Constitution of the Weimar Republic set to cause problems for its success Lack of experience, eh? Never been a democracy before 'ave ya, eh? Too many local loyalties to accommodate “heh,heh,heh,heh”

The Constitution of the Weimar Republic caused problems for its success A constitution is the “set of rules” for government of a country or club/association. They include: the structure the duties the power and the procedures (ways of doing things) for the government of the country they are written for.

It elects several people to represent each large district. The Republic decided to go for a form of proportional representation which restricted the true influence of the majority of voters. Proportional Representation was invented in the 1800's and most democracies use it. It elects several people to represent each large district.

It gives a group that earns 10% of the votes 10% of the seats in parliament/Reichstag This way PR delivers fair shares of representation. It leads to a broad representation of issues and opinions. But there is no central party and the two biggest parties often refuse to work together. So the side with the most seats [blue and black] forms the ruling majority and then enacts laws and policies skewed towards their side's views and stakeholders.

We have PR in New Zealand The NZ system is a TWO TIERED system. The lower tier determines who our local representatives are and the upper and over-riding tier determines the make up (proportionality) of the house of Parliament.

Ours is called MMP NZ voters have two votes. The main vote is the Party Vote for the upper tier and the second vote is for the lower tier called the Electoral Vote. The electoral vote determines the local representatives in the house but does not impact on the proportionality of the house of representatives.

The Problem with PR is that you have to have a stable country A stable coalition (alliance) government with everyone working from the same point of view for the common good is pretty hard to achieve. And Germany after WW1 had heaps of political parties standing for election. Any number of parties could stand for election and, provided they got a basic number of votes over all of Germany, THEY ALL COULD GET A SEAT IN THE REICHSTAG!

Help! I'm not strong enough to accommodate all you extremist political parties. I'm just a new democracy!

The system favoured extremist minorities and did not encourage voters to compromise.

Politician made the compromises after the elections and behind closed doors, so the will of the majority could be avoided. But the thing was, the number of parties was so large that it was difficult for any party to get a majority. This meant that the members of the Reichstag, once elected, could make their own deals to get into a coalition. Then, because they were in a coalition, THEY COULD BLAME THE OTHERS FOR NOT CARRYING OUT THEIR POLICIES!

But The Constitution had THAT Enabling Clause ARTICLE 48 Political irresponsiblity was easy. 'specially given Germany's lack of democratic experience and many local loyalties. But The Constitution had THAT Enabling Clause ARTICLE 48

ARTICLE 48 -The President can take over in an emergency -The President can suspend all civil rights in an emergency -The President can appoint any government he wants to in an emergency -The President can rule by decree in an emergency (Rule by decree is the kind of governance which allows quick, unchallenged changes of law by a single person or group and is used primarily by DICTATORS.

The President was elected for seven years Some think that this was done to give the Hohenzollerns a chance to restore the monarchy. “The Social Democrats were in an unfavourable situation from the start, and it is a tribute to the depth of German democratic intelligence that they achieved any success at all.” (From Dawn to a Darkness, by George Bowen, pg 7.)

The 1919 Elections to the Reichstag showed strong support for democracy among union workers, but other classes still favoured the Hohenzollerns. Of the 421 seats, the Social Democrats won 185, mainly from trade union voters. To form a government they had to form a coalition with the Centre Catholic and Democratic Parties which together held a total of 166 seats.

Both of these parties saw the Republic as temporary and wanted the Hohenzollerns back!! So, Extreme parties of the right (conservative) opposed the Government from the start.

In 1920, the elected Government was challenged by right wing extremists in the KAPP PUTSCH. Gangs of Freikorps drove the Government from Berlin and proclaimed a new Government under a Prussian officer called Wolfgang Kapp. The army would not act against fellow officers, but the unions called a general strike, so Kapp was not able to control the country. The Weimar Government had to be accepted because nobody else could control the state. Although the army leaders and the Social Democrats did not want to co-operate, they had no alternative.

The Kapp Putsch This originated after an attempt to disarm the right-wing and ex-military Freikorps (volunteer brigades) who roamed Berlin openly carrying arms and using them against Communists or anyone deemed to be Communist. The head of the Republic's army, von Seeckt, refused to fire on the Freikorps when asked to do so. It seemed that civil disturbance was acceptable to the army if it was being carried out by right-wing groups!

What also started the Putsch? Tasks: Go to the website below and answer the following questions about the Kapp Putsch. The website will activate if you have the presentation on view/slideshow. Scroll down to “Attacks from The Right” 1. What is a Putsch? 2. How many soldiers were allowed to be in Germany's army according to the Treaty of Versaille? 3.What do historians agree set off the Kapp Putsch? 4. What was the Kapp Putsch an attempt to do? 5. How many men were involved? 6. What did they achieve? 7. Where did the government flee to? 8. How did the Trade Union's strike affect Berlin? 9. What did the Civil Servants (government workers) refuse to do? 10. What did the Reichsbank refuse to do? 11. What did Kapp end up doing? 12. What were the 4 big lessons that came out of this (blue) http://www.manshead.beds.sch.uk/History/GCSE/Course%20materials/Nazi%20Germany/ Weimar%20Republic/political_crisis.htm

See you next time as the Republic does it hard through the 1920's!