If you remember, the Treaty of Versailles sets a huge bill to Germany and makes it difficult to pay. In 1923, the situation became so bad that Germany could no longer pay. Therefore, France decided to take over the Ruhr area in Germany (this was a industrial hotspot). With a legal limit of 100,000 men in the Army, Germany could not realistically fight back. They instead tried a passive approach.

The government ordered German workers to strike and gave them welfare to compensate. However this money was literally plucked from nowhere. It made the economy even worse, the French had took over 80% of their coal, iron and steel industry; and German passive resistance had no effect since the French brought in their own workers.

Germany was in a very bad situation indeed. The only apparent option for them was to print more money. This led to inflation of prices so the government printed even more money. This led to a cycle known as hyperinflation. In fact, in 1923, £1 would buy 20 billion marks. In other words, that's how much German's would have to pay for an item that costs £1 which is ridiculous.

This made workers unhappy since they had to pay more for bare essentials and the middle class was also hit since their savings became worthless. However people who owed debt could easily pay it off since
the amount of money they owed also became worthless.

What this creates is extreme divisions in society. The Weimar Republic is a moderate political system but it failed. People believed they needed radical change. As you'd imagine, workers turned to the communist party and the middle class turned to the right wing. One such party was the Nazi party but they didn't have much prominence at this time.

There were two main attempts to overthrow the Weimar Republic. One from the left wing; one from the right. What's interesting is how these are actually linked together.

The first one is the Spartacist League uprising. In January 1919 - just days before the first ever German election - the two main communist leaders (Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht) ordered 100,000 communists to take over key buildings in Berlin such as the press. Since the regular army would not be strong enough to put them down alone (100,000 would even the score but it lowers their defence strongly) they asked a group known as the Freikorps to put them down.

The Freikorps eventually stopped the Sparticists and executed the two leaders. However, the leader (Dr. Wolfgang Kapp) then ordered a Putsch on Berlin in 1920. This time a mere 5,000 marched against Berlin which was significantally less than the Spartacists. However, a government attack on Kapp would infuriate the Freikorps who could easily whoop them. The government instead uses passive resistance succesfully to destroy the Kapp Putsch. You could argue that this is why they use the same strategy later on when the Ruhr was occupied.

After all this had happened, more German citizens began to support extreme parties which led to a lot of people opposing the Republic. However, a guy called Stresemann was made chancellor and he restored some faith in the constitution.

The next events are key in explaining how Hitler eventually got into power which are explained in the next blog.