Germany, Versailles, and the Limits of Nationhood

ABSTRACT

As a defeated Great Power, Germany faced exceptional challenges after the First World War. These ranged from domestic revolution to grudging compliance with a peace treaty whose terms Germans almost universally regarded as unjust and unworkable. Franco-German relations quickly assumed particular significance in this regard as each country sought to secure its vital interests at the other’s expense; a confrontation that culminated in the Ruhr Crisis. However, there had been intermittent attempts to address security concerns through collaboration rather than confrontation and, after the Ruhr Crisis beginning in January 1923, these efforts rapidly gained momentum. The German and French foreign ministers, Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand, developed a trusting relationship as they strove to locate Franco-German rapprochement within the wider context of European integration. Stresemann’s death in 1929 did not stop this process that, under severe pressure from the Great Depression, finally imploded in early 1932.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Klaus Schwabe, “Germany’s Peace Aims and the Domestic and International Constraints,” in The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years, ed. Manfred F Boemeke et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 59.

2 David Stevenson, “French War Aims and Peace Planning,” in Boemeke et al., Versailles, 100.

3 Alan Sharp, The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking in Paris, 1919 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1991), 86.

4 Schwabe, “Peace Aims,” 47–8; Sharp, Versailles, 100.

5 Heinrich August Winkler, Weimar 1918–1933. Die Geschichte der ersten deutschen Demokratie, 2nd ed. (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1994), 92.

6 Conan Fischer, A Vision of Europe. Franco-German Relations during the Great Depression, 1929–1932 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 21.

7 Fischer, Vision, 21, 23–24.

8 Conan Fischer, “The Human Price of Reparations,” in After the Versailles Treaty. Enforcement, Compliance, Contested Identities, ed. Conan Fischer and Alan Sharp (London: Routledge, 2008), 83.

9 Georges-Henri Soutou, “Vom Rhein zur Ruhr: Absichten und Planungen der französischen Regierung,” in Der Schatten des Weltkriegs. Die Ruhrbesetzung 1923, ed. Gerd Krumeich and Joachim Schröder (Essen: Klartext, 2004), 65. See also Stanislas Jeannesson, Poincaré, la France et la Ruhr (1922–1924). Histoire d’une occupation (Strasbourg: Presses Universitaire de Strasbourg, 1998), 116.

10 Fischer, Vision, 76.

11 Klaus Wilsberg, ‘Terrible ami – aimable ennemi’. Kooperation und Konflikt in den deutsch-französischen Beziehungen 1911–1914 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1998), 272.

12 Gerald D Feldman, “Hugo Stinnes and the Prospect of War before 1914,” in Anticipating Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871–1914, ed. Manfred Boemeke, Roger Chickering, and Stig Förster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 90.

13 douard Daladier, “De la défaite des nationalists à l’accord franco-allemand,” La République (13 August 1931). Press cutting, no pagination.

14 Christian Baechler, Gustave Stresemann (1878–1929). De l’impérialisme à la sécurité collective (Strasbourg: Presses Universitaire de Strasbourg, 1996), 312.

15 Jonathan Wright, Gustav Stresemann. Weimar’s Greatest Statesman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 476.

16 Fischer, Vision, 36.

17 Jeannesson, Poincaré, 298.

18 Carl Bergmann, The History of Reparations (Boston, MA, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1927), 254.

19 Nr 282: “Besprechung mit den Staats- und Ministerpräsidenten der Länder,” 19 August 1924, in Akten der Reichskanzlei. Weimarer Republik. Die Kabinette Marx I und II, ed. Karl Dietrich Erdmann, Hans Booms, und Günther Abramowski, Volume I: 3. Juni 1924 bis 15. Januar 1925 (Boppard am Rhein: Boldt, 1973), 977.

20 Jacques Bariéty, “Aristide Briand. Les raisons d’un oubli,” in Le Plan Briand d’Union fédérale européenne. Perspectives nationals et transnationales, ed. Antoine Fleury and Lubor Jilek (Bern: P. Lang, 1998), 8.

21 Wright, Stresemann, 342, 344.

22 Jacques Bariéty, “France and the politics of steel, from the Treaty of Versailles to the International Steel Entente, 1919–1926,” in French Foreign and Defence Policy, 1918–1940: The Decline and Fall of a Great Power, ed. Robert W.D. Boyce (London: Routledge, 1998), 43.

23 See Ralph White, “‘Through a Glass, Darkly’: The Foreign Office Investigation of French Federalism. January-May 1930,” in Statecraft and Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century, ed. David Dutton (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995), 75–85 for British perceptions of Franco-German relations at this time.

24 Fischer, Vision, 39.

25 Ibid., 40.

26 For a fuller discussion, see Ibid., 45–50; quote on 46.

27 Ibid., 52.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid., 60–4.

31 Several historians have taken Curtius’ words literally; but seen in the context of his wider diplomacy, they were clearly ironic. Thus, Peter Krüger, Die Auβenpolitik der Republik von Weimar (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985), 529; Achille Elisha, Aristide Briand. La paix mondiale et l’union européenne (Groslay: Éditions Ivoire Clair, 2003), 75. Cf. Fischer, Vision, 60–70.

32 Fischer, Vision, 66.

33 Ibid.

34 Cmd 153: The Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany (London: HMSO, 1919), 31.

35 Fischer, Vision, 74.

36 Andreas Rödder, Stresemanns Erbe. Julius Curtius und die deutsche Auβenpolitik 1929–1931 (Paderborn: F. Schöning, 1996), 84, 93.

37 Fischer, Vision, 92.

38 Ibid.

39 Sylvain Schirmann, Crise, cooperation économique et financière entre États européens 1929–1933 (Paris: Comité pour l'Histoire économique et financière, 2000), 166–67.

40 Fischer, Vision, 117.

41 Ibid., 128.

42 For a full account of the collapse of the Berlin Agreement, see Ibid., 137–84.

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Conan Fischer

Conan Fischer, born in Wellington, New Zealand, is an Honorary Professor in the School of History, University of St Andrews. He received his DPhil from the University of Sussex in 1980 with a thesis on the social history of the Nazi storm troopers and worked at the Universities of Aston in Birmingham, Heriot-Watt, and Strathclyde before joining St Andrews in 2010. His earlier research focused on Nazism and Communism in inter-war Germany, before turning to the history of inter-war Europe. His most recent book is A Vision of Europe. Franco-German Relations during the Great Depression, 1929-1932 (2017).