Save the Weimar Republic

[McPherson]

The Weimar Republic has always been a step child in European history, much like the Reconstruction Era has been in the United States, when an opportunity for a grand settlement and adjustment of an extremely dangerous festering issue was sidestepped, instead of confronted head on and the reforms necessary delayed until catastrophe struck.

In the American case, slavery and the resultant racism engendered was never really reconciled as it should have been after the American Civil War in the 1870s when the best chance to fix the problem first appeared, and the criminal system that replaced slavery and fostered those racial hatreds was not completely eliminated to the detriment of the American polity as late as the 1960s. (No current politics.)

The European problem after the Great War was Germany. There was a chance with a little more circumspect thought within the Reich and without, that the social problems which led to the Great War could be solved within Europe, but as in the case with America, with the wreckage of the Confederacy and "The Lost Cause" myth that grew from the revaunchists who refused to accept the real true situation of a sedition and an evil suppressed (Leading to a regional economic massive dislocation, the American South became radicalized into a kind of proto-fascism.), the post WWI root European problem was a wrecked Germany and "The Stab in the Back" myth and the radicalization of German politics that resulted in the eventual rise of Hitlerism and the Nazis.

I've always thought that economics might have been a major stoking fire of that radicalization in both cases. Young men out of work and with no future geared in family and with time on their hands to brood about the senseless stupid pointless war they lost equals a recipe for political instability and disaster.

So I put up a poll and I invite some comments as to whether or not there was something that could be done to do better than the feeble attempts that were made internally and externally to stabilize Germany?

Here is what I mean by a feeble attempt; The Dawes Plan.

Pathetic. Can we do better in an ATL?

 

[Othala]

Well the goal was never to stabilize Germany. In fact a Germany weakened by infighting was seen as preferable by some. Dawes as well as the Young plan were always about ensuring the payment of reparations.
Saving the Weimar Republic (a term coined by Hitler as it happens) will be difficult, because the deck is stacked against it from the very beginning. I'm not saying impossible, but for any one problem that is solved or circumvented, three others will pop up.

Probably the biggest possible change towards a more stable German Republik is not something the the allies can do, it'd be removing or curbing the ability of the German President to rule by decree. That'd need a constitutional change. It's the tool that was overused to the point where nobody batted an eye when Hitler used it to abolish the parliament.

 

[NoMommsen]

Best implement changes before Dec. /Jan. 1922/23 to avoid what lead to Ruhr-occupation and the catastrophical year 1923 with all it's fights and putschs etc.

Would probably also avoid the perverse Hyper-Dyper-Inflation of OTL though not the post-war inflation at all.

 

[BELFAST]

For Germany to get a better deal than OTL there needs to be something that seems like a bigger threat than a stable prosperous Germany.
If the Soviet Union was seen as a bigger threat then a stable Germany that could defend it self would seem like a good idea.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

Weimar's weakness was the Constitution and the fact the majority of her political class weren’t interested in or very easily swayed away from democracy.

Financial issues were a smokescreen IMHO designed to attempt to shift blame onto the Entente.

 

[McPherson]

Commentary to various.

Well the goal was never to stabilize Germany. In fact a Germany weakened by infighting was seen as preferable by some. Dawes as well as the Young plan were always about ensuring the payment of reparations.

The Dawes and Young Plans were kind of pernicious in that the band-aids actually drove German politicians to further acts of financial mismanagement and desperation. Reminds me of the IMF during the 1960s through 1990s.

Saving the Weimar Republic (a term coined by Hitler as it happens) will be difficult, because the deck is stacked against it from the very beginning. I'm not saying impossible, but for any one problem that is solved or circumvented, three others will pop up.

That is because the central problem of purchased imports and sold exports and the negative cash flow to which reparations payments added, was never addressed for Germany. Economics be cursed; the creditors who floated the loans: the Weimar government took out so Germany could actually pay the Versailles reparations; demanded their money and did not care what happened to the German economy or social/political stability to get it. Currency devaluation and cutting loose from gold by the UK and US which in effect forced the mark devaluation just to keep up in the race to the floor made things much much worse.

Probably the biggest possible change towards a more stable German Republik is not something the the allies can do, it'd be removing or curbing the ability of the German President to rule by decree. That'd need a constitutional change. It's the tool that was overused to the point where nobody batted an eye when Hitler used it to abolish the parliament.

