Gustav Stresemann

10 Key excerpts on "Gustav Stresemann"

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  Personalities, War and Diplomacy

  Essays in International History

  • T.G. Otte, C. Pagedas, T.G. Otte, C. Pagedas(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 Gustav Stresemann: Liberal or Realist? JONATHAN WRIGHT DOI: 10.4324/9781315037929-5

  Stresemann has an obvious claim to rank among those politicians who had a real influence on international politics. This is true both of his early career as a champion of ‘Greater Germany’ in the First World War and also of the period for which he is mainly remembered as Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic from 1923 to 1929, when he helped to negotiate the Dawes Plan, the Locarno Pact and Germany's entry into the League of Nations. Interpretations of his record as Foreign Minister differ: was he genuinely seeking a stable, peaceful and democratic Europe within which Germany would play its part with France, Britain and the United States, while also acting as a bridge to the Soviet Union?1 Or was he merely adroitly adjusting his tactics to Germany's disarmed status but with his basic goal unchanged, namely to make Germany the dominant European power?2 These different interpretations rely on different readings of his personality: in the first case an imaginative politician with an unusual ability to learn from his mistakes and the courage to take the possibility of European co-operation seriously, in the second a cunning and ruthless leader who spoke the language of Europe but thought only of Germany. Both interpretations share the view that Stresemann was a realist: in the first case, realism led him to see that Germany's overriding interest was peace; in the second, realism led him to adjust policy to the means available but without swerving from the view that politics is about power and international politics about dominance. It is as if the two major schools of international relations theory, Liberal and Realist, are competing for the soul of Stresemann and, as in the academic debate between them, both claim that they are the true realists.3

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  Gustav Stresemann

  The Crossover Artist

  • Karl Heinrich Pohl(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Berghahn Books

    (Publisher)

  NTRODUCTION

  Why do we need another biography on Gustav Stresemann? His positive image appears almost indestructible and already set in stone. He has long since arrived in the Valhalla of great Germans and nearly stands as an unassailable historical monument. What is left to say about such a familiar, well-researched and widely appreciated figure?

  The debate over whether Stresemann remained an unrepentant monarchist or became a reformed republican has long been forgotten.1 Today, neither scholars and politicians nor the public at large question his wholehearted commitment to the parliamentary democracy of the Weimar Republic.2 There is general agreement that he carved out an impressive career from the Berlin “pub milieu” to become chancellor of the German Reich. In so doing, he constantly developed and matured as a human being after the highs and lows (in particular, during World War I and the revolution of 1918/19) of his life, according to widespread opinion. Thus, the incorrigible monarchist evolved into a republican in an exemplary fashion—first by reason, then by conviction, and, finally, as a matter of heart.

  He became a key policymaker in the new democratic state in the realms of both domestic and foreign policy, and the ingenious mastermind of the German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei, DVP), which he (almost) transformed into a pillar of the republic. As one of the most important members of the Reichstag, he shaped political culture and ensured the continued existence of the republic in 1923 in his capacity as the youngest Reich chancellor. Almost all scholarly and journalistic publications refer to the years between 1923 and 1929, when he was foreign minister, as the “Stresemann era.”

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  Republican and Fascist Germany

  Themes and Variations in the History of Weimar and the Third Reich, 1918-1945

  • John Hiden(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The plain fact was that, first as Chancellor and then as Foreign Minister, he could only make progress by working with the Allied powers to restore Germany’s international position. The policy had been sketched by Wirth and others; key socio-economic and political groups in Germany were prepared to sustain it. What Stresemann brought to the task was an exceptional clarity of thought and overall purpose, impressive negotiating skills and the remarkable application which would ruin his health and eventually claim his life. Last but by no means least, Stresemann was able to broaden the domestic base for Verständigung through his commanding leadership of the German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei - DVP). Since the overall composition of Weimar governments from 1923 was broadly conservative, his influence was all the more pervasive. Stresemann was the first Foreign Minister in the Weimar Republic who enjoyed enough party political clout to shield the conduct of foreign policy from the worst excesses in the Reichstag. His peaceful and statesmanlike methods have long been acknowledged but by no means all historians have been dissuaded from arguing that his ‘peaceful’ revisionism prepared the ground for Hitler’s diplomacy. Was not the ‘nationalistic’ pursuit of restoring full German power in Europe common to both? 29 It is worth reiterating the point already made, that the urge to promote national interests was shared by all European leaders. The question of what policy methods were employed is therefore neither instrumental nor secondary, but of fundamental importance. Methods, in affecting the conduct of Weimar foreign policy, influenced its nature and ultimately its ends. In personal terms, could Stresemann not be a good German as well as a perfectly good European? 29. Cf. K. Hildebrand, The Foreign Policy of the Third Reich (London, 1973), p

