Transcript Was the Weimar Republic Doomed from its beginnings?

Was the Weimar Republic
Doomed from its beginnings?
The Second Reich
• Hereditary Kaiser (emperor)
– appoint/dismiss ministers at will
– Could dissolve Reichstag at will
– Head of the armed forces
• Especially revered in Prussian culture
– Responsible for Foreign Policy
• Weak Reichstag
– could not remove chancellor or government ministers
– Agree or reject laws proposed by Kaiser or his government
– Socialist SPD largest Socialist parliamentary group in Europe
• Reichsrat
– 26 state state governments
– Control over local affairs
– Could veto Reichstag legislation
First World War
• Muddled start to war
– Pre-emptive strike due to Russian Mobilisation
• Wave of nationalistic fervour
– All parties pledge support for the war (including
SPD)
• “Civic Truce”
• Socialist conference about war in Switzerland
– Pro-war versus anti-war
– Communists surprised at socialist support for armies
» Class war versus nationalism
• SPD expect political concessions from establishment in
return for support
– Although prepared to wait until victory is achieved
War of Attrition
• Sclieffen Plan fails in 1914
• Consumer goods sacrificed for Total War
– Black Market profiteers could provide goods (at a price)
• Royal Navy Blockade starts immediately
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Food supply problems
Food riots
Strikes
Lawlessness
Disease
• 1916 Hindenburg and Ludendorff take supreme
command of war effort
– Above Reichstag, Chancellor and even Kaiser
– Popular move whilst German armed forces are doing well
– Conditioned Germans to expect victory through sacrifices
being made
The War Drags On…
• German response to Blockade
– Unlimited Submarine Warfare
• Not as effective as blockade
• Brings US into war
• Russian Revolution provides hope to the Germans
– Potentially frees up millions of German soldiers
– Turn down peace overtures from allies
• Confident of victory through their own efforts
– Negotiations with Bolsheviks drawn out
• Had to restart Eastern Front campaign in 1918
– Treaty of Brest-Litovsk punitive towards Russia
• Required vast manpower just to garrison newly acquired territory
1918 – Clutching Defeat from the
Jaws of Victory
• Ludendorff Summer Offensive
– New tactics
• Storm-troopers infiltrating enemy lines
– Initially successful, massive advances
• Outskirts of Paris
– Amazed to find allies have significant supplies whilst
their own rations / conditions were so poor
• US
– Allied counter-attacks easily recover German gains
• German forces out of emplacements
• Poor Morale
• Exhausted meagre supply chains
Staring Defeat in the Face!
• German Army in full retreat
– 2 million dead
– 6 million wounded
• Blockade starving civilians and military
alike
• Defeatism and collapse of morale
• Turks, Bulgarians, Austro-Hungarians all
negotiating surrenders
• German High Command realise that
defeat is imminent!
Deflecting Blame!
• September 29th
– Generals suggest a new Civilian
Government to negotiate an armistice
with Allies
– Why?
Deflecting Blame!
• Generals suggest a new Civilian
Government to negotiate an armistice
with Allies
– Why?
• They knew that continuing the war was hopeless
• They could avoid some of the blame for losing
the war
– German High Command was basically running
Germany
• They felt that the Allies would be more
sympathetic negotiating with Civilians rather than
with Military
– Wilson!
Chancellor von Baden
• October 3rd
– New Civilian Government
• Led by Prince Max of Baden
– Full Reichstag Support
• Including liberals and socialists
• First Job
– To negotiate the armistice/surrender!
– Amenable to Wilson’s 14 points
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I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but
diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be
closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.
III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all
the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic
safety.
V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the
principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight
with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and
freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the
independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the
society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she
may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid
test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and
unselfish sympathy.
VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she
enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the
nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another.
Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.
VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in
the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that
peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.
IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be
accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure
access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically
established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and
territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.
XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities
which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of
autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of
all nations under international guarantees.
XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish
populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence
and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.
XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of
political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.
Wilson’s 14 Points
• US President Wilson seemed to offer more
favourable terms with his 14 Points
– Compared to the vindictive French!
