Weaknesses of Stresemann's Weimar Republic
- Created by: mollyannew
- Created on: 20-08-13 14:35
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- Weaknesses of Stresemann's Weimar Republic
- Foreign Policy
- Nationalists attacked Stresemann for joining the League of Nations and Signing the Locarno Pact.
- Saw signing the Locarno Treaty as an acceptance of the TOV.
- Communists attacked Locarno
- Saw it as a plot against the Communist government in the USSR
- Nationalists attacked Stresemann for joining the League of Nations and Signing the Locarno Pact.
- Economy
- The US loans could be called in at short notice, which would cause ruin in Germany
- Main economic winners were big businesses (steel and chemical industries)
- Controlled about half of Germany's industrial production.
- Other winners were big landowners
- The value of land in Berlin rose by 700% in this period
- Workers in big industries gained as well
- Unemployment began to rise
- 6% of population by 1928
- Main losers were peasant farmers and sections of the middle classes
- Peasant farmers found themselves overproducing in peacetime (as they had increases during war)
- They had mortages to pay but not enough demand for the food they produced.
- Small business owners became disillusioned then saw their businesses threatened by large department stores (many owned by Jews)
- University lecturer earned 10x as much a coalminer whereas it was only 2x as much in the 1920's
- These people began to feel the Weimar Government offered them little
- Peasant farmers found themselves overproducing in peacetime (as they had increases during war)
- Politics
- Both the Nazis and Communists were building up their party organisations
- Even during these stable years there were 4 different Chancellors
- Only influence of party leaders held the party coalitions together
- Worryingly 30% of the vote regularly went to parties that opposed the Republic.
- Right-wing organisations (the greatest threat) were quiet rather than destroyed
- The right-wing Nationalist party (DNVP) and the Nazis began to collaborate closely
- Make themselves appear more respectable
- The right-wing Nationalist party (DNVP) and the Nazis began to collaborate closely
- German people elected Hindenburg as President in 1926
- He was opposed to democracy
- Culture
- The culture of the cities seemed to represent a moral decline in many German villages and towns
- This was made worse by American immigrants and Jewish artists and musicians
- Encouraged immigrants
- Bauhaus design college was only based in Dessau because it was forced out of Weimar by hostile town officials
- Organisations such as the Wandervogel movement were a reaction to the culture.
- They wanted a return to simple country values and wanted to see more help for the countryside and less decadence in towns.
- A powerful feeling which the Nazis later harnessed
- They wanted a return to simple country values and wanted to see more help for the countryside and less decadence in towns.
- The culture of the cities seemed to represent a moral decline in many German villages and towns
- Foreign Policy
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