What does the 1949 Basic Law tell us about the perceived flaws of the WeimarConstitution? Are constitutional weaknesses, by that token, an adequate explanation for the emergence of Fascism in Germany?

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What does the 1949 Basic Law tell us about the perceived flaws of the Weimar Constitution? Are constitutional weaknesses, by that token, an adequate explanation for the emergence of Fascism in Germany?

The Basic law, or Grundgesetz went into force on May 23rd 1949, it was the new Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. The new constitution was created including many features of the old, however just from the fact that a new constitution was being created we can see it was strongly felt the old Weimar one contained serious flaws. Germany had just overcome the darkest hour of its history and what was put in place was a much stricter constitution which focused on safeguarding the control of country and most importantly the Human Rights of those within it. Clearly many felt this was necessary as perhaps it was the weakness of the previous constitution that allowed Germany’s horrific past to occur.

In theory, the Weimar constitution would have been the perfect democratic instrument. However, because the Government was so strongly rejected by its people many loopholes were quickly found and exploited. The Weimar Government couldn’t even supply soldiers to deal with civil unrest, they relied on volunteers to fight when needed (as opposed to the Basic Laws ‘Militant Democracy’ which later amended this) The vagueness of many points allowed opponents to take an advantage and the Weimar quickly fell to Fascism. Once in power, the Nazi’s used these weaknesses to turn the constitution to whatever they wanted.

Firstly the system of proportional representation made it easy for the Nazi’s to gain there majority. Any party with at least 60,000 votes gained representation in the Reichstag. Under this system a certain number of seats were assigned to a party in the Reichstag, depending on the total percentage of the popular vote a party received. Because of this the National Socialists 18.3% gained them 107 seats in the Reichstag, a massive increase on the 12 seats just two years previously and a ‘much higher figure than if the representation was based on single-man constituencies’(Collapse of the Weimar on, ttp://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/germany/lectures/23weimar_collapse.html). This meant the left and right wing extremist parties now had a larger combined representation that the traditionally stronger Social Democrats. Because no one else had a strong majority the Nazi’s were able to become much more powerful than if a stronger constitution had been in place.

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Equally important there was the role and powers of the President. Under Weimar Constitution the President was extremely powerful. In everyday life the President had complete control of the army, could dismiss the Reichstag and call referendums on any piece of legislation he wanted. On top of this the President could use article 48 of the Weimar Constitution to further his powers. Under article 48 the President could call a state of emergency and suspend all basic rights. The police and army could be taken under control and used to restore the country to the order that the ...

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