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An introduction to the Weimar Republic

weimar republic social life
A depiction of social life during the Weimar Republic

The story of the Weimar Republic is an intriguing one – not just because of its tragic ending and descent into Nazi totalitarianism but also the lessons it offers the modern world. This page summarises some of the challenges and problems that confronted the Weimar government in Germany.

An idealist experiment

The Weimar Republic was born in the last days of World War I. It began with a mutiny among sailors and dock workers that forced the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German monarch.

The future of Germany was then grasped by political idealists who sought to make their homeland the most liberal democratic nation in Europe. The political system and society they created became known as the Weimar Republic. It lasted for barely 15 years, ending in 1933-34 when it succumbed to the totalitarian rule of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists (NSDAP).

Even as the Weimar Republic was being dismantled by the Nazis, historians and political scientists sought to explain why democracy had failed in post-war Germany. They found no easy answers. The Weimar Republic died a death of a thousand cuts. It was weakened and undermined by a myriad of factors and forces.

The Republic is born

In November 1918, as the German war effort was collapsing and surrender to the Allies became imminent, the German navy mutinied and the Hohenzollern monarchy collapsed with scarcely a whimper.

The government of Germany was assumed by civilian politicians, liberals and social democrats like Friedrich Ebert, Philipp Scheidemann and Gustav Noske. These men were political moderates – but also optimists who believed Germany could make a successful transition to democratic republicanism.

True to their liberal values, they crafted a constitution that created probably the freest, most democratic political system of its time. Once commanded to follow and obey, the German people could now select their representatives, their government and their head of state. All Germans were given legal equality, civil liberties and the right to vote, regardless of status, wealth, education or gender.

Problems and challenges

weimar republic
Post-war Germany was burdened with an enormous reparations debt

But despite their idealism and good intentions, the leaders of Weimar Germany were confronted with enormous challenges and difficulties.

These politicians inherited a nation exhausted, depleted and starved by four years of total war. It was also divided and filled with a myriad of political groups, including revolutionaries on the extreme left and reactionaries on the far right.

In its first months, the new regime was threatened by a struggle for power between the Spartacists (local communists who wanted revolution), the Freikorps (former soldiers of nationalist political views) and other nationalist counter-revolutionaries.

Germany was also at the mercy of foreign powers, who wanted to punish it for the war and prevent future threats by decimating the German economy. The humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) inflamed paranoid nationalists, who clung to the belief that the 1918 surrender was unwarranted, the work of socialists and Jewish conspirators.

Division and disunity

The men of Weimar crafted an ambitious model for republican government – but uniting all or even most Germans behind this model proved almost impossible.

The most pressing and visible problems of Weimar Germany were political instability, violence and economic suffering. These problems were particularly acute in the early 1920s. The government’s ability to respond was constrained by the new political system.

Rather than encouraging decisive leadership and facilitating action, the Reichstag became a swamp of small parties, conflicting ideas and self-interest.

The perils of the 1920s screamed for strong leadership but the Weimar system coughed up a series of weak coalition governments and no less than 15 different chancellors, most of them politically impotent. The Reichstag was divided, paralysed and unable to implement necessary policies or reforms; running the state proved a difficult, if not impossible task.

A collapsing economy

Germany’s economic condition was even more perilous. Though hostilities formally ended in November 1918, Germans continued to suffer from an Allied food blockade that continued until mid-1919. The ensuing starvation contributed to the deaths of more than one million civilians.

The Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of her colonial possessions, important European territories and valuable industrial regions. In 1921 Berlin was handed a reparations bill totalling more than $US30 billion.

This outrageous burden killed off any hope of post-war economic recovery. The already devastated German economy could not shoulder this burden and by 1922, Berlin was defaulting on its quarterly reparations payments to the Allies.

France and Belgium responded by sending troops to occupy the industrial Ruhr region and seize German material and produce. Germans responded by initiating a paralysing general strike and – as a last resort by the desperate Weimar government – frantically printing of banknotes, a move that triggered the devastating hyperinflation of 1923.

The ‘Golden Age’ – or was it?

Germany was eventually raised from this swamp by the pragmatism of Gustav Stresemann, the restoration of foreign relations and American financial assistance.

Recognising that a bankrupt Germany would destabilise Europe and threaten its own economy, the United States intervened, negotiating with a more conciliatory Weimar government. The Dawes Plan of 1924 reconfigured reparations payments and facilitated billions of dollars worth of foreign loans to kick-start the German economy. This injection of capital allowed German industrial and manufacturing sectors to quickly recover, leading to rapid improvements in employment, wages and standards of living.

The period 1924-29 is consequently referred to as the ‘Golden Age of Weimar‘. It was a time of progress of improved living standards, of bourgeois values and surges in art, film and popular culture.

The Great Depression

But the Golden Age of Weimar was a temporary and artificial prosperity – something that Germans themselves seem to understand. In 1929, the nation was ravaged by the Great Depression, which drained Germany of foreign money and capital.

Threatened with unemployment and starvation for the second time in a decade, German voters lost faith in the government and abandoned mainstream political parties. Instead, they turned to fringe groups who were committed to dismantling and destroying democracy.

One of these groups, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party or NSDAP, had been small and insignificant during the 1920s. As conditions in Germany deteriorated, however, the NSDAP’s electoral fortunes improved and the ranting speeches of its leader, Adolf Hitler, began to strike a chord with the German people.

By 1932, the path to a Hitler-led government – and to the death of Weimar republicanism – was being cleared.

A historian’s view:
“Weimar Germany still speaks to us. Paintings by George Grosz and Max Beckmann are much in demand… Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill are periodically revived in theatres around the world… Kitchen designs invoke the styles of the 1920s and the creative work of the Bauhaus… What film buff has not seen The Cabinet of Dr Caligari or Metropolis? Weimar Germany speaks to us in other ways as well, most often as a warning sign. This was a society battered by economic crisis and unrelenting political conflict. Weimar Germany conjures up fears of what can happen when there is simply no societal consensus on how to move forward, and every difference becomes a cause of existential political battles. It is a warning sign because we all know how it ended.
Eric D. Weitz

Citation information
Title: ‘An introduction to the Weimar Republic
Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey, Steve Thompson
Publisher: Alpha History
URL: http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/weimar-republic-introduction/
Date published: October 14, 2019
Date accessed: Today’s date
Copyright: The content on this page may not be republished without our express permission. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use.

Why the Weimar Republic failed

why the weimar republic failed
Lighting a fire with worthless banknotes, 1923

The Weimar Republic lasted less than 15 years before falling to the oncoming storm of Nazism. Countless historians have sought to understand and explain why the Weimar Republic failed. The only certainty is that the answer is complex and many factors were involved.

A myriad of problems

The Weimar Republic failed because it was at the mercy of many different ideas and forces – political and economic, internal and external, structural and short-term. It is difficult to isolate one or two of these forces or problems as being chiefly responsible for the demise of the Republic.

To the everyday observer, Adolf Hitler and Nazism appear the main architects of the downfall of Weimar democracy – but this required a collapse in the economic order, allowing Hitler and the National Socialists (NSDAP) to emerge from the margins of German politics and become a national force.

Some historians believe the Weimar Republic failed mainly because of post-war conditions in Germany. Others suggest longer-term factors, such as Germany’s inexperience with democratic forms of government, were significant. Others still point to failings in the international order, such as Germany’s brutal post-war treatment and isolation by the Allies.

This page summarises some of the main factors that contributed to the failure and fall of the Weimar state.

The Treaty of Versailles

The post-war peace settlement signed at Versailles, France in June 1919 imposed very harsh terms on the new German republic. The severity of these terms generated intense debate and political division within Germany.

While Germans overwhelmingly opposed the treaty, they were sharply divided about how to respond to it. Nationalist groups, like the NSDAP demanded the government repudiate the treaty and refuse to comply with its terms.

