The Weimar republic was doomed from the start. Discuss.

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The Weimar republic was doomed from the start because of civilian resentment with the government, a flawed constitution that contained loopholes, the system of proportional representation, economic instability.

After the treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, german  civilians were upset because Germany had admitted defeat and been forced to pay overwhelmingly expensive reparation payments to the allies. They felt betrayed by the democrats and November traitors who had signed the treaty of Versailles, associated with dishonor. The Weimar Republic also ended the military’s rule of the country, and placed the power in the people. Civilians were upset with this because they had great admiration for the military. Historian Hannah Vogt said that the men were to pick up the reins of government faced a tremendous, thankless task, exemplifying that the new leaders of Weimar were facing enormous civilian resentment towards the gov.

The Weimar constitution was inherently flawed and led to the overall failure of the Weimar republic; because of loopholes in the constitution (article 48) right wing fascists (hitler) were able to come to power. The constitution was set up to create a democratic republic that gave rights to the people, treated men and women equally, and religious freedom. Article 48, however was a huge loophole. According to this article, the reich president may go against everything the constitution forbids, including using armed forces, suspend fundamental rights, and dissolve the Reichstag if Germany’s public safety and order are disturbed. The main problem is that he can determine what is a threat to public safety and rder. In other words, the reich president could declare emergency and dissolve the whole government so that whatever he said went. Historian Richard evans argues that the sufferings of german people and the instability in the government magnified the constitution's faults faults many times over. This loophole doomed Weimar from the start because the leader of Germany could turn the state into authoritarian state with little effort.

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Proportional representation, which was included in the constitution, also led to weimar’s failure. The german Reichstag was made up of elected citizens and these citizens voted on which political party they wanted to control the government. The percentage of votes political parties got was equivalent to the amount of seats in the Reichstag they got. One political party needed a majority (51% of the votes) to maintain power. There were so many political parties that they had to create coallitons – which is when two political parties joined together in order to get a majority. The problem with this is ...

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