• Wilson refused to negotiate with Kaiser or
with military autocrats
– Belief in Democracy and Democratic
Governments
• But…France and Britain not keen on
handing over negotiating rights to this
Johnny come lately
The Deteriorating Situation:
The Kiel Mutiny
• German Navy had been starved of resources
– In port since Battle of Jutland, 1916
– Bored sailors
– Poor morale
• High command order fleet to sea for one final
desperate bid to unblock blockade
• Sailors refuse to follow orders
– October 28th Mutiny
– Red flags prevalent
• Influence of Russian revolution
• Soldiers hear of sailors’ mutiny
– German soldiers begin to mutiny, desert, surrender
– Discipline collapses across Western Front
• Government realise that defeat is imminent!
– Need to act to forestall a full scale Communist Revolution!
Speeding up of negotiations
• 5th November
– Wilson agrees to use 14 points
• But adds that Germany liable for all damage caused
• Baden government prevaricates
• French and British furious to find US
negotiating without them
• November 9th
– Allies revise demands
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Rhine to be occupied
German Fleet to be handed over
East Africa to be handed over
All munitions to be handed over
All Allied POWs to be freed immediately
“Bare-Face Outrageous Treason
and 2 Republics in One Day!”
• November 9th
– Baden Government reeling from new demands
– Communists feel that conditions are ripe for a
revolution
• Spartacist Revolution
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USPD (Independent Socialists)
Karl Leibknecht and Rosa Luxembourg
Support from Lenin
Bavaria declared a Socialist Republic
Soviet Republic of Germany declared!
General Strike announced
“Bare-Face Outrageous Treason
and 2 Republics in One Day!”
• November 9th
– Majority Socialists (SPD) oppose Spartacist
Revolution
• Afraid of model of October Revolution!
• Would prefer a February Revolution!
• Call for Kaiser to abdicate to remove wind from
Spartacist demands
– Kaiser dithers – cannot make up his mind
– Chancellor Baden decides for him!
» Announces Kaiser’s abdication
» Establishes a Regency
» Calls for a new Constituent Assembly
» Chancellor resigns and hands power to SPD
“Bare-Face Outrageous Treason
and 2 Republics in One Day!”
• November 9th
– Kaiser livid
• Kept on mumbling that he did not mean to
abdicate!
– Treason!
• Barely any army left to defend him!
• Order collapsing throughout Germany
• Forces of order anxious of Communist Russian
Precedent
• Bundled onto a train to Holland and exile
“Bare-Face Outrageous Treason
and 2 Republics in One Day!”
• November 9th
– SPD Friedrich Ebert declared
new Chancellor
– A Marriage of convenience
• General Groener
– Commander of German Army
– Contacts Ebert by secret phone to
negotiate giving him the support of the
army
» What demands did he make?
“Bare-Face Outrageous Treason
and 2 Republics in One Day!”
• November 9th
– A Marriage of convenience
• General Groener
– What demands did he make?
» Ebert must oppose Communism
» Ebert must put down the Spartacist Uprising
» Ebert must leave the structure of the German Army
alone
• This gives Ebert the ability to assert control over
Spartacist Revolution (takes time)
– Army a little gung-ho in shooting their countrymen with
little remorse
“Bare-Face Outrageous Treason
and 2 Republics in One Day!”
• November 9th
– Marriage of Convenience
• Allows Ebert to save Germany from immediate revolution
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• It allows the conservative army to remain intact*
– Allows Ebert to conclude armistice with Allies
• Allies prefer socialist Germany to a Communist Germany
• Allies content that with the support of the army Ebert can
be negotiated with
• November 11th
– Armistice signed at 11am
• Short term versus long term blame!
Ebert tries to stabilise Germany
Short Term
Gain
Army left intact
Civil Service left intact
3 USPD socialists
invited into government
Worker’s councils set up
Employers and trade
unions brought together
Constituent Assembly
elections called
Long Term
Problem
Ebert tries to stabilise Germany
Short Term Gain
Long Term
Problem
Restore Law and Order
Leaves conservative institution
alone
Allows Germany to function
reasonably stably
Leaves conservatives at heart of
government
3 USPD socialists invited
into government
Show sincerity and willingness to
cooperate with opposition
Tarnished by association with
Communists
Worker’s councils set up
Show socialist credentials
Shows communist similarities!
