Occupation of the Ruhr: Difference between revisions
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GHStPaulMN (talk | contribs) Expanded the material and provided citations throughout. Content in the "Occupation" section only is translated from the "Besetzung" section in the existing German Wikipedia article at de: Ruhrbesetzung; see its history for attribution. |
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{{for|the occupation of Germany after World War II|Allied-occupied Germany}} |
{{for|the occupation of Germany after World War II|Allied-occupied Germany}} |
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{{Short description|1923–1925 French and Belgian occupation of |
{{Short description|1923–1925 French and Belgian occupation of Germany's Ruhr district}} |
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{{Infobox military conflict |
{{Infobox military conflict |
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| conflict = Occupation of the Ruhr |
| conflict = Occupation of the Ruhr |
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*{{flagicon|French Third Republic}} [[Raymond Poincaré]] |
*{{flagicon|French Third Republic}} [[Raymond Poincaré]] |
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*{{flagicon|French Third Republic}} Alphonse Caron |
*{{flagicon|French Third Republic}} Alphonse Caron |
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*{{flagicon|French Third Republic}} Jean |
*{{flagicon|French Third Republic}} [[Jean Degoutte]]}} |
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| commander2 = {{plainlist| |
| commander2 = {{plainlist| |
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*{{flagicon|Weimar Republic}} [[Wilhelm Cuno]] |
*{{flagicon|Weimar Republic}} [[Wilhelm Cuno]] |
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| casualties2 = 137 civilians killed (est.) |
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{{Campaignbox Aftermath of World War I}} |
{{Campaignbox Aftermath of World War I}} |
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{{Campaignbox Political violence in Germany}} |
{{Campaignbox Political violence in Germany}} |
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France and Belgium occupied the heavily [[industrialized]] Ruhr Valley in response to Germany defaulting on [[World War I reparations|reparation payments]] dictated by the victorious powers after [[World War I]] in the [[Treaty of Versailles]]. Occupation of the Ruhr worsened the [[World War I reparations#Impact on the German economy|economic crisis in Germany]],<ref name="THE">{{cite web |title=Hyperinflation and the invasion of the Ruhr |url=https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power/the-weimar-republic/invasion-of-the-ruhr/ |website=The Holocaust Explained |date=8 February 1934 |access-date=29 May 2020}}</ref> and German civilians engaged in acts of [[passive resistance]] and [[civil disobedience]], during which 130 were killed. France and Belgium, facing economic and international pressure, accepted the [[Dawes Plan]] to restructure Germany's payment of war reparations in 1924 and withdrew their troops from the Ruhr by August 1925. |
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The occupation of the heavily industrialized Ruhr district came in response to Germany's repeated defaults on the [[World War I reparations|reparations payments]] required under the terms of the [[Treaty of Versailles]]. The French and Belgians intended to force Germany to supply the coal and other raw materials that were part of the reparations. With the active support of the German government, civilians in the area engaged in [[passive resistance]] and [[civil disobedience]] which largely shut down the economy of the region. A number of acts of sabotage and retaliation took place as well. An estimated 137 civilians were killed and 600 injured during the occupation. |
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The Occupation of the Ruhr contributed to [[German rearmament]] and the growth of radical [[right-wing]] and [[left-wing]] movements in Germany.<ref name="THE"/> |
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The ongoing [[World War I reparations#Effect on the German economy|economic crisis in Germany]] worsened considerably as a result of the occupation.<ref name="THE">{{cite web |date= |title=Hyperinflation and the invasion of the Ruhr |url=https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power/the-weimar-republic/invasion-of-the-ruhr/ |access-date=29 May 2020 |website=The Holocaust Explained}}</ref> The government paid for its support of idled workers and businesses primarily by printing paper money. The action contributed significantly to the [[Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic|hyperinflation]] that brought major hardships to Germans across the country. After Germany successfully stabilized its currency in late 1923, France and Belgium, facing economic and international pressures of their own, accepted the 1924 [[Dawes Plan]] drawn up by an international team of experts. It restructured and lowered Germany's war reparations payments and led to France and Belgium withdrawing their troops from the Ruhr by August 1925. |
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The occupation of the Ruhr contributed to the growth of radical right-wing movements in Germany. [[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazi Party]] used the occupation as part of their justification for the [[Beer Hall Putsch]] of November 1923, which brought them wide public attention for the first time.<ref name=":7" /> |
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==Background== |
==Background== |
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⚫ | Under the terms of the [[Treaty of Versailles]] (1919) which formally ended [[World War I]], the [[Occupation of the Rhineland|west bank of the Rhine was occupied]] by the [[Allies of World War I|Allies]], and the east bank within 50 kilometres of the river – which included the Ruhr – was demilitarized (Article 42).<ref>{{Cite wikisource|title=Treaty_of_Versailles/Part_3}}</ref> In addition, Germany [[Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles|was forced to accept responsibility for the damages caused in the war]] and was obliged to pay [[World War I reparations|reparations]] to the Allies. Since the war in the west was fought predominately on French soil, the bulk of the reparations were owed to France. The total sum demanded from Germany – 226 billion [[German mark (1871)|gold marks]] ([[United States dollar|US $]]{{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|64|1921|r=0}}}} billion in {{CURRENTYEAR}}) – was determined by the [[Inter-Allied Reparations Commission|Inter-Allied Reparation Commission]]. In 1921, the amount was reduced to 132 billion (at that time US $31.4 billion; US $442 billion in {{CURRENTYEAR}}).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Felix |first=David |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/oa_monograph/chapter/2476355 |title=Walther Rathenau and the Weimar Republic: The Politics of Reparations |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2019 |isbn= |location=Baltimore |pages=8–24}}</ref> Since part of the payments were in raw materials, some German factories ran short and the [[World War I reparations#Effect on the German economy|German economy suffered]], further damaging the country's ability to pay.<ref>The extent to which payment defaults were genuine or artificial is controversial; see [[World War I reparations#Reparations|]].</ref> France was also suffering from a high deficit accrued during World War I, which resulted in a depreciation of the [[French franc]]. France increasingly looked towards German reparations payments as a way to stabilize its economy.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book|last=Steiner|first=Zara|title=The lights that failed : European international history, 1919–1933|date=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-151881-2|location=Oxford|oclc=86068902}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=June 2024}} |
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[[File:Western Germany 1923 en.png|thumb|upright|Map of the occupation of the [[Rhineland]] (1923)]] |
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Due to delays in reparations deliveries, French and Belgian troops, with British approval, occupied [[Duisburg]] and [[Düsseldorf]] in the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland on 8 March 1921.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Fischer |first=Conan |date=14 October 2016 |editor-last=Daniel |editor-first=Ute |editor2-last=Gatrell |editor2-first=Peter |editor3-last=Janz |editor3-first=Oliver |editor4-last=Jones |editor4-first=Heather |editor5-last=Keene |editor5-first=Jennifer |editor6-last=Kramer |editor6-first=Alan |editor7-last=Nasson |editor7-first=Bill |title=Ruhr Occupation |url=https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/ruhr_occupation |access-date=20 June 2024 |website=1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War |publisher=Freie Universität Berlin}}</ref> In the [[World War I reparations#London Schedule of Payments|London ultimatum]] of 5 May 1921, the Allies attempted to enforce their payment plan for 132 billion gold marks by threatening to occupy the Ruhr if Germany refused to accept the terms. The German government of Chancellor [[Joseph Wirth]] accepted the ultimatum on 11 May and began its "policy of fulfilment" ({{Lang|de|Erfüllungspolitik}}). By attempting to meet the payments, it intended to show the Allies that the demands were beyond Germany's economic means.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Scriba |first=Arnulf |date=14 September 2014 |title=Londoner Ultimatum |url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/weimarer-republik/aussenpolitik/londoner-ultimatum.html |access-date=20 June 2024 |website=Deutsches Historisches Museum |language=de}}</ref> |
