Stresemann was born on May 10, 1878 in the Köpenicker Straße area of southeast Berlin, the youngest of 7 children. His father worked as a beer bottler and distributor, and also ran a small bar out of the family home, as well as renting rooms for extra money.
Stresemann's involvement in his family's business and the difficulties of small businesses in general influenced him to study economics and political science at the University of Berlin, from which he received a doctorate. Through this course of studies, Stresemann was exposed to the principal ideological arguments of his day, particularly the German debate about socialism. In 1898, Stresemann left the University of Berlin, transferring to the University of Leipzig so that he could pursue a doctorate. He completed his studies in January 1901, submitting a thesis on the bottled beer industry in Berlin, which received a relatively high grade.
During his university years, Stresemann also became active in Burschenschaften movement of student fraternities, and became editor, in April 1898, of the Allgemeine Deutsche Universitäts-Zeitung, a newspaper run by Konrad Kuster, a leader in the liberal portion of the Burschenschaften. In these early writings, he set out views that combined liberalism with strident nationalism, a combination that would dominate his views for the rest of his life.
In 1902 he founded the Saxon Manufacturers' Association. Though he had initially worked in trade associations, Stresemann soon became a leader of the National Liberal Party in Saxony. In 1907, he was elected to the Reichstag, where he soon became a close associate of party chairman Ernst Bassermann. However, his support of expanded social-welfare programs didn't sit well with some of the party's more conservative members, and he lost his post in the party's executive committee in 1912. Later that year he lost both his Reichstag and town council seats. He returned to business and founded the German-American Economic Association. In 1914 he returned to the Reichstag. He was exempted from war service due to poor health. With Bassermann kept away from the Reichstag by either illness or military service, Stresemann soon became the National Liberals' de facto leader. After Bassermann's death in 1917, Stresemann succeeded him as the party leader.
Stresemann was associated with the left wing of the National Liberals. During World War I, he gradually moved to the right, expressing his support of the monarchy and Germany's expansionist goals. He was a vocal proponent of unrestricted submarine warfare. However, he still favoured an expansion of the social welfare programme, and also supported an end to the restrictive Prussian franchise.
Stresemann briefly joined the German Democratic Party after the war, but was expelled for his association with the right wing. He then gathered the main body of the old National Liberal Party - including most of its centre and right factions - into the German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei, DVP), with himself as chairman. The DVP was initially seen, along with the German National People's Party, as part of the "national opposition" to the Weimar Republic.
On 13 August 1923, Stresemann was appointed Chancellor and Foreign Minister of a grand coalition government in the so-called year of crises (1923). In social policy, a new system of binding arbitration was introduced in October 1923 in which an outside arbitrator had the final say in industrial disputes. On 26 September 1923, Stresemann announced the end to the resistance against the Occupation of the Ruhr by the French and Belgians.
Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic would reach its peak in November 1923. Since Germany was no longer able to pay the striking workers, more and more money was printed, which finally led to hyperinflation. Stresemann introduced a new currency, the Rentenmark, to end hyperinflation. He also persuaded the French to pull back from the Ruhr in return for a promise that reparations payments would resume. This was part of his larger strategy of "fulfillment. " In early November 1923, the Social Democrats withdrew from his reshuffled government. He resigned on 23 November 1923.
Stresemann remained as Foreign Minister in the government of his successor, Centrist Wilhelm Marx. He remained foreign minister for the rest of his life in eight successive governments ranging from the centre-right to the centre-left. As Foreign Minister, Stresemann had numerous achievements. His first notable achievement was the Dawes Plan of 1924, which reduced Germany's overall reparations commitment and reorganized the Reichsbank. Stresemann conceived the idea that Germany would guarantee her western borders and pledged never to invade Belgium and France again, along with a guarantee from Britain that they would come to Germany's aid if attacked by France. Stresemann negotiated the Locarno Treaties with Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium. After this reconciliation with the Versailles powers, Stresemann moved to allay the growing suspicion of the Soviet Union. The Treaty of Berlin signed in April 1926 reaffirmed and strengthened the Rapallo Treaty of 1922. In September 1926, Germany was admitted to the League of Nations as permanent member of the Security Council. This was a sign that Germany was quickly becoming a normal state, and assured the Soviet Union of Germany's sincerity in the Treaty of Berlin.
Germany signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact in August 1928. It renounced the use of violence to resolve international conflicts. Although Stresemann did not propose the pact, Germany's adherence convinced many people that Weimar Germany was a Germany that could be reasoned with. During his period in the foreign ministry, Stresemann came more and more to accept the Republic, which he had at first rejected.
In 1925, while Poland was in a state of political and economic crisis, Stresemann began a trade war against the country. Stresemann hoped for an escalation of the Polish crisis, which would enable Germany to regain territories ceded to Poland after World War I, and he wanted Germany to gain a larger market for its products there. So Stresemann refused to engage in any international cooperation that would have "prematurely" restabilized the Polish economy. Stresseman hoped to annex Polish territories in Greater Poland, take over whole eastern Upper Silesia and parts of Central Silesia and the entire so called Polish Corridor. Besides waging economic war on Poland, Streseman funded extensive propaganda efforts and plotted to collaborate with Soviet Union against Polish state.
Gustav Stresemann died of a stroke on 3 October 1929 at the age of 51. Stresemann's sudden and premature death, as well as the death of his "pragmatic moderate" French counterpart Aristide Briand in 1932, and the assassination of Briand's successor Louis Barthou in 1934, left a vacuum in European statesmanship that did not decelerate the movement towards renewed conflict, and ultimately World War II.
Stresemann was largely responsible for restoring Germany’s international status after World War I. With French foreign minister Aristide Briand, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1926 for his policy of reconciliation and negotiation.
Gustav Stresemann was a freemason initiated in the masonic lodge Frederick the Great (in German, Friedrich der Große) in Berlin in 1923. His masonic membership was generally known to his contemporaries and he was criticized by German nationalists as a "lodge politician".
Member of National-Social Association, member of the Reichstag of the German Empire, member of the Weimar National Assembly, member of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic, member of National Liberal Party (1907-1918), member of German Democratic Party (1918), member of German People's Party (1918-1929)
In 1903 Stresemann married Käte Kleefeld (1883-1970), daughter of a wealthy Jewish Berlin businessman, and the sister of Kurt von Kleefeld, the last person in Germany to be ennobled (in 1918). Gustav and Käte had two sons, Wolfgang, who later became intendant of the Berliner Philharmoniker, and Joachim Stresemann.
He was a German jurist, orchestra leader, conductor and composer.
Chancellor of Germany, Foreign Minister of Germany
