In 1933, the weak Weimar Republic, which had been established after World War 1 and which had been on the edge of falling eventually collapsed. As well as it inherent political weakness, the Weimar Government had to cope with the economical crisis of 1929 which brought, in its wake, seemingly uncontrollable unemployment and rising inflation. The death of Weimar’s leading political figure, Gustav Stresemann, did not help matters.

Had the democratic Weimar Republic been strong and popular, it might well have been able to see off the challenge of the Nazis. In 1924 Adolf Hitler said “the state itself has become the biggest swindler” As it was, the fledging Republic started off badly, found some stability in the period 1924-1929 and then collapsed after the Wall Street Crash. The end of World War 1 brought

It is easy to criticise the Weimar republic as a government doomed to failure from the start. The Republic inherited the labels of ‘November Criminals’ and ‘Stab in the Back’ as well as being blamed for signing the despised Treaty of Versailles. The Sparticist rising, Kapp Putsch, Beer Hall Putsch, Franco-Belgium invasion in 1923 and Hyper-inflation all seemed to point to a governmental system in chaos. However, Ebert and Stresemann weathered these storms and with the help of the Dawes and Young Plans, Germany seemed to be on the way to regaining her economic strength and vital political stability. Fatally, a democratic system which contained clause 48 was later to play into Hitler’s hands. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 forced Germany to repay loans to the USA, leading to a collapse of the Germany economy. A rising tide of unemployment and a growth in votes for the Nazi Party. Economic failure is a harsh judgement on Weimar as every major nation struggled to deal with the effects of 1929. It is probably fairer to say that the Republic toiled to overcome its inherent defects and economic failure was the last nail in its coffin.

The new Republic required a draft Constitution which would not only embody the main functions of the government but also define the rights and responsibilities of all the people. It was essential that the Constitution should be as clear and as strong as possible and allow no misunderstanding. However, the Constitution suffered from a failure to define the rights and responsibilities of a number of key groups and organisation. These included the army, the trade unions, the press and the political parties. This meant that none of these groups felt under any obligation to make Weimar work. Of equal importance was the failure to purge the system of government of all those officials appointed by the Kaiser who remained in the office and threatened, by this anti-democratic attitudes, to undermine the workings of the new government. The main groups which should have been purged were the judiciary, the civil service and the armed forces. There was a failure to see a possible flaw in the use of proportional representation which encouraged the growth of political parties. When they split the vote, they made it impossible for any single party to achieve an overall majority. Between 1919 and 1930, there were no fewer than thirteen coalition governments. This was hardly likely to contribute to Weimar’s stability.

However, the political problems of Weimar were fuelled by mounting economic worries. “The Republic was burdened with economic problems arising out of the war” came from William Carr a British Historian. Germany was exhausted by four years of war and industry had to re-adjust to peacetime working against a background of falling world trade and limited demand at home. The Nationalists blamed the Treaty of Versailles as the root of all Germany’s economic ills. The reparations which Germany was forced to pay were crippling and a serious drain on the country’s gold reserves. In the Treaty of Versailles, Germany had agreed to pay for war damages, or reparations. The amount was set at 6,600 million pounds. Germany made the first payment of the reparations in 1921 and in 1922 Germany failed to pay the second instalment to France and Belgium. The French refused to believe that Germany did not have the money and decided to take what they were owed by force. They invaded the Ruhr valley, Germany’s richest industrial area. Within days the French had taken over coal mines, railways, factories and steelworks. The German government called on the

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