Empire to Democracy: 8 government and opposition 1914-1924

Question 1

who were the Freikorps?

Answer 1

volunteer military units
between 170 and 200 different groups mostly recruited from demobilised soldiers and officers
tough men with right-wing nationalist sympathies
largely paid for by supporters of the old empire
many members joined Hitler’s SA (stormtroopers)

Question 2

what immediate decisions did Ebert make post the 1918 October revolution?

Answer 2

• Ebert formed a provisional government consisting of three SPD and three USPD members to control until elections ‘Council of People’s Commissars’
• Ebert struck a deal with the right-wing army. Ebert-Groener Pact
• agreed to an armistice on 11 November
• discussions with Hugo Stinnes (representing big businesses) and Carl Legien (trade unions) and various reps from Germany’s major industrial firms
• allowed civil servants, military officers, judges, policemen, teachers and other government officials who had trained and served under the imperial regime to keep their posts despite their often outspoken anti-republican views

Question 3

what was the Ebert-Groener Pact?

Answer 3

General Groener agreed to suppress lingering revolutionary activity in return for a promise that the gov would maintain the authority of the army and its existing military officers

Question 4

what was the Stinnes-Legien Agreement?

Answer 4

employers recognised the legality of the unions and agreed to introduce an 8 hour day
unions promised to maintain production , end unofficial strikes and oppose the influence of the workers’ councils which were demanding the nationalisation of industry

Question 5

what did Ebert’s USPD colleagues think of his new measures such as the Ebert-Groener Pact, etc?

Answer 5

disapproved of his actions and his cabinet broke up after an incident in December 1918
- the USPD police chief in Berlin opposed Ebert’s orders to put down the sailors’ pay demonstration by force
- the three USPD ministers resigned on 29 December
-

Question 6

what happened on 5 January 1919?

Answer 6

‘Spartacist rebellion’
left-wing demonstration broke out
Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg gave speeches encouraging the workers’ rebellion and inspire them to overthrow the SPD gov before new elections take place

Question 7

how did Ebert stop the Spartacist rebellion and what issues did his method cause?

Answer 7

turned to General Noske (defence minister)
Noske acted with great severity using the Freikorps who hated Communists
10-12 Jan - savage street fighting, more than 100 workers killed
Liebknecht and Luxemburg were captured and killed by Freikorps units
left wing no longer saw the SPD as their saviour but as their enemy - felt horribly betrayed

Question 8

despite the defeat of the Spartacists left wing rebellion continued. how did the Marxists perceive Germany?

Answer 8

ripe for revolution and Comintern-backed activism
Comintern - short for communism international, set up in 1919 to oversee the actions of Marxist parties throughout the world
leadership by Russia

Question 9

what rising happened in March 1919?

Answer 9

Spartacist rising in Berlin
Communist Government based on workers’ councils was established in Bavaria following Kurt Eisner’s assassination in February
republic of workers’ soviets was also declared in Munich

Question 10

which areas striked in April-May 1919?

Answer 10

wave of strikes in Halle and the Ruhr valley (industrial areas supplying 80% of the country’s coal)
gov called on the Freikorps
1200 workers killed in Berlin in March
700 in Bavaria in May

Question 11

a general strike in March 1920?

Answer 11

general strike in Berlin helped to defeat a right wing coup (the Kapp Putsch)
Communists formed a ‘red army’ of 50,000 workers and seized control of the Ruhr producing a virtual civil war between the regular army and the Freikorps
struggles in Halle and Dresden - over 100 workers and 250 soldiers and police killed

Question 12

what increased left wing strength and confidence in December 1920?

Answer 12

USPD (400,000 members) voted to join the KPD (78,000 members)

Question 13

what disruption occured in March 1921?

Answer 13

attempted Communist rising in Merseburg in Saxony
strike disruption in Hamburg and the Ruhr - 145 people killed in the Ruhr

Question 14

other than strike activity what other opposition was there from the left?

Answer 14

(also economic collapse)
22 political assassinations by left-wing opposition
10 of the assassins caught and put to death

mostly left wing activity was suppressed adn gov never severely affected however law abiding middle classes concerned of a ‘red revolution’

Question 15

how did the right feel about the loss of the war?

Answer 15

‘stab in the back’ legend
believed the victory had been snatched from Germany by the revolutionary disruption
unhappy about the ToV

Question 16

what was the impact of the ToV?

Answer 16

• demands split the cabinet - DDP stood against it
• establishment of ‘Polish corridor’ cutting Germany in two, war guilt clause, disarmament, reparations and exclusion from League of Nations provoked fury
• treaty referred to as diktat meaning dictated peace
• hostility towards politicians who agreed to it

Question 17

what did the gov do to the army in January 1920?

Answer 17

began reducing the size of the army and disbanding units of the Freikorps, in line with the ToV

Question 18

what was the Kapp Putsch?

