Establishment of the Weimar Republic and its Early Problems Flashcards
treaty of Versailles
B - blame
R - reparations
A - armed forces
T - Territory
blame
- germany forced to accept blame for starting ww1
- war guilt clause
- by accepting blame they also accepted reparations to pay the allies back
reparations
- set at £6.4 billion
- strain on weak german economy
- struggled to pay monthly installments that began in 1922
armed forces
- german military reduced in numbers (maximum 100,000 troops) - abolition of air force
- conscription and tanks banned
- navy - 15,000 personnel and only 6 battleships - no submarines
- humiliated germany
- vulnerable of attack from east and communist west
territory
- lost territory of Alsace-Lorraine
- forbidden from stationing troops west of the river Rhine - demilitarised zone
- size of germany decreased by 10%
*
kapp putsch
- march 1920
- right wing Wolfgang Putsch
- led 15,000 Freikorps to seize berlin
- Freikorps had control of berlin for 4 days - military had strong right wing beliefs
spartacist uprising
- march 1919
- communist Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg
- want to replicate russian revolution and overthrow central government
- 50,000 workers on strike
- protests ended by anti-communist Freikorps
- over 100 workers killed in the ‘bloody week’
- leaders arrested and executed
causes of the hyperinflation crisis
- economic mismanagement
- workers going on strike
facts about hyperinflation crisis
- loaf of bread rose from 20 marks to 200,000 million marks
- people would burn their money to start fires
- make their money into blankets
- rush to the shops straight after being paid to ensure their money was not worthless
who benefitted from the hyperinflation crisis
- landowners with assets
- those with mortgages and debt
- german aristocracy
- jews - kept their money in banks outside of germany
- political extremists
who were the ‘losers’ of the hyperinflation crisis
- middle classes - savings in banks were worthless
- elderly - pensions became worthless
- working class - did not affect jobs but had to live in poverty
rebellions as a result of hyperinflation
- communists took over the governments of Saxony and Thuringia
- communists took over the Rhineland and declared its independence
what was the role of the kaiser
essentially acted a figurehead
the abdication of kaiser wilhelm
- 9/11/1918
- lack of German resources led to military decline
- kaiser unwilling to sign peace treaty
- fled to the netherlands
- was unsuccessfully tried for war crimes
what happened after the abdication of the kaiser
no clear leader caused the nation to tail off into separate groups
strengths of the new WR
- genuine democracy
- Reichstag had more power than before with the kaiser
- bill of rights allowed all germans freedom of speech
weaknesses of the new WR
- proportional representation - all parties had the same percentage of seats: made it difficult to pass laws with smaller parties so present
- article 48 - gave the president power to go without consulting the parliament
The German Revolution
- revolts in bavaria led to declaration of bavarian socialist republic - October 1918
- increase in bolshevism
french occupation in the ruhr
- january 1923
- german failure to repay france and belgium - french particularly angry bc they had to repay the US
- peaceful resistance to the french
how did the occupation of the ruhr benefit germany
- united germans in hatred of the french
- strikers became heroes to the germans
how did Stresemann help the hyperinflation crisis
introducing the new currency - the rentenmark and then later the reichsmark (permanent)
