The Weimar Republic

The Weimar govt was burdened with a terrible financial and economic legacy:

• Germany's national debt has risen from 5000 million marks to 144,000 million  marks from 1913 to 1919. 
• To fund the war, Germany used short-term loans and printed more money. 
• This led to the value of the mark against the dollar to fall from 4.20 marks to 14.00 marks. 
  • By 1920, a dollar was worth 100 marks. 
• To control inflation, the options were to increase taxation and/or by cutting expenditure. 
  • However, the govt did not chose these because of the fear that it would make them unpopular. 

Germany also faced severe economic problems:

• Germany lost most of its merchant shipping, its fishing fleet and all its property in Allied territories (as a result of the First World War).
• The Allied blockade worsened an already dire food supply situation, which did not end until the signing of the ToV. 
• By the terms of the ToV, Germany lost:
  • nearly 15% of its arable land
  • 75% of its iron ore
  • 68% of its zinc ore
  • 1/4 of its coal production. 
• In 1919, Germany's manufactoring output was 30% lower than it was in 1914. 
• They had a large trade decifit.
• They also faced the difficulties of re-adjusting a war economy to the requirements of peace. 
• The enormous reparation payments demanded by the Allies in 1921, did not help the economic and financial problems. 

After the revolution of 1918-19, Socialist politics remained a state of confusion:

• The SPD was committed to parliamentary democracy.
  • Whereas, thr KPD took its lead from Bolshevik Russia, and pressed for proletarian revolution. 
• The USP pressed for the creation of a socialist soceity within a democratic framework (therfore they were caught in the middle).
  • However, the USPD had come to an end in December 1920. 
  • Therefore, its members either joined the KPD or the SPD. 
• As a result, the KPD has around 400,000 memebers by 1920. 
• They wanted to ovethrow the Weimar Republic and establish a one party Socialist state, which would restructure Germany's social and economic fabric. 
• This frightened many Germans, but the threat of the KPD was exaggerated. 
• This is because they were unable to win the mass support of the working classes. 
• Therefore they proved to be incapable of mounting a unified attack on the WP.
• The repression they had endured, at the hands of the Freikorps, in 1919, had removed some of their most dedicated supporters.
• The suppression of the Spartacists, by Ebert's govt, was neither forgotten or forgiven by the extreme left. 

The threat of the right:

• Right wing political forces rejected the Weimar system and its democratic principles completely.
• They wanted a strong govt, attack the Versailles settlement.
• They had a considerable success in propagating the notion that the army had been 'stabbed in the back' in 1918, by the 'Novemeber Criminals.'

The right was divided between:

• Conservatives and radicals. 
• The Conservatives wished to restore the monarchy, and tended to join the National Party (DNVP).
  • The DNVP was a coalition of nationalists forces, including old imperial conservative parties, along with the Fatherland Party and the Pan-German League. 
  • It remained the party supporting landowners, employers and middle class institutions (the army, civil service, the judiciary and the education system).
• Large numbers of army officers, bureaucrats, judges and professors were actively hostile to the new Republic. 

After 1918, radical right wing groups had little sympathy with the Conservatives:

• They were anti-democratic, anti-Semitic and anti-Socialist.
• They wanted to smash the Republic.
• Many ex-soldiers, in the Freikorps, were attracted to the radical right. 
• Extreme right wing groups were particularly active in Bavaria. 
• In September 1919, Adolf Hitler joined the German Workers' Party (a right wing group in Munich).