215: 1919 – Germany VI

Mark Podcast
A fifty billion mark note. That’s a European billion, meaning 50,000,000,000,000, or fifty trillion, as we would say in the USA. It was worth about US$12.

The German government continued to drag its feet on reparations payments, sparking a Franco-Belgian invasion of the Ruhr region.

Inflation ran wild, owing to the government’s policy of simply printing new money to pay the bills. Strikes and unrest broke out across the country, while in Munich, right-wing extremists attempted a coup.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Fantaisie – Impromptu
Composed in 1834 by Frédéric Chopin. Public domain.
Performed by Frank Levy. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

214: 1919 – Germany V

Mark Podcast
Memorial service for Walther Rathenau, held at the German Reichstag.

Reparations payments started coming due in 1921. The German government, wrestling with inflation and debt, resisted payment from the beginning.

The German right opposed paying reparations altogether and condemned the national political leaders as the “November criminals.” Some centrist political figures were assassinated by the right.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 3
Composed in 1883 by Johannes Brahms. Public domain.
Performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

213: 1919 – Germany IV

Mark Podcast
A German Freikorps unit, bearing the military flag of the now-defunct German Empire, marches through Berlin during the Kapp Putsch of 1920.

When the Germans finally received the Treaty of Versailles, they were told to accept it as written, or else the Allies would restart the war.

It was a painful decision, but the National Assembly in Weimar approved the Treaty. Almost at once, they were denounced as traitors by the German right.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 5
Composed in 1808 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

212: 1919 – Germany III

Mark Podcast
Period US political cartoon expressing the view that Allied reparations demands were excessive.

If people know only one thing about the Treaty of Versailles, they know that it imposed heavy reparations payments on Germany.

In this episode, we look at why the Allies made these demands and whether they were as big a burden as the German government made them out to be.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Intermezzo No. 2
Composed in 1892 by Johannes Brahms. Public domain.
Performed by Markus Staab, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

211: 1919 – Germany II

Mark Podcast
SMS Bayern sinking off Scapa Flow after being scuttled by her crew.

After the German Revolution, the new democratic government was feeling pretty good. Woodrow Wilson had said America’s quarrel was with the Kaiser, not the German people, and they were the representatives of the German people.

They looked forward to a generous peace offer, based on the Fourteen Points. They were dreaming.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 2
Composed in 1802 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

210: 1919 – Germany I

Mark Podcast
Rosa Luxemburg.

Following the abdication (or deposition) of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany was declared a republic. But what kind of republic would it be?

In a split reminiscent of Russia in 1917, the central government was in the hands of Reichstag deputies, who administered the old Imperial bureaucracy, while across the country, workers’ councils, like the Russian soviets, were taking power locally.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 1
Composed in 1800 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

209: 1919 – Ireland III

Mark Podcast
A British cavalry regiment boards a ship departing Ireland in 1922.

With no end in sight to the fighting, the British government and the Irish Republic negotiate a compromise solution.

But the peace agreement is itself controversial in Ireland and sparks further bloodshed and a bitter legacy.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Limerick Jig”

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

208: 1919 – Ireland II

Mark Podcast
This plaque commemorates the three IRA fighters killed in Dublin Castle on the evening of November 21, 1920

Over the years 1919 and 1920, the fighting between Crown forces and IRA fighters in Ireland became increasingly bitter.

“Bloody Sunday,” November 21, 1920, saw the worst violence yet, and sparked still more reprisals.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“The Wearing of the Green”
Traditional. Public domain.
Performed by Trypod. Licensed by arrangement with Pond5.com.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

207: 1919 – Ireland I

Mark Podcast
The Crown administration in Ireland, based at Dublin Castle, offers a sizeable reward for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrators of the attack at Solohead Beg.

In Dublin, Sinn Féin MPs, elected in the 1919 UK general election, meet to declare Irish independence.

That same say, members of the IRA attack and kill two Irish police officers and steal 168 pounds of gelignite, in an incident widely regarded as the beginning of the Irish War of Independence.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“‘Tis Not Your Gold Would Me Entice”
Traditional. Public domain.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

206: 1919 – The United States IV

Mark Podcast
This January 1920 cartoon, penned as the Treaty of Versailles took effect, depicts Uncle Sam “missing the train” as his inept congressional baggage handlers quarrel among themselves.

The US government was leaderless during the period of Woodrow Wilson’s recovery from his stroke, and even afterward, he showed signs of not thinking clearly.

Meanwhile, the prospects for Senate approval of the Treaty of Versailles evaporated in the face of Republican opposition and John Maynard Keynes’s unflattering account of Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Anchor and Star”
Composed in 1918 by John Philip Sousa. Public domain.
Performed by the United States Marine Band, directed by Col. Jason K. Fettig. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.