Gustav Stresemann

German politician

• Born: May 10, 1878
• Birthplace: Berlin, Germany
• Died: October 3, 1929
• Place of death: Berlin, Germany

Although unenthusiastic in his support for a German republic, Stresemann nevertheless served the Weimar Republican government as chancellor (briefly) and foreign minister during the 1920’s. As foreign minister, he was able to revise portions of the Treaty of Versailles and help to bring Germany into the mainstream of European diplomacy. With Aristide Briand of France, Stresemann won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.

Early Life

Gustav Stresemann (GEWS-tahf SHTRAY-zeh-mahn) was the youngest child of Ernst Stresemann, an innkeeper and beer distributor in the southern section of Berlin. His mother died while he was a teenager. Gustav attended the Andreas Realgymnasium in Berlin, where the headmaster placed a heavy emphasis on humanistic scholarship. Records indicate that Stresemann developed an interest in mathematics and literature. He read the great works in Latin, German, French, and English, and seemed especially impressed with the style of Thomas Macaulay. His greatest fascination as a young student was modern history. He was intrigued by the origin and consequences of great events and with the lives of people who stood above everyday routine. He put Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Napoleon I in this category. As both of his headmasters in the Realgymnasium were trained as pastors, it is not surprising that while a schoolboy Stresemann had strong religious convictions.

In 1897, Stresemann began his advanced studies at the University of Berlin, where he escaped the solitude that had marked his younger years. At first, he concentrated on literature and history, but later, hoping to improve his business prospects, he devoted more time to economics. To pursue this interest, he moved to the University of Leipzig. He took an active part in student life by writing lighthearted articles for the University Gazette and by joining the Reform Burschenschaften, an offshoot of the original national liberal organization founded in the early nineteenth century. Within a short time, Stresemann was elected by the association to be chair of its general conference. In this position, he was introduced to parliamentary style debate and to the give-and-take of politics. He also began to write some serious articles.

It had been Stresemann’s plan to earn a doctoral degree with a dissertation heavy on economic theory. By this time, Stresemann had come under the influence of Karl Bucher, who urged him to tackle a “practical” topic for his dissertation. Accordingly, Stresemann produced a thesis entitled “The Development of the Bottled Beer Industry in Berlin, an Economic Investigation.” Based on his knowledge of his father’s business, the thesis describes with bitterness the decline of Berlin’s independent middle class in the face of large commercial concerns. The dissertation, with its underlying call for social justice, was later used against him by right-wing elements.

After earning his doctorate in 1900, Stresemann moved to Dresden and quickly established himself in the business world. From 1901 to 1904, he was a minor administrator in the German Chocolate Makers’ Association. In 1902, he founded the Saxon Manufacturers’ Association and remained its chief representative until 1911. In 1903, he married Kathe Kleefeld, the daughter of Berlin industrialist Adolf Kleefeld. They had two sons, Wolfgang and Joachim. Kathe was highly visible in Berlin society of the 1920’s. It was also in 1903 that Stresemann joined the National Liberal Party, in which he frequently found his support for social measures out of step with the party’s right wing. In 1906, he became a Dresden city councillor, and this experience whetted his appetite for a more important career in national politics. It led to his candidacy for a seat in the Reichstag (parliament) in 1907.

Life’s Work

In January, 1907, Stresemann began his career in the Reichstag as a National Liberal delegate from Annenberg, a district in the mining region. He argued that Germany should be strong militarily while taking care of the poor at home. At age twenty-eight he became the youngest member of the Reichstag. In his first five years in the Reichstag, Stresemann gave most of his attention to advanced economic questions: how to reform taxation, how to apportion taxation equitably, and how to create an awareness that all classes in Germany were interdependent. His first parliamentary speech (April 12, 1907) dealt with the need for the state to provide effective national social legislation for German workers. Outside the Reichstag, Stresemann wrote many articles for newspapers and periodicals dealing with economic policy. In addition, he edited a journal he had founded, Saxon Industry, in which he published essays regarding the relationship between workers and industry.

Stresemann’s staunch support for commercial interests alienated the right wing of his party as well as conservative supporters in Annenberg. As a result, he lost his seat in the Reichstag elections of 1912. He then visited the United States to learn something of commerce and industry there. His journey took him to such industrial and commercial centers as Boston, Detroit, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. On this trip he met the future U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, for whom Stresemann developed great admiration.

In these years just prior to World War I, Stresemann gave support to the government’s military spending. He believed that Germany must prepare for a defensive war, and he was not alarmed when the war began. In December, 1914, he was returned to the Reichstag in a by-election for the district of Aurich. He was, during the war years, an eloquent spokesperson for the annexationists those who wished to claim for Germany territory in Poland, Russia, France, and Belgium. By 1916, Stresemann had become an advocate for the views of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff in the Reichstag. He was, as well, a proponent of the disastrous unrestricted submarine warfare policy pushed by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz.

