When Hitler remilitarised the Rhineland in March 1936, it was a decisive turning point in the move of the Third Reich towards territorial expansion and war. Up to then Hitler might have been stopped without war and the Nazi regime might have been toppled as a result. With Germany's western frontier again defended and soon fortified, as came to be the case after 1936, the Versailles system of security in Europe was finally undermined and the road was open to German expansion. Hitler's coup in the spring of 1936, which he himself described as the most nerve-racking 24 hours of his career, would have been impossible had not the Allies withdrawn their troops from the Rhineland in June 1930, five years ahead of the date envisaged in the Treaty of Versailles. This withdrawal was the final achievement of Gustav Stresemann, the strong man of the Weimar Republic, who controlled German foreign policy continuously from 1923 until his death in October 1929. From this and from other revisions of the Versailles treaty negotiated by Stresemann it can be argued that his policy prepared the ground for Hitler's drive towards war and conquest. An argument along these lines was advanced by A.J.P. Taylor in his revisionist book The Origins of the Second World War, published in 1961. According to Taylor, Hitler was not essentially different from other German leaders, going back well beyond Bismarck, who had all striven for expansion and domination. Yet few historians would now subscribe without reservation to this thesis, especially since Taylor failed to acknowledge the significance of Nazi ideology in bringing about war. In this article it is intended to highlight the deep differences between the policies pursued during the Weimar years, principally by Stresemann, and the racial ideology that motivated Hitler's conduct.
Stresemann: Early Career
Gustav Stresemann was born in 1879. As quite a young man during the first World War he was one of the leading supporters in the Reichstag of what came to be called ‘annexationism’. This was the policy of securing Germany's position as a world power by the acquisition of territory in Western and especially Eastern Europe. Such a policy could only be implemented after a complete German victory and made the ending of the war by a negotiated settlement impossible. Stresemann became known as ‘Ludendorff’s young man’, for it was General Ludendorff, the virtual dictator of Germany in the last two years of the war, who insisted on fighting on to total victory, a policy which finally ended in total defeat for his exhausted country. If Hitler had a predecessor, it was Ludendorff, who thought in terms of establishing a large German-controlled area in Eastern Europe at the expense of Russia, which would give Germany the resources to maintain a hegemonial position in Europe and beyond. Yet even Ludendorff did not envisage the racially-based empire, involving what would now be called ‘ethnic cleansing’, that Hitler tried to create.
To be fair to Stresemann, he never shared the views of the more extreme annexationists, who believed that Germany could be made economically self-sufficient. As a man with much industrial experience, he realised that Germany had to remain a trading nation and part of the international economic system. Nor did he share the domestic agenda of Ludendorff and most of the annexationists. They wanted total victory because it would block the development of the German political system towards greater democracy. Stresemann knew that democratic advance, even if he had some reservations about it, was necessary to maintain mass support for the war.
Germany's defeat in 1918 was a traumatic experience for Stresemann, as for so many other nationally-minded Germans; but it would be wrong to suppose that as a result he underwent some profound conversion. He remained a believer in the national state as the ultimate reference point in the international system. Germany therefore had as soon as possible to recover her position as a great power, which Versailles had stripped away. But Stresemann was above all a realist, with a sharp sense of what could be done within the realm of practical politics. In domestic affairs he therefore accepted the new republic, even though emotionally still tied to the monarchy. He was what came to be called a Vernunftrepublikaner, a republican by reason. In foreign affairs he came to realise that Germany could not abolish the system established by the Versailles treaty by force, but only by collaborating honestly with the Western powers in gradually modifying it. Germany remained a great economic power and the general health of the world economy could not be restored until Germany recovered economically and regained her place in the international economic as well as political system. Germany's remaining strongest card, her economic importance, could only be played in co-operation with the international community, not against it, let alone in defiance of it, as many German nationalists thought. In an increasingly interdependent world German self-sufficiency, achieved by hegemony or conquest, was no longer realistic.
