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Person1878 – 1929

Gustav Stresemann

Weimar chancellor (1923) and foreign minister (1923–1929) who ended the hyperinflation and brought Germany back into the international community through Locarno

Born to a Berlin beer merchant’s family, he took a doctorate in economics and during the First World War was a nationalist who backed annexations. After the war he founded the German People’s Party and came round to accepting the Republic. As chancellor for about a hundred days in 1923 he ended passive resistance and introduced the Rentenmark. As foreign minister he eased reparations through the Dawes and Young Plans and led Germany into Locarno and the League of Nations, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926, but he died in October 1929, aged 51, just before the Depression struck.

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3 related events

  1. 1
    1923 – 1925Occupation of the Ruhr and German Hyperinflationrelated figure

    When Germany fell behind on reparations, France and Belgium occupied the industrial Ruhr. The German government answered with passive resistance financed by printing money, and the mark collapsed.

  2. 2
    1925Locarno Treatiesdiplomat

    Germany, France and Belgium agreed to respect each other’s borders, with Britain and Italy as guarantors. Germany joined the League of Nations the next year as a spirit of international cooperation took hold.

  3. 3
    1928Kellogg–Briand Pactdiplomat

    On the initiative of French foreign minister Briand and US Secretary of State Kellogg, the powers pledged to renounce war as an instrument of national policy.

People who appear alongside

  • Aristide Briand1862 – 1932

    French statesman, many times prime minister, who as foreign minister championed the Locarno Treaties and the Kellogg–Briand Pact

  • Adolf Hitler1889 – 1945

    Nazi leader and Führer of Germany (1934–1945) who started the Second World War and perpetrated the Holocaust; he killed himself as Berlin fell

  • Benito Mussolini1883 – 1945

    Founder of Italian Fascism who became prime minister (1922–1943) after the March on Rome; dictator who invaded Ethiopia and allied with Hitler

  • Frank B. Kellogg1856 – 1937

    US Secretary of State (1925–1929) who, with Briand, brought about the Pact of Paris; Nobel Peace Prize 1929

Themes this person appears in

  • The Great Depression and Totalitarianism1919 – 1939

    From the Washington Conference to the invasion of Poland — two decades in which the age of international cooperation collapsed in the Depression, fascism, Nazism and Stalinism rose, and the world slid into war again