A referendum on the Young Plan was held in Germany on 22 December 1929. It was an attempt to use popular legislation to annul the Young Plan agreement between the German government and the World War I opponents of the German Reich regarding the amount and conditions of reparations payments. The referendum was the result of the initiative "Against the Enslavement of the German People (Freedom Act)" launched in 1929 by right-wing parties and organizations. It called for an overall revision of the Treaty of Versailles and stipulated that government officials who accepted new reparation obligations would be committing treason.

Eligible voters had from 16 to 29 October to sign the initiative and register their support for the draft Freedom Act. With just over 10% of those eligible to vote signing, the minimum requirement to pass the initiative was narrowly met. The German Reichstag debated the draft on 29 and 30 November, and it was rejected by a majority of deputies. The initiators then requested a referendum, which took place on 22 December. Since the Reich government had judged the Freedom Act to be unconstitutional, the decision required approval by a majority of all those eligible to vote instead of just the votes cast. Even though 94.5% of those voting supported the referendum, it failed due to the low turnout of just under 15% of eligible voters.

The initiative and referendum were nevertheless significant for the political development of the following years. The propaganda campaign led by the political right was one of the largest of its kind during the Weimar Republic, and the government responded with considerable counter-propaganda. For the first time the traditional right, such as the German National People's Party (DNVP), acted together with the Nazi Party (NSDAP). The significance that the referendum had for the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party is disputed historically.

One of the problems that weighed most heavily on the Weimar Republic's domestic politics was the reparations that the German Reich had to pay under Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles as a result of its defeat in World War I. There were repeated foreign policy disputes between Germany and the victorious powers over the amount of the payments, which had first been set at 132 billion gold marks in the London Payment Plan of 1921. When Germany failed to meet its payment obligations in 1923, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr, in part to take reparations payments in goods such as coal. In 1924 international commissions of experts examined Germany's economic strength and drew up proposals for the payment of reparations. The results were the Dawes Plan and the London Agreement of 1924, which for the first time led to regular German payments.

For what was intended to be a final settlement of the reparations question, another international commission of experts drafted the Young Plan (named after American industrialist Owen D. Young) in Paris between February and June 1929. At two government-level international conferences in The Hague in August 1929 and January 1930, the amount of German reparation debt was reduced to the equivalent of 36 billion Reichsmarks. The annual payments were lower than in the Dawes Plan, but they were to run until 1988. It was nevertheless to Germany's advantage that the reparations commission and all international economic controls were eliminated, giving the country back a large share of its sovereignty. In addition, acceptance of the plan meant that the Rhineland, occupied by Allied troops since 1920, would be vacated ahead of schedule. The government highlighted these advantages in its disputes with its opponents. Particular emphasis was placed on the lower payments and the resulting relief to the Reich budget. The Young Plan is considered the last success of the policy of rapprochement of Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann of the German People's Party (DVP), who died before its final adoption on 3 October 1929.

Domestic political disputes about the Young Plan began in the summer of 1929. Much of the public was appalled by the long duration and the total amount of payments to which Germany had committed itself. The sum of all annual payments came to 115 billion Reichsmarks, and since total Reich revenue in the fiscal year 1929–30 was 7.73 billion Reichsmarks, the figure seemed very high. The political right was able to make use of the agreement for propaganda purposes. It conjured up the image of grandsons up to their necks in debt at birth. The fight against the Young Plan offered itself as a point around which the divided right wing could crystallize in order to be able to strike out at the hated system of the "November criminals" – the government leaders who had signed the Armistice of 11 November 1918.

Representatives of agriculture and heavy industry in particular opposed the plans. The Reich Committee of German Agriculture called them economically unacceptable. The Association for the Protection of Common Economic Interests in the Rhineland and Westphalia passed a resolution claiming that the Young Plan would impose "unbearable burdens" on the German economy. Industry's opposition was, however, by no means unanimous. It was primarily heavy industry that opposed the Young Plan. In the business community as a whole, approval tended to dominate since the plan was associated with financial relief.

Alfred Hugenberg, a media baron and chairman of the German National People's Party (DNVP), had led the party on a radical course against the Weimar Republic after the party's losses in the 1928 Reichstag elections. In January 1929 Hugenberg was seeking to rally the political right, and the fight against the Young Plan seemed a likely means to do so. At the same time he was leading an intra-party conflict to bring the German nationalist Reichstag faction under Kuno von Westarp under his control. Hugenberg controlled a large number of newspapers and news services, including Germany's most important film company, UFA. Through them he had a strong influence on the formation of public opinion.