The Health of Weimar Republic Report
Confidential Report
To: The Chancellor
Subject: The current health of the Weimar Republic
As you requested we have prepared this part of our report under three
headings.
1. Relations with other countries
The main improvements concerning international relations in this
period have been:
·Signing the Locarno Treaty. The treaty has proved that Germany is
willing to cooperate and work peacefully with countries we once saw as
enemies. Signing this treaty has guaranteed our western borders shared
with France and Belgium, as stated by the Treaty of Versailles. Our
willingness to make peace has also signaled that as a nation we do not
seek revenge against those countries we went to war against.
·Joining the League of Nationsin 1924. This showed that Germany had
been accepted as a peace loving nation. We now have a permanent seat
amongst other powerful countries such as Britain and France.
·The Kellog-Briand Pact. This agreement is a further example of
Germany's cooperative attitude concerning foreign relations. Germany
and 59 other countries agreed not to go to war with one another, but
negotiate towards a non-violent settlement to any problems that may
occur. This has emphasized Germany's diplomatic message to anyone that
may doubt Weimar's motives.
However, some problems still remain, such as:
·A minority of German citizens are still opposed to Gustav
Stresemann's gradual changes to the Treaty of Versailles. They believe
that it should be discarded immediately.
·Stresemann is also being criticized for collaborating with our former
enemies. Extreme left and right wing parties don't agree with his
methods.
·The Kellog-Briand Pact has one major drawback. There are no
consequences if any country decides to break this pact, so it is
possible for fighting to break out.
2. Politics
The main improvements in the political state of Germany during this
period have been:
·The increased support for the Social Democratic Party highlights the
growing constancy of Weimar at this time. The German public doesn't
The German Weimar Republic was an attempt to make Germany a more democratic state. While this was a very good idea in theory, the Weimar Republic was ineffective due to the instability that came with it. Several factors contributed to the instability of Germany’s Weimar Republic, such as the new political ideals brought forward and the government’s hunger for war.
The period after World War One was very politically unstable. Many different kinds of governments, such as fascism and communism, were coming up all over Europe. One country that especially faced this political fluctuation was Germany. After the war, Germany was forced into a democracy known as the Weimar Republic, but this government soon collapsed and Hitler’s fascism took over. There were various factors that contributed to the fall of the Weimar Republic, but three major ones were the lack of popular support for the government, the lack of efficiency and internal organization, and the competition of other, more conservative parties such as the Nazis.
The Left and Right at the Birth of Weimar Germany From the general chaos and unrest that followed the Kiel Mutiny in late 1918, the centre-left emerged to lead Germany into a new era of democracy. Philipp Scheidemann, a key figure in the moderate SDP, declared a Democratic Socialist Republic from a balcony in Berlin on 9th November 1918. However, the whole of Germany was not behind him, since simultaneously, and from a different Berlin balcony, Karl Liebknecht, leader of the communist Spartacists (KPD), declared a Soviet Republic.
The Key Features of the Weimar Constitution The Weimar constitution worked better than the second Reich, which reformed in 1918. The constitution was present for a number of years in Germany, which reflected the effectiveness of the system. It was under a far more democratic regime due to the change in the political structure hence involving more elections due to the voting system that was in power. Firstly, the main key feature of the Weimar Republic was its new electoral system. Part of the system is the introduction of proportional representation that meant parties in the Riechtag would gain seats depending upon the number of votes they got in the most recent election.
After the First World War Germany recognised her first ever democratic government, the Weimar republic lasted from 1918 – 1933 an astonishingly long time given its turbulent start. The November revolution saw the election of soldier and worker councils similar to that of the Russian revolution in 1917, it spread across Germany like wildfire and in turn split the country before a democracy could even be instated nevertheless on November 9th 1918 the German republic was established. From then on The Weimar Republic was set on unstable and insecure path and this is why it is one of Germanys most important historical periods; it was Germanys earliest form of non-imperial government and rule and its collapse in 1933 paved the way for the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party. For these reasons there have been endless works published on the Weimar republic and the outpouring of literature post world war two focuses on the collapse of the Weimar republic and how the Nazi party came to power. However, to understand why the debate surrounding the Golden Era in the Weimar Republic is an interesting one and lacking in historical works, it is key to examine the historiography of the Weimar republic as a whole. Furthermore, to understand why historians focus on other periods in the Weimar’s history in particular the consequences of the treaty of Versailles and the consequences of the Wall Street crash in 1928 which led to its collapse.
Many white collar workers of Germany were fearful the blue collar parties of the left would destroy their government as they knew it (book 161). For this reason, many German’s turned to Hitler for political Stability (cite 161). After being put down so many times by the rest of the world, Hitler offered a refreshing pro German view citizens were looking for. In fact, it was Hitler’s plan that the Treaty of Versailles count be contested by taking up arms (book 163). To many Germans this seemed like a great idea, as they were still loathing from the strict punishment from the
In the time leading up to and during Hitler’s reign in Germany, German citizens felt the impacts of the political as well as the economic situation of the country. These conditions in Germany led to the building of the Nazi party and to the Holocaust. The new government headed by Adolf Hitler changed the life of all Germans whether they joined the Nazi party themselves or opposed the ideas of Hitler or aided Jews to fight the persecution they suffered under this government.