The moderates and pragmatists of the Weimar Republic, while also despising the treaty in principle, rejected calls for non-compliance, believing it would provoke retaliation, economic strangulation, even a resumption of the war or an Allied invasion.

Later, under the ministership of Gustav Stresemann, the Weimar government’s approach was to restore and improve foreign relations. By doing this, the government hoped for a re-negotiation of the Versailles treaty and a relaxation of its punitive terms.

Among the German people, there was a consensus that Germany had been treated unfairly by the Treaty of Versailles – and that the Weimar government had meekly obeyed the will of foreign powers.

Germany’s reparations burden

Also stemming from Versailles was the problem of reparations: the financial payments imposed on Germany for its role in initiating World War I.

Historians have formed different conclusions about reparations, whether the final reparations figure was justified and whether Germany was capable of meeting this obligation. Most agree that the reparations burden on Germany was excessive. These obligations hampered Germany’s post-war economic recovery and as a consequence undermined its political stability.

By 1922, Germany was unable to fulfil its quarterly reparations instalments, triggering the occupation of the Ruhr region by French and Belgian troops, the hyperinflation crisis of 1923 and the collapse of two Weimar government coalitions. Reparations remained a divisive issue for the duration of the Weimar Republic.

Conspiracy theories

why the weimar republic failed
A representation of the ‘stab in the back legend’, 1924

Many believe the Weimar Germany failed in part because conspiracy theories were allowed to circulate and flourish. The most prolific and poisonous was the Dolchstosselegende or ‘stab in the back’ myth. According to this fallacious theory, Germany’s surrender in November 1918 was engineered by socialists, liberals and Jews in Germany’s civilian government – it was not brought about by military defeat.

The Dolchstosselegende had three significant effects. Firstly, it undermined public trust in the civilian government and particularly the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which was painted as treacherous and unpatriotic by right-wing nationalists.

Secondly, the Dolchstosslegende perpetuated a belief that Germany could still have won the war. It implied that the German military was still strong enough to launch a counter-offensive and advance to victory. This theory is contradicted by almost all evidence on the state of the German military in late 1918.

Thirdly, the stab-in-the-back myth allowed military commanders to retain their prestige and position in German society. Despite their failures in 1918, figures like Paul von Hindenburg were able to retain their status and influence in the new republic. Evidence of this can be seen in the election of Hindenburg, who publicly supported the Dolchstosslegende, as president of the republic.

The Weimar Constitution

Germany’s post-war constitution and the political system it created must shoulder at least some of the blame for the instability of the 1920s.

The politicians who drafted the Weimar constitution attempted to construct a political system similar to that of the United States. The Weimar constitution, passed in August 1919, incorporated elements of democracy, federalism, checks and balances and protection of individual rights.

Tellingly, the constitution created an executive presidency with considerable emergency powers. The constitution allowed the president to bypass or override the elected Reichstag. Some historians suggest the Weimar president – with a seven-year term and hefty emergency powers – was not far removed from the former Kaiser.

Regular stalemates in the Reichstag meant the president’s emergency powers were frequently called into action, which only widened political divisions.

Weimar’s electoral system

The Weimar Republic’s proportional voting system was inherently democratic because it allocated Reichstag seats based on the share of votes each party received. The problem with proportional voting was that it filled the Reichstag with a large number of parties.

The first Reichstag elections in 1920 returned five parties with at least 50 seats each. There were also a host of smaller parties holding fewer than five seats and representing regional or special interests. Among these ‘micro-parties’ were the Bavarian Peasants’ League, the Agricultural League, the German Farmers Party, the Economic Party of the Middle Classes, the Reich Party for Civil Rights and the Christian Social People’s Service.

This myriad of parties and the scattered composition of the Reichstag made forming a government, passing legislation and debating issues extremely difficult.

The problems of minority government

For those reasons outlined above, no single party ever held an absolute majority of Reichstag seats during the Weimar period. This meant that no party was able to form a government on its own.

To form a government and push through legislation, parties had to group together to form a voting majority. There were several of these coalitions, or voting blocs, during the life of the Weimar Republic. The political turmoil of the 1920s meant they were fragile and unstable. A contentious bill or measure could put the coalition at risk of fracture and collapse. The fragility of these coalitions made the task of the chancellor enormously difficult.

Some parties, particularly those on the radical fringes, either refused to participate in Reichstag coalitions or entered them reluctantly or insincerely. Right-wing parties, for example, were reluctant to participate in coalitions with the large Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Militarism, nationalism and authoritarianism

Germany’s defeat in World War I should have killed off or critically weakened German militarism, nationalism and faith in authoritarianism – but these powerful ideas refused to die. They survived in the post-war period and helped undermine Weimar democracy.

The main repositories for these ideas were military organisations – including the Reichswehr, the Freikorps and the various ex-soldiers’ leagues – as well as political parties on the far right, such as the NSDAP (Nazis).

Military leaders like Paul von Hindenburg, who should have been disgraced into retirement by the defeat of 1918, remained as heroes and important political players in the new society. The ‘old days of empire’ under Bismarck and the authoritarian monarchy had ended in a disastrous war – yet they were often romanticised and recalled as better times.

Hostility to democracy and parliamentarianism

Several political parties gave little or no support to the Weimar political system, instead choosing to undermine, attack or sabotage it. Parties like the Communist Party (KPD), the Nazis (NSDAP) and the German Nationalist People’s Party (DNVP) had anti-democratic platforms that sought the destruction of parliamentary democracy. These groups stood candidates in elections not to participate in the Reichstag but to damage and destroy it from within.

In the early 1930s, the NSDAP used its growing representation in the Reichstag as a platform for anti-democratic rhetoric and propaganda. Other radical parties were similarly intransigent and destructive in their approach. These attacks on Weimar democracy also contributed to the loss of public trust in the Weimar political system.

The impact of the Great Depression

Arguably the most significant reason why the Weimar Republic failed was the onset of the Great Depression. The economic collapse of 1929 had dire effects on Germany. By 1932, two-fifths of the German workforce or some six million people were without a job. This resulted in many German voters abandoning their support for mainstream and moderate parties, choosing instead to vote for radical groups.

It is unclear how much of this was genuine support for these parties and how much was a protest vote – but whatever the reasons, the NSDAP recorded significant increases in Reichstag seats in 1930 and July 1932. This propelled Adolf Hitler into the public eye, first as a presidential nominee and then as a potential chancellor.

Without the miserable conditions created by the Great Depression, Hitler and the NSDAP would likely have remained a powerless entity on the margins of Weimar politics.

Support for Hitler and the NSDAP

Members of the NSDAP in 1930

While Hitler and the NSDAP could not have seized power without the Great Depression, they were well placed to do so when the time came. Between 1924 and 1932, Hitler and his agents busied themselves with reforming and expanding the Nazi movement and becoming a significant political party.

They did this by presenting the NSDAP as a legitimate contender for Reichstag seats. They toned down their anti-Semitic and anti-republican rhetoric. They recruited members to increase party membership. They expanded the NSDAP from a Bavarian group into a national political party.

Hitler also chased support from powerful interest groups: German industrialists, wealthy capitalists, press barons like Alfred Hugenberg and the upper echelons of the Reichswehr. Without these tactical changes, Hitler and the NSDAP would not have been in a position to claim power in the early 1930s.

Political intriguing in 1932

The January 1933 appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor was the dagger through the heart of Weimar democracy. Yet just a few months before Hitler’s appointment seemed unlikely. The man whose approval was required for Hitler to become chancellor, president Paul von Hindenburg, had low regard for the NSDAP leader and no desire to appoint him as head of government.

It took weeks of intriguing, rumour-mongering and lobbying before Hindenburg, by then showing signs of senility, changed his mind. The actions of those around Hindenburg, men like former chancellor Franz von Papen, were critical factors in persuading the president that a Hitler cabinet could succeed, yet could be controlled.

