The Problems Germany Faced from 1918 to 1923

The Problems Germany Faced from 1918 to 1923

The Weimar Republic was a democratic government that ran Germany when

the Kaiser abdicated in November 1918. However running the country in

the turbulent post war times was far from plain sailing, they had to

deal with threats from left wing and right wing factions, the burden

of the Versailles treaty and hyperinflation. Weimar survived these

crises - but why was it able to? By the end of 1923 the worst was over

for them. They had overcome all of these different areas of disaster,

and having survived such turbulence as they had, it looked as though

the Weimar democracy had a chance of taking root. However, there were

several reasons for its survival; some of these reasons were indeed

due to the strengths of the Weimar democracy, whereas some were due to

the weakness of its opposition in allowing it to survive. The

extremist force from both the Left and Right failed to attract much

support and were both divided and disorganised. And although many

of the army and elite were not committed to democracy, they were not

yet prepared to overthrow it as they feared this could lead to greater

chaos for themselves and their country. President Ebert used article

48, as intended to take firm action against the regime, and Stresemann

tackled hyperinflation and the payment of reparations rather well.

Constantly after the break up of the war the Government had to stop

attempts from political groups from seizing power. There were many

attempts from left wing groups to get what they wanted - the workers

striked, there was a communist inspired Sparticist rising which tried

to bring about a revolution. The ...

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...easily corruptible, the people were discontent and

angry, but yet this wasn't enough to topple the government. It appears

that as soon as a radical group such as the Nazi’s who were wiling to

act on the government came along that could divert them away from the

Weimar government they accepted it and used it to overthrow them. In

my opinion the Weimar Republic would have served better in later years

when it hit yet another crisis as evidence of Weimar's incompetence

but considering the time period in question, the conditions were not

dire enough for the majority to vote for the extremes and so this is

why the government survived. In other words, Weimar Germany did not

survive 1918-1923 because it was strong, but rather because the

threats to its survival were too weak to overthrow them, they had

virtually no opposition!