Weimar Republic's Success And Failures

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To what extent can the Weimar Republic be considered a successful democracy in the period up to December 1930? The Weimar republic can be considered both successful and unsuccessful, as it started in chaos and then became relatively stable until it collapsed during the great depression. The successes can be seen mainly through the Stresemann era while the failures are seen through the constitution, political parties, coups, economic failures and the lack of support towards the republic. Under the new constitution basic freedoms which were guaranteed to all was introduced and enabled a political and societal freedom, which therefore benefited each class, party and individual. This was considered a success as it gave people the basic principle of equality . This was a success in the constitution while most of it was a failure. Proportional Presentation which was part of the constitution meant that votes were cast for the party, not the individual, and 60,000 votes guaranteed one member of the Reichstag . The result of this was that there was rarely a government strong enough to gain power on its own. Coalitions were formed in order to gain power in government. These were unsuccessful as the weak coalitions were constantly breaking over issue disputes, which led to instability in the early years “it was difficult to create and maintain coalitions” is quoted by Carl Heidrich and Z.K Brzenzinsky . Article 48 of the constitution also proved to be a failure in the constitution and was one of the reasons for the collapse of according to Eberhard Kolb “Article 48 is often pointed to as being one of the chief reasons for the collapse of the republic” . As this gave the president sole power in “times of emergency” which he abused too often. It was evoked more than 130 times between 1919 and 1924 . The Weimar republic was according to Karl Bracher “doomed from the
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