The Flaws of the Weimar Constitution
The majority of people believe that it was the Weimar constitution
which was fundamentally flawed and that this damaged the long term
prospects of the Weimar republic, although strong points can be
identified in the constitution which support the argument that the
constitution wasn't to blame for the republics downfall. From this
some historians have determined that the role of the constitution in
the downfall of the republic is exaggerated.
There were a wide variety of things that played a part in the collapse
of the republic; one of these was the problems linked with
proportional representation. There were two main problems with
proportional representation the first is that in this kind of
electoral system its much easier for extremist groups to gain seats in
the Reichstag. In the first past the post system a certain number of
votes does not guarantee a party representation in the Reichstag. This
means that there is a limited number of parties in the Reichstag,
making it easier to gain an overall majority thus meaning fewer
coalition governments and a more stable power base. During the Weimar
era the exact opposite to this happened. For example Weimar was on its
seventh government by 1923 and coalitions were continually being
broken up and parties leaving the government. This caused disruption
and unrest and made the running of the country difficult for the next
government. Another important point that historians like to make is
that coalition governments have worked well before in different
circumstances and cultures. Other arguments suggest that proportional
representation encouraged spl...
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...rather than making the changes necessary to sure up the economy.
Increased inflation over the years did nothing to reinstate the
people's faith in democracy.
The main reason the constitution failed was not because the document
itself was flawed but because the German people were not ready or
prepared to make such a sudden change from autocracy to democracy.
Other reasons were that people like Hitler were able to take
advantages of loopholes such as article 48, but this again wasn't the
fault of the constitution more the people who had put Hitler in the
position of chancellor. The constitution was not truly flawed because
it is likely that the same constitution would have worked well under
different circumstances, but the other factors involved in Germany at
this time made it impossible for it to operate successfully.
The German Weimar Republic was an attempt to make Germany a more democratic state. While this was a very good idea in theory, the Weimar Republic was ineffective due to the instability that came with it. Several factors contributed to the instability of Germany’s Weimar Republic, such as the new political ideals brought forward and the government’s hunger for war. To begin, one of the factors that contributed to the instability of the Weimar republic was the presence of new political ideals. Marie Juchacz unintentionally highlighted that reason in her speech to the National Assembly.
There could have been a return to parliamentary Party politics. There were some signs to show that democracy may have been revived. During the continuous utilisation of Article 48 to govern, the Reichstag gave their vote of no confidence in challenging the executive use of it. Also, a section of the public appeared to still support the Republic; the Centre Party and SPD continued to have steady support until 1932. However, it seems that any chances of democracy were ruled out. The political Parties were still inclined to pursue their own political interests when a united, broad and moderate front was needed. Two moderate Parties even defected to Hitler after the offensive from the right and Hindenburg made little effort to restore the influence of the Reichstag.
The Posing of Threats by the Political Right to the Weimar Republic in the Years 1919-25
The Left and Right at the Birth of Weimar Germany From the general chaos and unrest that followed the Kiel Mutiny in late 1918, the centre-left emerged to lead Germany into a new era of democracy. Philipp Scheidemann, a key figure in the moderate SDP, declared a Democratic Socialist Republic from a balcony in Berlin on 9th November 1918. However, the whole of Germany was not behind him, since simultaneously, and from a different Berlin balcony, Karl Liebknecht, leader of the communist Spartacists (KPD), declared a Soviet Republic.
One of the main reasons that it was deeply flawed because it didn’t focus on what people had as an individual rights and liberties. What the Constitution focused on was what the government couldn’t do to the people but not what the people are allowed to do. As they noticed what was the weakness of the constitution the
loans in 1920 would easily be able to pay these off now - leaving them
The consequence of this was that it brought a number of parties together with the help of another key feature of the constitution, the “Bill of Rights”. This meant that parties could express their views, as the “Bill of Rights” was a law that gave people the freedom of speech. This union made representation of many opposing parties very open, which effectively made the Weimar constitution more democratic. However P.R made it difficult for a lot of parties to gain a majority of seats in the Reichstag, which made it harder for one major party to take control of the country.
The delegates working on the constitution new that they needed a stronger document, because the articles proved too weak, but it still needed to please all of the states. This was impossible. So what ended up happening was the new ducocument became more and more vague. The only way to create a document that would pass was to make a document which didn’t really solve any problems but make each state believe that there problems would be fixed. This was accomplished by making it so that it was too vague to offend anybody but you could read into it. This made for a document that would be seriously flawed because people would be able to read into it too much. It could not work.
Richard Bessel’s article stresses the political structure of Weimar Germany as the cause of its failure. Its structure was flawed in numerous ways, all of which contributed to its inevitable failure. First of all, the problems within Germany due to the First World War were massive. This caused economic, political and social problems which first had to be dealt with by the new Weimar government. The loss of the war had left Germany with huge reparations to pay, and massive destruction to repair. In order to gain the capital needed to finance efforts to rebuild, and repay the Allies, the economy had to be brought back to its prewar levels. This was not an easy task.
The legislative, executive, and judicial branches represent the constitutional infrastructure foreseen by the Founding Fathers for our nation 's governing body. Together, they work to maintain a system of lawmaking and administration based on checks and balances, and separation of powers intended to make certain that no individual or embodiment of government ever becomes too controlling. America is governed by a democratic government or a democracy which is a government by the people, in which the power is established in the people themselves. The people then elect representatives who carry out their power in a free electoral system. The United States government’s basic claim is to serve the people and only through a combined effort can we
Not only did it give far too much representation to small and often politically extreme parties, but it aslo created too much of a political schism within the Reichstag, which made it very difficult for it to work together in order for it to pass laws (hence why Ebert used Article 48 so many times.) Although a far more democratic electoral system than, for example, the United Kingdom’s First-Past-The-Post system, the use of proportional representation meant that the parties that were elected by the people were not actully able to work for the betterment of their voters, because of thedisjointed and fragile poltical climate of the
Also the Freikorps methods were very harsh and many Germans saw that this was wrong and wasn’t democratic to which the Government was aiming to make Germany as.
...After we consider all these points mentioned we begin to see how everything worked and connected to form one huge disaster for Germany. We start to see how all these things played a part, the reparations led to unemployment that led to no money that led to overprinting of money. How the huge consequence of the reparations led to the unsuccessful paying of it leading to the French invasion of the Ruhr which led to strikes and therefore no products to trade with. How the unstable Weimar government led to extremist parties that damaged the economy further and brought inflation to its highest. The effects were probably the worst, the starvation coupled with the disease epidemic that killed people off and the worthless tonnes of paper notes roaming around the nation. It all in all was a very bad time in Germany one that they always found it hard to recover from.
German people were unused to a democracy and blamed the government “November criminals”, for signing the Treaty of Versailles. From the very beginning, the new Weimar government faced opposition from both sides of the political spectrum. The Left wing Spartacist group, lead by Liebknecht and Luxemburg, looked up to the new Soviet councils in Russia, wanted to place Germany into a similar system.
I think that the Weimar Republic was doomed from the beginning as sooner or later someone who was against the system was going to become President and then they could destroy the system. Also, I think with the extremely large range of political views in Germany at the time meant that no one could please everyone.