‘The instability of Weimar governments, in the years 1919 to 1923, stemmed primarily from the problems created by the Weimar Constitution.’ Assess the validity of this view. [25 marks

Created by: charlottemurphy29
Created on: 07-01-19 08:55


	‘The instability of Weimar governments, in the years 1919 to 1923, stemmed primarily from the problems created by the Weimar Constitution.’ Assess the validity of this view. [25 marks
	AdvantagesGetting Started The fundermental issues with the weimer governemnt lay within its constitution (a set of rules by which the government led by) attacked them at every turn; this could be becasue of the lack of experience of the officals of a democractic state and laden with the burden of being first pressure was on to make eveeeryone happy. ironically it was this that made people more unhappy in the long term due to proportioanl represenattion which gave a party seats dependant on the votes recieved; in spite of the percieved fairness this system allowed for small parties with extremist values such as the KPD and USPD to rise and gain support. Overall this weakend the governemnt due to no-one being abel to gain a majority vote leading to a co-alition governement. Co-alitions created problems in the inner working of the government due to riechstag parties having to compromise with those of opposing views, this meant that overall no descisions which fully reflected the party in charge could be made and meant that co-alitions formed were constantly changing; subsequently weakning the weimer republic through constant instability derived from the naivety of a new government. Another issue with the fundamentality of the constituion was the fact that the judicery, the army and the civil service remained unchanged with the right wing monarchists left in their orginal positions; this was a problem because it meant that lenacy towards polically crminals proveiled wiith the right wing being "let off" ; as seen in hitlers short term imprisionment of serving 9 months of five year sentence for treason where as left wing criminals sentanced to treason were sentanced to death in some cazses. Artical 48 allowed for the president to take control of the control during a stae of emergeny; unpon first galnce this seems a logical course of action due to somone needing to lead the country through emergencys, however the vagueness of this statement allowed for the chancellor to call upon artical 48 anytime which lead to eisenburg calling it 46 times. This acts vaguyeness leads the possiblity of a dictatorship forming which the chancellor also being able to dissolve the reichastage whenever he see's fit. This was a fundamental error in the constitution that gave a higly concentrated amount of power to one man.	Disadvantages Weimer had problems from the of start due to the treaty of versaille; which imposed hevaing reparation of £6.6.billion and forced germnay to take the blame for a war which they thought they were fighting in a defenbsive why for. This meant that many people resented the new government for signing an Armastice naming those to balme as novemvber criminal; therefore showing the chaos and dissaproval that weimer faced before it could even begin. anotrher issue with the weoimer goverment steamed from its lack of supoort from the publci as seen in the 3000 troops gathered by hitler for the Munich putsch to overthrow the goverment as well as the over 100,000 orkers who joined the spartacists in an act of rebellion by going on strike. Howver it can be argued that some of this problem at the beinging of the republic was solved by an act on the constituion which stated universal sufferage allowing everyone to have equal voting rights showing the epopel the perks of a democractic nation and also shoing germany to be the most democratic country in europe; Subsequenlty showing the constitution was not the source of all of weimers problems and in actual fact aided in the sovling of some. Arguably the biggest problem faced by the Weinmer government was hyperinfaltion caused by the government printing more money then that what they had in ordewr to pay off both their debts (which had arrised due to borrowing money during WW! becasue they thought they wouyld be win so be in a very good position to pay the loans back) and to pay off their reparations which were being demanded by france. The impact of hyperinfaltion was enormous with 80,000 children exerpeincing malnutriton and starvation due a loaf of bread costing over 2 million reichmarks by 1923. The true extent of the provbloem can be seen the solving of it of the introduction of the Rentenmark by stresseman and the ending of the passive ressistance. One rentenmark was was a trillion reichmarks demonstarting the worthlessness of germna currency. Addiutonally by ending passivce resistence the government no-longer had to pay workers who were on strike in spite of the resistence gaing the government support due to tyhe people precieving them as strong by standng up to france.
	Evaluation in conlcusion i think the problems facing the weimer constituion were only partly due the flaws in constitution and really lay upon the treaty of versailles and how that was the rpoot of the major problems which they faced; such as hyperinflation and even the extreme uprisings whioch came about due to extreme parties againing support due to the nationwide resentment of the armastice. In spite of this the treeaty is not all to blame and without the fundamently naive constitution setting out propertional representative those extrem parties would have never been able to gain a strong foot-hold.

