The Great Coalition was a

grand coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies unite in a coalition government. The term is most commonly used in countries where there are t ...

in the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...

formed in 1923 by the four main pro-democratic parties within the Reichstag: * The

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...

, a moderate socialist party * The Centre Party, a centrist Catholic party * The DDP, a liberal middle-class party * The

DVP DVP may refer to: * ''decessit vita patris'', "died in the lifetime of his father", term used by genealogists to denote a child who pre-deceased his or her father and did not live long enough to inherit the father's title or estate. * Delivery versu ...

, a centre-right party led by

Gustav Stresemann Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman who served as chancellor in 1923 (for 102 days) and as foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, during the Weimar Republic. His most notable achievement was the reconci ...

It was Gustav Stresemann who re-united these parties to work together in the time of crisis and to eliminate hyperinflation. The Great Coalition worked to fight challenges from the extreme right and left wings. The Great Coalition called off the workers' strike to oppose the French invasion of the Ruhr (which convinced the SPD to leave the coalition), convinced the French and Belgian troops to leave the Ruhr, through

passive resistance Nonviolent resistance (NVR), or nonviolent action, sometimes called civil resistance, is the practice of achieving goals such as social change through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, satyagraha, const ...

and subsequently introduced the

Rentenmark The Rentenmark (; RM) was a currency issued on 15 October 1923 to stop the hyperinflation of 1922 and 1923 in Weimar Germany, after the previously used "paper" Mark had become almost worthless. It was subdivided into 100 ''Rentenpfennig'' and ...

to successfully fight

hyperinflation In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimize their holdings in that currency as t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Coalition Politics of the Weimar Republic 1923 establishments in Germany Coalition governments of Germany

See also

References