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  A Short History of the Weimar Republic

  • Colin Storer(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • I.B. Tauris

    (Publisher)

  Born in Berlin in 1878, Stresemann had enjoyed a successful career in business before entering the Reichstag in 1907 as a representative of the National Liberal party. An ardent nationalist and annexationist during the war, the experience of defeat and revolution shook him profoundly and threatened to derail his political career. One of the main obstacles to the formation of a united liberal party in 1918 was the Progressives’ distrust of Stresemann, who was widely regarded as an unprincipled nationalist. Yet as time went on, Stresemann came to see the new republican system as the best way to preserve Germany from either a right-wing dictatorship or a communist revolution. Often thought of as an archetypal ‘rational republican’, Stresemann’s accommodation with the new regime was in fact more deep-rooted than a mere recognition that the republic was the least-worst option, and was based on a genuine belief in the need for consensus. 16 At the same time the war convinced him that the key to German prosperity was not economic rivalry and territorial expansion, but the common interests of the European states in the face of the economic challenge from the USA. This being the case, Germany’s priority should be to become once more a ‘credible ally’ (bündnisfähig) for the west. It was an argument based on economic self-interest but it also assumed that such self-interest could lead to greater cooperation and understanding between nations. The Ruhr Crisis further convinced him that interdependence had another strand: that German security depended on French security

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  Locarno Revisited

  European Diplomacy 1920-1929

  • Gaynor Johnson, Gaynor Johnson(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  He did not have all the answers. He did not know how to reconcile the French to what Germans saw as their just deserts, or the Germans to accepting less than equal rights in the interests of European security. His only solution was economic co-operation in western Europe and perhaps also joint projects in the Soviet Union. He did not think in terms of trying to reassure France by encouraging it to strengthen its links with Britain or the United States as a way of managing German power. Perhaps, however, the distance he had travelled is more remarkable than the fact that he did not go further.

  Notes

  1 A more detailed account of the points made in this chapter may be found in J.Wright, Gustav Stresemann: Weimar's Greatest Statesman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 27.

  2 Quoted by F.Hirsch, Stresemann: Ein Lebensbild (Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1978), p. 307.

  3 Hubertus Prinz zu Löwenstein, Stresemann: Das deutsche Schicksal im Spiegel seines Lebens (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Heinrich Scheffler, 1952), p. 207.

  4 Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik 1918–1945 , Serie B, IV, Anhang I, pp. 581–606.

  5 Universitätsarchiv Leipzig, Phil. Fak. Prom. 853, 1–5.

  6 Nachlaβ Stresemann, Bd. 362, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes , Berlin; J.Wright, ‘Gustav Stresemann's Concept of International Relations’, in A.M.Birke, M.Brechtken and A.Searle, An Anglo-German Dialogue (Munich: K.G.Saur, 2000), pp. 145–6.

  7 G.Stresemann, ‘Zehn Jahre Verband Sächsischer Industrieller’, Festschrift zur Feier des zehnjährigen Bestehens des Verbandes Sächsischer Industrieller Dresden, am 11. und 12. März 1912

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  Max Weber and His Contempories

  • Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Jurgen Osterhammel(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  21 Gustav Stresemann and Max Weber: Politics and Scholarship

  Gangolf Hübinger DOI: 10.4324/9780203708644-21

  If we measure the career of Gustav Stresemann against the ideal-typical virtues of the political leader, as Max Weber defined them, then the result is extremely ambivalent. On the one hand, Weber believed politicians such as Stresemann to be indispensable for the establishment of a capitalist society organized along liberal-bourgeois lines. For, in such a society, the interpenetration of politics and economics is constantly growing: ‘Politics is penetrating into the economic order at the same time that economic interests are entering into politics.’1 On the other hand, it is precisely in Stresemann that Weber diagnosed characteristics of political behaviour that he vehemently rejected on ethical grounds, such as tactical manoeuvring, a readiness to compromise, opportunism, sinecurism and an advocacy of limited and particular interests. All this contrasts sharply with Weber’s ideal of a life guided by an ethic of responsibility and oriented towards the political welfare of the whole nation.