Employers and trade
unions brought together
Prevents strikes and increases
production at a crucial time
Industrialists resentful at being
dictated to by government.
Smacks of communism
Constituent Assembly
elections called
SPD gains support of
conservative/nationalists
desperate to avoid Communism
Convinces SPD that they have
more support than they really do
Army left intact
Civil Service left intact
January 1919: The war is over, but
the problems are not!
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Treaty of Versailles negotiations continuing
Royal Naval Blockade in place
Starvation/Hunger
Influenza epidemic
General Strike still continuing
Russian Revolutionaries helping newly created German
Communist Party (KPD)
Anarchy and Chaos on Eastern Border
Separatist governments being declared
Communist infiltration of some Police forces
Army barely maintaining discipline
– No money to pay soldiers!
– FreiKorps step in to fill vacuum
• Spartacist revolution being crushed violently
– Thousands killed in Berlin alone
– Bavaria restored
– Summary justice
Is the enemy on the left or the Right?
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Treaty of Versailles negotiations continuing
Royal Naval Blockade in place
Starvation/Hunger
Influenza epidemic
General Strike still continuing
Russian Revolutionaries helping newly created German
Communist Party (KPD)
Anarchy and Chaos on Eastern Border
Separatist governments being declared
Communist infiltration of some Police forces
Army barely maintaining discipline
– No money to pay soldiers!
– FreiKorps step in to fill vacuum
• Spartacist revolution being crushed violently
– Thousands killed in Berlin alone
– Bavaria restored
– Summary justice
Constituent Assembly Results
January 1919
%
Seats
SPD
38
163
Zentrum
20
91
DDP
19
75
DNVP
10
44
USPD
7.6
22
DVP
4.4
19
New Assembly, New Challenges!
• Chancellor Schiedemann
– Minority government
• SPD 163 out of 421
• A new constitution is written
– In Weimar
• Weimar thought to be the home of the German ‘liberal’
Intelligentsia
– Goethe, Bach, Schiller, Nietzsche
• Text on pages 26/27 of big red book
– Analyse advantages and disadvantages of Constitution
• Treaty of Versailles Concluded
– June 1919
Treaty of Versailles
• German Negotiating difficulties
– Change of Government
– Coalition government
• Compromises, disassociations, vascillations
– German army melting away
– People’s priorities elsewhere in 1919
– Arrogant Prussian officer class negotiating
• Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau
• Treaty of Vienna Parallels?
– Germans expecting to be treated similar to
France in 1815
• Magnanimous Kings and emperors maintaining a
balance
The Council of Four
• Wilson
– Idealistic, Naïve
• Clemenceau
– Old tiger, vindictive, pessimist
• Orlando
– Wanted rewarding for helping Allies
• Withdraws from negotiations!
• Lloyd-George
– Imperial strategist, Compromiser
• Many minor delegates attended
– But Germany not invited to any of the
negotiations
• Merely summoned in June 1919 to sign the finished
document
Treaty Provisions
• 440 articles including:
– Territorial Losses
• Creation of new buffer states between Germany and
Russia!
• Plebiscites encouraged
– Sop to Wilson
» Austria specifically prevented from holding a plebiscite!
– Punitive actions to reduce Germany to a minor
power
• Army 100,000, 6 ships, no tanks or aircraft
– Reparations
• Ominously to be decided!
– ‘Blank Cheque’ J M Keynes
– War Guilt Clause
Article 231
• The Allied and Associated Governments
affirm and Germany accepts the
responsibility of Germany and her allies for
causing all the loss and damage to
which the Allied and Associated
Governments and their nationals have been
subjected as a consequence of the war
imposed upon them by the aggression of
Germany and her allies.
German Impact of Treaty 1:
Cabinet Crisis
• Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau
– Disgusted at lack of German participation
• Allowed just 15 days to make observations on document
– Disgusted that Blockade continued throughout
– Horrified at vindictiveness of treaty
• Illegally published a draft copy
– German Public as horrified as he was
• Chancellor Scheidemann
– Considers resuming the war
• Army High Command point out that Germany has
effectively no military capability to defend itself
– Although Hindenburg considers a Heroic defeat!
