Weimar Republic

Nervous Conditions After World War I, the German nation and its people were devastated. The public was led to believe that Germany was going to win the war, and it looked forward to a much- improved socio-economic climate. Instead, the war was lost and the country was facing a very dreary future. As a result, the government established the Weimar Republic under the leadership of Friedrich Ebert, a past leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a supporter of the war efforts.

Some historians believe it was fate that Weimar Germany did not succeed. From the beginning the challenges were too great, the situation too grim and the individuals involved too unprepared. As a result, Weimar Germany had a short and bumpy ride that combined the best with the worst: Culturally, it remains one of Germany's most creative periods of time in art, literature and thought. Politically and economically, however, the country stayed in a state of disarray, opening up the door to someone who said he had all the answers.

The date was February 10, 1918: The recently elected National Constituent Assembly meeting in Weimar, Germany, faced its duty. It had to draw up a constitutional framework for a new system of government and social order and determine how to integrate that with the political and social institutions from pre-war days. This in itself was a difficult task. It was made all the more so because of the different factions who had come together to develop the plan.

On the one hand, were those who favoured stability and on the other, those who were looking for a counter-revolution and supported the radical Rate (Soldiers' and Workers' Councils) movement1. The main purpose of the new constitution was to restyle the German government through the election of a parliament constituted on the basis of democracy and elected under universal suffrage by the German people.

The town of Weimar was not chosen, as some say, because of its association with well-known Germans such as Goethe, Schiller and Herder, in order to set a positive mood. Rather, this was meant as a strictly military move2.

"Noske's advisors from the officers' corps calculated that Weimar was just the right size to be easily defended by a comparatively small contingent of Free Corps troops against any trouble-makers from the left-wing Soldiers and Workers' Councils." Approximately 30 million voting-age Germans (of the total population of 62 million) had chosen 423 deputies to represent them at this gathering through the process of proportional representation, which the progressive had been advocating.

"In fact, this system of proportional representation was to be one of the causes of the downfall of the parliamentary system of government in Weimar Germany"3. It led to a fragmented Germany party structure that eventually made it impossible to find a working majority. To demonstrate this extent of differentiation, the following political groups and their biases were represented in the Weimar coalition: SPD; the German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei -- DDP), a descendant of the Progressive Party of the prewar period; and the Center Party.

The republic received 76.2% of the vote, with 38% for the SPD alone, which suggested wide popular support. In contrast, the anti-republican, conservative German National People's Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei -- DNVP) and the German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei -- DVP) received a combined total of 10.3% of the vote. The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, which had split from the SPD during the war, won 8 percent4. Even before it was actually formed, the Weimar Republic was being challenged.

When a small group of Free Corps members under the command of Maercker went to Weimar early to set things up for the constitutional meeting, it was confronted and disarmed by the Soldiers and Workers' Council. In a very short time, the confrontation was over (ibid), but it proved that nothing would be smooth going. The constitution followed the traditional imperial model, with a president elected by the assembly in place of the emperor.

The president nominated ministers who were responsible to the assembly, but did not have power to disband the assembly that was sovereign except for the rights of the states. The federal principle was expressed in an upper house, whose vote was required for legislation. A referendum would decide any cases where a disagreement occurred between the two chambers. Because of the various parties involved in the process of drafting the constitution, it had never been possible or even likely that the document would be consistent.

However, the meeting's attendants did everything possible to come to grips with the basic structural problem confronting any modern constitution -- namely, how to accommodate mutually antagonistic social pressures, organized special-interest groups and competing political ideologies and sets of values"5. Basically, the drafters had two choices. The first was to confine the constitution to a set of strictly structural and administrative statutes. The second was to make it a pluralistic compromise. They opted for the latter, which was the more daring and risky.

In his book about the Weimar Republic, Peukert explains that historians often judge this constitution and other similar documents on how they can or cannot be applied to future situations -- how relevant they are to ongoing circumstances. Unfortunately, the Weimar constitution never had the chance of becoming accepted, through regular routine, as the legal foundation underlying the political and socio-economic life of the Republic. Rather it was used as a means for stopgap responses that pleased anyone6.

