How far had the Weimar republic recovered by 1928?

The Treaty of Versailles was drawn up as a fair agreement and as a solution for the war. However, it just seemed to add to the problems for Germany. Germany was forced to accept war guilt, which meant that she had to agree to pay for the reparations. The final figure was not fixed until 1921; 2years after Germany was forced to sign. It was finally fixed at 132 billion gold marks (£6.6 billion). The outrage of the treaty led to a significant rise of nationalist political forces. There was the Kapp Putsch in 1920, a right wing nationalist uprising lead by Wolfgang Kapp, it failed, mainly because Kapp fled to Sweden. There was huge polarisation. A threat from the left, Communists, had also been a problem, but Ebert dealt with them much more harshly. The Spartacists were lead by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The Spartacist uprising was crushed by Freikorps, ex-army and navy nationalists; they not only stopped the uprising but also killed the Spartacist leaders. The Freikorps also overthrow the Communist Republic in Bavaria, killing over 600 people.

In January 1923, the French and the Belgians decided to occupy the Ruhr and take payment in trade (they took over the coalfields and factories) since the Germans were not complying with reparation terms; this was all legal under the terms of The Treaty of Versailles. In reaction to this, the Government just printed more and more money, leading to Hyperinflation. This meant the value of the mark became worthless. Loans were paid back in worthless money. The table below shows a typical example of the massive inflation, the price of bread.

918.................................

0.63 marks

922.................................

63 marks

Jan 1923..........................

250 marks

July 1923..........................

3,465 marks

September 1923...............

,512,000 marks

November 1923..............

201,000,000 marks

Workers were paid twice a day, took their wages home in wheelbarrows and prices rose while their wives queued at the shops! Money became worthless and the middle classes were particularly hard hit as savings were wiped out.

In1923, Gustav Stresemann, A leading politician, started to recover the German economy also the policy with other countries. Slowly but surely, he built up Germanys wealth and prosperity. Under the Daws plan, he loaned 800 million marks from the US. In 1925, Stresemann signed the Locarno pact guaranteeing Germany their western borders with France and Belgium. The industry managed to reach its pre war output. The majority of the upper and middle classes were happy although a lot of them had savings that were wiped out some had there money in car, houses and other material things which had not lost value.

In conclusion, it could be said that the Weimar government had made a partial recovery on terms of Economics and foreign policies. Nevertheless, the recovery was built on a precarious foundation, the loans, all of the loans could be re-called at anytime. At this time the Right wing opposition had not gone, it had died down but not gone.