Was the Weimar Republic doomed from the start?

Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 · Paper 1 Section B, Depth study B: Germany, 1918 to 1945 Syllabus: 2027 and 2028 Key Question 1 of three

The Key Question is "Was the Weimar Republic doomed from the start?" and this file covers it in full: the four focus points Cambridge prints underneath it, the part of the Depth study's specified content that belongs to it, where it is set on the paper, and what the mark schemes reward that the syllabus never says.

Read the question itself before anything else, because its shape decides how the file is built. "Doomed from the start" is a two sided question by construction. It contains a claim that the Republic's founding weaknesses were fatal, and it invites you to test that claim against a Republic that survived 1919, survived 1920, survived 1923 and then had six years in which almost everything went right. A file that only listed Weimar's troubles would be answering half a question, and on the 10 mark part a one sided answer is capped at 6 no matter how good it is. Everything below is arranged so that each fact arrives attached to the side of the argument it serves.

1. What the syllabus actually asks

This is the wording printed in the Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 syllabus for 2027 and 2028, in Depth study B. Ranges are written out in words throughout this file, but the wording is otherwise exactly as set.

Key Question 1

Was the Weimar Republic doomed from the start?

Focus points

• How did Germany emerge from defeat at the end of the First World War?
• What was the impact of the Treaty of Versailles on the Republic?
• To what extent did the Republic recover after 1923?
• What were the achievements of the Weimar period?

The specified content, and the part of it that is yours

Cambridge prints one list of specified content for the whole of Depth study B, not one list per Key Question. It runs from the Revolution of 1918 to the Final Solution. Only the opening six bullets belong to this Key Question, and knowing where the list stops being yours is the single most useful piece of housekeeping in this file.

Yours:

• The Revolution of 1918 and the establishment of the Republic
• The Versailles Settlement and German reactions to it
• The Weimar Constitution, the main political divisions, the role of the army
• Political disorder, 1919 to 1923: threats from the left and the right; economic crises and hyper-inflation; the occupation of the Ruhr
• The Stresemann era: economic achievements; foreign policy achievements
• Cultural achievements of the Weimar period

Not yours. Everything from "The early years of the Nazi Party" onwards, meaning Nazi ideas and methods, the Munich Putsch, the roles of Hitler and other Nazi leaders, the impact of the Depression on Germany, Nazi rule in Germany, economic policy including rearmament, the different experiences of Nazi rule and the impact of the Second World War on Germany. Those belong to Key Question 2, "Why was Hitler able to dominate Germany by 1934?", and to Key Question 3, "The Nazi regime".

How the three layers work

Cambridge defines them itself: key questions define the over-arching issues, focus points identify the issues that enable candidates to gain an understanding of the key question, and specified content provides guidance on what needs to be studied for each key question.

So the four focus points are not four topics to be learned in turn. Each is a ready made 10 mark title, and each one has a side to argue against:

Every one of the four has been set as a real 10 mark question in the last seven years, several of them repeatedly. Section 9 lists the families.

The word the whole question turns on

"From the start." A question about whether something was doomed from the start is a question about founding conditions, not about the ending. Everyone knows the Republic fell. The examinable argument is whether the things present at its birth in 1918 and 1919 were sufficient to cause that, or whether something later and separate was needed. Cambridge's own mark schemes put both positions in candidates' mouths, and section 3 sets them out as two cases you can write on demand.

2. How Paper 1 marks this Key Question, and where it is set

The ladders themselves are identical for every question on Paper 1, in both sections, and they are set out in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes: the three parts and their marks, the assessment objective split, all three level tables, the two rules Cambridge changed for the 2024 series, what an explanation looks like on the page, and the faults examiners name in every series. That page states that it applies to Section B, and it does. Read it once. Nothing below repeats it.

What is specific to this Key Question is where it turns up, and that is worth knowing precisely.

Section B occupies Questions 9 to 22 on past papers, and Germany is always Questions 11 and 12

Cambridge does not publish a question map for Section B any more than it does for Section A. This one comes from reading the printed question stem in all 48 Paper 1 papers and mark schemes from 2018 to 2024.

On those papers Section A ran from Question 1 to Question 8, and Section B ran from Question 9 to Question 22: seven depth studies, two questions each, in syllabus order. Depth study B was second, so Germany took Question 11 and Question 12 on every single paper, without exception.

That number does not move for 2027. The new syllabus cuts the depth studies from seven to five by deleting China, South Africa, and the Israelis and Palestinians, and adding the Second World War. Section B therefore shortens to Questions 9 to 18, but Germany is still the second depth study, so it still takes Questions 11 and 12. Only Questions 17 and 18 change hands.

Your Key Question is Question 11, and it is Question 11 twenty six times in forty eight

Germany's two slots are shared between three Key Questions, and they do not share them evenly.

Three things follow, and each is worth acting on.

This Key Question appears on more than half of all papers, and always at Question 11. In 48 papers it was never once set at Question 12. If you are revising it, you know which question to turn to.

Question 11 is really a coin toss between this Key Question and the Nazi rise. Twenty six against twenty one. If Question 11 comes up on Hitler becoming Chancellor, this Key Question is not on your paper at all, and your fallback is Question 12 on the Nazi regime, which you may not have revised. Do not plan a Section B answer around one Key Question.

The pattern loosened in 2024. In two papers from that year, March and June version 3, Question 11 took this Key Question and Question 12 took the Nazi rise instead of the Nazi regime. In another, November version 3, Question 11 took the Nazi regime, which had never happened before. Treat the table as a strong tendency, not a rule.

It is the most answered question in Section B

Principal Examiner reports call Question 11 "the most popular question of the Depth Studies" in series after series, from 2019 through to 2024, in almost identical words. That matters because it tells you the competition is here. It also means the reports carry more detail on this question than on any other in Section B, which is why section 11 of this file is unusually specific.