Appalled that conservative Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg could not prevent the Reichstag from considering a resolution for peace offered by Matthias Erzberger in July, 1917, Stresemann played a major role in forcing Bethmann Hollweg from office. Stresemann did not comprehend Germany’s weakened military circumstances until a month before the November, 1918, armistice. He was further shocked by the collapse of the monarchy and Emperor William II’s abdication on November 9. It was difficult for Stresemann to adjust to a republican Germany under the Social Democratic Party. In February, 1919, he founded the German People’s Party, a right-wing elite organization aimed at blunting the Social Democrats’ plan for economic reconstruction. Stresemann engaged in a heated debate with Walther Rathenau over how to revive Germany’s economy, with Stresemann emphasizing the role of the individual and Rathenau arguing that the state had to take the lead.

It was not until after the failure of the right wing Kapp Putsch in March, 1920, that Stresemann was fully reconciled to a republican government. In 1920, Stresemann was returned to the Reichstag. He became chancellor in August, 1923, as a result of a coalition of deputies from the Social Democratic, Center, German Democratic, and People’s parties. Stresemann remained chancellor for only four months, but it was a time of great crisis for Germany as ruinous inflation brought misery and social disorder. Although historians generally give Stresemann high marks for his brief tenure as chancellor (especially for the way in which he stabilized the currency), he was not able to hold the coalition together and resigned after a vote of no confidence.

In the new government, Stresemann stayed on as foreign minister, a post he held through various administrations until he died in 1929. In this office he had his greatest achievements. He dedicated himself to revising the Treaty of Versailles, a treaty he despised. He wished to achieve reconciliation with the Western powers. In return, he thought it was time to reduce Germany’s reparation payments and allow his country to join the League of Nations. His successes began in 1924 when the Dawes Plan was signed reducing the reparations payment. The Treaty of Locarno followed in 1925. This guaranteed the French-German borders and prevented the Allies from making further demands on Germany. On September 10, 1926, Germany was admitted to the League of Nations, a proud day for Stresemann’s strategy of reconciliation. After the League meeting, Stresemann and the French foreign officer, Aristide Briand, held discussions at Thoiry about the need to continue to establish goodwill between France and Germany. Both men were now extremely popular, and they shared the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize. Although nothing of substance came from the Thoiry meeting, they continued a spirit of optimism about the future. In 1928, the peak of this optimism was reached when Germany signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact , an agreement to outlaw war approved by more than fifty nations. Stresemann’s health was in decline for most of 1928, and he died the next year on October 3, 1929.

Significance

Stresemann’s most effective years as a politician came while he served as foreign minister during the 1920’s. His successful efforts to return Germany to the community of European nations stands as his single greatest achievement. With French statesman Briand, he helped to create a period of hope about the future of French-German cooperation and, indeed, about the prospects of avoiding European wars of any kind. On the other hand, as historian Henry Turner observes, in giving all of his attention to revising the Treaty of Versailles, Stresemann failed to be attentive to domestic politics. Whereas he, as a conservative leader, could have helped to strengthen the middle in German politics, he chose to stand aloof. Hence, by the time of his death in 1929, the right wing stood ready to dominate German politics.

Although Stresemann devoted the last six years of his life to international concerns, he was not transformed into an internationalist. He remained a defender of Germany’s goals in Europe, including rearmament and the recovery of Danzig, the Polish Corridor, and Upper Silesia. Germany could no longer gain these ends by force but could do so, he believed, through finesse. Rearmament was illegal by the terms of Versailles, but Stresemann was involved in the rearming that occurred during the Weimar era. His statecraft, in the end, bore a resemblance to that of the German politician he most admired: Otto von Bismarck. Like Bismarck, Stresemann was a wholly pragmatic politician who believed that Germany was destined to be the arbiter of Central and Eastern European politics.

Bibliography

Bretton, Henry L. Stresemann and the Revision of Versailles. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1953. This study brought renewed scholarly interest in Stresemann’s career. It is well worth reading.

Dorpalen, Andreas. Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964. Hindenburg was president of the Weimar Republic from 1925, and Dorpalen discusses the very restrained support that Stresemann received from the president between 1925 and 1929. This is a highly readable and respected account of the collapse of the republic.

Gatzke, Hans. Stresemann and the Rearmament of Germany. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1954. In this excellent monograph, Gatzke gives a critical account of Stresemann’s years as foreign minister. He provides substantial information regarding Stresemann’s role in the illegal rearming of Germany in the 1920’s.

Rheinbaben, Rochus, Baron von. Stresemann: The Man and the Statesman. Translated by Cyrus Brooks and Hans Herzl. New York: D. Appleton, 1929. This is an uncritical account written in cooperation with Stresemann shortly before his death. The book does provide much information about Stresemann’s early life and influences that is not available elsewhere.

Turner, Henry Ashby, Jr. Stresemann and the Politics of the Weimar Republic. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. An excellent account of Stresemann’s service to the Weimar Republic. Turner generally gives Stresemann high marks for his tenure as chancellor and foreign minister. He questions, however, Stresemann’s handling of domestic politics after 1925.

Wright, Jonathan. Gustav Stresemann: Weimar’s Greatest Statesman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. A carefully researched and comprehensive biography focusing on Stresemann’s role as a political leader and foreign minister.