Stresemann and Locarno
Author(s): Jonathan Wright
Source: Contemporary European History, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Jul., 1995), pp. 109-131
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Stresemann and Locarno
JONATHAN WRIGHT
The significance of the Locarno treaties remains one of the central issues of the
interwar period. Did they mark, as Austen Chamberlain claimed, 'the real dividing
line between the years of war and the years of peace' or were they, at best, a truce
masking the incompatible ambitions of France and Germany and, at worst, a first
act of appeasement by which France and Britain obtained security for the Rhineland
at the expense of Poland and Czechoslovakia?1 A different approach is offered by
economic history: from this perspective the significant events are seen as the defeat
of the French occupation of the Ruhr and the acceptance of the Dawes Plan in July
1924. France had to abandon its attempt to break the power of German industry and
had to accept the British and American view that European peace required German
economic recovery. The Locarno treaties may be seen simply as the best arrange
ments that France could make for its security following this decisive defeat.2
In any assessment of the significance of Locarno, the crucial question is whether
the d?tente it appeared to inaugurate had the potential for the peaceful resolution of
Europe's problems or whether such hopes were vain from the start. That this
remains a subject of debate is clear from the contrasting views of two leading
German authorities: on the one side Peter Kr?ger, who argues that the commitment
to peaceful diplomacy became the determining factor of Weimar foreign policy
from 1924-9 (as it did again later in the Federal Republic), and, on the other side
Franz Knipping, who argues that the incompatibility of French and German aims
had already undermined the will to solve problems by negotiation before the
1 Chamberlain to the British press, 23 Oct. 1925, quoted in C. A. Macartney, ed., Survey of
International Affairs 192s, Vol. 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1928), 56. The most comprehensive
account remains Jon Jacobson, Locarno Diplomacy. Germany and the West 1925-1929 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1972). A critical assessment from the Polish point of view is given by Anna
M. Cienciala and Titus Komarnicki, From Versailles to Locarno. Keys to Polish Foreign Policy, 1919-1925
(Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1984), 223-76. There is also an important new volume of essays on
this theme, Ralph Schattkowsky, ed., Locarno und Osteuropa. Fragen eines europ?ischen Sicherheitssystems
in den 20er Jahren (Marburg: Hitzeroth-verlag, 1994).
2 Stephen A. Schuker, The End of French Predominance in Europe: The Financial Crisis of 1924 and the
Adoption of the Dawes Plan (thereafter Schuker, End of French Predominance) (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1976). For a discussion of the economic re-interpretation, see Jon Jacobson, 'Is
There a New International History of the 1920s?', American Historical Review, Vol. 88, no. 3 (1983),
617-45.
Contemporary European History, 4, 2 (1995), pp. 109-131 ? 1995 Cambridge University Press
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no
Contemporary European History
Depression transformed the political landscape.3
antagonists - and there are interesting parallels
there is bound to be ambiguity about its direc
agreement on the Rhineland frontier more or
resolve the issue of Germany's frontier with Polan
would lead to war or could a modus vivendi hav
be addressed at many levels: the instability of
potential of the leading revisionist powers, Ger
implicit threat to the status quo powers, France
threat made worse by the relative isolation of
detachment of Britain from Europe; the dislo
compounded by some of the same factors; the
Union and the Western powers; and the compe
their officials) and the constraints on them of
often suffered from chronic instability.
The purpose of this article is to examine the stra
in the Locarno area, German Foreign Minister
may contribute to an assessment of the significanc
Stresemann's aims remain controversial, more
British counterparts, Aristide Briand and A
strategy offers an insight into the interaction of
structural forces, international and domestic, with
The controversy over Stresemann's aims may b
he had been in the First World War, an unqualifie
'greater Germany' but now by stealth in view o
or had he grown beyond this crude vision to a
European concert of powers? Each view has pe
British journalist Claud Cockburn, somewhat im
Times's office in Berlin in 1927, was taken by
Ebbutt, to drink beer with Stresemann in the g
wrote later of his disenchantment with Stre
concept of international relations for which Str
Personally I found that Stresemann was entertainin
him. He was one of those Germans who had, at a fairly
get away with being a good German was to pret
wonderful act in which he pretended to be not only f
a little muzzy with beer into the bargain. In reality h
and if being a sharp, fast-moving buzz-saw was not
with a hammer.4
3 Peter Kr?ger, Die Aussenpolitik der Republik von Wei
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985), 207
Frankreich und das Ende der Locarno-?ra 1Q28-IQ31 (thereaft
R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1987).
4 Claud Cockburn, In Time of Trouble. An Autobiograph
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Stresemann and Locarno in
Another contemporary, Thomas Mann, wri
The history of this extraordinary man belongs t
Coming from a right-wing bourgeois background,
of this origin in his blood, as a patriotic middle-cla
education and intellectual curiosity, identified w
power and still during the war a convinced adv
through a power of understanding, which was sim
illness, directed and driven by an exemplary com
already marked by death, to grow out from and
faster and faster - a man who was both driven an
into the world of a European society of nations i
one would have dreamt possible on the basis of hi
This division of opinion is also to be found
mann's early biographers emphasised the
wartime nationalism to become a man of pea
reconciliation.6 This Stresemann 'myth' w
Thimme with her acute portrait of the contrad
at once a Romantic nationalist and a fiercel
argued that he should be seen as a brilliant poli
rather than as a European statesman.7 More
specific themes: Stresemann and the domesti
policy towards France, Belgium, Britain, the
Poland, his use of trade as an instrument of rev
Nations and the issue of minorities, his relation
Ausw?rtiges Amt and so forth.8 In these specia
5 Quoted in Felix Hirsch, Stresemann. Ein Lebensbild
Musterschmidt, 1978), 307-8.
6 Rudolf Olden, Stresemann (English ed., London: Meth
(English ed., London: Constable, 1931).
7 Annelise Thimme, Gustav Stresemann. Eine politisc
Republik (Hanover, Frankfurt am Main: Norddeutsche
8 For publications up to 1970, see Martin Walsdorff, Bi
Droste Verlag, 1972). Henry Ashby Turner, Stresema
(thereafter, Turner, Stresemann) (Princeton: Princeton U
Stresemann's domestic politics. More recent monographs
und Ostpolitik. Stresemanns Ru?landpolitik in der Locarn
(Bremen: Sch?nemann Universit?tsverlag, 1971); Michae
Deutsche Politik der Ost?West-Balance (thereafter Max
Droste Verlag, 1972); Werner Weidenfeld, Die England
praktische Aspekte der Aussenpolitik (Mainz: v.Hase
Stresemann's Territorial Revisionism. Germany, Belgium
(thereafter Enssle, Territorial Revisionism) (Wiesbad
Grathwol, Stresemann and the DNVP. Reconciliation or
(thereafter Grathwol, Stresemann and the DNVP) (Lawr
Berg, Gustav Stresemann und die Vereinigten Staaten von
Revisionspolitik 1907-1929 (thereafter Berg, Streseman
1990); Piotr Madajczyk, Polityka i Koncepcje Polityczne G
(Warsaw: Instytut Nauk Politcznych Polskiej Akademii N
essays, Wolfgang Michalka and Marshall M. Lee, eds, Gus
Stresemann) (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellsch
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112 Contemporary European History
tion remain but there is also much common ground. It is not in dispute th
Stresemann hoped to see the Treaty of Versailles replaced by a different in
national system or that one aim behind the policy of accommodation with
Western powers at Locarno was to increase the chance of revision in the East.
also not in dispute that a distinguishing feature of Stresemann's foreign policy wa
his recognition of the constraints on German power consequent on defeat,
armament and isolation. From this sprang his interest in how Germany coul
made a worthwhile ally (b?ndnisf?hig) again and the hopes he attached to econ
factors as an instrument of revision. Following the spate of detailed monographs,
may now be useful to try to put together again a picture of the whole man. W
follows is an attempt to supply a biographer's perspective on Stresemann a
Locarno.9
The indispensable background is Stresemann's experience as chancellor and foreign
minister from August to November 1923. These hundred days, which he later said
he would not have wished on his worst enemies, brought a series of crises which
threatened to destroy both the Republic and Germany itself in the form created by
Bismarck.10 Stresemann found himself fighting desperately to save the two things
he cared most about: parliamentary democracy and the Bismarck Reich, the
symbols of the liberalism and nationalism which were at the heart of his political
creed. The first problem was inflation of the currency, which was out of control as a
consequence of the policy of passive resistance which had been adopted against the
French occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923. By the autumn, Germany faced
what Stresemann described as a 'total collapse of the whole German economy'.11
Any hope of currency stabilisation, however, required ending the subsidy to the
occupied territories which would effectively leave them to their fate. This might
well begin a process which would lead to a separate Rhineland state under French
control, depriving Germany of its most important industrial region with a popu
lation of 12 to 15 million.12 Stresemann attempted to avoid this dilemma by
opening direct negotiations with France, but Poincar?, sensing victory, refused and
Stresemann was forced to abandon passive resistance unconditionally on 25 Septem
9 Recent biographical studies include three sympathetic portraits by people who knew him:
Hirsch, Stresemann; Theodor Eschenburg and Ulrich Frank-Planitz, Gustav Stresemann. Eine Bildbiogra
phie (thereafter Eschenburg and Frank-Planitz, Stresemann) (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1978);
and Wolfgang Stresemann, Mein Vater Gustav Stresemann (Munich: F. A. Herbig, 1979). There is also
Kurt Koszyk, Gustav Stresemann. Der kaisertreue Demokrat (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1989). A
fine, brief appreciation, which ranges over his whole career, is Karl Dietrich Erdmann, 'Gustav
Stresemann. Sein Bild in der Geschichte', Historische Zeitschrift, Vol. 227, no. 3 (1978), 599-616.
