Weimar Republic’s type of government caused another problem. Its parliamentary system was proportional representation, allowing small, localized parties, such as the Nazis and Bavarian People’s Party, to gain seats in the Reichstag, gaining national recognition and prestige. No party ever gained majority government during the history of the Republic, and this weakened the government. Proportional representation was responsible for a series of coalition governments, which ruled Germany through the years of 1919 and 1933. However, the only time that a pro-Weimar party held majority was in the first elections of 1919, and every time after Weimar was the minority. Thus, a series of parties against the Weimar gained power, although through coalition, reducing the power of the already fragile Republic. Here we can see the system of parliamentary democracy was a factor in the collapse of the Weimar.
The series of economic crisis’ which affected post World War One Germany assisted in both the fall of the Weimar and the rise of Hitler. The Treaty of Versailles left the country with extremely large debts and when Germany did not keep up with payments, the French responded by invading the Ruhr, an industrial region in Germany, resulting in a general strike and ruining the middle class who would eventually make up the foundation of Nazi supporters. After the Golden Years, which brought great prosperity back to the economy and saw the middle class turn away from the extremists, the Wall Street Crash in 1929 occurred. The middle class turned back to the Nazi’s, especially in the industrial north of Germany. The German people saw their government’s inability to deal with a crisis, such as the economic ones that plagued Germany. This led the voters, especially those who were hit extremely hard (middle class) to vote for extremists who seemed more likely to get things done. The middle class made up roughly fifty percent of the Nazi votes for many reasons, the largest being economic, proving that these unfortunate economic downturns played a part in the collapse of the Weimar.
The Rise of the Nazis can be attributed to numerous causes including their extremely popular policies. The Nazis glorified the ‘stab-in-the-back’ myth and gave blame for all Germany’s wrongs to the Weimar and the Jewish population. These policies were very popular to as it gave people a scapegoat to blame all their problems on. The Nazis also gained votes from the middle and upper class’s fear of communism. Hitler was seen as the only barrier to a soviet revolt in Germany, so he capitalized on that aspect of German life, by placing his SA in between, and thus, the Nazis popular policies can be seen as a factor in the rise of Hitler.
Von Papen’s first chancellorship was marked by the downfall of the SPD, the largest pro-Weimar and left-wing party; first lifting the Prussian parliament’s ban on the SA and SS, which allowed the Nazis to have their parades and propaganda events in the region. Then Von Papen removed the local and regional powers of Prussia, the SPD’s greatest stronghold, and placed it directly under the control of the Reich Commissioner. Yet despite these bold attempts to undermine the "strongest surviving stronghold of the Republic", not a hand was raised in its defence. The fall of Prussia’s special status within the Republic can be as the fatal blow to any chance the SPD had of returning to power, along with a contributing factor to the rise of Hitler.
When Hitler was repeatedly refused the chancellership in Von Papen’s government, Hitler used his own disgruntled party, the Catholic Centre Party, to get him in. Hitler aimed to gain power as part of a coalition of the Nazis, Bavarian People’s Party and Catholic Centre Party, called the ‘Black-Brown Coalition’. The name was derived the Nazi’s para-military SA, the Brown-shirts, and the colour associated with clergy. This coalition, fighting under the banner of anti-communism had already achieved some success at the local and regional level. By the time of the second election of 1932, the economic crisis had passed its peak, however the population was still feeling its effects, and this was combined with the Reichstag’s vote of no confidence in Von Papen’s government, 512 to 42. The results of the election saw the Nazis maintain their position as the largest party in the Reichstag, with 33%, but the rest of the Black-Brown coalition lost seats meaning they were unable to gain majority. However, the most important result of that election was that the SPD lost eighty seats as a result of the fall of Prussia. Although the Black-Brown coalition could not gain power most Catholics and Nationalists now supported a Nazi government, but President Hindenberg was still unwilling to allow Hitler the chancellorship. Nevertheless, in January 1933 he ran out of options, and faced with the communist on one side and the Nazis on the other he had no choice but to appoint Hitler as head of the government of National Unity, as he was considered by Hindenberg to be the lesser of two evils. Therefore it can be seen that the threat of a Black-Brown coalition and ultimately the German people’s fear of communism assisted Hitler’s rise to power.
As can be seen, there was no one single factor that can explain the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party. It was a combination of events, which allowed Hitler to undermine parliamentary democracy in Germany. Had any of these events occurred separately there is a strong chance that the Weimar would have been able to survive, however the effect of them all occurring simultaneously was almost certainly the reason in which the Weimar collapsed and allowed Hitler and the Nazi Party’s rise to power.
Bibliography
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Rempel, Gerhard. “The Nazi Road to Power”. [http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/germany/lectures/27power_road.html]
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Sage, Henry J. “The Rise of Nazi Germany: The SS-State.” September 9, 2001. [http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/Hist122/Part3/Germany1933.htm][5/26/2003]