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[[File:Occupation of the Rhineland.png|left|thumb|360x360px|Map of the [[Occupation of the Rhineland|occupied Rhineland]]. In the north, the eastward-bulging area around Duisburg, Essen and Dortmund (dotted) largely corresponds to the Ruhr region that was occupied in 1923.]]As a consequence of Germany's failure to make timber deliveries in December 1922, the Reparation Commission declared Germany in default.{{Sfn|Marks|1978|pp=239–241}} Particularly galling to the French was that the timber quota the Germans defaulted on was based on an assessment of capacity the Germans made themselves and subsequently lowered. The Allies believed that the government of Chancellor [[Wilhelm Cuno]], who had succeeded Joseph Wirth in November 1922, had defaulted on the timber deliveries deliberately as a way of testing the will of the Allies to enforce the treaty.{{Sfn|Marks|1978|p=240}} [[Raymond Poincaré]], the French prime minister, hoped for joint Anglo-French economic sanctions against Germany but opposed military action. By December 1922, however, he saw coal for French steel production and payments in money as laid out in the Treaty of Versailles draining away. French and Belgian delegates on the Reparation Commission urged occupying the Ruhr as a way of forcing Germany to pay more, while the British delegate favoured lowering the payments.{{Sfn|Marks|1978|pp=239–240}} The conflict was brought to a head by a German default on coal deliveries in early January 1923, which was the thirty-fourth coal default in the previous thirty-six months.{{Sfn|Marks|1978|p=|pp=241, 244}} After much deliberation, Poincaré decided to occupy the Ruhr on 11 January 1923 in order to exact the reparations. Poincaré knew that it would cost France as well as Germany and told reporters on 29 January 1923:<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Roosevelt |first=Nicholas |date=October 1925 |title=The Ruhr Occupation |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20028426 |journal=Foreign Affairs |publisher=Council on Foreign Relations |volume=4 |issue=1 |page=115 |via=JSTOR}}</ref> <blockquote>Paralyzing the mining industry in the Ruhr may inflict hardships on France as well as Germany, but Germany is the greater loser and France will show the endurance necessary to outwit the German Government. . . . French metallurgy is ready to suspend all operations, if necessary, to prove to the Germans that we are in earnest and intend to pursue our policy even if we suffer also. </blockquote>According to historian [[Sally Marks]], the real issue during the {{Lang|de|Ruhrkampf}} (Ruhr campaign), as the Germans labelled the resistance to the French occupation, was not the German defaults on coal and timber deliveries but the sanctity of the Versailles Treaty.{{Sfn|Marks|1978|p=245}} Poincaré often argued to the British that letting the Germans defy Versailles in regards to reparations would create a precedent that would lead to the Germans dismantling the rest of the Versailles treaty.{{Sfn|Marks|1978|pp=244–248}} Finally, Poincaré argued that once the chains that had bound Germany in Versailles were destroyed, it was inevitable that Germany would plunge the world into another world war.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}} |
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==Occupation== |
==Occupation== |
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-09896, Französische Alpenjäger in den Strassen Buers.jpg|thumb|French [[Chasseurs Alpins]] in [[Buer, Germany|Buer]] ([[Gelsenkirchen]])|275x275px]]Between 11 and 16 January 1923, French and Belgian troops under the command of French General [[Jean Degoutte]], initially numbering 60,000 men<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sewell |first=Rob |date=1988 |title=Germany: From Revolution to Counter-Revolution. The Crisis of 1923 |url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/germany-1918-23/sewell/chapter5.htm |access-date=21 June 2024 |website=Marxists Internet Archive}}</ref> and later climbing to 100,000, occupied the entire Ruhr area as far east as [[Dortmund]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Sturm |first=Reinhard |date=23 December 2011 |title=Kampf um die Republik 1919 - 1923: Ruhrbesetzung |trans-title=Battle for the Republic 1919 - 1923: Occupation of the Ruhr |url=https://www.bpb.de/themen/nationalsozialismus-zweiter-weltkrieg/dossier-nationalsozialismus/39531/kampf-um-die-republik-1919-1923/#node-content-title-17 |access-date=22 June 2024 |website=Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung |language=de}}</ref> |
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-09896, Französische Alpenjäger in den Strassen Buers.jpg|thumb|French [[Chasseurs Alpins]] in [[Buer, Germany|Buer]]]] |
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[[File:French in Dortmund LCCN2014715868 (cropped).jpg|thumb|French troops in [[Dortmund]]]] |
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The French immediately took over civil administration from the Germans. In order to determine the capacity of the smelters and mines to fulfil the reparations, the Inter-Allied Mission for Control of Factories and Mines (MICUM) also moved in with the French and Belgian expeditionary corps.{{Sfn|Fischer|2003|pp=28, 42, 51}} MICUM consisted of 72 French, Belgian and Italian experts, most of whom were engineers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mommsen |first=Hans |title=The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |year=1996 |isbn=0-8078-2249-3 |location=Chapel Hill |pages=133 |translator-last=Forster |translator-first=Elborg |translator-last2=Jones |translator-first2=Larry Eugene}}</ref> |
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After much deliberation, Poincaré decided to occupy the Ruhr on 11 January 1923 to extract the reparations himself. The real issue during the ''Ruhrkampf'' (Ruhr campaign), as the Germans labelled the battle against the French occupation, was not the German defaults on coal and timber deliveries but the sanctity of the Versailles Treaty.<ref name="marks_p245">Marks, p. 245.</ref> Poincaré often argued to the British that letting the Germans defy Versailles in regards to the reparations would create a precedent that would lead to the Germans dismantling the rest of the Versailles treaty.<ref name="marks_pp244_245">Marks, pp. 244–245.</ref> Finally, Poincaré argued that once the chains that had bound Germany in Versailles were destroyed, it was inevitable that Germany would plunge the world into another world war. |
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It is not entirely clear whether Poincaré was concerned with more than just providing reparations. According to some historians, he sought a special status for the Rhineland and the Ruhr comparable to that of the [[Territory of the Saar Basin|Saar]] region, in which affiliation with Germany would have been purely formal and France would have assumed a dominant position.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bühler |first=Johannes |title=Deutsche Geschichte. Band 6: Vom Bismarck-Reich zum geteilten Deutschland |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |year=1960 |location=Berlin |page=547 |language=de |trans-title=German History Vol. 6. From Bismarck's Empire to Divided Germany}}</ref> |
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The government of the United Kingdom categorised the occupation of the Ruhr as illegal. The United States government condemned the occupation as a reprehensible "policy of force".<ref>{{Cite news |date=18 December 1922 |title=Washington mahnt die Europäer zur Vernunft |trans-title=Washington Urges Europeans to See Reason |url=https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/historische-hyperinflation/washington-mahnt-die-europaeer-zur-vernunft-frankfurter-zeitung-von-1922-18542122.html |access-date=21 June 2024 |work=Frankfurter Zeitung |language=de}}</ref> |
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==Resistance== |
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The occupation was met by a campaign of both [[passive resistance]] and [[civil disobedience]] from the German inhabitants of the Ruhr. Chancellor Cuno immediately encouraged the passive resistance,<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Scriba |first=Arnulf |date=10 May 2022 |title=Die Ruhrbesetzung |trans-title=Ruhr Occupation |url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/weimarer-republik/aussenpolitik/ruhrbesetzung-1923.html |access-date=25 June 2024 |website=Deutsches Historisches Museum |language=de}}</ref> and on January 13, the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]] voted 283 to 12 to approve it as a formal policy.<ref>{{cite news |last=Rue |first=Larry |date=14 January 1923 |title=Germans Vote to Back "Moral War" on French |work=[[Chicago Daily Tribune]] |page=2}}</ref> Officials were told not to cooperate with the occupying forces, and deliveries of reparation material were stopped. Protests against the occupation broke out across Germany.<ref name=":1" /> The Reichstag, recognizing that the extraordinary nature of the event could not be met using normal parliamentary measures, passed an [[enabling act]] on 24 February. It gave the Cuno government the power to use all necessary measures to resist the French, but Cuno made relatively little use of it.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Rossiter |first=Clinton |url={{Google books|rsWXgBcTmbwC|page=45|plainurl=yes}} |title=Constitutional Dictatorship |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=2002 |isbn=978-1-412-82027-1 |location=Piscataway, New Jersey |pages=45–47}}</ref> |
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[[File:Mich zwingt ihr nicht (1923).jpg|thumb|Protest poster from 1923 showing a worker refusing French orders: "No! You will not force me!"]] |
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The French initially thought that they could achieve their goals by simply overseeing the work in the mines and steel plants. Given the Germans' refusal to obey their orders, that proved to be impossible.<ref name=":0" /> They arrested the leaders of the strikes and began to bring in their own workers.<ref name="THE" /> Their attempt to ship out ready reserves of coal failed when German railroad officials and workers walked off the job and in some places removed signage from stations and signal boxes. The French then took control of the railroads in the Ruhr, although it took them several months to get them running properly.<ref name=":0" /> The situation for the French was further complicated by the fact that the [[Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate]] moved its headquarters out of the occupied district and thus from control by MICUM. Coal taken out of the Ruhr dropped to less than the French had been receiving previous to the occupation. The Germans also stopped importing iron ore, which caused significant financial losses in the French iron mining region of [[Lorraine]].{{Sfn|Mommsen|1996|p=132}} |