10 Speech to the party conference of the Deutsche Volkspartei (DVP), 30 Mar. 1924; Rochus
Freiherr von Rheinbaben, ed., Stresemann. Reden und Schriften. Politik?Geschichte-Literatur 1897-1926
(thereafter Rheinbaben, Stresemann), Vol. 2 (Dresden: Carl Reissner Verlag, 1926), 185.
11 Stresemann to the Minister Presidents of the L?nder, 25 Sept. 1923, Karl Dietrich Erdmann and
Martin Vogt, eds, Die Kabinette Stresemann I und II (thereafter Erdmann and Vogt, Kabinette
Stresemann), Vol. 1 (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1978), no. 79, 349.
12 The figures come from 'Politische Umschau', 17 May 1923, Deutsche Stimmen, Vol. 35, no. 10
(1923), 167. Stresemann edited this party journal from 1918 until he became chancellor in August 1923.
He wrote the fortnightly 'Politische Umschau' articles himself.
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Stresemann and Locarno 113
ber. This was a necessary and courageous decision but it was also profoundly
unpopular and humiliating - Stresemann did not exaggerate when he told the
Reichstag that he was well aware that it could cost him the leadership of his party
and even his life.13
The decision to abandon passive resistance immediately set off a domestic crisis
which threatened to bring down the Republic and end in civil war. The nationalist
leagues in Bavaria were waiting for the opportunity to march on Berlin under the
tolerant eye of the Bavarian Government, which defied the attempts of the Reich
Government to re-assert its authority there. Meanwhile, Bavaria's northern neigh
bours, Saxony and Thuringia, under left-wing socialist governments, were believed
to be moving towards a Communist insurrection. The Reichswehr chief, General
von Seeckt, was keen to intervene against Saxony and Thuringia but refused to take
action against Bavaria. When Stresemann, in an attempt to keep control of the
crisis, agreed to the action against Saxony and Thuringia at the end of October, the
SPD resigned from his government, depriving it of its majority. Far from being
satisfied, Seeckt now let it be known that the situation in Bavaria could only be
resolved peacefully if Stresemann stood down in favour of an authoritarian govern
ment which would be effectively, if not explicitly, under Seeckt's control.14
Stresemann could not even rely on the support of his own parliamentary party
where a substantial group was prepared to ditch him. Showing remarkable tenacity,
Stresemann refused to bow to this pressure, telling his party that the nationalist
leagues would have 'to shoot me at the place where I have a right to sit'.15 His
determination almost certainly saved the Republic from the 'national dictatorship'
advocated by Seeckt and other groups on the Right. The fiasco of the Hitler putsch
on 9 November then removed the threat of civil war and restored the authority of
constitutional government. The abyss of domestic disorder leading, Stresemann
predicted, to the break-up of the Reich had been avoided by the narrowest of
margins.16
This searing first experience of power had a profound influence on Stresemann. It
demonstrated beyond any doubt the precariousness of Germany's internal and
external security. The fortunate escape from civil war still left the future of the
occupied territories in the balance. The last weeks of his administration were spent
in increasingly desperate schemes to prevent them in effect organising themselves
into autonomous economic and political regions, without being able to promise the
vital lifeline of the new currency for fear that this would set off a new inflation. This
13 Speech to the Reichstag, 6 Oct. 1923; Rheinbaben, Stresemann, ii. 70.
14 Erdmann and Vogt, Kabinette Stresemann, ii. 1176?217. F. L. Carsten, The Reichswehr and Politics
1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 163-95; Hans Meier-Welcker, Seeckt (Frankfurt:
Bernard & Graefe, 1967), 376-413.
15 Turner, Stresemann, 135. Minutes of the meeting of the DVP Reichstag party, 5 Nov. 1923,
Nachla? Stresemann, Vol. 87. The original Nachla? is in the Politisches Archiv of the Ausw?rtiges Amt
in Bonn but it forms part of the captured German Foreign Ministry Archives and is therefore also
available on microfilm. An extract from the minutes is printed in Henry Bernhard, ed., Gustav
Stresemann Verm?chtnis (thereafter Bernhard, Verm?chtnis) I: Vom Ruhrkrieg bis London (Berlin: Verlag
Ullstein, 1932), 195-7.
16 Minutes of the meeting of the DVP Reichstag party, 5 Nov. 1923, ibid.
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114 Contemporary European History
problem was still unresolved when Stresemann resigned after failing to win a vote
of confidence in the Reichstag on 23 November, though he returned as foreign
minister in the next administration, a position he then held without interruption
until his death in October 1929.
The only way of avoiding the loss of the occupied territories at the end of 1923
was for Britain and the United States to persuade France to back down. This was the
hope to which Stresemann clung. He had developed the argument from the
beginning of his administration that the Germans should adopt the strategy of
holding out until they could exploit what he described as the possibilities 'objec
tively based' in 'the European distribution of power', in other words, they should
wait for British and American opposition to the French occupation of the Ruhr to
produce results.17 Lord Curzon, the Foreign Secretary, had already condemned the
Ruhr occupation as illegal and 'doomed to failure' in a magisterial note on 11
August, just before Stresemann became chancellor.18 As an alternative to Poincar?'s
policy of direct control of the Ruhr, Stresemann renewed previous German offers
to link the payment of reparations to guarantees on the whole German economy
and (following a proposal of the American Secretary of State, Charles Hughes) for
Germany to join in an international guarantee of the Rhine frontiers. These
proposals were made in close consultation with Lord D'Abernon, the British
ambassador in Berlin.19 However, this alternative strategy only achieved success
several months after Germany had been forced to give up passive resistance.
During this time Stresemann could only plead with the representatives of the
occupied territories to hold out and cajole his Finance Minister, Hans Luther, to find
stop-gap solutions to their most urgent needs. This led to a revealing clash with
Konrad Adenauer, who as Lord Mayor of Cologne, was directly involved in the
fate of the occupied territories and did not believe in Stresemann's policy.20
Adenauer thought that only words of support could be expected from Britain and
the United States and that there was, therefore, no alternative to a direct settlement
with France. His idea was that this should consist in a new state (Land) within
Germany, composed of the occupied territories. This new Land would exercise a
powerful influence on German policy through its size and industrial importance; its
population would be naturally peace-loving and its economy would be closely
linked to that of France. He hoped to persuade Poincar? that this was the only
realistic basis for long-term peace between the two nations though he admitted that
as a last resort they might be forced to accept separation from the Reich. Strese
mann also believed, during the worst period of October to November 1923, that
17 Minutes of the meeting with the L?nder Minister Presidents, 25 Sept. 1923, Erdmann and Vogt,
Kabinette Stresemann, i. 79, 350.
18 Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939 (thereafter DBFP), ist Ser., Vol. 21, no. 330,
467-82.
19 Memorandum by Carl von Schubert, head of the British and American department in the
Ausw?rtiges Amt, 29 Aug. 1923, Akten zur Deutschen Ausw?rtigen Politik (thereafter AD AP), Ser. A,
Vol. 8, no. 123, 312-14. D'Abernon to Curzon, 30 Aug. 1923, DBFP, ist Ser., Vol. 21, no. 340, 496-8.
20 Karl Dietrich Erdmann, Adenauer in der Rheinlandpolitik nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart:
Ernst Klett Verlag, 1966), 87-186.
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Stresemann and Locarno 115
separation might be unavoidable, but he was adamantly opposed to Adenauer's
plan. He argued that it offered no solution as the French occupation would
continue, and it might itself provide a stage leading towards separation. When
Adenauer persisted with his plans and contacted French intermediaries in December,
Stresemann suspected, with reason, that he was being used by Poincar? to under
mine the position of the German Government. Adenauer suspected, equally with
reason, that Stresemann was less than frank in the arguments he used to kill
Adenauer's scheme; in particular, Stresemann kept silent about the opposition he
was still encountering from Poincar? to opening negotiations. The conflict between
Adenauer and Stresemann left a lasting legacy of mutual suspicion between them. It
also illustrated the difference between a policy which assumed that a solution for the
occupied territories would have to be found which was acceptable to Poincar?, and
Stresemann's view that the pressure of Britain and the United States would, in the
long term, make possible a solution which committed Germany as a whole and
thereby avoided a separate status for the occupied territories.
