Topic 1

Question 1

Name of the Kaiser that abdicated at the end of WW1?

Answer 1

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Question 2

Date of the Kaiser’s abdication?

Answer 2

9th November 1918

Question 3

Date of Constituent Assembly elections?

Answer 3

19th January 1919

Question 4

What is the meaning of Constituent Assembly?

Answer 4

A group of representitives elected to set up a new constitution

Question 5

Why was the meeting of the Constituent Assembly held in Weimar?

Answer 5

Berlin was considered a place to dangerous to meet

Question 6

What type of government had to be formed after the January elections?

Answer 6

A coalition government

Question 7

What was significant about the Weimar Republic?

Answer 7

Germany had its first democracy

Question 8

How often was the President elected?

Answer 8

Every seven years

Question 9

What was Article 48?

Answer 9

A clause that meant that the President could suspend the constitution in an emergency and make laws and keep the Chancellor in office without Reichstag support

Question 10

How was the Chancellor chosen?

Answer 10

By the President, with majority support of the Reichstag

Question 11

How often was the Reichstag elected?

Answer 11

Every four years

Question 12

What was the Reichsrat?

Answer 12

55 representitives from 18 German states. They couldn’t make laws but could approve laws proposed by the Chancellor and the Reichstag

Question 13

What age could men and women vote in the Weimar Republic?

Answer 13

20 years of age

Question 14

Why was Proportional Representation a flaw in the Weimar Constitution?

Answer 14

Produced a large amount of parties and made a majority very difficult to win. Caused many coalition governments

Question 15

When was the Treaty of Versailles signed?

Answer 15

28th June 1919

Question 16

What percentage of land did Germany lose as a term of the T of V?

Answer 16

13% of their total land

Question 17

What was the War Guilt Clause in the T of V?

Answer 17

A clause that stated that Germany had to accept blame for starting the war in 1914; this meant that they had to pay compensation to the allied powers

Question 18

What does the term ‘dolchstoss’ mean?

Answer 18

Stabbed in the back

Question 19

Who were the November Criminals?

Answer 19

They were the politicians who signed the armistice in 1918

Question 20

What are the main territorial terms of the T of V?

Answer 20

All colonies were given to the Allied Powers,
Alsace-Lorraine returned to France,
Posen and West Prussia given to Poland,
No union with Austria

Question 21

What are the main military terms of the T of V?

Answer 21

Army no to exceed 100,000 men,
No tanks, armoured cars or heavy military,
No airforce permitted,
No navy ship greater than 10,000 tonnes,
No submarines permitted,
Rhineland demilitarised

Question 22

What are the main financial terms of the T of V?

Answer 22

Coal to be mined in the Saar by France,
Reparations fixed at £6.6 billion,
Cattle and sheep given to France and Belgium,
Germany to build merchant ships to replace those sunk by U-boats

Question 23

Why did the Weimar government make a deal with the army leader, Groener?

Answer 23

Due to a fear of revolution, the government would support the army if the army defended against a revolution

Question 24

What political ideology did the Sparticist League belong to?

Answer 24

The communist ideology

Question 25

When did the Sparticist Uprising begin?

Answer 25

December 1918

Question 26

When did the Spartacists begin their attempts to overthrow the government?

Answer 26

6th January 1919

Question 27

Who were the Freikorps?

Answer 27

They were paramilitary groups of demobilised soldiers at the end of the war

Question 28

Who were the leaders of the Spartacist League?

Answer 28

Karl Leibknecht and Rosa Luxemburg

Question 29

What brought about the Kapp Putsch?

Answer 29

A decision to reduce the size of the army and dispand the Freikorps led to uproar in Berlin

Question 30

Who were the leaders of the Kapp Putsch?

Answer 30

Ehrhardt, the Freikorps leader, and Wolfgang Kapp, a Berlin politician

Question 31

What were the main reasons that Kapp stressed for revolution?

Answer 31

The Communist threat, the Dolschstoss theory and the severity of the Treaty of Versailles

Question 32

When did Kapp successfully seize Berlin?

Answer 32

13th March 1920

Question 33

How was the Putsch put down in Berlin?

Answer 33

Workers strikes and a lack of support lead to the collapse of the Putsch

Question 34

Why did the value of German currency fall in the early 1920s?

Answer 34

The Weimar government began to print money to pay reparations, but also their own workers

Question 35

How much money did Germany have to pay per year in reparations payments?

Answer 35

£100 million per year

Question 36

When did France invade the Ruhr for the first time?

Answer 36

1921

Question 37

When did the second occupation of the Ruhr occur?

Answer 37

January 1923

Question 38

How did German workers resist the French occupation?

Answer 38

Workers in the Ruhr went on strike as protest against the invasion; a number of these people were shot by the French soldiers

Question 39

Who did hyperinflation benefit?

Answer 39

Businessmen who had borrowed money could pay back easily, higher food prices benefitted farmers