– Chancellor resigns rather than sign such a savage
document
Musical Chairs
• President Ebert tried to resign as
President
• Bauer takes over from
Scheidemann
– Reluctantly agrees to Treaty
Provisions
• 237 to 138 in Reichstag
• Foreign Minister Muller signs on
28th June
• The SPD would forever be
tarnished for having had to sign
the ‘Dictated Peace Treaty’
German Impact of Treaty 2:
Soldiers Revolt
• Prussian Military Tradition undermined by
Treaty
– Officer corps horrified by savage cuts
– Freikorps units were no longer in legal limbo
they were now illegal
• Frustrated army unable to turn on victorious
Allies
– Turn on Weimar Government instead!
• Luttwitz – Berlin Army Commander
• Erhardt – German Marine Commander
• Kapp – Prussian Civil Servant/Leader of the
Fatherland Party
The Kapp Putsch
• The Plan
– March on Berlin
– Expel Socialist government
– Place Pliant Kapp as civilian figurehead of a new
military government
• An Open Secret?
– Plotters asked Seeckt, Ludendorff and other
generals for their support
• No support received
• But no hostility either
– Nobody reported the plotters
– Plotters assumed that German soldiers would not
fire on German soldiers!
The Trigger
• February 1920
– Forced Demobilisation of army
• A requirement of the Treaty of Versailles
• 12,000 Freikorps ordered to disband
– Commander Luttwitz refuses
Who will defend the Republic?
• Chancellor Bauer asks General Seeckt to
restore order
– General refuses
• “Troops do not fire on troops; when Reichswehr fires
on Reichswehr all comradeship within the officer corps
has vanished!”
– Wait and See policy (See who wins?)
– Most Soldiers remain neutral
– But government forced to flee Berlin
• To Dresden and then to Stuttgart
– Nationalist Von Kahr takes advantage to regain
control of Bavaria from Communists
• Would become a centre of right wing tolerance
Who will defend the Republic?
• The Left comes to the rescue
– General Strike ordered by Trade Unionists with
support of most working classes and even
Communists
• 80,000 communists take control of Ruhr
– Refuses to cooperate with the new Kapp
Government
• Kapp Ineffectiveness
– 4 days of rule were pretty ineffective
• Could not announce victory to newspapers as they
could not even find a working typewriter
• Banks refused to issue loans or currency on behalf of
the unrecognised government
• Strike paralysed business and industry
Who will defend the Republic?
• Dilemma for Government
– What to do with the German Army?
• It had demonstrated that it could not be relied
on in times of crisis to defend the Republic
from attacks from the Right
• However, it was still needed to defend the
Republic from threats from the left!
– Eg 80,000 Communists in the Ruhr
» They would not lay down arms after the fall of
the Kapp Government
» Army more than happy to shoot left wing
rebels!
June 1920 Elections
1919 %
1920 %
SPD
38
21
Zentrum
20
8
DDP
19
18
DNVP
10
15
USPD/KPD
7.6
19
DVP
4.4
14
June 1920 Elections
• Disaster for the SPD
– The writers of the Weimar constitution were
punished by its own provisions
– Associated with Treaty of Versailles, Hunger,
Defeat, Instability, Poor economic conditions,
etc… etc…
– SPD withdrew into opposition
• The future of the Weimar Government
passed to weak coalition governments who
were at best hostile to the Weimar
constitution
The Bill arrives
• April 1921
– Germany to pay £6.6 billion for damage
caused during First World War
• +6% interest over 50 years of repayment
plan
• To be paid in Gold Marks
• 7% of annual German Income
• Centrist Chancellor Fehrenbach
resigns in horror!
