The Weimar Republic

The Establishment of the Weimar Republic

Elections were held for a national assembly on 19th January 1919. There was no real change into nature of the parties. Most of the electorate supported parties that were in favour of the republic. These were the SPD, the DDP and the Centre. These parties formed the new government and established the "Weimar coalition".

The major political parties of the Weimar Republic were:

DDP Deutsche Demokratishe Partei. This was a Liberal party that was supported by the professional middle classes, but nonetheless promoted some nationalist ideas.

ZP Zentrumspartei. Centre Party. This was the political party of Catholicism.

BVP Bayerishe Volkspartei. Bavarian People's party. Another Catholic party with strong support in Bavaria.

DVP Deutsche Volkspartei. German People's party. A conservative and monarchist party founded by Stresemann. The party was initially opposed to the Republic, but under Stresemann's influence the party became supportive of parliamentary democracy.

DNVP Duetschenationale Volkspartei. German National People's party. Monarchist, right-wing, and anti-Republican, supported by heavy industry and landowners.

NSDAP Nationalesozialistische Partei Deutschlands. A very right-wing, and anti-semitic party, established in 1919.

SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands. A moderate socialist party supported by the working class and trade unions, and in favour of parliamentary democracy.

USPD Unabhümgige Socialdemokratishe Partei Deutschlands. Independent German Social Democratic party. A splinter movement of the SPD formed in April 1917 with more left-wing radical views. Members either joined the KPD by 1922 or returned to the SPD.

KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands. The German Communist Party formed by the Spartakists in December 1918.

The Weimar constitution

Some historians identify three weaknesses in the Weimar constitution: firstly, the effects of proportional representation; secondly, the ill-defined relationship between the president and the Reichstag; thirdly, the continued existence of right-wing dominance in society and the economy.

However, it is arguable that it was not these weaknesses in the Weimar constitution that brought about its collapse and the rise of Nazism, for the development of political extremism was too great for any constitution to contain.

The Right-wing and Liberal parties in 1919 were afraid of parliamentary supremacy. Consequently they supported the creation of strong presidential powers. The president was intended to act as a counter balance to the power of the Reichstag. There would be elections for president every seven years, and the president was the supreme commander of the Armed Forces, and would have the power to call-up and dismiss government. Thus the power of the president amounted to that of the Kaiser during the Empire. Consequently, there was conflict in the constitution right from the beginning between the power of the Reichstag and of the power of the president — the situation was ambiguous. In article 48 of the constitution the president was given the power to suspend civil rights in an emergency, and to issue presidential decrees.

There is a debate over the extent to which the powers of the president were instrumental in bringing Hitler to power.

A new constitution kept the civil service, the judiciary and the education system of the old Kaiserreich, and these became bastions of reactionary forces within the republic. However, it is possible to argue that the new constitution represented an improvement upon the authoritarian regime of the Kaiserreich.

Economic and Social Crisis 1919 - 23

The draft Peace treaty was handed to the Germans on the seventh of May 1919. This Treaty of Versailles was perceived by the Germans as a diktat, and was thought by them to be inconsistent with the 14 points of President Wilson, which the Germans believed was the basis of the Armistice. Germans resented the exclusion from the German territorial boundaries of Austria, Danzig, Posen, West Prussia, Memel, and Upper Silesia. The Sudentenland and the Saar were also excluded from full German integration. The level of reparations was not established, and Germany was not allowed to join the League of Nations, although it was expected to be bound by its rulings. Germany was prohibited from having any kind of air force, its Navy was to be limited, and its army was allowed only defensive capability.

However, whilst this appears to make the Treaty of Versailles very severe in its treatment of Germany, modern historians are not as critical of the negotiators at Versailles as inter-war (notably German) historians were, and they accept that the conditions at the time made a treaty that was not anti-German impossible. The treaty was a compromise between Wilson's 14 points on the one hand and demands for severe penalties to be imposed on Germany on the other. If the Treaty of Versailles is compared to that of Brest-Litovsk then the Treaty of Versailles appears moderate. It is now debated whether Versailles prevented the development of stability within Weimar Germany. In fact the collapse of Russia, Austria Hungary and Turkey gave Germany the opportunity in 1919 to establish a strong position within Central and Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, German people really believed that it was the Treaty of Versailles that caused the country's problems.

Germany's economy was disrupted by reparations payments and the loss of important industrial regions. Nonetheless, the real causes of Germany's economic crisis were deficit financing, and the resulting expansion of the money supply. In 1923 Germany experienced hyper-inflation. By 1923 prices had risen nearly one trillion times from their base in 1913.

Hyper inflation was principally caused by the deficit in government financing, deepened by the onset of the 1914 war. Germany's defeat meant that there was a huge debt to pay. To correct the situation it would be necessary to raise taxes and cut expenditure, but neither was possible in 1919 and the new government continued with deficit financing. The reparations commission decided on reparations of £6.6 billion (132 billion gold marks). In response the government increased its deficit financing, and there was a collapse of the value of the mark on foreign exchanges. In early 1922 Germany was allowed to postpone its reparations payments. There was a conference at Genoa, but it failed to achieve anything, and Germany requested further postponement of reparations in July 1922. The French, led by Poincaré, wanted full payment, and declared Germany in default, and French and Belgian troops occupied the Rhur. The German government advocated "passive resistance". At government insistence, German workers refused to co-operate with French officials. But supplies of coal to Germany were prevented. During 1923 hyper-inflation accelerated, and Germany reverted to bartering. In September 1923 Stresemann formed a New coalition.

