Download The Rise of Extremism and the Collapse of Weimar Democracy

The Collapse of the Weimar
Republic
Week 10, December 2
The rise of unemployment
Reichstag and Landtag
elections
Unemployment
and radical votes
Bold line: unemployed
Hollow line: votes for the NSDAP
and KPD
(Bundesarchiv)
Conservative politicians
instrumental in the collapse
Paul von Hindenburg, president, 1925-1934
Heinrich Brüning,
Chancellor 1930-32
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, antiSoviet, 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
After Peukert
Communists in the Weimar Republic
Communist youth organization,1925
Ernst Thälmann, 18861944 (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)
Tchakhotin’s
Three arrows
The Iron Front
anti-Nazi and pro-democratic
movement of SPD, labor
unions, and the Reichsbanner
(veterans’ association affiliated
with the SPD)
Federal election November 1932
Last 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