Talk:Gustav Stresemann

Untitled

I swear he got killed.... or does my memory fail me?

Heart attack. You're thinking of Walter Rathenau, I think. Mackensen (talk) 15:02, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Poland

Molobo, in the final analysis international scholarship agrees that Stresemann was rather a peacemaker than a warmonger. On a more speculative note, he might arguably even have felt compelled to pay lip-service to the anti-Polish consensus of the time in order to keep his conservative adversaries at arm's length. Anyway, his occasional aggressive remarks concerning Poland remained inconclusive, which is why they are often forgotten. Kindly do not reverse the text's meaning to give our readers the opposite idea. --Thorsten1 22:25, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

In response to repeated attempts at disfiguring the wording on Stresemann's position towards Poland, let me repeat the point above: Stresemann's aggressive remarks towards Poland notwithstanding, it remains a fact that Stresemann is generally credited with stabilising German democracy and preserving peace. This included containing nationalist forces that were pushing towards a renewed border conflict with Poland. Wikipedia should not present Stresemann as a warmonger, when most scholars, all things considered, describe him as a peacemaker. Such an incongruity would certainly damage Wikipedia's esteem more than Stresemann's.

If anyone believes that Stresemann's overall peacemaker image in historiography is undeserved, they should try and revise it outside Wikipedia first, preferably in peer-reviewed publications; if their views gain wider currency, we can include them here. Anything else constitutes a violation of the no original research rule.

Before anyone accuses me of whitewashing interwar German foreign policy or Stresemann in particular: It was me who translated and added Stresemann's hostile statements about Poland. But, ultimately, such information can only add nuance to the big picture - we should not try to redraw it here. --Thorsten1 08:18, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't really believe this to be true

Wikipedia should not present Stresemann as a warmonger, What you believe about him is unimportant. Facts and what he said is important. --Molobo 19:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Streseman a peacemaker? Maybe for the west. Streseman once said that Germany has no territorial quarrels and demands - and that he is quite satisfied with 1914 borders. Streseman policy was actively agressive against Poland and he wanted to get Silesia and Pomerania. What's most terrifying is that France and UK were actually agreeing with him, causing a lot of bad blood and distrust in Poland. Szopen (talk) 14:18, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Molobo's renewed attempts to overstate Stresemann's "aggressiveness" towards Poland

I just reverted Molobo's latest attempt to distort the description of Stresemann's role. For my rationale, see above. --Thorsten1 17:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Moved text

Somebody wrote a long text on Stresemann at Stresemann, Gustav (Weimar Era). I couldn't identify it as copyvio through just googling, and moved the text to Talk:Gustav Stresemann/Moved text, where it is available for possible later merging or other use. up+land 20:36, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

From WP:RD/H

I read an article recently that suggested that Gustav Stresemann was the one senior German politician who might have stopped Hitler. The Wikipedia page says that his death further 'tilted the slippery slope towards towards World War II.' Can either of these statements be supported? Captainhardy 07:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sort of and yes, Captain. Hitler's rise to power was, in one way at least, the failure of democratic politicians to solve the crisis of the Great Depression. After Bruning, von Papen and Schleicher (that spelt right?) had come and gone, the Depression was still there. Stresemann, if he had survived to see it, could have been a "fourth lifeline" for Hindenburg before having to resort to Hitler. Other than that, personally I don't think it's fair to say "Gustav Stresemann was the one senior German politician...". Maybe there were other politicians who could have, but circumstances didn't work in their favour.martianlostinspace ^{email me} 10:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Tilted the slippery slope?! How on earth does one tilt a slippery slope? Sorry, sorry; please forgive the levity, Captainhardy; this is a good question. Unfortunately, it is not one that can be answered with any real authority, because so much depends on hunch and guesswork. I have seen statements to the effect that Stresemann was the one individual who could have given real leadership to the 'middle ground' in German politics in the crisis that followed the Crash of 1929; that a new form of Protestant Liberalism may have been shaped from the ruins of the DVP, Stresemann's own party, and the DDP. He certainly had the personal and the organisational skills; but there is nothing to suggest that the hemorrhage of votes away from middle towards the Nazis could somehow have been prevented by force of personality alone, even if the personality was Stresemann.