On February 11 to12, the National Constituent Assembly chose Ebert as Weimar President and Philipp Scheidemann as Chancellor. The latter was a member of the Reichstag for Dusseldorf from 1903 to 1919 and like Ebert supported Germany's involvement in the war. From 1906 to 1911, he was a deputy of municipal council in Kassel and led the party faction in the Reichstag in 1913-1918. After the split with the independent social democrats (USPD), Scheidemann was elected to the SPD executive board.

President-elect Ebert would have a term of seven years, be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, and have the right to appoint and dismiss ministers. Most importantly, under Article 48 of the Constitution, he was empowered to suspend the civil rights of the citizen "in an emergency" and assume the role of dictator. The president had the right to allow the cabinet to govern without the consent of parliament whenever it was deemed essential to maintaining public order.

Ironically, the clause was not clearly defined or used until the crisis of the 1930s when it ended the republic and ushered in the Hitler dictatorship7. It comes as no surprise, given what is expressed above regarding the differences in the involved political parties' agendas, that the Weimar Republic had serious problems from the start that led many Germans to either refuse support of the new parliamentary democracy or actively try to destroy it. Both the extreme left and right were the loudest and most active opponents.

The left wing regarded the new government as a prevention to revolution, as they remembered Ebert's agreement with the military in 1918 that resulted in the army's bloody suppression of the left-wing revolts. Because the right wing was made up of the military, financial elites, state bureaucracy, education and most of the media, the latter posed a more serious threat. It could not be considered a loyal opposition because its ultimate goal was to abolish the new government. It opposed democracy and wanted to create a conservative authoritarian regime.

The rest of the left, represented by the SPD, and the moderate right, consisting of the Center Party and the DDP, were the strongest proponents. However, at important occasions, even these supporters failed to behave responsibly due to political inexperience, selfish causes, or unrealistic party programs8. After the war, the political situation was not by any means the only problem that the Weimar had to face head on. As noted, socio-economic conditions were deplorable.

Unemployment and inflation due to wartime debts and war reparations to the Allies were just two of the problems. Many middle-class Germans had lost their entire savings and having problems finding employment9. Germany had to pay compensation not only for the war damage that she had caused, but also for the entire war. However, the amount of damage was so tremendous that determining actual costs was impossible. In 1921, the Paris conference came up with a number of 269 thousand million gold marks.

Not only did the Germans know that this would be impossible to pay back, they were angry to be placed in a position of "debt slavery"10. Further, by not paying the money back right away, Germany could avoid the post-war fall that had impacted both England and America. The reparations went hand in hand with inflation. Feuchtwanger writes about how the German currency had already lost much of its value during the war and the Weimar Republic was too weak to bring inflation under control.

The reparations gave the Reich governments no incentive to put their finances in order. The economic separation of the Ruhr from the Reich led to hyper-inflation. Wages had to be paid with baskets full of banknotes and the value of the mark fell hourly. People partly reacted to the inflation's trauma by looking for emblematic characters that could help them with making sense of the increasingly destructive maelstrom.

In Central Germany, there was an attempted Communist uprising; in Bavaria right-wing extremists, led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist party, tried to seize power. This serious inflationary problem significantly impacted the mental and emotional state of the German people, says Widdig in Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany,11 a book that focuses on the years when extreme chaos and creativity existed side-by-side -- the period of the Great Inflation between 1919 and 1923.

He lists the most critical factors of the inflationary scenario as the changing perceptions of money, paradigmatic characters of the inflationary period, and the plight of intellectuals and the role of women. As a whole, the Weimar Republic's culture was cold and impersonal. In addition, feelings of isolation arose from the revolutionary sense of belonging to a huge community, whether this was the masses, the proletariat or the Communist Party" 12. This alienation combined with a fear of being powerless. As a result, even entertainment was gloomy.

Many of the films were similar to "film noir" that occurred later in the U.S. -- about tragic and evil characters. For example, "Dr. Mabuse" depicts the evil plots of a criminal with superhuman powers who manipulate people psychologically. He plans rollercoaster moves of the stock market, forges bank notes, cheats at games, and ruins the lives of various attractive German women. Such movie villain-heroes helped moviegoers reduce their sense of helplessness in a highly uncertain world.

