The new system of Parliament meant that the public had had a lot more say in how Germany was run. There were two parliaments the Reichsrat, and the Reichstag. The bigger of the two, the Reichstag was elected directly by all the people. Also, the people elected the President, rather than someone inherit the head of state. Many people praised this new Democratic system, when it was announced in August 1919. Many people praised this new system because Germany had never experienced democracy before.
As the war had ended not long ago, most Germans were living in poor conditions and there were big shortages of food; people were living on as little as 1000 calories a day, which was starvation level. Ebert made plans to bring in more food and improve conditions. Things did not go as smoothly, however, as the government wanted it to. As Germany had surrendered to the allies of Britain, France and the USA, it was up to them as to what Germany had to do in terms of reparations. The allies made them sign the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty made Germany admit it was their fault for the war, which made Germany feel a lot of resent. Things did not stop there though. They were ordered to pay 6.6 Billon pounds in reparations. Also tens of thousands of square miles of land were taken away from them, e.g. Alsace Loraine was given to France and Eupen Malmedy was given to Belgium and all their colonies were taken off them. This caused economic problems, as Germany could not afford to pay these fines. It also caused a massive public outcry, as the public could not understand why they had signed such a harsh treaty, when they believed they could have carried on and won. They said that the soldiers had been 'stabbed in the back´ and deserved better. After the initial highs of the new government, things started to go downhill. This was because of the new system, proportional representation. It meant that any party could get into the government. This caused constant disruption in changes to the government because of re-elections. The new government could not settle down and this caused it to run quite badly. Another factor, which disrupted the government, was the rising of extremist parties. Parties or organizations like the Spartacists. They disagreed with a lot of what Ebert did and wanted more done for the poor. To try and achieve these things, they had violent uprisings in Berlin (Spartacist, 1919 and the Kapp Putsch, March 1920), Hamburg (Communist, March 1920). Germany only had a small army to defeat these revolutions thanks to the treaty. However, the government resisted all of these attempts to throw them out. They remained strong, with the help of the Free Corps, and defeated the other parties.
In 1922, Germany announced that it could pay no more money, after they paid the first instalment in 1921. France was outraged and invaded the Ruhr industrial region. Germany could not do anything because in the Treaty of Versailles, they agreed not to go within 50km of the Rhine Valley. Also Treaty had made sure Germany only had an army of 100,000 men. The French took over all of the industries within the region, which meant that Germany’s income became even less. By 1923 Germany had almost no money. This meant hyperinflation. Prices for everyday things like loafs of bread, increased at a dramatic rate. For instanced a loaf of bread 10 years previous to 1923, cost 0.23marks. By November 1923, it had increased to 428,000,000,000marks. People could not afford to live, and those who were on fixed pensions suffered the most, as the banknotes they received were worthless. Everyone in Germany was suffering from poverty and the only way to get things, was to swap something you did not need.
The constitution for the new government itself was flawed; it contained within it the its own destruction. Article 48 was to provide future abuse; this was used to appoint the last four Chancellors of the Republic, including Hitler. As Germany lacked in experience with democracy, it was far too democratic, and many groups did not support such a great amount of Democracy in Germany. The system of proportion representation made it easy for anti-democratic parties such as the KPD and the Nazi Party to gain seats in the Reichstag and the chances for any party gaining a majority support in the Reichstag was minimal. With a Republic run by the people who had ‘betrayed´ the country and a constitution that was flawed, a loyalty to the Republic had been formed. This encouraged political instability and frequent elections. The President had too much power; this could result into him becoming a dictator. Another flaw with the constitution is that the states could become hostile and attempt to overthrow the national government.
Article 48 was a sensible rule. But in the powers of the wrong person could be very dangerous.
The Weimar Republic was not doomed to fail. But it did.
By Michael Smith
President Ebert
