‘Germany Experienced a Period of Political Calm, Economic Development and Social Progress in the Mid-1920's’. How Far Do You Agree with This Judgement?

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During the mid 1920’s, the political side of Germany did settle and could be described as ‘calm’. For the first time in a long time, there were no political rebellions like the previous Kapp-putsch and spartacist uprisings leaving politics relatively fear free. A great example of the political calm is the grand coalition of 1928 which brought the left, right and centre parties together with 60% of the Reichstag. Clearly this is an indication that Germanys politics had calmed down. The election for the coalition results in 76% supporting pro-Weimar parties, showing that the opposition and threats to the government had settled. People in Germany were no longer looking for extremist parties which was proved by the failure of the right-wing coalition. In theory the coalitions should have worked well with the cooperation from all parties. However, the SPD were reluctant to work with other parties subsequently weakening the democracy. This proves the political instability of Germany in this period as they were the largest party in the Reichstag but still refused to cooperate. This need for the parties to agree cause germanys politics to become unstable yet again because they were unable to agree of unemployment benefits and foreign policy. This led the voter moving to more extremist parties like the KPD who had 10.6% of the vote in 1923. The election of president Hindenburg did not have a positive effect as he was very anti socialists, resulting in him excluding the SPD from the coalition despite their majority and including the DNVP to limit the coverage of the political spectrum in the hope his policies would pass quicker. In terms of economic development, the Dawes and the Young plan definitely helped develop and rebuild Germany’s economy, however there are other factors which counteracted them, making them less effective. Stresemann knew that Germany needed a way
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