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Even though relatively little violence accompanied the passive resistance,<ref name=":4" /> French authorities imposed between 120,000 and 150,000 sentences against resisting Germans. Some involved prison sentences, but the overwhelming majority were deportations from the Ruhr district and the Rhineland to the unoccupied part of Germany.<ref name=":2" /> Among those arrested were [[Fritz Thyssen]] of the [[Thyssen AG|Thyssen steel company]] for his refusal to deliver coal and [[Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach|Gustav Krupp]], who held a large public funeral following an incident at the [[Krupp works]] in which 13 striking workers were killed by French troops. Krupp was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined 100 million marks, but he served only 7 months and was released when passive resistance was called off.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Blume |first=Dorlis |last2=Wichmann |first2=Manfred |date=15 September 2023 |title=Chronik 1923 |url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/jahreschronik/1923 |access-date=27 June 2023 |website=Deutsches Historisches Museum |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=26 June 2019 |title=Oster-Massaker in Essen vom 31. März 1923 und Krupp-Prozesse vom 4. bis 8. Mai 1923 |trans-title=Easter Massacre in Essen of 31 March 1923 and Krupp Trials of 4 to 8 May 1923 |url=https://www.pacelli-edition.de/schlagwort-pdf.html?idno=456 |access-date=27 June 2024 |website=Pacelli Edition |language=de}}</ref> The French also set up a blockade between the Ruhr and the rest of Germany. Deliveries of food, which were not included in the blockade, were nevertheless so badly disrupted that between 200,000 and 300,000 undernourished or starving children were evacuated from the Ruhr.<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Inspecting a Barge along the Rhine-Herne Canal during the Occupation of the Ruhr Region (February 3, 1923) |url=https://ghdi.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=4165&language=english |access-date=25 June 2024 |website=GHDI (German History in Documents and Images)}}</ref> |
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Acts of sabotage were carried out by both nationalists and communists.<ref name=":2" /> They blew up train tracks and canal bridges to stop the delivery of reparations material to France, attacked French and Belgian posts and killed at least eight collaborators.<ref name=":1" /> Some of the arms used by adherents of right-wing paramilitary groups were clandestinely supplied by the [[Reichswehr]], the German armed forces of the Weimar Republic.{{Sfn|Mommsen|1996|p=131}} In one incident of sabotage that gained wide public attention, the National Socialist [[Albert Leo Schlageter|Albert Schlageter]] was executed by the French for destroying a section of railroad track. He became a martyr figure in Germany, most notably to [[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazism|Nazis]].<ref name=":2" /> |
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On the night of Sunday, 10 June 1923, two Frenchmen were shot dead in Dortmund by unknown persons. At midday the occupying forces imposed a curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Dortmund residents who had gone on an excursion into the surrounding countryside were not informed of the measure. Six men from Dortmund and a Swiss citizen were shot without warning on their return. The burial of the Dortmunders on 15 June was attended by 50,000 people.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Dortmund: Kurze Informationen aus einer langen Geschichte, Herausgegeben anläßlich des 13. Hansetages der Neuzeit in Münster, 12.–15. August 1993 |publisher=Eigenverlag |year=1993 |edition=3rd |location=Dortmund |language=de |trans-title=Dortmund. Short information from a long history, published on the occasion of the 13th Hansa Convention of Modern Times in Münster, 12–15 August 1993}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=July 2024}} |
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Acts of violence and accidents caused by the occupying forces had resulted in 137 deaths and 603 injuries by August 1924, shortly before the passive resistance was called off. Monetary damages to the economy of the Ruhr caused by the occupation were estimated at between 3.5 and 4 billion gold marks.<ref name=":1" /> |
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Initiated by Poincaré, the intervention took place on 11 January 1923. General Alphonse Caron's [[32nd Infantry Division (France)|32nd Infantry Division]], under the supervision of General Jean-Marie Degoutte, carried out the operation.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Die deutsche Mentalitat. Funf Jahre B. am Rhein|last = Mordacq|first = Henri|page = 165}}</ref> Since the [[Territory of the Saar Basin]] was separated from Germany, the supply of iron ore fell on the French side and coal on the German side, but the two commodities had far more value together than separately: the supply chain had grown tightly integrated during the industrialization of Germany after 1870, but the problems of currency, transportation and import/export barriers threatened to destroy the steel industry in both countries.<ref>[[John Maynard Keynes]], ''The economic consequences of the Peace''.</ref> Eventually, this problem was resolved in the post-[[World War II]] [[European Coal and Steel community]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.robert-schuman.eu/en/declaration-of-9-may-1950|title=Declaration of 9 may – Robert Schuman Foundation|website=www.robert-schuman.eu|access-date=2019-01-11}}</ref> |
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{{See also|Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic|Cuno strikes}} |
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In addition to calling for passive resistance, Chancellor Cuno and his government undertook to support the workers idled by the shutdown of factories and mines. Ruhr industrial firms agreed not to lay off their employees and have them stay on to repair and maintain equipment. The government in return provided the firms with low interest loans and direct compensation. It also paid the salaries of civil service employees who were not working. From 60 to 100 percent of all wages in the Ruhr were in the end paid by the government.{{Sfn|Mommsen|1996|p=132}} Since it lacked any other means to meet the enormous costs, it printed more and more paper money.<ref name="THE" /> The move helped spark the [[Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic|hyperinflation of 1923]], during which Germany's currency, the [[Papiermark]], fell from 17,000 to the US dollar at the beginning of the year to 4.2 trillion at the peak of the inflation.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bisno |first=Adam |date=23 May 2023 |title=How Hyperinflation Heralded the Fall of German Democracy |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-hyperinflation-heralded-the-fall-of-german-democracy-180982204/ |access-date=25 June 2024 |website=The Smithsonian}}</ref> Germany's financial system broke down. There were food riots in the Ruhr<ref name=":4" /> and a nationwide wave of [[Cuno strikes|strikes against the Cuno government]], which resigned on 12 August 1923.<ref name=":22">{{Cite web |last=Michaelis |first=Andreas |date=14 September 2014 |title=Wilhelm Cuno 1876–1933 |url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/biografie/wilhelm-cuno.html |access-date=26 June 2024 |website=Deutsches Historisches Museum |language=de}}</ref> |
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Germany's new government, led by [[Gustav Stresemann]] of the [[German People's Party]] announced the end of passive resistance on 26 September. Two months later, the government replaced the Papiermark with the [[Rentenmark]] and restored the value of Germany's currency.<ref name=":1" /> In order to handle the economic fallout from the Ruhr occupation, Stresemann made extensive use of a second enabling act of 13 October.<ref name=":6" /> |
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Following France's decision to invade the Ruhr,<ref>Fischer, p. 28.</ref> the Inter-Allied Mission for Control of Factories and Mines (MICUM)<ref>Fischer, p. 42.</ref> was set up as a means of ensuring coal repayments from Germany.<ref>Fischer, p. 51.</ref> |
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== End of the occupation == |
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00121, München, Turnfest, Festzug.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Protests by gymnasts from the Ruhr at the 1923 [[Munich]] Gymnastics Festival (The sign on the left reads "German the Ruhr remains" [unusual word order in the original, for emphasis]; the sign on the right reads "We never ever want to be servants!" )]] |
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The Allied occupation was greeted by a campaign of both [[passive resistance]] and civil disobedience from the German inhabitants. Approximately 130 German civilians were killed by the French occupation army during the events, including during [[civil disobedience]] protests, e.g., against dismissal of German officials.<ref>{{Cite news|url = https://newspaperarchive.com/us/montana/anaconda/anaconda-standard/1923/02-10/page-6?tag=germans+killed+in+ruhr&rtserp=tags/?pep=germans-killed-in-ruhr|title = Anaconda Standard|date = 1923-02-10|quote = Twenty Germans were said to have been killed and several French soldiers wounded when a mob at Rapoch attempted to prevent the expulsion of one hundred officials. Picture shows French guard being doubled outside the station at Bochum following a collision between German mob and the French}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url = https://newspaperarchive.com/us/pennsylvania/hanover/hanover-evening-sun/1923/03-15?tag=germans+killed+in+ruhr&rtserp=tags/?pep=germans-killed-in-ruhr/|title = Hanover Evening Sun|date = 1923-03-15|quote = Three Germans killed in Ruhr by French sentries}}</ref> Some theories assert that to pay for passive resistance in the Ruhr, the German government began the [[Inflation in the Weimar Republic|hyperinflation]] that destroyed the German economy in 1923.<ref name="marks_p245"/> Others state that the road to hyperinflation was well established before with the reparation payments that started on November 1921,<ref>Ferguson, Adam; ''When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation and Hyperinflation in Weimar Germany'' p. 38. {{ISBN|1-58648-994-1}}</ref> In the face of [[economic collapse]], with high [[unemployment]] and hyperinflation, the [[Strike action|strikes]] were eventually called off in September 1923 by the new [[Gustav Stresemann]] coalition government, which was followed by a [[state of emergency]]. Despite this, civil unrest grew into [[Riot|riots]] and [[Coup d'état|coup]] attempts targeted at the government of the [[Weimar Republic]], including the [[Beer Hall Putsch]] which brought [[Adolf Hitler]] and the [[Nazi Party]] into mainstream German politics for the first time. The [[Rhenish Republic]] was proclaimed at [[Aachen]] (Aix-la-Chapelle) in October 1923.<ref>{{Cite web| url=https://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/0910/joohyung/ljh2.html#IV32|title=WHKMLA : The French Occupation of the Rhineland, 1918–1930|website=www.zum.de|access-date=2019-01-11}}</ref> |
