with pleasure--how they cried and pleaded with us to save their lives. Nothing doing! Anybody with a gun is our enemy . . . " (Waite 182)

Hans von Seeckt

• Seeckt was a man of considerably broader education than most generals, and had distinguished himself in World War I. He was a dedicated monarchist who recognized that a restoration was not possible, at least in the near future; he had nothing but contempt for democracy

Hans von Seeckt

• His intention is to create a cadre army that would serve as the nucleus for the expanded German army which he knew would eventually be created. The preservation of the army is his first priority.

Hans von Seeckt

• He handpicks the 96,000 enlisted men and 4,000 officers of the new Reichswehr. He chooses them not only for intelligence and character but also for political reliability.

Hans von Seeckt

• Seeckt also institutes a meticulous study of why Germany lost the war. He rejects out of hand the "stab in the back" theory, as did those staff officers around him. The analysis conducted under his supervision was thorough and realistic.

Hans von Seeckt

• Lessons were drawn for the future, and doctrine is hammered out. Seeckt stresses fire and movement and all-arms cooperation. He sets about trying to evade the treaty ban against tanks and aircraft.

Hans von Seeckt

• To this end, Seeckt will conduct a foreign policy independent of (and unknown by) the government with respect to the Soviet Union.

Hans von Seeckt

• In 1922, Seeckt makes an agreement with the Russians whereby the Germans can build aircraft, submarines, artillery and ammunition and establish training schools for aircraft, poison gas, and tanks.

Hans von Seeckt

• During this time, the Germans gained hands-on experience with new equipment and techniques, and in turn, trained most of Tukhachevsky's officers. This agreement was extensive and clandestine, and benefitted the military of both countries.

Hans von Seeckt

• Seeckt stressed technical knowledge and systematic weapons development. He provided Heinz Guderian with an opportunity to develop his ideas of Blitzkrieg.

Hans von Seeckt

• He laid the foundations of the Luftwaffe, and provided an opportunity for Messerschmitt, Dornier, Heinkel and Junkers to develop new aircraft (all of this illegally).

Hans von Seeckt

• He began building tanks on German soil in 1928. He encouraged an atmosphere within the staff of vigorous debate on doctrine.

Hans von Seeckt

• Even though the General Staff was technically disbanded, it still existed. Seeckt placed the sections under various covers (such as the Interior Ministry--the Map Section became the Reich Survey Office.

Hans von Seeckt

• Since the Reichswehr was too small to actually defend Germany, Seeckt cooperated generally with the Freikorps. Technically, these had been disbanded. In reality, they still existed, and numbered probably as much as the Reichswehr. Seeckt expected to double the size of his army in a crisis.

Hans von Seeckt

• These troops were openly called the "Black Reichswehr." They were particularly important along the Polish border (there was heavy fighting in Silesia following a Polish coup just before the plebiscite).

Paramilitary Organizations

• The Stahlhelm, an organization of veterans is formed in 1918. It is paramilitary, but not actually terrorist. Membership was limited to soldiers who had served at the front, Hindenburg was its honorary commander,


• and it stressed comradeship and soldierly virtues in addition to implacable hatred of the Versailles Treaty. It reaches a peak membership of 1 million members in 1928. Intensely nationalist and right-wing, it will serve as an important vehicle for discontent against the republic.


• Many people will not see too much difference between the Stahlhelm and the Nazis.


• The Nazis create the Sturmabteilulng (the SA), the storm troopers, as the shock troops of the movement. Many Freikorps leaders and soldiers end up in the SA.

• Others include the Communist Red Veterans’ League and the SD’s Reichsbanner

Feme Murders 1919-1922

• the Freikorps begin the Feme-murders: political assassinations. According to conservative official estimates, some 354 political murders were committed between 1919 and 1922.


• Ernst Röhm reports in his autobiography (titled significantly History of an Archtraitor): "One day an alarmed statesman went up to the Police President and whispered in his ear, 'Herr President, political murder organizations exist in this country!' Pöhner replied, 'I know--but there are too few of them!'" (Waite 213)


• Among those assassinated were Mathias Erzberger and Walter Rathenau (at the time, the Foreign Minister)

• Hitler had a monument built for Rathenau’s murderers.

The Treaty of Rapallo 1922

• Germany and the Soviet Union gave up all economic claims against each other. This led to the covert military cooperation between them.

Occupation of the RuhrJan. 11, 1923

• At the end of 1922, Germany fails to deliver all of the coal and telephone poles required. France declares Germany in default of reparations payments. French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr industrial district.

Occupation of the RuhrJan. 11, 1923

• The Weimar government calls for passive resistence. The population responds to the call with overwhelming support. All reparations payments of any kind are stopped. The French are unable to exploit the economic assets.

Hyperinflation 1921-23

• The Weimar government promises to support the Ruhr workers, and does so by paying their salaries. However, without access to the richest district in the country, the only way the government can do that is by printing huge quantities of money.


