Reparation and the German financial system, 1919-1924

Abstract

It has often been said that the reparation question was the "stone in the road" of German democracy. When applied to the period between 1919 and 1924, this statement has usually had one of two meanings. In the mouths of the moderate politicians who formed the early governments of the Weimar Republic it has been a reference to the way in which the reparation problem handicapped them in their rivalry with opposition groups of the extreme Left and Right, Nationalist groups, it is claimed, profited by being able to condemn the policy of "fulfilment" as unpatriotic; while communists made much capital out of the charge that, by paying reparation, the government was conniving at the exploitation of the German working class by world capitalism. Reparation payments were, on this view , a hindrance to German democracy because they embarrassed and weakened those parties which were most closely associated with the democratic Weimer constitution.