The only possible grounds for serious counter-factual history would have been if Stresemann had stood for the Reich Presidency in 1932. The possibility was certainly discussed before his death. People often assume that Hitler came to power by electoral means; he did not. At no point did he obtain a majority in the Reichstag. He was, rather, 'elevated' to office by a small clique drawing on the constitional powers of President Hindenburg, himself lapsing into a state of senility. The Presidency, therefore, was the crucial political factor in Hitler's Machtergreifung. So, no Hindenburg, no Hitler. Stresemann, as President, is most unlikely to have appointed Hitler as Chancellor. But even then there may have been factors not completely within his control, not least of which was the attitude of the German Army, which had its own political agenda in the winter of 1932-3. Hitler happened; that much we do know. Clio the Muse 02:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

This is really POV

I have removed the following sentence "The reason were the atrocities against the German minority in the occupied territories committed by or tolerated by the Polish government, see: Hermann Rauschning" as this is grossly POV. The reference to the "occupied territories" implies that the lands lost by Germany to Poland after World War I still rightfully belonged to Germany. Through that was in fact Stresemann's viewpoint, presenting it like that as a statement of fact is very POV. Through the Polish government was more noted for breaching then observing the Minority Treaty, I think the term "atrocities" is a little too strong. Not allowing ethnic German children to attend a German language school for instance can hardly be considered an "atrocity". Anyhow, atrocities or no atrocities, Stresemann would had still wanted the former German lands back, so presenting Stresemann's determination to take all of the former German lands in Poland as only a response to Polish "atrocities" is highly misleading. Indeed, one can take this a step further and say that for Stresemann, like many other Germans in the 1920s, the problem were not so much Germany's borders with Poland, but the existence of Poland, period that was the issue. Plus, one is not supposed to be using another article to support a statement, so using the Rauschning article as a basis for that is also wrong. --A.S. Brown (talk) 01:38, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
This revision was clearly the result of a deep misunderstanding of Paul Schmidts text. It is true that the agendum of the session of the league of nations in Lugano 15 Dec. 1928 had been originally a complaint of the german minority in Poland about school questions. But the polish foreign minister Zaleski had taken this opportunity to blame the german minority in general "Wühl- und Hetzarbeit". As Stresemann heared this, he became very upset and formulated his charge against the polish government. And what did Stresemann say in detail? Heinrich Bauer gives an abstract (page 191): "Sofort trat ihm Dr. Stresemann entgegen in starker Emörung über diese Einstellung zu einem so erschütternden Fall menschlicher Leiden, der selbst vom Völkerbundsrat anerkannt worden sei. Er richtete einen so zwingenden Appell an den Völkerbund , seine Hand über die Rechte der Minderheiten zu halten, wenn er nicht sein ganzes Ansehen erschüttern wolle, daß Briand .." Confer the text of Briands replay in the article.I therefore re-introduced the removed passage, changing the vox "occupied territories" through "former german territories".In the Rauschning article the reader gets closer informations about what is meant by "atrocities" and therefore this link is unavoidable. And - by the way - why should cities which were founded and almost entirely inhabitated by germans until 1919 like Posen and Thorn belong to Poland and not to Germany?User:Jäger 01:10, 14 September 2010 (CET)

