1923: A year of deep crisis:

In 1923, the German economy collapsed. In the mayhem that ensued, Socialists and Communists took over Saxony and Thuringia.  In Hamburg, workers seized control of working-class districts. In the Rhineland, several groups tried to proclaim themselves independent states. In eastern Germany troops known as Black Reichswehr seized the town of Kustrin. In Munich, the capital of Bavaria, the National Socialist, or ‘Nazi’ Party tried to start a so-called ‘National Revolution.’

French invasion of the Ruhr:

The French did not believe that the Germans could not pay the reparations. 

Because of this, they decided to invade the Ruhr industrial region of Germany to take what they were owed by brute force.

The invasion began the 9th of January 1923. About 60,000 French and Belgian soldiers seized every factory, mine, steelworks plant and railway in the region and set up machine-gun posts in the street.

The German army could not retaliate as their army had been so severely weakened by the Treaty of Versailles  and the IWW. Instead, they ordered "passive resistance" from their people in the region.

This meant that the Germans in the Ruhr did not collaborate in any way with the occupying force.

The French responded to the resistance campaign by expelling circa 150,000 people from the region when they refused to take orders. Sometimes, they used force on the people, shooting whoever refused to co-operate. After 8 months of occupation, 132 were left dead, including one 7 year old boy, who French sources claim that he was accidentally shot by a French soldier while cleaning his rifle. The German sources state whoever that he was brutally murdered with a shot to the head.