AQA 7042 · 2O · R08 - Germany’s international position; Stresemann's foreign policy aims and achievements including: Locarno
Trace Stresemann's diplomacy through Locarno, the League of Nations, the Treaty of Berlin, occupation withdrawals and disarmament. Judge how far cooperation restored Germany's status and sovereignty, keeping gains achieved by 1928 distinct from the later Rhineland evacuation.
Aims from a position of weakness
In 1924 Germany was a major European state without the freedom or status it had possessed before the First World War. The Treaty of Versailles limited its armed forces, required a demilitarised Rhineland and allowed Allied occupation there. Allied commissions supervised German disarmament, Germany remained outside the League of Nations, and the French-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr had recently demonstrated how little leverage the Republic possessed.
Gustav Stresemann, foreign minister from 1923 until his death in 1929, did not regard these arrangements as a satisfactory final settlement. Yet Germany was too weak to overturn them by force. His method was therefore rapprochement—the rebuilding of workable relations, especially with France—and negotiation within international institutions.
Peaceful revision
The attempt to change parts of an existing settlement by agreement and diplomacy rather than by unilateral force.
Stresemann's aims can be separated from his method:
- restore Germany's international standing and gain recognition as an equal great power;
- recover sovereignty by ending foreign occupation and direct Allied supervision;
- revise burdens and restrictions created by Versailles through negotiation;
- reduce the danger of another western conflict while leaving open the possibility of peaceful change in the east;
- preserve useful relations with the Soviet Union instead of becoming dependent on the western powers;
- press for general disarmament, or at least equal treatment, because Versailles had disarmed Germany without producing equivalent reductions by other powers.
This was not simple acceptance of Versailles. Cooperation was intended to create trust and bargaining power, which could then make revision possible. It is equally misleading to assume that every conciliatory agreement concealed an immediate plan for war: historians disagree about how to balance Stresemann's commitment to peace and European cooperation against his continuing German nationalist aims.
From Locarno to the League
Germany took the initiative for a western security agreement in February 1925. At the Locarno Conference of 5–16 October, Germany, France, Belgium, Britain, Italy, Poland and Czechoslovakia negotiated seven agreements; these were formally signed in London on 1 December 1925. Their centrepiece, often called the Rhine Pact, guaranteed the existing German frontiers with France and Belgium and preserved the demilitarised status of the Rhineland. Germany, France and Belgium renounced attack and agreed to peaceful procedures for disputes, while Britain and Italy acted as guarantors.
Locarno did not settle east and west in the same way. Germany made arbitration agreements with Poland and Czechoslovakia, but their borders with Germany did not receive the same guarantee as the western frontiers. Stresemann had accepted that the western border would not be changed by force while retaining the possibility of seeking peaceful eastern revision.
The agreements were also tied to Germany's entry into the League of Nations. On 8 September 1926 the League Assembly admitted Germany and approved a permanent German seat on its Council. This transformed Germany from an excluded defeated power into a participant in an institution where major international questions were discussed. Locarno and League membership therefore reinforced each other: the security settlement made German admission acceptable, while admission satisfied a necessary condition before the treaties entered into force on 14 September, when the ratifications were deposited.
Authentic source extract — faithfully abridged
“[The parties] guarantee ... the maintenance of the territorial status quo resulting from the frontiers between Germany and Belgium and between Germany and France, and the inviolability of the said frontiers ... and also ... the demilitarised zone.”
Creator and provenance: the governments of Germany, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Italy, Treaty of Mutual Guarantee (Rhine Pact), Article 1, negotiated at Locarno on 16 October 1925 and formally signed in London on 1 December 1925. Original edition: League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 54, pp. 289–301; stable transcription: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/locarno_001.asp. Rights: official treaty text published in 1926 and public domain in the United States. The displayed English follows the League/Avalon rendering; brackets and ellipses mark the short abridgement rather than a new translation.
For an enquiry into how Locarno changed Germany's international position, the content is valuable because it identifies the exact western settlement Germany formally accepted. Its legal, multilateral form is valuable for establishing the public commitments of the signatory governments. However, it cannot by itself reveal Stresemann's private priorities, and its western focus means it is not evidence that Germany accepted the eastern borders as permanent.
The Treaty of Berlin and diplomatic balance
Locarno drew Germany closer to the western powers, but Stresemann did not want this to destroy Germany's relationship with the Soviet Union. The Treaty of Berlin, signed on 24 April 1926 by Stresemann and Soviet ambassador Nikolay Krestinsky, reaffirmed that German-Soviet relations would continue on the basis of the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo. It promised neutrality if either party, despite a peaceful attitude, was attacked by a third power, and each promised not to join an economic or financial boycott directed against the other.
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