A right wing extremist vigilante army called the Friekorps, however, murdered both leaders. This so-called army was made up of ex-servicemen. They linked up with other nationalist groups who resented the treaty of Versailles and attempted to seize Berlin. Wolfgang Kapp was named chancellor, but workers that were against the Freikorps instigated a general strike. Many Freikorps eventually became Nazi’s, one such group the infamous Ernhart Brigade already wore swastikas on their uniforms.
The Crisis of 1923
The Treaty of Versailles left Germany with a debt they weren’t likely to be able to pay. In 1923 Germany, crippled by the repayments refused to pay any more, in turn the USA’s aid ceased. So France, determined to get her rights, and their revenge on Germany, invaded the countries most important industrial area left called the Rhur and operated for themselves
Due to such economic strain on an already depressed society, Germany began to print billions of bank notes, which since weren’t backed by gold were worthless and the value of the mark dropped. Between January and November 1923 the mark dropped by 2099,999,9928,112 deutch-marks per pound sterling, this lead to a rise in bartering rather than paying for goods. The inflation was so great that it rose by the hour, if you were at the front of the queue you would pay 1 million marks for a loaf, if you were at the back you would pay twice that.
During this bedlam and national chaos the Socialists attempted to seize power in Munich. Their leader, a young Adolph Hitler, was imprisoned and sentenced for five years but only 13 months of the sentence were served n relative comfort.
Recovery and international Relations
After Germany's defeat, Gustav Stresemann supported the Nationalist parties, but opposed the Treaty of Versailles. As leader of the German People's party he became chancellor in 1923, shortly after the French occupation of the Rhur. He immediately abandoned the policy of passive resistance in the Rhur, and as foreign minister in successive coalitions he reoriented Germany's foreign relations. As well as re-tying the new mark with the gold standard to stabilize the currency He insisted upon reconciliation with the Allies. He signed the Locarno Treaties in 1925 and, most importantly, he initiated the admission of Germany to the League of Nations.
The Dawes plan was an arrangement drawn up in 1924 to ease the burden of reparations forced upon Germany after World War I as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. An international committee, chaired by Charles Dawes put forward a plan that set more reasonable amounts of reparations and provided for foreign loans, mainly from the United States, to help Germany meet its payment schedule.
The treaty of Locarno was an agreement designed to promote the security of Europe at the end of the war. The treaties were signed by representatives from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Poland in Locarno, Switzerland, on October 16, 1925. This guaranteed the common boundaries of France, Germany, and Belgium to be protected by all countries involved. The Rhineland, an area covering parts of Belgium, France, and Germany, was established as a neutral zone. The British and Italians were involved in the guarantee, but they did not have any new military charges to ensure the accomplishment of these.
Due to such positive involvement of Gustav Streseman, the international situation was much more hopeful and in1926 Germany was accepted into the League of Nations.
As a result of the negotiations that followed, the Kellog-Briand pact bound the participating countries to renounce war as an instrument of national policy and to settle international disputes by peaceful means.
As a practical instrument for preventing war the treaty was useless: it failed to halt aggression in the 1930s—by Japan in Manchuria (1931) and by Italy in Ethiopia (1935)—and was completely discredited by the time World War II broke out.
The Young Plan was a second negotiation of Germanys reparation payments, which came from a plan presented in 1929 by Owen Young, and signed by President Hindenburg in 1930. Under the Versailles Peace Settlement, the Weimar Government of defeated Germany agreed to pay the Allies £6,500 million in compensation. Germany was, however, unable to pay and in 1923 the Deutschmark collapsed, leading to resettlement of reparations in the Dawes Plan.
The Effects of Depression
The Wall Street Crash was a stock market crash in the United States in 1929. In 1927, after having focused on investing abroad and with the US economy growing stronger, the bankers and financiers based in New York's Wall Street turned their attention to the home market. As they bought into the stock market, so the prices of shares rose. As they bought more and more, prices went higher and higher, and ordinary investors were attracted to invest by the apparently effortless boom that was happening. By the middle of 1929 it was estimated that about nine million Americans (out of a population of 122 million) had capital invested in the stock market.
On October 23 more than six million shares were traded at ever decreasing prices. On the following day, “Black Thursday”, more than twice that number were traded. On Monday nine million shares changed hands; $14 billion had been wiped off the value of shares in less than a week. Then, on “Black Tuesday”, everything fell apart; the share price of many big companies including General Electric and Woolworth collapsed. In that one day more than 16 million shares were traded and another $10 billion was wiped off share values.
The wall street crash lead to the end of Germanys prosperity, loans from America stopped and a world wide depression hit Germany very hard until 1923.
It was from this confusion and chaos that Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party emerged.