  The relationship between Weber and Stresemann is shaped by the tensions between Weber’s ideal types of the career politician, on the one hand, and the actual career patterns of professional politicians in late-Wilhelmine Germany, on the other. There was no personal relationship between the two men, but rather the mutual attention paid to each other by two personalities prominent in public life. Weber was esteemed as one of the most perceptive and farsighted analysts of political and social conditions in the Kaiserreich;2 Stresemann, under precisely these conditions, developed to become a political leader of European stature.3 At the same time both were prominent representatives of the conflicting camps within the liberal Wilhelmine bourgeoisie. Stresemann, who made his career as a legal adviser (Syndikus) to business associations, represented the values and interest of industry.4 Weber represented and upheld the values and norms of an academic middle class (Bildungsbürgertum) that was undergoing metamorphosis under the impact of advanced industrialization; as an academic and politician (Gelehrtenpolitiker) he fought to get these values accepted.5

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  The Diary of an Ambassador Vol. II

  Rapallo to Dawes 1922-1924

  • Edgar Vincent D'Abernon(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Papamoa Press

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER XV — NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1923 Why Stresemann’s Government fell—Political confusion in Germany—Lord Curzon’s threat to withdraw British Member of Ambassadors’ Conference—Three German Chancellors—Stresemann on Ebert—Rumours of suggested German-Italian Alliance—Mark stabilization at last—British Premiers and Paris visits—When did L. G. realize change in French policy?—Stresemann’s difficulty in finding rest—Personal relations with Stresemann—Can Germany be trusted?—Future relations between England and Germany—British policy and continental Europe—English influence and French influence in Central Europe—British prestige and how to preserve it—The year of crisis: gravity of dangers passed through in 1923 BERLIN, November 24, 1923.—The newspapers here are inclined to attribute Stresemann’s fall to the fact that he trimmed too much and tried to catch the wind from too many quarters. While this is to a certain extent true, it is no less true that if he had trimmed less he would have fallen sooner. It was only by his vigorous action in Dresden and Thuringia that he avoided dismissal at the hands of the Right and of the Conservative section of the Volkspartei. Stresemann’s view that by this vigorous action he would be able to pacify the Bavarians and the adherents of Bavaria in North Germany was to a considerable extent realized. The mistake in calculation which he made was in thinking that the Socialists would be unwilling to dismiss him and risk a still more Conservative Government as his successor, that they would tolerate his strong action in Saxony and Thuringia and would, in the last resort, abstain from voting. Had they done so he would have had an adequate majority formed of the Volkspartei, the Centre, and the Democrats, as against a minority composed of Deutsch-Nationals and Communists

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  Over the Horizon

  Time, Uncertainty, and the Rise of Great Powers

  • David M. Edelstein(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Cornell University Press

    (Publisher)

  21 Maintaining uncertainty, if not favorable views, about Germany’s long-term intentions was very much in Stresemann’s interests.

  By maintaining this uncertainty, Stresemann encouraged his European interlocutors to resolve their now-or-later dilemmas in favor of short-term cooperation.22 The sincerity of Stresemann’s commitment to the peaceful pursuit of revisionism remains debated.23 While it is impossible to know what Stresemann might eventually have done as Germany grew more powerful, he did argue in the late 1920s that “there was … no alternative to the policy of ‘reasonable, peaceful understanding on the basis of equality’ and it was this policy alone which had made it possible for [Germany] to put a serious case for the evacuation of the Rhineland.”24 Elsewhere, Jonathan Wright describes Stresemann’s approach as one of a “practical politician who never took his eye off the real world of politics at home and abroad.”25

