The rise and fall of the Weimar Republic

1. Weimar Republic

2. The unrests

3. Key Terms

4. Origins
Defeat in the World War I
•The Armistice
•Demands for Kaiser abdication in Reichstag
•Kaiser fled to Holland
•The Conference of the Landers in Berlin
•Mutinies in Germany
•Marines in WilhelmsHeaven and Keil
•Bavarian Socialistic Republic
•The Spartacist Uprising

5. Rebellions

6. The order retained
• Ebert – Groener Agreement (Nov 1918)
•Freikorps came into action (Gen. Von Luttwitz)
•Spartacist Rebellion suppressed
•Bavarian republic defeated
•The Government rely on the army since then.

7. Elections of 1919
• First meeting in Weimar
•Ebert chosen a president
•„Weimar Coalition”
•SPD
•Center
•DDP
•Chancellor Scheidemann

8. The Treaty of Versailles
• Signed on June 28th 1919
•The Guilt Clause
•Military limitations
•Economic Limitations
•Territorial losses

9. The Treaty of Versilles

10. The Unrest Continues
• The threat from… ?
• Kapp’s Putch ( III 1920)
• Organised by the National Association
• Ludenndorf, Kapp and Luttwitz
• Started in Berlin, with Ehrhardt Marine Brigade
• Government fled to Stuttgart
• Suppressed by Civil Servants and the Labour Unions
• Government did not prosecute organisers
•Why?

11. Elections of 1920

12. Foreign Relations
• London Payment Plan (1921)
•20 000 bln marks of reparations
•2 000 mln marks per yer
• +26% of German Export
• Genoa Conference
•Rapallo (1922)
•What was it?
•Why was it important?

13. Continuing violence
• Threat still from the right
• Another rising in Habsburg (1922)
• Freikorps banned afterwards
• Counterproductive:
• Assassination of Rathenau
• 354 out of 376 political assassination – rightists
•Law for the Protection of the Republic

14. Economic struggle
• Germany Heavy indebted
• 144 000 mln marks (1919)
• 496 000 mln marks (1923)
• New government of Cuno suspends payments for 1923 & 24
• French occupy RUHR VALLEY
•Germans use passive ressistance
• Worked for French
• Damaged German Economy

15. Hyperinflation

16. Economic struggle
• Stabilisation of Currency (Aug 1923)
• Rentenmark (Hans Luther)
• Sacking 700 000 state employees
• Rentenbank (Hjalmar Schacht)
•Continiuing Unrests:
• Communistic risings in Saxony, Turingia and Hamburg
• The Beer Hall Putch

17. Reasons for the unrests
• Any ideas?
• The problems with the new system:
• Very little Germans knew how to act in the Democratic Environment
• The Democracy was based on a Social-Democratic tradition, that
suffered handicaps:
• It was associated with the defeat of Germans in World War 1.
/Stab – in – the-back complex/
• It had two powerful forces to counter: national-militarism
(conservaitve) and communism (Russian)
• It had to deal with the harsh restrains of the Treaty of Versailles.

18. Source Analysis
•Questions

19. The Constitution

20. Weimar Republic

21. ‘The Golden Age of Weimar
Republic’

22. Stabilization steps
• Stresemann appointed Chancellor (Augist 1923)
• President Ebert died, replaced by Paul von Hindenburg (Feb 1925)
• First step – financial stability
•Devaluation of mark (Rentenmark)
• Dawes Plan
• Result: I.G. Farben and United Steelworks
• Political Stability
• Broad coalition of by Stresemann.
• Good economic performance.
• General von Seeckt dismissed.

23. Elections 1924 - 28

24. Foreign Policy
•Tactics of sullen obsruction (1919-1921)
•Tactics of ‘Fulfillment’
• Invented by Chancellor Joseph Wirth (Rapallo)
• Developed by Stresemann:
• Locarno Treaty (1925)
• Admission to the League of Nations
•Withdrawal of British from Cologne (January 1926)
• Abolishing of the Inter-Allied Control Commission (1927)
• French withdrawal from Germany (August 1929)
•Successful Moratorium by Bruning (June 1931)

25. Major Threats
• Education left in hands of people who despised democracy
• The party system was unstable
• Budget was too much dependent on Foreign Loans

26. Chancellors

27. Political Parties

28. The Great Depression

29. The Great Depression
• Education left in hands of people who despised democracy
• The party system was unstable
• Budget was too much dependent on Foreign Loans

30. Impact on Germany
• Stresemann died (3 October 1929)
• …and the Crisis has started (24 October 1929)
• Credits were called and Foreign Investnemnt drastically
decreased:
• 1928 = 5 billion marks of foreign capital in Germany
• 1929 = 2.5 billion
• 1930 = 700 million marks
• Government fought inflation at all cost, so the unemployment
increased drastically.

31. Support for radical parties
• KPD
• NSDAP
Martin Borszat
Alan Bullock

32. Political Dissaster
• Muller government fell in march 1930
• Drive for authoritarian government (DVP and DNVP)
• Bruning – the new chancellor
• Some international success (Moratorium for Reparations)
• Harsh domestic measures:
• Sturmabteilung banned
• Major budget cuts = ‘Hunger Chancellor’
• Reichstag dissolved
• The last accords:
• von Papen’s chancellorship
• von Schleicher chancellorship

33. The last chancellor…

34. The illusionary peace of 1924
• The Dawes Plan (April 1924)
• Adopted by Reichstag in May 1924
•Produced disillusionment
• The second elections
• The Stresseman Era
•External success
•Internal failure

35. Political Quarrels
• SPD adopted HEIDELBERG PROGRAMME (1925)
• Rightist, minority governments:
•Hans Luther
•Wilhelm Marx
•Election of the President (April 1925)
•Hindenburg
•Wilhelm Marx
•Ernst Thalmann
• DNVP redicalized – Lambach Article and A. Hugenberg appointed a
Chairman of the Party (1928)

36. Economic Probelms
• High Wages of workers (Borchardt Theory)
• Foreign dependency and delayed payments of the Reparations
• Labour Unrests
• High unemployment (14.5%)
•Industrial unrests :
• Employers wanted harsher conditions for Workers
• 76 000 arbitrations
• 6 000 strikes