Government responses to economic crisis

Question 1

Who helped to resolve the economic crisis of 1923?

Answer 1

Gustav Stresemann

Question 2

How did Stresemann help to solve the crisis?

Answer 2

By calling off passive resistance to French occupation in the Ruhr - this reduced the government’s reparations payments, calming the situation

Question 3

What did Stresemann realise would boost international confidence in Germany?

Answer 3

If Germany met its obligations - so he started reparations payments

Question 4

How did Stresemann begin to pay for these reparations?

Answer 4

. Government spending was cut
. 700,000 employees were sacked
. Negotiated the Dawes Plan - alleviated the burden of reparations payments

Question 5

Who did Stresemann work with to resolve inflation?

Answer 5

Schacht

Question 6

How did Schacht and Stresemann resolve inflation?

Answer 6

. The old currency was abolished and a new currency, the
Retenmark, was established - one unit of the new currency
was worth one trillion of the old
. New currency was guaranteed by linking it to German industrial and agricultural assets

Question 7

Who and how did the hyperinflation crisis affect those with savings?

Answer 7

Values were all eradicated - Middle classes often had substantial savings and the decimation dramatically reduced their security and living standards

Question 8

What did high rates of inflation do to employment?

Answer 8

Ensured high levels of employment - helped maintain workers’ living standards - as did new laws which protected their position

Question 9

How did hyperinflation affect workers in Germany?

Answer 9

.Wages did not keep up with prices
. However, generally position of
workers improved in the early years of Weimar - wages
rose