Week 8Modernity and its Discontents

“Stab in the Back Legend”

The Crisis of Classical Modernity

Societal Changes

• Demographics

• Class

• Gender

The Upper Classes• Limited social change:• The aristocracy (at least temporarily) dislodged from their

dominant position.• Aristocratic ranks and titles banned after 1918 – many families

incorporate their titles into their surnames.• Nevertheless, industrialists and landowners still powerful and

the old elites represented in the Reichstag by the DVP and DNVP.

• The Officer Corps of the Reichswehr more aristocratic than the old Imperial Army:– 25% of regular officers came from old military families in

1913,– this number had risen to 67% by 1929.

The Middle Classes

• Small businesses struggled to survive in the difficult economic climate of the 1920s and early 30s.

• Many middle class families continued to fear a loss of status and the threat of revolution and the extreme left.

• Also a lack of identification with the new Republic.

• Even those who came to accept it often had little love for it (Vernunftrepublikaner)

Family of the Lawyer Dr Fritz von Glaser

(1920) by Otto Dix.

The Working Classes• Shorter working day, legal

Union representation and higher wages.

• Slow improvement in living standards after 1924.

• SPD government in Prussia invested in public works – affordable housing, increased benefits, education etc.

• Extension of adult education aimed at workers.

• But curriculum designed to raise class consciousness, not improve employment prospects or provide re-training.

Youth

• New sensitivity to lack of proper supervision of youth and too much freedom for jugendliche

• 1922 Reich Youth Welfare Law: “Every German child has the right to an upbringing that will ensure physical, intellectual and social fitness.”

• Boy subcultures• Youth unemployment

The New Woman!

Economic Instability & Crisis

1921: German reparations set at 132 billion gold marks accompanied by a complicated yet arguably tenable payment plan.

Resulting anxiety over “debt slavery” and widespread dissatisfaction w/ Versailles Treaty

Inflation

1914-1918Wartime inflation caused by •Issuing of war bonds•Increased circulation of paper money•Shortage of consumer goods •Black market price hiking

By the end of the war, the German mark held less than half of its prewar purchasing power.

Inflation1919: DemobilizationReluctance to introduce austerity measures and reliance on a cheap money policy meant that within the year, the mark fell another 50% in value.

The following year, it was further devalued to less than 1/3 of this value.

Inflation1922Currency circulation & Erfüllungspolitik pushed economic stability. Mark’s value plummeted. 1 prewar mark = 341.82 marks in 1922

German Policy

Erfüllungspolitik (Policy of Fulfillment)

vs.

Katastrophenpolitik (Catastrophe Policy)

Rapallo TreatySigned by Germany and Soviet Union in April 1922

Katastrophenpolitik

End of 1922: Germany claims it cannot make reparations payments and asks for temporary moratorium

11 January 1923: French march into the Ruhr

German govt. calls for passive resistance

Stand-off in the Ruhr

Hyperinflation

HyperinflationBy mid-1923 the German mark was losing value by the minute:

A loaf of bread that cost 20,000 marks in the morning cost 5,000,000 marks by nightfall

Restaurant prices went up while customers were eating.

Workers were paid twice a day.

When economic collapse finally came on November 15, 1923: 4.2 trillion German marks = 1 American dollar.

Meanwhile…

The Munich ‘Beer Hall’ Putsch (1923)

Defendants at the treason trial following the Munich Beer Hall Pustsch. Ludendorff is in

The centre. Hitler is to the right.

New Statesmanship

Gustav Stresemann, 1878-1929

• Vernunftrepublikaner

• Chancellor then Foreign Minister

• Opponent of new German constitution & Versailles Treaty

• Locarno Treaties (1925)

Economic Marker26 November 1923: German govt. concedes policy

failure and Stresemann concedes to French demands

German economic collapse draws in Americans.30 November 1923: Reparation Committee chaired

by American Charles Dawes reassess Germany’s reparation plan.

April 1924: Dawes Plan created new payment scale; offered American credits; and put in place a system of reparations supervision. Plan puts int’l pressure on France to withdraw from Ruhr

August 1925: French began withdrawal

Rentenmark

Hyperinflation and subsequent collapse make new fiscal reforms palatable.

1924: Shortly after the signing of the Dawes Plan, a new German currency, the Rentenmark, was issued backed by German property assets and tied to a gold exchange standard.

Winners / Losers

• General understanding of the situation

• Psychological impacts

• Shifts in perception & values from the Wilhelmine Era