F. Weaknesses of the Weimar Government.

1. As the Weimar Republic was attacked by extremists from both left and right, whenever the republic faced economic and social problems, like the inflation and unemployment of 1918-1924 and the Great Depression of 1929-1933, moderate parties lost seats while extreme parties, like the Communists and Nazis, won seats in the Reichstag.

2. The moderate parties were divided, and the ideological enemy the Nazis, the Communists, did not make common cause with the SDs.

3. The Weimar Republic treated the extreme parties and their putsches quite leniently, hence allowing them to regroup and try again.

4. The Weimar Republics reputation among Germans was tainted by it acceptance of the humiliating Versailles Treaty. Reparations, demilitarization, loss of territory, and the "war guilt" clauses were especially despised.

8. The Social Democrats in power had made almost few economic or social reforms. The old imperial bureaucracy was still in the helm; and the army, although smaller, retained its militaristic Prussian traditions by maintaining officers and non-coms as the bulk of its force..

9. The Weimar Republic confronted to face enormous economic difficultiesinflation and depression

A New Republic

A new democratic German republic, known as the Weimar Republic, came into being. After some success it was hit by hyperinflation and other serious economic problems.

Right wing nationalist elements under a variety of movements, but most notably the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler, sought to blame Germany's "humiliating" status on the harshness of the post-war settlement, on the weakness of democratic government, and on the Jews, whom it claimed possessed a financial stranglehold on Germany.

Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler (Chancellor) on January 30, 1933, by the aged President von Hindenburg.

Hitler's government exercised much of its power through the special emergency powers possessed by the President under the constitution.

Economic and Social Distress. During World War I, without access to American capital, the Kaisers government attempted to pay for the war by printing large amounts of currency. This began an inflationary spiral that would continue for five years.

Germany's defeat affected its currency even more, and inflation continued. By 1923, one dollar, which had been worth about four marks before the war, was worth over four trillion paper marks. Wheelbarrows of bills would be needed to buy a loaf of bread. Individuals and businesses that held their savings in banks or maintained fixed bud gets were devastated. Those individuals and businesses that were in debt paid off their debt quickly with the inflated money. The implementation of the Rentenbank and the Rentenmark, along with U.S. Dawes Plan for reparations payments stabilized the currency and encouraged renewed industrial development by 1925.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 821