Funny. The people who wrote the Core Law actually thought a strong executive but split apart executive function was needed to curb the excesses and instability of a legislature. Also, the tradition of a strong executive followed from the previous German experience with a king and minister system which had run amok. The Weimar republic was supposed to "fix" the nuttery of a demented monarch and toady ministers by separating the chief of state (president) ruler function from the Chancellor executive operations (responsible in theory to his party/coalition in the Reichstag a la the British model.) and using the two offices and officers to check each other. Hitler's coup in effect (illegal by the way under the Core Law.) was to unite the two hats in himself and abrogate to himself both offices. He could only suppress the Reichstag by uniting Chancellor and President. Also by committing arson and indulging in a patently extra-judicial criminal gangster conspiracy to violate German civil and political rights under the Core Law. It was not just a set of decrees, but a whole series of planned small steps in which large swaths of the voting German population, the judiciary, factions in the Reichstag, vested army, economic, industrial and intellectual interests all either allowed, were suborned, or ABETTED that criminal's rather involved complex conspiracy to seize power and institute Caudillismo.

Best implement changes before Dec. /Jan. 1922/23 to avoid what lead to Ruhr-occupation and the catastrophical year 1923 with all it's fights and putschs etc.

Would probably also avoid the perverse Hyper-Dyper-Inflation of OTL though not the post-war inflation at all.

The 1923 Ruhr occupation was a disaster. Coal was just about the only revenue source the German government had at the time. The French taking it just meant what feeble efforts the Weimar Republic could attempt to run a solvent government to provide badly needed services; much less to stabilize the economy was not going to happen. How did the French think the Germans were going to pay reparations if the Germans could not even fund the government that had to collect the taxes to pay the reparations loans?

For Germany to get a better deal than OTL there needs to be something that seems like a bigger threat than a stable prosperous Germany.

Like German radicalization and another world war? I seem to recall some people who warned the Versailles idiots (Goddamn Wilson, especially.) that dumping on Germany excessively would radicalize the Germans and that goes straight into round two, that is a revenge war... Georges Clemenceau, Ferdinand Foch, Tasker Bliss, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Maynard Keynes, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Douglas MacArthur, even a chap named Winston Churchill... let me know when you want me to stop...

If the Soviet Union was seen as a bigger threat then a stable Germany that could defend it self would seem like a good idea.

That appears to have been the fear. That Germany would turn Red and that Russia and Germany would get together. Funny how that worked out? Germany turned Nazi and Russia earned Stalin. Molotov-Ribbentrop happened. Only saving grace, in that obvious inevitable predictable disaster, was that Hitler and Stalin hated each other and their alliance of convenience was a shotgun marriage of two men who were both murderous ravenous war criminals and enemies of the human peace. Their common hatred of the democracies and republics and fear of same, was the weak weld that joined them together for a time. That and Stalin was a gutless coward who toadied to Hitler to keep the Germans from coming after HIM personally.

Weimar's weakness was the Constitution and the fact the majority of her political class weren’t interested in or very easily swayed away from democracy.

Bingo. So part of the problem was that Germany was not given the MacArthur Treatment.

Financial issues were a smokescreen IMHO designed to attempt to shift blame onto the Entente.

Same again. Put an economy back on its feet and keep the troublemakers busy earning marks or have the Germans shoot the ones who do not get with the Reconstruction and Liberalization Program (MacArthur model for Japan used Japanese authorities to handle Japanese troublemakers and that the Japanese administrators did enthusiastically.).

 

[Deleted member 94680]

Bingo. So part of the problem was that Germany was not given the MacArthur Treatment.

Same again. Put an economy back on its feet and keep the troublemakers busy earning marks or have the Germans shoot the ones who do not get with the Reconstruction and Liberalisation Program

Kaiser Wilhelm III. Job done.

 

[Resurgam]

Have to make Germans think it's worth saving first.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

For Germany to get a better deal than OTL there needs to be something that seems like a bigger threat than a stable prosperous Germany.
If the Soviet Union was seen as a bigger threat then a stable Germany that could defend it self would seem like a good idea.

That is doable (although not that easy-Soviets alredy had multiple fronts open and Russia was devasted by ww1 and civil war)-let Soviets conquer Poland in 1920.

 

[CHKeeley]

let Soviets conquer Poland in 1920.

Ironically though, influential circles of the German military staff and Weimar government favored a rapprochement with the Soviets and the carving up of Poland to pre-1914 borders.. the German military even had attachés with the Red Army in the summer of 1920 and some informal agreements were underway (although important to note that there was resistance from sections of formal government itself, regardless of what the Army wanted).

If this had actually happened, I'm not sure how the Entente would react but I'd imagine Germany would try to play both sides (pragmatic accommodation of the Soviets in an anti-Versailles bloc vs the "bulwark against the Bolshevist hordes" line to sell in France and England).

