Weimar Democracy

Weimar Democracy, which arose from defeat and which replaced a authoritarian imperialist regime, never had very wide support from the German people. Despite fierce opposition from right and left the Weimar republic survived a difficult period of 1919-1923 to a period of stability of the mid 20s, when the fundamental political problems were masked until exposure by the economic and political problems of 1929. The Weimar republic attempted to do the most it could in the situations that arose thus it made some fundamentally wrong decisions that eventually destroyed the Republic.

The German monarchy was dismantled in November 1918 in order to secure favorable peace. Prince Von Baden handed power to Friedrich Ebert the leader of the majority Socialists, who were blamed for the signing of the treaty of Versailles in June 1919. Thus they were known as the November criminals and the stab in the back theory was adopted by right wing groups. Essences of democracy in Germany had been compromised when Ebert and general Groener made a pact to support each other against left wing revolutionists. Sefton Delmer stated that Weimar was born with a whole in its heart.

The Weimar government was very successful in stopping the threat of communism with the use of its Freikorps, ex-services men to keep and maintain order. The Weimar Freikorps successfully ended the Bavarian republic on the 8th of May thus ending the communist republic. The Weimar’s test came when they encountered the Spartacus’s in Berlin. Fighting bitter street battles and killing their leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht thus extreme left wing was dealt with success by the Weimar.    

After the early instabilities the Weimar republic constructed its constitution on the 11th of August 1919.   Its constitution lead to instabilities within the republic with significant flaws such as Article 22 which was multi party governments and Article 48, the president could suspend the fundamental rights of citizens if...