There were even weaknesses in the Weimar constitution itself that could be easily abused. The president had supreme command of the Reichwehr and had the power to appoint or dismiss chancellors, and Article 48 provided that ‘if public safety and order’ were ‘materially disturbed or endangered,’ the president could suspend the Constitution and rule by emergency decree. The electoral system of proportional representation resulted in coalition governments that could not agree on drastic measures to improve Germany’s problems. Gordon Craig noted how ‘the failure of the Weimar government to draft rule to prevent its undermining’ meant that even ‘the post-war generation was indoctrinated with anti-democratic ideas.’ These constitutional flaws made any political success difficult to achieve.
The effects of the shift from kaiserdom to republicanism must also not be underestimated in causing Weimar Germany’s downfall. Henig observed that the Weimar government’s ‘necessary political compromises and party deals were sordid and a far cry from the patriotic and orderly government of Wilhelmine Germany. Many yearned for a system free from conflict and from sectional interest and hankered after the elusive “national community” which they remembered from the early months of the war.’ Although a return to pre-war politics was by the 1920s not viable, Weimar leaders did little to gain friends or support during the early years. Hans Mommsen, when comparing the structure of other post-WWI political systems on the Continent, has commented that the democratic principle only survived in a few states, with failures also in Poland, Austria, and even tension within the France political system by 1936.
Therefore there were inherent weaknesses within Weimar Germany, which, in retrospect, have caused some historians to see its failure as inevitable. Support for the republic was certainly weak, and there were indeed political failings that made any immediate solutions to the country’s increasing economic and social crises almost impossible. Nevertheless, the apparent problems did not lead the republic directly to its death. Weimar Germany survived attacks from opposition and economic problems in its early years and, through Gustav Stresemann’s diplomatic foreign policy, even managed to improve the country’s international standing.
Weimar Germany survived many attacks during its early years. Led by the right-wing politician Wolfgang Kapp, soldiers who were going to be demobilised took control of Berlin and installed Kapp as Chancellor in March 1920. The leaders of the Weimar Republic escaped to Stuttgart and called for a general strike. Berlin’s trade unions were opposed to the right-wing coup and so the putsch disintegrated. Hitler’s putsch in Munich in November 1923 also failed when the police opened fire on the rebels.
Plagued by immense hyperinflation, particularly following the execution of a passive resistance policy against the French who had invaded the Ruhr in 1923, the Weimar Republic survived economic disaster with the appointment of Gustav Stresemann as Chancellor. A new currency, the Rentenmark, was established, and the Dawes Plan with the United States brought about a reduction in the rate of reparation payments. Between 1924 and 1930, 25.5 billion marks in foreign investment helped reconstruct Germany’s industry. The terms of the Versailles Treaty were slowly breached as Germany became involved in European affairs, even being allowed to join the League of Nations in 1926.
However, the encouraging stabilization of the German economy ended quickly with the crash of the American stock market in October 1929. The Mittelstand, Germany’s middle-classes, infuriated and underrepresented by Weimar’s large businesses and elitist factions, once again turned to extremist groups for an end to the crisis. The end of Weimar Germany was nigh. Chancellor Brüning’s decision to rule by decree in September 1930 to restore authority and prevent further radicalisation was, according to Hans Mommsen, ‘doomed because they ignored the very conditions of modern industrial society and pursued an illusory dream of returning to anti-urban social structures.’ With the rapidly increasing resentment, the fate Weimar Republic had been sealed. By 1932, only ‘a choice between authoritarian and fascist dictatorship existed.’
It therefore remains that, whilst there were obvious intrinsic weaknesses within the Weimar Republic, the government managed to survive until an unfortunate and catastrophic series of events in the late 1920s. To conclude that Weimar Germany was ‘doomed from the start,’ does not take into consideration the measures taken throughout the 1920s to solve long-term social, political, and economic problems. As Ruth Henig highlights, ‘Weimar Germany was a society in transition, experiencing the pressures of modernisation and of industrialisation.’ Any attempt at changing the deep-rooted nature of Germany’s political and social structure would be difficult, but failure was not inevitable.
Ruth Henig, The Weimar Republic 1919-1933 (London, 1998)
+i Gordon A. Craig, Germany 1866-1948 (Oxford, 1980)
Ruth Henig, The Weimar Republic 1919-1933 (London, 1998)
Hans Mommsen, ‘Die Krise der parlamentarischen Demokratie und die Durchsetzung autoritärer und faschistischer Regime in der Zwischenkriegszeit,’ Geschichte Europas für den Unterricht der Europäer (Braunschweig, 1983)
+i Hans Mommsen, ‘The Failure of the Weimar Republic and the Rise of Hitler,’ The Burden of German History 1919-1945 (Dublin, 1988)
i Ruth Henig, The Weimar Republic 1919-1933 (London, 1998)
Bibliography
Ruth Henig, The Weimar Republic 1919-1933 (London, 1998)
Hans Mommsen, ‘The Failure of the Weimar Republic and the Rise of Hitler,’ The Burden of German History 1919-1945 (Dublin, 1988)
Martin Collier and Philip Pedley, Germany 1919-1945 (Oxford, 2000)
Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany (Cambridge, 1990)