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Locarno Pact
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Poster: The Locarno Pact Conference
of 1925.
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In the fall of 1925, representatives from Great Britain, France, Germany,
Italy, Czechoslovakia, Belgium and Poland signed a series of treaties
in Locarno Switzerland. The agreements settled security issues that had
been unresolved since World War I. The principle agreement confirmed
Germany’s western borders with France and Belgium. Germany also
signed agreements on borders with her eastern neighbors, Poland and Czechoslovakia.
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The Locarno
Pact made it possible for Germany to enter the League of Nations.
This commenced an era of international harmony.
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Photo: Four major players of the Lacarno
Pact. 1)Aristide Briand; 2) Gustav Stresemann; 3) Austen Chamberlain;
4) Edovard Bènés. |
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| Gustav Stresemann, the Foreign
Minister of the Weimar Republic (1923-29), had been the main architect
of the agreements. His efforts to reconcile former enemies to the Reich
drew sharp criticism from factions of nationalists and monarchists in
Germany. Nevertheless, Stresemann’s central motive at Locarno had
been to earn Germany a respected place in the world community.
Stresemann’s biographer, Robert P. Grathwol, clearly distinguishes
Stresemann’s aims from those of nationalists and stresses that
pragmatic nature of Stresemann’s work:
Stresemann’s foreign policy
of reconciliation and adjustment was oriented towards the restoration
of Germany’s position of power. German nationalists could
have no quarrel with this goal. But they longed for a frank reassertion
of Germany’s prewar position, an objective that could only
be reached if one were to repudiate the results of the World War
and the treaties of 1919. . . .
Stresemann understood this tactic was not
only impossible but it was unnecessary as well, and thus worse
than pointless. For
him, revision meant, not the restoration of past greatness and
glory of the German state, but the integration of the existing
German state into the new European constellation of power. This
goal was not simply a possibility; it was a necessity to which
Germany’s diplomatic protagonists could subscribe. . . .
Robert P. Grathwol, Stresemann and the DNVP: Reconciliation or
Revenge in Germany Foreign Policy 1924-1928 [The Regents Press
of Kansas: Lawrence, 1980], p. x. |
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