The Weimar Constitution

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  • Created by: Mazza24
  • Created on: 22-05-15 15:26

The Weimar Constitution

Advantages

  • All men and women over the age of 20 were given the vote. This was even better than Britain where only women over 30 could vote.
  • A Bill of Rights guaranteed every German citizen freedom of speech and religion, and equality under the law.
  • There was an elected president and an elected Reichstag (parliament).
  • The Reichstag made the laws and appointed the government, which had to do what the Reichstag wanted.

Disadvantages

  • Proportional representation - instead of voting for an MP, like we do in Britain, Weimar Germans voted for a party. Each party was then allocated seats in the Reichstag exactly reflecting (proportional' to) the number of people who had voted for it. This sounds fair, but in practice it was a disaster it resulted in dozens of tiny parties, with no party strong enough to get a majority, and, therefore, no government to get its laws passed in the Reichstag. This was a major weakness of the Republic.
  • Article 48 - this said that, in an emergency, the president did not need the agreement of the Reichstag, but could issue decrees. The problem with this was that it did not say what an emergency was, and in the end, it turned out to be a back door that Hitler used to take power legally.

Evaluation

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