The hyper-inflation redistributed income and wealth. Those people who did well were those who could pay off their debts using the worthless currency. Businessmen, landowners and home owners benefited. One particular winner was Hugo Stinnes, who by 1923 owned 20% of German industry. Those people who suffered were people with savings and who had extended credit, whose investments became worthless. People on fixed incomes and welfare, such as students, the old and the sick, suffered greatly. Most shopkeepers and craftsmen benefited. It is not clear that white-collar workers and public employees did suffer. It is very difficult to arrive at a clear picture of what happened.

Holtfrerich maintains that the Weimar policy of deficit financing was successful up to 1922 in maintaining Germany's growth. Unemployment was only 1.8% in 1921, and compares favourably with Britain's 17% at that time. The opposed view is that there is no distinction between "good inflation" and "bad inflation" as spurious. Inflation in 1923 caused very real suffering for German people. Society was disrupted, with an increase in crime and prostitution. The hyper-inflation of 1923 left a scar in Germany that the Weimar Republic was not able to overcome.

The left in Germany was split. The SPD supported parliamentary democracy. The KPD supported proletarian revolution, and took its orders from Russia. The USPD was more radical than the SPD, but favoured parliamentary democracy. The extreme left regarded parliamentary democracy as a "bourgeois compromise". The moderate and extreme left could not achieve any kind of rapprochement. Thus the belief at the time that the left posed a threat to the Weimar Republic was exaggerated. The left was not capable of attacking the Weimar democracy, though the Bavaria Soviet republic of 1919 made it seem that it might do so.

The right wing, on the other hand, agreed in its opposition to the Weimar Republic and constitution. It promoted the "stab-in-the-back" myth that the German army was never defeated. The Jews, Democrats, Socialists and pacifists were each in turn scapegoated and blamed for the peace.

There was an increase in nationalism. For example, the DNVP was very nationalist in sentiment, and embraced nationalist pressure groups such as the Fatherland Party and the Pan-German League. The strength of nationalism at this time is reflected by the fact that the DNVP were able to poll 15.1 per cent in the 1920 election. Bavaria became a particular region of nationalist support, and many nationalist groups were based there. After the mid- 1920s, Hitler succeeded in fusing these different groups into a single party — the NSDAP.

The brutal nationalist mentality that infected the German psyche after the war is demonstrated by the existence of the para-military Freikorps units. Two Republican politicians, Erzberger and Rathenau, were assassinated by one of the Freikorps units — a gang who called themselves the "organisation consul". In 1920 there was an attempted putsch led by Wolfgang Kapp & General Lüttwitz. Kapp was a retired Prussian civil servant, instrumental in the establishment of the Fatherland party, and General Lüttwitz was prominent in the Freikorps movement. The terms of the Versailles Treaty required Germany to reduce the size of its army, and in order to comply it was proposed that the Ehrhardt Brigade, based near Berlin, should be dissolved. Kapp and Lüttwitz used this as a pretext to attack Berlin. The army did not oppose the putsch, despite appeals from Ebert and the Chancellor. General Von Seeckt refused to authorise troops to fire on the Freikorps units led by Kapp and Lüttwitz. The government withdrew to Stuttgart. The SPD called successfully for a general strike and within four days it was clear that Kapp had no authority, and he was forced to flee from the city. But the extent of the continuing army influence over government is reflected in the fact that General Von Seeckt was appointed chief of army Command in the month following that Kapp-Lüttwitz putsch. Neither Kapp nor Lüttwitz were properly punished, and those conspirators that were called to trial received a maximum of five years imprisonment. Kapp was not bought to trial but died in prison, and Lüttwitz was allowed early retirement.

Similar leniency, indicative of the power of the right in German society, was reflected in the punishment of Hitler following the Munich Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, when Hitler received only five years imprisonment. In contrast left-wing leaders were given far more extensive prison sentences after their uprisings.

The Weimar Republic after the Crisis

Gustav Stresemann was appointed Chancellor in August 1923, and the survival of the Weimar Republic at this time is associated with his political stature. It was Stresemann who ended the policy of passive resistance in the Saar, and restored international confidence by promising to pay reparations. He reduced government expenditure, and consequently the deficit, and introduced a new currency - the Rentenmark. The inflation came to a miraculous end with the establishment of a stable currency. The Dawes plan was published in April 1924, and facilitated stability by linking Germany's reparations to the state of its economy, although it did not reduce the total size of the Reparations Bill. International political stability seemed to be initiated by the agreement between Germany and the allies to accept the Dawes plan. The survival of Weimar in 1923 is often contrasted with its collapse in the 1930s. This can be attributed to the fact that disillusionment with the Weimar had not reached the climax in 1923, and secondly, that in 1923 there was no clear alternative to the Weimar Republic. But already in Europe the tide towards fascism was mounting and in Italy, Hungary and Poland fascist dictatorships soon followed.