The Weimar Republic (1918–1933) of Germany was established as the new liberal constitutional monarchy after World War I (1914–1918) to replace the German Empire (1871–1918), and it fulfilled the wishes and demands of multiple groups—including the German people, the Allied Powers, and the German military class. However, this system of democracy was not the success it was expected to be, mainly because the republic’s development required a stable international context, which wasn’t available due to the fluctuating world economy and paradigm shifts in European and world politics that arose with the aftermath of the war. Robert Roswell Palmer—in A History Of The Modern World—says that the Weimar Republic “arose because the victorious enemy demanded it, because the German people craved peace, because they wished to avoid forcible revolution, and because the old German military class, to save its face and its future strength, wished at least temporarily to be excused” (Palmer, 680). These demands—which had broader goals and visions for the new settlement—were brought together into one consolidated vision.
The fall of the Weimar Republic was proof that the state’s political instability and the conflicts that resulted from it also endangered and negatively affected the stability of the settlement itself. The republic was a sudden change for Germany and a stark contrast from the system of government that presided over the nation before World War I. The German Empire—the imperial state that existed from the time of Germany’s unification in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941) in 1918—was a federal monarchy, whereas the Weimar Republic was a representative democracy. Although the German Empire was “the strongest and most obvious of the new structures which armed power had reared” (Palmer, 657), it eventually collapsed due to the events and turnout of World War I as well as the decline in authority as demonstrated by the incompetent leadership of Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856–1921).
Because of the conflicts between the various political groups—the Communists and Social Democrats on the left; the Democratic party, the Catholic Center Party, and the People’s Party in the center; and the German Nationalist Party and the National Socialist Party (the group that would later form the Nazis) on the right—after the war, different parties at the time had different goals and visions for what the new settlement would look like, and the Weimar Republic emerged as the most convenient compromise that allowed the war to end and a new German state to emerge. Liberals, democrats, and socialists had been demanding peace and democratization for the German Empire towards the end of the war, and General Erich Ludendorff (1865–1937) realized that “the German cause was hopeless” and he hoped that “a new government be formed in Berlin, reflecting the majority in the Reichstag, on democratic parliamentary principles” (Palmer, 680). This epiphany led to the calling for immediate peace negotiations, which Ludendorff and his associates hoped would provide them with more time to regroup and launch another offensive on the Allies (Palmer, 680). Later, Prince Maximilian of Baden (1867–1929) led a cabinet that ended the Bismarckian alliance system and eventually got Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate the throne. Palmer, in discussing the founding of the republic that followed his abdication, wrote, “The fall of the empire in Germany, with the consequent adoption of the republic, did not arise from any basic discontent, deep revolutionary action, or change of sentiment in the German people. It was an episode of the war” (Palmer, 680).
Returning to Palmer’s explanation of the republic’s founding, we can see that it was actually a compromise between the people, the Allied Powers, the military, and both the old and new systems of government. With all these groups and political views involved, there was no easy solution that could cater to everyone’s wants and needs. The Weimar Republic obviously did not end up how it was intended to be and resulted in a collapse, but it was a huge step for Germany since a new type of government was established for the first time. However, as much of a step Germany’s democratization, the Weimar Republic ultimately failed—which was representative of the tenuousness that many post-war democracies possessed because of the instability created after the war.
The Treaty of Versailles presented at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 prescribed agreements that Germany would have to fulfill as the aggressor (and loser) in the war. These agreements included accepting the war guilt clause and paying for all of the losses and damages sustained by other nations involved in World War I. However, if Germany were to pay off these debts adding to 132 billion marks, the international economy and its balance would be thrown off; the failure of the Allies to recognize that the international market could become unstable suggests that the victorious parties only cared about getting their money and was either negligent of this possibility or didn’t care about international stability (Palmer, 690). Germany, trying to make reparations, offered to send their people to make repairs and rebuild nations, but the Allied Powers insisted on receiving monetary payments because they wanted to keep jobs in their country for their citizens (Palmer, 690). “The Treaty of Versailles was designed to put an end to the German menace,” Palmer writes. “It was not a successful treaty.” (Palmer, 693) From what Palmer wrote about the terms and drafting of the treaty, it can be inferred that no nation intended to follow the terms set forth, and no one really expected Germany to fully live up to the consequences (Palmer, 693). This shows the redundancy and uselessness of the treaty; it was simply an agreement to end the war, and the terms and conditions it set forth for Germany were just meant to weaken them—which the French especially wanted.
