1.3- Economic & Social issues 

Occupation of the Rhur

• January 1923
• 6000 men marched into the German industrial state
• this number later rose to 100,000
• The Franco Belgian troops wanted goods as reparation payments
• the Germans physically couldn’t fight back as they were disarmed and it would look like they were insighting war
• passive resistance payed workers to not comply with the troops
• 132 were shot in the 8 month occupation

Timeline of the Ruhr

• December 1922- Germany already behind on reparation payments, this causes Cuno to order passive resistance.
• January 1923- Paramilitary were to sabotage the Franco Belgian efforts, E.g. blowing up railways. In response to this 150,000 Germans were expelled from the area.
• May 1923- Output of the Rhur fell to 1/5 compared to before the occupation, this shows the passive resistance success as Franco-Belgians couldn’t benefit off the production
• August 1925- troops eventually withdrew following the dawes plan

Effects of the occupation

• Paying striking workers meant printing more money
• loss of tax revenue
• the cost of bread in November of 1923 was 201 billion marks

Social impact of Hyperinflation

• the social group that was effected the most was the middle class especially those with cash savings

• wages stayed the same as prices rose

• 1919 law introduced for the working day to be maximum of 8 hours- people couldn’t work more to earn more money to combat hyperinflation poverty.

• 1922 national youth welfare act was passed making local authorities responsible for children. this was expensive so they printed more money to pay for it.

What financial problems occurred after WW1?

• Germany chose to finance the war through increased lending, this debt grew and the value of Germany currency fell as they printed more money to pay off the debt.
• Their plans to make back the money to pay for this debt relied on them winning the war so they could annex industrial plants off defeated enemies and making said enemies pay reparations.
• 1.44 billion marks in debt

What impact did reparations have ?

Political

• politicians wanted to reject ToV
• reparations comitions report caused a political crisis
• new government as another starts to collapse
• start of fulfillment policy

economic

• extra time was granted for payments and loans
• no gold reserve to back up currency, they used coal payments instead of gold
• printed more money to solve more problems

Winners and losers of this

-winners

• those with debt - the currency was worthless so therefore their debt was basically cleared.
• food was in high demand so farmers got more since their community bartered more

losers

• land lords reliant on fixed rate rents
• those who bought war bonds as they were now worthless
• those with cash savings

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