How important was the impact of mass unemployment in the years 1929-1933 in bringing about the collapse of the Weimar republic?

The effects of the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 followed a brief period of shaky economic recovery between 1924 and 1928, largely underpinned by foreign loans. As US banks withdrew their loans the Republic was plunged into a second major economic crisis and a serious depression. Firms began to cut back drastically, Industrial production fell quickly, and by 1932, it was 40% of its 1929 level. To make matters worse in 1931 a number of Austrian and German banks went out of business. . Unemployment rose from 1.6 million in October 1929 to 6.12 million in February 1932. 33% percent of the workforce were now Unemployed.

By 1932, roughly one worker in three was registered as unemployed with rates even higher in industrial areas of Germany. Matters were made worse by the fact that the drastic fall in people's income caused a collapse in tax revenues. Many soon were not in receipt of unemployment benefits as state governments could not afford to pay it.

It was in this economic chaos that the Nazis and Communists thrived.

Crime and suicide rates rose sharply and many lost hope. People deserted the democratic parties in droves and turned to either the Communists or the Nazis. In the election of 1930, the Nazis made their electoral breakthrough winning 107 deputies while the Communists won 77. Both parties were opposed to the democratic system and used violence against their political opponents.

From the start, the Weimar republic's democratic system lacked legitimacy, having been partly imposed by the Allies on Germany as the price for an armistice, which failed to establish political stability.

Between 1918 and 1923, a period of semi-civil war polarized opinion and exacerbated existing political divisions pre-dating World War I. An extreme form of proportional representation encouraged political fragmentation, complicating the formation of stable coalition governments; there were 16 different governments between 1919 and 1930.

In 1929, Germany was ruled by a grand coalition stretching from the Social Democrats to the Peoples Party and the Social Democrat Muller was Chancellor.

Unemployment continued to rise and the unemployment insurance was in heavy deficit. The Social Democrats wanted to increase employer's contributions while the People's Party wanted to cut benefits. Again, there was rivalry between the coalition government and the situation became even more strained.

Yet in 1930, rising unemployment put the unemployment insurance into greater crisis. Meyer of the Democrats and Bruning of the Centre Party propose a new compromise. Three of the four Social Democrat Ministers accepted the compromise but the Social Democrat group in the Reichstag rejected it, on the 27th March Muller resigned as Chancellor, and there is yet another election.

In March 1930 Chancellor Heinrich Bruning took over, although his appointment was due to the use of article 48 rather than by election which was rather detrimental to democracy within the republic and made many German citizens loose what little faith they had left in The Weimar republic .Bruning followed a policy of economic austerity where government spending was cut in order to keep inflation under control and keep German exports competitive. He increased taxes, reduced salaries and reduced unemployment assistance, actions which were extremely unfavourable with the ordinary German people even though it was sound economic thinking at the time.

Given the unpopularity of Bruning's policies, he found it very difficult to get a majority in the Reichstag. He relied on Article 48 and the emergency powers of the president to get laws passed. By 1932, parliament was being largely ignored.

Some of the advisors to the President including General Kurt von Schleicher wanted to include the Nazis in government, which Bruning opposed. They wanted to bypass the Reichstag completely and bring in a right wing authoritarian government.

Hindenburg lost confidence in Bruning and they quarrelled about land reform. The equally unpopular von Papen replaced Bruning as chancellor. His cabinet of barons had absolutely no support and this was shown in the election of July 1932.

The result was a disaster for democracy in Weimar Germany. The Nazis received 37% of the vote and 230 seats while their communist enemies got 89 seats. A majority of Germans had voted for non-democratic parties. Political violence intensified with twelve people killed on the day of the polls.

The election of November 1932 saw a decline in Nazi but they remained the largest party in the Reichstag. Communist support continued to rise and this worried many industrialists. Von Schleicher replaced Von Papen as chancellor.

Von Papen immediately began to plot against von Schleicher and met Hitler. They agreed that Hitler would become the chancellor of a government made up mainly of von Papen's supporters. Hindenburg, who disliked Hitler, was persuaded to appoint him chancellor on the 30th of January. The Weimar Republic was dead.

Obviously, the republic was in turmoil. As already mentioned many German citizens had lost their life savings and unemployment was on the up. The inability to pay workers meant their industry collapsed and the economic depression worsened.

The combination of national depression and war guilt meant that German citizens began to look elsewhere for leadership, which had detrimental effects on the republic. It was against this background of political and economic crisis that the NSDAP achieved its breakthrough between 1930 and 1933.

So although the Weimar republic already had numerous cracks in its system it was in effect the loss of faith by the German people who had been embittered by the depression that lead to the results, which disempowered the Weimar government, and lead to The Nazi party becoming truly established in Germany.

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