What this Key Question cannot earn you

Paper 2 never touches it. Paper 2 sets its document question on a prescribed topic taken from the Core content, in Option A or Option B. Depth studies are not eligible, in any series. This is a real difference from the Core content Key Questions, where revision can serve two papers.

Paper 4 does touch it, if your centre takes the Alternative to Coursework rather than the coursework component. Paper 4 sets two questions on each of the five depth studies, and the Weimar half of Depth study B has carried titles such as "How important were weaknesses in the Weimar Constitution in causing Germany's problems, 1919 to 1933?", "How important was hyperinflation as a cause of unrest in Weimar Germany by 1923?", "How important was the Dawes Plan in the recovery of Germany, 1923 to 1929?" and "How important was President Ebert to the survival of the Weimar Republic, 1919 to 1925?". Note that the 2027 Paper 4 is described in the syllabus as two parts, (a) and (b), where the past papers set a single 40 mark essay, so the past Paper 4 questions are useful as content prompts rather than as format practice.

3. The two cases, stated once

Before any content, here are the two positions the question is asking you to hold. Cambridge's own mark schemes supply both. Learn them as arguments, then use sections 4 to 7 to stock them.

The case that it was doomed from the start

The Republic was created by the people who then had to sign the armistice and the Treaty, so its first public act was the act its enemies never forgave. It was labelled with the November Criminals and the stab in the back before it had governed for a year. Its constitution built weakness in on purpose: proportional representation guaranteed coalitions, and Article 48 gave the President a legal route around the Reichstag that Hindenburg used from 1930 and Hitler used in 1933. It faced armed rebellion from the left in 1919 and from the right in 1920, and it survived the second only because Berlin's workers went on strike, not because it commanded any force of its own. The army refused to fire on the Kapp rebels and nobody was punished for it. Then the recovery it managed was built on foreign money that could be recalled at short notice, and in 1929 it was.

The case that it recovered and was brought down later

None of that killed it. It survived the Spartacists, it survived Kapp, it survived the Ruhr and the worst currency collapse in its history, and from 1924 the country got measurably better. Hyperinflation was ended inside a year. Industrial production reached pre-war levels by 1928. Germany went from a friendless state to a member of the League of Nations with a permanent seat on its Council. There was a cultural revival that made Berlin one of the significant cultural cities of Europe. The extremist vote actually fell: Communists and Nazis took around 13 per cent between them in 1928. What changed after that was not German, it was American. The Wall Street Crash pulled the loans, unemployment reached 6 million by 1932, and the extremist vote went to 31 per cent by 1930. A republic that was doomed in 1919 does not have a golden age in 1928.

The move that reaches Level 5

Notice that both cases use the same fact about the loans, and that is your way in. The strongest judgement is usually not that one side wins outright, but that the early weaknesses were survivable in good conditions and fatal in bad ones, so the Republic was not doomed but was unusually badly equipped to absorb a shock. Say that, attach a reason, and you have answered the exact question asked. Section 10 gives the sentences.

4. Focus point: how Germany emerged from defeat

The country the Republic inherited

This is the part candidates skip, and it is the foundation of the doomed case. Cambridge sets 4 mark questions on it directly, and the mark schemes are unusually numerate:

• 600,000 women were left widowed
• 2 million children lost their fathers
• National income had fallen to one third of what it had been in 1913
• Industrial production was two thirds of what it had been in 1913
• Over 300,000 civilians died in 1918 of either starvation or hypothermia
• There was an influenza epidemic
• Food supplies were so low that people ate turnips, which were usually fed to cattle
• Sawdust was put into bread because there was not enough flour
• Milk supplies were halved compared with 1913, and butter production was around two thirds of 1913

Whatever government emerged in November 1918 was going to be blamed for that, and the government that emerged was this one.

The Revolution of 1918

Cambridge's own account, from the mark schemes:

• Sailors in northern Germany mutinied and took over Kiel
• There were uprisings by socialists, workers and soldiers in German ports and cities
• In November 1918 the Kaiser abdicated
• Germany was declared a Republic with Ebert as Chancellor
• Freedom of speech and worship was introduced
• In January 1919 free elections were held for the first time in Germany

1. naval mutiny at Kiel spreads to ports and cities
2. the Kaiser abdicates in November 1918
3. a Republic is proclaimed with Ebert at its head
4. the same men accept the armistice within days
5. the Republic's founding act and Germany's surrender become the same event in the public mind.

That chain is the heart of the doomed case, and it is worth writing out in full in a part (c), because it explains why the November Criminals label stuck.

Friedrich Ebert

Cambridge sets 4 mark questions on Ebert by name. What it credits:

• Leader of the Social Democrats
• Chancellor of the new German Republic from 1918, and President of Germany from 1919
• Accepted the Armistice and accepted the Treaty of Versailles
• Adopted a democratic form of government
• Made an agreement with the Freikorps to put down the Spartacist uprising early in 1919
• Crushed an uprising in Bavaria, and took ruthless measures against the Communists
• His government was threatened by the Kapp Putsch
• Supported the general strike in the Ruhr
• Died in 1925

The "November Criminals"

A 4 mark question in its own right. Cambridge credits: a group of politicians who took power in Germany in 1918 after the Kaiser abdicated, made up of different socialist groups, who formed the new Republican government and announced a new constitution. They were blamed for stabbing Germany in the back, blamed for signing the armistice unnecessarily when some believed the army had not been defeated, and blamed for accepting the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Examiner reports note that Hitler's later use and exploitation of the phrase also earns credit.

