Gareth Parker. A Written Report Of A Discussion On The Rise Of Hitler and the Nazi Party 1918-1933. Identify and comment upon the key weaknesses of the Weimar system of government. The Weimar Republic was born in a time of great turmoil and struggle, encountering many problems throughout its sixteen year history. Possibly the greatest vulnerability was 'the weakness within' - the constitution gave the President, the states and the military too much control, whilst proportional voting meant that the Reichstag was separated and weak.
The Weimar Republic looked to be collapsing from the beginning. All the events that finally led to the ending of democracy in Germany were seemed to be caused by the Treaty of Versailles. The loss of the war for the Germans was a huge turning point as it was seem that the Allies wanted to crush Germany. They were unable to pay the reparations, as extremists from both the right and left wing found the war guilt clause unacceptable. When the Germans had lost World War I, had a huge impact back in Germany.
These consequences were significant for many reasons, particularly due to their impact on society, allies and the opposition, as well as inducing the beginning of WWII. The first cause of Hitler becoming Chancellor was Germany signing the Treaty of Versailles in June of 1919. After the end of WWI, the allies forced Germany to sign a peace treaty. In this treaty Germany was forced to take the blame for the War, pay reparations (which were set at 6.6 billion pounds in April 1921) as well as reducing their army to 100,000 men, getting rid of any air force, as well as being limited to 6 battleships. Germany also lost all overseas colonies, and their boundaries within Europe were reduced, losing in total 13.5% of their territory, which included losing 7 million people to neighbouring countries.
Explain why Germany was bankrupt by 1923. At first, Germany’s main problem was that its government was bankrupt. The cost of the war was so great that that all of the German gold reserves had been put towards the cause. After the Weimar Republic had made the decision to surrender, The Treaty of Versailles had made things considerably worse. It deprived Germany of wealth-earning areas, such as the coalfields in Silesia.
The new Weimar Republic was born in 1918, its construction was against Germany’s defeat and humiliation at Versailles. The legitimacy of the state’s existence was questioned by many and as a result the new democracy was experiencing threats. Threats to the Republic from the political right were clear in the early 1920’s. The demand for reduction of the German army from 650,000 to 200,000, and 100,000 in 1919 was seemingly too much of a strain for a large number of right wing parties, who began to demand that the Versailles Treaty and the new Weimar Republic be rejected. The leaders of this movement were General Ludendorff, Wolfgang Kapp from the Patriotic Party and General von Luttwitz of the Freikorps.
Throughout these years the Germany government faced difficulties on all fronts. There were major issues economically, with inflation, reparations and the collapse of the currency, but also major political issues were being raised through violent putsches and growth of extreme parties. If the government did not already have enough to deal with, at the end of World War I, Germany had gained a stigma of being a horrible, vicious country and had no real international support. However, by 1929, the Weimar Republic had begun to overcome their major issues, and could return to a time of political stability. The Weimar republic faced an array of economic problems through the ‘years of challenge’.
To a large extent the main threat to the stability of the Weimar Republic came from the political violence of the extreme right in the period 1919 to 1923 with incidents such as The Kapp Putsch in 1920 and the numerous assassinations. However, although the violence from the extreme right was a huge factor in creating instability, there were many other factors including threats from the Elites, economic threats, the Treaty of Versailles, threats from the Left and finally the weakness of the Weimar Constitution. This proves that the threats from the Right were some of many threats to the Weimar Republic but there is not enough evidence to suggest that they were overall the main threat. The aim of the political violence from the Right was to overthrow the new Weimar Republic in order to return it back to an autocracy and secondly to reject the Treaty of Versailles. They planned to do this through the event of the Kapp Putsch in March 1920 where General Luttwitz led his Freikorps brigade into Berlin, seized the government district of the city and Wolfgang Kapp was declared chancellor by Luttwitz.
They were also in a country plagued by a financial crisis with the majority of the population automatically having hatred for the government. The treaty of Versailles also posed a serious threat to the government with the country left embarrassed by its ruling and the war guilt that Germany faced. The extreme right in particular were a threat to the republic. The actions of the Spartacists in particular concerned the leaders of the SPD as they knew that they could not rely on the support of the army in the face of a revolt. Thus a deal was done with the right wing (the pre 1918 military, judiciary and civil service).
Hitler used propaganda, elimination of the opposition, and a cult of personality to gain the support and trust of the German people in a time of economic crisis to his benefit and the rest of the world's loss. Single party states arise from a crisis, and Germany was suffering from a very large one at that time. The end of World War I in 1918 had left the economic state in shambles, and the loss struck the German people hard. Furthermore, the Treaty of Versailles the following year resulted in the demilitarisation and many cuts from German land and territory. Hitler criticized the carving up of Europe by the "Big Four" (the US, UK, France and Italy), stating that the Germans were the "master race".
These problems progressively mounted so high that they obscured Lloyd George's successes and toppled him from power, ultimately helping the Conservatives engineer his downfall. This essay will assess both internal factors, such as problems as home, centred on unemployment, coupled with external factors, including the Chanak Crisis. It will be argued that the Conservatives reaped power as a result of the combined internal and external problems, all of which amounted to a loss of confidence at home, and thereby created negative public perceptions of the Liberals. Lloyd George's post as Prime Minister was in a way doomed from the beginning. He came to power at the head of a coalition party making enemies along the way.