The Weimar Republic and the Weimar Constitution

Question 1

How far did the Central committee instituted by the Stinnes-Legien Agreement establish democracy in Weimar Germany?

Answer 1

its concessions:

• regulate immediate problems of demobilisation
• issues of wages
• issues of working conditions

its impact on deomcracy:

• give weimar republic a corporatist element that would play a role in the elites’ fear of a strengthening working class
• and lead these concession to be fundamenetally subject to assault
• the eleite would reject the poltical system that allowed these concessions once the relative circumstances of the parties had changed

Question 2

What were the constitutional powers of the president in the weimar republic?

Answer 2

• elected by popular vote by men and women over the age of 20
• elected every 7 years
• the president had tremendous powers
• could appoint and dismiss the chancellor and other ministers
• could dissolve the reichstag
• could rule withoutht the reichstag in times of ermergency- authorise the chancellor to rule by presidential decree, Article 48
• call new elections

Question 3

To what extent were the constitutional powers of the president democratic in the weimar republic?

lots of coalition government that ididnt last long the public could not identify with this and consequentially looked up to the president as the clear dominating figure

Answer 3

• the president has a much popular mandate as anyone else in government, election by the popular vote, which gave the president independent legitimcay in his dealings with the legislature
• president Ebert’s execessive use and occasional misuse (in non-emergency situations) of the Article 48 widened its application to a point where it became a potential democratic insititutions
• Head of state (president) elected only every 7 years
• the government was accountable to the head of state
• on the contrary Friedrich Ebert made use of presidential powers to stabilise democracy

Question 4

What evidence is there to demonstrate to what extent the constitutional powers of the president were democratic in the weimar republic?

Answer 4

• President Ebert made very extensive use of his presidential power to rule by decree, employing article 48 on 136 seperate occasions which undermines democracy

for example:

1. he deposed legitimately elected governments in saxony and thuringia when they in his view threatened to foment disorder
2. 1920 civil war in the ruhr he issued a backdated decree applying the death penalty to public order offences legitimising the executions carried out on members of the red army by units of the free corps
3. Munich (research!)

• significantly on both occasion these powers were used to suppress perceived threats to the republic from the left but unused against the apparently greater threat from the right
• there was virtually no effective safeguards against an abuse of Article 48 becaus the president could threaten to use the power given him by Article 25 to dissolve the reichstg should it reject a presidential decree
• decrees could be used to create a fait accompli to bring about situation where the reichstag had little option but to approve

for example:

1. they could be used to intimidate and suppress opposition to the government in power
   * considering powers of president a lot depended on his character

for example:

1. successor Hindenburg less committed to upholding parliamentary democracy and was to play an important role in its destruction

Question 5

What were the constitutional powers of the reichstag in the weimar republic?

Answer 5

• elected by all men and women aged 20 and above
• elected every 4 years
• new laws required the approval of a majority of the reichstag
• it could overrule the reichsrat by a two third majority
• the chancellor and other ministers were responsible to the reichstag

Question 6

c

Answer 6

• shared the same legislative functions, the same formal protection from coercion, as close a relationship with its electorate as any parliament in the world
• reichstag was elected using a system called proportional representation which was a very fair electoral system in terms of making sure that everyone’s vote counts but it rarely produced an overall majority in parliament
  *

Question 7

What evidence is there to demonstrate to what extent the constitutional powers of the reichstag were democratic in the weimar republic?

Answer 7

• the public could not idenitfy with the fleeting coalition government and conswequentially looked up to th epresident as the clear dominating figure

Question 8

What were the constitutional powers of the federal states in the weimar republic?

Answer 8

• under the weimar constitution germany remained a federation of states reichsrat replaced the bundesrat
• reichsrat represented the seventeen states
• reichsrat could give advice and reject new laws but could be overruled by the reichstag or by a referendum
• everyone aged 20 and over could vote in the state elections

Question 9

To what extent were the constitutional powers of the federal states democratic in the weimar republic?

Answer 9

• evans- the ability of the reich government to act decisively was compromised by the constitutions continuation of the federal structure imposed by bosmark in 1871
• the states were equipped with democratic, parliamentary institutions but still retained a good deal of autonymy in areas of domestic policy
• the reichstrat was less powerfull than the reichtag
• it does not seem that the federal system, for all its unresolved tensions between the reich and the states, was a major factor in undermining the stability and legitimacy of the weimar republic

Question 10

What evidence is there to demonstrate to what extent the constitutional powers of the federal states were democratic in the weimar republic?

Answer 10

• that fact that states such as bavaria had a history and an identity encouraged them to obstruct the policies of the reich government if they did not like them
• threat of secession from the reich might seem threatening but was never strong enough to be taken seriously
• evans-Prussian state was bigger than all of them combined but it was led by moderate republicans during 20s and 30s which constituted a significant counterwieght to the extremism and instability of states such as bavaria
• Prussia was not the staunchest support for the republic- it was democratically elected by universal suffrage when previously it had been wing to the three-tier franchise, a bastion of reaction

Question 11

What were the basic rights outlined in the constitution in the weimar republic?

Answer 11

• bill of rights was document establishing the civil liberties of citizensall germans are equal before the law
• social rights included the freedom to travel and live throughout germany
• exercise free speech
• be free of censorship
• follow any religion
• negotiate for better working terms
• receive an education
• be treated equally
• own property
• be protected by the state

Question 12

To what extent were the basic rights democratic in the weimar republic?