Citation information
Title: “Why the Weimar Republic failed”
Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey, Steve Thompson
Publisher: Alpha History
URL: http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/why-the-weimar-republic-failed/
Date published: October 14, 2019
Date accessed: Today’s date
Copyright: The content on this page may not be republished without our express permission. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use.

Weimar Republic artists, writers and film makers

This who’s who contains brief biographical summaries of significant Weimar Republic artists, writers and filmmakers, from 1918 to 1933. These profiles have been written by Alpha History authors.

Otto Dix (1891-1969) was a German artist who produced many works critical of both World War I and Weimar society. Born in Thuringia to a blue-collar family, Dix trained as an artist from childhood. He enlisted in the German army in early 1915, saw extensive service as a machine gunner on both the Eastern and Western Fronts, and won the Iron Cross.

After the war, the traumatised Dix returned to his painting. Influenced by expressionism and Dada, his work became darker, cynical and more political. Like his fellow artist and collaborator George Grosz, Dix explored anti-war themes and criticisms of Weimar society. Dix’s work was more graphic, sometimes including shocking depictions of dismembered bodies and disfigured war veterans.

Dix’s criticisms of the war and German militarism made him a target for the Nazis. After Hitler’s rise to power Dix was dismissed from his teaching positions in Dresden, while his more controversial paintings were seized. Dix survived Nazi rule and World War II and continued to produce anti-war paintings until his death.

walter gropius

Walter Gropius (1883-1969) was the founder of the Bauhaus artistic and architectural movement. Born in Berlin, Gropius followed his father and uncle into architecture. He set up his own business in the capital and explored modernist designs in his work, abandoning traditional materials in favour of glass and steel. Gropius was conscripted into the military and served as an officer on the Western Front during World War I.

In 1919, Gropius was appointed as head of the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts. Under his tutelage, it became the crucible of Bauhaus, a movement that Gropius claimed would “embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity… rising toward heaven from the hands of a million workers”. At the Bauhaus school several artists, including Gropius himself, pioneered new styles and designs in art, architecture, decor, furniture, interior design and typography. Bauhaus became Weimar Germany’s best known artistic oeuvre; the Bauhaus building in Dessau – with its modular shapes, glass panes and distinctive sign – was both a model and a temple for the movement.

In the late 1920s, Gropius moved away from the Bauhaus school and returned to private practice in Berlin, where he designed large public housing projects. In 1934 Gropius was forced to flee Nazism, later taking up residence in the United States.

George Grosz (1893-1959) was an artist and illustrator, best known for his involvement in Dadaism and his depictions of life in Weimar Germany. Born in Berlin, the son of a publican, Grosz undertook art studies as a teenager. He served in the army in 1914 before being discharged on medical grounds. In 1919 Grosz became involved in the Spartacus Uprising; he later joined the German Communist Party but left the party as a protest against dictatorial violence in the Soviet Union.

During the 1920s Grosz created scores of paintings and illustrations, many of which touched on political and social themes. Topics covered in Grosz’s work include political corruption, militarism, the inequalities of capitalism, the mistreatment of war veterans, urban life, Weimar decadence and eroticism.

Vehemently opposed to the Nazis, Grosz left Germany shortly after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. He spent the rest of his life in the United States, where he taught art in New York and continued to paint until his death.

Fritz Lang (1890-1976) was probably Germany’s best known film-maker during the Weimar period. Born in Vienna to a Jewish mother, Lang was raised Catholic and briefly trained as an engineer, before transferring to art. He served on the Eastern Front during World War I, rising to the rank of lieutenant.

Shortly after his discharge, Lang began working in filmmaking, where he adapted and incorporated expressionist techniques from his study of the visual arts. Lang’s first significant film was Doctor Mabuse, a dark psychological story that intertwined crime, hypnosis and immorality. Lang’s best-known work, Metropolis, was completed in 1927.

The rise of Nazism curtailed Lang’s career. He emigrated to the United States, reportedly after being offered the role of the chief filmmaker for the Nazi regime.

remarque

Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) was a veteran of World War I and one of Germany’s best known writers during the Weimar period. Born in north-western Germany, the son of a bookbinder, Remarque was conscripted into the army in June 1917. He served barely a month on the Western Front before being wounded and invalided for the rest of the war.

After the armistice, Remarque trained as a teacher but also began writing novels. His best-known work was All Quiet on the Western Front, written in 1927 and published two years later. It became hugely popular in both Germany and the West, though it divided political opinion. All Quiet on the Western Front was despised by the Nazis, who felt that it discredited the memory of German soldiers.

On coming to power the Nazis ordered Remarque’s books to be burned as degenerate literature. They later guillotined Remarque’s sister, Elfriede. In 1936 Remarque, by now living in Switzerland, penned Three Comrades, a novel set in the decadent and politically volatile environment of Weimar Germany. Remarque continued to write until his death in 1970.


© Alpha History 2018-23. Content on this page may not be republished or distributed without permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use.
This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey, Brian Doone and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation:
J. Llewfilmmakers, “Weimar Republic artists, writers and filmmakers”, Alpha History, accessed [today’s date], http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/weimar-republic-artists/.

Weimar Republic soldiers and rebels

This who’s who contains biographical summaries of significant Weimar Republic soldiers, military figures, rebels and revolutionaries in Germany, from 1918 to 1933. These profiles have been written by Alpha History authors.

hammerstein-equordKurt von Hammerstein-Equord (1878-1943) was commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr during the early 1930s. Of aristocratic birth, Hammerstein-Equord served in eastern Europe during World War I. After the war, he remained in the army as a divisional commander. Though he remained aloof from Weimar party politics, Hammerstein-Equord’s personal views were liberal, particularly for a general of the Reichswehr. He supported the Reichstag and the republic but had no regard for extremists on either the right or the left. Hammerstein-Equord was particularly critical of Adolf Hitler, the NSDAP and the SA, who he condemned as “criminals”. He was given command of the Reichswehr in 1930 and spent much of the next two years trying to prevent Hitler’s appointment as chancellor. He resigned as Reichswehr chief in early 1934.

Wolfgang KappWolfgang Kapp (1858-1922) was born in New York to German parents, who returned to Europe when Kapp was still a child. He was trained as a lawyer then entered the Prussian civil service, eventually rising to managerial positions. Kapp’s politics were conservative and enthusiastically nationalist; he supported German involvement in the war and was on friendly terms with high-ranking military officers, including Admiral von Tirpitz, Erich Ludendorff and Walther von Luttwitz. In 1917 Kapp started his own party, the German Fatherland Party; it was popular for a short time but had faded away by the end of 1918. Kapp is best known for the 1920 right-wing putsch that attempted to install him as German leader; he was neither well-known nor respected enough for the putsch to attract sufficient support. He fled to Sweden for a time before returning to Germany in 1922, just a few weeks before his death.

karl liebknechtKarl Liebknecht (1871-1919) was one of the Spartacist (communist) leaders who attempted to seize control of Berlin in 1918-19. Born in Leipzig, Liebknecht’s father Wilhelm was a founding member of the SPD and spent time in prison under Bismarck’s anti-socialist laws. Karl Liebknecht graduated in law and became a passionate figure in the SPD’s left-wing, aligning himself with Rosa Luxumberg and even voting against his more moderate father. In 1912 Liebknecht was elected to the Reichstag; two years later he was the only Reichstag member to vote against the war. He continued his vocal opposition to the war through 1915, both as a writer and public speaker. The government attempted to silence Liebknecht by conscripting him, but he refused to fight, instead serving as a gravedigger on the Eastern Front.

