Quick questions on The Stresemann era 1924-1929: HSC Modern History National Study

Stresemann (1878 to 1929) was a National Liberal in the imperial Reichstag and a wartime annexationist who became a republican by conviction in the early 1920s. He served as Chancellor for 103 days (August to November 1923) and as Foreign Minister continuously from August 1923 to his death on 3 October 1929. Almost every diplomatic initiative of the era bears his name.

Drafted by an international committee chaired by American banker Charles Dawes, the Plan rescheduled reparations and brought American capital into Germany.

Five separate treaties signed in London. Germany, France, and Belgium accepted the Rhine frontier as final; Britain and Italy guaranteed the agreement. Germany also signed arbitration treaties with Poland and Czechoslovakia, but did not recognise the eastern frontiers as permanent.

Germany joined the League of Nations on 8 September 1926. The Treaty of Berlin (24 April 1926) renewed the 1922 Rapallo agreement with the USSR, balancing Locarno with continuing eastern ties. Germany signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact (27 August 1928) renouncing war as an instrument of national policy.

A second restructuring of reparations, chaired by American banker Owen Young. Reparations were reduced from 132 billion to 112 billion gold marks and spread over 59 annuities to 1988. Allied financial supervision ended. The plan was opposed in Germany by a nationalist campaign led by Alfred Hugenberg (DNVP press magnate) and Hitler; the December 1929 referendum to reject the Plan failed (13.8 per cent of eligible voters), but the campaign gave Hitler national exposure.

Industrial production passed 1913 levels by 1927. Unemployment fell from 18 per cent (1923) to under 6 per cent in mid-1925 but rose again to 8.5 per cent in 1928 and over 10 per cent by early 1929. Real wages rose; trade unions secured the eight-hour day for many industries by arbitration.

The 1924 May and December Reichstag elections returned moderate coalitions. The SPD-led Grand Coalition under Hermann Muller (June 1928) commanded a majority. No major putsch occurred between 1924 and 1929.

The Stresemann era was the height of Weimar culture. The Bauhaus (founded 1919 in Weimar, moved to Dessau 1925) under Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Kandinsky shaped modern design. Expressionist cinema (Fritz Lang's Metropolis, 1927; Murnau's Nosferatu, 1922) and the New Objectivity reshaped film. Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera premiered in August 1928.

Stresemann died of a stroke on 3 October 1929, aged 51, exhausted by negotiations over the Young Plan. The Wall Street Crash followed on 29 October 1929. American loans were recalled; unemployment began to climb. The Grand Coalition under Muller collapsed on 27 March 1930 over unemployment insurance funding.

Jonathan Wright (Stresemann, 2002) is the standard modern biography, treating Stresemann as a sincere republican (he called himself a "Vernunftrepublikaner," a republican of reason).

He was Chancellor for 103 days in 1923 only. He served as Foreign Minister continuously thereafter.

Industrial production recovered; agriculture was in depression from 1927; structural unemployment was over 1 million by 1928.

Dawes (1924) restructured reparations and started American loans. Young (1929) reduced reparations and ended Allied supervision.

It guaranteed the western frontier only. The eastern frontier was deliberately left open by Stresemann.