Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

The year 1923 was a critical moment in the history of the Weimar Republic. Due to Germany’s delay in paying war reparations, French and Belgian forces occupied the Ruhr region in January. Shortly afterwards the Lithuanians seized Memel (now Klaipėda), which in the Treaty of Versailles had been declared a Free City with a French Governor and garrison. German public opinion was outraged by this situation. In the press, a campaign against Lithuania was started. The article is devoted to publish the results of research on the military potential of Reichswehr in East Prussia in January 1923. The hypothesis concerning the military Reichswehr impossibility to influence the Klaipėda events has to be examined in this article.