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Though the French succeeded in making their occupation of the Ruhr pay, the Germans, through their passive resistance in the Ruhr and the hyperinflation that wrecked their economy, won the world's sympathy, and under heavy Anglo-American financial pressure (the simultaneous decline in the value of the franc made the French very open to pressure from [[Wall Street]] and the [[City of London]]), the French were forced to agree to the [[Dawes Plan]] of April 1924, which substantially lowered German reparations payments.<ref>Marks, pp. 245–246.</ref> Under the Dawes Plan, Germany paid only 1 billion marks in 1924, and then increasing amounts for the next three years, until the total rose to 2.25 billion marks by 1927. |
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Chancellor Stresemann returned to the policy of fulfilment introduced by Joseph Wirth. Stresemann's goal, however, was to improve international relations by making a good faith effort to comply with the terms of the [[Treaty of Versailles]]. He ordered striking workers (from the Cuno strikes) back to work and announced Germany's intention to once again make reparations payments. The moves restored enough international confidence in Germany so that when Stresemann sought discussions with the Allied Powers which would take into consideration what Germany was financially capable of paying, the Reparations Commission set up the Dawes committee, headed by the American economist [[Charles Dawes]]. It recommended that total reparations be reduced to 50 billion marks from 132 billion. Germany also received a loan of 800 million gold marks, financed primarily by American banks.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Stresemann and the Dawes Plan |url=https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power/the-weimar-republic/stresemann-dawes |access-date=27 June 2024 |website=The Holocaust Explained}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=9 April 2014 |title=9. April 1924 - Dawes-Plan vorgelegt |trans-title=9 April 1924 - Dawes Plan presented |url=https://www1.wdr.de/stichtag/stichtag8232.html |access-date=27 June 2024 |website=Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) |language=de}}</ref> |
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===Sympathy for Germany=== |
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⚫ | British Labour Prime Minister [[Ramsay MacDonald]], who viewed the 132 billion figure as impossible for Germany to pay, successfully pressured French Premier [[Édouard Herriot]] into a series of concessions to Germany.{{Sfn|Marks|1978|p=248}} The British diplomat Sir [[Eric Phipps]] commented that "The London Conference was for the French man in the street one long [[Calvary]] as he saw M. Herriot abandoning one by one the cherished possessions of French preponderance on the Reparation Commission, the right of sanctions in the event of German default, the economic occupation of the Ruhr, the French-Belgian railroad Régie, and finally, the military occupation of the Ruhr within a year".<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |title=The Legacy of the Great War. Peacemaking, 1919 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-669-41711-1 |editor-last=Keylor |editor-first=William R. |location=Boston |page=166}}</ref> Under heavy Anglo-American financial pressure as well – the decline in the value of the franc made the French open to pressure from [[Wall Street]] and the [[City of London]] – the French agreed to the [[Dawes Plan]].{{Sfn|Marks|1978|pp=245–246}} Following approval by the German Reichstag, the plan went into effect on 1 September 1924. The financial burden on Germany was eased, and its international relations improved.<ref name=":3" /> |
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=== French and Belgian withdrawal === |
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Internationally, the French invasion of Germany did much to boost sympathy for the German Republic, although no action was taken in the [[League of Nations]] since it was technically legal under the Treaty of Versailles.<ref>Walsh, p. 142.</ref> France's allies [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]] and [[First Czechoslovak Republic|Czechoslovakia]] opposed the occupation because of their commercial links with Germany and their concern that the action would push Germany into a closer alliance with the [[Soviet Union]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Steiner|first=Zara|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/86068902|title=The lights that failed : European international history, 1919–1933|date=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-151881-2|location=Oxford|oclc=86068902}}</ref> The French, with their own economic problems, eventually accepted the Dawes Plan and withdrew from the occupied areas in July and August 1925. The last French troops evacuated [[Düsseldorf]] and [[Duisburg]] along with the city's important harbour in Duisburg-[[Ruhrort]], ending French occupation of the Ruhr region on 25 August 1925. According to Sally Marks, the occupation of the Ruhr "was profitable and caused neither the German hyperinflation, which began in 1922 and ballooned because of German responses to the Ruhr occupation, nor the franc's 1924 collapse, which arose from French financial practices and the evaporation of reparations".<ref>Sally Marks, '1918 and After. The Postwar Era', in Gordon Martel (ed.), ''The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered. Second Edition'' (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 26.</ref> Marks suggests the profits, after Ruhr-Rhineland occupation costs, were nearly 900 million gold marks.<ref>Marks, p. 35, no. 57.</ref> |
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On 3 September 1924, the [[Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission]] returned control of local administration and the economy to the Germans. An amnesty was decreed, and most outward signs of the occupation largely disappeared from public view. The last French troops evacuated Düsseldorf and Duisburg along with the city's important harbour in Duisburg-[[Ruhrort]] on 25 August 1925.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ulrich |first=Bernd |date=11 January 2023 |title=Kriegerischer Akt gegen Deutschlands industriellen Kern |trans-title=Warlike Act Against Germany's Industrial Core |url=https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/ruhrbesetzung-102.html |access-date=28 June 2024 |website=Deutschlandfunk |language=de}}</ref> |
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== International reaction == |
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==British perspective== |
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⚫ | When on 12 July 1922 |
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The French invasion of Germany did much to boost sympathy for the German republic internationally, although no action was taken at the [[League of Nations]] since the occupation was technically legal under the Treaty of Versailles.{{sfn|Walsh|2001||p=142}} France's allies [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]] and [[First Czechoslovak Republic|Czechoslovakia]] opposed the occupation because of their commercial links with Germany and their concern that the action would push Germany into a closer alliance with the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name=":8" />{{Page needed|date=June 2024}} |
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⚫ | When on 12 July 1922 Germany demanded a moratorium on reparation payments, tension developed between the French government of Poincaré and the [[Lloyd George ministry|coalition government]] of [[David Lloyd George]]. The [[Labour Party (UK)|British Labour Party]] demanded peace and denounced Lloyd George as a troublemaker. It saw Germany as the martyr of the postwar period and France as vengeful and the principal threat to peace in Europe. The tension between France and the United Kingdom peaked during a conference in Paris in early 1923, by which time the coalition led by Lloyd George had been [[1922 United Kingdom general election|replaced]] by the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservatives]]. The Labour Party opposed the occupation of the Ruhr throughout 1923, which it rejected as French imperialism. The British Labour Party believed it had won when Poincaré accepted the Dawes Plan in 1924.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=de Boulois |first=Aude Dupré |date=1999 |title=Les Travaillistes, la France et la Question Allemande (1922–1924) |trans-title=Labour, France and the German Question (1922–1924) |journal=Revue d'Histoire Diplomatique |language=fr |volume=113 |issue=1 |pages=75–100}}</ref> |
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== French perspective == |
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⚫ | Despite his disagreements with the United Kingdom, Poincaré desired to preserve the Anglo-French entente and |
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⚫ | Despite his disagreements with the United Kingdom, Poincaré desired to preserve the Anglo-French entente and moderated his aims to a degree. His major goal was winning the extraction of reparation payments from Germany. His inflexible methods and authoritarian personality led to the failure of his diplomacy.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hall III |first=Hines H. |date=1982 |title=Poincaré and Interwar Foreign Policy: 'L'Oublie de la Diplomatie' in Anglo-French Relations, 1922–1924 |journal=Proceedings of the Western Society for French History |volume=10 |pages=485–494}}</ref> After Poincaré's coalition lost the [[1924 French legislative election]] to [[Édouard Herriot]]'s [[Radical Party (France)|Radical]]-led coalition, France began making concessions to Germany.<ref name=":8" />{{Page needed|date=June 2024}} |
