The political structure of the Weimar Republic was another weakness and most importantly its use of proportional representation. This meant that no party ever had a majority in parliament. Therefore all motions took a long time to be passed as all parties had to agree to it. If they did not a new party grouping must be formed. Establishing political leadership and the difficulty of building working coalitions among parties produced a continuing change of governments and repeated new elections. This weakened The Weimar and made it unstable.
The Treaty of Versailles was a major threat to the Weimar Republic for many reasons including the question of guilt and the fact it catalysed thoughts of revenge within the German public. It also imported limits on German armed forces and restored Alsace Lorraine to France along with other territorial losses. These territorial changes isolated Germany and it was distanced from the world market. The reparations of £6 600 million agreed in 1921 were also considered excessive by the German public. Mainly because Britain and France were heavily in debt to the USA. But also because the allies wanted to weaken Germany. Germany’s economy was crippled and its lack of industry destroyed its chances of a quick recovery .Not to mention the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles, in particular the war guilt clause. This threatened the Republic before it had even begun, as it had to start from a low social and economic base. Although Germany did still retained its diplomatic power.
It was a time of crisis for the German economy because the reparations were too high and in addition to the weight of economic recovery and were burdened with the huge debt Germany built up during the war. The Treaty of Versailles caused a loss of resources for Germany including 74.5% of its iron ore, 68.1% of its zinc ore and 26% of its coal resources. By 1922 the Germany currency was very unstable and had fallen sharply compared to the US dollar. An exchange rate of 8000 deauch marks to the American dollar, though exchange rates changed like the weather, from one moment to another. The causes of this inflation included what four years of war had done to the mark, the disruption of Germany’s main industries and that Germany did not have a comprehensive taxation system and instead borrowed irresponsibly and printed money excessively. Germany was on the brink of economic ruin, there was mass unemployment, loosened social and business morals and the middle classes savings were wiped out almost over night. This was followed inevitably by hyper inflation. It ruined many normal Germans lives and left them with little faith in the government. This was merely aggravated by the invasion of the Ruhr in 1923. This was a lot for the newly established Weimar Republic to deal and was a menace to the solidity of Weimar.
Another immense problem that the Weimar Republic to deal with was political violence. The Weimar had a high level of political violence and murder. From 1918 to 1923 there were 376 political murders and 356 of them were carried out by right wing extremists. For example the assassination of Walter Rathenam. These murders were committed because that was what ring-wing Germans had resorted to in order to weaken the Weimar system. There was such a high level of violence because many of the political parties had paramilitary groups attached to them.
During 1918-23 many revolts were attempted including the ‘Kapp Putsch’. The right-wing Freikorps uprising lead by Dr Wolfgang Kapp was aiming to make him chancellor. He was a member of the Reistag and wanted restoration of the monarchy. In March 1920 when he and 5000 supporters marched on Berlin the army were asked to put them down. Not with standing General von Seeckt refused 'Reichswehr does not fire on Reichswehr'. This showed The Weimar as very weak as it had little military support. Nevertheless the ‘putsch’ collapsed and Kapp fled abroad when there was a general strike. People co operated because they did not want right wing extremists in charge of the country and thought they were dangerous and unpredictable. This was in Weimar’s favour because normally with a country in this state the majority of people look to extremists. Yet one thing The Weimar and the Freikorps had in common was their hate of the communists. So in January 1919 when the Spartacists a far left group of communists lead by Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebnecht tried to take over Berlin. They fought with the military to stop the revolution killing both of their leaders. Communists were a threat and Germans were scared of communism. In November 8th 1923 Hitler attempted a revolt in Munich ‘The Munich or Beer Hall Putsch’. It just resulted in Hitler and Lundendorff being arrested and jailed. They had left it too late because the financial crisis was coming to an end.
During 1918-23 the steadfastness of The Weimar Republic was threatened by many factors most of which had momentum and effected Weimar’s position. However the facts that Weimar still existed after 1923 shows that none of the threats in this time period were too severe. The survival of The Weimar Republic was down to Stresemann who introduced the new currency to stop hyper inflation and dealt with the invasion of the Ruhr.
