Gustav Stresemann

Germany state institutions Liberalism and republicanism 1878–1929 ○ Natural death

Weimar chancellor who ended passive resistance in 1923 and, as foreign minister, concluded the Locarno treaties

Born in Berlin, he entered the Reichstag for the National Liberals in 1907 and during the war backed annexations and unrestricted submarine warfare. After the defeat he founded the German People’s Party and came to accept the republic. Chancellor and foreign minister from August 1923, he ended passive resistance in the Ruhr, used the army to remove the Saxon and Thuringian governments that included Communists, and halted hyperinflation with the Rentenmark. Ousted by a no-confidence vote in November, he remained foreign minister until his death, shaping the Dawes Plan, the Locarno treaties and entry into the League of Nations, and shared the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize. He died of a stroke in 1929.