The Weimar Republic Refers to Germany and its political system between 1918 and 1933, from the

end of World War I to the rise of Nazism. The formation of the Weimar Republic was a bold attempt to create a modern liberal democracy, in a nation with little

experience in both liberalism and democracy.

Weimar Republic Provinces

Freikorps

The freikorps had military experience and could more effectively fight against the governmentthe freikorps comprised the government's main protection, so if they rebelled the government couldn't fight against them

The Freikorps were ex-servicemen who remained armed and wanted a nationalist government. Politicians had little control over the Freikorps and they came to symbolise the instability of Germany during the aftermath of the First World War.

Spartacists

The Spartacists were a group of communists who believed that Germany should be run along the same lines as communist Russia. The Spartacists January 1919, started their own revolution by seizing important government buildings. Ebert, who lacked soldiers, asked the Freikorps to help defeat the revolution.

After brutal fighting on the streets of Berlin, the Spartacist uprising was defeated by the Freikorps. A hundred Spartacists were killed compared to only thirteen Freikorps. Ebert had saved Germany from revolutionary communists but had put his government in the hands of the army and the Freikorps, neither of whom could be trusted.

The Ruhr

Crisis

France's goal was to weaken the German economy has much as possible through reparations

When Germany missed a delivery of timber as part of her reparations, France and Belgium invaded the Ruhr region

Britain was strongly against this The goal of France was to collect the missed payment from the

Germans by taking the goods from the mines and factories and shipping them to France

The German workers did not co-operate with the French, instead they protested by destroying the goods, the mines and the factories

The event broke out into a violent conflict and resulted in inflation The Weimar Government which already had a serious inflation

problem made things worse by printing more money to help support the workers which resulted in disastrous inflation

Locarno

The appointment of Gustav Stresmann as chancellor of Germany changed everything

Stresmann called off the resistance in the Ruhr and announced that Germany would agree to the obligations set by the Treaty of Versailles, it would also accept its current borders with France and Belgium

This resulted in the Locarno Treaty which was signed in 1925

The Locarno Treaty was an agreement made between Belgium, France, the UK and Germany in which Germany agreed to accept its western boundaries as it was agreed in the Versailles Treaty

Results

The Locarno Treaty resulted in a sense of excitement and optimism

Tension between the Allies and Germany was finally resolving which meant that a sense of peace was present 

Kapp Putsch

The Kapp Putsch was a direct threat to Weimar’s new government. Kapp was assisted by General Luttwitz who led a group of Freikorps men. On March 13th, 1920, Luttwitz seized Berlin and proclaimed that a new right of centre nationalist government was being established with Kapp as chancellor.

Ebert had no immediate response to this in the sense that he could not impose his will on the situation. For the second time, he had to leave his capital 

The general strike called for by Ebert ensured that those who supported Kapp could not move around and such paralysis doomed the putsch to failure. Kapp and Luttwitz fled Berlin on March 17th.

Importance

The five days of the Kapp Putsch are of importance asthey showed that:

The government could not enforce its authority even in its own capital The government could not put down a challenge to its authority Only the mass power of a general strike could re-establish Ebert’s authority.However, the success of this strike does indicate that the people of Berlin were willing to support Ebert’s government rather than a right-wing government lead by Kapp. In this sense, it can be argued that Ebert had the support of Berliners. A counter-argument to this is that Ebert was irrelevant to the Berliners thinking – they simply wanted no more trouble in their capital after experiencing the Spartacists/Communist rebellion in 1919. Peace was more important than political beliefs.