Unit 1

• Sparticists uprising: 1918 and Kapp Putsch: 1920
• sparticists uprising was backed by Soviet Union and was well funded
• 400,000 members
• Sparticist uprising supported communism and was extreme socialists
• There was a protest on 6th January 1918, and government was losing control.
• Ebert worked to dismiss the sparticists and was successful
• Sparticists uprising was led by Kiebnecht and Luxemburg
• Luxemburg and Kiebknecht was killed by the Freikorps
• The Kapp Putsch was in 1920
• During Kapp Putsch the German government was struggling to control Freikorps (ex army soldiers)
• The Freikorps attempted to overthrow the Weimer Republic
• Ebert called for a strike to defeat the Sparticists, but the workers refused to strike
• Ebert called for a strike to defeat Kapp Putsch
• 12 million worked striked so there was no services
• The Putsch failed and Kapp fled to Sweden
• The ‘war guilt clause’ meant Germany was responsible for World War I
• Germany had to pay £6.6 billion in repirations.
• Armistice: an agreement made by Germany in a war to stop fighting.
• The invasion of the Ruhr happened in 1923
• Germany didn’t pay the full amount of repirations to the allies
• France and Belgium felt entitled to seize raw material from the Ruhr as repirations
• the Weimar Republic ordered workers of the Ruhr to follow a policy of passive resistance
• This defeated France, however it caused a massive impact on German Economy
• Weimar Republic didn’t have enough money to subside Germans
• So this forced them to print of more money, therefore the value of currency decreased and the value of goods increased
• $1 turned into $160,000 German marks
• Germans were unable to afford food or fuel so they resorted to burning books and furniture to keep warm
• Inflation was also linked with political instability
• The Great Depression was a period of economic instability in the 1930s
• Stresemann ended the hyperinflation by stopping the passive resistance in the Ruhr
• Reparations had been agreed at Versailles but Stresemann negotiated a new agreement called Dawes Plan which reduced reparations payments from £6 billion to £2 billion over 58 years
• Dawes plan helped stabilise the economy as it meant that Germany could pay off its debts without having to resort to printing money