völkisch
parties. Inspired by Mussolini’s ‘March
on Rome’ of 1922, plans were made to effect a ‘March on Berlin’. At the last
minute, on 8–9 November 1923, Hitler lost the support of his more powerful and
well-placed associates in the Bavarian hierarchy, and found the Nazi putsch
isolated and easily suppressed, with the death of a few supporters when they
were shot while marching past Munich’s Feldherrnhalle. In contrast to the harsh
sentences meted out to left-wingers at the time, Hitler – after a trial from which
he won a great deal of beneficial national publicity – received a minimum
sentence of five years, of which he in fact served only a few months, in
comfortable detention in Landsberg prison, being released in time for Christmas
1924. Hitler made use of the opportunity to reflect on his long-term aims – in the
process writing
Mein Kampf
– as well as on strategy and tactics. He allowed the
NSDAP, which he had taken over from the previous DAP (German Workers’
Party) led by Drexler, to disintegrate in his absence, so that he could impose firm
leadership on his return to freedom; and he renounced the putschist approach, to
adopt from 1925 the tactic of the legal, parliamentary path for anti-parliamentary
ends. But the rise of this Austrian-born failed artist and ex-corporal was as yet
something which no one would have predicted; for after the crises of 1923, the
Weimar Republic entered a new period of apparent stabilisation.
THE PERIOD OF APPARENT STABILISATION
By 1924, it began to appear as if the early troubles of the Weimar Republic were
over, and improvements appeared on a number of fronts. In November 1923,
Gustav Stresemann became Foreign Minister, a position he held until his death
in 1929. Interpretations of Stresemann vary. He was a member of the right-wing
DVP, and only gradually became a
Vernunftrepublikaner
, a supporter of the
Republic for pragmatic reasons rather than principles. His foreign policy is
subject to a range of evaluations, but in general the verdict is that Stresemann
was successful in regularising Germany’s relations with her western neighbours,
while keeping his options open in relation to Germany’s eastern frontiers. The
Locarno Treaty of 1925 included guarantees that Germany, France and Belgium
would not alter their existing boundaries by force; there were also pacts with
Poland and Czechoslovakia, but these agreements were not guaranteed.
Germany regained a place in the international system, and in September 1926
became a member of the League of Nations. Stresemann hoped that the Locarno
Treaty would help to defuse domestic criticism of his policies and aid his eastern
strategies. In April 1926 the Berlin Treaty confirmed the new relations between
Germany and Russia which had first been expressed in the Rapallo Treaty of
1922 (when Rathenau was still Foreign Minister). The Rapallo Treaty had helped
to normalise already improved relations between Germany and Russia (and was
not necessarily intended, as some revisionist Germans hoped, as a means to the
division of Poland and a restoration of the eastern frontiers of 1914). In the 1926
Berlin Treaty Germany assured Russia of German neutrality if Russia were at
war with a third power. This implied that if, for example, Russia were at war
with Poland, France would not be able to come to Poland’s defence via German
territory.
Poland’s position was thus rather weak. On the reparations front, the Dawes
Plan of 1924 managed to combine German interests with American economic
expansionism. Yearly payments were agreed, at a more manageable level than
under previous reparations arrangements, and there was to be an initial recovery
phase in which only one-fifth would be paid from Germany’s own resources and
four-fifths would be paid from international loans received as ‘start-up’ help.
‘Normal’ annuities would be paid by Germany from 1928/9. In July 1925,
French troops began to leave the Ruhr, and the first area of the Rhineland was
cleared. In January 1927 the inter-allied military commission overseeing
Germany’s disarmament was withdrawn. There was economic rapprochement
between France and Germany, and German diplomacy mediated between the
USA and France for the Kellogg–Briand pact of August 1928. As the start of
normal reparations came nearer, discussions on reparations and total evacuation
of the Rhineland were heightened; and in August 1929, the Young Plan was
adopted (against considerable domestic right-wing opposition), setting a new
total figure of reparations to be paid, with a reduced annual average in
comparison with the Dawes Plan. Foreign controls would be removed, and the
Rhineland was to be cleared of military occupation in June 1930, five years
earlier than envisaged in the Versailles Treaty. It appeared as if, largely under
Stresemann’s guidance, a number of goals had been achieved: evacuation of the
Ruhr, early ending of the occupation of the Rhineland, the lifting of military
controls, the regularisation of Germany’s relations with her neighbours, the
international recognition of Germany as a member of the League of Nations, a
manageable set of reparations arrangements – and even a keeping open of the
question of Germany’s eastern frontiers, while pursuing revisionist aims by
peaceful means.
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