How great were the problems that the Weimar Republic faced from its beginning?

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Chitran Selvarajah        L6CPS        Mr. Morris

                24/09/02

How great were the problems that the Weimar Republic faced from its beginning?

The problems that the Weimar Republic faced at its beginning were great but to what extent did these problems undermine democracy and the strength of the Weimar republic? The main problems that they faced were based on the fact that the people were not ready to support a democratic system and many of the conservative people preferred an Authoritarian system which they were more used to. This led to conflicts between the government and many groups opposed to the system. However these problems were the symptoms of a hasty revolution following a depressing war. Would the Weimar Republic have survived if not for the devastating problems near its end or was it bound to fail from its birth? I believe that although it faced seemingly overwhelming odds against it and had problems that plagued it to the end, its problems were not so great that it forced the end of the Weimar republic irrespective of other later problems.  

The weakness of the government from the start was a very big problem for the Weimar Republic. The biggest problem for Weimar was that it had a bad reputation from the start and it was not a strong enough system to last with its weak government. First of all the after years of no real democracy a civilian government was set up. Therefore it is not surprising that there was not a great deal of support from conservative people who supported the old system and were hostile to change. This government was created for one purpose only, to support Ludendorff’s ‘stab – in – the – back’ theory. Therefore it was created for someone to blame and not created for the sake of democracy. Lundendorff blamed the people, who complained about the shortages and who were supporting the government at the time, for the loss of the war. He also claimed the people in government, who wanted this change and had led to the creation of the republic, the socialists, undermined the war effort.  Over time these beliefs became accepted nationwide and the Germans believed the army were ‘stabbed-in-the-back’ by the unpatriotic socialists since the people could see no other reason for the sudden loss.  They also linked the formation of the republic with the socialists and began to criticise Weimar and associate it with their defeat.  This was because it was the socialist government that hastily signed the Armistice and the humiliating peace treaty. Therefore it was easy to blame Weimar for the German’s defeat since very few people understood that the war was lost months before the revolution.  However the theory of Lundendorff was not widely accepted because many of the people had supported the socialists and wanted a democratic republic. There is no reason to suggest that this poor start could have meant that the Weimar Republic had no chance of success.  So long as the majority of people had faith in the government the system could survive. But after signing the peace treaty many began to question the government and the whole principle of a Democratic republic. The government signed the peace treaty and the people believed that if not for the revolution they would have won the war. Therefore there was enormous contempt for the Weimar Republic as it led to the same government who brought about the republic, signing the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty made the country accept war guilt, which was resented by the whole population who deeply felt that they should not be held totally accountable for the war. This made the people feel that the Weimar Republic had sold out Germany by agreeing to the peace treaty and began to accept Lundendorff’s theory. Many politicians against the Weimar Republic had the opportunity to blame social and economic problems such as inflation and depression on the treaty of Versailles and blame Weimar for accepting it. The Treaty led to many conflicts within the government and polarised the parties and made coalitions more difficult. Therefore Weimar was under threat because of the link between its birth and the loss of the war, the armistice and the peace treaty. This made it easy for a minority of conservatives who were against the Republic to use Lundendorff’s theory of ‘stabbing the army in the back’ and blaming their problems on the Treaty and Weimar.  However the Republic itself was not strong and became reliant on deals of Ebert and had to struggle through hostility from both wings.

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The Republic itself had many problems to contend with but although they were testing they were not great enough to completely undermine Weimar.  The main problems was that it had no support from both of the extreme wings who continually threaten it and it relied on support of the army to defend itself which made it weak. Germany went from a monarchy to a republic in six weeks and left many people questioning for what reason and under whose authority could this happen. The revolution from below led to the unrest nationwide. On October 31st, at Kiel the sailors ...

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