The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the war. The other Central Powers on the German side signed separate treaties. Although the armistice of 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, and agreed certain principles and conditions including the payment of reparations, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiations before signing the treaty.
Following their defeat in World War I, the Central Powers agreed to pay war reparations to the Allied Powers. Each defeated power was required to make payments in either cash or kind. Because of the financial situation in Austria, Hungary, and Turkey after the war, few to no reparations were paid and the requirements for reparations were cancelled. Bulgaria, having paid only a fraction of what was required, saw its reparation figure reduced and then cancelled. Historians have recognized the German requirement to pay reparations as the "chief battleground of the post-war era" and "the focus of the power struggle between France and Germany over whether the Versailles Treaty was to be enforced or revised."
The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic. The period's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar, which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" not commonly used until the 1930s. The Weimar Republic had a semi-presidential system.
Reichswehr was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Third Reich. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army was dissolved in order to be reshaped into a peacetime army. From it a provisional Reichswehr was formed in March 1919. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the rebuilt German Army was subject to severe limitations in size, structure and armament. The official formation of the Reichswehr took place on 1 January 1921 after the limitations had been met. The German armed forces kept the name Reichswehr until Adolf Hitler's 1935 proclamation of the "restoration of military sovereignty", at which point it became part of the new Wehrmacht.
The Treaty of Rapallo was an agreement signed on 16 April 1922 between the German Reich and Soviet Russia under which both renounced all territorial and financial claims against each other and opened friendly diplomatic relations. The treaty was negotiated by Russian Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin and German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau. It was a major victory for Russia especially and also Germany, and a major disappointment to France and the United Kingdom. The term "spirit of Rapallo" was used for an improvement in friendly relations between Germany and Russia.
War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by one side to the other. They are intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war. War reparations can take the form of hard currency, precious metals, natural resources, industrial assets, or intellectual properties. Loss of territory in a peace settlement is usually considered to be distinct from war reparations.
Hans Luther was a German politician and Chancellor of Germany for 482 days in 1925 to 1926. As Minister of Finance he helped stabilize the Mark during the hyperinflation of 1923. From 1930 to 1933, Luther was head of the Reichsbank and from 1933 to 1937 he served as German Ambassador to the United States.
Article 231, often known as the "War Guilt" clause, was the opening article of the reparations section of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War between the German Empire and the Allied and Associated Powers. The article did not use the word guilt but it served as a legal basis under which Germany was to pay reparations for damages caused during the war.
The occupation of the Ruhr was the period from 11 January 1923 to 25 August 1925 when French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr region of Weimar Republic Germany.
The Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, also known simply as the Ministry of Propaganda, controlled the content of the press, literature, visual arts, film, theater, music and radio in Nazi Germany.
The Occupation of the Rhineland placed the region of Germany west of the Rhine river and four bridgeheads to its east under the control of the victorious Allies of World War I from 1 December 1918 until 30 June 1930. The occupation was imposed and regulated by articles in the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the Treaty of Versailles and the parallel agreement on the Rhineland occupation signed at the same time as the Versailles Treaty. The Rhineland was demilitarised, as was an area stretching fifty kilometres east of the Rhine, and put under the control of the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission, which was led by a French commissioner and had one member each from Belgium, Great Britain and the United States. The purpose of the occupation was to give France and Belgium security against any future German attack and serve as a guarantee for Germany's reparations obligations. After Germany fell behind on its payments in 1922, the occupation was expanded to include the industrial Ruhr valley from 1923 to 1925.
The states of the Weimar Republic were the first-level administrative divisions and constituent states of the Weimar Republic. The states were established in 1918–1920 following the German Empire's defeat in World War I and the territorial losses that came with it. They were based on the 22 states and three city-states of the German Empire. During the revolution of 1918–1919, the states abolished their local monarchies and adopted republican constitutions.
The Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War was a think tank based in Berlin, funded by the German government, whose sole purpose was to disseminate the official government position that Germany was the victim of Allied aggression in 1914, and hence the alleged moral invalidity of the Versailles Treaty. Of the many provisions in the treaty, Article 231 required Germany to accept responsibility for the damages it caused during the war and, under the terms of articles 232–248, to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions and pay reparations to some of the victorious countries. Although neither the Entente powers at the time nor subsequent historical consensus attached the idea of war guilt to these articles, Germany viewed them as a humiliation and as being forced to accept full responsibility for causing the war.
Walther Gustav Reinhardt was a German officer who served as the last Prussian Minister of War and the first head of the army command within the newly created Ministry of the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic. During the Kapp Putsch of 1920, Reinhardt remained loyal to the elected government and was one of the few senior officers of the Reichswehr willing to order troops to fire at the revolting units.
Johannes Bell was a German jurist and politician from the Centre Party. During the Weimar Republic era, he briefly served as Minister of Colonial Affairs, Minister of Transport (1919/20), and as Minister of Justice (1926/27). He was one of the two German representatives who signed the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919.
The Scheidemann cabinet, headed by Minister President Philipp Scheidemann of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), was Germany's first democratically elected national government. It took office on 13 February 1919, three months after the collapse of the German Empire following Germany's defeat in World War I. Although the Weimar Constitution was not in force yet, it is generally counted as the first government of the Weimar Republic.
The Bauer cabinet, headed by Gustav Bauer of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), was the second democratically elected government during the Weimar Republic. Bauer's title was minister president until the Weimar Constitution came into force on 14 August 1919, after which he became chancellor of Germany. The cabinet took office on 21 June 1919 when it replaced the Scheidemann cabinet, which had resigned the day before in protest against the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Although the Weimar Constitution was not in force at the time, the Bauer cabinet is generally counted as the second government of the Weimar Republic.
The Fehrenbach cabinet, headed by Chancellor Constantin Fehrenbach of the Centre Party, was the fourth democratically elected government of the Weimar Republic. It took office on 25 June 1920 when it replaced the first cabinet of Hermann Müller, which had resigned due to the poor showing of the coalition parties in the June 1920 elections to the new Reichstag. The 1920 Reichstag replaced the Weimar National Assembly, which had served as Germany's interim parliament and written and approved the Weimar Constitution.
Carl Bergmann was a German banker and diplomat.
The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Territories was a cabinet-level ministry of the Weimar Republic from 24 August 1923 to 30 September 1930. It was responsible for the administration of both the Rhineland region occupied by the Allies under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and of the Ruhr after it was occupied by the French and Belgians in January 1923. The Ministry is not to be confused with Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories that existed under the National Socialists.
