Post-War Crisis

Four marks to four trillion

In 1914 an American dollar bought 4.2 marks. In January 1923 it bought 18,000. In November 1923 it bought 4.2 trillion, a loaf of bread cost 200 billion marks, workers were paid twice a day and spent the money before it lost its value at lunchtime, and a lifetime of savings would not buy a newspaper. The Weimar Republic was four years old. The road to that November began in the war. The British blockade had produced the turnip winter of 1916 to 1917 and around 750,000 deaths from hunger and disease; two million soldiers had died; and when the generals admitted defeat in September 1918 the country collapsed in a week, from the naval mutiny at Kiel on 3 November to the abdication of the Kaiser on 9 November and the armistice on the 11th. The republic that inherited the defeat signed Versailles on 28 June 1919 and was blamed for both. It was then attacked from the left by the Spartacists in January 1919, from the right by the Kapp Putsch in March 1920, and by assassins who murdered 376 political figures by 1922. Reparations were fixed at 132 billion gold marks in 1921; when Germany fell behind, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr on 11 January 1923, the government paid the striking workers by printing money, and the mark died. AQA asks how the war changed Germany, what problems the republic faced, and which mattered most, and it frames the topic through two interpretations that blame either the Allies or the Germans for 1923. This module gives you the chain with its dates and figures, and the shapes to argue it in.

Five words the examiners use

Each definition ends with the moment it mattered, because a bare definition earns nothing in an 8-mark answer.

From defeat to the Rentenmark, in order

Put these six events in the order they happened.

• Sailors mutiny at Kiel, the Kaiser abdicates and the armistice is signed
• The Spartacists rise in Berlin and are crushed by the Freikorps
• Freikorps units seize Berlin in the Kapp Putsch and are defeated by a general strike
• The Allies fix reparations at 132 billion gold marks
• French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr and the government orders passive resistance
• Stresemann ends passive resistance, the Munich Putsch fails, and the Rentenmark replaces the mark

Why did the mark collapse in 1923?

Germany had inflation from 1914, but the mark did not die until 1923. Which explanation best accounts for the collapse?

• The war had been paid for by borrowing and printing rather than taxes, so the mark had already lost most of its value by 1919; Versailles took the Saar coal, the Silesian industry and the colonies while adding a reparations bill of 132 billion marks that Germany paid by printing more; the occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923 stopped the output of the industrial heartland at the same moment the government began paying the wages of the strikers who were producing nothing; and once prices rose by the hour, everyone spent at once, which drove them higher still.
• The Allies deliberately printed German money to ruin the country.
• Speculators and bankers caused it on purpose.
• A general strike stopped all production in 1923.

Who lost and who gained in 1923

The 8-mark "in what ways" question on this key element usually asks how the lives of Germans were affected by hyperinflation. The answer is that it depended who you were, and the examiner credits both columns.

Question 1: how does Interpretation B differ?

Interpretation A, written for this module: "The crisis of 1923 was made in Paris. Versailles stripped Germany of the coal and industry it needed, loaded it with 132 billion marks of reparations it could not pay, and when it fell behind the French marched into the Ruhr. A republic punished for a war it had not started could not have survived such treatment in one piece." Interpretation B follows. Tap the TWO statements from Interpretation B that show a different view from A about why the mark collapsed.

• German governments chose to pay for the war, and then for passive resistance, by printing money rather than raising taxes, and it was that choice, made in Berlin, that turned a hard situation into a catastrophe.
• French and Belgian troops entered the Ruhr on 11 January 1923.
• The decision to order passive resistance and to pay the wages of workers who produced nothing was a German decision, and the mark fell fastest in the months it was in force.
• Reparations were fixed at 132 billion gold marks in 1921.
• By November 1923 the savings of the middle class had been destroyed.

Political unrest, 1919 to 1923

Select the THREE statements that correctly describe the risings against the republic in its first five years.

• The Spartacists, communists led by Liebknecht and Luxemburg, tried to seize Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919 and were crushed by the Freikorps, ex-soldiers the government had called in; both leaders were murdered on 15 January, which set the far left against the republic from its first month.
• In March 1920 Freikorps units due to be disbanded under the Versailles army limits marched into Berlin and proclaimed Wolfgang Kapp chancellor; the army refused to fire on them, the government fled to Stuttgart, and the Putsch collapsed in four days when the Berlin workers went on general strike.
• In November 1923, with the mark worthless and Bavaria defying Berlin, Hitler tried to use the crisis to launch a march on the capital from a Munich beer hall; the police fired on the marchers on 9 November, sixteen Nazis died, and Hitler was imprisoned.
• The Kapp Putsch succeeded and Kapp governed Germany for a year.
• All the risings against the republic came from the left.
• The regular army defended the republic loyally against every rising.

Two interpretations, and why they differ

AQA Paper 1 Section A opens with two interpretations and three questions: how they differ, why they might differ, and which is more convincing. The pair below were written for this module to show the shape; the exam prints real historians. Interpretation 1. The crisis of 1923 was the fault of the Allies. Versailles took the Saar and Silesia, the reparations of 1921 were beyond any economy to pay, and the French occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923 removed the one region that could have earned the money. A young republic asked to pay for a war it had not started was crushed by the peace. Interpretation 2. The crisis was made by German decisions. The mark had lost most of its value by 1919 because the Kaiser had paid for the war by printing rather than taxing; the republic went on printing; and in 1923 the Cuno government chose passive resistance, paying wages to workers who produced nothing, which turned inflation into hyperinflation in ten months. The Allies made the situation hard; Berlin made it fatal. Why might they differ? Evidence chosen: Interpretation 1 reads the treaty, the reparations figure and the occupation; Interpretation 2 reads the printing presses and the exchange rate. Starting point: 1 begins in 1919 with Versailles; 2 begins in 1914 with war finance. Purpose: 1 is the argument every German government made at the time and Stresemann used to get the Dawes Plan; 2 is the argument of historians who ask why other defeated countries did not go the same way. This meant that the same collapse can be read as punishment or as choice, and the convincing question turns on the dates: whether the mark was already dying before the French arrived.

