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Germany and West Germany 1918-89 > The Problems of the Weimar Republic (1920-24) > Flashcards

The Problems of the Weimar Republic (1920-24) Flashcards

1
Q

When was the Treaty of Versailles signed?

A
  • June 1919
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2
Q

In which 4 areas did the treaty have consequences for Germany?

A
  • War guilt
  • It lost 13% of its land
  • It had to pay reparations
  • There would also be military consequences
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3
Q

List 7 areas Germany lost.

A
  • All of its colonies
  • All of the land gained in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
  • Alsace and Lorraine to France
  • Eupen and Malmédy to Belgium
  • North Schleswig to Denmark
  • The Polish Corridor was created out of German land (1 million Germans then became Polish)
  • Germany was forbidden from uniting with Austria (Anschluss)
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4
Q

List 7 military consequences imposed on Germany as a result of the Treaty of Versailles.

A
  • 100,000 army
  • Only 6 battleships
  • No tanks
  • No heavy artillery
  • No submarines
  • No air force
  • The Rhineland was demilitarised
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5
Q

Describe 3 aspects of the reparations Germany had to pay.

A
  • Germany had to at first agree to pay reparations, but was only told the amount in 1921
  • The reparations were fixed at 132 billion gold marks/ £6.6 billion
  • All coal production from the Saar was to be given to France until 1935
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6
Q

What was Article 231?

A
  • It was a war guilt clause stating that Germany had accepted responsibility for losses and damage (Article 232 then regarded reparations)
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7
Q

Describe 4 reactions to the Treaty of Versailles in Germany.

A
  • It was seen as a ‘Diktat’ (dictated peace) as Germany did not get a say
  • The people felt betrayed by the politicians who had signed the treaty, who became known as the ‘November Criminals’, and they felt like the treaty was further confirmation of the ‘stab in the back’ myth
  • They felt that the treaty was a humiliation
  • There were fears that it would even lead to another war
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8
Q

Give 4 reasons why the German people were so against the treaty.

A
  • They saw the loss of German territory as unfair as Germany had not been occupied at any point during the war
  • The loss of colonies was seen as a national humiliation
  • They believed other countries were also responsible for the outbreak of war, as they thought Germany had been forced into a defensive war
  • They knew that disarmament and demilitarisation meant that they would never be a great power in Europe again
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9
Q

What event was the first major challenge from the right-wing to the Weimar government, and when did it happen?

A
  • The Kapp Putsch
  • March 1920
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10
Q

List 4 factors that led to the Kapp Putsch.

A
  • The disarmament and demilitarisation dictated by the Treaty of Versailles
  • The disbanding of army units stationed near Berlin made the government vulnerable
  • General Ludendorff and Wolfgang Kapp recognised this and realised they could be used to overthrow the government
  • General Lüttwitz demanded that Ebert stop demilitarisation and hold elections to form a new government, but Ebert refused
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11
Q

What happened in the Kapp Putsch? Give 4 details.

A
  • Generals Ludendorff and Lüttwitz and Wolfgang Kapp used the Freikorps to march on Berlin and seize control of the central government buildings
  • The government fled
  • Kapp dissolved the National Assembly and declared himself the new chancellor
  • He also announced that the Weimar Constitution was no longer in effect
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12
Q

How did the government respond to the Kapp Putsch?

A
  • The army did not support the rebels, but also refused to fight them
  • Ebert called on trade unions to call a general strike
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13
Q

What brought the Kapp Putsch to an end? How long had Kapp’s government lasted?

A
  • The general strike was almost universal, so Kapp could not govern effectively
  • His government collapsed after 4 days
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14
Q

Describe what happened to Kapp and his fellow conspirators.

A
  • Kapp died in prison while awaiting trial
  • Others who were involved either fled to Sweden or were given lenient prison sentences
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15
Q

What 2 things did the Kapp Putsch show?

A
  • The army could not be relied on
  • Neither could the judiciary; it was conservative and favoured the right-wing
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16
Q

List 2 impacts of the Kapp Putsch.

