After the German republic was hastily declared there was to be a further uprising from the Spartacists on January 1919. The Spartacists uprising was against the calling of a Constituent Assembly as the left wing Spartacists rejected any form of parliamentary democracy. They believed that a constituent assembly would never establish a truly socialist state and thus decided to seize power by force. They wanted an end to the national assembly and all power transferred to the workers and soldiers councils. Furthermore they said that they (The Spartacists) would take over all large farms and industries and the state would run coal, iron and steel industries (socialism). Also they had plans for the police to be disarmed and an army and workers militia would be set up. They had hoped for the revolution to be followed by an alliance with Lenin’s Soviet Russia. They occupied newspaper offices, railway stations and government buildings in Berlin. This uprising came about due to the actions of the supporters of the Spartacists and not because of an order by its leaders. This was just another of many uprisings that threatened the validity of the republic. The communist uprising by the Spartacists was initially to have been put down by the army due to the Ebert – Groener Pact. However due to the army still being very weak and plagued with desertions from World War One President Ebert looked for another way to suppress this revolution. He called on the nationalistic patriotism of the Freikorps who ‘enjoyed’ barbaric fighting and slaughter of all enemies of Germany. The Freikorps suppressed the Spartacists viciously and easily as they were immensely weak and poorly armed and they were only a small minority group. In spite of this enemies of the republic increased due to the relationship between Ebert’s SPD and Liebernicht KPD was poisoned vastly.
After theses main uprisings from the left there was to be even more uprisings from the right in 1919 in Wilhelmshaven and Bremen. There was an attempt to organise a general strike in Berlin in 1919 which yet again was suppressed by the Freikorps resulting in 1500 dead. A second attempt to establish a soviet style republic in Berlin was suppressed by 35,000 Freikorps resulting in a shocking 600 deaths. Ebert has a lot to the thank the Freikorps for, as if it were not for the barbaric and brutal work of the Freikorp then the Republic may not have survived so many attempts to overthrow it.
It was not only the left wing that caused the republic problems the right wing caused immense problems for them also. The right wing was anti democratic, anti communist, anti republican, anti Versailles and extremely nationalistic. The main political parties of the right were the DNVP, NSDAP (Nazi Party), the Freikorps, the Stahlhelm, Jungdo and the most brutal of all the Nazi SA.
The first of the republics problems from the right came in the Kapp Putsch of 1920. This was an attempt to seize power and overthrow the republic. In March 1920 orders were issued for the disbandment of the Freikorps its leaders refused and appealed to General Luttwitz for support. He thus responded and called on President Ebert and Defence Minister Noske to stop the programme of troop reductions. When Ebert refused, Luttwitz ordered the Freikorp to march on Berlin and once again the government fled Berlin to Stuttgart. Noske called upon the army to suppress this putsch and they blatantly refused. General Von Seeckt told Noske “Reichswehr does not fire on Reichswehr” As the government fled it asked all of Germany’s workers to come out on general strike in order to outnumber the Freikorps. This plea by the government was a massive success and with Germany paralysed the putsch failed. There were 2 main reasons why the Republic survived this putsch this was because of the working classes rallying to its defence and Kapp and Luttwitz only had support of a minority of the extreme right and many thought this putsch was ill timed and refused to join it; hence its failure.
After the Kapp Putsch a second horrendous economic problem stuck Germany, Hyperinflation. In 1919 the Weimar republic was close to bankruptcy due to enormous expenses in World War One. Germany’s debt increased further due to naval expansion and rearmament. Thus due to Germanys massive debt, the German people’s confidence in the mark fell and due to this the cost of food imports and raw materials rose. This was the beginning of the inflationary spiral which was to out of control in 1923. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles added to the financial burden, for example the loss of land resulted in the loss of vital industrial resources like in the Saar Basin. Furthermore the money Germany had to pay to her allies in reparations did nothing but cripple her economy. The money Germany was being asked to pay was unrealistic and thus Germany asked for permission to suspend repartitions payments however the allies refused and in 1922 the national debt ran in to 469,000 million marks. A further crisis was uncovered in 1923 when Germany missed a payment in reparations to France. This gave the French the opportunity to take advantage of Germany’s vulnerability and thus they occupied the Ruhr (a heavy industrial area) with 100,000 troops. Unable to resist by force due to troop reductions set down in the Versailles Treaty the Cuno government resorted to a policy of passive resistance (a non violent means of protest). The Cuno government compensated workers who followed William Cuno's instructions to take apart in passive resistance by compensating them for loss of earnings and thus caused a massive increased of government spending at a time when its income from taxation was reduced due to the Ruhr being paralysed. The government covered the gap between income and expenditure by simply printing more money. By doing this the Cuno government destroyed all confidence that was left in the mark and thus ‘hyperinflation’ set in. The political effects of the economic crisis were significant. Many people had accepted the republic had their faith shattered for they blamed their hardship on the democratic process. Support for extremist parties grew. The policy of passive resitance was unsustainable. Apart from the above economic problems normal hard working German civilians turned to crime due to the extreme poverty of Germany.
A third and final crisis to strike the republic was the Beer Hall Putsch. In 1923 a right wing plot to overthrow the republic began to take shape in Bavaria. The chief people involved in the plot to overthrow the republic were Gustav Von Kahr, Bavaria’s state commissioner and an enthusiastic monarchist, Otto von Lossow, the local Reichswehr commander. The plan was to seize control of Bavaria then March on Berlin. By November Hitler had whipped up his followers. On November 8th Kahr and Lossow were at a meeting at one of Munich’s beer halls. Hitler moved the SA units in to the city, then burst in to the hall and declared a putsch was underway. Kahr and others were forced at gun point to declare their support for the putsch. Hitler ordered 3000 SA men to march on the cities main army barracks, hoping to entice the Reichswehr to join their putsch. However they did not and the 3000 SA were met by a police barricade. 14 Nazis were killed and thus the right winged putsch had been suppressed by other right wingers. After the putsch Hitler was sentenced to years but only served 9 months and Ludendorff was acquitted.
Even all of the above threats from the left and right wings did not compromise the validity of the Weimar republic; this was due to many reasons. Firstly it established a democratic constitution in 1919 and although at first many people did not like this idea, as they were used to being told what to do, eventually they warmed to the idea and thus supported it. Furthermore it coped with outbreaks of violence from the left and the right. This could be seen to be mainly due to the help of the Freikorps who clamped down on the enemies of democracy without these it is doubtful that the republic would have survived the so many attempts it received to overthrow it. Further more the working class rallied to its defence and these were the majority of the German public and were law abiding citizens who did not want to compromise law and order. The working classes and some of the middle classes favoured stability rather than losing everything they had gained from the democratic route. Extremist groups were the minority in Germany’s society and thus were not an overwhelming dominating power. The republic appeared to cope with economic crises and the burdens of reparations until 1929. In the late 1920s Germany had a stable currency, competitive interest rates and increasingly settled place within the international community and thus became a magnet for investment. Next loans were given to local authorities to build more homes for the working classes. In the times of ‘good fortune’ it was a good time to build on what had not been perfect times for the Weimar republic and thus gain ‘friends’ for the republic. Furthermore Gustav Stressemann brought about both survival and stability in the economy in the Dawes Plan of 1924 and the Young Plan of 1929. The economic stabilities of the 1920s didn’t end their, industrial production of iron and steel exceeded pre war levels. New chemical and industrial industries helped boost the Weimar Republics economy additionally. From 1922 onwards Germany gained back some of its lost status which it had held so dearly before the war.