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Wiesbaden Agreement 1921

The Wiesbaden Agreement of 1921 was a Franco-German agreement as part of the negotiations on reparations payments for Germany and was negotiated between the two reconstruction ministers Walther Rathenau and Louis Loucheur in Wiesbaden in the summer of 1921 and signed on October 6 and 8, 1921.

In spring 1921, the Allies had estimated the reparations payments for the German Reich at 132 billion gold marks. Despite protests from the German side, the compensation sum was accepted under the new government of Chancellor Joseph Wirth as part of the so-called fulfillment policy. Rathenau became Minister of Reconstruction and planned to pay part of the reparations in kind. He lobbied the Reparations Committee in Paris to get the Allies to relent.

The French government was keen to reach an agreement quickly and agreed to negotiate. Loucheur met with Rathenau for the first time on June 12 and 13, 1921 in Wiesbaden. Further meetings followed, focusing on the reparations issue. On October 6 and 8, both signed the Wiesbaden Agreement, which provided for deliveries in kind worth around seven billion gold marks over a period of four years. Although this result was a concession to France in terms of the amount, the German Reich was able to suspend foreign currency payments to France for these four years.

However, the Wiesbaden Agreement was rejected by conservative circles and industry in particular. On the one hand, the "compliance policy" was sharply criticized as such, and on the other hand, the economy and industry were considered to be facing excessive burdens. As a result, ratification of the Wiesbaden Agreement failed in the German Reichstag on November 17, 1921. It only became law on June 29, 1922 with a supplementary agreement and was accepted by the French on July 6, 1922.

Literature

Krüger, Peter: The Foreign Policy of the Republic of Weimar, Darmstadt 1985 [p. 145 ff.]

Rathenau, Walther: The Wiesbaden Agreement. Speech on November 9, 1921, with an introductory commentary by Ursula Mader (Freienwalder Hefte 6), Leipzig 2003 [pp. 7-20].

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Explanations and notes