The Weimar Constitution

Cambridge's list of main features:

• An elected President, who appointed the Chancellor
• The Chancellor led the government
• A Reichstag, elected every four years, which made the laws
• The Reichstag was elected by proportional representation
• Both men and women could vote
• The President could suspend the constitution and rule by decree

The two offices, since Cambridge has set a 4 mark question splitting them:

The two constitutional weaknesses, and why examiners want both

Proportional representation. Cambridge's explanation: it made it extremely difficult for one party to gain overall control, so all Weimar governments were coalition governments made up of representatives from a number of different parties, each with its own agenda. The coalitions often did not last long, and there were nine general elections during the years of the Weimar Republic. Extremist parties also gained seats and, with them, a platform for publicising their causes.

Article 48. The President could declare a state of emergency and make laws by decree, overriding the democratically elected government. Cambridge's mark scheme adds the sharp points: the President alone decided what constituted an emergency, the power had no fixed time limit, it was used with increasing frequency after the Depression began in 1929, Hindenburg used it through the critical period of 1930 to 1933, and Hitler used Article 48 to give his dictatorship legality.

This is a live 10 mark question, set as "How far do you agree that proportional representation was the most serious weakness of the Weimar Constitution?" and as "The Weimar Constitution doomed the Republic to failure." Examiner reports are blunt that Article 48 is the weaker half of most answers. If you can explain proportional representation and then explain Article 48 properly, you have both sides of a Level 4 answer in two paragraphs.

1. proportional representation guarantees coalitions
2. coalitions cannot agree a plan when a crisis comes
3. governments turn to the President's emergency decree instead
4. Article 48 becomes the normal way to govern after 1930
5. the constitution supplies a legal route out of parliamentary democracy before anyone tries to seize one.

Threats from the left

The Spartacists. Communists led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Cambridge's list of their aims: a communist revolution like the Russian Revolution; a Germany ruled by workers' councils or soviets; the overthrow of Ebert's moderate government; the abolition of central government; the working classes controlling society; the abolition of democracy; the state to own all means of production; the army to be run democratically; the nationalisation of businesses; wealth spread more equally; and an immediate end to the war.

What they did, in January 1919: launched their bid for power in Berlin, seized the headquarters of the government's newspaper and the telegraph bureau, organised a general strike, built barricades and fought in the streets, and set up soviets. Ebert asked the army and the Freikorps for help. The Freikorps still had their wartime weapons, retook the blocked streets and buildings, and around a hundred died in the fighting. Liebknecht and Luxemburg were captured and murdered.

Why they failed, in Cambridge's words: the Freikorps were ruthless and battle hardened; the Spartacists could not agree on tactics; regiments in the army refused to join them; they failed to keep the support of the Independent Social Democratic Party; and their leaders were killed.

Rosa Luxemburg on her own is a 4 mark question. Cambridge credits: communist and leader of the Spartacists; wanted a communist government based on workers' and soldiers' councils; with Liebknecht proclaimed the "Free Socialist Republic" in Berlin in November 1918; set up and edited a newspaper called the "Red Flag"; wrote an essay called "Against Capital Punishment"; encouraged the revolution in Berlin in January 1919; was halted by the Freikorps; and was tortured, shot and dumped in a canal.

Left wing threat did not stop there. Cambridge also credits communist agitation in the Ruhr in 1920, the KPD supporting an uprising in Merseburg in 1921, and the communist rebellion in Bavaria where a Soviet republic was declared.

Threats from the right, and the role of the army

The Freikorps. Anti-communist ex-soldiers who formed themselves into vigilante groups. They put down the Spartacist rebellion in Berlin, crushed strikes in the Ruhr, Rhineland and Saxony, defeated the Bavarian Soviet Republic, and were used by the government to protect the borders against the Red Army. Cambridge is precise that Ebert had no direct control over them: he needed them and could not command them. From 1920, many of the Freikorps joined Hitler and the NSDAP.

Why men joined them, and this is where the Treaty enters: they disliked the Treaty of Versailles and thought it far too harsh; the part they disliked most was the limiting of the German army to 100,000 troops, which cost them their jobs; joining the Freikorps let them continue in military life; the government then tried to disband them at the Allies' request; they wanted the old system of German government back and the return of the Kaiser; and they wanted Germany strong again.

The Kapp Putsch, March 1920. Cambridge's account: Kapp led 5,000 Freikorps into Berlin, with Ehrhardt leading his men in; they wanted to get rid of the new republic and set up a right wing government; the German army refused to shoot at the rebels; Kapp declared himself Chancellor and set up a provisional government; the government fled the city, to Dresden, and called for a general strike; the working classes struck, and the unions and several political parties supported it until it spread all over Germany; Kapp could not govern because the country was paralysed; he and his fellow conspirators resigned in March 1920 and Kapp fled Germany. Cambridge adds one more, and it belongs in the doomed case: those who organised the putsch were not punished.

1. Kapp marches on Berlin with 5,000 Freikorps
2. the army declines to defend the Republic and the government flees to Dresden
3. Berlin's workers call a general strike that halts transport, power and water
4. the putsch collapses in days
5. the Republic survives, but it has been saved by a general strike rather than by the state, and the plotters go unpunished.

That single chain contains both sides of the argument at once, which is why examiner reports keep pointing to it. It shows a Republic that could not rely on its own army, and a Republic with enough popular support to be rescued by ordinary Berliners.

Cambridge also credits, on the right: the assassination of Rathenau by a right wing terror group, and Ludendorff's support for both the Kapp Putsch and the Munich Putsch, which is Cambridge's own evidence that right wing threats attracted more prominent backers.

Where this stops

Hitler's attempted rising in Munich in 1923 is credited in this Key Question only as evidence of the right wing threat to the Republic. Its causes, its trial, Landsberg, Mein Kampf and its consequences for the Nazi Party belong to Key Question 2 and are examined there. Section 11 explains what happens to candidates who drift.

5. Focus point: the impact of the Treaty of Versailles on the Republic

What this file adds, and what it does not repeat

This focus point genuinely overlaps a Core content Key Question that already exists on this site: B1, "Was the Treaty of Versailles fair?", whose third focus point is the impact of the Treaty on Germany up to the end of 1923. The overlap is real, it is Cambridge's own, and the honest thing is to name what each page is for rather than pretend they are separate topics.

