The collapse of the Weimar republic

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In this essay I’m going to discuss the circumstances, which led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic, which lasted, from 1918 to 1933.
After its defeat in WW1, Germany was left in a mess: national income was about one third of what it was in 1913 and industrial production about two thirds, there was great poverty, which brought along famine and epidemics such as the flu and there was a huge difference between the rich and the poor. The Allies wanted Germany to become more democratic and so they offered peace but only if the Kaiser would do as they had demanded. Unfortunately the Kaiser refused their proposal, which made the sailors in Kiel unhappy and so they mutinied, as a protest, and took over the town.

This was soon taken as and example in other parts of Germany and uprisings of workers and soldiers occurred in other ports. This lead to the Kaiser abdicating on the 9th of November 1918 and just the day after, Friedrich Ebert, the socialist party leader, became leader of the republic. His first thing to do was to sing an armistice with the Allies and turn Germany into a democracy. This drastic change of governmental system, from a autocratic German system to a new democratic one, was unappreciated by politicians and Ebert got opposition from both left and right. From the left there was the communist party who was working as an anti-government force but the army and the so-called “Freikorps” managed to keep them in control. From the right were mostly people who had liked the Kaisers way of ruling, people who wanted Germany to be the great empire it had been before. Ebert had become very unpopular for many Germans when he signed the treaty of Versailles as the treaty made Germany loose all the aspects of a great power and it brought the standards even lower. This treaty long stayed a source of bitterness amongst Germans. With the treaty there also came economic disaster as Germany would have to pay the reparation bill to the Allies. The bill was huge, £ 6600 million, and Germany had a hard time to pay so the Belgians and the French entered the Ruhr, German industrial territory, and just took what they could get. Germanys reaction to this was to make the workers in the Ruhr go on strike so that nothing was produced and so nothing could be taken.

This lead to a big decrease in German industrial production, which then lead to Germany not having anything to trade. The government found the solution to simply print more money to pay off its debts but this obviously caused a hyperinflation with all the money in circulation. People’s savings now became worthless and prices rose to extreme points, £1 was worth 500 marks in 1921 and worth 14,000,000,000,000 marks in 1932. Its right-wing opponents because of the hyperinflation now appreciated the Weimar republic even less and the middle class was not at all as supportive as before. It was now time to get Germany out of its mess and so a new government under Gustav Stresemann took over. The economic crisis got solved with different measures such as a loan from American investors, organised by Charles Dewes, and a currency change. From 1923 to 1928, Stresemann managed to bring Germanys economy back to its pre-war levels. In october 1929 Stresemann died of a heart attack and in the same month there was disaster again when US stock market crashed. As the bankers now were in debts they wanted the money they had lent back from Germany and so Germany was dragged into another economic crisis. The crash led to world depression and Germanys exporting firms were badly hit. Again came poor times with high unemployment and underemployment, 30% of the population, that made the German population even bitterer. It was time for Germany to find the solution. The solution they found was Hitler and his small nazi party that now grew because it answered to what people wanted. The nazi party had made 25 points that were not new to the people but only now they started to become interesting. The points included less unemployment by joining the army, better conditions for the old and children and the end of the disliked Versailles treaty. The nazi party managed to increase its votes dramatically from only having 12 seats in the Reichstag in 1928 to have 200 seats in November 1932. As the government now was a presidential one, Hitler demanded to get the post of Chancellor but the president Hindenburg refused, as he was suspicious. The nazi party started to loose votes but it was still the largest party. When Hindenburg’s first Chancellor failed he appointed a new one who this one also had to resign and so the president only saw one solution and that was to appoint a man who had support in the Reichstag, Hitler. Hindenburg believed he would be able to control Hitler but unfortunately he was wrong and Hitler soon got the majority of the votes and could take the power and become the dictator he is known as.

“Weimar was a gamble which stood very little chance of success” German historian Gerald Feldman: This phrase, in my point of view, is right in a way but I would like to add that the circumstances the Weimar was in played a big role in the collapse of it and it was not the Weimar in it self that was bad. I believe that, for example, the nazi party would have been as unsuccessful in restoring the German empire ag...