Why Was the Recovery of the Weimar Republic from 1924 to 1929 Not Actually a Great Success?

There were many ways in which there were problems and the recovery was not really all it seemed to be, historian R. Bessel put it nicely, saying that Weimar Republic rested on shaky foundations. Firstly, although there were economic advances there were still problems. There was more inequality in society and some groups benefited a lot more than others. Big businesses and landowners gained a lot during this time but peasant farmers, who started overproducing, and some sections of the middle class, e.g. small shop keepers, lost out. Moreover, unemployment rose from 4% in 1923 to 8.2% in 1929. This left some people feeling that the government was not doing enough for them. On the other hand, some employers said that welfare benefits for the poor should be cut as taxes were too high.

Another big underlying problem with this economic recovery was that it was largely as a result of the Dawes Plan i.e. a loan from America. This over-reliance on foreign aid is very dangerous and risky because if something suddenly goes wrong and America called in its loans it could have disastrous effects on Germany.

The politics of Germany was still not in a great state either. In this period the chancellor changed 4 times and no single party ever got a majority. This caused an unstable government and one that could not make quick decisive decisions as each party had its own view. The parties only managed to stay in coalition because of the actions of their leaders. In fact, Gustav Stolper a DDP Reichstag member said that There are no government parties, only opposition parties.

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Another political problem was that a considerable amount of votes were still going to parties who were opposed to the Republic such as the Communist party, DNVP (German National Peopleâs Party) and the Nazis e.g. in 1928, 23% of the MPs elected were from either the Communists of Nazis. In this period the Nazis also managed to set themselves up as a respectable party and Hitler was still working hard to gain support.

Stresemann's foreign policy and his attempts to form friendlier relations made some Germans, especially the Nationalists, see him as weak because he was not standing up for Germany's rights while

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