(EN) Episode 57 - Reich-Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno

The year is 1923. Germany is on the brink of collapse.
Reparations payments are crippling the young Weimar Republic,
hyperinflation is eroding citizens' savings, and the victorious
powers are demanding their due. It is a time of national
emergency, political chaos, and the deepest economic crisis
Germany has ever experienced.


Amidst these stormy seas, a man is appointed captain who is not
actually a career politician: Wilhelm Cuno. The former director
general of HAPAG, the Hamburg-American Packet Shipping Company,
takes the helm of the Reich.


His reign lasted only 271 days, but it was formative. It was the
time of the Ruhr struggle, the passive resistance against the
French-Belgian occupation – a struggle that almost bankrupted
Germany, but was also a last gasp of national dignity.


In this episode we delve into the chancellorship of Wilhelm Cuno:
the crisis manager, the resistance fighter and ultimately the man
who had to crack a very tough political and economic nut in young
German history – and broke under the pressure.


Cover-Design: History lost in time & Google Gemini