The Impact of the Treaty of Versailles on the Weimar Republic to 1929 Was More Significant Than Any Other Factor

1. The impact of the Treaty of Versailles on the Weimar Republic to 1929 was more significant than any other factor.

The Treaty of Versailles had somewhat of an impact on the Weimar Republic however there were weaknesses in the constitution from the start. With six governments between 1924 and 1928, it had no real political stability. In a sense the Weimar Republic was a democracy without democrats.

The acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles after Germany was defeated in the war played a minor role in Germany’s history from 1919-1941. The terms on the treaty were considerably harsh, but not the most significant on the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Government had structural weaknesses from the start. These include; weaknesses in the constitutional and party system, the initial political, economic and social issues and the role of the army who maintained their influence in the republic.

In order to understand why the Weimar Republic faced a collapse, it is essential to examine the political history and beginnings of the Weimar Republic. With six governments between 1924 and 1928, it had no real political stability. Also, many of the parties were narrowly sectional, their priority being to look after the interests of the class, area or religion that they represented. Overall loyalty to democracy was often of secondary importance. This led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic.

The Weimar Republic may have looked like a successful democracy at the beginning, but it had two great weaknesses - proportional representation and Article 48. The collapse of the Weimar Republic was a result of several reasons. One of these reasons is that there were too many political parties. With a large number of political parties, they faced serious problems amongst themselves. In the first four years of the new constitution, the Republic had nine coalition governments and proportional representation prevented the parties from getting a majority of the votes. . Instead of voting for one leader like most democracies, Germans voted for a party. Each party was then allocated seats in the Reichstag exactly reflecting the number of people who had voted for it. This may have seemed fair however in practice it was a disaster and it resulted in dozens of small parties, with no party strong enough to get a majority of the votes. Thus, no government could get its laws passed in the Reichstag and this proportional representation was a huge weakness in the constitution.

Article 48 was another major weakness in the constitution. The Weimar Republic may have looked like a democratic system of government from an outside perspective, however it wasn’t. If any issues were to rise between the government, the chancellor would refer to Article 48, which allowed the President, under certain circumstances, to take emergency measures without the prior consent of the Reichstag and appoint all decisions. The problem with this was that it did not state what exactly an emergency was and this was taken advantage of by all the leaders. This existence of emergency powers in the constitution made Germany an authoritarian system of government as opposed to a democratic one. This weakness gave a disproportionate amount of power to the President and reiterated the tradition of autocrats in Germany’s history. In simple terms, Germany was a democracy without the democrats. Therefore these two major weaknesses in the constitution convey that the Treaty of Versailles didn’t a have a big impact on the Weimar Republic.

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