page_title: Occupation of the Ruhr
section_title: Occupation
hierarchical_section_title: Occupation of the Ruhr / Occupation
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Zur Befreiung des besetzten Gebietes am 30. Juni 1930! Ein interessanter Rückblick aus der schweren Zeit im besetzten Gebiet. Schwer bewaffnete französische Alpenjäger durchziehen die Strassen Buers im März 1923 aus Anlass zweier erschossener französischer Offiziere.
context_page_description: The Occupation of the Ruhr was a period of military occupation of the Ruhr region of Germany by France and Belgium between 11 January 1923 and 25 August 1925.
  France and Belgium occupied the heavily industrialized Ruhr Valley in response to Germany defaulting on reparation payments dictated by the victorious powers after World War I in the Treaty of Versailles. Occupation of the Ruhr worsened the economic crisis in Germany, and German civilians engaged in acts of passive resistance and civil disobedience, during which 130 were killed. France and Belgium, facing economic and international pressure, accepted the Dawes Plan to restructure Germany's payment of war reparations in 1924 and withdrew their troops from the Ruhr by August 1925.
  The Occupation of the Ruhr contributed to German re-armament and the growth of radical right-wing movements in Germany.
context_section_description: After much deliberation, Poincaré decided to occupy the Ruhr on 11 January 1923 to extract the reparations himself. The real issue during the Ruhrkampf (Ruhr campaign), as the Germans labelled the battle against the French occupation, was not the German defaults on coal and timber deliveries but the sanctity of the Versailles Treaty. Poincaré often argued to the British that letting the Germans defy Versailles in regards to the reparations would create a precedent that would lead to the Germans dismantling the rest of the Versailles treaty. Finally, Poincaré argued that once the chains that had bound Germany in Versailles were destroyed, it was inevitable that Germany would plunge the world into another world war.
  Initiated by Poincaré, the invasion took place on 11 January 1923. General Alphonse Caron's 32nd infantry corps, under the supervision of General Jean-Marie Degoutte, carried out the operation. Some theories state that the French aimed to occupy the centre of German coal, iron, and steel production in the Ruhr area valley simply to get the money. Some others state that France did it to ensure that the reparations were paid in goods, because the mark was practically worthless due to hyperinflation that already existed at the end of 1922. Since the territory of the Saar Basin was separated from Germany, the supply of iron ore fell on the French side and coal on the German side, but the two commodities had far more value together than separately: the supply chain had grown tightly integrated during the industrialization of Germany after 1870, but the problems of currency, transportation and import/export barriers threatened to destroy the steel industry in both countries. Eventually, this problem was resolved in the post-World War II European Coal and Steel community.
  Following France's decision to invade the Ruhr, the Inter-Allied Mission for Control of Factories and Mines (MICUM) was set up as a means of ensuring coal repayments from Germany.
caption: French Chasseurs Alpins in Buer
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