Years of Unrest 1919-1923 and the Stresemann Years 1923-1929

Question 1

What was the first revolt in the years of unrest?

Answer 1

• 1919 - Spartacist Revolt
• Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht tried to takeover Berlin
• Defeated by the Freikorps

Question 2

What was the second revolt in the years of unrest?

Answer 2

• 1920 - Kapp Putsch
• Freikorps tried to take over Berlin led by Wolfgang Kapp
• Kapp eventually gave up as the people of Berlin went on a general strike and Kapp was cut off
• The government didn’t punish the rebels harshly as the judges sympathised with people like Kapp

Question 3

What happened in 1922?

Answer 3

• Walther Ratehnau, the Foreign Minister who’d signed the Rapallo Treaty with Russia was killed
• He was Jewish and many Germans were starting to become ant-Semitic

Question 4

What was the third revolt in the years of unrest?

Answer 4

• 1923 - The Munich Putsch
• Led by Adolf Hitler and the young Nazi party
• Tried to take control of Bavaria
• Hitler marched into Munich supported by Stormtroopers, but it collapsed when police opened fire on the rebels. Hitler was arrested with a broken arm

Question 5

What happened to the German economy in 1923?

Answer 5

• France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr: the richest part of Germany - to take resources
• Germans in the Ruhr refused to work, and no resources were obtained then produced
• Hyperinflation occured

Question 6

What was the cause of hyperinflation and what effects did this have?

Answer 6

• Because hardly any products were being made, production couldn’t keep up with the amount of money being made, so money lost its value, because there was more of it equating to a certain thing
  1) Wages were paid twice a day before prices went up again
  2) The middle classes lost out as bank savings became worthless
  3) The German mark became worthless
  4) Actual objects were more worthy of owning than the money used to buy them: it was now just paper

Question 7

What did Stresemann believe?

Answer 7

The best way to recover was buy working with other countries

Question 8

What did Stresemann do in 1923?

Answer 8

• Told the German workers to go back to work in the Ruhr

Question 9

What did Stresemann do in 1924?

Answer 9

• He accepted the Dawes Plan

- Introduced the new Rentenmark to make a stabler economy

Question 10

What did Stresemann do in 1925?

Answer 10

• Belgian and French troops started to leave the Ruhr
• In October, he signed the Locarno Treaty which agreed to Germany’s western borders
• He was offered the Nobel Peace Prize!

Question 11

What did Stresemann do in 1926?

Answer 11

• Joined the League of Nations and became a permanent member on the council

Question 12

What did Stresemann do in 1928?

Answer 12

• Was one of 65 countries to sign the Kellogg-Briand pact, to agree not to use violence to settle disputes

Question 13

What did Stresemann do in 1929?

Answer 13

• Young Plan was replaced by the Dawes plan
• Reparations would be reduced by 75%
• Germany given 59 years to pay them

Question 14

What bad things happened in 1929? :(

Answer 14

• He died in 1929!
• Everything looked better for the future, then the Wall Street Crash happened days after his death
• The plans he had agreed would only work if the USA had enough money to keep lending to Germany - but now it didn’t…