Stresemann's patience and persistence were ultimately rewarded. The inter
national committee of experts established by the Reparations Commission in
November under an American chairman, Charles Dawes, visited Berlin at the end
of January 1924. Stresemann was able to report to representatives of the occupied
territories that the committee accepted the need to restore the Ruhr to German
control and to provide an international loan, secured on German assets like the
railways, to fund reparations to France.21 Seeing at last real grounds for believing
that his strategy would succeed, Stresemann referred to the work of the committee
as 'the first ray of light on the dark horizon'.22 His endorsement of the Dawes Plan,
which was finally presented in April 1924, was a measure of his relief that they had
come through the crises of 1923. He told the minister presidents of the L?nder that
'after the lost battle of the Ruhr it seemed to him an honourable peace'.23 For the
next four months he devoted all his energy to ensuring that the plan was adopted.
This meant negotiating satisfactory terms with the other powers and mobilising
sufficient support in the Reichstag, no small task since some of the legislation
involved constitutional amendment and therefore required a two-thirds majority.
The task was made the more difficult by elections in May from which the main
opposition nationalist party, the Deutschnationale Volkspartei (DNVP), emerged
greatly strengthened and, in alliance with the agrarian Reichslandhund, formed the
largest parliamentary group in the Reichstag while Stresemann's party, the Deutsche
Volkspartei (DVP), lost a third of its seats. Having the courage to take unpopular
decisions was clearly not the way to reap electoral rewards.
Despite this set-back, which he had expected, and despite another attempt by his
21 Minutes of the meeting, 7 Feb. 1924, G?nther Abramowski, ed., Die Kabinette Marx I und II
(thereafter Abramowski, Kabinette Marx) (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1973), i. no. 92,
331-2.
22 Speech in Elberfeld, 17 Feb. 1924, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, i. 300. Stresemann borrowed the
phrase from Carl Bergmann, the long-standing German representative to the Reparations Commis
sion, ibid., 301.
23 Minutes of the meeting, 14 Apr. 1924, Abramowski, Kabinette Marx, i. no. 175, 557.
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no Contemporary European History
party to force him to stand down (which led him to comment
what Bismarck had meant when he said 'I hated all night'), he d
support for the Dawes Plan.24 He was encouraged in his vie
ambassador in Paris, Leopold von Hoesch, who urged that by
policy of understanding, of peace and of international solidarit
regain, if not its old power, at least sovereignty, equal rights and f
advice was given in the context of the French elections (held
German ones) which led to the fall of Poincar? and the for
centre?left government under Edouard Herriot. Stresemann sa
if Germany failed to respond positively to the new situation, F
revert to the control of Poincar?.25
During the summer, Stresemann argued the case for accepta
Plan in public speeches, confidential meetings with party lead
presidents of the L?nder, the national executive of the DVP, in
and in the Reichstag. This activity provides a perfect exampl
primary role as a politician: to build a consensus in a political c
highly fragmented and in which nationalist parties formed one of
of ?lite and popular opinion. Although there was no realistic al
ance of the Dawes Plan, Stresemann faced the entrenched oppos
regarded it as a 'second Versailles' because of the international cont
the German economy and because of the schedule of reparations pa
laid down.26 Stresemann had the gift of presenting his argum
nationalist critics could understand, but in doing so he sometim
which raise doubts about his own real intentions, a process that
with the Locarno policy.
His central argument, set out for instance in his confidential brie
minister presidents, was that the Dawes Plan gave Germany the
whole power of American as well as British capital against 'Fren
This made it a 'world political event', a real change in the intern
United States alone could put pressure on France by means of
demanded even the interest due the franc would collapse. It wa
Germany should reject this opportunity; if the Germans impos
French would lay down more conditions and the whole plan w
happened, Germany could not expect to hold on to the occ
economy would go under for lack of credit. With implement
foreign loans would flow in and Germany would have the cha
accepted that reparations payments would be heavy when they reac
level foreseen by the plan in 1928-9, but he added that both th
Americans understood the disturbance to international tra
24 Lord D'Abernon, An Ambassador of Peace, III: The Years of Recovery Janua
(thereafter D'Abernon, Ambassador) (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930), 6
25 Hoesch to Ausw?rtiges Amt, 5 June 1924, with Stresemann's margin
Ser. A, Vol. 10, no. 126, 306-9.
26 Grathwol, Stresemann and the DNVP, 20.
27 Minutes of the meeting, 3 July 1924, Abramowski, Kabinette Marx, ii. n
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Stresemann and Locarno 117
required to finance payments of that kind, and experts from both countries tacitly
expected the levels to be scaled down. To the objection of a DNVP minister
president that Germany would be taken over by Anglo-American capitalism, he
replied that that had been the decisive power in winning the war and, more
robustly, that once the German economy was strong again it could 'throw away the
crutches'. In the same way, to the criticism that Europe's problems could only be
solved 'by the sword', he replied that if that was so 'and I believe that ultimately
these great arguments are always decided by the sword', he hoped it would be put
off as long as possible as Germany did not possess the power of the sword. If one
wanted a more important role, one must first lay the foundations.
To the DVP national executive, he explained his view of how Germany could
regain international influence.28 Describing the five years since 1919 as a period of
domestic consolidation, he went on: 'Only abroad, we have at present neither
political power nor influence. You can only conduct successful policy if you have
one or the other or the first through the second. I consider all the elaborate games to
recover power secretly as total nonsense. You cannot produce heavy artillery or
build a thousand planes secretly, that damages our foreign policy without bringing
us anything. The only policy which can succeed is that which aims to become a
worthwhile ally [b?ndnisf?hig] for other nations, so as, at the moment of achieving
alliance-worthiness, to receive from the other side what you would never get with
old, buried guns.' He hoped that the next five years would see a consolidation of
Germany's international position and this meant putting an end to the conflict over
reparations. The Dawes Plan offered the chance to do that and, through the
involvement of foreign, especially American, capital in the economy, 'quite differ
ent perspectives' for the future. This was the course of 'sober Realpolitik' which
would in the end be successful.
These quotations contain the heart of Stresemann's strategy. The Dawes Plan
offered Germany the opportunity to break out of the isolation of an ex-enemy state
and, buttressed by Anglo-American loans, to resume its place among the European
great powers. There it could bring its economic and political weight to bear to
achieve the revision of the Treaty of Versailles. The only alternative concept,
Seeckt's secret rearmament for a war of revenge against France and the associated
policy of close relations with the Soviet Union, was wholly unrealistic. Neverthe
less, Stresemann had a difficult task answering critics who did not believe that
Treaty revision could come by peaceful means. He side-stepped the issue by
agreeing that 'ultimately' force would decide but immediately countered that, as a
disarmed state, Germany had no alternative to peaceful methods, which he clearly
hoped would produce results.
The first and crucial result which he needed in order to have any hope of
persuading the Reichstag to accept the Dawes Plan was the military evacuation of
the Ruhr. This issue did not lie within the terms of reference of the Dawes
committee, nor was it officially part of the agenda of the international conference
28 Minutes of the meeting, 6 July 1924, R 45 II/39, Deutsche Volkspartei papers, Bundesarchiv,
Koblenz.
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ii8 Contemporary European History
which met in London in July to decide on the implementation of the Dawes Plan.
Germany was invited to join the conference in August and Stresemann finally
succeeded in extracting the crucial concession from Herriot, although with the
proviso that the evacuation would take a year to complete.29 The conference was
followed immediately by the session of the Reichstag. Theodor Eschenburg, then a
first-year student, later wrote of Stresemann's speeches on this occasion as not just
'fine talking as they were so often described' but as expressing 'the most honest
conviction, passion and an unbending will'.30 The votes of the DNVP which were
crucial for a two-thirds majority remained in doubt up to the time they were being
counted in the final vote. Stresemann was involved in intensive lobbying until the
last moment and, after DNVP opposition remained firm on the second reading,
agreed that his party should offer its support to bring the DNVP into the
government provided the DNVP helped to pass the legislation.31 On 29 August the
DNVP split down the middle with the more pragmatic sections, who understood
the critical nature of the Dawes credits for industry and agriculture, providing
forty-eight votes in favour. The legislation was saved.
