GOLDEN YEARS

Question 1

Who was established as chancellor in 1923?

Answer 1

Stresemann

Question 2

What was positive about the golden years generally?

Answer 2

• Economic recovery
• New currency (Rentenmark)
• Foreign Loans
• Culture
• Decline in support for extreme parties

Question 3

What were the three main negatives about the golden years generally?

Answer 3

• Many ruined by inflation
• Continued resentment of TOV
• Farmers: falling prices

Question 4

When was the new currency introduced? What was it called?

Answer 4

November 1923.

Rentenmark.

Question 5

Why was the compensation given for savings destroyed by inflation not sufficient?

Answer 5

Levels were so low. Caused resentment from the professional classes.

Question 6

How much had industrial production recovered?

Answer 6

Certainly better. However, only reached 1913 levels by 1927.

Question 7

What issues did the stabilisation of the currency lead to?

Answer 7

An increase in cost of exports.

Unemployment reached 2 million in January 1928.

Question 8

Why was the Dawes plan devised?

Answer 8

In order to stimulate trade and investment.

Question 9

Who devised the Dawes plan? What year?

Answer 9

Charles Dawes, US banker.

1924.

Question 10

How much did the Dawes Plan raise? What did it finance?

Answer 10

800 million marks in loans.

Financed an expansion in German government spending both at national and local levels.

Question 11

Why was the Young Plan created? What year?

Answer 11

Reduce reparations and extend the period over which they were paid.
1929.

Question 12

What negatives did the Young Plan cause?

Answer 12

Resentment among national groups in Germany who felt reparations should be cancelled entirely.

Question 13

What were the negatives generally of foreign investment?

Answer 13

Germany was very dependant on foreign loans.

If they were withdrawn, Germany would face serious problems.

Question 14

What did industry witness an increase of during these years? Why?

Answer 14

Strikes.
When profits rose there were clashes about whether these should be reinvested into industry or paid to workers as increased wages.

Question 15

Why did agriculture not benefit from the ‘golden’ period?

Answer 15

Global over-production resulted in a considerable fall in prices and by 1929 nearly half of all German farms were failing to make profit.

Question 16

Give an example of an area that experienced large-scale peasant revolt. Why did they revolt? And what was the result?

Answer 16

Schleswig-Holstein.
People believed the government favoured towns at the expense of the countryside.
Increased in support for NSDAP.

Question 17

What were the two major political parties in Weimar? Why did they find it difficult to co-operate?

Answer 17

SPD and DVP.

Disagreed over social and economic policies.

Question 18

Which of Stresemann’s foreign policy tactics did the DNVP dislike?

Answer 18

Policy of rapprochement with France and Britain.

Question 19

Who lost support in the 1928 election? Who gained support?

Answer 19

DVP lost support.

Special interest parties gained support.

Question 20

What was arguably the greatest sign of weakness in the fledgling democracy in 1925?

Answer 20

The appointment of Hindenburg as president.

Question 21

What was Hindenburg’s aim as president?

Answer 21

Exclude the SPD from government and bring in the right-wing DNVP.

Question 22

How were working conditions improved in the republic?

Answer 22

Wages for unionised workers rose and working hours were reduced to an eight-hour day.

Question 23

How was the living standard improved?

Answer 23

Provision of welfare benefits and pensions.

Question 24

What was the downside to the provision of welfare benefits and pensions?

Answer 24

System was costly and attracted a number of critics, particularly from employers.

Question 25

What did the tolerant atmosphere of the republic allow to flourish?

Answer 25

New art forms, on a far greater scale than previously seen.

Significant developments in architecture, painting, cinema and theatre.

Question 26

Which group caused architecture to flourish?

Answer 26

The Bauhaus Group.

Question 27

Who was angered by the liberal attitudes? Why?

Answer 27

Nationalists, because new films depicted wartime military, and especially officers, in a bad light.

Question 28

What was Germany allowed to join under the foreign policy of Stresemann in 1926?

Answer 28

The League of Nations.

Question 29

How did Germany improve relations with France?

Answer 29

Through the 1925 Locarno Treaties, which guaranteed Germany’s frontiers with France and Belgium.

Question 30

Which commission withdrew from Germany in January 1927?

Answer 30

The Allied Disarmament Commission.

First allied troops were withdrawn from garrisons in the Rhineland, in that same year.

Question 31

What else did nationalists criticise, besides rapprochement in Stresemann’s foreign policy?

Answer 31

The Young Plan, the NSPDAP and DNVP accused him of high treason, and held a referendum, which the government comfortably won.

Question 32

Why did the Weimar Republic collapse in the Great Depression?

Answer 32

Lacked the support it needed to face the challenges of the 1930s.
Followed by the death of Stresemann in 1929, robbed the republic of one of its key politicians.