PLEASE HELP ASAP!! (will mark brainliest)
Summarize IN YOUR OWN WORDS what this paragraph is. These should be in BULLET POINT format (no paragraph). Please have at least 5 bullet points.
The Weimar Republic:
Germany’s new democratic government was set up in 1919. Known as the Weimar
(WY•MAHR) Republic, it was named after the city where the national assembly
met. The Weimar Republic had serious weaknesses from the start. First, Germany
lacked a strong democratic tradition. Furthermore, postwar Germany had several
major political parties and many minor ones. Worst of all, millions of Germans
blamed the Weimar government, not their wartime leaders, for the country’s defeat
and postwar humiliation caused by the Versailles Treaty.
Germany also faced enormous economic problems that had begun during the war. Unlike Britain and France, Germany hadnot greatly increased its wartime taxes. To pay the expenses of the war, the Germans had simply printed money. After Germany’s defeat, this paper money steadily lost its value. Burdened with heavy reparations payments to the Allies and with other economic problems, Germany printed even more money. As a result, the value of the mark, as Germany’s currency was called, fell sharply. Severe inflation set in. Germans needed more and more money to buy even the most basic goods.
For example, in Berlin a loaf of bread cost less than a mark in 1918, more than 160 marks in 1922, and some 200 billion marks by late 1923. People took wheelbarrows full of money to buy food. As a result, many Germans questioned the value of their new democratic government.
Germany recovered from the 1923 inflation thanks largely to the work of an international committee. The committee was headed by Charles Dawes, an American banker. The Dawes Plan provided for a $200 million loan from American banks to
stabilize German currency and strengthen its economy. The plan also set a more realistic schedule for Germany’s reparations payments. Put into effect in 1924, the Dawes Plan helped slow inflation. As the German economy began to recover, it
attracted more loans and investments from the United States. By 1929, German factories were producing as much as they had before the war.
As prosperity returned, Germany’s foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann (STRAY•zuh•MAHN), and France’s foreign minister, Aristide Briand (bree•AHND), tried to improve relations between their countries. In 1925, the two ministers met in Locarno, Switzerland, with officials from Belgium, Italy, and Britain. They signed a treaty promising that France and Germany would never again make war against each other. Germany also agreed to respect the existing borders of France and Belgium. It then was admitted to the League of Nations.
In 1928, the hopes raised by the “spirit of Locarno” led to the Kellogg-Briand
peace pact. Frank Kellogg, the U.S. Secretary of State, arranged this agreement
with France’s Briand. Almost every country in the world, including the Soviet
Union, signed. They pledged “to renounce war as an instrument of national policy.”
Unfortunately, the treaty had no means to enforce its provisions. The League of
Nations, the obvious choice as enforcer, had no armed forces. The refusal of the
United States to join the League also weakened it. Nonetheless, the peace agree-
ments seemed a good start.