This was a triumph for Stresemann. It was a success for his foreign policy and, no
less significant, a breakthrough in domestic politics. If the DNVP ? or at least a
major section of it ? could be persuaded to accept his foreign policy then there was a
real prospect of achieving a broad consensus. This would stabilise the Republic,
isolating the extremes on the right and left. It would also protect the DVP from
further loss of support to the DNVP. Stresemann was still doubtful about the
DNVP. He distrusted its leaders who were allowing themselves to be feted by their
constituency associations as 'No' voters, and he was emotionally averse to co
operation with a party which had repeatedly attacked him.32 He gave vent to some
of these feelings while on holiday on the North Sea island of Nordeney immediately
after the Dawes vote. He wrote an autobiographical sketch called 'The Bar' - a
reference to the sandbank which protected Nordeney from the full force of the
sea.33 In the story, a visiting young friend points out that the sandbank gives
Nordeney a subdued and repressed character, unlike the outer islands where the
waves are wild and free. Stresemann sees in this an image of the constraints of his
career as a successful politician, compared to the spontaneity and idealism of his
youth. His idealism had been worn away by the need to compromise until he no
longer felt the same person: 'His face became often only a mask adapted to his
surroundings. Some called him unprincipled, but those who looked more deeply
detected an element of cynicism which arose from seeing that the ideas paraded in
29 Jacques Bari?ty, Les Relations franco-allemandes apr?s la premi?re guerre mondiale. 10 november
1918-10 janvier 1923 de l'ex?cution ? la n?gociation (Paris: Editions Pedone, 1977), 505-716; Schuker, End
of French Predominance, 295-382.
30 Theodor Eschenburg, 'Stresemann und die Studenten', Nord und S?d, Vol. 52, no. 11 (Nov.
1929), 998-1003, repr. in part in Arnold Harttung, ed., Gustav Stresemann Schriften (thereafter Harttung,
Stresemann Schriften) (Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 1976), 404-8.
31 Grathwol, Stresemann and the DNVP, 50.
32 Stresemann to Rudolf von Campe, 8 Sept. 1924, Nachla? Stresemann, Vol. 15, Harttung,
Stresemann Schriften, 234-6.
33 Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, i. 549-53.
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Stresemann and Locarno 119
public life served mainly as a cover for individual interests.' It is certainly tempting
to see in this a reference to the strains of the previous weeks, and in particular the
bargain with the DNVP.
Whatever his reservations, Stresemann decided in the autumn to go ahead with
the change of tactics to the DNVP. He told the Cabinet that it would be easier to
conduct foreign policy with the DNVP in government and that it would encourage
the moderate forces within the party to deal with the radical wing, which would be
good for the state.34 The DNVP had an interest in entering the government in order
to influence the new tariff policy which would take effect as Germany recovered its
freedom to negotiate commercial treaties with other countries. This had been
restricted by the Treaty of Versailles for five years, ending in January 1925. Given
the likely future agenda of foreign policy - evacuation of Allied troops from the
Rhineland and the question of French security, disarmament, German entry into
the League of Nations ? there was obviously every incentive for Stresemann to
draw the DNVP into a share of responsibility to prevent it from reaping further
electoral rewards by nationalist agitation. Nevertheless, it was a bold manoeuvre
which risked alienating his coalition partners, the Catholic Centre Party and the left
liberal Democratic party (DDP). It also confirmed, as he had expected, his repu
tation for opportunism, particularly since he had previously been identified with the
policy of coalition with the SPD. Stresemann's decision led to the resignation of the
Cabinet, which could not agree on the inclusion of the DNVP, and to new elections
in October. He based his campaign on an appeal to all constitutional, middle-class
parties to unite behind a foreign policy of 'national Realpolitik'.35 This he defined
rather awkwardly as a policy, free of the illusions of both right and left, 'which is
conscious of the limitations on our power, which seeks understanding and peace
because we need both, but which does not try to bring about peace by creating an
atmosphere but sees the concept of understanding as a mutual process of conciliation
achieved by conscious, tough effort'. The elections failed to break the deadlock
against both of the possible majorities: the DVP blocked a coalition with the SPD
and the DDP blocked a coalition with the DNVP. In the end, at Stresemann's
suggestion, Luther succeeded in forming an 'above party' minority government in
January 1925. The DNVP, DVP and Centre Party were represented in it without
being bound to support it. Stresemann had succeeded in bringing the DNVP in D'Abernon
noted that he was regarded as 'the politician behind the throne' ? but it
was an extremely fragile construction.36 He could only hope that it would grow, as
he intended, into a firm alliance behind his foreign policy.
It was in these circumstances that he launched the initiative which led to Locarno.
What were his goals and how far were they influenced by domestic politics?
His primary goal was to maintain the impetus, provided by the Dawes Plan,
34 Minutes of cabinet meetings, 6 and 15 Oct. 1924, Abramowski, Kabinette Marx, ii. nos. 317 and
329, 1092, 1113-14.
35 Speech to the DVP party conference, 14 Nov. 1924, R 45 II/29, Bundesarchiv Koblenz,
published as Nationale Realpolitik. Rede des Reichsau?enministers Dr. Stresemann auf dem 6. Parteitag der
Deutschen Volkspartei in Dortmund am 14. November 1924 (Berlin: Staatspolitischer Verlag, 1924).
36 D'Abernon, Ambassador, iii., 127.
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120 Contemporary European History
towards a new alignment of the European powers in which Germany would
treated as partner. His hand was forced by developments over the twin problems
French security and German disarmament. Stresemann feared that proposa
adopted by the League of Nations to supervise German disarmament under Ar
213 of the Treaty of Versailles would allow a permanent staff to be maintaine
the demilitarised zone of the Rhineland even after its evacuation by Allied tro
and that this would revive the danger of a separate Rhineland state under Fr
influence. In addition Austen Chamberlain, who became foreign secretary when th
Conservatives returned to power in November, was known to be pro-French
There was a danger that he would offer the French a bilateral security guaran
place of the 'Geneva Protocol', which had been adopted by the League Assemb
strengthen the provisions of the Covenant against aggression, but which Britain w
now unwilling to ratify because of the extent of the responsibilities it involv
December it became known that the Allies had decided not to evacuate the fir
the Rhineland zones in accordance with the Treaty on 10 January 1925, on
grounds that Germany had failed to fulfil its disarmament obligations. Strese
was concerned that Germany was becoming once more only 'the object of th
policy of the others'.37
The obvious way for Germany to counter the threat of renewed isolation w
bring forward proposals of its own for European security. Carl von Schube
Stresemann's clear-sighted and forceful Secretary of State, took the hint from Lo
D'Abernon and drew up a memorandum which was communicated to the Br
Government on 20 January and subsequently to the French.38 Building on pre
proposals, this suggested a non-aggression pact of the Rhineland states, with
United States as trustee, and backed by a comprehensive arbitration treaty. An
pating the objection (which Poincar? had raised in previous discussions with
German ambassador) that Poland would then be put at risk, it stated that Ger
would be willing to sign 'arbitration treaties providing for the peaceful settlement
juridical and political conflicts with all other States as well'. Reflecting Schub
view that a general guarantee of the Rhineland states would not be specific en
to satisfy France, the memorandum also made a second proposal for 'a
expressly guaranteeing the present territorial status on the Rhine' to which
powers concerned would be bound individually and collectively. This could b
combined with a guarantee of the demilitarisation of the Rhineland and arbitr
agreements as in the first proposal.39
This was a remarkable initiative, clear evidence of Stresemann's (and Schube
37 Minutes of the cabinet meeting, 20 Oct. 1924, Abramowski, Kabinette Marx, ii. no. 376, 1
Christoph M. Kimmich, Germany and the League of Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago P
1976), 61-2; Anne Orde, Great Britain and International Security (London: Royal Historical Soci
1978), 68-98.
38 Angela Kaiser, Lord D'Abernon und die englische Deutschlandpolitik 1920-1926 (Frankfurt am
Main: Peter Lang, 1989), 333?43. On Carl Schubert, who became State Secretary in Dec. 1924, Peter
Kr?ger, 'Zur Bedeutung des Ausw?rtigen Amts f?r die Au?enpolitik Stresemanns', in Michalka and
Lee, Stresemann, 400-15.
39 Memorandum by von Schubert, 20 Jan. 1925, AD AP, Ser. A, Vol. 12, no. 37, 84-9.
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Stresemann and Locarno 121
anxiety for Germany to be accepted as a partner by the Western powers.
D'Abernon, who admittedly could take some of the credit for it, described it as of
'vast importance'.40 The proposals contained, as Stresemann pointed out to Hoesch,
a voluntary renunciation of claims to Alsace-Lorraine and, so far as the Eastern
frontiers were concerned, Hoesch was authorised to tell Herriot that, while
Germany could not accept the same 'solemn recognition' of them as in the West, the
arbitration treaties would 'offer in practice a thoroughly secure guarantee for the
preservation of peace'.41 On the face of it, Germany was committing itself to what
Stresemann later called in the Reichstag, 'a peace offensive on the grand scale'.42
It was also a bold move in domestic politics. The memorandum was drawn up in
great secrecy in the Ausw?rtiges Amt while Germany was between governments.
Luther was informed of its contents on his appointment as chancellor, immediately
before it was sent to Britain. Both the British and French governments were asked
to keep it strictly confidential. Stresemann hoped to win their support for the
proposals before the memorandum became public to maximise the chance of
overcoming opposition to it in each country. In Germany, the situation was
particularly delicate since the DNVP which Stresemann had laboured to bring into
government was likely to react badly, as also was Field Marshal von Hindenburg
who became Reich President in May 1925. Nor surprisingly, when the German
proposals became known, Stresemann found himself at the centre of a storm of
protest, with his position as foreign minister again under threat and even his
relations with Luther strained. In these circumstances, it was inevitable that he
would defend his policy at home in terms calculated to win over the DNVP.
