Weimar Republic Research Paper

Weimar Republic
The Post-World War One era saw great fluctuation in European politics. This ranged from the fascist control in Italy under Mussolini to the Stalinist regime of the Soviet Union. Perhaps no other nation saw such a dramatic governmental fluctuation, as did Germany. Germany began this time period as the staunch democracy of the Weimar Republic, but was later turned to the fascist dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. The most important overall reason for this severe change in government was the Weimar Republic’s instability. The instability of the Weimar Republic can be attributed to the fact that government did not have clear goals or popular support, and the remaining appeal of military force and firm control among the German citizenry.
There were many political parties whose goals directly clashed with each other. This created a situation where government was detrimentally left without a clear-cut message to the people. This political conflict can certainly be seen in the conflict between the German Democratic Party, which was and the Communist Party. Ernst Troeltsch, a part of the German Democratic Party, wrote that, “The development will not stop at democracy, and a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ will assume the form of terrorist domination by a minority”. The words of Troeltsch are only moderately reliable, however, because as a politician, he is likely to over exaggerate the consequences of opposition’s control. This depiction of German politics stands in stark contrast to the views of the Communist Party and member Clara Zetkin’s opinion, even though both groups were on the same side of the aisle. “The only reliable guarantee of victory over monarchist militarism is the absolutely necessary development of the proletarian revolution…”. Clearly, these two
Part of this minimal support stemmed from the “newness” of the government, as illustrated by writer Carl von Ossietzky. “Our republic is not yet an object of mass consciousness. It is merely a constitutional document and a governmental administration”. Ossietzky saw that in time, the German people would give stronger support to the Weimar government, but as it stood, they were apathetic towards it. Bernard, Prince von Bülow, who wrote that, “The German revolution was drearily philistine, lacking in all fire and inspiration”, further backs up this idea of limited public support. As Chancellor of Germany, he can be seen as very credible because he was right in the thick of all the governmental change. He definitely saw the apathy of the German citizens towards the Weimar government, and certainly, a democracy cannot be stable without the support of its citizens. German citizens also lost any support they had for the government as the Great Depression hit and the government seemed unable to deal with skyrocketing unemployment and poverty. As Heinrich Mann, an author, wrote, “The economy is collapsing more or less everywhere, but only in Germany does the process achieve its maximum effect on people’s spirits”. It is evident, through this document that the German people were hurt deeply by the Depression and they definitely held the government