The Versailles notes are the place to learn the Treaty. They carry the aims of the Big Three, the negotiations, every territorial, military and financial term, Article 231, the reparations figure and how it was fixed, the other treaties, and the argument about whether the settlement was justified at the time. Do not learn any of that here. It is there and it is fuller.

This page is the place to learn what the Treaty did to the Republic. The difference is the subject of the sentence. The Core content question asks what the Treaty did to Germany. This one asks what it did to a government: how a document negotiated by other people became the founding liability of a state that had no part in causing the war it was being punished for.

If you are revising either question, read both. The same events are examined in both places, and an examiner will not thank you for producing a Versailles answer to a Weimar question, or the reverse. Section 11 covers what that looks like when it goes wrong.

The political damage, which is the part that belongs here

Cambridge's own Level 3 exemplar for a 6 mark question, given twice in near identical words in different series: the Weimar Republic faced threats to its existence because it was blamed for the Treaty of Versailles. Many Germans did not believe that Germany had been defeated, and when they heard the terms in 1919 they were disgusted. Germany had been blamed for the war, had to pay reparations, and had lost most of its armed forces as well as land. Representatives of the Republic had to sign the armistice and later the Treaty, and as the first act of the new Republic this was a disaster. It led many people to oppose the Republic.

Notice what is doing the work in that paragraph. It is not the severity of any term. It is the sequence: the Republic existed for a few weeks, then signed, and was thereafter the party of the signature.

1. the Republic is proclaimed in November 1918
2. its representatives accept the armistice and then the Treaty
3. opponents brand them the November Criminals and claim the undefeated army was stabbed in the back
4. hatred of the Treaty and hostility to the Republic become the same emotion
5. every later grievance about Versailles is also a grievance against Weimar.

Cambridge's list of who this turned against the Republic, and why:

• The right wing, which wanted a strong army, wanted Germany to have an empire and be industrially powerful, wanted rule as under the Kaiser, disliked the Communists and Social Democrats, and saw the Treaty as a humiliation the Republic had accepted
• Discharged soldiers, thrown out of work by the 100,000 man limit, who joined the Freikorps
• Those who wanted the Kaiser and the monarchy back
• The left wing, for a different reason: Cambridge credits "the terms of the Treaty were too harsh for the German people" as a cause of left wing opposition too. The Treaty pushed people towards both extremes at once.

War guilt. Cambridge sets "Why did Germans dislike the war guilt clause?" as a 6 mark question inside this Depth study. What it credits: it forced Germany to accept full responsibility for the war; Germans thought the blame should be shared; because they were forced to accept blame they then had to pay for all the damage through reparations; and the German people felt humiliated. The legal machinery of Article 231, and Germany's counter-arguments about Austria and Russia, are in the Versailles notes.

The economic damage, and the chain that runs to 1923

The reparations bill was £6,600 million, and Cambridge prints that figure inside this Depth study as well as in the Core content. What matters here is how it moved through the Republic:

• Germany paid the first instalment in 1921
• From 1921 Germany began buying foreign currency at any price by printing marks, because reparations had to be paid in foreign currency, and this drove the mark down. There was already high inflation before the Ruhr.
• Germany also carried enormous war debts from before the Republic existed, which Cambridge credits as an independent cause of inflation
• At the end of 1922 Germany failed to pay the second instalment

The occupation of the Ruhr. In January 1923 French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr, Germany's main industrial area. Cambridge's mark schemes are careful about the legality and the motive: it was legal under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and an opportunity to enforce it, and the troops intended to seize coal to the value of the reparations that had not been paid, taking raw materials and goods directly.

The German response and its consequences:

• The German government ordered and encouraged passive resistance. Workers refused to work in the mines and factories, and refused to cooperate with the occupiers.
• The occupiers reacted harshly. The French drove 100,000 Germans out of the Ruhr region, and Cambridge also prints that thousands of Germans were expelled and that some Germans were shot and killed.
• With the Ruhr producing nothing, government income collapsed, and the government printed money to pay the strikers
• The result was hyperinflation
• In August 1925, after the Dawes Plan, French and Belgian troops withdrew from the Ruhr

What hyperinflation did to people. Cambridge's own list, and this is a 4 mark question:

• Wages were paid daily
• Those on fixed incomes or salaries were hardest hit
• Those with savings lost everything, and pensions for the elderly lost their value
• Businesses went bankrupt
• Standards of living fell, and many could not eat properly
• Those who had borrowed money found they could pay it back quickly, which is the one winner in the list and a useful detail because almost nobody writes it
• Money had no value and it was difficult to buy necessities

1. Germany misses the second reparations instalment at the end of 1922
2. French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr in January 1923 to seize coal to the value owed
3. the German government orders passive resistance and the Ruhr stops producing
4. government income collapses and it prints money to pay the strikers
5. hyperinflation destroys savings, salaries and pensions
6. the Republic's own supporters, the salaried and the thrifty, are the people it ruins.

That last clause is the argument. The economic disaster of 1923 fell hardest on exactly the middle class group that a parliamentary republic most needed. Say that and you are explaining rather than narrating.

One warning about figures. Popular accounts of German hyperinflation quote spectacular prices, exchange rates and wheelbarrow anecdotes. Cambridge prints none of them. In all 26 mark schemes read for this file there is not a single price, a single exchange rate or a single note denomination. The one place the wheelbarrow appears is as Cambridge's example of a Level 1 answer, worth one mark, described as writing about the topic without addressing the question. Do not import numbers from elsewhere. Cambridge rewards the mechanism, not the spectacle.

6. Focus point: to what extent did the Republic recover after 1923

This is the focus point that decides most 10 mark answers, because it is the only one that naturally contains both sides. The specified content calls it the Stresemann era and splits it into economic achievements and foreign policy achievements, which is precisely how Cambridge sets the questions.