With all due respect, Jäger, you are wrong here. Your question posed here about why former German cities should not belong to Poland shows your problem here, namely you are following a German nationalist agenda. This is supposed to a talk page for dicussing improvements to this article, not a forum about why certain cities should belong to Germany, not Poland, but since the question was posed here, I'll give you an answer. First thing, it is totally irrelevant who founded what city when it becomes time to decide ownership. By your logic, New York should belong to the Dutch today since they founded that place. So the U.S. government should just surrender New York to give it back to the Dutch with no regard for the feelings of the vast majority of New Yorkers who see themselves as Americans. Second, Poznań was not "entirely inhabitated" by Germans. According to the German census of 1910, 57% of Poznań's population were Poles. And finally, the Polish people of Poznań were so unhappy about being under German rule that they revolted in December 1918 in order to rejoin Poland, something that you seem to have no interest in. Turning back to this article, you seem to be suggesting that Poland was waging some sort of genocide against its German minority in the 1920s. This is a most extraordinary claim that is only be backed up by a book written by Rausching all the way back in 1929. I'll have never, never' read anything to support that claim in any mainstream history book, ever (trust me, I'll have read a great deal about modern European history). If that is really true (and I'll very strongly doubt that it is), why don't you bring in some work by a historian publishing through an academic press or in a proper historical journal to support this uttery extraordinary claim that the Polish government was operating secret camps where thousands of ethnic Germans were "disappearing" (presumably murdered) in the 1920s, instead of a book published all the way back in 1929 by a man well known for his tendency to invent things? If your claims of genocide are true, you should have no trouble finding such an article or book by a historian published in the last ten years saying that (note that neo-Nazi cranks who often make that claim don't count). As far as I am aware, no historian today has ever endorsed Rausching's book, which makes it a bad source. Finally, the 1928 exchange at the League of Nations is being phrased to make it sound like the entire world stood in support of Germany's claims against Poland, and really needs to be rephrased. Really, I have no problem if you want to say that Stresemann complained about the schools question, but calling that an "atrocity" is way over the top. Saying that Stresemann wanted the land that used to belong to Germany returned is OK, but much of your edits seemed designed to defame Poland by painting that country as systematically oppressing its minorities, and thus justifying Stresemann's campaign, which is not OK. What you really should be thinking about is that is in the 1950s-1960s, the West German government rejected the Oder-Neisse line, and wanted a return to the German-Polish border of December 31, 1937, that is the frontier established by the treaty of Versailles. The same frontiers that Germans spent the entire 1920s-30s complaining about as totally unreasonable, a frontier that no German could live with is the same frontiers that Germans in the 1950s-60s wanted to see re-established, which might suggest that the borders set up by the Treaty of Versailles were no-where near as unreasonable as Stresemann and everybody else in Germany claimed in the 1920s. Given the fact that the Oder-Neisse line was created in response to World War II, which in its turn was caused when Germany attacked Poland in 1939, might that suggest this German campaign against the frontiers of Versailles was ultimately a self-destuctive one? Might not Germany been better off if it had accepted the frontiers of Versailles instead of seeking to challenge them? There is a very good book by Detlev Peukert which says that if Germany would done far better if had just accepted the frontiers of Versailles since seeking to challenge them caused the most bloody war in history, and which ended with Germany losing much more land than under Versailles. Peukert does not quite put it like this, but in essence he calls Stresemann an idiot for his views about Poland. After all, if Germany had not attacked Poland in 1939, what are now the Polish cities of Wrocław and Szczecin would still be the German cities of Breslau and Stettin. By seeking to challenge the frontiers of Versailles, Germany lost far more land to Poland than been the case under the much-hated Treaty of Versailles, which might suggest that Stresemann and company were no doing Germany any favors with their obsession with overthrowing Versailles. Something to think about. --A.S. Brown (talk) 01:47, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Foreign Minister - info box

As well as being Chancellor, Stresemann was Foreign Minister of Germany from August 13th 1923 (while he was Chancellor he was also Foreign Minister)to October 3rd 1929,when he died. He was preceded by Friedrich von Rosenberg and succeeded by Julius Curtius. I tried to add this information to the info box but couldn't do it. If anyone knows how I would appreciate it if they could add a Foreign Minister section to the info box. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.127.111 (talk) 17:25, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte

Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte is used as source to claim supposed atrocities in Poland. It so happens that it was the journal made by German nationalists Hans Rothfels who supported Nazis before the war untill he was forced to escape Germany due to his Jewish roots, and who repeatedly bashed Poland in German nationalist propaganda. In other words it seems to be very dubious source. I also made several edits to remove comments and claims not supported by sources and against Wikipedia is not an essey rule--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 00:46, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

You deleted the period concerning Stresemanns Poland-Policy with the exception of one sentence, where is said that he was not ready to make peace with Poland. So the reader must get the impression that Stresemann has been a "war monger", which he wasn´t. Remember that this is the article of a Peace-Nobel-Laureate! The section "in the Weimar Republic" in the present form is a deep injury against him! This article has to inform the reader for what resons Stresemann acted as he did. On whole wikipedia there is not a single article, where the atrocities against the German miority in Polen, which were the reason, are mentioned. Therefore I have tried to furnish evidence of these happenings by citing some sources, principally those about the session of the League of Nations in Lugano in 1928. The claim that Hermann Rauschning is a "nazi author" has been completely refuted on the talk page of his article. I therefore invite you to restore the period in the original form!Jäger (talk) 22:37, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Neither this article nor the one on Hermann Rausching (where you you've been trying to insert similar material for the past two years against consensus) is a place for your POV pushing about supposed "Polish crimes".Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:45, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear Marek, you know very well that these polish crimes are not "supposed" ones, but that they really happened. You should take a look at the Hermann Rauschning-talk page, where you will find the article of a contemporary Polish professor, his name is also Marek, who confirms this!Jäger (talk) 00:05, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