Furthermore, in his classic book From Caligari to Hitler, Kracauer argued that Dr. Mabuse reflected a growing inclination towards authoritarian solutions.13 Fortunately for Germany, things started changing for the better. Attempts by both the left and the right to overthrow the republic failed, and the introduction of a stable currency began the process of economic recovery. The Dawes Plan was negotiated in 1924 to help with reparations. The French occupation of the Ruhr ended in 1925, and the Locarno Treaty created a greater sense of stability in Europe.

In the 1920s, often called the "Golden Years" of Weimar, the arts flourished, with names that are still famous today. Poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer Bertolt Brecht used alienation effects (A Effekts) and hoped to encourage audiences to think and identify with the characters rather than become too emotionally involved in the story. He also developed a form of drama called epic theatre, where ideas or didactic lessons are important.

In order to produce A Effects the actor has to discard whatever means he has learned of persuading the audience to identify itself with the characters which he plays. Aiming not to put his audience into a trance, he must not go into a trance himself.

His muscles must remain loose, for a turn of the head, e.g., with tautened neck muscles, will "magically" lead the spectators' eyes and even their heads to turn with it, and this can only detract from any speculation or reaction which the gestures may bring about. His way of speaking has to be free from ecclesiastical singsong and from all those cadences which lull the spectator so that the sense gets lost.14 This impersonal feeling is conveyed in much of the art forms of the period.

For example, George Grosz rarely even used the human form in his works.

Similarly, Iwan Goll's farces, Oskar Schlemmer's ballets and Vseveold Meyerhold's mechanical and robot-like actors emphasized the nonhuman, almost puppet-like side of individuals.15 The author Wolfradt, in a critique of Willi Baumeister's paintings of athletes, explains that the concept of impersonality was "no ephemeral slogan but a phenomenon of the reality of our time, no intellectually posed demand, capable at once of being intellectually contradicted, but the result of technical and sociological processes."16 The technical side of artwork portrayed itself in new forms of building and design that also highlighted this period.

For example, Walter Gropius, an advocate of the classical, geometric style, achieved his fame in the Bauhaus17. He opened this building in 1919 in Weimar, merged two older schools -- an academy of art and a school of applied arts-- and dedicated his institution to the development to artistic unity. Artwork, Gropius said, is not just crafts. Nor is it limited to the functional or practical of industry. Rather, it is "explicitly an aesthetic philosophy resting on psychological investigations"18. The range of the Bauhaus school was impressive, creative and versatile.

Products included typography, furniture design, lamps, rugs, pottery, bookbinding and dance. Each of the pieces of artwork was created with enormous freedom, and many of them are still considered the best ever produced. The city of Berlin had 40 theatres and numerous orchestra concerts that were conducted by individuals such as Wilhelm Klemperer and Wilhelm Furtwangler. They drew people from throughout Weimer Germany.

The capitol's 120 newspapers fulfilled the needs of the diverse political and socio-economic thought of the German citizens 19 The area was also the hub for intellectuals, such as scientists Albert Einstein and Max Planck who were working on quantum theory. During this time, there was an ongoing exchange of information and culture between America and Germany.

As the ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev noted in 1926: "Already her (America's) influence is to be felt everywhere -- in painting, the theatre, and music -- composers have picked up the jazz idiom, and America has had her say even in the old and conservative institution of ballet." The American culture quickly gained a foothold in German society. For example, American jazz was commonly heard in German clubs.

The music of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday became more and more popular, and the images of flappers and other carefree youth were abundant. Similarly, German movie houses began showing American films. Less noticeable, but more important, were the marked changes occurring in the mass production of culture. Previous to the war, German considered it had a high culture, created and enjoyed almost exclusively by the elite.

It consisted of singly produced paintings, orchestral arrangements, and unique theatrical presentations thought by many to exhibit an inherent worth as works of art. However, in the American mold, culture during the era of the Weimar Republic began to move down to the average person on the street more and more frequently. Means of mass-producing photographs, movies, recordings of theater and music, and the development of sheet music began to duplicate culture.