Wirth picks up the poisoned Chalice
• New coalition formed
– Zentrum, SPD and DDP
– Appoints DDP Rathenau as foreign minister
• Highly talented Jewish DDP politician
• Wirth attempts a complicated tactic
– Fulfillment policy
• Attempt to honour repayments in order to show that
Germany is incapable of repaying such a huge bill
– Sow seeds of hyperinflation
» Government did not fully try to control spending
– Subtlety lost on Allies
» France not concerned at any suffering on part of Germans
» Britain needed to repay loans taken from US
– Subtlety lost on German public
» Blamed everything on Treaty of Versailles or on Weimar
governments attempting to honour Treaty of Versailles
Upper Silesia Plebiscite
• Requirement of Treaty of Versailles
– Allowing locals to determine national identity
• Join Germany or Poland
– 717,122 votes to join Germany
– 483,514 votes to join Poland
• Clear majority and yet Poles claimed cheating and
started an insurrection
– British troops sent to region to stop the fighting
• League of Nations compromise
– Germany to receive 2/3rds of area
– But Poland got the industrial 1/3 with most of the coal mines
• German ‘fulfillment’ policy in tatters
– Why bother working with Treaty of Versailles institutions if
they are only going to work against Germany – no matter
what!
– Serious credibility blow for Wirth government
Treaty of Rapallo, 1922
• First political success for Weimar Government
• Negotiated by Rathenau
– Designed to outflank France
• Pariah Treaty
– The enemy of my enemy is my friend
• USSR and Germany agreed:
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No reparations demands on each other
Close economic ties
Normalise diplomatic ties
Secret military clauses
– Germans to be able to train in USSR
– USSR to receive German technical assistance in weapons production
• Diplomatically useful but domestically dangerous
– Confirmed to nationalists that Weimar was secretly sympathetic
to communist form of government (+ Jewish connection)
– Rathenau assassinated in June 1922 by right wing terror group
‘The enemy is on the Right’
Political assassinations
Left
Right
Murders Committed
22
354
(326 of which
completely
unpunished)
Sentenced to death
10
0
Severely punished
17
1
‘The enemy is on the Right’
• Why might many Germans disagree with
Wirth’s plea?
– Look at page 41
– Were Germans justified in being more
concerned at a left wing threat than the
more subtle right wing institutional threat!
Gathering Economic Crisis
• Currency markets concerned at impact of
reparations on German government
finances
– German mark begins to slide
• 103,208,000,000 Marks
– Total budget for1922
• 187,531,000,000 Marks
– Amount of reparations required by Allies in 1922 (in gold
marks)
• France unwilling to bend
– Annoyed at Treaty of Rapallo
– Unconcerned at German difficulties
• Wirth resigns November 1922
Free Fall
• Cuno ‘business
government’ takes over
– Minority Government
• French invasion of Ruhr to
secure payments in kind
– Policy of non-cooperation
initiated
– Hyperinflation kicks in as
richest area of Germany now
under foreign control and not
producing anything anyway!
Was there an alternative to
Hyperinflation?
• Yes,
– But it would involve:
• Cutting expenditure
• Raising taxes
• These would have cut the deficit and
reduce the amount of money in the
economy and hence inflation.
• So, why didn’t the government choose this
option?
– Why did it choose to print money instead?
Was there an alternative to
Hyperinflation?
• So, why didn’t the government choose this
option?
– It would have hurt industrial output and put
many businesses into bankruptcy
– Unemployment would have risen
– Very unpopular in the immediate term!
• Hyperinflation would be unpopular but only once the
effects were felt
• Tax increases and budget cuts would be felt
immediately
• Perhaps a different government would be in place
when the consequences were felt?
Free Fall
Losers from
Hyperinflation
Winners from
Hyperinflation
Free Fall
Losers from
Hyperinflation
Lenders
Middle Classes
State Workers
Pensioners – those on
fixed benefits
Mittelstand
Weimar Republic
Jews (incorrectly blamed)
German Government
Politically
Winners from
Hyperinflation
Borrowers
Speculators
Landowners
Areas close to borders
Foreigners
German Government
Financially
Restoring Economic Order
• Streseman came to power August
1923
– How did he go about restoring order
– Use page 49 Hite and Hinton
– Use page 30 Collier
Restoring Economic Order
• Stresemann’s Fulfillment policy?