Gustav Stresemann

Cambridge's mark schemes put him in office in 1923 and note pointedly, as a creditable Level 2 point on the sceptical side, that he was Chancellor for only four months and so could not do much. He died in 1929. Handle him as the man who acted in 1923 and then shaped policy through the rest of the decade, and see section 8 on what Cambridge does not print about his later office.

The economic achievements

In 1923, immediately:

• Ended passive resistance in the Ruhr and ordered striking workers back to work
• Resumed reparation payments to the Allies
• Called in the old worthless marks and burnt them
• Introduced a temporary currency, the Rentenmark, of which only a limited number of notes were printed, so the money went up in value
• Reduced government spending
• His government also dealt with the risings of that year, including left wing risings in Saxony

In 1924, the Dawes Plan. Cambridge's detail: arranged with Charles Dawes, an American banker, and negotiated by Stresemann on behalf of the German government. Its terms and effects, as credited:

• A loan of 800 million gold marks
• Reparation payments linked to economic performance, so Germany only had to pay what it could afford
• Reparation payments spread over a longer period
• France and Belgium agreed to end their occupation of the Ruhr
• The money went into German industry, into replacing German equipment with the latest technology, and into public works such as apartment blocks, swimming pools and sports stadia, which also created jobs
• Cambridge also credits job centres and unemployment pay among Stresemann's measures
• In 1924 the Rentenmark was replaced by the permanent Reichsmark

The results Cambridge credits: hyperinflation ended; confidence returned and people began to invest in German businesses again; industries in the Ruhr restarted production; inflation and unemployment fell; industry expanded and exports increased; wages went up and working conditions improved; people could enjoy a decent standard of living again; and by 1928 industrial production had reached pre-war levels. One Principal Examiner report goes further and credits candidates who wrote that by 1928 Germany had regained its place as the world's second greatest industrial power.

The Young Plan, 1929. Negotiated by Stresemann before his death. See section 8: Cambridge's own documents say two different things about what it achieved, and you should not try to reconcile them.

The foreign policy achievements

• The Locarno Treaties, 1925. Germany promised not to try to change its western borders with France and Belgium. Cambridge's point, and it is the one that earns marks, is that in doing so Germany was accepting the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which it had refused to accept. Being present in the discussions at all mattered as much as the content.
• The League of Nations, 1926. Germany was admitted, and Cambridge adds that Germany was given a permanent seat on the Council of the League, recognising its power and status.
• The Kellogg-Briand Pact, signed by Germany
• The Treaty of Berlin, improving relations with the Soviet Union
• Some of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles began to be eased
• Cambridge's summary, from a Level 5 exemplar: Stresemann turned Germany "from a distrusted and friendless state in 1923 into one which was respected and treated as an equal"

1. Stresemann ends passive resistance and resumes reparations
2. this makes Germany a country the Allies can negotiate with
3. the Dawes Plan follows in 1924 with American money and easier terms
4. Locarno in 1925 accepts the western borders
5. the League admits Germany in 1926 with a permanent Council seat
6. economic and diplomatic recovery are the same process, not two separate ones.

The case that the recovery was not real

Cambridge supplies this side as fully as the other, and an answer without it is capped at Level 3.

• The recovery depended on American loans, which could be recalled at short notice. Examiner reports record candidates calling the Dawes Plan a "double edged sword", and credit it.
• Agriculture never fully recovered. Peasant farmers did not prosper because they were overproducing, and farmers were falling into debt.
• Unemployment remained stubbornly high and was never solved.
• Small businesses and shopkeepers continued to struggle, and the middle classes were not doing well.
• The government was spending far too much on welfare and health care.
• Political instability remained. The constitution had not changed, the coalitions were still coalitions, and there were still groups ready to bring the Republic down.
• Many Germans never really accepted the Republic, and nationalists saw Locarno and the League as an acceptance of the hated Treaty.
• Cambridge's blunt Level 2 point: "The speed with which Weimar collapsed showed its achievements were not real."

What happened after, and how much of it you are allowed

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and its consequences are the standard evidence that the recovery was hollow, and Cambridge credits them inside this Key Question when they are used to evaluate the recovery. What it credits: American loans made since 1924 were recalled; Germany had to repay substantial sums while continuing to pay reparations; German trade was hit by the world depression; German businesses went bankrupt; unemployment rose to 6 million by 1932; and support for the moderate parties that made up the Weimar coalitions declined while the extremes grew. Cambridge's sharpest figure, from a Level 3 exemplar: the Communists and the Nazis together took around 13 per cent of the vote in 1928, and 31 per cent by 1930.

That figure is worth memorising because it works on both sides. It is evidence that the recovery was fragile, and it is evidence that during the recovery itself the extremists were marginal.

Where the line falls. Use the Depression to judge the recovery. Do not use it to explain the Nazi rise, which is Key Question 2. "The recovery was built on loans and collapsed when they were recalled" is this Key Question. "The Depression is why Germans voted Nazi" is the next one, and an examiner marking Question 11 will not credit it.

7. Focus point: what were the achievements of the Weimar period

The specified content calls this cultural achievements of the Weimar period, and Cambridge sets it both as a 4 mark description and as a 10 mark comparison against the economic and foreign policy achievements. Treat culture as a third column beside economics and diplomacy, not as decoration.

What Cambridge credits

• Censorship was lifted, and the Republic was committed to civil liberties and freedom of expression
• Expressionism was encouraged, and artists, writers, film and theatre directors and designers were free to develop new ideas
• Painting: new styles such as that of George Grosz, and Otto Dix
• Architecture: the Bauhaus style, and Walter Gropius, who founded it
• Film: the German cinema flourished, with films such as Metropolis and stars such as Marlene Dietrich
• Literature: the works of Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht
• Night clubs, cabaret artists, dance bands, dance halls, cafes and restaurants increased
• Berlin became a significant cultural city in Europe
• Women were given more freedom

Cambridge also credits, under achievements generally, that politics became more stable, and the economic and foreign policy achievements in section 6.

