To What Extent Had Weimar Germany Recovered By 1929

Submitted By bethyboopoo
Words: 1404
Pages: 6

To what extent had Weimar Germany recovered by 1929?

World War One had deeply wounded Germany and meant that the physical and psychological effects got worse. As well as these, Germany was affected politically, mainly due to the fact that the Reichstag was weakened because of Germany being ruled as a Military Dictatorship by the Kaiser, Ludendorff and Hindenburg. Before the war Germany was a very ambitious and proud country, but the experiences of war had mad Germany bitter and angry. A society which had previously been famous for it’s obedience and unity had now become famous for it’s squabbling and conflict, especially after they started looking for someone to blame for World War One. There was 3 main crisis' in 1933, The Occupation of the Ruhr, Germany did not pay there reparations from the war so the French and Belgian Troops marched into the Ruhr and occupied their industries. Germany reacted with the passive resistance, which meant they did not work, this made the country poorer because they had nothing to give to the Ruhr. The Hyperinflation, the Government did not have enough money to pay for the passive resistance so they printed much more money which meant the value of money went down. The effects were bad, rich people turned in to beggars. The Munich Putsch, this was an attempt by the Nazis to seize control of Bavaria in November 1923 and then to try to seize control of Germany. The attempt failed and Hitler was sent to prison. It seems that the consequences of the Munich Putsch had more of an effect than the actual event. Germany had recovered by 1929 to a certain extent however there was many problems that Germany faced including economic, poverty, hyperinflation and international relationships and the threat of war. Even though the Germany had recovered slightly in political terms, it still did face other significant political challenges. The Government was threatened by both left and right wing parties. The Spartacists were lead by Rosa Luxemburg and in 1919 they staged an attempted revolution in Berlin against Ebert’s government. However, it failed dramatically because it was poorly organised. As well as the Spartacist uprising, the Government faced the Kapp Putsch. After the Government signed the Treaty of Versailles, many German troops resented the idea of their army being reduced in size, and simply joined the Freikorps if they were disbanded. Many of the Allies were getting worried about the number of unofficial forces, and put pressure on Germany to try and disbanded or at least down size these groups. Due to the fact that the Kapp Putsch didn’t have the support of the political groups, it failed. The Munich Putsch was easily crushed by the army and the police, but it was still another example of the violent opposition of the Government. As well as having all the attempted revolutions to deal with, they still were hated by the German’s because they signed the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty meant that Germany had to downsize its military forces, pay reparations and take full blame for World War One, which made the Weimar Government very unpopular. The economy played a huge role in attempting to get Germany back to a reasonable state. Hyperimflation resulted in sky high prices and the value of money declining. People who had worked hard all their lives were struck with poverty as their pensions and their savings lost all value. Even people lucky enough to maintain their job found that the wages could not keep up with the rocketing prices. The people who suffered most from inflation were the middle classes who saw their savings and their businesses destroyed. Nevertheless, Gustav Stresemann managed to find a way out of this terrible situation by abandoning the policy of passive resistance. As we know, Germany still had to pay their reparations, but simply didn’t have the money to give to them. In November the German government agreed to resume their reparation payments. The Allies then