– Hjalmar Schacht appointed to Reichsbank
– Hans Luther the new Finance minister
– New currency created
• Rentenmark
– 1 Rentenmark = 1,000,000,000,000 Reichsmarks
• Supply of new currency strictly limited
– 3,200,000,000 in total
– Backed by bonds
– Cut government expenditure
• Redundancies for 700,000 government workers
– Called off Passive resistance in Ruhr and repaid some
reparations
• Allow France to withdraw from Ruhr
• A commission set up to look at reparations payments
– Dawes Plan
Threats to Stresemann
• Economic Threats
– Difficulties and sacrifices required to
stabilise new currency
• Regional Threats
– Saxony and Thuringia
• Communists had cooperated with Socialists
to take control of these states
– Bavaria
• Concerned at the Communist takeover of
neighbouring States, The Right wing Kahr
requests German Army declare loyalty to him
before to Berlin
Horses for courses?
• Stresemann showed his nationalist
leanings in his treatment of the two
regional threats
– Saxony and Thuringia
• Germany army sent to overthrow the
communist/socialist governments
– SPD horrified and withdrew support from Stresemann
coalition
– Bavaria
• He does not sack von Lossow (army
commander) or overthrow Kahr
– Kahr and Lossow or thankful to the conservative
Stresemann (will be useful shortly)
The Munich Putsch
• Adolf Hitler’s attempt to
take power in Munich
and march to Berlin to
replace the Weimar
government.
– Why did it take place in
Bavaria?
– Why did this take place
in November 1923?
The Munich Putsch
• Why Bavaria?
– Very Conservative Catholic Region
• Hostile to Weimar Cosmopolitan attitudes
• Resentful at being on periphery of power base
• Deeply hostile to anti-religious sentiments of
Communism
– Von Kahr’s Right Wing Government
• Took power in 1920 Putsch
– Replaced Communist Government
– Violent overthrow culturally acceptable?
• was deeply hostile to communists and socialists
– Allowed Right wing groups to thrive
– Persecuted Left wing groups
The Munich Putsch
• Why November 1923?
– Inspired by Mussolini’s March on Rome, 1922
– Clock is ticking
• National Socialists thrive on discontent
• Stresemann’s economic reforms are already kicking in
– Stability returning to Germany
– Stresemann getting the credit
– Misread Stresemann’s leniency to Kahr
• Thought it was a sign of weakness rather than strength
– Misread Kahr and Lossow
• Thought they were allies
• They were conservative monarchists who were deeply
uneasy about some of the socialist aspects of NationalSocialism (see page 52)
A comedy of errors?
• Poorly organised
– Lack of coordination
– Did not have necessary arms
– Poor communications systems
• Relied on Blackmail
– They required the support of Kahr and Lossow to allow a march on
Berlin to have any chance of success
• Errors
– Ludendorff’s Traditional value system
• German officer’s couldn’t lie!
• Allowed Kahr and Lossow to reassure their wives!
• Indecisive
– Hitler had a nervous collapse when he found out kahr had gone
– Ludendorff had to decide to march to city centre
• Army remains loyal to right wing Kahr
– Why shouldn’t they? More Nationalist less Socialist than Nazis
• Cowardice
– Hitler does a runner when the man next to him is shot
– Ju-Jitsu lady disarms frantic Hitler
Why did the Weimar Republic
Survive 1919 – 1923?
• Did the Weimar Government stand a chance?
– Which of the following posed the greatest threat to
Democracy taking root in Germany:
– Place them in an order of greatest threat to
democracy:
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Limited Nature of the 1918 German Revolution
The Weimar Constitution
The Treaty of Versailles
Right Wing Extremism
Left Wing Extremism
The Economic Crisis
Attitudes of the German elite
Attitudes of ordinary Germans
Why did the Weimar Republic
Survive 1919 – 1923?
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Limited Nature of German Revolution
The Weimar Constitution
The Treaty of Versailles
Right Wing Extremism
Left Wing Extremism
The Economic Crisis
Attitudes of the German elite
Attitudes of ordinary Germans
• Compare your list to your neighbours
– Do you need to rewrite your list?
– Can you agree on a common list?
Why did the Weimar Republic
Survive 1919 – 1923?
• Page 57 Hite and Hinton
– Read events 1 to 12
• With a partner decide whether you agree with a)
or with b) or with neither!
1924 – 1929 The Golden Age of
Weimar?
• What evidence can you find that life
got better for the majority of Germans
between these years?