Art could now be mass-produced, and for the first time, a true market began flourishing in the areas of art and culture. As art critic and theorist Theodor Adorno wrote: What might be called use value in the reception of cultural commodities is replaced by exchange value. Everything is looked at from only one aspect: that it can be used for something else, however vague that notion of this use may be. No object has an inherent value; it is valuable only to the extent that it can be exchanged.

In 1925, change came once again to all of Germany when President Ebert died after postponing an appendicitis operation for too long in order to fight a libel action against the editor of a nationalist publication that had called him a traitor in World War I. The court, showing a political right-wing bias like many others during this time, only sentenced the editor to a small fine.

This was because Ebert has indeed been guilty of treason, since he had been connected with the strikes of 1918 as a trade union leader 20 Many people say that it was suicide or stress that ended his life, because of the shame he felt after this article ran. When Ebert died, the nationalists convinced Paul Von Hindenburg, one of the top heroes of World War I, to run for office. He was not an obvious choice, since he did not support republics and was a monarchist at heart.

However, he was persuaded that his country needed an authoritative person to build on the growth that Weimar Germany experienced from 1924 on. There was still a belief among many people that the army had not lost the war but had been let down by incompetent and greedy politicians. Von Hindenburg won the 1925 presidential election, though not by a large margin, and was re-elected in 1931. At that point, he was already close to senility.

Historians such as Delmer recognize the import of this vote, despite the fact that Von Hindenburg did not win by much. He received 14,600,000 votes against the 13,700,000 cast for Wilhelm Marx, candidate of the original coalition of Social Democrats, Democrats and the Roman Catholic Center Party21 The world could not have been given a clearer signal of which way Germany was about to go.

Hindenburg's election demonstrated what had already been shown again and again: that the same forces which had rule the Reich of the Kaiser had once more gained the upper hand in the new Germany. Although he did not win the election by a landslide, there were many people in Germany who sided with Von Hindenburg's non-republic attitude. The Weimar Republic had already been highly dependent on anti-democratic institutions, such as the army, civil services, educations and big business from its inception.

Anti-democratic sentiment continued to grow with each republican failure after 1923. It was registered in the growth of anti-democratic parties and right-wing splinter groups. And it was reflected in the popularity of romantic/nationalist/racist literature and films from the second half of the decade. The "golden times" continued for the Weimar Republic for several more years. As Peukert admits, it was not that these years were so wonderful, only that they were so much more stable than earlier periods.

The problems created by the peace treaty and the establishment of the Republic had not been resolved, nor had those of inflation and the associated issues. It could be said, in fact, that many of the problems that arose in the 1929 to 1930 period were building up steam during this period 22. "The Republic had already been heading for the crossroads before the immediate crisis of 1929 occurred.

Everything had been pointing towards a possible crash." However, the Republic had dealt with a number of crises since its establishment, such as the attempted overthrows, and had somehow made it through. So, perhaps the downfall may not have been inevitable if the barriers and challenges had not been so large. During the 1920s, the minority political parties were quiet as well.

Most people were not displeased with the way Germany was being run, so why turn to extremist parties? Despite having 108,000 members in 1928, the www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/index.htm" Nazi Party only won 12 seats to the Reichstag, or German parliament. The Communists won 54 seats at this election. Moderate groups like the Center Party and the Social Democrats easily won this election.

In fact, the elections of the Golden Age of Weimar seem to indicate that extreme parties only flourished when an extreme situation occurred.23 On October 16, 1925, the Allies initiated a number of concessions to Germany in return for the country's signature on the Treaty of Locarno, which accepted the frontiers laid down at Versailles. Surprisingly, the Western powers did not insist on guarantees by Germany that they would not invade Poland and Czechoslovakia.24 The seven nations present at the Locarno Treaty were Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Poland.

The main three and their representatives were Britain, France and Germany and respectively Austin Chamberlain, Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann. The terms of the treaty were: Germany, France and Belgium would accept each others borders, set up by the treaty of Versailles. (In other words, neither of the three countries were to invade each other). Britain and Italy agreed to ensure that all three countries kept to this agreement. They were willing to take action if not. Germany was allowed to join the League of Nations.

