Year of Crisis Flashcards
1
Q
What happened in May 1921?
A
- Reparations bill set at £6.6 billion
- Weimar government resigns
- Z-SPD-DP coalition determines policy of ‘fulfilment’
2
Q
What happened in autumn 1921?
A
- First instalment of reparations paid
- No attempt to stabilise currency, cut expenditure or increase taxes.
- Begin to print more money to cope instead
3
Q
What happened in January 1923?
A
- Germany default on payments of timber and coal
- French and Belgian troops invade Ruhr (industrial region of Germany)
- Passive resistance from German workers
4
Q
What happened in August 1923?
A
- Government continue to print more money to pay workers
- Inflation spirals causing hyperinflation
- Trade unions keep demanding money from govt. to pay workers and govt. struggles to manage the situation. `
5
Q
What were the positive effects of hyperinflation?
A
- Poorest gained from crisis as all debts were written off
- German government debt significantly reduced (reparations)
- Radical groups failed to gain mass support
- Unemployment rate was unaffected
6
Q
What were the negative effects of hyperinflation?
A
- Provokes political unrest
- Doubt with government’s ability to handle a crisis
- Poverty deepens- psychological distress associated with Weimar’s rule
- Industrialists exploit workers
- Increasing anti-Semitism- Jews seen as loan sharks within society
- Fixed incomes would have suffered
- Class system disrupted- Proletarianism
7
Q
Define proletarianism.
A
When middle class people in society become the working class.