In the turbulent immediate post-war years a policy of modest and reasonable revision of Versailles had no chance of success. Stresemann's own war-time reputation as an annexationist was such that his determination to remain in politics after 1918 prevented the establishment of a united liberal party. His own party was the inappropriately named German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei, DVP). It was the main vehicle for representing the interests of heavy industry and was strongly nationalist and anti-socialist. Stresemann gradually weaned his followers away from hostility to the new republic and prepared them for collaboration with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the party that had been swept into power by the revolution of 1918. Without such a collaboration across the proletarian-bourgeois divide there was little future for the Weimar Republic.
Crisis for the Republic
In 1923 the Republic was in deepest crisis and the German Reich on the verge of disintegration. In January of that year French troops had occupied the Ruhr, the German industrial heartland on the east of the Rhine. The occupation was claimed to be a pledge against the non-payment of reparations by Germany. The country was already in the throes of a rapid inflation and the French occupation knocked the bottom out of the German currency. Soon the printing presses could not keep up with the need for ever more highly-denominated bank-notes, and wages had to be paid with washing-baskets full of notes. The hardship, particularly for many middle-class people with savings, was such that they never became reconciled to the democratic republic. When another crisis arose six years later they fell easily for Hitler's demagogic appeal. In the autumn of 1923 there was the threat of a Communist rising in Central Germany and, at the other political extreme, Hitler made an abortive attempt to seize power in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich.
Stresemann in office
When this crisis was moving towards its climax, Stresemann became chancellor in August 1923, at the head of a coalition that stretched from his own party on the right to the SPD on the left. His chancellorship lasted only 100 days, but thereafter he continued as foreign minister in changing coalitions until his death in October 1929. Even before his fall as chancellor, moves to end the inflationary crisis had been set in train by the introduction of a new currency. But real economic and political recovery in Germany was only possible if the outstanding international problems besetting the country were resolved. To this Stresemann, assisted by a team of diplomats and civil servants, now turned his hand.
Between 1924 and 1926 three major steps were taken to normalise the German position. The first was the Dawes Plan, finally adopted in August 1924. It regulated reparations payments in such a way that they no longer damaged the German economy. The way was opened for an in-flow of foreign, mainly American, capital into Germany, which revived the German economy. The Dawes Plan entailed the French withdrawal from the Ruhr, because the occupation was now no longer legitimated by the non-payment of reparations.
The second major step was the signature of the Locarno treaties in October 1925. Germany's western borders, as fixed at Versailles, were recognised as final and internationally guaranteed. This meant that Germany surrendered her claim to Alsace-Lorraine. There was no similar guarantee for Germany's eastern borders, only an undertaking not to change them by force. Germany could thus seek in the future a revision of that aspect of the Versailles territorial settlement particularly repugnant to her, the Polish corridor. The third step was the admission of Germany to the League of Nations in September 1926, completing her rehabilitation in the international community. In negotiating these agreements Stresemann enlisted the interest of the two Anglo-Saxon powers, Britain and America, in the economic recovery of Europe, and the abiding British concern for a balance of power on the Continent. France was forced to retreat from the position she had taken up when occupying the Ruhr, but Stresemann's diplomacy was also directed towards achieving a genuine reconciliation with France. He avoided all appearance of wishing to split the Anglo-French entente or of disregarding the French need for security, though he used the good understanding established between Germany and Britain to move the French towards accommodation.
