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Stresemann and Locarno

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Jonathan Wright
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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? 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 arrangements that France could make for its security following this decisive defeat.

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Contemporary European History , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , July 1995 , pp. 109 - 131
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 Chamberlain to the British press, 23 Oct. 1925, quoted in Macartney, C. A., ed., Survey of International Affairs 1925, Vol. 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1928), 56.Google Scholar The most comprehensive account remains Jacobson, Jon, Locarno Diplomacy. Germany and the West 1925–1929 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972).Google Scholar A critical assessment from the Polish point of view is given by Cienciala, M. Anna and Komarnicki, Titus, From Versailles to Locarno. Keys to Polish Foreign Policy, 1919–1925 (Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1984), 223–76.Google Scholar There is also an important new volume of essays on this theme, Schattkowsky, Ralph, ed., Locarno und Osteuropa. Fragen eines europäischen Sicherheitssystems in den 20er Jahren (Marburg: Hitzeroth-verlag, 1994).Google Scholar

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9 Recent biographical studies include three sympathetic portraits by people who knew him: Hirsch, Stresemann; Eschenburg, Theodor and Frank-Planitz, Ulrich, Gustav Stresemann. Eine Bildbiographie (thereafter Eschenburg and Frank-Planitz, Stresemann) (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1978);Google Scholar and Stresemann, Wolfgang, Mein Vater Gustav Stresemann (Munich: F. A. Herbig, 1979).Google Scholar There is also Koszyk, Kurt, Gustav Stresemann. Der kaisertreue Demokrat (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1989).Google Scholar A fine, brief appreciation, which ranges over his whole career, is Erdmann, Karl Dietrich, ‘Gustav Stresemann. Sein Bild in der Geschichte’, Historische Zeitschrift, Vol. 227, no. 3 (1978), 599–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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12 The figures come from ‘Politische Umschau’, 17 May 1923, Deutsche Stimmen, Vol. 35, no. 10 (1923), 167.Google Scholar Stresemann edited this party journal from 1918 until he became chancellor in August 1923. He wrote the fortnightly ‘Politische Umschau’ articles himself.

13 Speech to the Reichstag, 6 Oct. 1923; Rheinbaben, Stresemann, ii. 70.

14 Erdmann, and Vogt, , Kabinette Stresemann, ii. 1176–217. Carsten, F. L., The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 163–95;Google ScholarMeier-Welcker, Hans, Seeckt (Frankfurt: Bernard & Graefe, 1967), 376–413.Google Scholar

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16 Minutes of the meeting of the DVP Reichstag party, 5 11. 1923, ibid.

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20 Erdmann, Karl Dietrich, Adenauer in der Rheinlandpolitik nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 1966), 87–186.Google Scholar

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22 Speech in Elberfeld, 17 Feb. 1924, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, i. 300. Stresemann borrowed the phrase from Carl Bergmann, the long-standing German representative to the Reparations Commission, Ibid., 301.

23 Minutes of the meeting, 14 Apr. 1924, Abramowski, Kabinette Marx, i. no. 175, 557.

24 D'Abernon, Lord, An Ambassador of Peace, III: The Years of Recovery January 1924–October 1926 (thereafter D'Abernon, Ambassador) (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930), 68.Google Scholar

25 Hoesch to Auswärtiges Amt, 5 June 1924, with Stresemann's marginal comments, ADAP, 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. no. 243, 766–855.

28 Minutes of the meeting, 6 July 1924, R 45 II/39, Deutsche Volkspartei papers, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz.

29 Bariéty, Jacques, Les Relations franco-allemandes après la première guerre mondiale. 10 november 1918–10 janvier 1925 de l'exécution à la négociation (Paris: Editions Pedone, 1977), 505–716Google Scholar; Schuker, End of French Predominance, 295–382.

30 Eschenburg, Theodor, ‘Stresemann und die Studenten’, Nord und Süd, Vol. 52, no. 11 (Nov. 1929), 998–1003Google Scholar, repr. in part in Harttung, Arnold, ed., Gustav Stresemann Schriften (thereafter Harttung, Stresemann Schriften) (Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 1976), 404–8.Google Scholar

31 Grathwol, Stresemann and the DNVP, 50.

32 Stresemann to Rudolf von Campe, 8 Sept. 1924, Nachlaß Stresemann, Vol. 15, Harttung, Stresemann Schriften, 234–6.

33 Bernhard, Vermächtnis, i. 549–53.

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 Reichsaufβenministers 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.