• In October 1921, the mark had stood at M 200:$1;

• in October 1922 it was M4,500:$1;

• In January 1923, the mark has dropped to M17,972:$1


• In November 1923, the mark officially stood at M 4,200,000,000,000:$1 (Flood 382, 392, Passant 192, 159);

• Middle class savings are completely wiped out. These people are "proletarianized,"

The Beer Hall PutschNov. 8, 1923

• Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were among a coaliton of rightest groups in Bavaria who hoped to take advantage of the confusion.


• However, when the others failed to act, Hitler impatiently tried to force the issue and seize control of Munich by force. The police fire upon the Nazis, dispersing them.


• Hitler is arrested, tried for treason, and given a lenient sentence at Landsberg prison, where he writes his autobiography, Mein Kampf.

Currency Stabilization 1924

• Gustav Stresemann becomes Chancellor and calls an end to the passive resistance. Hjalmar Schacht then implements

The Dawes PlanJanuary 1924

•Charles G. Dawes and Owen D. Young headed a group that hoped to place the reparations issue on a sound economic footing. The plan scaled down payments, calculating that Germany could pay 2.5 billion marks per year


• The plan provided large loans to Germany, chiefly from the U.S., to help the German economy recover. Charles G. Dawes and Owen D. Young headed a group that hoped to place the reparations issue on a sound economic footing.


• .The plan scaled down payments, calculating that Germany could pay 2.5 billion marks per year.

• .The plan provided large loans to Germany, chiefly from the U.S., to help the German economy recover.

Election of Hindenburg as President 1925

• Friedrich Ebert died, forcing new elections for President. Paul von Hindenburg, who is a hero to most Germans, is elected in his place.


• He is 77 years old, a rather simple man who is still a deeply committed monarchist. He had never been an especially intelligent man, and the complexities of constitutional law, politics and economics bewildered him.


• He was wholly reliant on the advice of others. By the 1930s, he is also quite senile, and not able to fully understand the government's policies.

Locarno Treaties 1925

• Gustav Stresemann and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand try to solve their differences. Stresemann offers a German guarantee to respect the eastern borders of France and Belgium as defined by the Treaty of Versailles,


• and proposed that the great powers should join in guaranteeing the inviolability of those borders. France yielded all claims to invade German soil in order to enforce treaties.


• Stresemann agrees to demilitarization of the Rhineland, which is guaranteed by Britain and Italy No agreement is to take effect until Germany is admitted to the League of Nations.


• The expression, "spirit of Locarno" enters popular vocabulary. Unfortunately, this is not the beginning of a new era, but a high water mark.

The Young Plan 1929

• American banker Owen D. Young played a key role in the negotiations.The plan established a schedule of payments until 1988. Each payment averages 2.05 billion marks.

• The French began evacuation of the Rhineland in Sept. 1929

The Great Depression in Germany 1930

• Germany was extremely dependent upon short term loans from US banks to keep its economy going. The stock market crash in the US dried up that money,

The Great Depression in Germany 1930

• The result was the failure of key German banks, which brought the Depression into central Europe. From there, it spread, since the collapse of the Central European economy dragged everyone else down with it.

The Elections of 1930

• The elections are a disaster for Parliamentary democracy.

• Stresemann's German People's Party goes from 78 seats to 41

• .The National Liberals go from 45 seats to 30


• .The Catholic Centre go from 16 seats to 19

• .The Left Liberals go from 25seats to 20

• .The Social Democrats go from 153 seats to 143


• .The Communists gain 23 seats, from 54 to 77

• .The National Socialists (Nazis) gain 95 seats, from 12 to 107

• A Parliament that had a democratic majority is now replaced by one where the second and third largest parties are implacably opposed to parliamentary democracy.

• The Chancellor, Dr. Heinrich Brüning is determined to rule by decree. Brüning's government therefore marks the end of Parliamentary democracy in Germany.

Hindenburg’s Re-election 1932

• Hitler decided to run for President against Hindenburg, who is now senile

• Hindenburg won 46.6% of the vote to Hitler's 30.1%,

• .Hindenburg wins the run-off by 53% to Hitler's 36.8%

The von Papen and von Schleicher Governments 1932

• First, Franz von Papen and then Gen. Kurt von Schleicher attempt to form aristocratic, rightist governments without Nazi participation.

The von Papen and von Schleicher Governments 1932

• Lacking a Reichstag majority, both will have to govern by decree, using Article 48. Von Schleicher maneuvers to discredit von Papen with Hindenburg, and von Papen then returns the favor to von Schleicher.

Hitler-von Papen GovernmentJanuary 30, 1933

• The industrialists and landowners who surrounded Hindenburg urged him strongly to appoint a Hitler-Papen government: a Harzburg government of all the nationalist groups. The old man finally agrees.


• The new cabinet includes only 3 Nazis, Hitler himself, Wilhelm Frick as Minister of the Interior (includes the police) and Hermann Goering as Minister Without Portfolio (also Prussian Interior Minister).


• Papen and his people believe that they can control Hitler. They are wrong; the German Faust has made its pact with Mephistopheles.

The End!

The Weimar Republic 1918-1932

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