Vossische Zeitung
- The Peace Loan
- Democratic Balance Sheet
- Democratic Party Congress in Stuttgart
This front page set foreign policy beside party politics. In a signed column, Georg Bernhard turned on those who had spent years obstructing Germany's road to Geneva and Thoiry, and who now complained that the Franco-German understanding was still incomplete. He mocked their demand for an immediate "brotherly kiss" and their talk of the Foreign Minister's "dizzy spells", and he urged readers to keep a cool head. Two shorter reports dealt with the German Democratic Party. A leaders' conference in the Reichstag building closed by unanimously adopting a resolution, drafted by Deputies Fischer and Meyer, on the party's two guiding aims. The party also planned its national congress for Stuttgart in the week after Easter 1927, with the unitary state and peasant settlement at the centre of debate.
Translation
The Peace Loan
"Good things take time." But those who for years did everything they could to block the road to Geneva and Thoiry are now surprised that the German-French understanding is still not complete. They are now practically demanding the brotherly kiss on the spot. If it does not come tomorrow, they say, then Thoiry will simply turn out to be one of those dizzy spells that the German Foreign Minister has, after all, had so often. One does well to pay no attention to this noise. One does well, altogether, to keep a cool head.
Democratic Balance Sheet
The Democratic leaders' conference, held in the Reichstag building at the invitation of the Reichstag parliamentary group, came to a close yesterday with the unanimous adoption of the following resolution, drafted by Deputies Dr. Fischer and Oskar Meyer: "Since its founding, the German Democratic Party has pursued two overriding aims:
Democratic Party Congress in Stuttgart
The national party congress of the German Democratic Party is to take place in Stuttgart in the week after Easter 1927, subject to the approval of the party executive and the party committee. The ideas of the unitary state and of peasant settlement will be at the forefront of the discussions.
Context
What Stresemann and Briand discussed at Thoiry
Bernhard's phrase "the road to Geneva and Thoiry" refers to two events of September 1926. That month Germany was admitted to the League of Nations by unanimous vote, and in the same month the French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and the German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann met in the small village of Thoiry. There the two men discussed proposals for finally settling the various claims left over from the First World War. The historian Gerhard Rempel describes the bargain they sought as a quid pro quo: the evacuation of the whole Rhineland and the return of the Saar in exchange for German support for the falling French franc. The column's title, "The Peace Loan", most plausibly refers to this financial side of the bargain. The excerpt itself only defends the policy and does not set out any terms.
Why the Thoiry bargain stalled
By late October 1926, when this column appeared, the Thoiry understanding had not produced an agreement, and Bernhard was answering German critics who treated the delay as proof that it had been an illusion. Later historical accounts place the obstacles on both sides. Rempel writes that American and French politicians prevented the deal from succeeding, and a summary of the meeting calls Thoiry a missed chance on the road to European integration because neither statesman could carry domestic opinion with him. The targets of Bernhard's column are German opponents of the Geneva policy, and his charge that they had blocked the road for years is the paper's own argument. The final evacuation of the Rhineland came only in 1930, five years before the treaty deadline.
The Dawes Plan regime behind a German "loan"
The financial side of Thoiry belongs to the reparations regime of the Dawes Plan, adopted at a London conference of the creditors and Germany in July–August 1924. Under the plan, revenue from German transport, excise and customs was earmarked for the reparation account, and an agent general for reparations was appointed to see that the annual payments would not weaken the German economy. The Allied Reparation Commission gave the post to the American S. Parker Gilbert, who held it from October 1924 to May 1930 and was responsible for executing the plan. Because German revenues and transfers abroad were supervised in this way, any financial help Germany offered France at Thoiry would have touched arrangements overseen by Gilbert and the creditor powers. The excerpt does not name these mechanisms, but the money question behind the column's title was set within this system.
The German Democratic Party and the unitary state
The two party reports concern the German Democratic Party (DDP). Its programme aimed at a federal unitary state and, like almost every other party, demanded revision of the Versailles treaty; the party also committed itself to the League of Nations as an institution for the peaceful settlement of interests between states, a stance that matches the Geneva policy Bernhard defends. The Stuttgart announcement put this long-standing goal of the Einheitsstaat at the centre of debate. The party was losing ground as it planned the congress: about a year after its founding it counted some 800,000 members, but by 1927 membership had fallen to 117,000. The Deutsches Historisches Museum notes that the backing of prominent liberal papers, the Vossische Zeitung among them, did little to stop the public's turn away from political liberalism.
Original
Die Friedensanleihe
" " Gut Ding will gut Weile haben. " Aber diejenigen, die Jahre hindurch alles getan haben, um den Weg nach Genf und Thoiry zu versperren, wundern sich jetzt, daß die deutschfranzösische Verständigung noch immer nicht perfekt sei. Sie verlangen jetzt geradezu sofort den Bruderkuß. Wenn er nicht morgen erfolgt, so sagen sie, dann erweist sich eben Thoiry als einer der Schwindelanfälle, die der deutsche Außenminister ja schon so oft gehabt habe. Man tut gut, diesem Lärm keine Beachtung zu schenken. Man tut gut, überhaupt gut, kühles Blut zu bewahren.
Demokratische Bilanz
Die demokratische Führertagung, die auf Einladung der Reichstagsfraktion im Reichstagsgebäude abgehalten wurde, fand gestern ihren Abschluß durch die einstimmige Annahme der folgenden Entschließung, die von den Abg. Dr. Fischer und Oskar Meyer formuliert war: " Die Deutsche Demokratische Partei hat seit ihrer Begründung zwei beherrschende Ziele verfolgt:
Demokratischer Parteitag in Stuttgart
Der Reichsparteitag der Deutschen Demokratischen Partei soll, vorbehaltlich der Zustimmung des Parteivorstandes und des Parteiausschusses, in der Woche nach Ostern 1927 in Stuttgart stattfinden. Im Vordergrunde der Erörterungen werden die Gedanken des Einheitsstaates und der bäuerlichen Siedlung stehen.