This raises problems of interpretation for the historian. How can one tell whether
Stresemann's arguments were contrived to enable him to lead the DNVP in a
direction it did not want to go or whether they represented his own real views? Did
he know himself or was his face 'only a mask adapted to his surroundings'? How did
his views develop over the five years of the Locarno era? And, given the strength of
nationalism in the political culture of the Weimar Republic, how much room for
manoeuvre did he have in any case?
Let us first consider in more detail what Stresemann hoped to achieve by his
Locarno policy. The first gain which he always regarded as central, reflecting his
traumatic experience as chancellor, was that the Rhineland would remain German.
'The essence of European politics in this connection is the question to whom do the
Rhine lands belong; it would be decided in this way that the Rhine lands belong to
Germany', he told journalists at the first press conference called to discuss the
German memorandum.43 German territory would be guaranteed against France as
well as French territory against Germany. In return, Germany voluntarily
renounced Alsace-Lorraine, 'but I believe there is no one who could have any doubt
40 D'Abernon, Ambassador, iii. 127.
41 Stresemann to Hoesch, 5 Feb. 1925, ADAP, Ser. A, Vol. 12, no. 67, 167.
42 Speech to the Reichstag, 22 July 1925, Gerhard Zwoch, ed., Gustav Stresemann Reichstagsreden
(Bonn: Verlag AZ Studio, 1972), 217.
43 Stresemann's briefing of the German press, 7 Mar. 1925, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, II: Locarno und
Genf, 68-9.
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122
Contemporary European History
that the German people ? either now or in the future ? would not follo
government which started a war of aggression against France with the goal
reconquering Alsace-Lorraine'. Later, in deference to the DNVP which refuse
accept 'a renunciation of German territory and people', Stresemann modified
stance by arguing that the Locarno pact did not prevent a peaceful change
frontiers, but this was a highly academic point in relation to Alsace-Lorraine, whe
there was no significant support for a return to Germany.44 The possibilit
peaceful change did exist, however, in relation to the small territory of Eu
Malm?dy which Belgium had acquired from Germany at Versailles as com
sation for the violation of Belgian neutrality in 1914.45 By helping to satisfy Fren
and Belgian fears, the Locarno pact would increase the chances of regain
Eupen-Malm?dy (Stresemann hoped to buy it back) and, more important, also
valuable industrial region of the Saar, whose mines had been ceded to France u
the Versailles Treaty while its government was put under the control of the Leagu
of Nations for fifteen years, after which a plebiscite was to be held. Stresem
hoped to be in a position to ask for the plebiscite to be held earlier and to buy
mines back as well.46
There would also be substantial gains in other ways. Germany could argue t
the Allied military occupation of the Rhineland had been superseded by
Locarno pact ? particularly as the demilitarised status of the left bank was gu
teed by the pact ? and that the Allies should therefore withdraw their troop
advance of the fifteen-year timetable foreseen by the Treaty.47 The improvement
European security would also create the right climate to encourage Ame
investors to continue to provide the loans which the German economy needed
argument which Stresemann underlined to the DNVP.48 In addition, Germany
likely to find it difficult to make the reparations payments due under the Da
Plan by 1927 or 1928; it would be essential that its relations with its creditors shou
then be such that it would not be threatened with new sanctions. It was there
important for political as well as economic reasons to continue to attract Ame
private investment, which would create an interest group in the United States mo
concerned with the success of the German economy than with reparations.49
The advantages of the pact were less clear in relation to German aims in the Eas
The main issue was the Polish frontier, a matter on which even Social Democr
44 Memorandum by Stresemann, 5 July 1925, Nachla? Stresemann, Vol. 275, Bernh
Verm?chtnis, ii. 131. Karl-Heinz Minuth, Die Kabinette Luther I und II (thereafter Minuth, Kabi
Luther) (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1977), i. 170, 665.
45 Minutes of the cabinet meeting, 24 June 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luther, i. 110, 365-6. Cf. En
Territorial Revisionism, 80-114.
46 Minutes of the cabinet meeting with Hindenburg, 24 Sept. 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luthe
no. 161, 569; Stresemann's speech to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Landsmannschaften in Gross-Ber
14 Dec. 1925, ADAP, Ser. B, i/i. appendix 2, 749-50. Maxelon, Stresemann und Frankreich, 221-5
47 Meeting of the German, French and British delegations at Locarno, 12 Oct. 1925; DBFP,
Ser., Vol. 27, appendix no. 11, 1137-43.
48 Minutes of the cabinet meeting, 15 July 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luther, i. no. 123, 432-3.
49 Stresemann's speech to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Landsmannschaften, 14 Dec. 1925, A
Ser. B, i/1. 731-6. Berg, Stresemann, 274-8.
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Stresemann and Locarno 123
felt strongly.50 Stresemann regarded the frontier as a violation of self-determination
and was committed, as any German foreign minister was bound to be, to the goal of
revision. In a dispatch to German embassies, he explained that the aim was not 'a
new partition of Poland' but the recovery of Danzig (which had been made a Free
City under the League of Nations by the Treaty), the northern half of the 'corridor'
separating West from East Prussia to give Poland access to the sea, and the part of
Upper Silesia which had been awarded to Poland in October 1921 after a plebiscite
had shown an overall majority in the province for Germany. The Prussian province
of Posen, on the other hand, would not be reclaimed because its population was
overwhelmingly Polish. Poland would be compensated with a free port in Danzig
and rights of transit similar to those Germany had been given in the corridor.51
The difficulty was to know how this goal could be achieved in a way consistent
with the Locarno pact. There were three aspects to the problem: the arbitration
treaty which Germany concluded with Poland, the implications of joining the
League of Nations which the Allies made a condition of the Locarno agreements
and the consequences of both for German relations with the Soviet Union. Each of
these produced complications for Stresemann's policy which required finesse and
involved him in a degree of disingenuousness. They also produced the fiercest
domestic opposition, leading Stresemann into justifying his policy in ways which
have raised doubts about his good faith. The basic issue was a very simple one:
would Germany confine itself to peaceful methods in pursuing its claims against
Poland, as the wording of the Locarno agreements and Germany's obligations
under the League covenant required, or did it intend to maintain other options?
Stresemann's overriding priority was that Germany should reach an accommo
dation with the Western powers, which alone offered the prospect of recovery from
the nadir of 1923. He also shared the Western values of democracy and capitalism
and was naturally hostile and suspicious towards the Soviet Union. He was also
sceptical of the value of military and economic co-operation with the Soviet
Union.52 Nevertheless he wanted, if possible, to avoid Locarno and German entry
50 The frontier with Czechoslovakia was not in dispute during the Weimar Republic, though
Stresemann had no liking for a state which had resulted from the defeat of Germany and Austria
Hungary in 1918 and was therefore committed to maintaining the Paris peace settlement. In an
anonymous newspaper article Stresemann mentioned 'German Bohemia', as well as Czech opposition
to Anschlu? with Austria, in a list of the disputes which, he claimed, the Treaty of Versailles had created
between Germany and all its neighbours. 'Zwischen London und Comersee. Deutschlands Paktpolitik',
Hamburger Fremdenblatt, No. 255, 14 Sept. 1925, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, ii. 171. Germany concluded an
arbitration treaty with Czechoslovakia as well as with Poland at Locarno. F. Gregory Campbell,
Confrontation in Central Europe: Weimar Germany and Czechoslovakia (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1975), 141-54.
51 Stresemann to German embassies, 30 June 1925, Christoph M. Kimmich, The Free City. Danzig
and German Foreign Policy 1919-1934 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 73-5. On the strategic
factors behind German claims, Gaines Post, The Civil-Military Fabric of Weimar Foreign Policy
(thereafter Post, Weimar Foreign Policy) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 21-5.
52 After Seeckt's resignation in October 1926, Stresemann expressed his views openly to the DVP
national executive: 'Soviet Russia is very greatly overestimated here; it cannot bring us much
economically, nor can it offer us much militarily, and those who believe that we would get out of
everything, if we joined the Soviet Union are, I believe, the maddest foreign policy makers.' Speech to
the meeting on 19 Mar. 1927, R 45 II/42, Bundesarchiv Koblenz. Stresemann also believed, however,
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124 Contemporary European History
into the League of Nations leading to a break with the Soviet Union. This was
partly in order to maintain joint pressure on Poland, since the Soviet Union had an
interest in revising Poland's Eastern frontier to recover the territory lost in the
Polish-Soviet war of 1920-1. It was also because of the entrenched opposition
which he faced from Hindenburg, Seeckt, the German ambassador to Moscow,
Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau, and nationalist opinion in general to abandoning
what was seen as the 'eastern option', symbolized by the Treaty of Rapallo which
had been concluded with the Soviet Union in 1922. He therefore set out to achieve,
as he told the Cabinet, a 'compromise' between the Western and Eastern policies.53
Stresemann intended that this compromise should have three key elements.
