From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 and 1924, by troops from France and Belgium was a response to the failure of German Weimar Republic under Cuno to pay reparations in the aftermath of World War I. Having been thwarted in its attempts to establish more robust security guarantees vis-à-vis Germany after World War I, France had sought to tip the economic balance more into its favour by exacting arguably severe German reparations, which Britain at first supported only to reconsider later. John Maynard Keynes, a leading figure in the Treasury in the post-War period, suggested that if Germany would be crippled, Britain, its second largest trading partner, would go down with it. Thus, Britain proposed that Germany could pay more installments of lesser amounts of the $33 billion dollars owed.

Initiated by French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré, the invasion took place on January 11, 1923, with the aim of occupying the centre of German coal, iron and steel production in the Ruhr area valley, in order to both gain the money that Germany owed, and to cripple Germany forever.

The occupation was initially greeted by a campaign of passive resistance, and a few incidents of sabotage (which the Nazis later used to fabricate a myth of widespread armed resistance). In the face of economic collapse, with huge unemployment and hyperinflation, the strikes were eventually called off in September 1923 by the new Gustav Stresemann coalition government, which was followed by a state of emergency. Despite this, civil unrest grew into riots and coup attempts targeted at the government of the Weimar Republic, including the Beer Hall Putsch.

Internationally the occupation did much to boost sympathy for Germany, although no action was taken in the League of Nations in response to what was a clear breach of League rules. The French, with their own economic problems, eventually accepted the Dawes Plan and withdrew from the occupied areas in July and August 1925. The last French troops evacuated Düsseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort, ending French occupation of the Ruhr region on August 25, 1925.

The unsuccessful conclusion from the French point of view may have contributed to France's failure to oppose Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland eleven years later, in a clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles on Germany's part.

• Michael Ruck, Die Freien Gewerkschaften im Ruhrkampf 1923 (Frankfurt am Main, 1986);
• Barbara Müller, Passiver Widerstand im Ruhrkampf. Eine Fallstudie zur gewaltlosen zwischenstaatlichen Konfliktaustragung und ihren Erfolgsbedingungen (Münster, 1995);
• Stanislas Jeannesson, Poincaré, la France et la Ruhr 1922-1924. Histoire d'une occupation (Strasbourg, 1998);
• Elspeth Y. O'Riordan, Britain and the Ruhr crisis (London, 2001);
• Gerd Krüger, Das "Unternehmen Wesel" im Ruhrkampf von 1923. Rekonstruktion eines misslungenen Anschlags auf den Frieden, in Horst Schroeder, Gerd Krüger, Realschule und Ruhrkampf. Beiträge zur Stadtgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Wesel, 2002), pp. 90-150 (Studien und Quellen zur Geschichte von Wesel, 24) [esp. on the background of so-called 'active' resistance];
• Conan Fischer, The Ruhr Crisis, 1923-1924 (Oxford / New York, 2003);
• Gerd Krumeich, Joachim Schröder (eds.), Der Schatten des Weltkriegs: Die Ruhrbesetzung 1923 (Essen, 2004) (Düsseldorfer Schriften zur Neueren Landesgeschichte und zur Geschichte Nordrhein-Westfalens, 69);
• Gerd Krüger, "Aktiver" und passiver Widerstand im Ruhrkampf 1923, in Günther Kronenbitter, Markus Pöhlmann, Dierk Walter (eds.), Besatzung. Funktion und Gestalt militärischer Fremdherrschaft von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich, 2006), pp. 119-30 (Krieg in der Geschichte, 28);