Politically, there were no strong, major parties. The left had poor leadership and organisation and failed, the right were trying to gain power through violence and weren’t really a strong party. This is proven as; between 1924-28 there were six changes in government. This meant that the survival of the Weimar Republic didn’t look good because it just wasn’t strong enough.
The 1928 elections gave the Weimar Republic a boost as the percentage of people who wanted parties that were committed to democracy rose from 52 per cent to 73 per cent in May 1928, Whereas the left and right wing extremists were doing badly. The elections made the prospects for the survival of the Weimar Republic greater because there was considerably less support from their opposition - the right and left wing extremist. With less opposition, the more of a chance the Weimar Republic had of being in power and staying democratic.
There were economic areas of the country and government that affected how the survival of the Weimar Republic looked.
In 1928 there was a fall in food prices since people were buying food from abroad because it was cheaper. Therefore Germany had to lower its prices to a large extent to get any business. This meant that the farmers were making a loss and were getting into large debt because of the falling prices. From 1928 over a third of farms were running a loss instead of a profit. Having so many businesses in debt would have mean that the government-Weimar Republic-would make a loss and this economic problem might have given people doubts about the survival of the Weimar Republic.
The Young Plan was nearly finalised in 1928, which for Germany meant that:
- The sum for reparations was reduced to 37,000 million from 132,00 million by the Dawes Plan.
- Their annual payments were also reduced to lower than they were for the Dawes Plan (1,000 million marks a years)
- The allies that were originally maintaining control of railways, the Reichsbank and custom duties, were discontinues.
- This was the final settlement and Germany took part in the reparations negotiations for the first time.
This gave Germany the responsibility it needed and because now their inflation was being cured and it was down to the Weimar Republic that this occurred, the prospects looked good for the survival of the Government.
More money was entering the country through loans than was going out through reparations. This gave the country a boost in their social expenditure as well as their industrial expansion. They could earn more money independently instead of relying on foreign loans. This led to their economy recovering and by 1927 their overall industrial production had recovered to 1913 levels, which was what it was like before the First World War. Using the Young Plan gave Germany until 1988 to complete paying the reparations fine back. Giving this amount of time to pay the fine back would mean that their economy would be able to recover more and that the prospects of the Weimar Republic looked even better because they were showing their competence at being able to deal with a national problem and disaster.
There were diplomatic problems that affected the prospects for survival of the Weimar Republic these were problems that involved other countries like the reparations payment from the Treaty of Versailles. No matter what kind of payment they were going to have to pay, whether it was readjusted or not was going to be resented by the German people. Even when Stresemann tried to make the consequences of them losing the war tolerable, by putting into action the Dawes and Young Plan put into action, the Germans still had street parties when he dies because it meant that they would no longer have to, in their eyes, repay their debts.
There were also economic weaknesses that happened just after Stresemann’s death like the Wall Street Crash of 1928 in America, this affected Germany considerable as they were relying deeply on money from America and now because their economy was crashing they wanted their money back and Germany didn’t have it. This, added to the fact that Germany’s share of world production had dropped from 14.3 per cent in 1913 to 11.6 per cent in 1926-9, made the Weimar Republic look like it wasn’t going to survive for much longer because the economy was about to crash again because their support was being taken away from them.
Having connections with Russia however, did give the Weimar Republic some authority as they could now rely on Russia for their money as they were helping them industrialise in exchange for gold and help with rearmament. When Germany joined the League of Nations in 1926 it strengthened their prospects because the Weimar Republic and Stresemann were able to put forward their ideas for changes in the Reparations fine. This plan worked and Germany ended up paying a small percentage of what they originally were going to.
In Conclusion to this, the Weimar Republic’s prospects for survival looked good by the beginning of 1929. The main reasons for this being that the economy was recovering efficiently and although the Wall Street Crash might alter this they still had Russia to rely on. They had more money entering than leaving in loans so their finances were improving. Having the economy recovering meant that the Government could turn their attention to more pressing issues like opposition which, although had decreased because more people wanted a democratic government, was still a threat to them. Their government also seemed to be well established and when Hindenburg was elected as the German president in 1925 it reassured a lot of Germans that their welfare would be taken into consideration.
By the beginning of 1929 the prospects for the survival of the Weimar Republic looked good and if depression hadn’t got in the way in 1930 it would have survived.