 

[Jan Olbracht]

Ironically though, influential circles of the German military staff and Weimar government favored a rapprochement with the Soviets and the carving up of Poland to pre-1914 borders.. the German military even had attachés with the Red Army in the summer of 1920 and some informal agreements were underway (although important to note that there was resistance from sections of formal government itself, regardless of what the Army wanted).

If this had actually happened, I'm not sure how the Entente would react but I'd imagine Germany would try to play both sides (pragmatic accommodation of the Soviets in an anti-Versailles bloc vs the "bulwark against the Bolshevist hordes" line to sell in France and England).

I think both sides (Germany and Soviet Russia) would be content with 1914 border. Exhausted Soviet Russia would not be in shape to continue war anyway and would not move further than Poland, Germany meanwhile would claim, that it took Posen and West Prussia to protect them from Bolshevism and Western Allies would accept fait accompli.

 

[McPherson]

I think both sides (Germany and Soviet Russia) would be content with 1914 border. Exhausted Soviet Russia would not be in shape to continue war anyway and would not move further than Poland, Germany meanwhile would claim, that it took Posen and West Prussia to protect them from Bolshevism and Western Allies would accept fait accompli.

I don't know. Depends on the timing. The French really wanted those eastern European states as a Russia buffer and as potential allies in case Clemenceau was correct. Poland and Czechoslovakia were especially important in their geo-strategic thinking. Maybe London would buy in, but Paris appears to be a "no." to me. As for the Americans, they were slowly waking up to the Wilson con-job and were domestically embroiled too deep in their internal politics to care one way or the other.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

I don't know. Depends on the timing. The French really wanted those eastern European states as a Russia buffer and as potential allies in case Clemenceau was correct. Poland and Czechoslovakia were especially important in their geo-strategic thinking. Maybe London would buy in, but Paris appears to be a "no." to me. As for the Americans, they were slowly waking up to the Wilson con-job and were domestically embroiled too deep in their internal politics to care one way or the other.

Yes France would not be happy, but if Warsaw is already conquered by Red Army what France could realistically do to save Poland?

 

[McPherson]

Yes France would not be happy, but if Warsaw is already conquered by Red Army what France could realistically do to save Poland?

March through Germany. Might not save Poland, but an excuse is an excuse. And... the Red Army did try. How did it turn out?

 

[Deleted member 94680]

I think both sides (Germany and Soviet Russia) would be content with 1914 border. Exhausted Soviet Russia would not be in shape to continue war anyway and would not move further than Poland, Germany meanwhile would claim, that it took Posen and West Prussia to protect them from Bolshevism and Western Allies would accept fait accompli.

Also, it gives Soviet Russia a common border with Germany to “export the revolution” - a dream of Moscow in the early days.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth]

March through Germany. Might not save Poland, but an excuse is an excuse. And... the Red Army did try. How did it turn out?

Plus, it would give them a convenient excuse to embroil Weimar Germany in a war. While giving German nationalism a boost is obviously a bad idea from their perspective, there are a few silver linings. For starters, killing more young German males, while cold-blooded, does mean that Germany's recovery will be slower. Second, some might feel that giving the republican Weimar government a military victory would cement its legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Of course, there's no way the existing Allied leadership would agree to this, so you'd need to remove Clemenceau and/or Lloyd George. Second, if Weimar Germany does cooperate with the Entente, well, it gives the latter a good excuse to put boots on the ground in Germany... and something tells me those troops won't be leaving anytime soon.
It's unlikely that this would happen, though. As I've said, you'd need politicians in power in France and/or Britain who view Weimar Germany as the lesser of two evils than the Soviets, and you'd also need to minimise war-weary sentiment in the democracies. But if anti-Bolshevism is fervent enough, it could be done...
I have no doubt that the Red Army would lose, badly, if the West did this, by the way. As you pointed out in your link, the Soviets got their backsides handed to them against Poland, and the Poles didn't exactly have a first-rate military. Put the Red Army rabble against the two European militaries who just won the Great War (to say nothing of the Germans) and the Soviets will be hurled out of Poland before they knew what hit them.

Edit: Given that Britain did far more in the Russian Civil War than France, perhaps the British would actively take part while the French sat out. Either way, the point still stands. I guess that Wilson would want to stay out, but I could be wrong.

 

[Red_Neptune]

Simple: prevent any economic crisis from striking. You aren’t going to get a Scandinavian type social democracy or even a liberal democracy, but the Weimar Republic as it actually was - i.e. a right-wing revanchist state where the state religion was the “stab-in-the-back myth” - will certainly stand for the time being.

