In July 1922, Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau was assassinated by right-wing extremists after he had signed the Rapallo Treaty normalizing relations with Soviet Russia.

The second Wirth cabinet resigned on 14 November 1922 after it lost a key vote in the Reichstag and then failed in an attempt to restructure the coalition.

[2] Hopes to add the DVP to the government were disappointed after Wirth angered them by appointing Walther Rathenau of the DDP as foreign minister at the end of January.

Confronted with the 132 billion gold marks in reparations payments demanded by the Allies of World War I, Wirth tried to have the total amount lowered through a policy of "fulfilment".

It increased the punishments for politically motivated acts of violence and banned organisations that opposed the constitutional republican form of government along with their printed material and meetings.

[6] In a speech in front of the Reichstag on 25 June 1922, following the assassination of Walther Rathenau, Wirth turned toward the right-wing members and declared, "There stands the enemy who drips his poison into the wounds of a people.

When Wirth's government lost a key vote on the grain levy and President Ebert asked him to restructure his cabinet, he was unable to do so.

Vice-chancellor Gustav Bauer, speaking for the SPD, rejected being in a coalition with the DVP, as the DDP and Centre wished, and urged the government's resignation.