LudendorffErich Ludendorff (1865-1937) was a former military commander who became a nationalist figurehead during the Weimar era. Born in Prussia to an affluent family, Ludendorff was a bright student who entered the military at a young age. Intelligent and hardworking but generally emotionless, Ludendorff played a leading role in implementing the Kaiser’s plans to expand and modernise the German military. By the outbreak of war Ludendorff, by then a major general, was seconded to the General Staff. By 1917 he was second-in-command behind Hindenburg, though many believe it was Ludendorff who held the reins. The collapse of 1918 hit Ludendorff hard; he later blamed Germany’s defeat on the weak Kaiser, duplicitous civilian politicians, half-hearted businessmen and Jewish intriguers. After the war, Ludendorff became swept up in right-wing nationalist politics. Until the failed 1923 putsch in Munich, he was a high profile patron of the Nazi Party and a supporter of Adolf Hitler.

rosa luxemburgRosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) was probably the foremost female revolutionary of her time. Born in Poland, just a few weeks after the unification of Germany, Luxemburg was well educated and became a Marxist in her teenage years. She moved to Germany in 1898 and took membership of the SPD, where she was active in writing, public speaking and political education (Friedrich Ebert being one of her early students). Luxemburg was appalled by World War I but even more by support for the war from her fellow SPD members. She was a foundation member of the Spartacus League, campaigning adamantly against the war, attempting to whip up general strikes and circulating anti-war propaganda. Luxemburg was imprisoned briefly in 1918. She became embroiled in the January 1919 revolution in Berlin (an uprising she did not fully support) during which she was captured and executed, her body flung into a canal.

albert schlageterAlbert Schlageter (1894-1923) was a World War I veteran, Freikorps member and opponent of France’s occupation of the Ruhr. After his discharge from the military in 1919 Schlageter, like countless other young men, found himself jobless and aimless, but politically excited by the events in Germany. He was quickly drawn to the Freikorps, where was involved in street battles with communists and support of the 1920 Kapp putsch. In 1923 Schlageter participated a raid against French forces occupying the Ruhr, damaging trains to prevent local materials being transported to France. He was betrayed, captured by the French in May 1923 and subsequently executed. Though Schlageter was a minor figure, his death was exploited by right-wing nationalist groups, particularly the Nazis, who painted Schlageter as both a hero and a martyr.


© Alpha History 2018. Content on this page may not be republished or distributed without permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use.
This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey, Brian Doone and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation:
J. Llewellyn et al, “Weimar Republic soldiers and rebels”, Alpha History, accessed [today’s date], http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/weimar-republic-soldiers/.

Weimar Republic politicians

This who’s who contains biographical summaries of significant Weimar Republic politicians active between 1918 and 1933. These profiles have been written by Alpha History authors.

Heinrich Bruning (1885-1970) was the longest-serving chancellor (1930-32) of the Weimar Republic – somewhat ironically, given that his time in office coincided with the worst of the Great Depression. Bruning was raised Catholic and attended university, before enlisting and serving in World War I. He joined the Centre Party in 1924 and served in both the Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag (state parliament). Bruning’s reputation, deserved or not, was as an astute economic manager. His policies were generally austere, aimed at limiting government spending and preventing inflation. It was for this reason that Hindenburg appointed him chancellor in 1930, as Germany was plunging into depression. Bruning had little support in the Reichstag and most of his policies were implemented by decree from Hindenburg. When the president withdrew his support in 1932, Bruning was forced to resign. He remained in the Reichstag as a vocal critic of the Nazi movement before fleeing Germany in 1934.

Wilhelm Cuno (1876-1933) was chancellor of Germany from November 1922 to August 1923. Born in Thuringia, Cuno was trained as a lawyer before entering the civil service. He later entered private industry, working closely with shipping companies in the United States. Cuno’s business experience saw him headhunted by the Weimar government; he was offered the role of foreign minister but refused. In 1922, Friedrich Ebert invited Cuno – who was not a sitting Reichstag member and had no party affiliation – to become chancellor and form a government. French troops occupied the Ruhr shortly after Cuno took office. Cuno’s response was one of passive resistance: supporting striking workers while maintaining their salaries through increased print runs of banknotes. For this reason, many historians consider Cuno to be the architect of the hyperinflation disaster of late 1923. Cuno’s government fell in August of that year, and Cuno himself returned to working in the private sector.

Friedrich Ebert (1871-1925) was the first president of the Weimar Republic. Born to a working-class family, Ebert’s youth was spent as a journeyman labourer, during which he developed an affinity for the trade union movement. He joined the SPD and, in 1912, was elected as a member of the Reichstag. Ebert proved himself a social democrat rather than a socialist. In November 1918 Ebert inherited the presidency of the new republic, following the abdication of the Kaiser and the resignation of chancellor Maximillian of Baden. Though Ebert conducted himself well and was widely respected, his presidency divided opinion. He was hated by right-wing nationalists, who thought him weak, as well as many in his own party, who thought him a class traitor. Ebert’s reliance on the army and the Freikorps to protect his own government were especially controversial. These criticisms took a toll on Ebert’s own health and contributed to his premature death in 1925, aged 54.

Matthias Erzberger (1875-1921) was a Centre Party politician, a signer of the 1918 armistice and the Weimar finance minister in 1919-20. Born into a Catholic working-class family in southern Germany, Erzberger was elected to the Reichstag in 1903. While in the Reichstag he voted in favour of Germany’s military buildup and later supported the war effort. By mid-1917, Erzberger had changed his views on the war and was calling for a negotiated peace – and, controversially, questioning the ability of the German military to achieve victory. In November 1918 Erzberger was dispatched to northern France to negotiate an armistice with the Allies. He became a minister in the first Weimar cabinet, later serving as vice chancellor and finance minister under Gustav Bauer. As the struggling republic’s finance chief, a critic of the military and the architect of the armistice, Erzberger was a prime target for ultra-nationalists. In August 1921 two members of the Freikorps and Organisation Consul shot him to death in the Black Forest.

Wilhelm Groener (1867-1939) was a high-ranking military officer and notable minister in several Weimar governments. Born in southern Germany to a military family, Groener enlisted in the army and received officer training. He rose through the ranks, serving in the Prussian war minister; in the final days of World War I, Groener replaced Ludendorff as Hindenburg’s deputy. Groener retired from the military but during the 1920s was recruited by several Weimar chancellors, serving as minister for the interior, transport and defence. In 1931 Groener, as minister of the interior, banned the NSDAP’s paramilitary branch, the Sturmabteilung (SA) – which made him a target of Nazi vitriol and propaganda. In 1932 Groener was ambushed on the floor of the Reichstag by Hermann Goering and other Nazi hecklers; this incident led to his resignation from the ministry and politics in general.

Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934) is best remembered as the man who appointed Adolf Hitler as German chancellor. Born to an aristocratic Prussian family, Hindenburg was a career military officer who saw service in mid-19th-century wars against Austria and France. He retired from active service in 1911 but was recalled on the outbreak of World War I. In 1916 Hindenburg replaced von Falkenhayn as chief of staff. Though his military achievements were mixed, Hindenburg enjoyed enormous public popularity. He retired from the army in 1919 but six years later was cajoled into running for the presidency. Hindenburg won comfortably, to nobody’s surprise. Though he was doubtful about Weimar democracy and surrounded himself with a coterie determined to see it fail, Hindenburg pledged to uphold the constitution as best he could. Through his presidency, he craved a chancellor who could lead and unite the nation – but the quagmire of Weimar factionalism made this an impossible task.

