The whole of Germany was chaotic as they had no one controlling the social or economic factors of the country. Whilst all this disorder was occurring, the Right Wing extremists grew more violent. This led to political murders. This showed that the Right Wing extremists wanted to make a point that the Weimar was losing a fighting battle and that someone else should take over. The rightwing were certainly not happy with a democratic system and longed for the opportunity to overthrow the Republic. This in turn linked on to further unrest in the already unorganised Germany.
The disorder of 1924 was a problem as it affected all the social factors. The fact that the German public were not being taken care of because there was a lack of food and money, made the public angry. The fact the Weimar were making constant wrong decisions made the public lose trust and faith in the democracy and so were ready and waiting when the communists helped start the revolution. It was a problem that the public were starting to lose faith in the Weimar because this mean the Weimars enemies, such as the right wing could easily convince the public to support them.
The right wing extremists were becoming hungrier for power, this lead on to the Putsch’s. And if the Putsch’s succeeded this would be a major threat or possibly the end of the Weimar Republic. The Right Wings were nationalistic, antisocialist and antidemocratic. Due to this, in 1920 some extremists participated in the Kapp Putsch. This shows the desperation and longing for power from the right wing.
A Putsch was the name for the plan used to try and overthrow the Democratic government, The Weimar Republic. The extremists did not want to abide by the rules of the weak democratic government; the Weimar enforced everything for which the right wings were against and due to that reason the extremists felt the need to attempt to overthrow them.
After the failure of the Kapp Putsch, political murders grew more frequent. The murders were used as a political weapon. The extreme right wingers wanted to seize power and quick. Therefore the Nazi’s created the SA, private army. The second Putsch, (Munich Beer Hall Putsch) came into action but turned into a complete fiasco as the second failure to overthrow Weimar Republic occurred. Although the Putsch’s failed, it didn’t prevent the Weimar from becoming more nervous. The government was weak and it could possibly be only a matter of time before the Right Wing Extremists succeeded in gaining power.
The Putsch’s caused a loss of confidence amongst the Weimar. This just made the Weimar weaker, and with more weakness came more problems with the country. The right wing extremists were a severe problem because with the weakness of the Weimar they could easily be taken over.
The pressure on the Republic from the Right Wing Extremists, Plus the disorder of 1924, lead on to the German Revolution. This emphasises the fact that all the problems such as social factors and the extremists were building up and finally was taking its toll on the country.
The revolution started when the First World War led to the Kaiser downfall. The Weimar was then created as a solution to the country not having a ruler or government, and replaced Kaiser. The Weimar was not liked by many people, therefore communists started the revolution. (Spartacist revolt.)
The fact the communists had an opportunity to revolt signified that no one was in proper control of Germany and demonstrated the weakness of the political parties. This weakness led to the start of many problems for the Weimar, as they started of weak there was very little chance they as a government would grow stronger.
The treaty of Versailles also contributed as a trigger to the German Revolution. The Treaty of Versailles was a treaty created by the allies, which included terms to be met by Germany in order for there to be peace after The First World War.
These terms involved many things such as reparations, accepting the blame for the war, and taking away land and armies. The Weimar government accepted these rules, and because of this, the public grew angry. The Germans objected to the treaty as they believed it was a ‘dictated peace,’ and were deeply angered at the acceptance of the treaty.
The reparation amount was tremendous, and so the government had to find a way in which to pay back the allies. The republic had no choice but to raise the taxes. This angered the Germans further and Germany began to suffer serious inflation. What the German government did not realise was that did not pay for the war by taxing people heavily, instead it paid its bills by printing banknotes. This demonstrates the start of hyperinflation.
Hyperinflation occurs when the value of money became worthless. Germany began to spiral in an economic downfall. Some gained from hyperinflation however most lost out. In the end, prices raised by the minute and thousands of pounds were needed to simply buy a loaf of bread.
One year Germany failed to pay back their reparations to France. So France captured Germany’s industrial site the Ruhr. The German workers from the industrial site were directed by the German government to stop working, and so Germany had to pay their workers more money due to the hyperinflation. Of course, due to having to pay more money, hyperinflation increased immensely, as more paper money was printed.
Hyperinflation led to many tragic outcomes. By this time the wholes of Germany’s economy had collapsed and Germany as a country simply stopped working.
The hyperinflation led to chaos, economic depression, high unemployment, starvation, trade stopped, (due to the capture of the Ruhr), and an industrial breakdown. All this shows that the lack of experience from the government led to Germany being an even more chaotic and unorganised than after the war. Hyperinflation was just another one of its problems caused by bad ruling from the Weimar Republic.
Overall the Weimar faced political problems from 1919- 1923, due to it being incredibly weak. The small coalition governments mad it hard to rule the country, and the government was simply not strong enough to face the problems of its country. The republic was new to a democratic system and had no experience of how to tackle the big problems which came with the position of ruler.
The Weimar also faced problems due to the German public, whom were very unhappy about the treaty of Versailles and having a democratic government. As the Weimar encountered more problems and had no idea how to solve them, the public had to deal with leading an unsatisfactory, far from normal life. This led to further problems for the Republic.