Answer 18

feb 1920 - Noske ordered 2 Freikorps units, stationed 12 miles from Berlin compromising 12,000 men to disband
General Luttwitz refused and gov ordered his arrest
march 1920 - Luttwitz, Captain Hermann Erhardt (Freikorps leader), sympathising officers and politician Wolfgang Kapp marched their troops to Berlin and Kapp proclaimed himself chancellor
gov saved by workers’ strikes happening at the same time
Berlin brought to a standstill for 4 days
Kapp and Luttwitz forced to flee

Question 19

what did the Kapp Putsch show about the republic?

Answer 19

• army were not to be trusted
• workers as a group could show their power
• without the army’s support the Weimar government were weak

only one defendant was punished, judge was lenient, despite the harsh treatment towards the left, showed the gov were not really in control

Question 20

which right wing figures were assassinated by the left?

Answer 20

Hugo Hasse (a USPD member of Ebert’s first council)
Matthias Erzberger (former finance minister)
Walther Rathenau (foreign minister)
Erzberger and Rathenau both killed by the terrorist league ‘Organisation Consul’

Question 21

in July 1922, the Reichstag passed a 5 year law, ‘for the protection of the republic’, what did it do?

Answer 21

placed severe penalties on those involved in conspiracy to murder
it outlawed extremist organisations and Organisation Consul was forced to disband
326 went unpunished though
Rathenau’s killers received on average 4 years each

Question 22

what did the French do on 11 January?

Answer 22

advanced into the Ruhr to take coal, steel and manufactured goods as reparations
French were angered by the treaty of Rapallo and Germany’s slow repayments
the German government responded with passive resistance however this led to increasing violence and had disastrous economic consequences

Question 23

what was the treaty of Rapallo?

Answer 23

April 1922
treaty of friendship and economic cooperation
a treaty between the two ‘outcasts’ of Europe, ending Germany’s diplomatic isolation and permitting secret military collaboration

Question 24

what happened during the French occupation of the Ruhr?

Answer 24

by the end of 1923, 100,000 French and Belgian troops in the Ruhr area controlling mines, factories, steelworks and railways
set up machine-gun posts in the streets and demanded food without payment from shops
Germans could not fight back
workers given strike pay and told not to cooperate with the French
132 Germans died and 150,000 expelled from the area
French brought in their own workers but were only producing 1/3 of the average in 1922 and overall Ruhr output fell by 1/5

Question 25

what did Ebert use Article 48 for in 1923?

Answer 25

transferred power from the Lander to regional military commanders and appointed a new Reich Commissioner displacing the democratically elected SPD PM in Saxony

there were attempted putschs by General Buchrucker in October 1923 and in November 1923 in Munich by Hitler and the Nazis

Question 26

who ended passive resistance?

Answer 26

Chancellor Gustav Stresemann in September 1923

Question 27

how was the NSDAP formed?

Answer 27

Hitler turned the small German Workers’ Party DAP into the NSDAP (July 1921)
by November 1923 it attracted 55,000 members
anti-democratic and authoritarian in its views
proclaimed superiority of German race
had its own paramilitary force SA

Question 28

what was the Munich Beer Hall Putsch?

Answer 28

(the state governor (Kahr) and the commander in chief of Bavarian Army (Lossow) considered marching on Berlin)
November 1923 Hitler tried to get Kahr and Lossow to support a right wing coup - they were unconvinced and used the police to crush his Munich rising
Nazi party banned
Hitler in prison for 5 years however he only served 9

last major uprising against the gov
left and right were too weak and divided to produce a viable political alternative

Question 29

what was the ideology of the Nazi Party?

Answer 29

• 25 point programme of 1920 contained both nationalist (anti-Semitic, anti-democratic, anti-Communist) and socialist (anti-capitalist) ideas
• superiority of the Aryan race
• Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest, Germans were a ‘master’ race)
• Lebensraum (Germans should take more territory to support growing population)
• Fuhrerprinzip (Germany needed an all-powerful leader)

Question 30

what were the results of the January 1919 elections?

Answer 30

76% vote in favour of the moderate parties that wanted a representative democracy
SPD dominated - formed a coalition with Zentrum and the DDP
SPD leader was Fehrenbach

Question 31

what were the results of the June 1920 election?

Answer 31

swing away from moderate centre-left parties (only 44.6% of vote) SPD lost 60 seats
move towards extreme left and right wings (USPD and DNVP)

Question 32

what was the policy of fulfilment?

Answer 32

intended to show good German faith in the hope that the Allies would be encouraged to scale down or reverse decisions

associated with Wirth (Zentrum), Rathenau and Stresemann
right-wing nationalists believed it was a mark of weakness

Question 33

who succeeded Wirth as Chancellor and why was Stresemann praised?

Answer 33

Cuno who had to cope with French invasion of the Ruhr, inflations and uprisings from the left and right
Stresemann, his successor, was Chancellor for 100 days however applauded for his work also as foreign secretary for providing some rare political stability

Question 34

how many governments had there been in the first 4 years of the Republic?

Answer 34

8
although it survived it was battered and bruised

Question 35

lots and lots of coalitions! reasons for fall?

Answer 35

ToV, Kapp Putsch, election, reparations ultimatum, cabinet resigned over partition of upper Silesia, economic crisis, SPD withdrew