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==Aftermath== |
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According to historian Sally Marks, the occupation of the Ruhr "was profitable and caused neither the German hyperinflation, which began in 1922 and ballooned because of German responses to the Ruhr occupation, nor the franc's 1924 collapse, which arose from French financial practices and the evaporation of reparations".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Marks |first=Sally |title=The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered |publisher=Routledge |year=1999 |editor-last=Martel |editor-first=Gordon |edition=2nd |location=London |page=26 |chapter=1918 and After. The Postwar Era}}</ref> Marks suggests that the profits, after Ruhr-Rhineland occupation costs, were nearly 900 million gold marks.{{Sfn|Marks|1999|p=35, no. 57}} |
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The [[Saar (League of Nations)|Saar region]] remained under French control until the [[1935 Saar status referendum]], which handed the territory to [[Nazi Germany]]. |
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After the government in Berlin called an end to passive resistance to the Ruhr occupation, the government of [[Bavaria]] declared a state of emergency and named its minister president, [[Gustav Ritter von Kahr]], state commissioner general with dictatorial powers. In response, German President [[Friedrich Ebert]] instituted a state of emergency throughout the country and transferred executive power to Minister of Defence [[Otto Gessler]]. Kahr and two associates advocated a march on Berlin to overthrow the government, but on 8 November 1923 [[Adolf Hitler]] and members of the [[Nazi Party]] broke into their meeting and began the [[Beer Hall Putsch]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Beer Hall Putsch (Munich Putsch) |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/beer-hall-putsch-munich-putsch |access-date=28 June 2024 |website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Sturm |first=Reinhard |date=23 December 2011 |title=Kampf um die Republik 1919 – 1923: Rechtsdiktatur in Bayern |trans-title=Battle for the Republic 1919 – 1923: Dicltatorship of the Right in Bavaria |url=https://www.bpb.de/themen/nationalsozialismus-zweiter-weltkrieg/dossier-nationalsozialismus/39531/kampf-um-die-republik-1919-1923/#node-content-title-20 |access-date=28 June 2024 |website=Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung |language=de}}</ref> They justified the attempt, which brought them wide public attention for the first time, in part by the "chaos" caused by the occupation of the Ruhr.<ref name=":7">{{Cite web |title=Adolf Hitler: 1919–1924 |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/adolf-hitler-1919-1924 |access-date=28 June 2024 |website=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref> |
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⚫ | The French occupation of the Ruhr accelerated the formation of right-wing parties. The ruling centre-left coalition was discredited by its inability to address the crisis, while the far left [[Communist Party of Germany]] remained inactive for much of the period under the direction of the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet Politburo]] and the [[Communist International|Comintern]].<ref name=":8" />{{pn|date=March 2024}} Disoriented by the defeat in the war, [[Conservative Revolution|conservatives]] in 1922 founded a consortium of [[German nationalism|nationalist]] associations, the {{Lang|de|Vereinigten Vaterländischen Verbände Deutschlands}} (VVVD, "United Patriotic Associations of Germany"). Their goal was to forge a united front of the right. In the climate of national resistance against the French Ruhr invasion, the VVVD reached its peak strength. It advocated policies of uncompromising [[monarchism]], [[corporatism]] and opposition to the Treaty of Versailles. However, it lacked internal unity and money and so never managed to unite the right. It had faded away by the late 1920s, as the [[Nazi Party|NSDAP]] (Nazi party) grew in strength.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Diehl |first=James M. |date=October 1985 |title=Von Der 'Vaterlandspartei' zur 'Nationalen Revolution': Die 'Vereinigten Vaterländischen Verbände Deutschlands (VVVD)' 1922–1932 |trans-title=From "party for the fatherland" to "national revolution": the United Fatherland Associations of Germany (VVVD), 1922–32 |journal=Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte |language=de |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=617–639}}</ref> |
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</ref> |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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* [[History of the Ruhr]] |
* [[History of the Ruhr]] |
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* [[Occupation of the Rhineland]] |
* [[Occupation of the Rhineland]] |
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* [[Remilitarization of the Rhineland]] |
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* [[International Authority for the Ruhr]] |
* [[International Authority for the Ruhr]] |
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==Sources== |
==Sources== |
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* Fischer |
* {{Cite book |last=Fischer |first=Conan |title=The Ruhr Crisis, 1923–1924 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-198-20800-6 |location=Oxford }} [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=8996 online review] |
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* Marks |
* {{Cite journal |last=Marks |first=Sally |date=September 1978 |title=The Myths of Reparations |url=http://www.jstor.com/stable/4545835 |journal=Central European History |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=231–255 |via=JSTOR}} |
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* O'Riordan, Elspeth Y. "British Policy and the Ruhr Crisis 1922–24," ''Diplomacy & Statecraft'' (2004) 15 No. 2 pp. 221–251. |
* O'Riordan, Elspeth Y. "British Policy and the Ruhr Crisis 1922–24," ''Diplomacy & Statecraft'' (2004) 15 No. 2 pp. 221–251. |
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* O'Riordan, Elspeth Y. |
* O'Riordan, Elspeth Y. ''Britain and the Ruhr Crisis'' (London, 2001). |
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* Walsh |
* {{Cite book |last=Walsh |first=Ben |title=History in Focus: GCSE Modern World History; |publisher=John Murray |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-719-57713-0 |location=London}} |
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===French and German=== |
===French and German=== |
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* Stanislas Jeannesson, ''Poincaré, la France et la Ruhr 1922–1924. Histoire d'une occupation'' (Strasbourg, 1998) |
* Stanislas Jeannesson, ''Poincaré, la France et la Ruhr 1922–1924. Histoire d'une occupation'' (Strasbourg, 1998) |
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* Michael Ruck, ''Die Freien Gewerkschaften im Ruhrkampf 1923'' (Frankfurt am Main, 1986) |
* Michael Ruck, ''Die Freien Gewerkschaften im Ruhrkampf 1923'' (Frankfurt am Main, 1986) |
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* Barbara Müller, ''Passiver Widerstand im Ruhrkampf. Eine Fallstudie zur gewaltlosen zwischenstaatlichen Konfliktaustragung und ihren Erfolgsbedingungen'' (Münster, 1995) |
* Barbara Müller, ''Passiver Widerstand im Ruhrkampf. Eine Fallstudie zur gewaltlosen zwischenstaatlichen Konfliktaustragung und ihren Erfolgsbedingungen'' (Münster, 1995) |
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* Gerd Krüger, Das "Unternehmen Wesel" im Ruhrkampf von 1923. Rekonstruktion eines misslungenen Anschlags auf den Frieden, in Horst Schroeder, Gerd Krüger, ''Realschule und Ruhrkampf. Beiträge zur Stadtgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts'' (Wesel, 2002), pp. 90–150 (Studien und Quellen zur Geschichte von Wesel, 24) [esp. on the background of so-called 'active' resistance] |
* Gerd Krüger, Das "Unternehmen Wesel" im Ruhrkampf von 1923. Rekonstruktion eines misslungenen Anschlags auf den Frieden, in Horst Schroeder, Gerd Krüger, ''Realschule und Ruhrkampf. Beiträge zur Stadtgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts'' (Wesel, 2002), pp. 90–150 (Studien und Quellen zur Geschichte von Wesel, 24) [esp. on the background of so-called 'active' resistance] |
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* Gerd Krumeich, Joachim Schröder (eds.), ''Der Schatten des Weltkriegs: Die Ruhrbesetzung 1923'' (Essen, 2004) (Düsseldorfer Schriften zur Neueren Landesgeschichte und zur Geschichte Nordrhein-Westfalens, 69) |
* Gerd Krumeich, Joachim Schröder (eds.), ''Der Schatten des Weltkriegs: Die Ruhrbesetzung 1923'' (Essen, 2004) (Düsseldorfer Schriften zur Neueren Landesgeschichte und zur Geschichte Nordrhein-Westfalens, 69) |
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* Gerd Krüger, "Aktiver" und passiver Widerstand im Ruhrkampf 1923, in Günther Kronenbitter, Markus Pöhlmann, Dierk Walter (eds.), ''Besatzung. Funktion und Gestalt militärischer Fremdherrschaft von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert'' (Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich, 2006), pp. 119–30 (Krieg in der Geschichte, 28) |
* Gerd Krüger, "Aktiver" und passiver Widerstand im Ruhrkampf 1923, in Günther Kronenbitter, Markus Pöhlmann, Dierk Walter (eds.), ''Besatzung. Funktion und Gestalt militärischer Fremdherrschaft von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert'' (Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich, 2006), pp. 119–30 (Krieg in der Geschichte, 28) |
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==External links== |
==External links== |
Revision as of 11:57, 8 July 2024
Occupation of the Ruhr | |||||||
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Part of the Aftermath of World War I and Political violence in Germany (1918–1933) | |||||||
![]() French soldiers and a German civilian in the Ruhr in 1923 | |||||||
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137 civilians killed (est.) |
The Occupation of the Ruhr (German: Ruhrbesetzung) was the period from 11 January 1923 to 25 August 1925 when French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr region of Weimar Republic Germany.
