What problems did Weimar republic face in
the Early 1920s?
Introduction
In 1919 the Weimar Republic was set up in Germany. From its birth it
faced numerous political problems, for which the causes were many and
varied. These problems included political instability, deep divisions
within society and economic crisis; problems were constantly appearing
for the new government and from 1919-1923, the Weimar Republic
experienced a period of crisis.
Paragraph one
In 1916, the German Social Democratic Party, which controlled the
Reichstag, split in order to cater for the tensions between the reformist
and revolutionary wings. They formed the majority socialists (SPD) and
the Independent socialists (USPD). Another group split from the SPD to
form the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). On 9 November 1918,
the Kaiser abdicated and fled to the Netherlands. This meant that a new
government had to be formed. The SPD, being the largest political party
proclaimed Germany a democratic republic and formed a new
government. The main interest of the SPD was to create a strong and
stable government with which they could sign the Treaty of Versailles in
order to end the war with the Allies. However, in order to return
Germany back to peace and stability, the SPD had made a pact with the
old order who had strongly supported the Kaiser; they compromised
themselves by cooperating with the business community and the army
in order to prevent a social revolution. Naturally this sparked off
communist anger; the SPD had created a middle class democracy, while
the communists demanded a worker's state like that in Bolshevik
Russia.
The communists wanted nationalisation to take place (i.e. factories,
businesses and land to be owned by workers), they wanted workers to
be more in control of their lives by means of locally elected councils
(soviets), they wanted the army to be replaced with a Citizen's Militia,
and they wanted to prevent the middle class from exploiting the
working class. In other words, they required a much more radical
change than that made since the Kaiser had left. In January 1919, the
Spartacists (an old name for the KPD), led by Karl Liebnecht and Rosa
Luxembourg, attempted to overthrow the government and establish a
worker's republic by means of an armed uprising in Berlin, Germany's
capital. The Spartacists, however, did not have enough support and
their revolt was brutally suppressed by a group of armed volunteers
called Freikorps. The significance of this uprising was that it was the
SPD who
had allowed the right wing Freikorps to suppress the
Spartacist revolt and so the communist hatred of Weimar was
deepened even further.
A more successful communist revolt occurred in Bavaria, Munich in
April 1919 when Bavaria was proclaimed a Soviet (Communist) Republic
and a Red (Communist) Army was established to protect their
revolution. However, on May 1 1919, the government sent the
Freikorps to crush the revolution. Finally, in March 1920, a communist
revolutionary attempt was made in the Ruhr, Germany's
industrial
region, and a Soviet Republic was declared. However, yet again, the
government sent the Freikorps to suppress the revolution. Hence, the
Weimar Republic was particularly weak and unstable facing intense and
violent left wing opposition. Additionally, the government had had to
use those that despised Weimar (i.e.Freikorps) to suppress these
uprisings. Thus, attempts to overthrow Weimar were made from the
start of its existence; this certainly did not imply a very promising
future.
Paragraph 2
Right wing attempts to overthrow the government were also made. The
main reasons for nationalist hostility to the régime were that firstly, they
felt that the new Republic had betrayed Germany as they believed that
whilst the German army were willing and able to continue fightin g, they
were "stabbed in the back" by German politicians who surrendered by
signing the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles greatly
weakened the German nation as it caused Germany to be severely cut
back as a military power with its army and navy being dramatically
reduced in size. The treaty also caused Germany to lose a large amount
of territory as well as all its colonies. Finally, the treaty included the War
Guilt Clause, which forced Germany to accept that they bore sole
responsibility for W orld War One and would consequently have to
provide compensation for any damage they had caused.
Many Germans, however, did not believe that they were responsible for
the war nor that they had been defeated. Thus, the nationalists, who
believe in the idea of a strong nation, were deeply angered at what they
saw as Germany's decline from the greatest power in Europe to a
second-class power. In March 1920, Dr Wolfgang Kapp, with the support
of the Freikorps, launched a Putsch (revolt) in Berlin
in order to
overthrow the government. They did manage to take over Berlin, but as
a socialist city, Kapp was not likely to find many supporters in Berlin and
so the government, fleeing the capital for safety, called for a general
strike of German workers and without essential services such as
transport, gas and electricity, Kapp was not able to govern and so his
rebellion failed. However, if it had not been for the far left's general
strike, Kapp could easily have seized power.
