Hey people, after much reading, i am still unable to some up with some rigid points about the demise of the republic.
It is so ambiguous to me.
Any help, ideas, suggestions from the pros would be muchly appreciated.
Thanks again
Hey there,
There are numerous factors that impacted the fall of the Weimar Republic. Here are a few points:
- Hindenburg's Succession: He was a WW1 hero and hated democracy. He was also old so it was easy to manipulate him. An example of this is Hindenburg being manipulated by von Schleicher and this constant feud between Schleicher and von Papen. He also turned it from parliamentary power to presidential power. An example of this is forcing Chancellor Muller to resign after he recommended raising taxes to improve social welfare for the unemployed. Because there was political instability and there was a "revolving door" of politicians, eventually it got to the point where Hindenburg asked Hitler to be chancellor (something he's been avoiding for a while) - they believed that because Hitler is relatively new to politics, it would be easy to manipulate him
- Great Depression: Germany really suffered from the Great Depression because of the US loans (that were used for reparations - part of the Treaty of Versailles). This gave extremist left and right wing parties to take advantage of high unemployment rates to convince the Germans that they can solve the Great Depression. This also gave them the opportunity to show the inefficacy of democracy since they kept introducing unpopular policies like increasing taxes and printing more bank notes (which decreased the worth of their currency). This made it easy for the Nazi Party to gain popularity.
- Nazi propaganda: Speaking of the Nazi Party, they gained interest when Hitler got arrested for the Munich Putsch/Beer Hall Putsch (putsch = coup). His trial gave him a platform to give his speech that made him become a national figure. His time in jail enabled him to write Mein Kampf, which would be the basis of his ideology. The Munich Putsch also taught Hitler that he needed to use democracy in order to dismantle it. This is seen in his propaganda where he ensured their message was simple and targeted the working class. Hitler also recognised he needed army power so he used ex-Freikorp and turned it into SA to promote the party and beat up hecklers.
- Hitler's policies: When the Reichstag Fire occurred, Hitler used this as an opportunity to exploit people's fears and turn it into a communist coup attempt (whether he was the one who conspired to set the Reichstag on fire remains a mystery). He suspends constitutional freedom and created the Enabling Act - kinda like Article 48 for Hitler. He used this to eliminate opposition and control the media, before completely abolishing the parliament once President Hindenburg died. This marks the final end of Weimar democracy.
I've just given a quick summary of the main events that led to the fall of Weimar democracy. If you would like some more resources, I'd recommend watching
Simon Hind's videos. They were really helpful when I did Modern.
Hope this helps
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