The Weimar Constitution

We are often drawn to World War I and World War II when studying German history, but what happened in between? Sandwiched between Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler, there was democracy and the potential for a very different direction, but the Weimar Constitution would be short-lived, lasting from 1918 until 1933.

Setting up the Weimar Republic

Firstly, let's look at some important key terms that we will need to understand for this explanation.

By the autumn of 1918, the Kaiserreich was in tatters. Wilhelm II was virtually absent from his position as Kaiser from 1916 and left Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff to make the executive decisions in World War I. As defeat became a certainty, he quickly absconded to the Netherlands. Hindenburg forced Wilhelm to form a government where he no longer had executive power. This was transferred to Chancellor Max von Baden.

Von Baden was never going to have a lasting impact, and his only role was to negotiate the German surrender. He quickly passed the responsibility to Friedrich Ebert of the reasonably moderate Social Democrats, who had to deal with a winter of discontent and extremist uprisings.

A new democratic constitution was drafted in Weimar to replace the autocracy of the Kaiserreich. The government moved from Berlin to escape the violence on the streets, with political uncertainty and fury at the Treaty of Versailles and finally signed the Weimar Constitution on August 11th 1919.

Fig. 1: Mass demonstration outside the German parliament or Reichstag against the Treaty of Versailles

Weimar Constitution Summary

The Weimar Constitution led to seismic political change in Germany. It was the country's first-ever democracy with a parliament or Reichstag that had a real input in making laws. Let's go into more detail about exactly what the rules that governed the new republic were.

Key Features of the Weimar Constitution

Let's look at an overview of the key features of the Weimar Constitution.

• The President, Chancellor and the Reichstag ran the government. There was no Kaiser.
• A President was elected every seven years. His orders or laws needed the approval of the Chancellor and the Reichstag.
• The Chancellor (head of the Reichstag) was elected every four years.
• All men and women over the age of 20 could vote. The system was proportional representation meaning that the percentage of the vote was converted directly to seats in the Reichstag.
• A Bill of Rights gave citizens freedom of expression, civil rights, assembly, religion, private property, free educational opportunities, and equality.
• Article 48 allowed the President to make laws independent of the Reichstag in the event of an emergency.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Weimar Consitution

On the face of it, the Weimar Constitution seemed like the perfect antidote to the erratic autocracy of Kaiser Wilhelm II, but it did not come without its drawbacks. We will dissect the key positives and negatives of the constitution before examining its effects on the Weimar Republic.

Effects of the Weimar Constitution on the Weimar Republic

The different aspects of the Weimar Constitution had a profound effect on the destiny of the Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1933. It allowed for a "Golden Age" where for a time, Germany flourished. But this proved a flash in the pan as the shortcomings of the constitution were laid bare.

"Golden Age" (1924 - 1929)

The pragmatic Chancellor, Gustav Stresemann, sought help from the United States after the crippling hyperinflation, the French Occupation of the Ruhr and the demands of the Treaty of Versailles were destroying the German economy. The constitution allowed him to accept the Dawes Plan in 1924, which decreased the total amount of repayments and electrified the floundering economy with a series of loans from the United States. The effects of the plan were as desired, at least temporarily.

The renewed ability to pay the reparations meant that Germany was no longer a pariah in Europe, culminating in its entrance to the League of Nations in 1926. The Ruhr, which was its industrial heartland, was returned to them, and production was back at pre-war levels by 1928. Berlin became an emblem of everything good about the Weimar Constitution: culture, modernity and freedom. It also decreased extremism, marginalising parties such as the Nazi Party, who were furious at the reliance on foreign loans.

A self-defeating democracy

According to historian Mark Chou, the Weimar Constitution was self-effacing. Some of the elements of the constitution were admirable, but it came at the wrong time for a country used to the strong-arm tactics of Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II. In the Weimar Republic, the President had no agency meaning that during the times of great peril in the immediate aftermath of World War I, Germany was a rudderless ship. The constitution enabled "almost any party with a grievance to have a say and influence the nation's policies"1. The volatile changes within the Reichstag, thanks to proportional representation, illustrate this. Here is an example of the voting system from the election in 1930.

Fig. 2: Proportional representation gave many small parties seats in the Reichstag

Hindenburg: A metaphor for a confused constitution

The final President of the Weimar Republic was Paul von Hindenburg, who, along with Erich Ludendorff, had run the German war effort in the absence of the Kaiser towards the end of World War I. He was relatively ineffectual between 1925 and 1934. The acceptance of foreign aid by Chancellor Stresemann could not be halted, and collaboration with European countries in the Locarno Pact (1925) and the League of Nations (1926) proved this.

Fig. 3: Paul von Hindenburg

Hindenburg was no longer a war hero to be idolised by the right-wing. He was a middling figure, powerless to stop the Dawes Plan or the Young Plan and the United States' control of the German bank. By the same token, his military and nationalistic past unsettled the left. Due to the freedom of expression laws in the Bill of Rights, the Nazi Party's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was able to hijack these concerns in the form of cartoons.

Soon the Nazi Party gained popularity due to the economic turmoil brought about by the Great Depression, and finally, Hitler became Chancellor in 1933. He triggered Article 48 in the event of the "emergency" Reichstag Fire to create the Enabling Act, which dissolved the constitution completely and gave him all the power, marginalising Hindenburg.