Stresemann's Achievements
a. Dawes Plan, 1924
Stresemann called off the 1923 Ruhr strike and started to pay reparations again – but the American Dawes Plan gave Germany longer to make the payments (and the Young Plan of 1929 reduced the payments).
b. Inflation controlled, Nov 1923
Stresemann called in all the old, worthless marks and burned them. He replaced them with a new Rentenmark (worth 3,000 million old marks).
c. French left the Ruhr, April 1924
Stresemann persuaded the French to leave.
d. Foreign Affairs
In 1925, Stresemann signed the Locarno Treaty, agreeing to the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. In 1926, Germany was allowed to join the League of Nations. Germany had become a world power again.
e. Economic Growth
Germany borrowed 25,000 million gold marks, mainly from America. This was used to build roads, railways and factories. The economy boomed and led to prosperity. Cultural life also boomed (the Roaring Twenties - see below).
f. Reforms
Stresemann introduced reforms to make life better for the working classes - Labour Exchanges (1927) and unemployment pay. Also, 3 million new houses were built.
g. Strength at the Centre
Stresemann arranged a 'Great Coalition' of the moderate pro-democracy parties (based around the SDP, the Centre party and Stresemann's own 'German people's Party', the DVP). United together, they were able to resist the criticism from smaller extremist parties, and in this way, he overcame the effects of proportional representation - the government had enough members of the Reichstag supporting it to pass the laws it needed.
Cultural Flowering - The 'Roaring twenties'
The 1920s became in Germany a time of real cultural creativity, with developments in Architecture, Art, Books, Films and Cabaret.
Famous names of this period include:
• the Bauhaus school of architecture, founded by Walter Gropius and including
• the artist Paul Klee.
• the singer and film star Marlene Dietrich ,
• the artist Otto Dix (famous for his harsh paintings of World War One trenches),
• the novelist Erich Maria Remarque, who wrote the anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front.
Weaknesses of the Weimar republic
However, many historians believe that the strength and success of the Weimar republic was largely an illusion:
1. It depended on economic success and prosperity, and this in turn was wholly based on American loans. If anything happened to undermine the American economy, the Weimar Republic would be in great danger.
2. As soon as economic prosperity returned, the Great Coalition organised by Stresemann collapsed, and the moderate pro-democracy parties began to argue among themselves again. Thus they would not be strong enough to resist a challenge from extremist parties if ever there was one.
3. Extremist politicians were not won over by the good times. Right-wing nationalists still hated the Republic as the 'November criminals' - they just waited for a situation to arise which would give them the opportunity to attack the Weimar government.
The German economy is doing well only on the surface. Germany is in fact dancing on a volcano. If the short-term loans are called in by America, most of our economy will collapse.
From a speech made by Gustav Stresemann shortly before his death on 3 October 1929
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