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Weimar Republic: Adolf Hitler
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Why the Weimar Republic so catastrophically collapsed in favor of the Nazi dictatorship is the subject of much debate even today. On the one hand, Hitler became Reichskanzler legally through the mechanisms set forth by the constitution, and the NSDAP had gained the relative majority of the seats in Parliament in the two 1932 elections. On the other hand, Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler at a time where support for the "movement" had proven not to be sufficient to gain power.
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The economic and political fate of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) has always been seen as the prehistory of Hitler's rise to power, and still is seen this way. No other period of German economic history has inspired so much attention from both historians and economists. The two most outstanding issues that have sparked debates among them are the questions of whether and, if so, why the Weimar Republic suffered from structural problems already in her supposedly 'Golden Years' (1924-29), and whether Chancellor Heinrich Brüning had a feasible alternative to his pro-cyclical austerity policy from 1930 to 1932, which intensified the crisis in Germany. The latter issue is related to the former: If the Weimar economy was not ill, Brüning had more economic leeway for work creation programs and the like; and had he made use of it, Hitler possibly would not have been able to seize power in January 1933.
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The last years of the Weimar Republic were stamped by even more political instability than in the previous years and the administrations of Chancellors Brüning, Papen, Schleicher and Hitler (from 30 January to 23 March 1933) were all Presidentially appointed dictatorships. On March 29, 1930, the finance expert Heinrich Brüning had been appointed the successor of Chancellor Müller by Paul von Hindenburg after months of political lobbying by General Kurt von Schleicher on behalf of the military. The new government was expected to lead a political shift towards conservatism, based on the emergency powers granted to the Reichspräsident by the constitution, since it had no majority support in the Reichstag.
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There were various factors that contributed to the failure of the Weimar Republic of Germany and the ascent of Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party into power on January 30, 1933. Various conflicting problems were concurrent with the result of a Republic that, from the outset, its first governing body the socialist party (SPD) was forced to contend with. These included the aspect of German imperialism, the unresolved defeat of 1918, financial collapse and the forced struggle against the activities of the National party as well as inflation. Other factors that influenced the failure of Weimar were the structural weaknesses induced by the constitution and the basic lack of support for the Republic among the German people particularly amongst the elite. All in all, these aspects were the major causes that doomed the Weimar republic to ultimate failure and the eventual ascent of Hitler’s nationalist party to power.
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Hitler rapidly transformed the Weimar Republic into a dictatorship. The National Socialists accomplished their "revolution" within months, using a combination of legal procedure, persuasion, and terror. Because the parties forming the cabinet did not have a parliamentary majority, Hindenburg called for the dissolution of the Reichstag and set March 5, 1933, as the date for new elections. A week before election day, the Reichstag building was destroyed by fire. The Nazis blamed the fire on the Communists, and on February 28 the president, invoking Article 48 of the constitution, signed a decree that granted the Nazis the right to quash the political opposition. Authorized by the decree, the SA arrested or intimidated Socialists and Communists.
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This is a succinct overview of the turbulent economic history of the Weimar Republic. Theo Balderston, an experienced teacher of economic history, summarises the wealth of recent research on the subject, and presents it in lucid, accessible form. He offers new perspectives on the economic effects of the Reparations conflict and of domestic political struggles for postwar inflation and the slump. Controversial analyses of the slow economic growth of even the Republic’s best years have implications for the instability or otherwise of its political economy. Recent globalisation and global debt crises throw new light on the foreign debt burden with which Germans saddled themselves in the later 1920s, and the fateful financial crisis of 1931. Theo Balderston explains new analyses of the role of economic policy in worsening the slump and ... paving the way for Hitler.
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