proportional representation

• 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 [Decrees: Laws passed by one minister in a parliament, which have not been approved by the majority parliament. ]. 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.

Kaiser Wilhelm was the Commander-in-Chief of the German armed forces. Since 1916, the military, rather than the politicians, had been in control of Germany. When it became clear that Germany would lose, Wilhelm was forced to abdicate his throne and flee Germany. 28th of November 1918