Germany would refuse any form of recognition of the Polish frontier, which ruled
out a non-aggression pact as against an arbitration treaty since a non-aggression pact
? like the Locarno Pact ? was considered tantamount to recognition. In this way a
distinction would be drawn between Germany's Western and Eastern frontiers
which underlined its claim to revision. Germany would also refuse to allow France
to act as a guarantor of the arbitration treaty with Poland, since France was Poland's
ally; this would create a further distinction between the Rhineland pact, which
would be guaranteed by external powers (Britain and Italy), and the arbitration
treaty with Poland which would not be guaranteed in this way. Most important,
Germany would seek an exemption from Article 16 of the League Covenant, in
view of its disarmed status, enabling it to remain neutral in a Soviet-Polish war.54
These three points would, he hoped, be sufficient for Germany to maintain its link
with the Soviet Union and their joint pressure on Poland and therefore satisfy his
domestic critics.
The discussion of Stresemann's motives has been caused by the ways in which he
explained these points to different audiences. At Locarno, he insisted that Germany
would give its full moral support to the League in the event of Soviet aggression
against Poland, but that because it was disarmed it could not itself take part in
sanctions because of the risk of a victorious Red Army threatening its Eastern
frontier as had happened briefly during the Polish?Soviet war in 1920.55 To the
Soviet Foreign Minister, Chicherin, however, he had previously given assurances
that Germany would use its influence to prevent the League declaring war on the
that the Soviet Union might grow out of Bolshevism and that German trade would promote this
process. Stresemann's memorandum of a conversation with Chamberlain, Briand, Vandervelde, Graf
Ishii and Scialoja, Geneva, 15 June 1927, ADAP, Ser. B, Vol. 5, no. 236, 537-8; the British record is in
DBFP, Ser. IA, Vol. 3, no. 240, 374-5. Cf. Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, 'Grossindustrie und
Rapallopolitik. Deutsch?sowjetische Handelsbeziehungen in der Weimarer Republik', Historische
Zeitschrift, Vol. 222, no. 2 (1976), 265-341.
53 Minutes of the cabinet meeting, 24 June 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luther, i. no. no, 364.
54 Ibid., 358-64. Note from the German Government to the French Government, 20 July 1925.
The ADAP volumes for May-Nov. 1925 have not yet appeared. The note is printed in the collection,
Ministerium fur Ausw?rtige Angelegenheiten der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, ed., Locarno
Konferenz 1923 (Berlin: R?tten & Loening, 1962), 109-13.
55 German record of the meeting of the Locarno Conference, 8 Oct. 1925, Minuth, Kabinette
Luther, ii. no. 179, 697-708; British record, DBFP, ist Ser., Vol. 27, appendix 8, n 10-21; Stresemann's
diary, 8 Oct. 1925, Nachla? Stresemann, Vol. 30, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, ii. 191-2.
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Stresemann and Locarno 125
Soviet Union and that this was the purpose of the German stance on Article 16.56
The same disparities arose between his interpretations of the arbitration treaty with
Poland. The French and British were told that Germany could not agree to a
non-aggression pact for fear that that would constitute recognition but that they
were willing to accept arbitration treaties which bound Germany to pursue its
claims by purely peaceful methods.57 Chamberlain was initially unable to follow
this casuistry and believed that the hapless German ambassador in London, Friedrich
Sthamer, was simply being incompetent.58 Even Friedrich Gaus, the chief legal
expert of the Ausw?rtiges Amt, thought that it was best to leave the German position
obscure for fear that, if it were clarified, the distinction which Germany wanted to
draw between its commitments on the Polish frontier and on the Rhine frontier
would be undermined.59 To Brockdorff-Rantzau, however, Stresemann described
the arbitration treaty as merely 'a fa?ade' to enable the French to drop their demand
that Poland be included in the security pact.60 Similarly, to a nationalist audience at
home, Stresemann belittled the significance of the arbitration treaty, and of Poland's
guarantees from France and under the League covenant - even arguing that there
56 Stresemann had two meetings with Chicherin on i and 2 Oct. 1925 before departing for
Locarno. His record, misdated 30 Sept. 1925, is in Nachla? Stresemann, Vol. 272. The version in
Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, i. 523-7, is heavily censored. The full text is in Karl Dietrich Erdmann, 'Das
Problem der Ost- oder Westorientierung in der Locarno Politik Stresemanns', Geschichte in Wissenschaft
und Unterricht, Vol. 6 (1955), 153-62. Walsdorff, Westorientierung, 132-8.
57 Stresemann to Hoesch, 5 Feb. 1925, ADAP, Ser. A, Vol. 12, no. 67, 167; memorandum by
Stresemann of a conversation with the French ambassador, de Margerie, 16 Mar. 1925, ibid., no. 169,
420-1; memoranda by von Schubert of two conversations with D'Abernon, 26 Mar. 1925, ibid., nos
201, 202, 514-17.
58 Chamberlain to D'Abernon, 25 and 26 Mar. 1925, following an incident in which Sthamer
asked to see Chamberlain to correct a statement he had just made to the House of Commons about the
German position on the Eastern frontiers, DBFP, ist Ser., Vol. 27, nos 269, 416?18, and 273, 421-2.
Post, Weimar Foreign Policy, 28-31.
59 Minutes of the cabinet meeting, 15 July 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luther, i. no. 123, 436. The
intricacies of the German position are explored by Peter Kr?ger, 'Der Deutsch?Polnische Schiedsver
trag im Rahmen der deutschen Sicherheitsinitiative von 1925', Historische Zeitschrift, Vol. 230, no. 3
(1980), 577-612. The central point was whether, despite the arbitration treaty, Germany would retain
the right under Article 15, paragraph 7 of the League Covenant to take unilateral action in its frontier
dispute with Poland in the event that conciliation failed and the League Council did not reach a
unanimous view. This was the issue of the so-called 'free hand in the East' which taxed the ingenuity of
the lawyers at Locarno. The solution, proposed by the Foreign Office legal adviser Sir Cecil Hurst, was
to incorporate a reference into the Locarno Pact (Article 2, clause 3) which restricted the right of both
France and Germany to take action under Article 15, paragraph 7 of the Covenant to the case of action
'directed against a State which was the first to attack'. Notes of a Conversation between Members of the
British Delegation in Mr. Chamberlain's Room at the Grand Hotel, Locarno, on October 7, 1925 at
10 p.m.; DBFP, ist Ser., Vol. 27, appendix 7, 1108-10. Kr?ger shows that as a result of internal
discussions, officials in the Ausw?rtiges Amt, including Gaus, had come to accept that the frontier
question might in any case fall into the category of justiciable issues for which the treaty with Poland
provided binding arbitration rather than into the category of political issues for which only the
non-binding conciliation procedure was foreseen. If Germany (or Poland) submitted to binding
arbitration then its right to a 'free hand', even as restricted by the Locarno Pact, would be undermined.
Stresemann, for political reasons, did not want to accept Gaus's view on this issue or acknowledge that
Germany's rights under the League were in any way restricted by the Locarno Pact or the arbitration
treaties.
60 Stresemann to Brockdorff-Rantzau, 19 Mar. 1925, ADAP, Ser. A, Vol. 12, no. 182, 458.
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126 Contemporary European History
were ways to start a war without appearing as the aggressor ? and described with
satisfaction the way the Polish Foreign Minister, Graf Skrzy?ski, had been humili
ated at Locarno, though he immediately went on to say that he was not thinking of
using force to solve the problem of self-determination in the East.61
Despite these obvious contradictions in the way Stresemann presented his policy,
his main aim was to gain the support of the Western powers for revision. He
believed there wTas no chance of revision in the East without the consent of the
Western powers. The Locarno policy was therefore the pre-condition for any
revision. As he wrote to Brockdorff-Rantzau, one of his most determined critics,
the use of force against Poland even in alliance with the Soviet Union was not an
option 'for the foreseeable future'.62 This meant, as he explained to German
journalists, that the only hope of success was in convincing people 'that the greatest
danger for the pacification of Europe lies in the conditions in the East'.63 If Germany
could succeed in changing the climate of opinion, then in any future crisis involving
Poland it might be able to secure frontier revision. How such a crisis would arise,
Stresemann could only speculate. He thought it might come as a result of the
Soviet?Polish frontier dispute or as a result of the weakness of the Polish economy.
Exactly how Germany would exploit these opportunities was also unclear. In the
event of a Soviet?Polish war, Stresemann may have hoped that by remaining
neutral Germany would be able to mediate between the Soviet Union and the
Western powers. In an anonymous newspaper article he wrote that 'one could well
imagine that all these questions will be discussed at a great international conference,
which will create a new just order'.64 The important point was that if a crisis arose 'it
may also be possible for Germany to succeed with its demands, if it has previously
established ties of political friendship and an economic community of interests with
all the world powers who have to decide the issue. In my opinion this is the only
practical policy.'65 The force of this statement is all the greater since it was delivered
to the same nationalist audience whom he had previously delighted by ridiculing the
arbitration treaty.
