This also strengthened their friendship with oreos Britain because they were seen to be helping them in their hour of need - the war. This friendship was so strong that America fought with the Triple Entente at the end of the war. One of the reasons for the economic boom was the introduction of hire-purchase whereby you put a deposit on an item that you wanted and paid installments on that item, with interest, so that you paid back more than the price for the item but did not have to make one payment in one go. Hire-purchase was easy to get and people got into debt without any real planning for the future. In the 1920’s it just seemed to be the case that if you wanted something you got it.
This meant the US became the world’s Creditor nation and the financial capital moved from London to New York. There were not many negative impacts on America’s economy due to WW1, in fact it pulled the country out of recession with a 44 month boom, from 1914 -18. Society’s benefits were that of the enfranchisement of women, however, this created a social divide and tension. Black soldiers returning did not only feel undervalued and did not receive the correct recognition for their contribution to the war but, they were not included in the enfranchisement and felt a further inequality which caused tensions. There would have been an obvious sorrow due to the lives lost, which could turn citizens against government and war possibly creating an overall negative affect.
This however was supposedly solved by the intervention of the Dawes Plan of August 1924. This made the current German governments popularity grows as they had seemingly saved Germany from certain disaster. This denied Hitler and opportunity in that he could not come out and attack the government as they had been able to save Germany’s economy. However elsewhere in the country problems were beginning to remerged. An economic crisis was happening in agriculture and Industry.
However, in order to solve this problem once and for all, Hans Luther took decisive action and replaced the mark with the rentenmark, a new currency. Since this currency was not produced on the scale of its predecessor - supply was restricted to 3.2 billion rentenmarks - the value held much better and therefore the inflation rate was significantly curbed. As a result, economic stability was achieved for the first time in 18 months in Germany, for which Luther and Schact, not Stresemann was hugely responsible. Without a solution to the hyperinflation crisis, Germany could have
Gustav Stresemann’s first achievement was solving the economic crisis, Stresemann called of workers strike in the Ruhr, this was bankrupting Germany. The strike kept on going so long because the German people didn’t want to give into the French. Stresemann then introduced a new currency Rentenmark, by strictly limiting the amount of this currency in circulation the valve of German money was stabilised and in the following year a permanent currency, the Reichsmark was brought in. Stresemann also cut the spending of the government and reduced the number of government workers. In November Stresemann arranged the Dawes Loans in order to pay reparations.
How successful was the Nazi economic policy? The Nazis had 4 aims/ problems once in power which the economic policy was supposed to be a solution for- the unemployment problem left from the Weimar era and the great depression, the lack of military forces and equipment available after the restrictions of Versailles, the lack of self-sufficiency of Germany as a country and they needed to provide a better quality of life for all Germans to ensure full support for the Fuhrer. I will be arguing that the economic policy was an overall success, but with areas of no improvement. Unemployment was tackled first, in a variety of different ways. Public expenditure and investments were increased in order to renew an industrial and business confidence in the economy.
However, I disagree to a smaller extent as the quality of the goods produced were very poor. Firstly, the Five-Year Plans allowed USSR to avoid the Great Depression. The FYP made USSR an autarky. Hence, being self-sufficient, it did not rely on trade with other countries. Therefore, when almost the whole world was badly affected by the Great Depression in the 1930s, USSR was able to avoid the economic downturn caused by it.
Though there are some beneficial events, it was an overall devastating era. After the war of 1812, the people of the United States felt enormous pride in winning a war against the almighty Britain and used their nationalism to inspire improvements, such as Henry Clay’s American system. It consisted of the Second National Bank, a strong banking system, the Tariff of 1816, which raised money for the protection of American manufacturing goods, and internal improvements such as networks that build roads and canals which made better transportation to flow foodstuffs and raw materials from west and south to north and east. This shows that America had become a more self-sufficient government and started growing its own national identities. Nationalism also helped the push for westward expansion and the Monroe Doctrine.
To what extent can the Weimar Republic be considered a successful democracy in the period up to December 1930? The Weimar republic can be considered both successful and unsuccessful, as it started in chaos and then became relatively stable until it collapsed during the great depression. The successes can be seen mainly through the Stresemann era while the failures are seen through the constitution, political parties, coups, economic failures and the lack of support towards the republic. Under the new constitution basic freedoms which were guaranteed to all was introduced and enabled a political and societal freedom, which therefore benefited each class, party and individual. This was considered a success as it gave people the basic principle of equality .
There was some political calm during the period. The daws plan was one key political success of the mid 20’s. It meant a new financial deal with America to stabilise the German economy to ensure that reparations were paid in a way not to threaten the German currency and meant that it would be more difficult for other countries to apply sanctions against Germany. However while there were some political successes these were largely limited. After the threats of extreme violence from both the left and right wing against the government the period involved less violence against the government and there were less revolutionary events such as the Munich Putsch.