Walther Rathenau and the Weimar Republic: the politics of reparations. --

Originally published in 1971. This book examines reparations in Germany following the First World War. Financial reparation was the most difficult and dangerous of the conditions imposed upon Germany by the Versailles Treaty. The amount of reparations - three times the country's annual income - was beyond Germany's capacity to pay. The United States, by insisting on the payment of Allied war debts, forced the Allies in turn to insist on reparations. Postwar polemics concentrated on German aggression and war crimes, but the real issue was the damage done to the world's economic mechanism. In the end all nations suffered, including the United States. Financial reparation was the most difficult and dangerous of the conditions imposed upon Germany by the Versailles Treaty. the amount of reparationsthree times the country's annual incomewas beyond Germany's capacity to pay. Nor was Germany permitted to build up trade surpluses that might at least have made partial reparations possible. The United States, by insisting on the payment of Allied debts, forced the Allies in turn to insist on reparations. Postwar polemics concentrated on German aggression and war crimes, but the real issue was the damage done to the world's economic mechanism. In the end all nations suffered, including the United States. Walter Rathenau, German Reconstruction Minister in 1921 and Foreign Minister in 1922and a Jewbore the main wight of these problems. He was the first of his country's leaders to articulate the policy of fulfillment, the German effort to cooperate with the Allies. Stresemann went on to carry it out during most of the interwar period, and Brning brought it to its logical and disastrous conclusion. Fulfillment helped the Weimar Republic to survive, but it also prepared the way for Hitler. No Jew before or after Rathenau has ever held so much power in the German government. One of the few Jews accepted into the salons of the aristocracy, he had been a prominent business executive and author of several somewhat socialistic books on economic and social problems. Professor Felix shows how Rathenau succeeded with fulfillmentand how he failed. With exquisite tact and rich resources of ideas, Rathenau negotiated a harmless agreement with France that confused a hostile French public opinion. He went on to persuade Britain's Lloyd George to reduce reparations. In 1922 Rathenau inspired two international conferences: at Cannes in January, and at Genoa in April and May. But negative factors countered every success, and the situation began to disintegrate. With the French refusing to make more concessions, hope for real reparation relief vanished. In Germany inflation spiraled upward and the fury of the nationalists increased. Tensions became unbearable. The result, after Rathenau signed the Rapallo Treaty with Soviet Russia, was his own assassination in June, 1922, the occupation of the Ruhr in January, 1923, a final burst of the inflation that destroyed the German currency, and the manufacture of the Nazi time bomb. Cover Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations A Reparation Chronology Introduction: The Background of Reparations I. To Fulfill: The Reparation Issue Crystallizes II. The Economics of Reparations III. The Minister of Reconstruction IV. Reparations: Germany and France V. Germany: The Politics of Reparations VI. Reparations: Germany and Great Britain VII. The Anti-Conference VIII. Dealing with the Reparation Commission IX. Tendency to Acts of Violence X. Conclusions to the Logic of Reparations and Fulfillment Bibliography Index