The occupation of the heavily industrialized Ruhr district came in response to Germany's repeated defaults on the reparations payments required under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The French and Belgians intended to force Germany to supply the coal and other raw materials that were part of the reparations. With the active support of the German government, civilians in the area engaged in passive resistance and civil disobedience which largely shut down the economy of the region. A number of acts of sabotage and retaliation took place as well. An estimated 137 civilians were killed and 600 injured during the occupation.
The ongoing economic crisis in Germany worsened considerably as a result of the occupation.[1] The government paid for its support of idled workers and businesses primarily by printing paper money. The action contributed significantly to the hyperinflation that brought major hardships to Germans across the country. After Germany successfully stabilized its currency in late 1923, France and Belgium, facing economic and international pressures of their own, accepted the 1924 Dawes Plan drawn up by an international team of experts. It restructured and lowered Germany's war reparations payments and led to France and Belgium withdrawing their troops from the Ruhr by August 1925.
The occupation of the Ruhr contributed to the growth of radical right-wing movements in Germany. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party used the occupation as part of their justification for the Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, which brought them wide public attention for the first time.[2]
Background
Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) which formally ended World War I, the west bank of the Rhine was occupied by the Allies, and the east bank within 50 kilometres of the river – which included the Ruhr – was demilitarized (Article 42).[3] In addition, Germany was forced to accept responsibility for the damages caused in the war and was obliged to pay reparations to the Allies. Since the war in the west was fought predominately on French soil, the bulk of the reparations were owed to France. The total sum demanded from Germany – 226 billion gold marks (US $1,093 billion in 2024) – was determined by the Inter-Allied Reparation Commission. In 1921, the amount was reduced to 132 billion (at that time US $31.4 billion; US $442 billion in 2024).[4] Since part of the payments were in raw materials, some German factories ran short and the German economy suffered, further damaging the country's ability to pay.[5] France was also suffering from a high deficit accrued during World War I, which resulted in a depreciation of the French franc. France increasingly looked towards German reparations payments as a way to stabilize its economy.[6][page needed]
Due to delays in reparations deliveries, French and Belgian troops, with British approval, occupied Duisburg and Düsseldorf in the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland on 8 March 1921.[7] In the London ultimatum of 5 May 1921, the Allies attempted to enforce their payment plan for 132 billion gold marks by threatening to occupy the Ruhr if Germany refused to accept the terms. The German government of Chancellor Joseph Wirth accepted the ultimatum on 11 May and began its "policy of fulfilment" (Erfüllungspolitik). By attempting to meet the payments, it intended to show the Allies that the demands were beyond Germany's economic means.[8]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Occupation_of_the_Rhineland.png/229px-Occupation_of_the_Rhineland.png)
As a consequence of Germany's failure to make timber deliveries in December 1922, the Reparation Commission declared Germany in default.[9] Particularly galling to the French was that the timber quota the Germans defaulted on was based on an assessment of capacity the Germans made themselves and subsequently lowered. The Allies believed that the government of Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno, who had succeeded Joseph Wirth in November 1922, had defaulted on the timber deliveries deliberately as a way of testing the will of the Allies to enforce the treaty.[10] Raymond Poincaré, the French prime minister, hoped for joint Anglo-French economic sanctions against Germany but opposed military action. By December 1922, however, he saw coal for French steel production and payments in money as laid out in the Treaty of Versailles draining away. French and Belgian delegates on the Reparation Commission urged occupying the Ruhr as a way of forcing Germany to pay more, while the British delegate favoured lowering the payments.[11] The conflict was brought to a head by a German default on coal deliveries in early January 1923, which was the thirty-fourth coal default in the previous thirty-six months.[12] After much deliberation, Poincaré decided to occupy the Ruhr on 11 January 1923 in order to exact the reparations. Poincaré knew that it would cost France as well as Germany and told reporters on 29 January 1923:[13]
Paralyzing the mining industry in the Ruhr may inflict hardships on France as well as Germany, but Germany is the greater loser and France will show the endurance necessary to outwit the German Government. . . . French metallurgy is ready to suspend all operations, if necessary, to prove to the Germans that we are in earnest and intend to pursue our policy even if we suffer also.
According to historian Sally Marks, the real issue during the Ruhrkampf (Ruhr campaign), as the Germans labelled the resistance to the French occupation, was not the German defaults on coal and timber deliveries but the sanctity of the Versailles Treaty.[14] Poincaré often argued to the British that letting the Germans defy Versailles in regards to reparations would create a precedent that would lead to the Germans dismantling the rest of the Versailles treaty.[15] Finally, Poincaré argued that once the chains that had bound Germany in Versailles were destroyed, it was inevitable that Germany would plunge the world into another world war.[citation needed]
Occupation
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-09896%2C_Franz%C3%B6sische_Alpenj%C3%A4ger_in_den_Strassen_Buers.jpg/275px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-09896%2C_Franz%C3%B6sische_Alpenj%C3%A4ger_in_den_Strassen_Buers.jpg)
Between 11 and 16 January 1923, French and Belgian troops under the command of French General Jean Degoutte, initially numbering 60,000 men[16] and later climbing to 100,000, occupied the entire Ruhr area as far east as Dortmund.[17]
The French immediately took over civil administration from the Germans. In order to determine the capacity of the smelters and mines to fulfil the reparations, the Inter-Allied Mission for Control of Factories and Mines (MICUM) also moved in with the French and Belgian expeditionary corps.[18] MICUM consisted of 72 French, Belgian and Italian experts, most of whom were engineers.[19]
It is not entirely clear whether Poincaré was concerned with more than just providing reparations. According to some historians, he sought a special status for the Rhineland and the Ruhr comparable to that of the Saar region, in which affiliation with Germany would have been purely formal and France would have assumed a dominant position.[20]
The government of the United Kingdom categorised the occupation of the Ruhr as illegal. The United States government condemned the occupation as a reprehensible "policy of force".[21]
Resistance
The occupation was met by a campaign of both passive resistance and civil disobedience from the German inhabitants of the Ruhr. Chancellor Cuno immediately encouraged the passive resistance,[22] and on January 13, the Reichstag voted 283 to 12 to approve it as a formal policy.[23] Officials were told not to cooperate with the occupying forces, and deliveries of reparation material were stopped. Protests against the occupation broke out across Germany.[17] The Reichstag, recognizing that the extraordinary nature of the event could not be met using normal parliamentary measures, passed an enabling act on 24 February. It gave the Cuno government the power to use all necessary measures to resist the French, but Cuno made relatively little use of it.[24]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/Mich_zwingt_ihr_nicht_%281923%29.jpg/220px-Mich_zwingt_ihr_nicht_%281923%29.jpg)
The French initially thought that they could achieve their goals by simply overseeing the work in the mines and steel plants. Given the Germans' refusal to obey their orders, that proved to be impossible.[13] They arrested the leaders of the strikes and began to bring in their own workers.[1] Their attempt to ship out ready reserves of coal failed when German railroad officials and workers walked off the job and in some places removed signage from stations and signal boxes. The French then took control of the railroads in the Ruhr, although it took them several months to get them running properly.[13] The situation for the French was further complicated by the fact that the Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate moved its headquarters out of the occupied district and thus from control by MICUM. Coal taken out of the Ruhr dropped to less than the French had been receiving previous to the occupation. The Germans also stopped importing iron ore, which caused significant financial losses in the French iron mining region of Lorraine.[25]
Even though relatively little violence accompanied the passive resistance,[7] French authorities imposed between 120,000 and 150,000 sentences against resisting Germans. Some involved prison sentences, but the overwhelming majority were deportations from the Ruhr district and the Rhineland to the unoccupied part of Germany.[22] Among those arrested were Fritz Thyssen of the Thyssen steel company for his refusal to deliver coal and Gustav Krupp, who held a large public funeral following an incident at the Krupp works in which 13 striking workers were killed by French troops. Krupp was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined 100 million marks, but he served only 7 months and was released when passive resistance was called off.[26][27] The French also set up a blockade between the Ruhr and the rest of Germany. Deliveries of food, which were not included in the blockade, were nevertheless so badly disrupted that between 200,000 and 300,000 undernourished or starving children were evacuated from the Ruhr.[7][28]
