Weimar Republic Is Significant Not

¶ … Weimar Republic is significant not just as the interlude between Germany's two world wars, but as a reminder of what could have been in Germany. From the rubble of the fallen German Empire, the Weimar Republic received an exceedingly difficult set of tasks: to transition Germany's political system from an empire to a democratic republic, to somehow place Germany back into the circle of great powers, and to steer its neglected economy back to its pre-war status as Europe's industrial giant. Ultimately, the Weimar Republic failed because the government was unable to restore true economic stability, the lack of which created an eager audience for the numerous political opportunists of the day.

The Political Aftermath of the German Empire

In post-war Germany, the fall of the German Empire unleashed all of the political parties who had previously been checked by the authority of the Kaiser. Under the Kaiser's rule, the Reichstag was a feeble institution, its only power being its ability to withhold approval of certain government actions. As Socialist parties came to achieve majority representation in the Reichstag during Kaiser Wilhelm's reign, the Kaiser secured support from the Socialists by enacting progressive social policies such as unemployment and accident insurance.

While liberal parties held a comfortable majority of popular support, there were a number of conservative political interests composed mainly of the state's Prussian militaristic elements, the landed elite, and Catholics. Although all of these groups had to bow to imperial authority, their participation in the Kaiser's puppet Reichstag allowed them to develop sophisticated organizational abilities.

After the fall of the German empire, these political groups reassembled in a new Reichstag. (Orlow 116). This Reichstag assumed most of the powers the Kaiser held, most importantly the authority to appoint and dismiss government officials. In addition, it was a parliamentary democracy elected through proportional representation, which meant that seats were apportioned to parties according to the party's share of the total vote. (Id.) Thus, the Reichstag was not a neat two-party assembly as the legislatures in the U.S. are, but a multi-party madhouse.

Although the Liberal and Socialist parties dominated the Reichstag through various coalitions, the Conservative elements received a strong response among the frustrated populace. Moreover, these conservative elements were joined by returning war veterans and other militaristic or "counterrevolutionary" elements, culminating in the Kapp-Luwitz Putsch of April 1920, which succeeded in briefly taking Berlin. (131) Although Putsch ultimately failed, it allowed the various militaristic rightist groups to coalesce and these groups persisted as a threat to the Weimar throughout its existence.

The Sluggish Economic Recovery

Although political threats accompanied the Weimar Republic since its inception, severe economic turmoil proved to be the nation's most persistent problem. Germany was forced to pay war reparations to the Allied Nations as the loser in the war. (125) France added to the humiliation of this burden by insisting on "productive guarantees," where it would occupy German cities if Germany did not pay. (126) As bad as the reparations were, however, Germany's economic problems ran far deeper than reparations.

The German economy, the most powerful industrial economy in Europe before the war, underwent a serious disruption during the war. (122) Workers were conscripted, factories were refitted to produce weapons, and non-military infrastructure was neglected. (123) With all resources diverted to the war effort, powerful German industrialists filled the vacuum and monopolized industries, suffocating their competition and overall German competitiveness as a result. (123) The United States took advantage of Germany's absence to increase its competitiveness in many industries. (124)This new competitive landscape, coupled with Germany's steep fall in productivity, prevented Germany from restoring its prosperous, pre-war economy, which was the one thing German's could still take pride in.

Although Germany's real economic problems originated with the decision to go to war itself, many politicians chose to blame Germany's economic problems on its decision to make peace, blaming the reparations and the humiliating Treaty of Versailles. (123) The collective unwillingness to confront the deeper structural problems in the economy further retarded Germany's recovery and created a deep bitterness and insecurity among the populace that made them easy to incite.

After the initial frustration of the reparations crisis subsided in 1923, cooler heads prevailed for a time and the Weimar Republic started to address its immediate economic problems. The Weimar solved the fiscal crisis by replacing the devalued and disreputable rentenmark with a new currency, the reischmark. (146) The Dawes Plan eased reparations anxiety by bringing in American bankers to loan Germany hard currency to support the reischmark while overseeing the payment of reparations in reischmarks. (146)

Structurally, the Weimar government encouraged free trade and sought to restore Germany's historic trade surplus by favoring the production of goods for export, which eased unemployment greatly. (149) Germany's economic recovery was also aided by loans from investors in the United States, which underwent an extended boom throughout the 1920s owing partly to the economic gains it made during Germany's wartime absence from world trade. (158) By 1929, Germany had made enough economic progress to silence the political malcontents for a moment. In fact, the supposedly insurmountable reparations payments accounted for only 10% of Germany's GDP at that point. (148)

Although Germany was regaining its place as a powerhouse economy, it economy was not yet strong enough to withstand the unprecedented damage wrought by the Great Depression of 1929. (157) In fact, Germany's method of reintegration into the world economy might have made it more vulnerable to the Great Depression, as the cheap American financing it had relied on to rebuild its cities during the boom quickly dried up. (158)

As the money disappeared, the Weimar's national unemployment insurance fund collapsed, sending a collective panic into the country's numerous unemployed, at that time 14.5% of the population. (159) Actually, the unemployment insurance fund crisis would prove to be the undoing of the Weimar Republic as a parliamentary democracy. (159) The Reichstag's dominant coalition, that of the moderate-left SDP and the moderate DVP, would eventually implode while debating the means for financing the unemployment insurance fund. (159)

There was no political coalition strong enough to replace the SDP/DVP, but many smaller political parties strong enough to thwart the ascendancy of any other party. (159) The result was a "paralysis of forces" in the Reichstag that prevented the Weimar government from functioning at all. (159) It is in the context of this parliamentary paralysis that the President of the Reichstag assumed power, effectively ending parliamentary rule and installing the Reichsprasident and Chancellor as virtual dictators.

The Weimar's Reichstag under Dictatorship