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the NSDAP (Nazi Party) leader whose elevation to the chancellorship in January 1933 spelled doom for the Weimar Republic. Hitler was born in Austria and spent his teenage years traipsing around Vienna, trying to gain entry into the art academy while scratching a living selling postcards. In 1914 he crossed the border and enlisted in the German army, serving much of the war on the Western Front, where he was twice decorated for bravery. In 1919 the army sent Hitler to spy on a right-wing political group, the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP) or German Workers’ Party. Instead of reporting on their activities, Hitler became fascinated by the group’s radical politics and rousing meetings. He also discovered a talent for passionate and emotive public speaking, soon becoming the DAP’s most influential orator. In 1920 Hitler became the party’s leader and oversaw its re-formation as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). Like Hitler himself, the party was ultra-nationalist, anti-Semitic and bitterly opposed to the Republic and the men who ran it. In November 1923 Hitler and his followers attempted a putsch (coup) against the provincial government in Bavaria. The coup failed and Hitler was arrested and jailed, however, the incident brought him national press coverage. Hitler’s rise to power began with the Great Depression in 1929. Preaching nationalism, conspiracy theories and hatred to hungry and disillusioned Germans, Hitler and the NSDAP began to gain popular support. In 1932 the Nazis won 230 seats in the Reichstag, the largest return of any single party during the Weimar era, while Hitler also polled well during his unsuccessful tilt for the presidency. Though Hitler was despised by Hindenburg and other members of the establishment, the voting power of the NSDAP made him a contender for the chancellorship in 1932. Hitler was eventually appointed to this office in January 1933, following weeks of backroom conniving and dealing.

Alfred Hugenberg (1865-1951) was a wealthy press baron and nationalist political leader. The son of a Prussian royal official, Hugenberg studied law and economics before joining the civil service. He became involved in politics at an early age, founding two nationalist groups in the 1890s. By the outbreak of World War I Hugenberg had become a director of Krupp Steel, Germany’s largest industrial company. After the war he left Krupp and started his own publishing company, buying up small newspapers and becoming Germany’s dominant press magnate. Hugenberg also joined the German National People’s Party (DNVP) and was elected to the Reichstag in 1920. Under Hugenberg’s influence the DNVP became more radical, calling for the abolition of the Weimar Republic, the restoration of the monarchy, the revival of militarism and the recapture of Germany’s colonial possessions. By 1929 Hugenberg, unable to gain the support of the working classes, had thrown his financial and media weight behind Adolf Hitler. In 1931 Hugenberg’s DNVP aligned itself with the NSDAP, though beneath the surface Hugenberg and Hitler had little genuine trust or admiration for each other. Hugenberg served briefly as a minister in Hitler’s government, before being forced out in mid-1933. Hugenberg’s newspapers were later taken over by the Nazi propaganda corps, while Hugenberg himself was allowed to remain as a member of the Reichstag.

Franz von Papen (1879-1969) was chancellor of Germany briefly, though he is best remembered for his role in bringing Adolf Hitler to power. Von Papen was a Catholic of privileged birth. He received the military training typical of a young Prussian, after which he travelled widely as a diplomatic. In 1915 von Papen was expelled from the United States after being exposed as a spymaster; he later saw active service on the Western Front and in the Middle East. After the war he joined the Centre Party and entered Prussian state politics. In June 1932 von Papen was appointed German chancellor by Hindenburg, despite having a mediocre political record and almost no support in the Reichstag. Von Papen courted the popular NSDAP and attempted to govern forcefully – but his chancellorship was a disaster and he was forced to resign after just five months. He then undermined his successor, von Schleicher, and advised Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor.

Hugo Preuss or Preuß (1860-1925) was a Jewish-German lawyer, liberal politician and the chief architect of the Weimar constitution. Born in Berlin, the son of a successful printer, Preuss studied law and humanities at university, later entering academia himself. Preuss became involved in local politics and stood unsuccessfully as a Reichstag candidate in 1912. In late 1918 Preuss published several essays on German politics, arguing for liberal reforms and a popularly supported republic. These writings were admired by new president Friedrich Ebert, who appointed Preuss as his first minister for home affairs. Preuss also became a foundation member of the German Democratic Party (DDP), the third largest party in the newly elected National Assembly, and in February 1919 was tasked with overseeing the drafting and development of a new republican constitution. In July 1919 Preuss presented his draft constitution to the Assembly, which made some significant changes and adopted it the following month. Preuss, by now out of the ministry, became involved in Prussian state politics and continued to write on political matters. He died in 1925.

Walther Rathenau (1867-1922) was the Weimar Republic’s foreign minister during the first half of 1922. Rathenau was born in Berlin, the son of a successful Jewish businessman. After attending university he became an engineer and played an important role in improving industrial production during the war. A political liberal, Rathenau became a founding member of the German Democratic Party (DDP). In 1921 the German chancellor Joseph Wirth appointed Rathenau minister of reconstruction. The following year Rathenau was elevated to the foreign ministry, where he negotiated the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Union. This act alone made Rathenau a target for radical nationalist groups like the NSDAP, who condemned him as a Jewish-communist conspirator. In June 1922 Rathenau was shot to death while driving to work in Berlin. His assassins were members of the Freikorps, Organisation Consul (a right-wing terrorist group) and the Protection and Defiance Federation (an anti-Semitic group). Rathenau’s murder was condemned by almost all political parties and for a time served to marginalise nationalist groups like the NSDAP.

Philipp Schiedemann (1865-1939) was an SPD politician, best known for declaring the formation of the Weimar Republic. Born into a working-class family in central Germany, Schiedemann trained as a printer, became involved in labour groups and joined the SPD. By his 30s Schiedemann had moved into journalism, editing several left-wing newspapers. He entered the Reichstag in 1903 and remained there until the end of World War I, serving for a time as vice president and acting chairman of the assembly. Schiedemann was a moderate socialist who calmly opposed the war, calling for a negotiated peace. In October 1918 Schiedemann was appointed to the new cabinet of Prince Max von Baden, making him the first SPD politician to serve as a government minister. On November 9th he angered his fellow politician Friedrich Ebert by delivering a spontaneous speech in Berlin, declaring the birth of a new German republic. In February 1919 Ebert appointed Schiedemann as his first chancellor, however in June Schiedemann resigned rather than oversee the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. He remained in the Reichstag until the rise of Hitler in 1933, after which Schiedemann fled Germany and spent his final years in Denmark.

Kurt von Schleicher (1882-1934) was the German chancellor who was replaced to make way for Adolf Hitler. Born in Prussia, von Schleicher followed in the footsteps of his father, joining the army as an officer cadet. Von Schleicher served on the Eastern Front during World War I, where he was decorated for bravery but also showed a tendency to be unpredictable. Towards the end of the war, he was assigned to staff positions, where von Schleicher’s organisation and understanding of politics proved invaluable. A skilled intriguer (his surname translates as ‘the sneaker’) von Schleicher’s career was assisted at various times by Paul von Hindenburg, Wilhelm Groener and Hans von Seekt. During the 1920s he filled several important, if behind-the-scenes positions in the Reichswehr and the government, often serving as the link between the two. He served as an aid to defence minister Groener (1930-32) then as defence minister under von Papen (1932).

Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929) was a Weimar politician, Reichstag deputy, German chancellor and foreign minister. Born to a middle-class Berlin family, Stresemann was well educated and became interested in politics from a young age. Though his views were initially liberal, during World War I Stresemann became more nationalist and conservative; he supported the monarchy and the war effort, and back calls for unrestricted submarine warfare. Despite his association with the right-wing, Stresemann was a pragmatist who was prepared to work with his political opposites for the benefit of the country. His short stint as chancellor (1923) was doomed by hyperinflation and the dissolving coalition government, however, it was as foreign minister (1923-29) that Stresemann would make his name. Recognising that Germany could not recover without international support, he worked to restore and rebuild diplomatic ties, renegotiate the reparations debt and secure foreign loans. Stresemann’s premature death in 1929, at age 51, robbed Weimar Germany of its most effective statesman, at a time when he was needed most.


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The presidency of Paul von Hindenburg

Paul von Hindenburg was born in 1847, the son of a Prussian aristocrat and his commoner wife. Like other scions of the Junker elite, the young Hindenburg was sent for a military education at cadet schools. In 1866 he was shipped off to the Austro-Prussian War, where he experienced battle before his 19th birthday. Hindenburg also served in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and as an adjutant attended the ceremony that formally unified Germany in 1871. In 1903 he was promoted to the rank of general. In 1911 the 64-year-old Hindenburg left the military, intending to retire to his sizeable land holdings in Prussia. But he was recalled after the outbreak of World War I and sent to fortify East Prussia against a Russian offensive, a mission he had completed by September 1914.

