Editing Weimar Republic (section)

==== Foreign policy ====
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1989-040-27, Gustav Stresemann.jpg|thumb|258x258px|Gustav Stresemann, who was Reich chancellor in 1923 and foreign minister from 1923 until his death in 1929]]
Despite the frequent changes of personnel in the Reich chancellery and in the government cabinets between 1923 and 1928, there was nevertheless an effective constant in Foreign Minister [[Gustav Stresemann]] of the [[German People's Party]]. With his change from "monarchist of the heart" to "republican of reason",<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ullrich |first=Volker |date=20 January 2023 |title=1923 als Schlüsseljahr für 1933? |trans-title=1923 as the Key Year for 1933? |url=https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/deutschland-1933-2023/517470/1923-als-schluesseljahr-fuer-1933/ |access-date=26 May 2023 |website=Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung |language=de}}</ref> as he himself expressed it, Stresemann exercised a stabilizing influence on the political development of the Republic not only as Reich chancellor in 1923 but throughout the entire period of his participation in government.

He sought a release from the restraints of the Treaty of Versailles exclusively by peaceful means and through mutual understanding, although without abandoning long-term revisionist intentions such as regaining the territory ceded to Poland. He took the initiative for the 1925 [[Locarno Treaties]], which settled Germany's western borders but left the issue of the eastern ones open. Through reaching an understanding with France and securing Germany an equal position in the League of Nations in 1926, he led the Weimar Republic out of isolation. Germany signed arbitration conventions with France and Belgium and arbitration treaties with Poland and [[Czechoslovakia]], undertaking to refer any future disputes to an arbitration tribunal or to the [[Permanent Court of International Justice]].<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=2 November 1925 |title=The Treaties |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,728586-1,00.html |access-date=20 May 2023}}</ref> As a result of the Dawes Plan, foreign troops left the Ruhr in 1925.<ref>{{Cite web |date=8 June 2018 |title=Dawes Plan |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/modern-europe/treaties-and-alliances/dawes-plan |access-date=22 May 2023 |website=encyclopedia.com}}</ref> In addition, the 1926 [[Treaty of Berlin (1926)|Treaty of Berlin]] ensured that relations with the Soviet Union remained unencumbered. Beginning in 1925 there was secret and illegal cooperation between the Reichswehr and the [[Red Army]]. Germany tested weapons in the Soviet Union that had been banned by the Treaty of Versailles, including aircraft, tanks and poison gas.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Whiting |first=Kenneth R. |url={{Google books|-1EsAAAAYAAJ|page=21|plainurl=yes}} |title=The Development of the Soviet Armed Forces, 1917–1977 |publisher=Air University |year=1978 |location=Montgomery, AL |pages=21 f}}</ref>

The favourable effects expected from the Locarno Treaties were to a certain extent realized. The first Rhineland zone was vacated in 1925, Franco-German economic relations were expanded through agreements, and the [[Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control]], which monitored German disarmament, left Germany in 1927. In 1928 Stresemann played an important mediating role between the US and France in the negotiations on the [[Kellogg–Briand Pact]], an international agreement on peace.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kolb |first=Eberhard |title=Die Weimarer Republik |publisher=Oldenbourg |year=2009 |edition=7 |location=Munich |pages=70 f |language=de}}</ref>

After the full reparations schedule under the Dawes Plan was drawn up in 1928/29, new negotiations took place. In the resulting [[Young Plan]], the question of possible relief was combined with a plan for the final settlement of the reparations question. Instead of the annual payment of 2.5 billion Reichsmarks envisaged in the Dawes Plan, an average of 2 billion – initially 1.7 billion – was to be paid over a period of 59 years. With the prospect of what was thought to be a final reparations plan, and in view of Germany's willingness to accept the liability until 1988, France in parallel negotiations conceded a withdrawal of troops from the occupied Rhineland five years earlier than under the Versailles Treaty. For the nationalist right in Germany, it was above all the reparations burden extending across generations that provided propaganda fuel for their agitation against the Weimar Republic. The DNVP and Nazi Party carried out a [[1929 German referendum|referendum against the Young Plan]], which failed by a large margin due to the low turnout, but through it the National Socialists were able to use their propaganda to draw nationwide attention to themselves and to make their mark on the right-wing fringe of the party spectrum.{{Sfn|Kolb|2009|p=122}}