Acts of sabotage were carried out by both nationalists and communists.[22] They blew up train tracks and canal bridges to stop the delivery of reparations material to France, attacked French and Belgian posts and killed at least eight collaborators.[17] Some of the arms used by adherents of right-wing paramilitary groups were clandestinely supplied by the Reichswehr, the German armed forces of the Weimar Republic.[29] In one incident of sabotage that gained wide public attention, the National Socialist Albert Schlageter was executed by the French for destroying a section of railroad track. He became a martyr figure in Germany, most notably to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.[22]
On the night of Sunday, 10 June 1923, two Frenchmen were shot dead in Dortmund by unknown persons. At midday the occupying forces imposed a curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Dortmund residents who had gone on an excursion into the surrounding countryside were not informed of the measure. Six men from Dortmund and a Swiss citizen were shot without warning on their return. The burial of the Dortmunders on 15 June was attended by 50,000 people.[30][page needed]
Acts of violence and accidents caused by the occupying forces had resulted in 137 deaths and 603 injuries by August 1924, shortly before the passive resistance was called off. Monetary damages to the economy of the Ruhr caused by the occupation were estimated at between 3.5 and 4 billion gold marks.[17]
End of resistance
In addition to calling for passive resistance, Chancellor Cuno and his government undertook to support the workers idled by the shutdown of factories and mines. Ruhr industrial firms agreed not to lay off their employees and have them stay on to repair and maintain equipment. The government in return provided the firms with low interest loans and direct compensation. It also paid the salaries of civil service employees who were not working. From 60 to 100 percent of all wages in the Ruhr were in the end paid by the government.[25] Since it lacked any other means to meet the enormous costs, it printed more and more paper money.[1] The move helped spark the hyperinflation of 1923, during which Germany's currency, the Papiermark, fell from 17,000 to the US dollar at the beginning of the year to 4.2 trillion at the peak of the inflation.[31] Germany's financial system broke down. There were food riots in the Ruhr[7] and a nationwide wave of strikes against the Cuno government, which resigned on 12 August 1923.[32]
Germany's new government, led by Gustav Stresemann of the German People's Party announced the end of passive resistance on 26 September. Two months later, the government replaced the Papiermark with the Rentenmark and restored the value of Germany's currency.[17] In order to handle the economic fallout from the Ruhr occupation, Stresemann made extensive use of a second enabling act of 13 October.[24]
End of the occupation
Dawes Plan
Chancellor Stresemann returned to the policy of fulfilment introduced by Joseph Wirth. Stresemann's goal, however, was to improve international relations by making a good faith effort to comply with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. He ordered striking workers (from the Cuno strikes) back to work and announced Germany's intention to once again make reparations payments. The moves restored enough international confidence in Germany so that when Stresemann sought discussions with the Allied Powers which would take into consideration what Germany was financially capable of paying, the Reparations Commission set up the Dawes committee, headed by the American economist Charles Dawes. It recommended that total reparations be reduced to 50 billion marks from 132 billion. Germany also received a loan of 800 million gold marks, financed primarily by American banks.[33][34]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-00769%2C_Dortmund%2C_Letzte_Franzosen_verlassen_die_Stadt.jpg/260px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-00769%2C_Dortmund%2C_Letzte_Franzosen_verlassen_die_Stadt.jpg)
British Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, who viewed the 132 billion figure as impossible for Germany to pay, successfully pressured French Premier Édouard Herriot into a series of concessions to Germany.[35] The British diplomat Sir Eric Phipps commented that "The London Conference was for the French man in the street one long Calvary as he saw M. Herriot abandoning one by one the cherished possessions of French preponderance on the Reparation Commission, the right of sanctions in the event of German default, the economic occupation of the Ruhr, the French-Belgian railroad Régie, and finally, the military occupation of the Ruhr within a year".[36] Under heavy Anglo-American financial pressure as well – the decline in the value of the franc made the French open to pressure from Wall Street and the City of London – the French agreed to the Dawes Plan.[37] Following approval by the German Reichstag, the plan went into effect on 1 September 1924. The financial burden on Germany was eased, and its international relations improved.[33]
French and Belgian withdrawal
On 3 September 1924, the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission returned control of local administration and the economy to the Germans. An amnesty was decreed, and most outward signs of the occupation largely disappeared from public view. The last French troops evacuated Düsseldorf and Duisburg along with the city's important harbour in Duisburg-Ruhrort on 25 August 1925.[38]
International reaction
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/France_Invades_Ruhr_Chicago_Daily_Tribune_6_March_1923.jpg/220px-France_Invades_Ruhr_Chicago_Daily_Tribune_6_March_1923.jpg)
The French invasion of Germany did much to boost sympathy for the German republic internationally, although no action was taken at the League of Nations since the occupation was technically legal under the Treaty of Versailles.[39] France's allies Poland and Czechoslovakia opposed the occupation because of their commercial links with Germany and their concern that the action would push Germany into a closer alliance with the Soviet Union.[6][page needed]
When on 12 July 1922 Germany demanded a moratorium on reparation payments, tension developed between the French government of Poincaré and the coalition government of David Lloyd George. The British Labour Party demanded peace and denounced Lloyd George as a troublemaker. It saw Germany as the martyr of the postwar period and France as vengeful and the principal threat to peace in Europe. The tension between France and the United Kingdom peaked during a conference in Paris in early 1923, by which time the coalition led by Lloyd George had been replaced by the Conservatives. The Labour Party opposed the occupation of the Ruhr throughout 1923, which it rejected as French imperialism. The British Labour Party believed it had won when Poincaré accepted the Dawes Plan in 1924.[40]
Despite his disagreements with the United Kingdom, Poincaré desired to preserve the Anglo-French entente and moderated his aims to a degree. His major goal was winning the extraction of reparation payments from Germany. His inflexible methods and authoritarian personality led to the failure of his diplomacy.[41] After Poincaré's coalition lost the 1924 French legislative election to Édouard Herriot's Radical-led coalition, France began making concessions to Germany.[6][page needed]
According to historian Sally Marks, the occupation of the Ruhr "was profitable and caused neither the German hyperinflation, which began in 1922 and ballooned because of German responses to the Ruhr occupation, nor the franc's 1924 collapse, which arose from French financial practices and the evaporation of reparations".[42] Marks suggests that the profits, after Ruhr-Rhineland occupation costs, were nearly 900 million gold marks.[43]
German politics
After the government in Berlin called an end to passive resistance to the Ruhr occupation, the government of Bavaria declared a state of emergency and named its minister president, Gustav Ritter von Kahr, state commissioner general with dictatorial powers. In response, German President Friedrich Ebert instituted a state of emergency throughout the country and transferred executive power to Minister of Defence Otto Gessler. Kahr and two associates advocated a march on Berlin to overthrow the government, but on 8 November 1923 Adolf Hitler and members of the Nazi Party broke into their meeting and began the Beer Hall Putsch.[44][45] They justified the attempt, which brought them wide public attention for the first time, in part by the "chaos" caused by the occupation of the Ruhr.[2]
The French occupation of the Ruhr accelerated the formation of right-wing parties. The ruling centre-left coalition was discredited by its inability to address the crisis, while the far left Communist Party of Germany remained inactive for much of the period under the direction of the Soviet Politburo and the Comintern.[6][page needed] Disoriented by the defeat in the war, conservatives in 1922 founded a consortium of nationalist associations, the Vereinigten Vaterländischen Verbände Deutschlands (VVVD, "United Patriotic Associations of Germany"). Their goal was to forge a united front of the right. In the climate of national resistance against the French Ruhr invasion, the VVVD reached its peak strength. It advocated policies of uncompromising monarchism, corporatism and opposition to the Treaty of Versailles. However, it lacked internal unity and money and so never managed to unite the right. It had faded away by the late 1920s, as the NSDAP (Nazi party) grew in strength.[46]
See also
References
- ^ a b c "Hyperinflation and the invasion of the Ruhr". The Holocaust Explained. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
- ^ a b "Adolf Hitler: 1919–1924". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 28 June 2024.
- ^ Wikisource. – via
- ^ Felix, David (2019). Walther Rathenau and the Weimar Republic: The Politics of Reparations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 8–24.
