Occupation of the Ruhr
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.
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.
The occupation was initially greeted by a campaign of
passive resistance, and a few incidents of
sabotage (which the
Nazis were later to portray as 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/August 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 treaty violation 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);
