Gustav Stresemann

Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929), German statesman, who, more than any other, stabilized the country in the inter-war years and gave it respectability in the international community.

Stresemann was born on May 10, 1878, in Berlin and educated at the universities of Berlin and Leipzig. He entered the Reichstag (parliament) as its youngest deputy in 1907 and through World War I supported German imperialist policies. After Germany's defeat and the abolition of the monarchy, Stresemann accommodated himself to a republican form of government, but strenuously opposed the Treaty of Versailles. As leader of the German People's party, which he had founded in 1918, he became chancellor in a short-lived coalition Cabinet in 1923, shortly after the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr. He immediately abandoned the policy of passive resistance in the district, and as foreign minister (1923-1929) in successive coalitions he reoriented Germany's foreign relations. Stressing reconciliation with the Allies, he effected the evacuation of the Ruhr in 1924, signed the Locarno Treaties in 1925, and the following year secured evacuation by the Allies of the first Rhineland zone and the admission of Germany to the League of Nations. For his work he was awarded the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with his French counterpart, Aristide Briand. He signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war, in 1928, and had just accepted the Young Plan for reparation payments when he died in Berlin, on October 3, 1929.