The two counter-arguments, and one of them is unusually good

Culture divided Germany rather than uniting it. Cambridge repeatedly credits the point that some Germans, particularly on the right and among those who held traditional values, saw the artistic developments as signs of decadence, corruption and moral decay. A cultural revival that half the country experienced as moral decline is not straightforwardly an achievement of a republic trying to build consent.

The achievements were not evenly spread. This is the argument Cambridge itself uses in a printed Level 5 exemplar, and it is the single best sentence in the whole Key Question:

the cultural achievements were extensive but concentrated in areas such as Berlin, and therefore were not experienced by the whole of Germany, whereas the acceptance of Germany back into the international community and the Dawes Plan led to an economic revival which affected everyone.

That is Cambridge showing you what the tenth mark looks like. The judgement is not "culture mattered less". It is "culture mattered less because fewer people were touched by it", and the reason is what makes it a judgement rather than an opinion. A judgement built on reach rather than on importance is available to you on almost any version of this question.

8. Where Cambridge's own documents disagree

Cambridge marks from banks of acceptable answers written across many series, and they do not always agree. In each case below both wordings are creditable, both come from real 0470 mark schemes, and the right response is to know the fullest version and not to worry about the rest. Do not spend revision time trying to make them one thing.

The currency, which Cambridge names three different ways

Two mark schemes give the full sequence, and it is the version to learn:

Stresemann introduced a temporary currency, the Rentenmark, to replace the worthless currency used during hyperinflation. He replaced this, in 1924, with the Reichsmark.

But other mark schemes compress it. Some say Stresemann ended hyperinflation by "introducing a permanent currency, the Reichsmark", with no mention of the Rentenmark. Others say simply that he "introduced a new currency, the Rentenmark", with no mention of the Reichsmark. In one paper both wordings appear in the same mark scheme for the same question, one in the Level 3 exemplar and the other in the Level 2 list. Two mark schemes also spell it "Reichmark" without the s.

What to do. Learn the sequence, Rentenmark in 1923 then Reichsmark in 1924, and use whichever the question needs. Both names are credited. Neither is a trap.

The Young Plan, which Cambridge both credits and discounts

One mark scheme credits, as a Level 2 point: "The Young Plan reduced reparations to a third."

Another, from a different series, credits inside a Level 5 exemplar that Stresemann negotiated the Young Plan before he died in 1929, that it "would have dramatically reduced the reparations owed by Germany", but that "the onset of the depression meant the plan did not come to fruition".

What to do. Both earn marks. If you are arguing that Weimar recovered, the Young Plan is a diplomatic achievement. If you are arguing the recovery was illusory, the Young Plan is a promise the Depression cancelled. Pick the one that serves your paragraph and do not try to assert both at once.

Who occupied the Ruhr

Most mark schemes say French and Belgian troops. Two describe it as "the French occupation of the Ruhr". Write French and Belgian, which is both accurate and the majority Cambridge wording, and do not lose sleep over a question stem that says only French.

The Ruhr expulsions

One mark scheme states that the French drove 100,000 Germans out of the Ruhr region. Another says the French expelled thousands of Germans. These are not in conflict so much as differently precise. Quote the 100,000 if you want the specific contextual knowledge that earns the fifth mark on part (b), and be aware the vaguer version is also credited.

The deaths in January 1919

One mark scheme says the Freikorps "killed over a hundred of them", meaning Spartacists. Another says "around 100 civilians died during the fighting". Different subjects, similar order of magnitude. Write "about a hundred deaths" and do not over-specify who.

9. What the papers actually ask

Across 2018 to 2024, 26 of the 48 Paper 1 papers set Question 11 on this Key Question, which is 78 individual question parts. Question stems repeat in families. Learn the family, not the individual question. Everything below was actually set.

The 4 mark families

• The end of the war and the Revolution: describe the problems facing German civilians at the end of the First World War; describe revolutionary events in Germany in 1918 to 1919; what were the "November Criminals"; who was Friedrich Ebert; what was Ebert's role in Germany, 1918 to 1919
• The Constitution: what were the main features of the Weimar Constitution; what were the roles of the Chancellor and the President under the Weimar Constitution
• The left: what did the Spartacists want to achieve; what were the aims of the Spartacists; describe the aims and activities of the Spartacists in 1919; describe the Spartacist uprising; what impact did the Spartacists have on the German Republic; who was Rosa Luxemburg
• The right: describe what happened in the Kapp Putsch; what were the aims of Kapp and the Freikorps in the putsch of 1920
• The Ruhr and hyperinflation: what was the Ruhr crisis of 1923; describe the reactions of France and Belgium when Germany failed to pay reparations in 1922; describe how Germany reacted to the French occupation of the Ruhr; describe the German reaction to the occupation of the Ruhr by Belgian and French troops; describe the effects of hyperinflation on the German people
• Stresemann and recovery: what was the Dawes Plan; describe Stresemann's economic policies; describe Stresemann's foreign policy; what actions had Stresemann taken by the end of 1923 to save the Weimar Republic from collapsing
• Culture: describe the cultural achievements of the Weimar period; describe cultural developments in Weimar Germany

The 6 mark families

Always beginning Why, and always needing two explained reasons.

