Stresemann, Gustav, << SHTRAY zuh mahn, GOOS tahf >> (1878-1929), was a German statesman who served as chancellor and foreign minister of the Weimar Republic, the German republic established in 1919 (see Germany (The Weimar Republic) ). He was responsible for restoring order to Germany after World War I (1914-1918). Stresemann received the Nobel Prize for peace in 1926 for persuading Germany to accept plans for reparations (payments for war damages). He shared the prize with Aristide Briand (see Briand, Aristide ).
In 1901, Stresemann became a clerk in Dresden’s Association of German Chocolate Manufacturers. The following year, he founded the Association of Saxon Industrialists, and he remained its legal representative until 1911. He rose in the ranks of the National Liberal Party and became head of the party in 1917.
Initially, Stresemann was an ardent supporter of Germany’s policies before and during World War I. He opposed the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed at the end of the war, and argued for a strong navy and unrestricted submarine warfare (see Versailles, Treaty of ). By 1918, however, Stresemann began to realize that military force could ultimately prove disastrous. In late 1918, he founded the German People’s Party. In 1923, he served briefly as chancellor of Germany and, in that post, restored order in Bavaria after the failure of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s Bavarian Putsch (see Hitler, Adolf (The Beer Hall Putsch) ).
From 1923 to 1929, Stresemann served as Germany’s minister of foreign affairs. He became known as the greatest master of German foreign policy since Otto von Bismarck held the post in the 1860’s. Stresemann signed the Locarno Pact in 1925 (see Locarno Conference ). He argued that the nations of Europe could not make war with one another without being involved in “common ruin.” He also signed a peace agreement, the Treaty of Berlin, with Russia in April 1926.
Stresemann was born in Berlin. He studied literature, history, and political economy at the universities of Berlin and Leipzig.
