Dawes Plan
To end the hyper-inflation of 1923, a new currency, the "Reichmark" was created to replace the worthless mark, reparation payments were lowered in the Dawes Plan, and a huge loan to Germany was floated in New York. The American bankers insisted the state-owned "Reichsbahn" railroad be put up as a collateral for the loan, which in turn required amending the constitution, which stated the "Reichsbahn" could not be used as collateral, which in turn acquired a supermajority in the "Reichstag". As the DVNP did well in the elections of May 1924, to amend the constitution would require the votes of the DNVP MdRs, which split the party into two. The industrialists who supported the DNVP were in favor of the Dawes plan and threatened to cut off funding for the party forever if it voted against the Dawes plan while another faction still attached to "Katastrophenpolitik" favored rejecting the Dawes plan under the grounds that a return to the economic chaos of 1923 was the best way of ending the Weimar republic. Hugenberg emerged as one of the leaders of the latter faction who wanted to reject the Dawes plan, writing bitterly at the time that "two-thirds of the German people including those behind the German National People's Party are internally prepared to let the freedom, honor and future of their land be sold in the exchange for a few pieces of silver". When the vote occurred on 27 August 1924, 49 DVNP MrDs voted for the Dawes plan while 48 voted against; Hugenberg missed the vote with a doctor's note saying he was too unwell to attend the "Reichstag" that day. AS the DNVP agreed to support the government of Hans Luther, Hugenberg grew more embittered, writing a series of essays in February-March 1925 later published as a book that included such lines as "it sinks in the German "Reich"" and the "false leaders belong in the asylums". In the 1925 presidential election, the Hugenberg newspapers supported Paul von Hindenburg for president, despite Hugenberg's private reservations as he believed Hindenburg as president would give the republic more legitimacy. Hugenberg's principle fear was that the DNVP under the leadership of Westarp was moving in a "Tory" direction, by which he meant it was starting to become a "big tent" conservative party like the British Conservative party that combined different interest groups and as a result was toning down its ideology in a favor of pragmatic approach to power.