Berlin Treaty (1921)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Berlin Treaty is the name given to the separate peace of August 25, 1921 between the United States and Germany after the end of the First World War .

Conclusion of the contract

On March 19, 1920, the Republican majority in the United States Congress refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations Statute after the end of the First World War . On June 30, 1921, the American House of Representatives and, on July 1, 1921, the Senate passed the so-called "Porter-Knox Resolution", which contained the conditions for a special treaty to be concluded with Germany. After that, the United States wanted to be able to exercise the rights that would have been granted to it under the Treaty of Versailles. At the first unofficial sounding of the American representativeGermany under Foreign Minister Friedrich Rosen reacted positively to Ellis Loring Dresel . Under the victorious Republican Warren G. Harding in the presidential election of 1920 , who was in office from March 1921, the special peace was concluded in August 1921 . It was ratified by the Senate on October 18, 1921. The treaty was accepted by Germany on November 2, 1921. The instruments of ratification were exchanged on November 11, 1921 in Berlin.

follow

The most important consequence of the Berlin treaty was that the United States did not unilaterally set reparations payments against Germany, as the Versailles treaty had provided. Rather, the determination of reparations and damages was left to a bilateral arbitration tribunal , the German American Mixed Claims Commission . In the USA, starting with the Paris Treaty (1815) with France, a culture of international law had developed in which such bilateral mixed claims conferences played an important role in the settlement of conflicts. In the second half of the 19th century in particular, they were used several times to mediate disputes with Great Britain - for example 1853–1855 and 1872 (Cotton Claims) - but also with Venezuela and Mexico.

Wilhelm Kiesselbach (1922)

The damage commission, which was set up with the German-American agreement of August 10, 1922 , was active for 10 years. Commissioners were Chandler P. Anderson from the American side and the lawyer Wilhelm Kiesselbach from the German side . Robert W. Bonynge acted as authorized representative (agent) of the American government and Karl von Lewinski as representative of the German government at the arbitration tribunal .

Well-known cases of the German-American arbitration tribunal were the proceedings over the Black Tom explosion or the case of the millionaire's daughter Virginia Loney , who, as a survivor of the Lusitania disaster, was awarded compensation for the loss of her parents. The Arabic case of the White Star Line's Arabic passenger ship torpedoed by the German submarine U 24 was also negotiated before the Mixed Claims Commission. Based on the decisions of the arbitral tribunal, the Federal Republic of Germany made reparations payments to the United States of America until 1979.

A corresponding solution was also reached with Austria and Hungary , the successor states of the Danube Monarchy , which was formerly at war with the USA . In this case, the cases were negotiated by the trilateral Tripartite Claims Commission .

literature

  • Wilhelm Kiesselbach : Problems and decisions of the German-American damage commission. Bensheimer, Mannheim et al. 1927.
  • Burkhard Jähnicke: Washington and Berlin between the wars. The Mixed Claims Commission in Transatlantic Relations ( International Law and Foreign Policy, 62). Nomos-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2003, ISBN 3-8329-0056-X (also: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 2000: The history of the German-American Mixed Claims Commission, 1922–1939 ).
  • Kurt Wernicke: The Peace of Berlin. On the 80th anniversary of the Peace of Berlin in: Edition Luisenstadt, Berlin Monthly Issue 7–2 / 2001.
  • Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789 , Vol. VII, Stuttgart / Berlin / Cologne / Mainz, 1984.
  • Files of the Reich Chancellery, Weimar Republic: The Wirth Cabinets, Vol. 1, Boppard, 1973.
  • Files on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, Series A (1918-1925), Vol. I - V, Göttingen, 1982-1987.
  • Negotiations of the German Reichstag , 1st electoral period, shorthand reports (vol. 351).
  • Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch / IA, USA, Papers of Frank Mason

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic “online: The Wirth I / II cabinets
  2. ^ Wilhelm Kiesselbach : The conclusion of the 10-year activity of the German-American Damage Commission and the experiences made in this work.