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Policies for recovery - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Germany received a loan of 800 millions gold marks to aid the recovery of the economy. The loan was provided by US business leaders.
    - - The plan asserted that Germany’s economic stability was more important than making reparations payments. The USA had the right to allow Germany to take a reparation payment ‘holiday’. This reflected the desire of the USA to protect its investments, they behaved in exactly the way that Stresemann foresaw.
    - - Annual repayment amounts were reduced until 1929.
    - - Repayments would be made over a longer period in order to allow them to reduce the annual reparations bill.
- - - - Labour relations became increasingly strained and by 1928, big businesses were trying to keep wages down. At the same time, workers and Unions were demanding a pay rise. While pay had risen since 1924, the cost of living had risen alongside it. In 1924, the government passed a law imposing compulsory arbitration of industrial disputes. Nonetheless, by 1928, big firms were resisting government intervention.
    - - Germany had issues exporting to the USA and UK. The USA had introduced tariffs and adopted a protectionist policy towards international trade, while the UK tended to trade with its empire more than foreign countries. German balance of trade was negative every year in the period 1924-1928, with the exception of 1926. 1927 was a particularly poor year for the German balance of trade, with the figure lying at -2890 million Reichsmarks
    - - Germany’s farms did not experience any level of prosperity in the late 1920s. German farms had failed ot modernise in the late 19th Century, so US and UK farms were able to produce grain far more cheaply and in greater quantities than their German counterparts. Farm production stagnated and throughout the 1920s, farm production remained below 20 million tonnes with the exception of 1928. This is in contrast to the production in 1913, which stood at 30 million tonnes. The reasons for this are varied, and most likely included a mixture of the fact that German exports of agriculture were low due to the high price of German goods and due to the loss of farmland incurred by the Treaty of Versailles.
    - - there were also worrying signs that the economy was not creating enough jobs. Even before the crash of 1929, unemployment had risen by a not insignificant amount from 1928-1929.
    - - Potentially the most significant sign of economic trouble in ‘Golden years’ Weimar was the fact that Germen economic growth was entirely dependent on US money. From this point of view, the economy was not secure as it was not self-sustaining. Schacht and Stresemann both recognised this dependence and the dangers of it, with Stresemann stating that Germany was ‘Dancing on the edge of a volcano’.