The Collapse of the Weimar Republic

Week 10, December 2

The rise of unemployment

Unemployment and radical votes

Bold line: unemployedWhite line: votes for the NSDAP and

KPD

(Bundesarchiv)

Reichstag and Landtag elections

Conservative politicians instrumental in the collapse

Heinrich Brüning, Chancellor 1930-32

Paul von Hindenburg, president, 1925-1934

Brüning as chancellor

• for many historians, his cabinet marks the end of the Weimar democracy

• Backed by Hindenburg, used article 48 to approve his budget and minority govt

• Major cuts in welfare• Foreign policy priority, confrontational position with

the Western powers, break with Stresemann’s careful policy

• Instrumentalized the rising unemployment against the Western powers

• Lead to further escalation of the domestic situation

Rise of the NSDAP

Early interwar Germany a fertile breeding ground for radical right-wing organizations.

1919: Anton Drexler founds the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers Party, DAP).

Adolf Hitler joined the DAP in Sept. 1919, quickly rising through the ranks to become the party’s chief theorist and propaganda officer.

Feb. 1920: Hitler heads a committee which draws up the Party’s ’25 Point Programme’ which remains the basis of Nazi ideology until 1945.

April 1920: The DAP renamed the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party, NSDAP or Nazi for short).

July 1921: Hitler ousts Drexler & is appointed Party Chairman.

NSDAP, cont.

1923 beer-hall coup; 23-24 Hitler in Landsberg prison 1925: Nazi party re-founded with a new commitment to

achieving power through legal means. 1926: The Bamberg Conference – Hitler re-established his

supremacy in the Party, overcoming the challenge to his leadership from Gregor Strasser, but was forced to concede that the 25-Point Programme (with its socialist elements) remained inviolable.

Establishment of new efficient Party structure and youth and women’s organisations led to a growing membership: 27,000 in 1925 increased to 108,000 in 1928.

But still had little popular support – they won only 2.6% of the vote in the Reichstag elections of 1928.

Programmatic points of the NSDAP Key concepts:

Race and antisemitism Führerprinzip (one leader) Anti-Communism Nationalism Volksgemeinschaft (folk community)

The 25 Points: Creation of a Greater Germany encompassing all ethnic

Germans Revocation of Treaty of Versailles and back to old borders Demand for space (Lebensraum) (vehemently anti-Slavic, anti-

Soviet, anti-Polish) Only members of the Volk can be citizens: no Jew can be a

citizens & all non-citizens to be deported The primary duty of the State is to provide a livelihood for its

citizens: introduction of profit sharing & extension of welfare state

Election results in Weimar

Communists in the Weimar Republic

Communist youth organization,1925

Ernst Thälmann, 1886-1944 (KPD leader)

Liebknecht house, Bülowplatz, KPD

headquarters

Politicians in the collapse II

Franz von Papen, chancellor 6-11/1932

Kurt von Schleicher, chancellor 11/1932-1/33

Preußenschlag (Prussian coup), July 1932

Papen ousted the minority govt of Otto Braun (SPD) in Prussia, the largest German state, continually governed by the social democrats, and named himself interim head of the state

Federal Elections July 1932

largest legal gains for the Nazi party (37,8%), negative majority together with the KPD (319 seats

from 608 in the Reichstag)

The Iron Frontanti-Nazi and pro-democratic

movement of SPD, labor unions, and the

Reichsbanner (veterans’ association affiliated with the

SPD)

Tchakhotin’s Three arrows

Federal election November 1932Last democratic elections of Weimar Germany

Reasons for failure of the Weimar democracy:

• economic crisis and unemployment• distrust in the system, no longer believable• rise of fascism• split of the Left• Weimar ran out of alternatives; only

returning to monarchy or some kind of dictatorial leadership

• Syndicate of elites now backing the Nazis, endowing them with legitimacy