25 Streseman's speech after the signing was very positive. He appeared very appreciative of the agreement and desirous to keep peace and understanding among countries: We have undertaken the responsibility of initialing the treaties because we live in the faith that only by peaceful cooperation of States and peoples can that development be secured, which is nowhere more important than for that great civilized land of Europe whose peoples have suffered so bitterly in the years that lie behind us.

We have more especially undertaken it because we are justified in the confidence that the political effects of the treaties will prove to our particular advantage in relieving the conditions of our political life.26 After initialing the Locarno Pact, Stresemann hurried home to insure its acceptance by the government.

In a speech broadcast to the nation on November 3, 1925, he appealed for support, saying: "Locarno may be interpreted as signifying that the States of Europe at last realize that they cannot go on making war upon each other without being involved in common ruin." 27 As another part of his peace offensive, Stresemann signed a rapprochement with "Russia, called the Treaty of Berlin, in April of 1926.

And, in September, 1926, he finally saw the unanimous acceptance of Germany's admission into the League of Nations.28 The Locarno treaties, the Treaty of Berlin, and Germany's membership in the League of Nations were successes that earned Stresemann world renown. Within his country, however, these achievements were condemned by many on the right who charged that they implied German recognition of the validity of the Treaty of Versailles.29 To these rightists, Stresemann's diplomacy was just as bad as being a traitor.

Because of these beliefs, as well as continued dissatisfaction with the political system established by the Weimar Constitution, the Center Party and the parties to its right became more extremist during the latter 1920s, as did even Stresemann's own party, the DVP.30 Despite his health, which was rapidly declining, Stresemann retained his government position. In 1929 at The Hague, he accepted the Young Plan that named June 30, 1930, as the final date for the evacuation of the Ruhr.

Stresemann did not live to see that evacuation, since he soon died of a stroke.31 It many respects, it was best that Stresemann died when he did. The next years would have been very difficult for this Nobel Prize Winner to live through, given the horrible impact of the economy on the German people, the rise of the Nazi Party and the return to another World War.

The "Golden Twenties" were seen out by what Delmar calls the "miracle men," a number of "revivalists, quacks and confidence men" who roamed the country and leveraged the recent influx of foreign culture and money, stabilization, reduction of inflation and a return to near normalcy32. These "miracle men" preyed on people of all ages and backgrounds and levels of prestige -- from farmers to company presidents -- who could be easily duped.

They claimed to have a patriotic mission -- the restoration of Germany to greater power and prosperity than ever before 33 -- but were the best of con men. For example, Joseph Weissenberg, a 75-year-old Nationalist preacher and public-house keeper, held seances where Bismarck would appear and give the participants political advice. Another "miracle man" by the name of Franz Tausend even led the war hero General Erich Ludendorff to believe he could make gold from base metals.

In 1929 when the American stock market crashed, even the miracle men could not make a living. The Weimar Republic reacted to this event as if hit by an earthquake. It may have been able to handle smaller crises, but this was even too much for the United States let alone the shaky government of Germany. The United States may have previously allowed Germany to take its time repaying its loans, but now that dramatically changed.

After the Wall Street crash, America gave Germany 90 days to start paying back the loaned money, since it was almost bankrupt itself. No other country in the world could help Germany out. England and France were still recovering from the First World War and were also negatively influenced. Russia was still in a desperate state and trying to embark on a five-year plan. Companies throughout Germany -- though primarily in the industrial zones such as the Ruhr -- closed down. Workers by the millions lost their jobs.

Almost all of these unemployed workers were males who had to find a means of supporting their families. Money was required for food, heating a home, clothes and rent. Not even a decade after the last major economic disaster, the country was back where it had begun. As usual, when people are upset and looking for answers, they turn to religion or another form of authority. In this case, they turned to the extreme political parties in Germany -- the Nazi and Communist Parties.

Not even a year before, the Nazi Party had nearly gone bankrupt as a result of the spending on street parades and other political events. This would have completely taken them out of the running. Instead, a right-wing owner of a German media firm by the name of Hugenburg saved the party by financially bailing them out. How much world events would have changed.