In late 1914 Hindenburg was given his own army and put in charge of the Eastern Front, where he achieved several notable victories. These successes saw Hindenburg become enormously popular in Germany, where he acquired a reputation as both a brilliant military tactician and an inspirational leader. But his reputation was overstated and possibly undeserved, since many of Hindenburg’s notable successes were largely the work of subordinates, like Erich Ludendorff. In contrast, the Western Front failures of chief of staff Erich von Falkenhayn left his reputation in tatters. Hindenburg was promoted to field marshal and, in August 1916, he replaced von Falkenhayn as commander-in-chief. For the rest of the war, Hindenburg and Ludendorff ruled Germany as de facto military dictators – deciding military tactics, determining economic policy and bypassing the civilian government.

In October 1918, with Germany’s defeat imminent, Hindenburg left the army a second time. The following year he appeared before a commission of inquiry into the war, where he fuelled the Dolchstosselegende (stab in the back legend) by telling the Reichstag that he believed the German army had not been defeated on the front, it had been undermined and betrayed in Berlin. Politically, Hindenburg remained committed to rule by the Prussian monarchy; he loathed socialism and the SPD and expressed doubts that democratic parliamentary government could ever succeed in Germany. By 1920 he had disappeared from public life again, beginning his retirement as a wealthy Prussian aristocrat.

“His cross-party nomination [in 1925] was presented as an antithesis to Weimar’s parliamentary bickering and social discord. Carefully suppressing the political bargaining that had secured his nomination, the right portrayed Hindenburg as a symbol of national unity towering above the party strife, a ‘man who leans neither left or right, not towards the monarchy and not towards the Republic, but only knows his duty to serve the state and the people’. In emphasising the theme of national unity the right-wing campaign could build upon the Hindenburg myth. The motifs of loyalty, duty and sacrifice also featured equally prominently.”
Anna von der Goltz, historian

The death of Friedrich Ebert in February 1925 thrust Hindenburg back into the spotlight – and into Weimar political life. The old general was lobbied by former military colleagues, particularly Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who urged him to run for the presidency, chiefly to keep it out of hands of the SPD or Catholic Centre Party. Though he initially said no, Hindenburg eventually agreed to stand. His path was cleared when the DVP candidate, Karl Jarres, stepped aside and allowed Hindenburg to take his place. In the April run-off election, Hindenburg was backed by the four main right-wing parties (the DVP, DNVP, BVP and NSDAP). He was also supported by the majority of the German press, which promoted his personal conduct and decency, his status as a war hero and his reputation – deserved or not – for strong and intelligent leadership. Hindenburg won 48 per cent of the vote and narrowly defeated the Centre Party candidate, Wilhelm Marx (45 per cent).

Hindenburg’s election caused shock waves around Europe, where Hindenburg was still reviled for his role in World War I. Paris and London were horrified at Hindenburg’s election as head of state of a supposedly a democratic republic. Some interpreted it as a revival of German authoritarianism and the first step towards the implementation of a military dictatorship. But while Hindenburg would have welcomed the return of the monarchy, he had no intentions of betraying the constitution. For much of his nine years in the presidency, Hindenburg acted as a benign, apolitical and non-interventionist head of state. He remained aloof from party politics and bickering; he did not interfere in policy formation, and in most cases, he acted on the advice of his ministers. Hindenburg’s commitment to constitutional and democratic processes was not easy to maintain, given that he was surrounded by an inner circle of advisers who were mostly anti-democratic. It is to Hindenburg’s credit that he was able to resist their attempts to undermine and sabotage the republic – at least until late 1932.

1. Hindenburg was a career military officer of Prussian aristocratic birth who was recalled to service in 1914.
2. His Eastern Front success earned him fame and adulation, though his own part in this was exaggerated.
3. After the war, Hindenburg retired from public life – but not before perpetuating the ‘stab in the back’ legend.
4. After the death of Friedrich Ebert, Hindenburg agreed to stand for the presidency. Supported by right-wing parties and the press, he was a narrow victor in 1925.
5. As president, Hindenburg acted with dignity and caution. He distanced himself from party politics and sought to uphold the constitution and republic.


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The Treaty of Versailles

treaty of versailles
A German perspective on the Treaty of Versailles

The fate of the Weimar Republic was shaped to a large extent by the Treaty of Versailles. Drafted in Paris in the opening months of 1919, the treaty was one of several multi-national agreements that formally ended World War I. The Paris peace conferences had a wide and complex array of tasks to perform. They examined pre-war territorial disputes and attempted to resolve them by re-drawing Europe’s borders. They considered and evaluated movements for independence and self-determination, establishing several new sovereign nations. They finalised the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire (Treaty of Saint-Germain) the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire (Treaty of Sevres) and the composition of eastern Europe (Treaty of Neuilly). But the most pressing issue in Paris was what should be done with Germany.

One long-standing peace proposal was United States president Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Point plan. Wilson’s Fourteen Points had been on the table for almost a year, having been unveiled in a speech in January 1918. Wilson’s plan called for a reduction in armaments in all nations, the lifting of economic barriers, an end to secretive and disruptive alliances and freedom on the high seas. It also proposed international negotiation and dispute resolution, to be facilitated by a newly formed League of Nations. The Fourteen Points contained no specific punitive measures against Germany, other than the return of captured French and Belgian territory. For this reason, it became popular with the anti-war movement within Germany in the final months of the war; in 1918 it was cited and praised both in the Reichstagand by the Kiel mutineers. The German government’s final decision to surrender was largely motivated by its belief that Wilson’s Fourteen Points would form the basis of a post-war treaty.

Wilson’s plan, however, was not widely supported in France or Britain, where attitudes towards Germany were much less conciliatory. The prevailing attitude in Paris and London was that Germany had been chiefly, if not entirely responsible for the outbreak of the war. For that, many argued, Germany should be held accountable and punished. They also called for measures to reduce Germany’s ability to make war in the future, by dismantling or reducing her military and industrial sectors. The push to castrate Germany’s military capacity came chiefly from the French, who had the most to fear from its eastern neighbour. At the Paris negotiations, French prime minister Georges Clemenceau argued forcefully for punitive and restrictive measures against Germany. Clemenceau wanted to send Germany’s economy backwards, from a first-world industrial nation into a weak cluster of provinces concerned with agricultural production and small-scale manufacturing.

The Treaty of Versailles came to reflect much more of Clemenceau’s punitive approach than Wilson’s conciliatory one. Among its main terms and conditions:

  • Germany lost substantial amounts of territory. She was stripped of all overseas colonies and forced to surrender large amounts of European territory, including some of significant strategic or industrial value. Alsace and Lorraine were returned to France, while other areas were surrendered to Belgium, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
  • The Rhineland, an area of German territory bordering France, was ordered to be demilitarised, as a means of protecting the French border. Another German border region, the Saarland, was occupied and administered by France.
  • Germany was banned from entering into any political union or confederation with Austria.
  • The German Reichswehr (army) was restricted in size. It could contain no more than 100,000 men and was forbidden from using conscription to fill its ranks. There were also restrictions on the size and composition of its officer class.
  • The German military was subject to other restrictions and prohibitions. Naval vessels were restricted in tonnage while bans were imposed on the production or acquisition of tanks, heavy artillery, chemical weapons, aircraft, airships and submarines.
  • The treaty’s Article 231 (the ‘war guilt clause’) determined that Germany was single-handedly responsible for initiating the war, thus providing a legal basis for the payment of war reparations to the Allies.

