Political Weakness of the Weimar Government

Political weakness of the Weimar Government

The system of proportional representation

Proportional representation is a system in which a political party receives the same percentage of seats in parliament as the percentage of votes it won in the election.

Germany had been controlled by authoritarian rule for a very long time. The democratic Weimar Government had a president who was chosen by the people. There were no specific candidates for the party and people voted for a party instead. Parties gained the seats based on the number of votes won and the parties who gained the most number of seats wins.

 Article 48 of the Weimar government

On February 27, the Reichstag Fire damaged the house of Parliament in Berlin. Claiming that the fire was the first step in a Communist revolution, the Nazis used the fire as a pretext to get President von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree. And so, the single-party dictatorship in Germany begun... As a result, over the years, Hitler used Article 48 to give his dictatorship the stamp of legality so that he would remain in power.

Weimar Coalition

The Weimar Coalition is made up of the centre-left coalition of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the social liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) and the Christian democratic Centre Party, who together had a large majority of the delegates to the Constituent Assembly that met at Weimar in 1919. However, the different parties have different opinions and thus not able to cooperate, leading to the breaking up of the government. Therefore, the Germans seen the government as weak  

Kapp Putsch

The Kapp Putsch took place in Weimar Germany in March 1920. Wolfgang Kapp was a right-wing journalist who opposed all that he believed Friedrich Elbert stood for especially after what he believed was the humiliation of the Treaty Of Versailles. The Kapp Putsch was a direct threat to Weimar’s new government. Kapp was assisted by General Luttwitz who led a group of Freikorps men. On March 13th, 1920, Luttwitz seized Berlin and proclaimed that a new right of centre nationalist government was being established with Kapp as chancellor.

Spartacists carrying red flag through the streets of 

Berlin in their call for revolution on 1 December 1918.

The Weimar Government was opposed by the left. The 'left' refers to the Communists. One of the communist group 'Spartacists'  wanted to set up Communist government that is similar to the Soviet Union's one. The communist workers took control over many parts of Germany such as public buildings and put up red flags which is the symbol of communism, along the streets. The Spartacists rebellion took place on 5 January 1919 and ended on 10 January 1919. Many of the Spartacists were killed including the Spartacists leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. 

The 'right' was another group of German Army unhappy with the loss of the war as they felt that they should not have loss and have to carry the responsibility which makes Germany even weaker. 

Citations: 

Proportional representation- jash suren : http://hithitler123.blogspot.sg/2014/06/weakness-of-weimar-government.html

Article 48: http://www.woodville.org/documentos/131010was-weimar-doomed.pdf

Weimar coalition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Coalition

Kapp Putsch: C N Trueman "Kapp Putsch"

historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 22 May 2015. 3 Mar 2016.

Spartacists and German Army info: http://hithitler123.blogspot.sg/2014/06/weakness-of-weimar-government.html