 

[raharris1973]

The Dawes and Young Plans were kind of pernicious in that the band-aids actually drove German politicians to further acts of financial mismanagement and desperation. Reminds me of the IMF during the 1960s through 1990s.

How did they make things worse than otherwise actually?

That is doable (although not that easy-Soviets alredy had multiple fronts open and Russia was devasted by ww1 and civil war)-let Soviets conquer Poland in 1920.

Yes France would not be happy, but if Warsaw is already conquered by Red Army what France could realistically do to save Poland?

In the short-run, it *might* encourage Franco-German reconciliation on pragmatic terms, and further developments that end up saving Weimar.

Even if it does *not* save Weimar, a crushing of independent Poland at this point has another geopolitical "benefit". If Poland is a firm Soviet puppet, and a Nazi or otherwise revanchist Germany rises with hostility towards France and the USSR, it's far easier for France and the USSR-Polish alliance to collaborate in time to contain Germany in the ATL. In such an ATL where Poland is already a buffer state for the Soviets, Moscow has no incentive to partition, let it get outflanked to the south (by a German takeover of Czechoslovakia) or let a militant German neighbor get over mighty (by conquering France & Western Europe).

 

[McPherson]

How did they make things worse than otherwise actually?

By not addressing the exchange rate ratios between imports bought and exports earnings. Deferred payment schemes just kicked the central problem down the decade without fixing it. Germany had to be allowed to compete fairly within a free trade regime if it was to earn currency to pay off its obligations. Mosquitoes can only suck blood from a cow so long. That cow has to FEED to bleed and still stay alive.

 

[Drunkrobot]

At least three potential plans of attack come to mind, after literally today reading Chapter 1 of Tooze's The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy:

1. Either avoid the American Hooverite imposition of tariffs to protect domestic industry, have Britain leave the gold standard by ending free convertibility of sterling as Germany did with the Reichsmark rather than abandoning the peg against gold, or both. American tariffs did a number on German exports to a critical market at a time when they needed a surplus of trade to meet their repayments. Sterling being freely convertible while deflating, according to Tooze, helped contribute to other countries, Germany's competitors in trade, also deflating their currencies, putting the Reichsmark at a competitive disadvantage, also hurting Germany's trade surplus. Germany eventually did have a surplus, but only by having imports drop faster than exports did, shuttering factories and putting people out of work. This lengthens the crisis period for Hitler and the NSDAP to appeal to a critical mass of German voters.

2. Keep the left-centre left-centre coalition going long enough to accept a collaboration with France to deal with the credit crisis. In 1930/early 1931, Chancellor Bruening runs a confrontational foreign policy with France, including the building of two battlecruisers for the navy, the proposal of a customs union with Austria, and a proactive policy in Central/South-East Europe, i.e. pursuing "exclusive bilateral trade agreements with Hungary and Romania", all of these being provocations against France. Tooze argues this was spectacularly ill-timed, quote:

Throughout the 1920s it had been a premise of German policy that though France posed the primary military threat to Germany, in financial terms it was a third-rate power, behind the United States and Britain. By 1931, however, this was to seriously misunderstand the balance of power in the international financial system. Following the stabalisation of the franc in 1926, the French central bank had set about systematically accumulating gold. By 1931 its gold holdings were substantially larger than those of the Bank of England and rivalled even those of the US Federal Reserve. Remarkably, in early 1931 [French Prime Minister] Briand renewed his appraoch to Germany, suggesting that to assist Bruening in complying with the Young Plan, the Paris capital market might be opened to long-term German borrowing. Bruening's government replied on 21 March 1931 by publically announcing the proposal for an Austro-German customs union, slamming shut the door to Franco-German economic cooperation.

3. If all else fails, just keep enough nerve to not allow Hitler into the Chancellorship for a few more months. The NSDAP lost seats in that final election before Hitler was appointed Chancellor, their voters did not react well to Hitler refusing to enter into a coalition with him being anything other than Chancellor, and the party was so starved of funds it had to cancel its own yearly rally. In the elections scheduled for Spring 1933 it was expected that they'll drop even more, because of the pickup in employment from the end of Winter and thus the pickup of jobs for construction and agriculture. After that, the only way is up for the German economy, and which luck the recovery will stabilise the situation enough for a de Gaulle figure to step forward and force through a more stable republican constitution. Have Ex-Chancellor Papen choke to death on a frankfurter or whatever, anything to stop him from arranging the convincing of Hindenberg to give Hitler the Chancellorship.