37 Minutes of the cabinet meeting, 20 Oct. 1924, Abramowski, Kabinette Marx, ii. no. 376, 1235. Kimmich, M. Christoph, Germany and the League of Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 61–2Google Scholar; Orde, Anne, Great Britain and International Security (London: Royal Historical Society, 1978), 68–98.Google Scholar

38 Kaiser, Angela, Lord D'Abernon und die englische Deutschlandpolitik 1920–1926 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1989), 333–43.Google Scholar On Carl Schubert, who became State Secretary in Dec. 1924, Peter Krüger, ‘Zur Bedeutung des Auswärtigen Amts für die Außenpolitik Stresemanns’, in Michalka and Lee, Stresemann, 400–15.

39 Memorandum by von Schubert, 20 Jan. 1925, ADAP, Ser. A, Vol. 12, no. 37, 84–9.

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, Zwoch, Gerhard, ed., Gustav Stresemann Reichstagsreden (Bonn: Verlag AZ Studio, 1972), 217.Google Scholar

43 Stresemann's briefing of the German press, 7 Mar. 1925, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, II: Locarno und Genf, 68–9.

44 Memorandum by Stresemann, 5 July 1925, Nachlaß Stresemann, Vol. 275, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, ii. 131. Minuth, Karl-Heinz, Die Kabinette Luther I und II (thereafter Minuth, Kabinette Luther) (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1977), i. 170, 665.Google Scholar

45 Minutes of the cabinet meeting, 24 June 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luther, i. 110, 365–6. Cf. Enssle, Territorial Revisionism, 80–114.

46 Minutes of the cabinet meeting with Hindenburg, 24 Sept. 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luther, i. no. 161, 569; Stresemann's speech to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Landsmannschaften in Gross-Berlin, 14 Dec. 1925, ADAP, Ser. B, i/1. 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, 1st 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, ADAP, Ser. B, i/1. 731–6. Berg, Stresemann, 274–8.

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 Anschluβ 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, Vermächtnis, ii. 171. Germany concluded an arbitration treaty with Czechoslovakia as well as with Poland at Locarno. Campbell, F. Gregory, Confrontation in Central Europe: Weimar Germany and Czechoslovakia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 141–54.Google Scholar

51 Stresemann to German embassies, 30 June 1925, Kimmich, M. Christoph, The Free City. Danzig and German Foreign Policy 1919–1934 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 73–5.Google Scholar 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, 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, , Ishii, Graf and Scialoja, , Geneva, 15 June 1927, ADAP, Ser. B, Vol. 5, no. 236, 537–8Google Scholar; 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. 110, 364.Google Scholar

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 für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, ed., Locarno-Konferenz 1925 (Berlin: Rütten & Loening, 1962), 109–13.

55 German record of the meeting of the Locarno Conference, 8 Oct. 1925, Minuth, , Kabinette Luther, ii. no. 179, 697–708Google Scholar; British record, DBFP, 1st Ser., Vol. 27, appendix 8, 1110–21; Stresemann's diary, 8 Oct. 1925, Nachlaß Stresemann, Vol. 30, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, ii. 191–2.

56 Stresemann had two meetings with Chicherin on 1 and 2 Oct. 1925 before departing for Locarno. His record, misdated 30 Sept. 1925, is in Nachlaß Stresemann, Vol. 272. The version in Bernhard, Vermächtnis, i. 523–7, is heavily censored. The full text is in Erdmann, Karl Dietrich, ‘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.Google Scholar

57 Stresemann to Hoesch, 5 Feb. 1925, ADAP, Ser. A, Vol. 12, no. 67, 167Google Scholar; 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, 1st 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 Krüger, ‘Der Deutsch–Polnische Schiedsvertrag 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, 1st Ser., Vol. 27, appendix 7, 1108–10.Google Scholar Krüger shows that as a result of internal discussions, officials in the Auswärtiges 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.

61 Speech to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Landsmannschaften, 14 Dec. 1925, ADAP, Ser. B, i/1. 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, Vermächtnis, ii. 72.

64 ‘Die Initiative der deutschen Außenpolitik’, Hamburger Fremdenblatt, no. 100, 10 Apr. 1925, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, ii. 93.

