The Failures of the Weimar Republic, 1919-1929.

Have a little read: ... The Failures of the Weimar Republic, 1919-1929 The Weimar Republic, proclaimed on November 9, 1918, was born because of military defeat and social revolution. In January 1919, a National Assembly was elected to draft a constitution. The government, composed of members from the assembly, came to be called the Weimar coalition. In mid-1919 the assembly ratified the constitution of the new Weimar Republic, so named because its constitution was drafted. Election to the Reichstag was by secret voting and popular vote. Germany had a truly democratic parliamentary system. However, the president had the right to dismiss the cabinet, dissolve the Reichstag, and veto legislation. The legislative powers of the Reichstag were further weakened by the so-called emergency clause, accorded the president the right to allow the cabinet to govern without the consent of parliament whenever it was deemed essential to maintaining public order. The Weimar Republic was overwhelmed with serious problems from the birth of the republic that led many Germans either to withhold support from the new parliamentary democracy or to seek actively to destroy it. The extreme left and much of the right provided the republic's most harsh opponents. Its supporters included the large left, represented by the SPD, and the moderate right, made up of the Center Party. However, at key times these supporters failed to behave responsibly because of political inexperience, narrow self-interest, or unrealistic party programs. Looking back numerous mistakes can be seen in the formation of the republic, this mistakes were one of the reasons why the Weimar Republic was doom from its beginnings that weakened Germany's first experiment with democratic self-government. By accepting the Versailles Treaty, republican leaders saddled Germany with an excessive burden of reparations, disarmament, war guilt, and loss of colonies and territory. Reparations fueled the runaway to inflation, the Ruhr Occupation, and Hitler Putsch in 1923. Disarmament encouraged the creation of the Free Corps, domestic violence and militarism. And signing the treaty with its war guilt clause helped convince many conservative Germans that the republic had sold out Germany. The bitterness created by the Versailles Treaty was, ironically, directed toward the Weimar Republic. Some of the other big failures were the failure of Democratic Leadership appeared time and again throughout the 1920s. Weimar coalitions lacked experience, strength, and the readiness to crack down on enemies of the republic. They also failed to build a popular majority for the republic by articulating the