Hence, the grand coalition faced serious trouble. Müllers Grand coalition consisted of the SPD, DVP, which could no longer agree - the SPD wanted trade unions and social welfare, while the DVP wanted to reduce benefits. Müllers could no longer hold a majority, and the current President, Presiden Hidenburg, was to appoint a new councilor, which came to be another problem for Germany: Heinrich Brüning was made counciller. He was an inexperienced conservative who did not even hold a seat in government. Additionally, he did not belive in democracy, which he publicly showed by appearing in old uniforms from monarch times, this obviously was a proof that he wanted a more authoritarian government. His main doings was based on the use of Article 48 (which gives the possibility to rule by decree at a time of national emergecny).
2) The econicm issues
The economic issues was not really dealt with by Brüning. His main economic goal was to stop the reparations. His method was to prove to the Allies that German had no means of paying the reparation. As a consequence, he cut spending drastically while raising taxes. This made demand even smaller.
However, In July 1931, the reparations were temporary suspended (p. 133). But Brüning still had not dealt with the bad economic conditions that could not be solved entirely by putting the reparations on a hold. Furthermore, he came to disagreements with Hidenburd, which eventually let to his dismissing in november 1932.
3) Change of leadership and co-operation with Nazis.
Brüning became replced by Papen, who was a member of the Centre Party. Papen worked closely with Schleicher, and because they wanted to secure political support from the Nazis, they agreed to call for fresh elections. The Reichstat was then dissvoled an the elections took place on 31 July 1932.
The Recistat election results were surprising. The NSDAP was now the biggest party in goverment with 37.3 percent, which was a sign that the Weimar Government was now doomed. This also explains why it was the right and not left, that got the supports that had left the Weimar parties. Meanwhile, Papen declared himself Rich Commissioner of Prussia, which was also a sign that the democratic forces had interlly lost their voice. Eventually, the collapse of DDP-DVP co-operation meant that the Nazis had now cleared the way to gaining power.
Conclusion
So what was it, that made Weimar so weak?
First of all, they never rellay enjoyed a stable, popluar support. The idea of democrasy had never entirely been placed in German society. In fact, it was only in the period of 1919-23, that the popluar support was good - But perhaps this was only because there were no major opponent to Weimar Republic - and not because of the idea of democracy. So, when the opponent began to improve in strength and influence, the Weimar Republic immediately was threatened. Because, what was important to the Germans of that time was not as much the political ideology the government followed, but more the political and economic progresses that were promised. Had the idea of democracy been important, they would not have gone to support the extremist parties.
Secondly, the economy was a huge factor that made the German population realize that it was time for a change. The economic issues of 1923-29 was barely dealt with, but then the bad financial leadership and superficial solutions of the economic problems worsened the new economic challenges in 1930. This lead the population in a state of desperation, and that made it easier for the Nazis to manipulate them.
Thirdly, the Nazis were good at exploiting the Weimar weaknesses and create an atmosphere that was very suitable for their cause. For example, they used the "stab in back" myth to show that the handling of the reparation payment and signing of the Treaty of Versailles was a reason for the failures of the German states.
Another thing was the Weimar parties internal disagreement. The DVP and SPD gradully lost cooperation and hence became even weaker, which crashed the Müllers Grand Coalition.
Also, the bad leadership of the Weimar Republic had a role. The most positive was probably Streseman who did manage to see the reality of Germanies siutation, when he for instance called the passive resistance and created the Rentenmark. In the contrary,was Brüning who did not manage to identify the actual issues for Germany was - and also his misfailure to not to realize his own position as a vulnerable one that needed the support from Presiden Hidenburg, which he failed to and caused the resigning of him - And later the replacement of even poor leadership that co-operated with Nazis. Furthermore, Brüning did not act to solve the actual economic problems of Germany, and, instead made Germany independed of foreign invests and loans, which was a huge blow when the U.S. banks faced bankruptcy.
Nevertheless, the leaders never did enough to promote democratic beliefs. Brüning, for one, was totally against democracy and yet represented it.
What furthermore weakened the Waimar Republic was the surrounding economic atmosphere. As mentioned above, the Great Depression came in a really bad time for Germany, because she was depended on foreign loans and investments, and tariffs made it impossible for her to sell exports.
Perhaps Waimar could, if she had identified the real econmic issues in depth, and dealt with the foundmenatiol flaws, maybe have ended in a better situation after 1929. In the Great Inflation she survived because of effective but short-term solution. But had she instead insured investment from inside the country, and if she had not been that idnepended of forering loans, the long-term economy might have been saved. So in the first stage and second stage, Weimar could have gained succes - It was first in the third stage that regaining Weimar support was too late, which the elections in July 1932 was a proof of.
Eventually, the economic issues created unemployment and hunger which made for the German population clear that a change was needed: And the lack of support was the final stage to which Weimar fell.
Weimar faced different troubles, that became a vicious circle. In turn she experienced bad leadership, lack of cooperation between Weimar parties, lack of ability to create support for democracy and finally lack of popular support, I agree that the Waimar Republic was always weak. Hence her political ground were in-stable from the beginning, and that made her weak. However, this does not mean that she was always likely to collapse: In the first period of its rule, Weimar did manage to hold back the extremists. It was first when the economic challenges of the following stages, the Great Inflation in the second stage and the Great Depression in the third, that seriously weakened Weimars' ability to cope with outside threats. Furthermore, what weakened cooperation from inside was the disagreement about how to tackle the economic crises - And this was eventually what made the Nazi support even stronger, because now the Germans had totally lost faith in the democratic government. Hence, this indicates, that had the surrounding economic difficulties not occurs, Weimar might have survived.
