The Weimar Republic in Crisis, 1919–1923

The Weimar Republic survived its early years only just. Born from defeat and a hated treaty, it faced violent challenges from both political extremes between 1919 and 1923. Understanding that threats came from both the left and the right is essential for the exam.

Extreme	Who they were	What they wanted
The left	Communists (Spartacists)	A workers' revolution like Russia's in 1917
The right	Nationalists, ex-soldiers, monarchists	To destroy the republic and restore strong, authoritarian rule

The republic's weakness was made worse by its use of proportional representation, which produced fragile coalition governments, and by the fact that much of the army, judges and civil service secretly disliked democracy. This left it exposed to attack from every direction.

The first major threat came from the left. The Spartacists were German communists, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, who wanted a revolution like the Bolsheviks had achieved in Russia in 1917.

In January 1919 they launched an uprising in Berlin, seizing buildings and calling for a workers' government.

• The government, led by Friedrich Ebert, turned to the army and the Freikorps (groups of right-wing ex-soldiers) to crush the revolt.
• The uprising was defeated within days, and Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered.

The government's decision to rely on the right-wing Freikorps to defeat the left had lasting consequences: it deepened the split between socialists and communists, and it strengthened armed right-wing groups that would later threaten Weimar themselves.

The next major threat came from the right. In March 1920, a group of right-wing nationalists and Freikorps units led by Wolfgang Kapp marched on Berlin to overthrow the republic. This was the Kapp Putsch.

• The regular army refused to fire on the rebels, so the government fled Berlin.
• But the government called on Berlin's workers to go on strike. A general strike paralysed the capital — no transport, no power, no services.
• Without the cooperation of ordinary workers, Kapp could not govern. Within days the putsch collapsed.

The Kapp Putsch showed both the danger and the resilience of the republic. It revealed that the army could not be trusted to defend democracy, yet it also showed that ordinary Germans would act to save the republic when they chose to.

The crises of 1923 began with reparations. Germany struggled to pay the huge sums demanded by the Treaty of Versailles, and in late 1922 it fell behind on payments.

France wanted its money. In January 1923, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr, Germany's most important industrial region, to seize coal, steel and goods directly as payment.

The German government could not fight back militarily, so it ordered passive resistance:

• Workers in the Ruhr went on strike and refused to cooperate with the occupiers.
• The government kept paying the striking workers' wages even though they produced nothing.

This was a patriotic stand, but it was economically disastrous. Germany lost the output of its industrial heartland and had to pay millions of idle workers, all while tax income collapsed. To cover the cost, the government did one fateful thing: it printed more money.

Printing money to pay for the Ruhr crisis destroyed the value of the German mark. This was hyperinflation — prices rising so fast that money became almost worthless.

The collapse was staggering. The price of a loaf of bread illustrates the scale:

Date (1923)	Rough price of a loaf of bread
January	~250 marks
July	~3,500 marks
September	~1.5 million marks
November	~200 billion marks

The human effects varied by group, and the exam rewards recognising this:

• Losers: people with savings or fixed pensions saw their money become worthless; the middle class was hit hardest.
• Some winners: people with debts could pay them off with worthless money, and some businesses that had borrowed heavily benefited.

Workers were sometimes paid twice a day and rushed to spend wages before prices rose again. Money was so worthless it was used to light fires or as children's building blocks.

The chaos of 1923 convinced extremists that the republic was finished. In Bavaria, Adolf Hitler and the young Nazi Party decided to strike.

On 8 November 1923, Hitler and around 600 SA men burst into a Munich beer hall where Bavarian leaders were meeting, hoping to force them to join a march on Berlin. This was the Munich Putsch (also called the Beer Hall Putsch).

• On 9 November 1923 the Nazis marched through Munich, but police blocked them; shots were fired and 16 Nazis were killed.
• The putsch failed. Hitler was arrested and charged with treason.

Yet the failure brought Hitler two advantages:

• His trial gave him a national platform to attack the republic; he was jailed for only about a year.
• In prison he wrote Mein Kampf and decided the Nazis must gain power legally, through elections, rather than by force.

By the end of 1923 the Weimar Republic had survived, but it had been badly shaken. A useful way to see the period is to group the threats by type — the kind of analysis the 12-mark "which had the greater impact" question rewards.

Threat	Type	Outcome
Spartacist uprising (Jan 1919)	Political (left)	Crushed by army and Freikorps
Kapp Putsch (March 1920)	Political (right)	Defeated by general strike
Ruhr occupation (Jan 1923)	Economic/political	Passive resistance; triggered hyperinflation
Hyperinflation (1923)	Economic	Savings destroyed; deep resentment
Munich Putsch (Nov 1923)	Political (right)	Failed; publicity for Hitler

The republic proved surprisingly durable, surviving revolts from both extremes and economic ruin. But these crises left a legacy of bitterness, especially among the middle class ruined by hyperinflation, that extremists like the Nazis would exploit a decade later.

1. Confusing the Spartacists with the Kapp Putsch

The Spartacists were left-wing communists (January 1919); the Kapp Putsch was a right-wing revolt (March 1920). Mixing up which side each came from is a common and costly error.

2. Confusing the 1923 hyperinflation with the 1929 Great Depression

Examiners repeatedly note this mix-up. Hyperinflation in 1923 was caused by printing money during the Ruhr crisis. The Great Depression came later, after the 1929 Wall Street Crash. They are different crises six years apart.

3. Saying hyperinflation hurt everyone equally

People with savings and fixed incomes suffered most, but some with large debts actually benefited. Recognising winners as well as losers shows the analytical depth that reaches the top levels.

4. Getting the cause of hyperinflation wrong

Hyperinflation was triggered by the government printing money to fund passive resistance after the Ruhr occupation. It was not simply caused by "the Treaty of Versailles" in a vague way. Show the chain: unpaid reparations → Ruhr occupation → passive resistance → printing money → hyperinflation.

5. Overstating the Munich Putsch

The Munich Putsch failed and involved only a few hundred men in Bavaria. Do not describe it as nearly toppling the government. Its real significance was the publicity from Hitler's trial and his shift to legal tactics.