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At the end of the First World War, after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm, Germany’s Social Democrat Party (SPD) set up a new democratic government in the town of Weimar, which soon became known as the Weimar Republic. Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the SPD, was elected president of the new republic. The history of Germany from 1919 to 1933 can be divided into three phases. During the first period (1919-1923), the Weimar Republic faced great difficulties, including left-wing and right-wing rebellions and terrorism, invasion and inflation, and the Munich Putsch. In the second phase (1923-1929), after Gustav Stresemann became Chancellor, the Republic did well and bloomed in its economic prosperity, foreign policy successes, and cultural flowering. However, in the last period (1929-1933), after the Wall Street Crash, the Republic collapsed and the Nazi party grew more powerful, clearing the way for Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 when he became chancellor. The question to be discussed is why the Weimar Republic collapsed, if the Weimar Republic collapsed due to the abandonment of democracy by right wing-conservatives such as Hindenburg and Bruning and the Nazi Party or if the Weimar Constitution was doomed from the beginning due to its internal weakness and due to the Treaty of Versailles.
On one hand, the Weimar Constitution was doomed from the beginning due to the internal weakness and instability of the new government. The government was made up of a president, a chancellor, and a parliament known as the Reichstag. The term of the president lasted seven years, and all his orders had to be approved by the chancellor and a Reich minister. However, Article 48 allowed the president to set aside civil rights and pass orders and laws independently in an emergency. Moreover, two legislative bodies, the Reichstag and the Reichsrat, were formed to represent the German people. They were elected every four years by all men and women over the age of 20. The recognition of fundamental rights, such as personal freedom and freedom of speech and of assembling and forming societies or trade unions, as well as the right to private property and free state-run public education, was seen as a strength of the new Weimar Constitution. However, proportional representation, which enabled each party to obtain the same percentage of seats in parliament as the percentage of votes it received, was seen as a weakness as it meant that there were a lot of small parties and coalition governments, which were weak, unstable and short-lived governments that led to frequent elections, disorganization, and a lack of decisive action. Moreover, Article 48, allowing the abandonment of unalienable rights, was bound to be misused by future leaders and would potentially allow a dictatorship to be established, which led to the end of the Weimar Republic.
Similarly, the Treaty of Versailles destabilized the Weimar Republic, which eventually led to its downfall. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28th, 1919, at the Palace of Versailles in France. The Treaty ended World War I and outlined the conditions between Germany and the Allied Powers – Britain, France, and the USA. Germany was not invited to the conference and was later forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles when the Allies threatened to invade. Germany had to accept full responsibility for starting World War I and faced multiple terms, including territorial losses, military clauses, reparations, and the exclusion from the League of Nations, which was a general association of nations with the goal of maintaining global peace through diplomacy instead of war. Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France and Poland was restored as an independent nation, leading to Germany’s division. Furthermore, Germany surrendered its colonies, which were distributed among the Allies as ‘mandates’. The unification between Germany and Austria was also forbidden, and the Saar Basin, which was a coal-producing region in Germany, was given to the League of Nations for 15 years. Lastly, Danzig, a city in the Polish Corridor, was administered by the League of Nations and acted as a ‘free’ city where any nation could unload goods into the European market. Similarly, military clauses destabilized Germany. The Rhineland area on the French border became a permanently demilitarized zone and the Allied armies occupied the west bank of the Rhine for 15 years. In addition, there were several military restrictions where conscription was forbidden and the German army was limited to 100,000 men who had to serve for 12 years, which led to no one wanting to volunteer. Furthermore, the German navy and air force were restricted in size, and the production of submarines, planes, and tanks was forbidden. The German fleet also surrendered to Great Britain, and Germany gave up all its merchant ships to the Allies in compensation for Allied shipping losses during the war. Additionally, Germany was forced to pay the Allies 6.6 billion pounds in gold, which corresponds to 33 billion American dollars, to pay for the damage caused by the war. This proves that the Treaty of Versailles destabilized the Weimar Republic with harsh penalties that resulted in economic distress and political uprisings, which eventually caused its downfall.
On the other hand, one can argue that the Weimar Republic collapsed due to the abandonment of democracy by right-wing conservatives who favored a ‘vaguely conceived authoritarian state’. After Ebert’s death in 1925, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg was elected the second president of Germany, which can be seen as a disaster for the democratic prospects of the Weimar Republic. The destructive influence of Weimar’s political dispersion and lack of validity made itself felt here, as the right only elected Hindenburg due to his mostly undeserved military destiny and his wish for the restoration of the old monarchy, as he believed that the old monarchical order was the only legitimate sovereign power in Germany. Furthermore, Hindenburg often made use of Article 48 and established a conservative dictatorship in his name, which was a big step away from Weimar’s democracy. In 1930, in times of economic depression, he appointed a cabinet only accountable to him and forced Chancellor Heinrich Bruning to dissolve the Reichstag, which had been fundamentally democratic and allowed a multiplicity of voices and opinions. Additionally, new elections were held and resulted in the National Socialists emerging as the second-largest party. Bruning’s deflationist policies exasperated the economic issues and unrest mounted, fueled by the Nazis. Accordingly, Hindenburg’s presidency can be seen as an unmitigated disaster for Weimar’s democracy as he felt the need for a conservative dictatorship, which led to the abandonment of the Reichstag, which had been a vital organ of the Weimar Republic.
In conclusion, the Weimar Constitution was doomed from the beginning with small parties and coalition governments, which were weak, unstable, and short-lived governments that led to frequent elections and disorganization. Similarly, Article 48, which allowed the president to set aside civil rights and pass orders and laws independently in an emergency, was bound to be misused by leaders, such as Hindenburg and Bruning, who had no faith in democratic institutions and no intention of defending them from their enemies and, therefore, established a conservative dictatorship, which paved the way for uprisings fueled by the Nazis, which led to Hitler being appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933. This proves that the Weimar Republic encountered endless problems from the start, which naturally contributed to the atmosphere of doom and led to the collapse of the Republic.
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