When judging the defects of the constitution of the Weimar Republic we need to keep in mind that there were at least four fatal defects in the Weimar Constitution. All of them were used to destroy the Weimar Republic, but all of them could have been corrected.
Proportional Representation
First, there was this matter of proportional representation. It led directly to splitting and splintering of parties, since any party with a certain percentage of the popular vote could get some representatives into the Reichstag. It also produced a stalwart group of delegates who usually adhered to party discipline and resisted reasonable compromises. It further prevented the formation of local combinations, which might have resulted in stronger candidates.
Election of the President
Second, there was the election of the president by popular vote. This may be a debatable question, but Hindenburg, who opened the final door to Hitler, would not even have been elected if the president had been chosen by the two houses as in France. It would have given the whole structure a more genuinely parliamentary character. Since the final decisions that assured the demise of the Republic were made by a handful of disreputable characters surrounding the senile president, a parliamentary selection might have produced stronger and wiser presidents.
Allocation of presidential powers
Third, there was a definite defect in the allocation of presidential powers. The powers were not carefully limited. A chancellor could be dismissed even before he was defeated in the Reichstag by a vote of no confidence. A chancellor could also be appointed by the president, even if he had no chance of getting the support of the Reichstag. He could thus sign decrees dissolving the Reichstag and rule by decree in its absence. The constitution provided no minimal guarantees for the control add limitation of police powers in such cases.
Under a democratic president there would have been no opportunity for a "sliding revolution" under legalistic disguise. Moreover if presidential rights had been limited, Hindenburg could not have dismissed Brüning in 1932. Nor could he have appointed Papen or dissolved the Reichstag with the latter's futile counter-signature, or removed the Prussian ministers, or suspended individual rights without limitation. Up to April 1932, the first and second defect (proportional representation and popular election of the president) existed only in theory. Besides, the 2/3 votes necessary to amend the constitution would have been difficult to get in the Reichstag. To change proportional representation it would have been necessary to persuade 2/3 of the Reichstag deputies that they were incompetent! Two attemptsin 1924 and 1930were made to change proportional representation by enlarging the number of election districts and limiting candidacies. But both attempts failed because the rank and file party members opposed them. Politicians do not easily submit to self-denial.
The Federal System
A fourth shortcoming was the peculiarity of the federal system. Prussia was so large that it literally functioned as another central government, instead of a regional one. There was almost continuous friction between the two cabinets, both housed in Berlin. Part of the cause for the friction was that Prussia remained more democratic throughout the Weimar period. Overall the distribution of power between the federal government and the states was not satisfactory. Such things as public works and unemployment insurance brought the national government into immediate contact with the municipalities. This left the relations of federal, state, and local authorities in a precarious condition. An attempt was made in 1928 to ameliorate the Reich-Prussian dualism by increasing national jurisdiction over Prussian provinces and regionalizing them. But this effort failed when Brüning was dismissed. So, this issue like many others was left for Hitler to resolve. Hitler, of course, corrected all these defects by simply regarding the whole constitution and republic itself as a national defect and disgrace. But he might not have been able to do that if these relatively minor flaws in the constitutional fabric had been mended early enough.
After analysing the Weimar Constitution we now need to assess the classification of the drawbacks of the constitution. Weimar parties had no experience of parliamentary government. Coalitions were usually broad based and so an agreement in the parliament was difficult to achieve and these difficulties led to the more frequent use of the article 48 in the constitution. As the civil service was made up of the employees of the Second Reich and they had no experience (nor desire maybe) to serve a parliamentary government. These were all the fatal flaws in the constitution. When we intend to detect those instances when the constitution was manipulated by enemies of the republic we must at first look at the pre-republic SPD withdrew from the government in 1923-28 meaning that anti-republic DNVP came into the coalition. The Article 48 was used by Hindenburg to support Bruning, Papen, Schleicher, and Hitler which were most probably the sources of the ultimate destruction of the republic. State administrations like Bavaria became centres for right wing anti-republicans who were supported by the judiciary. The recognition of unions and quite a large number of promises made by the government concerned with welfare provisions worried the elites.
Thus we see that although the Weimar Republic had all the necessary components for democracy often this fact was only on paper. However, the all-important balance between them was potentially flawed, in ways which could not have been apparent to the jurists who framed the constitution and the politicians who amended it. Part of the pressure which distorted this balance came from internal malfunctions, and the rest from right wing influences which exploited the imbalances and used the democratic constitution to destroy constitutional democracy in Germany and their continual efforts ultimately led to the destruction of the Weimar Republic.
