Why Did The Weimar Republic Face So Many Problems In The Years Of 1919-1923?

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Austin Harper

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Why Did The Weimar Republic Face So Many Problems In The Years Of 1919-1923?

The Weimar Republic was created in 1919 with the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The new government was the body that signed the Treaty of Versailles, and to many it was a betrayal and most Germans referred to it as the “stab in the back theory”. The consequences of Versailles, such as reparations and land loss, were severe to Germany, and many were looking for someone to blame, the government was the ideal scapegoat. Communists and the “right wing” saw an opportunity to create a state that they wanted and were prepared to challenge the new republic. Many richer Germans had lived well under the Kaiser and distrusted the new government. Considering all of these points, it would seem that the collapse of the republic was inevitable, but was that the case?

The Treaty Of Versailles, a peace treaty with the allies, meant ruthless terms for Weimar; compulsory military service was to be abolished, the army was to be reduced from 600 000 to 100 000, naval personnel not to exceed 15 000, a limit of twenty-four naval ships with no submarines, all military and naval aviation to be abandoned and all importation, exportation and production or war materials was to be stopped - thus resulting in Weimar having insufficient resources to keep order and defence and left many soldiers unemployed. Weimar was ordered to provide all countries that sustained damages from the allies during the war with compensation, both financially and in the form of trade goods - this compensation was known as ‘reparations’. There was also a loss of many German colonies; this meant the loss of many economic regions and negatively affected Weimar. However the clause that hit Germany the hardest and lead to other clauses, such as the reparations, was the war Guilt Clause. Germany was to be blamed for the war. This infuriated many Germans as many were under the impression that they were fighting a purely defensive war. The new government signed the Treaty of Versailles, and this treaty was causing great anguish. The people had no one to blame but the government, the majority of the country were angered, and it could be considered that with collective criticism, and perhaps some hatred, the new republic was doomed to fail.

From the start, the new Weimar government faced opposition and political violence from both the left and right wings. The political crisis was probably the most threatening problem Weimar had to face. There were two main left wing parties; the USPD (independent socialists), who were to an extent caught in the middle as their aim was an entirely socialist society and secondly the KPD (German communist party), an extreme revolutionary left wing breakaway group of the USPD. The KPD believed that Weimar had not gone far enough and were aiming to provoke a socialist revolution, taking inspiration from Bolshevik Russia. The KPD called them selves the Spartacists. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who wanted a new revolutionary to government to replace the existing Weimar one, led the KPD. They aimed to achieve this without violence. On 6th January 1919 radical left wing workers began an uprising in Berlin, this is known as the Spartacist Rising, although Liebknecht and Luxemburg felt it was to early for a revolution, they felt obliged to offer their support and go along with it. Chancellor Elbert of the Weimar Republic (the party now entirely ruling the country) had to put down the rising. He turned to an extreme right wing nationalist group of ex-soldiers know as the Freikorps for helping repressing the uprising. The Freikorps were heavily armed and renound for being violent and particularly nasty. It can be argued that this decision may have affected survival and could facilitated in the failure of the Weimar Republic. Weimar supposedly had a liberal and democratic government that was slightly leaning towards the left wing, but for some reason turned to the extreme right in this situation. There was three days of savage fighting before the rising was put down. The Freikorps rounded up all the leaders and brutally beat and murdered them, this included Luxemburg and Liebknecht. The way Weimar handled the Spartacist Uprising caused much resentment, even from people who had no Spartacist sympathies. The right wing was next to revolt to try and seize power. They posed much more of a threat to the Republic than left wing opposition, mainly due to the sheer numbers of right wing supporters. The main right wing parties were the DNVP (national party) and the NSDAP (Nazis) - they rejected the Republic and it’s principals, wanted to destroy the democratic constitution and was in support of a strict nationalist system, they also all believed in the “stab in the back” theory. In March 1920 the first right wing attempt took place, the Kapp Putsch. Dr Kapp and the Freikorps tried to take power in Berlin. They seized government buildings and the Weimar government were so afraid it left Berlin for Dresden. They called upon workers to join in a general strike. The unions organised a strike that stopped all gas transport etc. Without these essentials Kapp and his followers and to give up and flee. In November 1923 the second right wing revolt took place. This time it was the Nazis and was called the Munich putsch. Adolf Hitler was involved in this revolt as the leader. They were very angry at the embarrassing occupation of the Ruhr and the hyperinflation, which will be explained later. They first tried to take control of Bavaria. Then the aim was to over through the national government. At the time Hitler’s party was small, but he expected help from Kahr’s right wing government in Bavaria. On the night of 8th November Hitler, Ludendorff and 600 Stromtroopers interrupted a meeting in the Beer hall at which Kahr was speaking. Hitler took the leaders including Kahr into a side room and at gunpoint forced them to help with the putsch. Kahr tricked them pretending to help them but when they were left locked in the room Kahr escaped and informed the police. The next day the Nazis took control of key points in Bavaria, but because the army and police had already been alerted they blocked the Nazis route. They fired killing 16 inner core Nazis. Hitler escaped with a dislocated shoulder but was caught, as were the other leaders, and put on trail in 1924. He was only given 5 years and was let out after 5 months. His putsch failed because he didn’t have the support of the army and police. This revolt had the most devastating long-term affects for the Weimar. Even though it had been easily crushed and showed how little power the Nazis actually had, Hitler turned his trail into a public event and wrote his book “Mein Kampf” which gave Hitler time to express his feelings and think of how to tackle the government again, e.g. by voting not violence, put the Nazis on the international scene, gave the Nazis publicity, e.g. Hitler’s trail reached front covers and Hitler became a right wing hero. All of this led to Hitler having a short sentence when he should have been killed, getting out early helped Hitler to try and get rid of the Government while it was still unstable.

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The political instability was made worse by the financial implications of the Treaty of Versailles. By 1921, the level of reparations had been fixed to 132,000,000 gold marks. It was clearly evident that the weakened Germany would not be able to pay. By January 1923, the French were angered at Germany's poor payment record, and occupied the Ruhr region. The citizens of the Ruhr began to hate the French who were exploiting them, and so again needed someone to blame. They decided to blame the people who had agreed to pay reparations, the government. By November 1923, a situation of ...

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