The Stability of the Politics of Weimar, Germany

The Stability of the Politics of Weimar, Germany

The problems of 1919-1923 had gone with the aid of American loans.

Weimar quickly found its economic feet for the first time in its

history. In 1928 Germany had returned to pre-1914 industrial figures.

An expanding job market, confidence restored in foreign investors and

house & factory building were all indications of Germany getting its

old strength back, and generally becoming more stable. Minority

political parties were quiet during this time. People were content

with the way Germany was being run, so why turn to extremist parties?

In fact the “Golden Age,” of Weimar seemed to indicate that extremist

parties only flourish in extreme circumstances. With similarities to

the apparent stability of the Weimar economy at this time, the

political situation seemed stable enough, but deeper probing can

deeply show the illusory factors of this argument.

Weimar politics at this time can be shown to support the argument for

stability. From 1924, there were no long any attempts at a coup to

overthrow the Republic like the Kapp Putsch (1920,) the Munich Putsch

(1923,) and the Spartacist uprising (1919.) The electoral parties on

the left and right, that were hostile to the Republic, seemed to be in

political decline, as shown by comparing the Reichstag election

results of May 1924, to May 1928, when the right wing DNVP declined

from 95 to 73 seats, the Nazi party declined from 32 to 12 seats, and

the communist KPD declined from 62 seats to 54. In fact those very

same elections show that the main democratic parties won the

elections. The SPD were up from 100 to 153, the DVP remained unaltered

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...th each one trying, failing, and then being

replaced with the next. No party had a clear majority like the SPD,

the biggest party by far, had anything near a majority, making a

coalition the only option, so in this unstable period, for years there

was a coalition which the biggest party was not actually in power.

There were no charismatic characters, or democratic periods, like

Hitler for the Nazis, to encourage an increase in democratic activity,

and political debate was non-existant. Politics was incredibly

unstable, which only really had significant implications that effected

the people in a major way, when the (lack of) political stability

caused Hitlers rise to and consolidation of power in 1933. In

conclusion whilst it seemed stable, like the economy, Weimar politics

was being set up for the horrors of the 30’s.