The impact of the Treaty of Versailles

PROBLEMATIC ARTICLES OF THE WEIMAR CONSTITUTION OF 1919

• Proportional representation guaranteed minorities a voice in the Reichstag but encouraged splintering.

• Power was divided between the Chancellor who answered to the Reichstag and a popularly elected President, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

• Article 48 authorized the President to issue emergency decrees with the force of law.

• Anyone who gathered the signatures of 10% of the voters could place any proposition on the ballot for a national referendum.

Otto Braun & Carl Severing (SPD) led the state government of Prussia, 1922-1932

French troops occupy the Ruhr Valley to compel Germany to pay war reparations, January 1923

President Ebert visits the Ruhr to encourage “passive resistance”

COST OF LIVING INDEX (1914=100)

HYPER-INFLATION IN 1923: In July a small businessman needs a cart to pick up his weekly payroll

By September currency must be

weighed to determine its

value

A tense crowd waiting to buy bread in 1923

Alfred Rosenberg and Adolf Hitler review marching Stormtroopers in Munich, November 4, 1923

The “Beer Hall Putsch:” Nazi Stormtroopers outside Munich City Hall, November 9, 1923

Ludendorff, Hitler, & Ernst Röhmat their trial for treason in 1924

Gustav Stresemann made peace with France as Chancellor (Aug.-Nov. 1923) and Foreign Minister (1923-29). The U.S. banker Charles Dawes negotiated a new

reparations plan in 1924.

A BROAD CONSENSUS EMERGED BY NOVEMBER 1923 TO ALLOW CHANCELLOR WILHELM MARX AND

PRESIDENT EBERT TO DECREE HARSH AUSTERITY MEASURES

1. Taxation rose from 9% of total national income in 1913 to 17% in 1925.

2. Public expenditures sank from 42% of national income in 1920 to 25% in 1925.

3. One Article 48 presidential emergency decree fired 300,000 public employees and reduced all civil service salaries to 60% of their prewar level.

4. State labor arbitrators pegged real wages in 1924 at 87% of the level of 1913.

5. Work hours were deregulated (meaning abolition of the 8-hour day introduced in November 1918).

Field Marshall Hindenburg in

1925:“I extend my hand to every German who supports the nation and desires confessional and

social peace.”

The Weimar Coalition united behind the Center Party chairman & ex-chancellor Wilhelm Marx

But Hindenburg’s campaign aroused more enthusiasm,

and he defeated Marx, 48.3% vs. 45.3%

Hindenburg applauded the

recent decision by the moderate

chairman of the DNVP, Count Kuno

von Westarp, to support a right-of-

center majority government

coalition

Aristide Briand & Gustav Stresemann, who signed the Treaty of Locarno in 1925 and won the Nobel Peace Prize

The DNVP walked out of the government in protest

Hermann Müller’s cabinet of the Great Coalition (from SPD to DVP), June 1928-April 1930

THE GROWTH OF THE SPLINTER PARTIES IN 1928 PERSUADED MOST BOURGEOIS POLITICIANS THAT

COMPROMISE WITH THE SPD MEANT POLITICAL SUICIDE

Year KPD SPD DDPCen-ter

DVPSplin-ters*

DNVP Nazi

Dec 1924

9.0 26.0 6.3 17.4 10.1 7.5 20.5 3.0

1928 10.6 29.8 4.9 15.2 8.7 13.9 14.2 2.6

1930 13.1 24.5 3.8 14.8 4.7 13.8 7.0 18.3

* Includes parties for farmers, inflation victims, small business, Hanoverian separatists, Bavarian separatists, etc.

Stresemann explains the Young Plan in a turbulent Reichstag session, 1929; unfortunately,

its final version was not much better than the Dawes Plan

DNVP chairman Alfred Hugenberg and the leaders of the Stahlhelm allied with the NSDAP to combat the

Young Plan

“Unto the third generation must you slave away!”

