IGCSE History M. Nichols BSA 2005
MODEL ANSWERS ON ‘IN-DEPTH STUDY A: GERMANY 1918-1945’
(PAPER 1 NOVEMBER 2003)
(a) The impact of hyperinflation varied according to which class Germans were in. The working class suffered from the fall in the value of their salaries and through the unemployment, partly resulting from the passive resistance policy in the Ruhr, which came with the crisis. However, their unions helped to protect them from the worst excesses and they were often paid twice a day, though by the time they came to spend their wages prices had usually risen once again. Some ordinary Germans even gained through the crisis as debts and mortgages became easy to pay off.
The upper class and rich industrialists often suffered the least. This was because they usually had land and other securities to cushion them, and even hard currency. Where a pound had bought 500 marks in 1922, it could now buy 14 000 000 000 000. Many industrialists, like Hugo Stinnes, grew even richer out of the crisis and used it to acquire a large percentage of German industry.
In contrast, many, though not all of the middle class, were hit hardest by the crisis. Lower middle class shopkeepers, for instance, saw a decline in custom; those on fixed incomes and pensions saw their value disappear; while those with savings in the bank found that they were now worthless. It was this class that would support the NSDAP and help to fuel demands for change that resulted in the Munich putsch of 1923.
(b) The Franco-Belgian divisions who occupied the Ruhr from January 1923 did so because Germany had defaulted on its second reparations payment. Germany claimed that it did not have the capital to re-pay part of the overall $32 000 000 000 debt. However, France and Belgium had run out of patience, after having given Germany longer to pay. France and Belgium were having economic difficulties themselves and were un-convinced that Germany could not afford its instalment, especially given that the instalment would only account for 2% of the nation’s GNP. Their action was perfectly legal according to the terms of Versailles and the recent (1921) reparations agreement. WWI had not long ended and the French and Belgians were unlikely to act sympathetically towards a nation that had invaded and destructively occupied them for over four years and was now trying to avoid its compensation responsibilities. The Ruhr was a target, because it was the most industrialised part of Germany and had rich coalfields and steel mills. What could not be obtained in money could, therefore, be obtained in kind and shipped back to France and Belgium.
(c) Gustav Stresemann was partly responsible for restoring pride and prosperity to Germany, but he was not by any means the sole reason nor was he always successful.
Stresemann as a right-winger was for a start more acceptable and more able than Ebert had been at uniting the nation. The able and pragmatic Stresemann helped to end the hyperinflation crisis by calling off the passive resistance in the Ruhr, and by negotiating a series of US loans that helped to shore up the new currency he introduced, the Rentenmark.
He also negotiated the Locarno agreements in 1925, which helped to confirm the security of Germany’s western borders, and signed an agreement with the USSR in 1926. In 1926, because of his efforts, Germany was admitted into the League of Nations as a Council member. He also negotiated the Young Plan, which would significantly extend the time in which to re-pay reparations and see the withdrawal of foreign troops from the Rhineland. By 1928, Germany was back to pre-WWI levels of production. However, Germany’s successes were not all due to Stresemann.
Germany was helped by the election of more sympathetic foreign governments in GB and France in 1924, and the wounds and divisions of WWI were being healed. The whole period of the Weimar also saw a flowering of cultural ideas and tolerance that had little to do with Stresemann. The declining support for the NSDAP in the period, which saw them achieve only 12 seats in the Reichstag in1928 was partially due to Stresemann, but also due to general improvements in the economy.
Stresemann’s actions in fact also created problems for the future and were in some ways detrimental to Germany’s prosperity. His negotiation of short-term loans in the Dawes Plan ensured that Germany would be hit hard by the Great Depression when it was obliged to re-pay them, while the Young Plan further alienated the right-wing. Equally, the prosperity that supposedly came to Weimar in 1924-29 was not experienced by all. Unemployment always remained well above 1 million, while certain sections of society like shopkeepers and farmers continued to suffer. Even in 1926 the German electorate was continuing to vote for anti-democratic presidents like Hindenburg, while Stresemann’s foreign policy was deeply unpopular amongst the extreme left and the far right.
Ultimately, Stresemann did contribute to Germany’s prosperity and stability, but there were also other factors involved, and it is debateable as to whether Germany was even that stable anyway or even if Stresemann’s actions were always that beneficial.