Stresemann as Foreign Minister

After the Grand Coalition collapsed, Stresemann moved to the position of Foreign Minister. Here he played a big role in helping to improve Germany’s relations with the international community.

* In 1926, Germany joined the League of Nations, demonstrating that it was no longer seen as the international bad-guy.

* Germany signed a couple of important international pacts. These included the Locarno Treaties of 1925, which created agreements relating to many (but not all) of Europe’s post-war border disputes, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact of August 1928,which was a joint declaration by many League of Nations countries and the USA that they were against war.

The Nazis in the 1920s

The Munich Putsch

As the Weimar Republic went through its crisis period, the Nazis started to pick up support under Hitler’s Leadership, especially with young unemployed people and angry war veterans. Many of these individuals joined his Storm Troopers (SA), which was the Party’ paramilitary organization. By 1923 the party had 55,000 members.

In November 1923, Hitler attempted to use this popularity and the Ruhr and hyperinflation crises to put himself in power. Hitler, with the backing of the Storm Troopers, convinced a right-wing gathering at a beer hall in Munich that their time had come to take power. But when they marched into the centre of Munich the next day, they were stopped by the police.

A Stint in Prison

So the putsch was a bit of a disaster. But it did at least briefly make Hitler famous across Germany, and it made right-wingers across the country aware of him. And whilst he was serving a short prison sentence, he had the chance to write Mein Kampf, a book that set out his racist and nationalist ideas in more detail. He also had a masterstroke whilst in jail: it would be easier to get power by getting elected than by using an armed rebellion.