PHASES IN THE HISTORY OFTHE WEIMAR REPUBLIC

1918/19: Founding the republic (suppression of the radical Left, constitution writing, disappointment at Versailles)

1920/23: Inflation turns into hyper-inflation (shortages, windfall profits, the Ruhr Struggle of 1923, uprisings by the radical Left and Right)

1924/29: Economic stabilization and apparent normalcy —the “golden twenties”

1930/33: The Great Depression and political polarization

The impact of the Treaty of Versailles

TREATY PROVISIONS THAT PROVOKED OUTRAGE IN GERMANY

Germany lost the “Polish Corridor” to the new Republic of Poland (but Woodrow Wilson had demanded that).Germany lost Alsace-Lorraine (again, demanded in Wilson’s 14 Points).Germany was declared “guilty” for the war.Because it was “guilty”, Germany was obliged to pay for the total costs of the war (Wilson had promised a “peace without annexations or indemnities”).Germany was disarmed: Its army could have no more than 100,000 troops, and it was forbidden to possess an air force, battleships, or tanks.

On the 9th of

November

1919(DNVP)

Kapp Putschists unfurl the Imperial war flag in Berlin,

March 1920

General Hans von Seeckt, “Reichswehr does not shoot at Reichswehr” (but a general strike defeated the Putsch)

In the Ruhr Industrial District, Communists brieflyseized power after the Kapp Putsch collapsed

THE WEIMAR COALITION PARTIES SUFFERED MASSIVE LOSSES IN JUNE 1920(percentage of natonal vote)

Year KPD USPD SPD DDP Center (+BVP)

DVP DNVP

1919 --- 7.7 37.9 18.6 19.7 4.4 10.3

1920 2.1 17.9 21.7 8.3 17.8 13.9 15.1

From 1918-22 leftists committed 22 political murders, of which 17 were rigorously punished, 10 with death. Rightists committed 354 murders, of which only one was rigorously prosecuted (with no death penalty).

Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau (June 1922)

Matthias Erzberger (August 1921)

George Grosz, “Nobody Gives a

Damn” (1920)

Grosz, “What the State Tribunal Really

Should Look Like” (1919)

Gains for the moderate camp came in 1922 when the DVP chairman, Gustav Stresemann, and

shipping magnate Wilhelm Cuno became Vernunftrepublikaner

Otto Braun & Carl Severing (SPD), leaders of the Prussian state government, 1922-1932

“The Stab in the Back”

(Nazi magazine cover, 1924)

French troops occupy the Ruhr Valley, January 1923

French warplanes fly over a heavy

industrial complex in the

Ruhr, 1923

President Ebert visits the Ruhr to encourage passive resistance

“We want to be free, as our

fathers were: Give to the

German People’s Fund” (placard

seeking donations to

support passive resistance in the

Ruhr, 1923)

Target used by “Black

Reichswehr” volunteers

in 1923

Germany’s hyper-inflation of 1923:Weighing currency to determine its value

A small businessman picks up cash for his weekly

payroll

A tense crowd waiting to buy bread in 1923

“HITLER SPEAKS!”(mass rally in Munich’s Cirkus Krone, 1923)

The NSDAP worked closely with a paramilitary wing,the Sturmabteilung (Stormtroopers, SA)

Alfred Rosenberg and Adolf Hitler review marching stormtroopers in Munich, 4 November 1923

Nazi Stormtroopers outside Munich City Hall, 9 November 1923

Wilhelm Frick, Ludendorff, Hitler, & Ernst Röhmat their trial for treason

A BROAD CONSENSUS EMERGED BY NOVEMBER 1923 TO ALLOW CHANCELLOR WILHELM MARX AND

PRESIDENT EBERT TO DECREE HARSH MEASURES

1. Overall taxation rose from 9% of total national income in 1913 to 17% in 1925.

2. Public expenditures sank from 42% of national income in 1920 to 25% in 1925.

3. One single decree fired 300,000 public employees and reduced all civil service salaries to 60% of their prewar level.

4. State labor arbitrators pegged real wages in 1924 at 87% of the level of 1913.

5. Work hours were deregulated (meaning abolition of the very 8-hour day introduced in November 1918).