Although Stresemann aimed at peaceful revision in the East as in the West, his
Polish policy put a strain on the Locarno d?tente. This was partly because it was
unclear how peaceful revision could occur. German policy faced something of a
61 Speech to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Landsmannschaften, 14 Dec. 1925, ADAP, Ser. B, i/i.
739-45, 752.
62 Stresemann to Brockdorff-Rantzau, 19 Mar. 1925, ADAP, Ser. A, Vol. 12, no. 182, 464.
63 Stresemann's briefing of the German press, 7 Mar. 1925, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, ii. 72.
64 'Die Initiative der deutschen Au?enpolitik', Hamburger Fremdenblatt, no. 100, 10 Apr. 1925,
Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, ii. 93.
65 Speech to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Landsmannschaften, 14 Dec. 1925, ADAP, Ser. B,
Vol. i/i. 743. He used the same argument to the DVP national executive on 22 Nov. 1925, R 45 II/40,
Bundesarchiv Koblenz, published by Henry Ashby Turner, 'Eine Rede Stresemanns ?ber seine
Locarnopolitik' (thereafter Turner, 'Eine Rede Stresemanns'), Vierteljahrshefte f?r Zeitgeschichte,
Vol. 15, no. 4 (1967), 412-36 (reference to revision of the Polish frontier, 429). For a persuasive account
of Stresemann's peaceful intentions towards Poland, Robert Grathwol, 'Gustav Stresemann: Reflec
tions on his Foreign Policy', (thereafter Grathwol, 'Stresemann'), Journal of Modern History, Vol. 45,
no. 1 (1973), 67-8.
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Stresemann and Locarno 127
contradiction: it was in its interest to provoke a crisis in order to demonstrate the
need for peaceful revision. In fact, German attempts to put pressure on Poland by a
trade war and by exploiting the issue of the German minority at the League were
ineffective. Indeed, Stresemann seems to have concluded by 1929 that revision
would be better served by normalising relations with Poland. Just before his death,
he was about to appoint as secretary of state (in succession to Schubert) the German
envoy to Poland, Ulrich Rauscher, who advocated this policy.66 But the problem
for Germany's d?tente with the Western powers lay deeper, in their suspicion about
German understandings with the Soviet Union. Stresemann's explanation at
Locarno as to why Germany wanted to be able to remain neutral in the event of a
Soviet-Polish war was unconvincing. It was obvious that Germany intended to
weaken the League's capacity to react to Soviet aggression and this was against the
spirit, if not the letter, of the Covenant. Briand, accurately interpreting Strese
mann's intentions, warned that it was not possible for Germany 'to stand with one
foot in the League of Nations and with the other, or at least the tip of the toe, in
another camp'.67 Stresemann might have avoided this difficulty by simply accepting
Article 16, which was not nearly as binding in practice as the Germans assumed.
Indeed, having heard Briand and Chamberlain explain their view of the latitude
allowed by Article 16, Gaus belatedly suggested to Stresemann that they should,
after all, accept it.68 But Stresemann had committed himself to gaining a formal
exemption for political reasons, to satisfy both the Soviet Union and his critics at
home. Hindenburg for instance feared Article 16 would be 'a noose around our
neck'.69 Stresemann therefore stuck to the demand and got it, but the suspicion
aroused by Germany's dual policy remained. Chamberlain warned Briand that they
were engaged in a struggle for 'the soul of Germany' to prevent it turning to the
Soviet Union.70
This brings us back to the questions raised at the beginning of this paper about
the character of the Locarno d?tente and of Stresemann's statesmanship. Both were
rooted in realism. Stresemann did not believe that the League had transformed the
nature of international relations, any more than Briand or Chamberlain. He
distinguished his policy from the illusions of those on the left as well as the right.71
This leaves open the question, however, of what Stresemann thought was realistic
66 Kurt Do?, Zwischen Weimar und Warschau. Ulrich Rauscher. Deutscher Gesandter in Polen
1922-1930. Eine politische Biographie (D?sseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1984) 89-97.
67 Meeting of the Locarno Conference, 8 Oct. 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luther, ii. no. 179, 703.
Edward David Keeton, Briand's Locarno Policy. French Economics, Politics and Diplomacy, 1923-1929
(New York: Garland Publishing, 1987), 152-5.
68 Stresemann's diary, 6 Oct. 1925, Nachla? Stresemann, Vol. 30, Walsdorff, Westorientierung,
141.
69 P?nder to Kempner, 12 Oct. 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luther, ii. no. 183, 722.
70 Chamberlain's record of a conversation with Briand, 18 May 1927, DBFP, Ser. IA, Vol. 3,
no. 201, 309-10. Grathwol points out that both Chamberlain and Briand were well aware of German
claims to revision of the Polish frontier and both were prepared to consider the idea at some time in the
future. This is not inconsistent, however, with French and British apprehension about German
calculations as to how revision would come about and what part the Soviet Union might play.
Grathwol, 'Stresemann', 53-4.
71 Speech to the DVP party conference, 14 Nov. 1924, R 45 II/29, Bundesarchiv Koblenz.
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128 Contemporary European History
for German foreign policy both in the immediate future and in the longer term.
What did he see as Germany's natural place in Europe and the world?
His immediate goals have been described above, an accommodation with the
Western powers to stabilise the Rhine frontier, enable the German economy to
recover and make possible a revision of the Polish frontier. He also discussed on
various occasions Austria and the acquisition of colonies.72 Austria was an emotive
issue and one with propaganda value, as an example of self-determination being
denied by the Treaty of Versailles, but Stresemann expressed reservations about
Anschlu? in practice, because it would change the balance of power within Germany
towards the Catholic and Socialist parties and from north to south.73 Colonies he
dropped in practice after Chamberlain had peremptorily snubbed him on the
issue.74
How far was this limited programme of revision conditioned by German
disarmament? Was the process of Western d?tente simply a tactic which would be
discarded once it had achieved its purpose and Germany was rearmed? Stresemann's
language on several occasions can be interpreted in this way. When Seeckt attacked
him at a critical cabinet meeting before Locarno, arguing that frontiers were never
revised peacefully, Stresemann replied simply that 'He agreed in general with the
remarks of General von Seeckt but not his conclusions. The role which he [Seeckt]
intended for Germany we could only play when we were materially and militarily a
power. This would not be the case for a long time ahead.'75 And to the Crown
Prince who wrote, objecting that Germany would lose its freedom of action by
joining the League, Stresemann replied, 'The most important thing ... is the
liberation of German territory from foreign occupation. We must first get the
strangler from our neck. Therefore German policy as Metternich said of Austria ? it
must be after 1809 ? must in this respect consist first in finessing and avoiding
fundamental decisions.'76 But these passages can also be regarded as skilful ways of
deflecting influential opponents. Stresemann enclosed with his letter to the Crown
Prince a short work describing the mission of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia to
Napoleon in 1808, pointing out the sacrifices Prussia had been prepared to make to
persuade Napoleon to relax the Treaty of Tilsit, including offering the then Crown
Prince in marriage to a daughter of Joseph Bonaparte.77 The message was clear:
72 For instance in his speech to the DVP national executive, 19 March 1927, R 45 II/42,
Bundesarchiv Koblenz.
73 Stanley Suval, The Anschluss Question in the Weimar Era. A Study of Nationalism in Germany and
Austria, 1918-1932 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 127-45.
74 Stresemann described the incident which occurred at a meeting on 1 Dec. 1925, while he and
Luther were in London for the formal signing of the Locarno Treaties, as 'very unpleasant and painful';
diary, 'Beginning of December 1925', Nachla? Stresemann, Vol. 272, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, ii. 251.
Andrew J. Crozier, 'The Colonial Question in Stresemann's Locarno Policy', International History
Review, Vol. 4, no. 1 (1982), 51-2.
75 Minutes of the cabinet meeting, 24 June 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luther, i. no. no, 369.
76 Stresemann to Crown Prince Wilhelm, 7 Sept. 1925, Nachla? Stresemann, Vol. 29, Harttung,
Stresemann Schriften, 336-40. Grathwol, 'Gustav Stresemann', 52-70.
77 This work, which was written at Stresemann's request by Prince Otto von Bismarck, the
grandson of the Chancellor and an employee of the Ausw?rtiges Amt, was published as F?rst Otto von
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Stresemann and Locarno 129
entry into the League was a small price compared to that required of Wilhelm's
ancestors!