'Nazi Germany ' represented the period from 1933s to 1945s, which played an important role in prosperous German history and the modern European history. After Germany participated in First World War in the first half of the 20th century, the whole society was glutted with unemployment, poverty, hunger, inflation and moral corruption. The public couldn’t feel the republican democracy benefits.
The Weimar years were marked by extraordinary and unrivaled economic, political, and social struggles and crises. Its beginning was marked as being especially difficult in that Germany was wiped out and devastated after four years of the unprecedented warfare of World War I. By 1918 the world had been shocked with over 8.5 million killed on both Allies and Axis sides and many more severely mangled and scarred – body, mind and spirit. This is seen as German Soldier, Ernst Simmel, writes, “when I speak about the war as an event, as the cause of illness, I anticipate something has revealed...namely that it is not only the bloody war which leaves such devastating traces in those who took part in it. Rather, it is also the difficult conflict in which the individual finds himself in his fight against a world transformed by war. Either in the trenches or at home can befall a single organ, or it may encompass the entire person” (Simmel, 1918). For Ernst, and millions of other participants, the war had turned forever changed their world.
2. What were weaknesses of the Weimar Republic? How did different political groups seek to remedy these weaknesses?
The causes of the failure of the Weimar government are multi-faceted. However, I assert that the Weimar government's inability to keep the people's confidence in their capabilities, which eventually rendered them obsolete, was fundamentally due to the threats from within rather than the external hazards. Through exploring the flaws in the constitution and the threats to the WG's authority from the outside, it will be proven that what brought the WR down were its intrinsic vulnerabilities , and that the external threats were only catalysts of their downfall; without the presence of the internal weaknesses in the first place, the external perils would not have been able to threaten the rule of the government.
The Treaty of Versailles, signed by the Weimar Republic at the conclusion of WW1, introduced economic insatiability and caused a profusion of hardship. The idea of resorting to an extremist group promising better alternatives became an attractive option to many Germans. The Treaty of Versailles’ vindictive terms and unreasonable reparations (6,600,000,000 pounds) resulted in undesired economic circumstances. Unemployment rose to 25%, no less than fifty percent of school children were undernourished and annual meat consumption fell from 52kg to 26kg per person. In general, the German standard of living decreased dramatically. The terms of the hated treaty angered and frustrated people. Hitler, intensely detesting the November criminals1, promised to build a back powerful nation, the German public, in a state of disillusionment, responded positively to this claim and began to support the Nazi Party. Hitler’s ability to take advantage of the Treaty of Versalles and the hardship that it brought to the German nation contributed to Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of the Weimar Republic.
“On 2 August 1934, President Hindenburg died. Within an hour of his death Hitler announced that the offices of chancellor and president were to be combined and that he was the new head of state. Hitler’s adolescent dream of becoming Fuhrer of the German people had been realized” President Hindenburg’s death marked the official end of the Weimar Republic, a democratic ‘experiment’ that had lasted since 1918. The causes of the dissolution of the Republic are wide ranging and numerous, as was explained in the articles of both Richard Bessel, and John McKenzie. The two author’s agree on the sequence of events which led to the dissolution of the Republic, however, they disagree on what exactly caused the transition from Weimar to the Third Reich. The author’s disagreement stem from a differing view of the fundamental cause, political structure versus political leadership.
...After we consider all these points mentioned we begin to see how everything worked and connected to form one huge disaster for Germany. We start to see how all these things played a part, the reparations led to unemployment that led to no money that led to overprinting of money. How the huge consequence of the reparations led to the unsuccessful paying of it leading to the French invasion of the Ruhr which led to strikes and therefore no products to trade with. How the unstable Weimar government led to extremist parties that damaged the economy further and brought inflation to its highest. The effects were probably the worst, the starvation coupled with the disease epidemic that killed people off and the worthless tonnes of paper notes roaming around the nation. It all in all was a very bad time in Germany one that they always found it hard to recover from.
Prior to unification in 1871 the territory that would become Germany was comprised of thirty-nine independent states and city states joined together in a loose German Confederation. The most powerful among these states was Prussia, both geographically the largest state and that with the largest population. The influential politicians and policies that came out of Prussia were instrumental in the gradual formation of a united Germany. Beginning with the rise of Napoleon, the nineteenth century was a time of incredible change which dramatically altered the political balance of Europe. In order to understand the factors that culminated in official German unification on January 18 1871, it is necessary to examine the preceding decades. No single factor can be credited for the unification of the German states. Rather, the combined forces of social change, economic strength within a unified customs union, the moral justifications provided by nationalism, Bismarck’s careful manipulation of internal politics and the advantages gained through military action resulted in the unification of Germany.