• Why was proportional representation a weakness of the Weimar Constitution? Why was proportional representation seen by many as a weakness of the Weimar Constitution?
• Why did the Weimar Republic face threats to its existence in 1919 to 1920? Why was there left-wing opposition to the German Republic? Why was there right-wing opposition to the German Republic? Why did the Communist uprisings of 1919 fail? Why did the Spartacist uprising fail? Why was Ebert able to defeat left and right-wing threats to the Weimar Republic in 1919 to 1920?
• Why were the Freikorps important in the early years of the Weimar Republic? Why did some Germans support the Freikorps in the early years of the Weimar Republic? Why did the Freikorps attempt to take control of Germany in 1920? Why did the Kapp Putsch take place in 1920? Why was the Kapp Putsch important for the Weimar government?
• Why was the Treaty of Versailles important to the Weimar Republic? Why did Germans dislike the "war guilt" clause?
• Why did Germany experience hyperinflation in the early 1920s? Why was the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 important for Germany? Why did events in the Ruhr in 1923 have important consequences for Germany? Why was the occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian troops important for Germany? Why did Germans in the Ruhr begin passive resistance in 1923? Why was there a crisis in the Ruhr in 1923?
• Why did Germany introduce a new currency in 1923? Why was Germany able to recover from hyperinflation? Why had the Weimar Republic made some recovery by 1928? Why were Stresemann's policies important for Germany?
• Why, following the American stock market crash, did the Weimar Republic face an economic crisis?

The 10 mark families

Five recognisable shapes, and each takes a different plan.

Two other stems have crossed the border and are worth knowing: "The Revolution of 1918 was more important for Germany than the reaction of the people to the Treaty of Versailles", which sits exactly on the seam between focus points 1 and 2; and "Hyperinflation was caused by the need to pay reparations", which is the same question the Core content notes flag, set here in the Depth study. For that one, Cambridge's own two sides are: reparations caused everything including the Ruhr occupation and therefore the printing, against the printing of money in 1923 being a German government decision and the wartime debts being a cause in their own right.

10. Judgement sentences for this question

The general shapes, and what separates a Level 2 identification from a Level 4 explanation, are in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. What follows is the same move made about this Republic, because a judgement has to be about something.

Never write that there are arguments on both sides. That describes your essay, not the past. Write a position with a reason attached:

• "The Republic was not doomed but was badly insured, because the weaknesses it was born with were survivable in good years and fatal in one bad one."
• "The Treaty damaged the Republic more as a signature than as a settlement, because what could not be forgiven was who signed rather than what was signed."
• "The recovery after 1923 was real but rented, because everything that improved depended on money that could be recalled at short notice, and in 1929 it was."
• "The cultural achievements mattered least of the three, because they reached Berlin while the economic recovery reached everyone."
• "The right posed the greater threat, because the army would not fire on the Freikorps but would fire on the Spartacists."
• "Stresemann shaped the decade even where he did not control it, because after 1923 every argument about Germany's future was an argument about how far to continue in his direction."

11. What examiner reports say candidates get wrong here

The faults that apply anywhere on the paper, overwriting part (a), listing instead of explaining, one sided part (c) answers, and finishing without a judgement, are in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. These are the ones Principal Examiner reports name on this content, and they repeat almost word for word from 2018 to 2024.

• Confusing the left with the right. Named in more series than any other fault on this question. Reports record candidates assuming the Republic's left wing opponents were nationalists who wanted the Kaiser back, and candidates stating that the Munich Putsch was carried out by communists. One report records a common belief that Kapp was a communist leader.
• Confusing the Spartacist uprising with the Kapp Putsch, in both directions, and confusing either with the Munich Putsch.
• Thinking the 1918 Revolution was the Spartacist uprising. Reports name this explicitly on the question that compared the two.
• Confusing the Weimar Constitution with the Weimar Republic or the Weimar government. Reports say the word "constitution" was often read as "government", so candidates asked about the constitution wrote about the Republic's successes and failures and never mentioned proportional representation or Article 48 at all. Those answers cannot reach the top band, because the question was about the document.
• Confusing the Dawes Plan with the Young Plan.
• Believing the troops occupied the Rhineland rather than the Ruhr. Named as an error in its own right.
• Overrunning the date limit, which is the commonest single technical fault here. This Key Question is unusually fond of date limits. A question about 1919 to 1920 is marked to 1920, and the Munich Putsch of 1923 earns nothing in it. A question about what Stresemann had done by the end of 1923 excludes the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, which are 1924 and 1929. A question about recovery by 1928 excludes the Young Plan and the Wall Street Crash. A question about the 1930s is not answered by the hyperinflation crisis of 1923. Reports name every one of these.
• Describing the Ruhr occupation when asked about the reaction to it, and describing the events of the Kapp Putsch when asked about its aims or its importance. Reports flag this pattern on almost every Ruhr and Kapp question set.
• Narrating Stresemann instead of assessing him. Reports say repeatedly that candidates wrote at length and accurately about what Stresemann did without ever linking it to the survival, the recovery or the stability the question asked about. Detailed knowledge with no link to the question is a Level 2 answer.
• Answering only the side you find easier. On the achievements questions, reports note that explanations of economic achievements were consistently more developed than explanations of cultural ones, so candidates who chose the cultural side identified rather than explained and capped themselves. On the Stresemann questions, the weakness runs the other way: candidates explained his successes well and could not explain the case that they were illusory.
• Answering a Versailles question with Weimar content, or a Weimar question with Versailles content. Reports record candidates giving extensive descriptions of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles on a question about its importance for Germany, without any link to importance. The Treaty's terms belong to the Core content Key Question named in section 5. Here you need what the Treaty did to the Republic.

