IMG

1
IMG

• The Weimar Republic the first liberal German
  state?

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Questions to be addressed

• How liberal was this new state?
• Why did it fail?

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Key Issues this week

• Domestic situation at the end of the War
• Potential revolution
• The Weimar Constitution
• Perceptions and realities of the new state
• Economic crisis

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Worries on the home front

• Military government (General Erich Ludendorff)
• break down in food supplies
• population weary of war

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Fears of a Russian-style revolution
Source http//www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/russ/rusre
v.htmlgen
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End of the War

• Transfer of power to civilian government
• To help negotiations with the Allies
• To avoid taking responsibility for defeat

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Dolchstoßlegende
source http//www.dhm.de/lemo/html/weimar/innenpo
litik/dolchstoss/index.html
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Revolution from above?

• Prince Max von Baden
• Democratic reforms
• Kaiser does not abdicate

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Real Revolution?

• October sailor mutinies in Kiel and
  Wilhelmshaven
• November Arbeiter- und Soldatenräte across
  Germany
• Kaiser forced into exile
• Moderate Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert becomes
  Chancellor
• Same time Spartakisten declare socialist republic

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Restoring Order

• Temporary coalition of SPD (moderate) USPD
  (independent/more radical socialists)
• Nationalversammlung to be democratically elected

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Restoring Order

• Government negotiations with
• Revolutionary councils
• Business and Unions
• THE ARMY (General Groener )
• Continuities with Imperial Germany?

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Real Revolution again?

• December Breakdown of coalition (USPD leave)
• January 1919 Spartakist Uprising (Karl
  Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg)
• "Alle Macht den Räten"
• Violently quashed by Army and Freikorp

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Spartakist Uprising

• http//www.dhm.de/lemo/html/weimar/revolution/spar
  takus/index.html

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Violently quashed by Army and Freikorps

• http//www.dhm.de/lemo/html/weimar/gewalt/freikorp
  s/index.html

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The Weimar Constitution

• 6 February first National assembly convened in
  Weimar
• Federal structure
• key powers reserved for central government
• Reichsrat and Reichstag
• universal suffrage
• Proportional representation

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The Weimar Constitution

• President as Head-of-State
• Chancellor as Head-of-Government
• Concept of human rights introduced
• BUT could be suspended by the President

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Perceptions and Realities of the new state

• Government had accepted the Treaty of Versailles

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Treaty of Versailles

• Territory loss

http//www.lib.byu.edu/rdh/wwi/versa/vmap3.gif
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Treaty of Versailles

• Demilitarization
• Germany and her allies to take all blame for the
  war
• Germany to pay reparations
• an albatross around the neck of the new German
  state

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Perceptions and Realities of the new state

• Democracy was foreign
• Making Germany weak
• Use of direct action
• Kapp Putsch (1920)
• Hitlers Beer Hall Putsch (1923)
• Lack of Political Consensus

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Economic Crisis

• Loss of resources
• Cost of War
• 1.8 mil lives
• 19.9 billion at 1919 prices
• unworkable reparations
• 6,600 million presented in 1921

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Economic Crisis

• hyperinflation
• 1919 14DM 1
• November 1923 4billion DM 1.
• Click here for video clip

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Economic Crisis

• French invade the Ruhr

Source http//www.dhm.de/lemo/html/weimar/Versail
les/Ruhr/index.html
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So how did the republic survive this crisis?

• To be continued