In the shoes of the republic, 1918 to 1923

Four decisions in the first five years. Choose what was actually done, and notice what each choice cost.

• January 1919. You are Ebert, head of the new government. The Spartacists have seized newspaper offices in Berlin and are calling for a soviet Germany. The regular army is unreliable. What do you do?
• March 1920. The Ehrhardt Brigade has marched into Berlin and proclaimed Kapp chancellor. The army chief says troops do not fire on troops. What do you do?
• January 1923. You are Chancellor Cuno. Sixty thousand French and Belgian troops have entered the Ruhr to seize coal because Germany fell behind on deliveries. The army cannot fight them. What do you do?
• September 1923. You are Stresemann, chancellor for a month. Passive resistance has bankrupted the state, the dollar is at hundreds of millions of marks, Saxony has a communist government and Bavaria a nationalist one. What do you do?

From cause to consequence

Because imperial Germany had financed four years of fighting with loans and banknotes instead of taxation, the currency was worth a fraction of its 1914 value before the republic was a year old. Because the republic signed _____ and the armistice, the right called its leaders the November criminals and attacked it in the _____ Putsch of March 1920. Because Germany fell behind on reparations fixed at _____ billion gold marks, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr in January 1923. Because the government ordered passive resistance and paid the strikers with printed money, the mark fell to 4.2 _____ to the dollar by November. And because the middle class lost its savings in 1923, it never forgave the republic, which is one root of the vote for the Nazis after _____.

Measure the collapse of the mark

In 1914 one US dollar bought about 4 marks. By January 1923, before the Ruhr crisis, it bought about 18,000 marks. How many times had the mark fallen in value against the dollar?

Question 4: describe two problems

AQA Question 4 might read: Describe two problems faced by the Weimar Republic in the years 1919 to 1923. It is marked as a problem plus supporting detail, twice, for 4 marks. Which answer scores all four?

• One problem was armed opposition from both extremes: the Spartacists tried to seize Berlin in January 1919 and had to be crushed by the Freikorps, and in March 1920 those same Freikorps seized Berlin themselves in the Kapp Putsch, which the army refused to put down. Another was reparations: the Allies fixed the bill at 132 billion gold marks in April 1921, and when Germany fell behind in 1922 the French and Belgians occupied the Ruhr in January 1923.
• There were uprisings. There was inflation.
• The republic had a terrible time and nearly collapsed.
• The republic had problems because it had signed Versailles and everyone blamed it.

A 12-mark paragraph, marked

Question 6: Which of the following was the more important reason for the crisis of 1923 in Germany: the Treaty of Versailles; the occupation of the Ruhr? Explain your answer with reference to both bullet points. The occupation of the Ruhr was the more important reason, because it turned a chronic problem into a collapse. Versailles had created the conditions: it took the Saar coal and much of Silesia, and its reparations, fixed at 132 billion gold marks in April 1921, were paid by a government that printed money rather than taxed, so that the mark had already fallen from 4.2 to the dollar in 1914 to 18,000 by January 1923. But when around 60,000 French and Belgian troops entered the Ruhr on 11 January 1923 and the Cuno government answered with passive resistance, Germany lost the output of its industrial heartland at the same moment it began paying the wages of workers who produced nothing. This meant that the presses ran without limit, and in ten months the mark went from 18,000 to the dollar to 4.2 trillion, which was the crisis: the savings of the middle class gone, Saxony and Bavaria in revolt, and a Putsch in Munich. Versailles explains why Germany was weak in 1923; the Ruhr explains why 1923 was the year the weakness became catastrophe. What earned the marks: a judgement in the first sentence; both bullet points addressed with specific support (the Saar, 132 billion, 4.2 to 18,000, 60,000 troops, 11 January, 4.2 trillion); the link phrase this meant that; and a closing comparison that says why one outweighs the other. A sustained judgement across both, rather than two paragraphs with a verdict bolted on, is what reaches the top level.

Write the 12-mark answer

Which of the following was the more important reason for the crisis of 1923 in Germany: the Treaty of Versailles; the occupation of the Ruhr? Explain your answer with reference to both bullet points.

• One paragraph on each bullet point, with at least two pieces of specific support in each: a date, a figure, a place or a name
• Use a link phrase such as "this meant that" or "as a result" to turn each piece of support into an explanation of the crisis

Question 3: which interpretation is more convincing?

AQA Question 3 asks which of the two interpretations on the callout card is more convincing about the crisis of 1923, for 8 marks. A student has argued for Interpretation 1, the Allies. Which is the strongest point to set AGAINST it?

• The dates are against it: the dollar already cost 18,000 marks before a single French soldier entered the Ruhr, a fall of more than four thousandfold since 1914 that German governments had produced by choosing printing over taxation, and the fall from 18,000 to 4.2 trillion in 1923 followed the German decision to pay strikers for producing nothing; Versailles and the occupation made the pressure, but Interpretation 2 is more convincing because it explains why the pressure produced hyperinflation in Germany and not in the other defeated states that also owed reparations.
• Versailles was unfair, so Interpretation 1 is right.
• The French were greedy and wanted to destroy Germany.
• Both interpretations are equally convincing because both contain facts.