How golden were the "Golden years"1924-29?

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How golden were the “Golden years”1924-29?

During the period of 1919-23 Germany faced many problems. There were challenges to take over the Weimar Republic from the extreme right and left. In January 1919 the Spartacists (communists-extreme left wing) attempted a revolution in Berlin. The provisional government had to use the army and the Freikorps to regain control and the leaders of the communist party, Karl Liebknecht and Roasa Luxemburg were killed. Following this in 1920 there was an attempt by the extreme right wing to seize power known as the Munich Putsch. The Putsch was badly organised and was soon brought to an end by a general strike in Berlin. Germany faced severe economic problems after the war with high unemployment and high inflation. The unexpectedly high reparations bill in 1921 made matters worse. In 1923 it defaulted on its reparation payments and as a consequence of this France occupied the Ruhr. By November 1923 hyperinflation left the mark worthless.

In some ways I agree with this statement because Stresemann (chancellor) defused the situation by introducing a new currency in 1924 called the Retenmark. He also scaled down the monthly reparations bill by introducing firstly the Dawe’s plan and secondly the Young plan to make the payments more manageable. The Dawe’s plan of 1924 reduced the amount of payments and later on in 1929 the Young plan was introduced which rescheduled the payments over 59 years and it took a 1/3 of the original sum because the League of Nations realised because of the depression of 1929 Germany was never going to pay the original sum. With a stable currency the German economy recovered and German industry was able to develop which meant more money coming in to the country, less unemployment and a better standard of living for the German people. For example a Welfare state was introduced that protected you from the day you were born until the day you die.  I conclude the most golden economy action was the new currency introduced in 1924 because it leads to other good reforms. This in my opinion was very golden because it meant the German economy could recover.

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In other ways I disagree with this statement because the basis of the German economy was based on huge short term foreign loans with America. This meant that Germany was depending on America and Germany was not stable economically without America and was adding to their bill by the interest added on to their loan each time they renewed it, which meant they were never actually paying off the reparations bill, they were just going into more debt.   Gustav Stresemann described the situation as “dancing on a volcano” The new Welfare state took up 17% of Germanys income ...

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