- ^ The extent to which payment defaults were genuine or artificial is controversial; see [[World War I reparations#Reparations|]].
- ^ a b c d Steiner, Zara (2005). The lights that failed : European international history, 1919–1933. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-151881-2. OCLC 86068902.
- ^ a b c d Fischer, Conan (14 October 2016). Daniel, Ute; Gatrell, Peter; Janz, Oliver; Jones, Heather; Keene, Jennifer; Kramer, Alan; Nasson, Bill (eds.). "Ruhr Occupation". 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Freie Universität Berlin. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
- ^ Scriba, Arnulf (14 September 2014). "Londoner Ultimatum". Deutsches Historisches Museum (in German). Retrieved 20 June 2024.
- ^ Marks 1978, pp. 239–241.
- ^ Marks 1978, p. 240.
- ^ Marks 1978, pp. 239–240.
- ^ Marks 1978, pp. 241, 244.
- ^ a b c Roosevelt, Nicholas (October 1925). "The Ruhr Occupation". Foreign Affairs. 4 (1). Council on Foreign Relations: 115 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Marks 1978, p. 245.
- ^ Marks 1978, pp. 244–248.
- ^ Sewell, Rob (1988). "Germany: From Revolution to Counter-Revolution. The Crisis of 1923". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
- ^ a b c d e Sturm, Reinhard (23 December 2011). "Kampf um die Republik 1919 - 1923: Ruhrbesetzung" [Battle for the Republic 1919 - 1923: Occupation of the Ruhr]. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (in German). Retrieved 22 June 2024.
- ^ Fischer 2003, pp. 28, 42, 51.
- ^ Mommsen, Hans (1996). The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. Translated by Forster, Elborg; Jones, Larry Eugene. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 133. ISBN 0-8078-2249-3.
- ^ Bühler, Johannes (1960). Deutsche Geschichte. Band 6: Vom Bismarck-Reich zum geteilten Deutschland [German History Vol. 6. From Bismarck's Empire to Divided Germany] (in German). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 547.
- ^ "Washington mahnt die Europäer zur Vernunft" [Washington Urges Europeans to See Reason]. Frankfurter Zeitung (in German). 18 December 1922. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
- ^ a b c d Scriba, Arnulf (10 May 2022). "Die Ruhrbesetzung" [Ruhr Occupation]. Deutsches Historisches Museum (in German). Retrieved 25 June 2024.
- ^ Rue, Larry (14 January 1923). "Germans Vote to Back "Moral War" on French". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 2.
- ^ a b Rossiter, Clinton (2002). Constitutional Dictatorship. Piscataway, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. pp. 45–47. ISBN 978-1-412-82027-1.
- ^ a b Mommsen 1996, p. 132.
- ^ Blume, Dorlis; Wichmann, Manfred (15 September 2023). "Chronik 1923". Deutsches Historisches Museum (in German). Retrieved 27 June 2023.
- ^ "Oster-Massaker in Essen vom 31. März 1923 und Krupp-Prozesse vom 4. bis 8. Mai 1923" [Easter Massacre in Essen of 31 March 1923 and Krupp Trials of 4 to 8 May 1923]. Pacelli Edition (in German). 26 June 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
- ^ "Inspecting a Barge along the Rhine-Herne Canal during the Occupation of the Ruhr Region (February 3, 1923)". GHDI (German History in Documents and Images). Retrieved 25 June 2024.
- ^ Mommsen 1996, p. 131.
- ^ Dortmund: Kurze Informationen aus einer langen Geschichte, Herausgegeben anläßlich des 13. Hansetages der Neuzeit in Münster, 12.–15. August 1993 [Dortmund. Short information from a long history, published on the occasion of the 13th Hansa Convention of Modern Times in Münster, 12–15 August 1993] (in German) (3rd ed.). Dortmund: Eigenverlag. 1993.
- ^ Bisno, Adam (23 May 2023). "How Hyperinflation Heralded the Fall of German Democracy". The Smithsonian. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
- ^ Michaelis, Andreas (14 September 2014). "Wilhelm Cuno 1876–1933". Deutsches Historisches Museum (in German). Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ^ a b "Stresemann and the Dawes Plan". The Holocaust Explained. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
- ^ "9. April 1924 - Dawes-Plan vorgelegt" [9 April 1924 - Dawes Plan presented]. Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) (in German). 9 April 2014. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
- ^ Marks 1978, p. 248.
- ^ Keylor, William R., ed. (1998). The Legacy of the Great War. Peacemaking, 1919. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-669-41711-1.
- ^ Marks 1978, pp. 245–246.
- ^ Ulrich, Bernd (11 January 2023). "Kriegerischer Akt gegen Deutschlands industriellen Kern" [Warlike Act Against Germany's Industrial Core]. Deutschlandfunk (in German). Retrieved 28 June 2024.
- ^ Walsh 2001, p. 142.
- ^ de Boulois, Aude Dupré (1999). "Les Travaillistes, la France et la Question Allemande (1922–1924)" [Labour, France and the German Question (1922–1924)]. Revue d'Histoire Diplomatique (in French). 113 (1): 75–100.
- ^ Hall III, Hines H. (1982). "Poincaré and Interwar Foreign Policy: 'L'Oublie de la Diplomatie' in Anglo-French Relations, 1922–1924". Proceedings of the Western Society for French History. 10: 485–494.
- ^ Marks, Sally (1999). "1918 and After. The Postwar Era". In Martel, Gordon (ed.). The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. p. 26.
- ^ Marks 1999, p. 35, no. 57.
- ^ "Beer Hall Putsch (Munich Putsch)". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 28 June 2024.
- ^ Sturm, Reinhard (23 December 2011). "Kampf um die Republik 1919 – 1923: Rechtsdiktatur in Bayern" [Battle for the Republic 1919 – 1923: Dicltatorship of the Right in Bavaria]. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (in German). Retrieved 28 June 2024.
- ^ Diehl, James M. (October 1985). "Von Der 'Vaterlandspartei' zur 'Nationalen Revolution': Die 'Vereinigten Vaterländischen Verbände Deutschlands (VVVD)' 1922–1932" [From "party for the fatherland" to "national revolution": the United Fatherland Associations of Germany (VVVD), 1922–32]. Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (in German). 33 (4): 617–639.
Sources
- Fischer, Conan (2003). The Ruhr Crisis, 1923–1924. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-198-20800-6. online review
- Marks, Sally (September 1978). "The Myths of Reparations". Central European History. 11 (3): 231–255 – via JSTOR.
- O'Riordan, Elspeth Y. "British Policy and the Ruhr Crisis 1922–24," Diplomacy & Statecraft (2004) 15 No. 2 pp. 221–251.
- O'Riordan, Elspeth Y. Britain and the Ruhr Crisis (London, 2001).
- Walsh, Ben (2001). History in Focus: GCSE Modern World History;. London: John Murray. ISBN 978-0-719-57713-0.
French and German
- Stanislas Jeannesson, Poincaré, la France et la Ruhr 1922–1924. Histoire d'une occupation (Strasbourg, 1998)
- Michael Ruck, Die Freien Gewerkschaften im Ruhrkampf 1923 (Frankfurt am Main, 1986)
- Barbara Müller, Passiver Widerstand im Ruhrkampf. Eine Fallstudie zur gewaltlosen zwischenstaatlichen Konfliktaustragung und ihren Erfolgsbedingungen (Münster, 1995)
- Gerd Krüger, Das "Unternehmen Wesel" im Ruhrkampf von 1923. Rekonstruktion eines misslungenen Anschlags auf den Frieden, in Horst Schroeder, Gerd Krüger, Realschule und Ruhrkampf. Beiträge zur Stadtgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Wesel, 2002), pp. 90–150 (Studien und Quellen zur Geschichte von Wesel, 24) [esp. on the background of so-called 'active' resistance]
- Gerd Krumeich, Joachim Schröder (eds.), Der Schatten des Weltkriegs: Die Ruhrbesetzung 1923 (Essen, 2004) (Düsseldorfer Schriften zur Neueren Landesgeschichte und zur Geschichte Nordrhein-Westfalens, 69)
- Gerd Krüger, "Aktiver" und passiver Widerstand im Ruhrkampf 1923, in Günther Kronenbitter, Markus Pöhlmann, Dierk Walter (eds.), Besatzung. Funktion und Gestalt militärischer Fremdherrschaft von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich, 2006), pp. 119–30 (Krieg in der Geschichte, 28)
External links
- Occupation after the War (France and Belgium) at 1914–1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Ruhr Occupation at 1914–1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
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