failures of the weimar constitution and the current basic law. Flashcards
weimar republic beginnings
at the end of the first world war the germans were forced to sign the treaty of versilles. the current government resigned as they did not want to sign such a bad deal and eventually it was signed. germany lost territories, they had to pay war repparations they had to accept that the war was their fault.
this then called for a new government. this new government ment the beginning of the weimar reublic. this ment that the county would be much more democratic. a government would be elected every 4 years and a prime minister would be elected every 7 years. they created a new constitution which granted emergency powers to the government through article 48. this ment that the government could abandon parliament and make or do anything that they wished. however the word emergency was never defined. it also ment that a political party could be formed if they repesented 5% of the seats in parliament through proportional representation. however, this was very easy and this ment there were lots of co-olitions which ment that deciding laws and making decisions was very hard due to different parties disagreeing on different things.
the german government could not pay one of the war repparations and so france decided to occupy one of the territories of germany and take materials from them instead of payment of money. America then stepped in and saved germany by giving them a loan which was to be padi back. however, the american stock exchange collapsed and germany plunged into economic turmoil. they responded by printing lots of money which ment that a loaf of bread cost millions of euros. creating hyper inflation.