This policy of reconciliation and compromise was bitterly attacked in Germany by what was called the national opposition. The main element in this opposition was the right-wing German National Party (DNVP), and there was also an even more extreme, though for the time being weaker, racialist (Völkisch) movement, of which the Nazis formed part. German nationalists still refused to believe that Germany had been defeated on the battlefield, clinging to the ‘stab-in-the-back’ myth that she had been brought low by internal subversion: they wanted outright defiance of Versailles. There was also a school of thought, strong in the army, which believed that Germany could strike an alliance with Russia, even though she was Communist, and thereby defy the Western powers and, in particular, overthrow the independent Poland created in 1918. Seeckt, the Commander-in-Chief, advocated this view and tried to evade the disarmament provisions of Versailles by secret collaboration in weapons development with the Red Army. Until his dismissal in the autumn of 1926, Seeckt was a bitter opponent of Stresemann, who had therefore continually to defend himself against the virulent attacks of his internal enemies. He had to put a spin on his policies which made it appear that he was not really honest in seeking an accommodation with the Western powers. Frequently quoted is a letter he wrote to the former German Crown Prince just before the signature of the Locarno treaties. It was in reply to a letter in which the Crown Prince had expressed doubts about the wisdom of Germany accepting any limitation on her ability to challenge the Versailles treaty outright. Stresemann tried to calm these fears by saying that in her hour of weakness German foreign policy had to advance by ‘finesse’ (finassieren), as Metternich had in 1809. The three great tasks would be a solution of the reparations question, some protection for the ten to twelve million Germans living outside the Reich (Auslandsdeutsche) and a revision of the German border with Poland. He was more doubtful if the Austrian Anschluss would be in the real interests of the Reich, since it would raise many problems by increasing the Roman Catholic proportion of the population. To what extent Stresemann would have pursued these ends if had lived (he was only 51 when he died) can never be known, but it is certain that he would have continued to try the road of negotiation and compromise. He would have been fully aware that even a recovered Germany could not afford to cut her ties with the international economy and would have to maintain good relations with the three major Western powers, Britain, France and the USA. An alliance with the Soviet Union was never in his eyes a substitute for Germany's inevitable Western orientation.
The end of the Stresemann era
The Stresemann era ended on an uncertain note. Immediately after Germany had become a member of the League of Nations in 1926 the German Foreign Minister had a famous meeting with his French opposite number, Aristide Briand, at Thoiry. Hopes ran high that the good understanding between these two men would lead to a system of peace and co-operation in Europe. Yet these hopes were never fully realised. Just before Stresemann's death a second reparations plan to succeed the Dawes Plan was negotiated, the Young Plan. The evacuation of Allied troops from German territory in June 1930 was linked to it. But the early signs of the Great Depression in 1929 were turning the international scene sour. Nations were tending to seek shelter from the economic storm through autarky, self-sufficiency in place of trade and interdependence. A bitter campaign against the Young Plan was launched in Germany, during which Hitler's party received national coverage and, by joining in this campaign with the more moderate nationalist parties, a degree of respectability in the eyes of the voters. Immediately after the passage of the Young Plan through the Reichstag in March 1930, the last fully parliamentary coalition broke up and subsequent governments ruled by presidential decree. It was a kind of half-way house to the fully-fledged dictatorship established by Hitler less than three years later. In foreign policy the semi-authoritarian cabinets of Brüning, Papen and Schleicher abandoned much of the conciliatory approach of Stresemann. Some of the officials who had underpinned this policy in the German Foreign Office left or moved to less central posts. The severe economic slump put an end to reparations by 1932 and in December of that year the principle of equality of armaments was acknowledged by the Great Powers. This meant that in principle the restrictions of Versailles on the size of the German forces would, sooner or later, have to be modified.