65 Speech to the Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Landsmannschaften, 14 Dec. 1925, ADAP, Ser. B, Vol. i/1. 743. He used the same argument to the DVP national executive on 22 Nov. 1925, R 45 II/40, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, published by Turner, Henry Ashby, ‘Eine Rede Stresemanns über seine Locarnopolitik’ (thereafter Turner, ‘Eine Rede Stresemanns’), Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 15, no. 4 (1967), 412–36Google Scholar (reference to revision of the Polish frontier, 429). For a persuasive account of Stresemann's peaceful intentions towards Poland, Grathwol, Robert, ‘Gustav Stresemann: Reflections on his Foreign Policy’, (thereafter Grathwol, ‘Stresemann’), Journal of Modern History, Vol. 45, no. 1 (1973), 67–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 Kurt Doß, Zwischen Weimar und Warschau. Rauscher, Ulrich. Deutscher Gesandter in Polen 1922–1930. Eine politische Biographie (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1984) 89–97.Google Scholar

67 Meeting of the Locarno Conference, 8 Oct. 1925, Minuth, Kabinette Luther, ii. no. 179, 703. Keeton, Edward David, Briand's Locarno Policy. French Economics, Politics and Diplomacy, 1925–1929 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1987), 152–5.Google Scholar

68 Stresemann's diary, 6 Oct. 1925, Nachlaß Stresemann, Vol. 30, Walsdorff, Westorientierung, 141.

69 Pünder to Kempner, 12 Oct. 1925, Minuth, , Kabinette Luther, ii. no. 183, 722.Google Scholar

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.

72 For instance in his speech to the DVP national executive, 19 March 1927, R 45 II/42, Bundesarchiv Koblenz.

73 Suval, Stanley, 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.Google Scholar

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’, Nachlaß Stresemann, Vol. 272, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, ii. 251. Crozier, J. Andrew, ‘The Colonial Question in Stresemann's Locarno Policy’, International History Review, Vol. 4, no. 1 (1982), 51–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75 Minutes of the cabinet meeting, 24 June 1925, Minuth, , Kabinette Luther, i. no. 110, 369.Google Scholar

76 Stresemann to Crown Prince Wilhelm, 7 Sept. 1925, Nachlaß 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 Auswärtiges Amt, was published as von Bismarck, Fürst Otto, Prinz Wilhelm und Napoleon. Neue Bilder aus Preussens Notzeit (Dresden: Carl Reissner, 1929);Google Scholar Stresemann to Eulenberg, 8 Aug. 1928, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, 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, Nachlaß Stresemann, Vol. 180, Matthias, Erich and Morsey, Rudolf, eds, Die Regierung des Prinzen Max von Baden (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1962), 178–80.Google Scholar

79 Stresemann's radio broadcast, 1 May 1926, to mark the conclusion of the Treaty of Berlin with the Soviet Union; Bernhard, Vermächtnis, ii. 542.

80 Stresemann to Crown Prince Wilhelm, 7 Sept. 1925, Harttung, Stresemann Schriften, 339.

81 Speech at Heidelberg University, 5 May 1928, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, iii. 487. Eschenburg and Frank-Planitz, Stresemann, 113.

82 Krüger, Aussenpolitik, 555. See also, Turner, Henry Ashby, ‘Continuity in German Foreign Policy? The Case of Stresemann’, International History Review, Vol. 1, no. 4 (1979), 509–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83 Krüger, Aussenpolitik, 247–58; Berg, Stresemann, 94–122, 418–23; Hans-Jürgen Schröder, ‘Zur politischen Bedeutung der deutschen Handelspolitik nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg’, in Feldman, D. Gerald, Holtfrerich, Carl-Ludwig, Ritter, A. Gerhard and Witt, Peter-Christian, eds, Die deutsche Inflation. Eine Zwischenbilanz (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1982), 235–51.Google Scholar

84 ‘Zwischen London und Comersee’, Hamburger Fremdenblatt, No. 255, 14 Sept. 1925, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, 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 Auswärtiges 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 großer Einfall scheint im Anfang toll’ (‘A great idea seems crazy at the start’). Knipping, Ende der Locarno-Ära, 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.’ Nachlaß Stresemann, Vol. 272, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, 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. Coudenhove-Kalergi, Count, An Idea Conquers the World (London: Hutchinson, 1953), 106–7, 142–3, 156–7.Google Scholar

85 Speech to the DVP national executive, 22 Nov. 1925, Turner, ‘Eine Rede Stresemanns’, 427.

86 Speech in Halle, 11 Nov. 1923, Bernhard, , Vermächtnis, i. 209.Google Scholar

87 Speech to the DVP national executive, 22 Nov. 1925, Turner, , ‘Eine Rede Stresemanns’, 417–18, 427.Google Scholar

88 Ibid., 426–7; speech to the press in Dresden, 31 Oct. 1925, Bernhard, Vermächtnis, ii. 217–18; Stresemann's radio broadcast on the Treaty of Locarno, 3 Nov. 1924, Rheinbaben, Stresemann, ii. 215.

89 Erdmann, Karl Dietrich, Gustav Stresemann: The Revision of Versailles and the Weimar Parliamentary System (London: German Historical Institute, Annual Lecture, 1980).Google Scholar