These terms were formulated by the Allies without the input of Germany, which was not permitted to attend the Paris peace summit. In May 1919 German delegates were finally invited to Paris. After being kept waiting for several days, they were presented with the draft treaty. The German foreign minister, Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, spoke at Versailles, suggesting that while his country was prepared to make amends for its wartime excesses, the suggestion that Germany was alone in starting the war or exceeding the rules of war was baseless:

We are ready to admit that unjust things have been done. We have not come here to diminish the responsibility of the men who have waged war politically and economically, or to deny that breaches of the law of nations have been committed… But the measure of guilt of all those who have taken part can be established only by an impartial inquiry, a neutral commission before which all the principals in the tragedy can be allowed to speak, and to which all archives are open. We have asked for such an inquiry and we ask for it once more… In their hearts, the German people will resign themselves to a hard lot if the bases of peace are mutually agreed on and not destroyed. A peace which cannot be defended before the world as a peace of justice will always invite new resistance. No one could sign it with a clear conscience, for it could not be carried out. No one could venture to guarantee its execution, though this obligation is required by the signing of the treaty.

When news of the treaty reached Germany it generated a firestorm of public anger. Germans had expected a fair and even-handed agreement based on Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Instead, they were handed what they called the “Versailles diktat” – a treaty that was not negotiated between equals but was forced on a war-ravaged and starving people at the point of a gun. There were few moments of national unity in Weimar Germany – but the response to Versailles was one of them. Erich Ludendorff considered the treaty the work of Jews, bankers and plotting socialists. Gustav Stresemann described it as a “moral, political and economic death sentence”. “We will be destroyed,” said Walter Rathenau. In the Weimar Reichstag, delegates from all political parties except the USPD rose to condemn the Versailles treaty and the conduct of the Allies. Almost every newspaper in Germany slammed the treaty and screamed for the government to reject it.

For two tense months, the Weimar government debated the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. The issue brought about the demise of Weimar’s first chancellor, Philipp Scheidemann, who resigned rather than ratify the treaty, which he deemed a “murderous plan”. President Friedrich Ebert was also opposed to the Versailles treaty. In June he contacted military commanders and asked whether the army could defend the nation if the government refused to sign the treaty and the Allies resumed the war. Both Paul von Hindenburg and Wilhelm Groener advised the Reichstag that the army lacked material and munitions and could not withstand an Allied offensive or invasion of Germany. Any refusal to comply with Versailles would also prolong the Allied food blockade, which was still ongoing in June 1919 and contributing to thousands of civilian deaths from starvation. Confronted with this advice, the Reichstag had no alternative but to submit to the Allies. Germany’s delegates signed the treaty on June 28th 1919. It was ratified by the Weimar assembly almost a fortnight later (July 9th), passed 209 votes to 116.

For the SPD and other moderates, the acceptance of Versailles was a necessary measure, given reluctantly to prevent more war and bloodshed, an Allied invasion of Germany and the possible dissolution of the German state. Some accepted Versailles in the hope that it could be renegotiated and relaxed later. Those in the military and the far right, however, saw it as yet another betrayal. “Today German honour is dragged to the grave. Never forget it!” screamed one nationalist newspaper. “The German people will advance again to regain their pride. We will have our revenge for the shame of 1919!” Conspiracists on the far right claimed the ratification was more evidence of destructive forces at work in Germany’s civilian government. The Treaty of Versailles – or rather the question of how Germany should have responded to it – would contribute to political divisions for the life of the Weimar Republic.

1. The Treaty of Versailles, drafted in 1919, formally concluded hostilities between the Allies and Germany.
2. Germany was not a party to treaty negotiations but was handed peace terms in May 1919, inviting protest.
3. The treaty was widely opposed within Germany, the government briefly considered refusing to sign and ratify.
4. Faced with a resumption of the war and an Allied invasion, the Weimar government reluctantly ordered the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and organised its ratification by the Reichstag.
5. This acceptance of the treaty outraged nationalist groups, who considered it another example of the Dolchstosselegende. Versailles and its harsh terms contributed to more than a decade of political division in the Weimar Republic.

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From Weimar democracy to Nazi dictatorship

nazi dictatorship

The transition from Weimar democracy to Nazi dictatorship came faster than anyone could have predicted. When Hitler was appointed chancellor on January 30th 1933, his grip on power was no stronger than any of the 14 men who had previously filled the office. The NSDAP lacked an absolute majority in the Reichstag and had actually lost 34 seats in the November 1932 election. Only three of the twelve men in Hitler’s cabinet, including Hitler himself, were NSDAP members. Hindenburg retained the constitutional authority to replace Hitler at any time. And while Hitler had powerful supporters in the military, the media and big business, he also had many critics who condemned his appointment as a travesty against democracy. Yet despite these apparent weaknesses, within just a few weeks Hitler had cemented himself in power, shredded the last vestiges of Weimar republicanism and laid the foundation for absolute dictatorship.

The catalyst for this radical expansion of Nazi power was a destructive fire in the Reichstag building in Berlin. At around 9pm on February 27th 1933, someone discovered one of the building’s hallways ablaze. The city’s fire brigade had the fire under control within two hours, but not before it had gutted the building. The signs of arson were apparent: flammable material was scattered around the building and some kind of chemical accelerant had been scattered on carpets. Exactly who was responsible remains one of history’s great mysteries. The Berlin police found Marinus van der Lubbe, a simple-minded Dutchman, crouching half-naked at the rear of the building and with flammable material and fire-lighters in his possessions. He was almost the ideal suspect, having affiliations with the communist underground and a criminal record for arson. Van der Lubbe later confessed to police, albeit under torture. Yet there was considerable evidence that van der Lubbe had assistance, either from NSDAP agents or fellow communists.

Regardless of who was to blame, Hitler seized upon the Reichstag fire as a means of expanding his power. Hitler and vice-chancellor Franz von Papen arrived on the scene as the fire was being extinguished; there they met NSDAP powerbroker Hermann Goering, who was fulminating about it being a communist plot, possibly the trigger for a communist revolution. Hitler told von Papen: “This is a God-given signal, Herr Vice-Chancellor”. The following day the chancellor declared a state of emergency and asked President Hindenburg to invoke Article 48 of the Weimar constitution, which allowed the president to rule by decree if public safety or order was under threat. Hitler and his ministers drafted the Verordnung des Reichsprasidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat (‘Presidential order for the protection of People and State’), better known as the Reichstag Fire Decree:

Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom, freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications. Warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

This decree was worded so broadly that it allowed the Nazis to define their own legal limits. Hitler and his ministers could marginalise political opponents by imposing restrictions on the press, banning political meetings and marches and intercepting communications. The legal concept of habeas corpus was suspended, allowing suspected terrorists to be detained without charge for indefinite periods.

But the Reichstag Fire Decree was only a temporary measure. Four weeks later, on March 23rd, the Nazis introduced the Enabling Act into the Reichstag. This short bill, containing five articles, effectively allowed Hitler to govern without consulting or seeking endorsement from the Reichstag. The chancellor and his ministers could rule by decree, bypassing the constitution, passing legislation and determining foreign policy, all without the legislature. This new act was presented as a five-year emergency measure, set to expire on April 1st 1937. The day before the Reichstag voted on the Enabling Act, Hitler appeared in the assembly and delivered an impassioned speech, promising to root out troublemakers but also to uphold German Christian values. The act was passed 444-94, thus gaining the two-thirds margin required. But the NSDAP had minimised opposition: it struck a deal with the Centre Party, then arrested or intimidated dozens of SPD and KPD deputies, preventing them from voting.

Observers inside and outside Germany recognised the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act as an opportunistic grab for total power. In Britain, one cartoon depicted Hitler as Nero, with Hindenburg whispering into his ear: “This is a heaven-sent opportunity my lad. If you can’t be a dictator now you never will”.