‘The instability of Weimar governments, in the years 1919 to 1923, stemmed primarily from the problems created by the Weimar Constitution.’ Assess the validity of this view. [25 marks

AdvantagesGetting Started

The fundermental issues with the weimer governemnt lay within its constitution (a set of rules by which the government led by) attacked them at every turn; this could be becasue of the lack of experience of the officals of a democractic state and laden with the burden of being first pressure was on to make eveeeryone happy. ironically it was this that made people more unhappy in the long term due to proportioanl represenattion which gave a party seats dependant on the votes recieved; in spite of the percieved fairness this system allowed for small parties with extremist values such as the KPD and USPD to rise and gain support. Overall this weakend the governemnt due to no-one being abel to gain a majority vote leading to a co-alition governement.
Co-alitions created problems in the inner working of the government due to riechstag parties having to compromise with those of opposing views, this meant that overall no descisions which fully reflected the party in charge could be made and meant that co-alitions formed were constantly changing; subsequently weakning the weimer republic through constant instability derived from the naivety of a new government.
Another issue with the fundamentality of the constituion was the fact that the judicery, the army and the civil service remained unchanged with the right wing monarchists left in their orginal positions; this was a problem because it meant that lenacy towards polically crminals proveiled wiith the right wing being "let off" ; as seen in hitlers short term imprisionment of serving 9 months of five year sentence for treason where as left wing criminals sentanced to treason were sentanced to death in some cazses.
Artical 48 allowed for the president to take control of the control during a stae of emergeny; unpon first galnce this seems a logical course of action due to somone needing to lead the country through emergencys, however the vagueness of this statement allowed for the chancellor to call upon artical 48 anytime which lead to eisenburg calling it 46 times. This acts vaguyeness leads the possiblity of a dictatorship forming which the chancellor also being able to dissolve the reichastage whenever he see's fit. This was a fundamental error in the constitution that gave a higly concentrated amount of power to one man.

Disadvantages

Weimer had problems from the of start due to the treaty of versaille; which imposed hevaing reparation of £6.6.billion and forced germnay to take the blame for a war which they thought they were fighting in a defenbsive why for. This meant that many people resented the new government for signing an Armastice naming those to balme as novemvber criminal; therefore showing the chaos and dissaproval that weimer faced before it could even begin.
anotrher issue with the weoimer goverment steamed from its lack of supoort from the publci as seen in the 3000 troops gathered by hitler for the Munich putsch to overthrow the goverment as well as the over 100,000 orkers who joined the spartacists in an act of rebellion by going on strike. Howver it can be argued that some of this problem at the beinging of the republic was solved by an act on the constituion which stated universal sufferage allowing everyone to have equal voting rights showing the epopel the perks of a democractic nation and also shoing germany to be the most democratic country in europe; Subsequenlty showing the constitution was not the source of all of weimers problems and in actual fact aided in the sovling of some.
Arguably the biggest problem faced by the Weinmer government was hyperinfaltion caused by the government printing more money then that what they had in ordewr to pay off both their debts (which had arrised due to borrowing money during WW! becasue they thought they wouyld be win so be in a very good position to pay the loans back) and to pay off their reparations which were being demanded by france. The impact of hyperinfaltion was enormous with 80,000 children exerpeincing malnutriton and starvation due a loaf of bread costing over 2 million reichmarks by 1923. The true extent of the provbloem can be seen the solving of it of the introduction of the Rentenmark by stresseman and the ending of the passive ressistance. One rentenmark was was a trillion reichmarks demonstarting the worthlessness of germna currency. Addiutonally by ending passivce resistence the government no-longer had to pay workers who were on strike in spite of the resistence gaing the government support due to tyhe people precieving them as strong by standng up to france.

Evaluation

in conlcusion i think the problems facing the weimer constituion were only partly due the flaws in constitution and really lay upon the treaty of versailles and how that was the rpoot of the major problems which they faced; such as hyperinflation and even the extreme uprisings whioch came about due to extreme parties againing support due to the nationwide resentment of the armastice. In spite of this the treeaty is not all to blame and without the fundamently naive constitution setting out propertional representative those extrem parties would have never been able to gain a strong foot-hold.

Get Revising

‘The instability of Weimar governments, in the years 1919 to 1923, stemmed primarily from the problems created by the Weimar Constitution.’ Assess the validity of this view. [25 marks