40 Facts About Gustav Stresemann

Gustav Ernst Stresemann was a German statesman who served as chancellor in 1923 and as foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, during the Weimar Republic.

Gustav Stresemann's father worked as a beer bottler and distributor, and ran a small bar out of the family home, as well as renting rooms for extra money.

Gustav Stresemann was an excellent student, particularly excelling in German literature and poetry.

In 1898, Gustav Stresemann left the University of Berlin, transferring to the University of Leipzig so that he could pursue a doctorate.

Gustav Stresemann studied history and international Law, and took literature courses.

Gustav Stresemann completed his studies in January 1901, submitting a thesis on the bottled beer industry in Berlin, which received a relatively high grade, but was a subject of mockery from colleagues.

Gustav Stresemann returned to business and founded the German-American Economic Association.

Gustav Stresemann was exempted from war service due to poor health.

Gustav Stresemann initially believed in the maintenance of a balance of power between the British Empire, the United States, and Germany, whom he believed would be the world's economic superpowers in the future.

Gustav Stresemann believed that Germany would need to annex the Low Countries, Eastern Europe, parts of north-east France, and the French protectorate in Morocco in order to economically compete with the United States in the future.

Gustav Stresemann was a vocal proponent of unrestricted submarine warfare.

Gustav Stresemann's words, spoken under Fichte's portrait, the final words of which merged into Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles, made it an unforgettably solemn hour.

On 13 August 1923, Gustav Stresemann was appointed chancellor and foreign minister of a grand coalition government in the so-called year of crises.

On 26 September 1923, Gustav Stresemann announced the end to the passive resistance against the Occupation of the Ruhr by the French and Belgians, in tandem with an Article 48 state of emergency proclamation by President Friedrich Ebert that lasted until February 1924.

In October 1923, when the Communist Party of Germany entered the Social Democratic-led governments of Saxony and Thuringia with hidden revolutionary intentions, Gustav Stresemann used a Reichsexekution to send troops into the two states to remove the Communists from the governments.

Gustav Stresemann introduced a new currency, the Rentenmark, to end hyperinflation.

Gustav Stresemann persuaded the French to pull back from the Ruhr in return for a promise that reparations payments would resume.

Gustav Stresemann remained as foreign minister in the government of his successor, Wilhelm Marx from the Centre Party.

Gustav Stresemann remained foreign minister for the rest of his life in eight successive governments ranging from the centre-right to the centre-left.

Gustav Stresemann's first act was to attempt to restore the old Entente through a three-power alliance of England, France and Belgium, directed against Germany.

Gustav Stresemann conceived the idea that Germany would guarantee her western borders and pledge never to invade Belgium and France again, along with a guarantee from Britain that they would come to Germany's aid if attacked by France.

Germany was in no position at the time to attack, as Gustav Stresemann wrote to the Crown Prince: "The renunciation of a military conflict with France has only a theoretical significance, in so far as there is no possibility of a war with France".

Gustav Stresemann negotiated the Locarno Treaties with Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium.

Gustav Stresemann said that Germany alone should not make sacrifices for peace; European countries should cede colonies to Germany; the disarmament control commission should leave Germany; the Anglo-French occupation of the Rhineland should be ended; and Britain and France should disarm as Germany had done.

Gustav Stresemann was not willing to conclude a similar treaty with the Second Polish Republic: "There will be no Locarno of the east" he said in 1925.

Gustav Stresemann said to Nikolay Krestinsky in June 1925, as recorded in his diary: "I had said I would not come to conclude a treaty with Russia so long as our political situation in the other direction was not cleared up, as I wanted to answer the question whether we had a treaty with Russia in the negative".

Gustav Stresemann was co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926 for these achievements.

Gustav Stresemann's success owed much to his friendly personal character and his willingness to be pragmatic.

Gustav Stresemann was close personal friends with many influential foreigners.

Gustav Stresemann wrote to the Crown Prince: "All the questions which to-day preoccupy the German people can be transformed into as many vexations for the Entente by a skilful orator before the League of Nations".

Gustav Stresemann hoped to use the United States' new financial involvement in the German economy to incentivize the nation's financial and political institutions to support reform of reparations.

Gustav Stresemann hoped for an escalation of the Polish crisis, which would enable Germany to regain territories ceded to Poland after World War I, and he wanted Germany to gain a larger market for its products there.

Gustav Stresemann hoped to annex Polish territories in Greater Poland, take over whole eastern Upper Silesia and parts of Central Silesia and the entire so called Polish Corridor.

Gustav Stresemann successfully negotiated a Grand Coalition government led by Chancellor Hermann Muller in which he remained Foreign Secretary, but was weakened in doing so.

Discontent with the Young Plan led to the growth of far-right movements rejecting liberal democracy such as the Nazi Party, with Gustav Stresemann weakening himself further by keeping the right wing of the DVP under control.

Gustav Stresemann responded to worsening trans-Atlantic relations by pursuing negotiations for closer relations with the United Kingdom and France, and in 1929 spoke positively of the idea of European integration to form a united political and economic counterweight against the United States.

Gustav Stresemann died of a series of strokes on 3 October 1929 at the age of 51, just hours after convincing the Reichstag to accept the Young Plan.

Gustav Stresemann's gravesite is situated in the Luisenstadt Cemetery at Sudstern in Berlin Kreuzberg, and includes work by the German sculptor Hugo Lederer.

Gustav Stresemann was a freemason initiated in the masonic lodge Frederick the Great in Berlin in 1923.

Gustav Stresemann popularized the style of substituting a short dark lounge-suit jacket for a morning coat but otherwise wearing morning dress for men's day wear.