A
  • Workers organised themselves into groups and attacked the Freikorps in Saxony and Thuringia
  • The Ruhr uprising
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17
Q

When was the Ruhr uprising and what happened?

A
  • March 1920
  • Communists in the Ruhr formed a 50,000 strong army- the ‘Red Army’
  • They controlled large parts of the Ruhr for several weeks
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18
Q

How did the Ruhr uprising end?

A
  • The army, backed up by the Freikorps stopped the Red Army
  • It ended with the deaths of 1000 workers
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19
Q

List 6 main facts about the elections in June 1920.

A
  • DNVP got 5% more votes
  • DVP 10% more
  • USPD 10% more
  • KPD went from 0% to 2%
  • DDP and SPD both got 10% less votes
  • ZP’s percentage of votes went down by 2%
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20
Q

Which 2 states had an attempted communist takeover, and when?

A
  • Saxony
  • Thuringia
  • 1921
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21
Q

What was Reichsexekution? Give an example.

A
  • When the federal government removed the state government as it was a threat to the republic
  • For example, communist governments were also set up in Saxony and Thuringia in 1922, but were quickly removed by the army
22
Q

How many political murders were the right-wing responsible for in the period 1919-1922, and how did the judiciary deal with this?

A
  • 354
  • 326 of the murderers weren’t punished
  • Only 1 out of them was sentenced to life imprisonment
23
Q

How many political murders were the left-wing responsible for in the period 1919-1922, and how did the judiciary deal with this?

A
  • 22
  • Only 4 extremists were left unpunished
  • 10 of the murderers were sentenced to death, and 3 were given life sentences
24
Q

What motivated the judiciary to deal with extremism in this way? How far did they take this?

A
  • They tended to be conservative nationalists, and were therefore sympathetic to right-wing groups
  • They also initiated investigations and trials against the left-wing
25
Q

What other group tended to deal with left-wing extremism much more harshly than right-wing extremism?

A
  • The police
26
Q

List 5 reasons why Germany had economic problems in 1921.

A
  • War debt
  • Reparations
  • Loss of income
  • Social welfare
  • Unemployment
27
Q

How much debt was Germany in by 1918? Why?

A
  • 150 billion marks (triple their debt in 1914)
  • The government during the war were operating on the assumption that they would win, and would therefore pay any loans back with the reparations they would win from the Allies
28
Q

In what 2 ways did the payment of reparations affect the German economy?

A
  • It meant they had yet more debt
  • Although they were allowed to pay in goods, from 1921 they started to pay reparations in currency, so they also had to rely on increased borrowing and printing more money
29
Q

What were 2 reasons why Germany was facing a loss of income?

A
  • They lost territories such as the Saar and Alsace-Lorraine, which were rich in raw materials
  • Germany used to make a lot of money through international trade, but WW1 had caused a global economic slump
30
Q

What were 4 reasons why was unemployment a large issue?

A
  • By February 1919, 7% of the workforce was unemployed
  • Approximately 6 million soldiers had left the army, and therefore needed work
  • As a result, many women were sacked so that men could be employed instead of them
  • War time production ended
31
Q

There was an increase in employment later on, but this was still negative. Why?

A
  • Employers were later able to take on more workers as in 1919, the value of wages were half of what they had been in 1913
32
Q

List 3 ways social welfare was expanded by the government. What impact did this have on the economy?

A
  • After the war the government had set up retraining schemes and loans for demobilised soldiers
  • It also had to set up pensions for the wounded (there were roughly 1.5 million disabled veterans), widows (420,000 due to the war, with over 1 million children) and orphans
  • 190,000 parents of dead soldiers needed to be supported
  • The government had to go into more debt to make these payments
33
Q

What percentage of the population received federal welfare payments?

A
  • In total, roughly 10% of the population received federal welfare payments (even more were on regional poor relief)
34
Q

What was the London Ultimatum?

A
  • In 1921, the Allies had told Germany that if they failed to make the reparations payments, they would occupy the Ruhr
35
Q

What happened in 1922 due to Germany’s economic struggles? What did the government do as a result?