1. In late February 1933, a fire broke out in the Reichstag building in Berlin, gutting the interior.
2. The fire was condemned by leading Nazis as the work of communists, possibly to spark a revolution.
3. Hitler convinced Hindenburg to issue a presidential decree granting him wide-ranging emergency powers.
4. This was followed in March by the Enabling Act, giving the Nazis dictatorial control for a five-year period.
5. The act passed the Reichstag 444-94, due to anti-communist paranoia, deal-making and SA intimidation.


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War reparations and Weimar Germany

war reparations weimar germany

The Allies’ determination to extract reparations from Germany hindered the nation’s recovery after World War I. Vast sums of money were demanded from Berlin, compensation for the Kaiserreich’s role in instigating war. Germany’s negotiators at the Paris peace conference gave an in-principle agreement to the payment of reparations. The legal basis for reparations was provided by Article 231 of the Versailles treaty, the infamous ‘war guilt’ clause that deemed Germany responsible for “all the loss and damage” suffered by Allied nations during the war. But the Paris negotiators were unwilling to fix a final reparations figure or determine how reparations should be recovered. This task was instead left to an Inter-Allied Reparations Commission, formed in 1919 by the governments of Britain, France, Belgium, Italy and Japan.

The commission met over 1920 and again in Paris in January 1921, where it proposed a final figure of 269 billion gold marks, or £UK11.3 billion. This was an astonishing amount by any measure. It was the equivalent of 96,000 tons of gold – or around half the known gold reserves of the entire world; today it would equate to almost $US500,000,000,000 (half a trillion American dollars). The German delegates refused to accept this figure, quite understandably, forcing the commission to reconvene in London in March. By then, Germany was under considerable pressure to agree to a final reparations figure. Berlin had failed to pay a £1 billion interim instalment, leading to the occupation of three industrial cities along the Rhine.

In April the London meeting of the Commission fixed a final reparations figure of £6.6 billion. The reparations instalments were to be paid quarterly in gold or foreign exchange backed by gold, along with tradable commodities such as steel, raw iron or coal. Berlin was informed that any defaults on these payments would lead to the occupation of the industrial Ruhr region and the confiscation of raw materials and industrial equipment there. Though this revised amount was less than two-thirds the figure first proposed, it remained well beyond the capacity of the war-ravaged German economy. The reparations figure generated international debate for a decade. In England, the noted economist John Maynard Keynes criticised the agreed figure, suggesting that the true amount of war damages had been exaggerated by the Allies, particularly France and Belgium. Forcing Germany to pay the full amount, Keynes argued, would not only devastate the German economy, it would have a detrimental impact on European trade and probably generate considerable political instability.

“Inflation started before reparations became an issue; the connection with reparations cannot therefore be considered the entire problem. Yet reparations were more than merely a contributory factor to the acceleration of inflation. The earlier stage ‘creeping inflation’ was the result of long-term structural problems within the economy and the pressures exerted by war, and the later-stage hyperinflation was directly related to the obligation after 1921 to pay reparations. The connection between the reparations saga and the collapse of the mark is too strong to be coincidental.”
Stephen Lee, historian

Germany made an initial reparations payment of $250 million – or about 0.8 percent of the total – in August 1921. But even this placed enormous strains on the German economy, which had dwindling gold reserves, little foreign trade and was reliant on imported raw materials for its industries. In late 1921 the Weimar government asked the Reparations Commission for a moratorium on payments. This was granted in May 1922, despite the opposition of the French government. In 1922 the value of the German Reichsmark collapsed; by late in the year it took almost 3,500 Reichsmarks to purchase one US dollar. Unable to import or buy foreign exchange, the German government found itself unable to meet its reparations obligations. The French government, believing the German government was acting purposefully and dishonestly by withholding payments, began to agitate for punitive action.

Germany was not the only European nation struggling to pay its wartime debts. France was itself defaulting on instalments for its war debts, particularly those to its largest creditor, the United States. A German cartoon of the early 1920s showed the French prime minister threatening war against Germany but being obstructed by ‘Uncle Sam’, who suggested: “Why don’t you pay for your last war before starting another”. The post-war economic malaise and the issues of war debts and reparations remained divisive issues for much of the 1920s. The reparations figures were constantly being challenged and revised, most notably by the Dawes Plan (1924) and the Young Plan (1929).

reparations

1. The defeated Germany agreed to pay war reparations, as determined at the Versailles conference.
2. The French were the strongest advocates for a massive figure, hoping to keep Germany bankrupt and weak.
3. The final figure proved too much for Germany’s struggling economy to pay, though she met her first instalment.
4. The German economy slumped in 1922, with currency inflation, strikes and falling production.
5. Unable to make further payments, the Germans saw French troops occupy the Ruhr industrial region.


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This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation:
J. Llewellyn et al, “War reparations and Weimar Germany”, Alpha History, 2018, accessed [today’s date], http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/reparations/.

The Centre Party

centre party poster

The Centre Party (Zentrumspartei or Zentrum) was the political voice of Germany’s Catholics. It was formed in 1870, a time when Catholics made up a little over one-third of the empire; the remainder of Germans were Lutheran or other Protestant denominations. The young party would face considerable challenges in its first years. In 1871 Bismarck, who was himself Protestant, launched his Kulturkampf (or ‘culture struggle’) – a campaign to reduce or eliminate Catholic influence in the newly unified Germany. Bismarck’s persecution of German Catholics drove many of them toward the Centre Party; both its membership and voter numbers doubled through the mid-1870s. By 1880 the Centre Party was the second largest party in the Reichstag.

After Bismarck’s departure, the Centre Party reconciled with and generally supported the imperial government. In terms of public policy, the party sought to protect the rights of German Catholics and the Landtags (state assemblies). Other than that, it had few fixed policies or ideological positions. Like the SPD, the Centre Party was a large party that housed a large range of views. Among its membership were Christian liberal-democrats on the left, moderate conservatives in the middle and strong nationalists on the right. The party threw its weight behind the imperial government during World War I – but it also contained anti-war elements. By 1917 the Centre Party’s left wing, led by Matthias Erzberger, was voicing strong criticisms of the war and demanding a resolution for peace.

“The Weimar Republic offered the Centre Party its greatest opportunities and its leaders readily rose to the challenge. Its most able politicians in these years came from the ranks of the trade union movement and the professional classes; but the influence of men from these groups received a setback in the last years of the Republic, when under Bruning’s chancellorship, the leadership passed back to the traditional right wing.”
Eda Sagarra, historian

The Centre Party remained a significant political force in the post-war Republic. It won 91 seats in the first national assembly (January 1919), making it the second largest parliamentary party after the SPD. The Centre Party’s share of the vote slumped in 1920, however its representation in the Reichstag remained consistent during the Weimar period, never slipping below 62 seats. Matthias Erzberger, the Centre Party’s leader until his murder in 1921, promised the party would remain loyal to the constitution and prepared to work in coalition governments with the SPD and other parties. The Centre Party held the middle ground in the Reichstag for the duration of the republic. It had ministers in every cabinet, while the chancellorship was given to five different Centre Party members (Constantin Fehrenbach, Joseph Wirth, Wilhelm Marx, Heinrich Bruning and Franz von Papen).

centre party

1. The Centre Party was formed in 1870 to provide political representation for Germany’s Catholic population.
2. Bismarck’s Kulturkampf campaign of the 1870s drove German Catholics to the party, expanding its membership.
3. With a sizeable membership, the Centre Party contained a wide variety of ideological and policy positions.
4. It supported the war effort in 1914-18, though this created divisions and differences of opinion within the party.
5. The Centre Party was an important political player in the Weimar era, belong to all Reichstag coalitions, supplying five chancellors and boasting ministers in every cabinet.

© Alpha History 2018. Content on this page may not be republished or distributed without permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use.
This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation:
J. Llewellyn et al, “The Centre Party”, Alpha History, 2018, accessed [today’s date], http://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/centre-party/.