Answer 12

not only were equality before the law and the basic freedom guaranteed but there was explicit mention of social rights such as:

• the right to work - including provision for the unemployed
• adequate protection for all human condition from childhood
• illegitimate children were to have the same rights to developpment- an advanced idea for the time
• the constitution aroused many expectations of social advances that were difficult to achieve in a country in the reduced state of defeated germany

Question 13

What evidence is there to demonstrate to what extent the basic rights were democratic in the weimar republic?

Answer 13

• the constitution provided for works councils in which employers and workers were to be equally represented
• 1920 a work council law was passed to give effect to this section of the constitution
• the impact of this law failed to reach the the expectations of workers
• most important social achievement of the revolution for the labour movement was the introduction of the 8 hour day
• however as the employers gained self-confidence ZAG became less important and entitlement to the 8 hour day was whittled down

Question 14

What was the Stinnes-Legien agreement?

Answer 14

the early compromise

• statesman’s (ebert) decision to put stability ahead of revolution enabling weimar republic to be made
• institutionalise the collaboration between the capital and labour
• win support of workers dispel revolutionary spirit
• major industrialists thought it wise to make concessions to trade union representatives to ward off workers’ unrest
• industrialists leader Hugo Stinnes
• Trade unionist Karl Legien
• 15 november 1918 agreed to create a central working association, ZAG
• made crucial concessions to labour:

1. recognition of legitimcay of trade union representation of the workforce
2. agreement no longer to support employer friendly associations
3. reincorporation of employees returning from war
4. establishment of workers committees
5. institution of a central committee

established the principle of:

1. trade union negotiating rights with binding arbitration on disputes
2. established the principle of an 8 hour day

Question 15

What was a referendum in the weimar republic?

Answer 15

• provision for holding plebiscites
• referenda could be called with direct popular vote on policy issues of considerable importance

Question 16

To what extent was a referendum democratic in the weimar republic?

Answer 16

• on paper this was a democratic idea
• in practise it was abused by anti-democratic rabble-rousers like Hitler
• the constitution stressed the participatory rather thant the purely representative aspect of the democratic system
• evans- the destabilising effect of of the constitution’s provision for referendums or plebiscites has often been exaggerated -other political system have existed perfectly happily with such a provision
• the number of plebiscites that took place was very few
• evans- the campaigning involved in referenda helped keep the the overheated political atmosphere of the weimar republic at boiling point
• but generally national plebiscites had little direct political effect

Question 17

What evidence is there to demonstrate to what extent the referendum was democratic in the weimar republic?

Answer 17

• ​hitler (research!)
• one privincila plebiscite did succeed in overthrowing a democratic government in Oldenburg in 1932

Question 18

What was proportional representation in the weimar republic?

Answer 18

• in effect the electors voted for the party of their choice and each party was allotted a number of seats in the reichstag precisely corresponding to the number of votes it received in the elction
• it has often been said that such a system favoured small parties and fringe groups although they never achieved a combined vote of more than 15% thus it was seldom necessary for larger group to take them into account when forming a government

Question 19

To what extent was proportional representation democratic in the weimar constitution?

Answer 19

• where it had an effect was in evening out the chances of the larger parites in competition for votes
• if a first-past-the-post electoral systme was in operation the bigger parties would have done better and more stable coalition governments with a smaller number of coalition partners would have been possible which may have persuaded a great number of people of the virtues of parliamentarism
• the nature of the party system and the political culture of post-election bargaining over possible governmental coalitions made proportional representation a liability for weimar democracy
• evans-coalition government made for unstable government as there were tensions between the different parties over personalities and policies
• evans-coalitions also made for weak government because since all the parties could settle on was the lowest common denominator and the line of least resistance
• evans-(to defend the weimar constitutioin) however the political milieux through which these parties had emerged has existed since the early days of the bismarkian empire; the deep fissure in the political system were not soley product of proportional representation
• evans- there was no merger of major political parties into larger and more effective units. political instability in the weimar republic in the 1920s and 1930s owed more to structural continuities with the politics of the bismarkian era than to the novel provisions of the weimar constitution
• evans- governmental instabity of the weimar republic is often overdrawn, the frequent changes of government concealed long-term continuities in particular ministries
• people didnt argue against proportional representation because it allowed old parties to carry on

Question 20

What evidence is there to demonstrate to what extent proportional representation was democratic?

Answer 20

• between 13 february 1919 and 30 January 1933 there were no fewer than twenty different cabinets each lasting on average 239 days or somewhat less than eight months
• some posts notably the ministry of Justice were used as bargaining counters in inter-party coalition negotiaitions and so saw a succession of many different ministers which put more power than usual in the hands of the senior civil servants who stayed there all through (bourgeois)
• however, the frequent changes in government concealed long-term continuites in particular ministries
• some posts became the virtual prequisite of a particular plitician through all the vagaries of coalition building, thus making it easier to formulate and implement strong and decisive policies

for example:

• gustav stressemann (people’s party), foreign minister in nine sucessive administrations and remained in office for an unbroken period of over six years
• heinrihc brauns (centre party) minister of labour in twelve successive cabinets from june 1920 to june 1928
• implemented long-term policies irrespective of the frequent turnover of leadership experienced by the governments they served in