(“Freedom Law” referendum campaign

poster, 1929)

Until 1930 the KPD was much larger and appeared more dangerous than any far right group (Ernst

Thälmann leads the Red Combat Veterans in Berlin, June 1927)

The “Karl Liebknecht House” in Berlin,

1929:According to the Comintern’s new ultra-left line, the Social Democrats

were denounced as “social fascists.”

THE GREAT DEPRESSION STRUCK IN THE WINTER OF 1929/30:

PERCENTAGE OF LABOR FORCE UNEMPLOYED

CAUSES OF THE PARALYSIS OF THE REICHSTAG

A deepening rift on the Left between the SPD and a newly Stalinized KPDThe growth of single-issue splinter parties that drained support from the moderate parties The turn of the DNVP toward a fascistoid course under the media baron Alfred HugenbergThe growing impatience of President Hindenburg and the generals with Social Democratic opposition to rearmament

--These factors help to explain why the SPD & DVP deadlocked in March 1930 over the question of whether to raise taxes or slash unemployment benefits.

Chancellor Heinrich Brüning

(1885-1970)

• Born to a middle-class Catholic family in Münster

• Economics Ph.D• Decorated combat

veteran (rose to captain)• Ex-functionary of the

Christian trade unions• Accepts Hindenburg’s

commission in April 1930 to balance the budget, if necessary through Article 48 emergency decrees

The Nazis campaigned in September 1930 with the slogan, “For or Against Young?”

“Freedom and Bread”

They astonished everyone by winning 18% of the vote & 107 Reichstag

seats

Brüning and Foreign Minister Curtius bid farewell to U.S. Secretary of State Henry Stimson, Berlin, July 1931

Brüning secures support for the

abolition of reparations from Mussolini in

Rome, August 1931

“Resignation & Discussion,”

photo by Walter Ballhause from the

series “Unemployment”

(1930)

Brüning achieved a diplomatic breakthrough with the Hoover Moratorium of July 1931, but two major German banks failed at the same time

Brüning united a broad front from the

SPD to moderate conservatives to

secure Hindenburg’s reelection in April

1932

Corporal Hitler challenged

Hindenburg for the presidency:“We choose

Hindenburg! --We choose Hitler!

Look at these faces, and you will known where you belong!”

“Our last hope:HITLER”

(March 1932)

THE FALL OF BRÜNING, MAY 1932

Hindenburg had long desired a rightist majority cabinet stretching from the Center to the NSDAP.Hindenburg was deeply wounded when most of his monarchist friends endorsed Hitler for President.In April 1932 Brüning banned the SA and sought to partition bankrupt agricultural estates for homesteaders. Hindenburg appointed the right-wing Catholic monarchist Franz von Papen to replace Brüning at the end of May 1932, hoping that his government would be tolerated by the Center Party and NSDAP.

Franz von Papen’s “Cabinet of Barons” was supported by only one party, the DNVP. Many

regarded the new chancellor as the puppet of the Defense Minister,

General Kurt von Schleicher

Papen & Schleicher at the racetrack, September

1932

Papen lifted the SA ban, called for new elections, and forcibly removed the SPD-led Prussian state

government on July 20, 1932 (in the Preussenschlag)

Joseph Goebbels addresses a campaign rally in Berlin, 1932

By 1932 the Nazis focused

their propaganda on the traditional

enemies of middle-class Protestants,

the Reds and the Blacks:

“The Final Blow!”(July 1932)

THE POLARIZATION OF THE GERMAN ELECTORATE IN THE GREAT

DEPRESSION

0%5%

10%

15%20%25%30%35%40%

45%

1919 1928 1930 Jul-32 Nov-32

CommunistSocial DemocratModerate (Libs + RC)Con./ NationalistNazi

Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher addresses a rally in Berlin on January 15, 1933

The “Cabinet of National Renewal,” appointed onJanuary 30, 1933: Only 3 of 11 ministers are Nazis, but Papen allows Hitler to control the Prussian police & hold

elections

“In our deepest need, Hindenburg chose Adolf

Hitler as Reich Chancellor. You too should vote for

List #1”

“The Reich will never be

destroyed – if you remain united and

faithful”