This was very worrying for the Weimar Republic because, again, it had
been saved by those that despised it, and the army that was supposed
to be supporting it refused to act against Kapp and his supporters of
which many were ex-soldiers; this was very humiliating for the
government as it meant that they had to flee Berlin .The government
was to face much more right wing opposition though in the form of
political murders and violence. For example, in June 1922, Walther
Rathenau, a leading Weimar politician who believed that Germany
should fulfil the terms of the treaty of Versailles, was murdered by right
wing extremists, who threw a bomb into his car and shot him several
times whilst he was driving to work. Thus, the government was shown
to be even more unstable and weak and these rebellions showed how
little support people, including Germany's own army, had for the new
Republic. This situation, however, was worsened even further due to
the government's failure to prevent Germany's economic crisis.
Paragraph 3
The most important economic impact of the treaty of Versailles was its
demand on Germany to pay reparations (compensation for war damage).
The figure for the reparations was eventually fixed by the Allies at
132,000,000,000 marks (£6,600,000,000). The government no longer had
sufficient resources to support the German economy, but continued to
print paper money. This caused rapid inflation, which Germany used as
an excuse for not being able to pay its second instalment towards the
reparations. The French government, however, decide to force Germany
to pay. It did this by sending French and Belgian troops to the industrial
heartland of Germany, the Ruhr to collect reparations still owing to them,
but the German Chancellor called for "passive resistance" by the workers
of the Ruhr; a refusal to co-operate with the troops. This, however, led to
the collapse of the German economy, as the government was forced to
print more paper money in order to pay the striking workers in the
Ruhr.
This caused hyperinflation as Germany was not producing anything; its
industrial heartland had been destroyed and yet the number of notes in
its economy was increasing. The German currency soon
became
worthless and prices were constantly rising (For example, an American
dollar in July 1914 was worth about 4 marks, whilst in November 1923,
its equivalent in marks was 4,000,000,000,000 marks). The social effects
of this hyperinflation were disastrous, particularly for the German
middle classes who had lost all their savings and pensions as a result.
Then, in September 1923, Gustav Stresemann called for the end of
passive resistance in order to begin the restoration of the German
economy. This led to great political humiliation however, as it showed
that Germany had been forced to do what the French wanted.
This led to the Munich Putsch, which was an attempt by the Nazi Party
leader, Adolf Hitler to
overthrow the government; Hitler was
determined to show the German people that not all Germans were
going to accept what the French had forced the German government to
do. Bavarian police broke up the revolt however and Hitler was
arrested. In Saxony, there was another revolt against the republic, but
this was a communist revolt and a communist government was set up,
but Stresemann ordered this government to resign or else it would face
military action. Therefore, the Ruhr Crisis led to economic collapse,
political humiliation, discontent within society, further opposition to the
Weimar Republic and finally, its disastrous effects caused people to
start looking towards extreme solutions.
Conclusion
The Weimar Republic, in spite of all its problems, did survive the crisis
that had befallen it between 1919 and 1923; even though it had
inspired violent political opposition from right and left wing groups, it
had faced a devastating economic situation creating a high level of
discontent within society, and had brought about serious political
humiliation upon itself, it had still managed to survive. All these
problems contributed to the political difficulties which Weimar faced
during its first few years; a general hatred amongst Germans of the
new system and constant opposition towards it. The political issue of
the Treaty of Versailles was probably the most important individual
cause of Weimar's crisis however. It had been the Treaty of Versailles
that caused nationalist opposition to Weimar and the German nation to
step down to a second class power, losing much of its territory, having
extreme military restrictions imposed on it, and it had been the treaty
of Versailles that had brought about reparations, leading Germany into
an extremely difficult economic situation causing further social tensions,
and it had been this treaty that had inspired communist opposition by
bringing about the need to get Germany back to work, causing the SPD
to cooperate with the old order. It can be argued that this treaty was
responsible for most of the hatred of the German people towards
Weimar between 1919 and 1923, but on the other hand, Germany
would not have been able to negotiate peace had they not signed the
treaty.