There are good reasons for thinking that the Locarno policy was more than a
mere tactic. Stresemann had been close enough to the centre of power in 1918 not to
have illusions about the causes of Germany's defeat. He understood the superiority
of the Western allies and, having been spectacularly misled by the High Command
once, he was not likely to trust German military experts again.78 The model for his
statecraft in the 1920s was Bismarck not Ludendorff. As a realist, he saw German
security as best achieved in partnership with the Western allies. It is true that he also
understood the role which the Soviet Union might play in a future balance of
power in Europe, and he thought that Germany as a great power in the centre of
Europe was in a special position to be 'the natural great mediator and bridge
between East and West'.79 As we have seen, he hoped that revision of the Polish
frontier could be brought about this way. But he was consistent in rejecting a
one-sided alliance with the Soviet Union, warning the Crown Prince prophetically
'against the utopia of flirting with Bolshevism. When the Russians are in Berlin, the
red flag will at once fly over the palace and in Russia, where they want world
revolution, they will be quite content to have bolshevised Europe as far as the Elbe
and they will give the rest of Germany to the French to devour.'80 There is every
reason to suppose that, like Bismarck after 1871, he saw Germany's interests as best
secured by peaceful management of the balance of power. War, even a campaign for
limited revision against Poland, would carry with it the risk of renewed isolation,
jeopardising all the progress that had been made since 1923. As he told the students
of Heidelberg in 1928, 'the preservation of peace and the attempts to achieve it are
not timidity, are not weakness, they are the real political recognition of our own
national interest.'81 In this stance, he anticipated the peaceful revisionism practised
by the Federal Republic after 1949. As Kr?ger has pointed out, if continuities can be
traced in German foreign policy from Bismarck to Hitler, they can also be found
between the Locarno policy and that of the Federal Republic.82 Indeed, the
unification of Germany in 1989-90 followed a path similar to that which Strese
Bismarck, Prinz Wilhelm und Napoleon. Neue Bilder aus Preussens Notzeit (Dresden: Carl Reissner, 1929);
Stresemann to Eulenberg, 8 Aug. 1928, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, III: Von Thoiry bis zum Ausklang, 497.
78 At a meeting with the leaders of the provincial organisations of the National Liberal Party on 13
Oct. 1918, he spoke of the 'total collapse' of the High Command and criticised their failure to recognise
the power of the enemy and their failures in arms production, adding that the Admiralty had been the
most incompetent of all. He continued to criticise the Kaiser and the Crown Prince and concluded that
'the old system was absolutely bankrupt, could not have been preserved any longer and also did not
deserve to survive any longer'. Notes of his speech, probably taken by a member of the audience,
Nachla? Stresemann, Vol. 180, Erich Matthias and Rudolf Morsey, eds, Die Regierung des Prinzen Max
von Baden (D?sseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1962), 178-80.
79 Stresemann's radio broadcast, 1 May 1926, to mark the conclusion of the Treaty of Berlin with
the Soviet Union; Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, ii. 542.
80 Stresemann to Crown Prince Wilhelm, 7 Sept. 1925, Harttung, Stresemann Schriften, 339.
81 Speech at Heidelberg University, 5 May 1928, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, iii. 487. Eschenburg and
Frank-Planitz, Stresemann, 113.
82 Kr?ger, Aussenpolitik, 555. See also, Henry Ashby Turner, 'Continuity in German Foreign
Policy? The Case of Stresemann', International History Review, Vol. 1, no. 4 (1979), 509-21.
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130 Contemporary European History
mann had set out in the 1920s: Germany had first established good relations with the
world powers on whom its goals depended - the achievement of Adenauer, Brandt
and Genscher ? so that when a crisis occurred in the Soviet Empire, Kohl enjoyed
the support of Washington and the acquiescence of Moscow and peaceful revision
ism triumphed.
This interpretation of Stresemann is supported by considering his place in the
political spectrum of the Weimar Republic. He was not a racist. He also did not
believe that Germany should aim at autarchy. From his pre-war career, in which he
had built up an organisation to represent German export industries against the
dominant agricultural and Ruhr coal and steel protectionist lobbies, he believed that
Germany's future depended on overseas trade, not on the conquest of'living space'.
As foreign minister, he supported trade liberalisation and looked to expand German
influence through a series of commercial treaties against the opposition of protec
tionist lobbies at home and abroad.83 Although his loyalties were to Germany's
national interests, and he was not in that sense a 'European statesman', he was
fascinated by the prospects of European economic integration. In a newspaper
article in 1925, he looked beyond the security pact to the development of'economic
understanding between the great industrial nations of Europe and beyond that
something like the structure of a European community, in comparison to the
present system which has created a Europe reminiscent of the old Germany with its
dozens of states and customs barriers'. He returned to this theme in his last speech to
the League Assembly in September 1929.84 In domestic politics, he feared nothing so
much as the break-down of parliamentary democracy and civil war. His grand
strategy of building a consensus around his foreign policy failed at the first test. The
DNVP ? 'these donkeys' as he called them ? could not stomach the Locarno treaties
and went back into opposition in October 1925.85 Stresemann was able to rely on
the SPD to provide the majority for his foreign policy but, as he had feared, this
produced in time a nationalist backlash and, whipped up by the Depression, the
83 Kr?ger, Aussenpolitik, 247-58; Berg, Stresemann, 94-122, 418-23; Hans-J?rgen Schr?der, 'Zur
politischen Bedeutung der deutschen Handelspolitik nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg', in Gerald D. Feldman,
Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich, Gerhard A. Ritter and Peter-Christian Witt, eds, Die deutsche Inflation. Eine
Zwischenbilanz (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1982), 235-51.
84 'Zwischen London und Comersee', Hamburger Fremdenblatt, No. 255, 14 Sept. 1925, Bernhard,
Verm?chtnis, ii. 175; speech to the Assembly of the League of Nations, 9 Sept. 1929, ibid., iii. 577?9.
Stresemann was responding in this speech to Briand's proposal for a 'European union'. Stresemann did
not want to offend the United States and the Ausw?rtiges Amt feared that Briand's proposal was
designed to prevent further revision of the Versailles Treaty, but he was still attracted by the scheme,
applying to it one of his favourite quotations, 'Ein gro?er Einfall scheint im Anfang toll' ('A great idea
seems crazy at the start'). Knipping, Ende der Locarno-?ra, 88?9. In the same way, after meeting the
leading champion of the Pan-Europe movement, Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, on 11 June 1925,
Stresemann recorded in his diary, 'Whatever one may think about him, he is certainly a man of
exceptional knowledge and great energy. I am convinced that he will yet play a great role.' Nachla?
Stresemann, Vol. 272, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, ii. 307. Coudenhove-Kalergi later described Stresemann
as an 'enlightened nationalist', noting that his interest in the Pan-Europe movement was to speed
revision of Versailles, whereas Briand's was to stabilise it. Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, An Idea Conquers
the World (London: Hutchinson, 1953), 106?7, 142-3, 156-7.
85 Speech to the DVP national executive, 22 Nov. 1925, Turner, 'Eine Rede Stresemanns', 427.
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Stresemann and Locarno 131
triumph of the man whom he had described in 1923 as 'only able to destroy'.86 It is
unthinkable that he would have embarked on the same policy, which was a denial of
everything he stood for.
The character of Stresemann's statesmanship only brings into sharper relief,
however, the size of the structural problems, domestic and foreign, with which he
had to deal. The very fact that he tried to appease nationalist opposition by speaking
its language is itself indicative of the constraints on him. It also shows the degree to
which he sympathised with his opponents' nationalist sentiments, even while he
rejected their arguments. He thought of himself, too, as a German nationalist but in
the tradition of Stein and Bismarck, who had also faced the mistrust and opposition
of conservative groups. The international problems facing the Locarno d?tente were
equally formidable. There was no easy solution to the central problem of the
potential threat posed by German recovery to France. Stresemann understood the
problem and was appreciative of Briand's efforts to find common solutions to it. He
told the national executive of the DVP that Briand had offered more at Locarno
than a German government would have done in the same situation.87 He also
understood the importance of responding to public opinion abroad and maintaining
the 'spirit of Locarno', referring to what Bismarck had called the 'imponderables' in
politics.88 But none of this was sufficient to overcome the fear of German domi
nance. In addition, the economic climate did not favour a strategy which depended
for its popularity on being able to demonstrate the success of freer trade and
export-led growth. The process of peaceful revision was both too slow to become
popular in Germany and too fast to reassure the French. When Stresemann died in
October 1929, the policy of d?tente was already increasingly under threat, although
it was not clear what would replace it. The significance of Stresemann's career was
that, rather surprisingly given his background, he had provided a force for integra
tion both for the precarious structure of Weimar democracy and for the equally
precarious structure of European peace.89 As such it was not inappropriate that he
should have become a symbol for liberals, and given the problems not surprising
that the attempt ultimately failed.
86 Speech in Halle, n Nov. 1923, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, i. 209.
87 Speech to the DVP national executive, 22 Nov. 1925, Turner, 'Eine Rede Stresemanns', 417-18,
427.
88 Ibid., 426-7; speech to the press in Dresden, 31 Oct. 1925, Bernhard, Verm?chtnis, ii. 217-18;
Stresemann's radio broadcast on the Treaty of Locarno, 3 Nov. 1924, Rheinbaben, Stresemann, ii. 215.
89 Karl Dietrich Erdmann, Gustav Stresemann: The Revision of Versailles and the Weimar Parlia
mentary System (London: German Historical Institute, Annual Lecture, 1980).
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