Temporary currency Rentenmark, backed by assets in land, property & industrial capital stabilised currency.
Rentenmark put on a secure footing, supported by American loan & converted to the gold standard. Renamed Reichsmark.
Dawes Plan (1924) made reparations manageable with stages of increasing instalments.
Big American firms including General Motors, Ford & General Electric planned factories in Germany.
Foreign credits to Germany of $5 billion by 1930.
Industrial production in Europe rose by over 20% between 1925 & 1929.
Expansion of modern communication: half a million telephone lines in Berlin & 4 million radios.
300,000 new homes built each year by new German democratic state.
By 1930, one in seven homes were new.
In 1929, employers locked entire workforce of Ruhr iron & steel industries out to enforce new wage rates in defiance of national arbitration award.
Modern American management techniques rationalised industrial production.
Unemployment insurance introduced in 1927.
Economy in most of Europe recovered strongly in second half of 1920s with modest improvements in standard of living for many people.
British foreign policy aimed to reduce tension in Europe.
French foreign policy aimed to balance security with rapprochement with Germany.
Stresemann believed in need to put relations with France on a new footing.
Stresemann's aim was 'a peaceful Germany at the centre of a peaceful Europe.'
Treaty of Locarno (1925): Germany, France & Belgium agreed not to attack each other. GB & Italy were guarantors.
The five powers guaranteed Germany's western borders and DMZ of Rhineland.
Germany joined the League of Nations in 1926.
French foreign secretary, Briand, declared "Away with the rifles" when Germany joined the League.
Under the Young Plan (1929) Germany would pay significantly less reparations, especially in early years.
Six out of seven voters in the 1929 referendum on the Young Plan accepted it.
Allies agreed to evacuate the Rhineland if Germany accepted the Young Plan.
Germany had a long tradition of democratic idealism, party-politics, a developed bureaucracy & well-educated population.
Communist support fell to 9% in 1924 with corresponding rise in votes for moderate SPD.
The extreme Right had fragmented after Hitler's attempted putsch in Nov 1923.
The conservative Right lost heavily in the 1928 general election.
Nazis received only 2.6% of the popular vote in 1928.
Under Muller, the SPD headed the government (in a 'grand coalition' with the Catholics & liberals) for the first time since 1920.