A
  • The inflation caused by the printing of extra money destabilised the economy
  • Germany therefore entered negotiations with the Allies to reduce or delay the reparations payments
36
Q

What happened in Germany in 1923? Give 2 details, and explain why.

A
  • In January, Germany failed to make payments
  • France and Belgium therefore sent 60,000 troops to occupy the Ruhr in the same month
  • They wanted to seize the coal mined there in place of the reparations they were meant to receive
37
Q

What 2 things did the German government do in response to the occupation of the Ruhr, and why?

A
  • Germany stopped reparation payments to France (but not the other Allies)
  • It started a policy of passive resistance; workers were instructed to go on strike, or to sabotage the work they were instructed to do
  • They knew they did not have the strength to fight France
38
Q

List 2 actions the occupying French forces took in response to the German government’s actions.

A
  • They either forced the workers to work, or brought in their own workers
  • They cut off the Ruhr from the rest of Germany
39
Q

What impact did the situation in the Ruhr have on the German economy, and how?

A
  • It turned the existing inflation into hyperinflation
  • The workers who followed the government’s orders and didn’t work needed to be paid, and the government managed to do this by printing more money
40
Q

Give figures on hyperinflation.

A
  • Interest rates reached 90%
    Largest bank note in circulation:
  • January 1922 10K marks, January 1923 100K marks, July 20M marks, November 1T
    Exchange rate (to 1 USD):
  • July 1914 4.2 marks, January 1919 8.9 marks, January 1923 17,792 marks, November 1923 200B marks
41
Q

List 2 impacts of hyperinflation.

A
  • The government itself sacked 750,000 workers
  • Money became worthless
42
Q

List 8 impacts that money’s decrease in value had.

A
  • People began to barter goods
  • A lot of people turned to the black market
  • Notgeld (emergency money) began to be issued
  • Social welfare payments became worthless
  • Workers had to eventually be paid daily so their wages would have value, but prices were even changing hourly
  • Farmers refused to sell their products
  • Savings became worthless
  • Debts became worthless
43
Q

What further destabilising impact did hyperinflation have?

A
  • In August 1923, the government collapsed
44
Q

Who led the new government in August 1923?

A
  • Gustav Stresemann was chancellor
45
Q

What happened in November 1923?

A
  • Hitler’s Munich/ Beer Hall Putsch
46
Q

List 3 reasons why the Munich Putsch happened.

A
  • After seeing Mussolini’s successful ‘March on Rome’ in 1922, Hitler believed he could gain power through a Putsch
  • As he was working with General Ludendorff, he expected the army would help him
  • He also believed he could gain the support of the local politicians and citizens in Munich
47
Q

What happened during the Munich Putsch? Give 4 details.

A
  • The SA surrounded a beer hall where influential politicians were gathered
  • Hitler announced that the local and national government were deposed, and that he and Ludendorff were forming a new government
  • Ebert declared a state of emergency and told the army to stop the revolt
  • It was defeated after a short battle with a combined force of army and police officers, and the Nazis were arrested
48
Q

Give 4 details on how Hitler and Ludendorff punished, and explain why.

A
  • Ludendorff was found not guilty
  • Hitler was given the minimum sentence of 5 years
  • He only served 9 months out of the 5 years
  • He served them in Landsberg Prison, which was low-security, and he therefore had considerable freedom
  • Due to the biased judiciary
49
Q

List 3 benefits the Munich Putsch had for Hitler.

A
  • Hitler used his trial in February 1924 as a platform to criticise the government, and as it was widely reported, he became much more well-known
  • He realised that he would have to gain power through legal means
  • He thought through his political ideas and wrote Mein Kampf
50
Q

How often did Ebert use Article 48, and why?

A
  • He used it 136 times during his presidency
  • This was because not only did he use it to deal with left-wing challenges, but he also used it to bypass opposition in the Reichstag
51
Q

Which parties won more seats in the May 1924 elections than they had in 1920 (the previous elections), and by how much?

A
  • The NSDAP (Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party- the Nazis) went from 0% to 6%
  • DNVP went up by 19%
  • KPD went up by 10%

Germany and West Germany 1918-89 (18 decks)

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