Death of Stressman Essay

One of the factors that results in the rise of Hitler is the death of a capable leader that brought stability and prosperity back to Germany. This capable leader is known as Gustav Stressman . Stressman died of a heart attack on 3rd October 1929. On behalf of the Weimar government, Stressman had negotiated the Dawes and Young Plans for more time to pay reparations to the Allies. In 1925, he also helped to end the Ruhr occupation by French and Belgian troops which had begun in 1923 and signed the 1925 Locarno Pact with France and Britain, promising to respect Germany’s Western borders. Thus, Germany’s relations with her former enemies improved and Germany was even allowed to be a member of the League of Nations. Therefore the years between 1924 and 1929 is considered as a golden age for Germany. Since then, Germany’s economic recovery depended on US loans. This made Germany vulnerable as it depended on America’s ability to keep lending. Therefore when Stressman died and The Great depression started in 1929, thousands of business closed and millions of Americans were thrown out of work. It also affected economies around the world. The loans from the United States of America on which Germany depended dried up. This resulted in the massive unemployment of many Germans which brought poverty to them. However, the Weimar government was helpless in solving the economic crisis without the leadership of Stressman which resulted in the German people to lose confidence in both the Weimar government and democracy. Therefore, the Germans started to search for any people or group that could help them . Hence ,due to the loss of confidence in the Weimar government, Hitler began to gain support from the Germans as they wanted a change of government and support Nazism which lead to the rise of Hitler.