Kurze Kerze

Today's Graphical History Tour returns to Germany, August, 1923, when the government of a guy you've never heard of fell and was replaced by the government of a guy you've completely forgotten.

"Das Neue Licht" by Werner Hahmann in Kladderatsch, Berlin, August 26, 1923

Well, if you've been paying attention to these blog posts, you have heard of German Reichkanzler Wilhelm Cano, who resigned on August 12, 1923 after 264 days in office. A businessman, not a politician, Cano's administration oversaw disastrous hyperinflation, widespread food shortages, French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr valley, and a breakdown of  reparations negotiations over French insistence that Cano first bring a halt to Germans' active and passive resistance to that occupation.

Having thus soured on the businessman's leadership (why does anyone still think that skill set translates well?), President Friedrich Ebert tapped politician Gustav Ernst Stresemann to form a new coalition cabinet. 

"Die Große Koalition" by Karl Arnold, Simplicissimus, Sept. 3, 1923

Contrary to what the red bride in Karl Arnold's cartoon suggests, Stresemann's "grand coalition" included no communists. The left was represented in Stresemann's cabinet by Ebert's Social Democratic Party. 

"It's Strange Where Some Folks Go to Avoid the Heat" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Aug. 18, 1923

Cartoonists (and politicians) in the U.S. were similarly convinced that the threat in Germany was from communists. But in fact, Streseman's German People's Party (DVP) was somewhat right of center at the time, eventually tending toward more and more conservative positions as the decade came to an end.

Communists did, however, seize power in Lübeck in August, and fought against government militia in Saxony. Martial law was declared in Hamburg when striking shipyard workers rioted. 

"Het Aanbod van de Duitse Industriëlen" by Albert Hahn [Dijkman] Jr. in de Notenkraker, Amsterdam, August, 1923

And in September, Time magazine reported a riot in Munich "because retailers of beer tried to keep the price down by increasing the froth."

"Deutsches Orchester" by Oskar Theuer in Ulk, Berlin, Aug. 31, 1923

That was not the Beerhall Putsch you may remember from history class (where permitted by law). The putsch would come in November, followed later that month by the fall of the Stresemann government.

And yet, by introducing the Rentemark to stabilize German currency, and negotiating French withdrawal from the Ruhr, Stresemann's is considered one of the more successful Weimar administrations.