12. Quick revision

• The Key Question is two sided. Founding weaknesses fatal, against a real recovery destroyed by a later and external shock. A narrative of Weimar's troubles cannot reach Level 5.
• Where it is set: Section B is Questions 9 to 22 on past papers and Questions 9 to 18 from 2027. Germany is always Questions 11 and 12. This Key Question was set 26 times in 48 papers, always at Question 11, never at Question 12. It is not on Paper 2, which draws only from the Core content.
• The country in 1918: national income one third of 1913, industrial production two thirds, 600,000 widows, 2 million fatherless children, over 300,000 civilian deaths in 1918 from starvation or hypothermia.
• The Revolution: Kiel mutiny, uprisings in ports and cities, the Kaiser abdicates in November 1918, Ebert leads a Republic, free elections in January 1919.
• Ebert: Social Democrat, Chancellor from 1918, President from 1919, accepted the armistice and the Treaty, used the Freikorps against the Spartacists, died 1925.
• The Constitution: President elected, appoints and dismisses the Chancellor, commands the armed forces, appoints the judges, and can rule by decree under Article 48. Reichstag elected every four years by proportional representation. Men and women vote.
• The two weaknesses: proportional representation, which produced coalitions and nine general elections; and Article 48, where the President alone decided what was an emergency, used constantly from 1930 to 1933 and used by Hitler to make his dictatorship legal.
• Left, January 1919: Spartacists under Liebknecht and Luxemburg want soviets, seize the newspaper offices and telegraph bureau, are crushed by the Freikorps, about a hundred die, both leaders murdered.
• Right, March 1920: Kapp leads 5,000 Freikorps into Berlin, the army refuses to fire, the government flees to Dresden, a general strike by Berlin's workers breaks the putsch in days, and nobody is punished.
• The Treaty's damage is political first. The Republic signed, so it owned the Treaty. November Criminals, stab in the back, and the 100,000 man army limit that made Freikorps recruits out of discharged soldiers.
• The road to 1923: reparations £6,600 million, first instalment 1921, printing to buy foreign currency from 1921, second instalment missed at the end of 1922, French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr in January 1923, passive resistance, 100,000 Germans expelled, money printed to pay the strikers, hyperinflation.
• Hyperinflation hits: savers, pensioners and the salaried hardest; borrowers gain. Cambridge prints no prices or exchange rates. Do not invent any.
• Stresemann, 1923: ends passive resistance, resumes reparations, burns the old marks, introduces the temporary Rentenmark, cuts spending. Chancellor for only four months. Dies 1929.
• Stresemann, 1924 onwards: Dawes Plan with Charles Dawes, 800 million gold marks, payments linked to what Germany could afford and spread over longer, Ruhr occupation ended, Reichsmark replaces the Rentenmark in 1924. Locarno 1925, accepting the western borders and therefore the Treaty. League of Nations 1926, with a permanent Council seat. Kellogg-Briand Pact, Treaty of Berlin. Young Plan 1929.
• Recovery, for: hyperinflation ended, industrial production at pre-war levels by 1928, exports and wages up, Germany respected internationally.
• Recovery, against: it rested on American loans; agriculture, small businesses and the middle classes never recovered; unemployment stayed high; welfare spending was too heavy; political instability remained.
• After 1929: loans recalled, unemployment 6 million by 1932, and the combined Communist and Nazi vote goes from about 13 per cent in 1928 to 31 per cent in 1930. Use this to judge the recovery, not to explain the Nazi rise, which is Key Question 2.
• Culture: censorship lifted, expressionism, Grosz, Dix, Bauhaus and Gropius, Metropolis, Marlene Dietrich, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, night clubs and cabaret, Berlin a major cultural city, more freedom for women. Against it: many Germans read it as decadence and moral decay, and Cambridge's own Level 5 line is that it was concentrated in Berlin and not experienced by the whole of Germany.
• Marks: (a) four separate points from 2024, no credit for elaboration. (b) two explained reasons for 6. (c) one explanation on each side for 7, plus a stated judgement for 10.

Where these facts come from

Taken from Cambridge's own published 0470 materials, meaning the syllabus for 2027 and 2028, the 48 Paper 1 question papers and mark schemes from 2018 to 2024, the Paper 4 question papers, and the Principal Examiner reports:

the Key Question, focus point and specified content wording; the Section B question numbering and the Question 11 count; every figure in this file, namely the 600,000 widows, 2 million fatherless children, one third of 1913 national income, two thirds of 1913 industrial production, over 300,000 civilian deaths in 1918, halved milk and two thirds butter, nine general elections, 5,000 Freikorps at Berlin, about a hundred deaths in January 1919, 100,000 troop limit, £6,600 million reparations, 100,000 Germans expelled from the Ruhr, 800 million gold marks under the Dawes Plan, pre-war production levels reached by 1928, 6 million unemployed by 1932, and the 13 per cent to 31 per cent extremist vote; every name, namely Ebert, Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Kapp, Ehrhardt, Rathenau, Ludendorff, Stresemann, Charles Dawes, Grosz, Dix, Gropius, Mann, Brecht and Dietrich; every date given; the Rentenmark and Reichsmark sequence and the disagreements about it; the Young Plan disagreement; the Locarno, League, Kellogg-Briand and Treaty of Berlin achievements; the whole of the recovery-was-illusory case; the Level 5 judgement about culture being concentrated in Berlin; and every question stem quoted in section 9.

Not found in any 0470 material read for this file, and therefore left out rather than asserted. Check any of these against your own textbook before using them as precise:

• the exact dates of the Kiel mutiny, the Kaiser's abdication and the armistice
• the date the Weimar Constitution was adopted, and why the Republic is named after Weimar
• Stresemann's first name and, more importantly, what office he actually held after his four months as Chancellor in 1923, which the mark schemes never state
• the date Hindenburg became President
• Kapp's and Ehrhardt's first names, and the year Rathenau was assassinated
• the number of Weimar cabinets, as opposed to the nine general elections Cambridge does print
• the date of the Bavarian Soviet Republic
• any price, exchange rate or banknote denomination from the 1923 hyperinflation. Cambridge prints none. The wheelbarrow image appears in the mark schemes only as an example of a Level 1 answer worth one mark.
• the size of the Young Plan reduction beyond the two conflicting Cambridge statements in section 8

None of these is needed for a top answer, which is why they are not in the body above.

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