Although Germany did not pay off their debts completely, they still ended up in an economic crisis that directly led to the fall of the Weimar Republic. Between 1921 and 1923, a hyperinflation of the German Papiermark (the currency of the Weimar Republic) created significant economic and political instability throughout the nation. This phenomenon started mainly because of Germany’s failure to fulfill one of their payments, which resulted in the occupation of the Ruhr industrial area by France and Belgium in 1923 and created a “disabling effect” on the German economy. The United States, an Allied Power that had little interest in collecting reparations from Germany, decided that they would help Germany with their financial struggles so that they could secure a payment of over $10 billion from the Allies, which they had loaned to the European forces over the course of World War I. The Dawes Plan was proposed in 1923 by the Reparation Commission of the United States. Led by Charles G. Dawes, the team offered the plan as a solution to Germany’s economic hardships. Over the next few years, American banks made significant efforts to loan the Germans money so that they could pay off their debts to the Allies, and in return, America would get their repayment.
The Great Depression of 1929, one of the most important events of American history, had an unimaginable impact on Germany’s economy. The nation, reliant on loans from the United States, was suddenly cut short of the money they needed to pay off their debts. To make matters even worse, the United States pressed Britain and France to pay off their own debts, who then pressured Germany into paying off their debts to them. This chain of events ultimately caused an economic depression that affected the international market. According to The Holocaust Encyclopedia provided by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “[t]he German government faced the classic dilemma: cut government spending in an attempt to balance the budget or increase it in an attempt to jumpstart the economy.” Chancellor of the Weimar Republic at the time, Heinrich Brüning (1885–1970) decided to go with the first option, which was “the deeply unpopular option.” This decision marked one of the many turning points in the quick collapse of the Weimar Empire.
Only fifteen years after its founding, the Weimar Republic fell due to its many economic hardships and political struggles. Was this collapse inevitable, or was it merely a result of the conditions that emerged after the war? From the perspective of someone from the 21st-century, it seems as though the Nazi events and Holocaust that followed the collapse of the Weimar Republic could not have been avoided. It seems that the National Socialist German Workers’ Party would have gained traction at some point in time whether or not the Weimar Republic existed. With the republic in place, it made it easier for the party to take advantage of the failures and struggles of the settlement; however, without the republic, the German economy was still bound to lose stability after a while because of the reparations they were forced to pay. It can be concluded, therefore, that the Weimar Republic was a catalyst for the process of transitioning from a strong pre-war empire to a modernized post-war nation.
Less than two decades after World War I and the founding of Germany’s new Weimar Republic, Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) seized power in the German government as the new chancellor by taking advantage of the economic and political confusion that resulted from the Great Depression and international economic depression. It could be argued that if the German settlement had not been such a failure, Hitler’s regime would not have been able to gain as much popularity as it did; the Nazis were so popular because they were able to appeal to all groups and appeared to have solutions for all of Germany’s problems (“Nazi Rise to Power”). According to an article on BBC about the rise of the Nazis, the party appealed to each of the groups by proposing different solutions: (a) the Socialists were promised that farmers would be given their land, pensions would improve, and public industries would be owned by the states; (b) the Nationalists were assured that all German-speaking people would be unified under one state, the Treaty of Versailles would be abandoned, and there would be new, special laws for foreigners; (c) racists were guaranteed that immigration would be discontinued and Jews would not be granted German citizenship; (d) fascists were told that a strong central government would hold power and newspapers would be controlled; (e) the middle class was promised remilitarization and business contracts as well as protection from communists; and (f) the lower class and unemployed were assured that more jobs would become available and wages would be increased. Hitler, an experienced speaker, knew exactly how to act and what to say to the Germans to persuade them that the Nazis could solve their problems. With Hitler’s appointment to the position in 1933, the events of World War II were set in motion, and the world would change forever.
As we can see in this case study of the Weimar Republic and its economics and political systems, democracy was not as successful as it should have been, in part because the Weimar Republic lacked international and domestic stability. For a nation to implement a completely new system of government, they need to grow and develop in an environment where they aren’t paying off debts and suddenly being forced to democratize. World War I, having enormous impacts on the economies and politics of multiple nations, created an unstable setting that would lead to devastating events like the Great Depression, and this instability was one of the main factors in the collapse of the Weimar Republic. Although Germany’s democratization and implementation of the federal monarchy contributed greatly to democracy as a whole, there were too many negative impacts and events that reversed its successes and set back the progress that had been made.
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