  In fact, the Locarno agreements had just the effect on British perceptions of Germany that Stresemann hoped they would. The cooperative “spirit of Locarno” defined European diplomacy until the 1930s. The famous British historian A. J. P. Taylor calls Locarno “the turning point of the years between the wars” and writes that “its signature ended the first world war; its repudiation eleven years later marked the prelude to the second.”26 Another historian, F. S. Northedge, concurs, “The Locarno accords are generally believed to have had psychological results in symbolizing the ending of the cold war between victor and vanquished in western Europe, marking, as Chamberlain said, the real dividing line between war and peace.”27 Even Winston Churchill told an audience in Montreal in 1929 that “the outlook for peace has never been better than for fifty years.”28

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  Memoirs of Dr. Edvard Beneš

  From Munich To New War And New Victory

  • Dr. Edvard Beneš, Godfrey Lias(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Braunfell Books

    (Publisher)

  In my opinion, the final aims and ideals of Stresemann’s policy were, broadly speaking, not much different from the final aims of the policy of present-day Germany. The two differed only in their external manifestations and procedure and in the better understanding of the aims, efforts and needs of the rest of Europe, which exercised a passing influence on the tactics and methods of Stresemann’s Germany. ‘Ever since the unification of the German nation in modern times, especially after the revolution of 1848, German policy has had a Pan-German basis. The Reich of Kaiser Wilhelm followed this policy as well as present-day Germany. Europe must reckon with this as a fact and must prepare itself accordingly. ‘But present-day Germany considered the pace and methods of Stresemann’s Germany for the realisation of German national aims, as too slow. It has therefore broken away from this line of development and begun to use more radical methods. The consequence is that nearly all European countries have been taken by surprise by the sudden expansion of German national dynamism. Some of them are also frightened by it. They have become aware of a change in German strength, which, seemingly, they expected to take place only later, and they have begun to draw political conclusions and arrange their policy and tactics accordingly.’ Germany’s international aims and the whole European problem were fully understood in our country from the moment of the arrival of Nazi Germany. I was personally well aware of the inevitable alternatives—that the two sides would either definitely agree to a peaceful development in Europe, or would collide in a dreadful conflict

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  A History of Germany, 1800 to the Present

  • William Carr, David Wetzel(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Stahlhelm , and the National Socialists was formed to promote a law “against the enslavement of the German people,” which would oblige the government to repudiate war guilt and secure the immediate evacuation of occupied territory (how this could be done was not explained); finally, ministers who signed agreements such as the Young Plan were to be prosecuted for treason. The extremists succeeded in obtaining the bare 10 percent of the electorate’s support required for the submission of their absurd “freedom bill” to the Reichstag. Here it was ignominiously defeated, and in the subsequent referendum only 13.8 percent of the electorate supported the bill. Hugenberg’s irresponsible campaign had failed miserably. Some of the more able Nationalists broke with the party, thoroughly disgusted by the campaign’s blatant vulgarity and dishonesty.

  The real victor was Adolf Hitler. The campaign came at a most opportune moment for this small-time Bavarian politician, whose party had only secured twelve seats in the 1928 elections. Overnight Hitler became a national figure, and for the first time his propaganda reached hitherto inaccessible middle-class circles, thanks to Hugenberg’s vast press network. Having extracted the maximum publicity out of the campaign, Hitler simply severed his connection with elements he regarded as “reactionary” and went his own way again.

  In retrospect, Stresemann’s death can be seen as marking the end of postwar international reconciliation. The collapse of the Wall Street Stock Exchange in October 1929 was the beginning of the end of the tinsel prosperity of Western Europe. The collapse of the American economy was to have particularly serious political and economic consequences in Germany. We already have had occasion to observe Germany’s economic recovery and relative prosperity in the later 1920s. Under the Dawes Plan Germany had paid approximately 8 billion marks in reparations and had borrowed the equivalent of 23 billion marks, about half of it from American investors attracted by high interest rates. Thus the German economy rested on a perilously insecure economic foundation. The situation was rendered even worse by the fact that approximately half of Germany’s borrowed money was in the form of short-term credits, which German banks, with misplaced confidence in the continued economic recovery, had lent out as long-term credits. Worse still, much of this borrowed money had not been invested in economically productive enterprises, but had been used to pay instead for public works programs—housing, schools, hospitals, for example—whereby German political leaders and regional authorities had hoped to bolster their own political fortunes and, more generally, to generate support for Germany’s postwar republican regime.

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