Economic Recovery-Stresemann

• Rentenmark


  New currency issued by the Rentenbank in November 1923, with a strictly limited supply and tied to the price of gold, backed by German industrial plants and agricultural land
• Rentenmark introduction


  1. Rentenbank set up

  2. New currency issued

  3. Supply strictly limited

  4. Value tied to gold price

  5. Backed by German industrial plants and agricultural land
• Reichsmark


  Currency that replaced the Rentenmark, backed by Germany's gold reserves
• Rentenmark and Reichsmark introduction

  German money trusted at home and abroad, hyperinflation ended
• This provided a much stronger basis for the recovery of German businesses and improvements to employment
• It could not bring back the losses of those people ruined by hyperinflation
• Dawes Plan, 1924


  Plan to resolve Germany's non-payment of reparations, including temporarily reduced reparations payments and US loans to German industry
• Dawes Plan implementation


  Improved the Weimar Republic's economy, benefiting working-class and middle-class Germans
• Industrial output doubled between 1923 and 1928, passing pre-First World War levels
• Employment, trade and income from taxation increased
• The extreme political parties were furious that Germany had again agreed to pay reparations
• The fragile economic recovery depended on American loans
• Young Plan, 1929


  Plan that reduced Germany's total reparations debt and extended the payment period
• Young Plan implementation


  Lower reparations payments allowed the government to lower taxes on ordinary German people, boosting German industry and creating more jobs
• The extreme political parties were incensed by the Young Plan
• The annual reparations payments were still £50 million per year, stretching out until 1988
• The Young Plan was seen as a success for Stresemann, with a referendum showing 85% of voters in favour
• Locarno Pact, 1925


  Treaty between Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Belgium, where Germany accepted its new border with France and the Rhineland was permanently demilitarised
• Locarno Pact signing


  Made war in Europe less likely, boosted the prestige of the Weimar Republic and increased confidence in the moderate political parties
• Some extreme parties resented that the hated Versailles borders had been confirmed
• Germany's admission to the League of Nations

  Germany was given a place on the League of Nations Council, boosting the confidence of most Germans in the Weimar Republic
• Some political parties saw the League as a symbol of the hated Treaty of Versailles and wanted nothing to do with it
• Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928


  Pact promising states would not use war to achieve foreign policy aims, showing Germany was now included amongst the main powers
• The Kellogg-Briand Pact did nothing to remove the hated terms of the Treaty of Versailles