The Weimar Republic

• Background
  • (1919-1933)
  • After the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, there is an interim in place (from November 1918- August 1919).
  • The interim government is composed of a coalition of left center parties: Social Democrats, and Catholic Centre Parties.
• Their task is to deal with:
  • the Armistice
  • Treaty of Versailles
  • the British Blockade and subsequent starving
  • Post-war economic travails:
    • Unemployment, government debt, and the difficult economic transition from war to peace time
    • There are large numbers of soldiers who are unemployed and in uniform with arms called Freikorps.
  • Political Extremism from the left
    • Spartikist Putsch in December 1918, and the Bavarian Communists takeover in the Spring of 1919.
    • Communists despise the social democrats as their class enemy. They hate Bourgeois people, Right wing nationalists, Junker Militarists, and the Monarchists.
    • They hate the Social Democrats because they are proponents Capitalism.
    • 40% of Germany opposes Democracy and Republic.
    • In addition, the Republic has to bear the moral burden of signing the Versailles Treaty.
    • The provisional government has an inauspicious begininng.
    • The proliferation of political parties dooms the new Germany to rule by coalition. No Single party will capture an Electoral during the Weimar's entire existence\
• The Constitutional Convention
  • took place in August 1919 in the German town of Weimar by the Interim government.
  • The constitution is a very liberal document.
  • Individual rights stayed the same
    • Rights of assembly, freedom of speech, conscience, habeas corpus, religion, etc were considered inviolate, perhaps to the government's detriment. The government's reticence might have fostered political extremism.
    • The #1 case of Homicide was political murders
  • The Structure of the Government
    • a Republic which means its anti-monarchical anti-German royals and anti-clerical
    • President
      • a President who is usually honorific serves a seven year term, and kind of represents stability
      • the President has the power in article 48 to rule by decree (like a dictator) in times of national crisis that are also declared by the President.
      • There have only been two German Presidents: Ebert (1919-1926) and Hindenburg (1926-1934)
    • The Legislature
      • Unicameral legislature called the Reichstag populated by deputies who are appointed by their party leadership.
      • The percentage of deputies is proportional to the % of the popular vote.
      • The Reichstag controls the purse and legislation and appoint the chancellor of the majority party.
      • The chancellor could control foreign policy, war, economy, labour, and currency.
      • but the Weimar also grants strong powers to the individual states.
      • Police, health, and transportation are controlled by powerful state presidents and landtags.
      • Large States like Prussia and Bavaria are virtually independent of Berlin. States rights supersede federal rights.
• German Political Parties
  • In Weimar Germany, the Army, full of rightist officers, mistrusts the government.
    • The army is limited by Versailles to 100k men. To skirt disarmament, the Weimar government allowed the political parties to have "Gymnastic" Associations, which were basically private political armies composed of WWI veterans with Freikorps.
    • The most famous Gymnastic Association is the Nazi Brown Shirts (also called the SAs).
    • They held parades, had street fighting, and broke up other party speeches.
  • The Weimar's Primary Problem is Economics
    • In addition to the usual postwar ailments, the Weimar is forced to pay heavy reparations set by the Conference of Ambassadors in 1921: $132 billion Gold marks (about $55 billion).
    • Part of reparations was the German surrender of the gold reserves
• The Ruhr Crisis (1923)
  • Reparations Question is decided by the Conference of Ambassadors' reparations commissions, who set the German War Debt at $132 Billion Gold Marks (or $865 Billion 2015).
  • The Payment is in gold or raw material equivalent: coal, timber, finished goods.
  • German gold reserves were confiscated by Allies per Treaty of Versailles as a reparations pre-payment. German currency, Deutschmark, was based on Gold Standard for currency (stability).
  • Result was a massive inflation for German Mark, for example, 4 marks to the dollar in 1913, 400 marks to the dollar in 1920.
  • By 1921, German government is mired in Depression and unemployment find themselves unable to meet a series of reparations payments, either in cash or in kind.
  • France is most affected by this since they overspent in war repairs, and are also shackled by war debt to the US.
  • France, under Raymond Poincaré, who is Clemenceau's old rival, thinks Germans are purposefully ducking reparations as a challenge to the Versailles Treaty, which they feel they were coerced to sign.
  • France is also isolated by the failure of US to ratify the Treaty and join the League of Nations. The lack of the Anglo-American guarantee forces France into more self-reliance in regards to enforcement of Versailles.
  • A failure to meet the timber and coal deliveries in late 1922 in regards to enforcement of Versailles, increases French threats to enforce the Treaty by force.
  • The Germans claim the loss of coal mines in Upper Silesia have impinged their ability to make payments.
  • In January 1923, France-Belgian troop move into the coal/industrial region of the Ruhr Valley with justification of enforcing the Versailles settlement, therefore the League has no objections to this invasion.
  • The Weimar Government employs passive resistance to meet the French occupation. Weimar encourages the leftist workers into patriotic general strike with added caveat of being paid while striking.
  • The bankrupt Weimar government prints money, unbacked by Gold to pay workers. This causes the Hyperinflation of 1923 which in November approaches 421 million %.
  • Hyperinflation crushes the German middle class by wiping out their savings and also debt. This hyperinflation creates worldwide sympathy for Germans and almost equal of consternation of the French. Lack of confidence in France causes the franc to collapse in late 1923.
  • Worldwide economic crisis hastens the entry of the US and Great Britain into the Ruhr Crisis. 130 Germans are killed by occupying forces for 13 months.
  • The French simultaneously encourage the separation/independence of the Rhineland declare independence October 1924.
  • In November 1923, the enraged German Right will accuse the Weimar Coalition of bowing to the French.
  • These events culminates in November Beerhall (Munich) Putsch in 1923. It was led by a fringe political group called the National Socialists (Nazi).Under a 34 year old Austrian, WW1 Corporal, Adolf Hitler along with a right coalition called the Fatherland Front led by Erich Ludendorff.
  • Putsch fails, Hitler funs away and falls down hurts his shoulder, and he is arrested and put on trial.
  • Hitler's trial makes him a household name in Germany. He accepts full responsibility for failing Putsch.
  • Hitler is convicted and serves 9 months in Landsberg Prison where he dictates Mein Kampf, the blueprints for Hitler's plan.
  • The Weimar Government, due to the crisis, finds a leader for Germany during difficult 1920s: conciliatory, tough Gustav Stresemann.
  • Stresemann calls off the strike and brokers a deal with the British and Americans to intervene on the reparations question which ends the French occupation of the Ruhr.
  • Americans send one of JP Morgan's best friends to Europe with a team of economic experts to redo the reparations question.
  • Charles Dawes Plan