blog




  • Essay / The impact of the Constitution as a factor in the fall of the Weimar Republic

    'The failure of the Weimar Republic in 1933 was due to the weakness of the Constitution.' Evaluate the validity of this point of view. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIn some ways, I agree with this statement because the inclusion of Articles 25 and 48 in the Constitution has undermined the Reichstag, which facilitated the emergence of a dictatorship. after the advent of Hitler. The fundamental instability of Weimar's coalition system of government caused concentrated dissolutions of the Reichstag that also contributed to its final capitulation. But constitutional flaws were not the only ones responsible for Weimar's failure. Weimar was made vulnerable by economic factors including: the French invasion of the Ruhr, the hyperinflation crisis and the Great Depression; political factors such as the Ebert-Groener Pact, the Dolcstrosslegende, Germany's ingrained military culture, the secret intrigues between Hitler and Papen, and Hindenburg's personal fear of a Bolshevik uprising; social factors such as the appeal of NSDAP policies and propaganda to the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and the radicalization of the German population due to worsening poverty in Germany. Therefore, this statement is valid because the Constitution was a valid contributing factor to Weimar's failure, but it is not exclusively culpable. Article 25 of the Constitution authorized Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call new elections whenever he deemed it necessary. One interpretation might be that because Hindenburg had called two federal elections in 1932 alone (in July and again in November), their narrow focus highlighted the inability of the Weimar coalitions to cooperate effectively. This forced Hindenburg to seek an alternative to calling new elections in 1933, which contributed to his decision to appoint Hitler as chancellor. Revisionist historian Stephen J. Lee also suggested that the frequency of elections very close to each other depleted Nazi campaign funds, making Hitler more willing to negotiate with Papen in January 1933. A traditionalist historian might challenge this view because Schleicher's attempt to divide the Nazi Party by negotiating with Hitler's close associate Gregor Strasser in December 1932 disrupted Hitler's sense of security and made him more inclined to collaborate. However, I disagree because Strasser's "betrayal" of Hitler triggered his negotiations with Papen, but underlying factors such as the depletion of NSDAP funds and the loss of 34 parliamentary seats in the November elections were more important. Therefore, "clandestine intrigues" would not have allowed Hitler's accession to the Chancellorship without the presence of Article 25 in the Constitution and the concentrated electoral campaigns that followed, which means that this statement can, in some respects, be justified. Article 48 facilitated gradual progression. of democracy to government by presidential decree. Hindenburg took advantage of the loophole in the Constitution which did not define a “national emergency” – Article 48 – to exclude the Reichstag from voting on laws. This is evidenced by the decline from 98 laws passed by the Reichstag in 1930, to just 5 laws passed democratically in 1932. A revisionist historian might attribute this to the weakness of proportional representation as a system of government because the parties were so small that No majority government could be formed.Coalition governments were a weak system of government because the contrasting policies of the cooperating parties meant that decisions were contested and took a long time to establish. This contributed to the failure of the Weimar Republic because after March 1930, with the formation of the Grad coalition which did not have majority support in the Reichstag, democracy deteriorated, leading to a deterioration of the democracy.made it easier for Hitler to join because he did not need to dismantle the system of government to achieve an autocracy. It could be argued that there were positive aspects to the Weimar Constitution, for example the Bill of Rights which guaranteed freedom of speech and religion and equal voting rights for men and women. Proportional representation was also the most advanced European democratic system because it accurately represented the values ​​of the voting German population; however, the random distribution of Reichstag members to electoral districts alienated German citizens from their representative. The Constitution's flaws outweighed its strengths, as Article 48 was a loophole that undermined the rights and political authority it granted its citizens, as a presidential decree could be used to revoke these rights. This statement is therefore valid because the Constitution contributed to the failure of Weimar by allowing an authoritarian style of government. Alternatively, one could argue that the NSDAP would not have been able to take advantage of constitutional weaknesses without the scale of support it accumulated. Nazi ideology appealed to people because the SA presented an image of strength, discipline, and unity that appealed to the unemployed and army veterans, and Hitler's promotion of aggressive nationalism appealed to those who had lost their identity as German citizens because of the territory. losses confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles (which Hitler's policy of Lebensraum was committed to recovering). Unlike the KPD, the Nazi Party appealed to the wealthy minority of German society as well as the working class. Hitler achieved this by moderating his argument according to the audience he was addressing: for example, during a speech in the industrial areas of Munich in the early 1930s, Hitler seduced his audience by promising radical "national" changes. -socialists” such as the confiscation of land from large estates. and war profits from big business. Hitler made clandestine deals with wealthy industrialists such as Thyssen to promise that a Nazi government would not threaten their business. By gaining the support of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the Nazis had more funding than the KPD and could continue their campaign with more propaganda. Hitler's public speaking skills and his advantageous capture of publicity (e.g. his speech in court after the abortive Beer Hall Putsch in 1923) meant that he was better able to gain support from large groups listeners, which increased its political power by obtaining more votes in federal elections. elections. Therefore, it could be argued that this statement is invalid because the Nazis could not have taken advantage of the flaws in the Constitution without the massive support of the electorate. Traditionalist historians might argue that Weimar's economic crises generated public resentment toward the Republic that contributed to its rise. unpopularity and failure. For example, the hyperinflation crisis of 1922-23 saw the German mark reach over four trillion US dollars in November.