When Hitler became chancellor on 30 January 1933 much of the Versailles system had already been dismantled. This enabled him initially to give the impression that his foreign policy would be simply a continuation of that pursued by previous German governments. The impression was confirmed by his retention of the same foreign minister, von Neurath, a career diplomat who had served in the cabinets of Papen and Schleicher. This deceptive continuity in foreign policy had its counterpart in the domestic situation, where the veneer of legality had enabled Hitler and his party to take over the whole state apparatus without resistance. In fact the Nazi take-over was a profound revolution, arguably the most significant of the twentieth century, and the prelude to the greatest upheaval of the century, the second world war. In private Hitler made little secret of his intentions. In an address to the leading generals of the army, given within days of becoming chancellor, he spoke of ‘the conquest of new living space [Lebensraum] in the east and its ruthless Germanisation’. To achieve this there would be a complete reversal of the current situation at home: ‘the most stringent authoritarian regime, removal of the cancer of democracy … total extermination of Marxism’. There would be re-armament, military training for all, and pacifism would be completely expunged. It was to be war at home and abroad. Few of the generals listening to their new chancellor realised the full implications of what he was saying. As on many other occasions, Hitler was telling his audience what they wanted to hear. The aims of conservative German nationalists and the aims of Hitler were for the moment pointing in the same direction.
Hitler's revolution
Initially Hitler did indeed proceed with considerable caution. He could not be sure that the Western Allies, suspecting his true aims, would not mount a pre-emptive strike while Germany was still disarmed. He was not the driving force behind early anti-Versailles moves in 1933, such as the German departure from the League of Nations and from the disarmament conference. He went out of his way to calm foreign fears about his regime, which were particularly aroused by his anti-Jewish measures. In a speech on 17 May 1933 he was profuse with declarations of peaceful intent, while also claiming that Germany had the right to equality with other nations. Even the SPD had to give its support to this speech, when it was in fact within days of being totally suppressed. Hitler had great success in hiding his ultimate purpose, arousing illusions both at home and abroad and feeding the hopes of those minded to appease him.
Hitler's first major unilateral defiance of the Versailles treaty was his announcement, in March 1935, that conscription would be reintroduced and that an army of 55 divisions, as well as an air force, would be rapidly created. The remilitarisation of the Rhineland a year later, Mussolini's breach with the Western powers over Abyssinia, and the Spanish civil war created a situation increasingly favourable to his intention of radically redrawing the map of Europe. By the end of 1937, Hitler, at the meeting with his senior advisers on 5 November recorded by Colonel Hossbach, was projecting immediate territorial expansion against Czechoslovakia and Austria. He was about to practise what he had envisaged in his book Mein Kampf, written in 1925 as a justification of his ideas after the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch. Thereafter his conduct of policy became increasingly reckless, until, with his attack on Poland in September 1939, he deliberately precipitated war, when he could have achieved his immediate aims without it. (When in 1945 he was holed up in his bunker, soon to commit suicide, he still regretted that he had not started the war a year earlier over Czechoslovakia.) Hitler's impatience was fuelled by the fear that the rearmament of Britain and France would soon catch up with Germany's, and by the knowledge that his charismatic leadership, the linchpin of the whole Nazi regime, had constantly to be renewed by ever more sensational successes. Rearmament at break-neck speed, on which he had insisted, was also compelling him into early action.
Change or continuity?
There was a world of difference between Hitler's revolutionary drive for a racially-based empire and the cautious policy of Stresemann, conscious that even a revived Germany would have strict limits to her power. It was indeed one of the tragedies of the situation that the Allies, and France in particular, only made reluctant concessions to the democratic governments of Weimar, while it took them a long time to summon up the will to resist Hitler's brutal creation of accomplished facts. The illusions which led to the policy of appeasement were fed, amongst other factors, by the difficulty of distinguishing between the aims of moderate German nationalists and the extremism of Hitler. Many in Britain thought that at Versailles Germany had been treated badly and that a far-reaching revision of the Versailles system was a price well worth paying for the maintenance of peace. In Germany conservative nationalists, such as the leaders of the army, thought that Hitler was advancing along the same road they wanted to tread. Even Stresemann had envisaged that changes, particularly of the German-Polish border, would in due course become feasible and that the Locarno treaties had not closed the door to this. The smoke-screen with which Hitler successfully disguised his radical aims meant that it eventually required a world war, entailing immense loss of life and destruction, to frustrate the Nazi project of domination and racial supremacy.