For the 1000th time, this isn't an article for this kind of stuff, EVEN IF there was some substance to it (rather than just being straight up POV pushing). We've been over this on Rauschning's page, on WP:RS several times - you've kept this up for something like 3 years now and each time you were told (not just by me but by many others) that these edits are not appropriate. Each time you failed to get any thing near a consensus for their inclusion. Keep em out.Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:02, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Miacek, I have no idea why you decided to jump in the middle of this since AFAICT you've never edited this article above, but please be advised that this part of a campaign waged by Jager for the past 3 years which has received no support from anyone anywhere, and in regard to which he's been told many times (and i don't mean by myself) to cut it out. So why are you supporting this?

As to the substance can you point out where any of these sources mention the subject of the article? And come on, this text is so over the top POV pushing you should really be ashamed of yourself for restoring it.Volunteer Marek (talk) 12:15, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that you didn't even bother looking closely at the edits - they're badly formatted, full of simple errors and syntax and have things like links to the German wikipedia in them for some reason.Volunteer Marek (talk) 12:22, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear Marek, You may constantly remove my edits but You can not remove the truth!Jäger (talk) 23:49, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

My edition which is under constant attack by Marek without a reason follows here in full length. Heading "In the Weimar Republic", section Nr 6:

Stresemann was not willing to conclude a similar treaty with Poland: "There will be no Locarno of the east" he said. Moreover he never excluded the use of force to regain the eastern territories of Germany which had come under Polish control as a consequence of the Treaty of Versailles[1]. The reason were atrocities against the German minority in the former German territories committed by or tolerated by the Polish government, see: and Hermann Rauschning. In the session of the League of Nations of december 15.1928 in Lugano Stresemann formulated a furious charge against the Polish government because of these crimes which were well known to the league of nations. The chairman, Aristide Briand, French foreign minister, concluded the session after this speech with the words: "The league of nations must never break the sacred support of the minority rights". Jäger (talk) 00:14, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Your attempts to endlessly add in "info" about these supposed "Polish atrocities against Germans" (red flag!) has been discussed elsewhere, particularly on the Hermann Rauschning article. There, it was pointed out to you by a half dozen of editors, over the course of something like four years, that the text you were adding was inappropriate, failed to observe Wikipedia guidelines and policies, was not NPOV, and was not properly sourced. Yet you persisted for four or something years. Then, after finally giving up there, you've come to this article and are trying to do the same thing here, in only a slightly different context (Stresemann rather than Rauschning). The issues are same, POV, non-reliable sources, irrelevance, outdated primary sources, misuse of primary sources etc. This has ALSO been pointed out already about a half dozen times. So I doubt you'll pay attention but here it is again.

And the talk page is NOT the place to post "alternative" POV-fork versions of the article. Volunteer

Marek  15:10, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Dear Marek, what did Pope John Paul II. say under the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: "Es gibt keine Freiheit ohne die Wahrheit" (there is no liberty wihthout the truth)Jäger (talk) 00:06, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Image of book?

The image near the bottom of a book (biography?) doesn't seem to have a purpose. It should be removed, or updated with subtext and moved to a relevant location if it is deemed important. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.177.20.123 (talk) 05:34, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Rentenmark

The paragraph on the Rentenmark just seems really shoddily written. I'd fix it myself but I'm busy right now.

Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic would reach its peak in November 1923.[11] Since Germany was no longer able to pay the striking workers, more and more money was printed, which finally led to hyperinflation. Eventually Stresemann introduced Germany's new currency- the Rentenmark. This ended this disastrous process by introducing a new currency, the Rentenmark, which reassured the people that the democratic system was willing and able to solve urgent problems.

See what I mean? TotallyNotEtreo 14:06, 14 April 2013 (UTC)