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Historians almost unanimously characterize the period of the Weimar Republic (1919-33) as an unstable one. The new democratic state had to accept the challenges, which were avoided by the Republic’s legal predecessor, the German Empire. These challenges proved to be stronger that the Republic and they led to its demise in 1933 by far-right forces led by Adolf Hitler. Hitler reestablished an authoritarian method of governance, which had been then gradually transformed into a totalitarian Nazi regime — a much tougher one than that of the Second Reich.
The main weakness of the Weimar Republic is the fact that it had stayed in a position of a defeated nation for the whole period of its existence. The Republic had been diplomatically controlled by the winning powers (that is proved by the Treaty of Versailles, Treaty of Locarno, occupation of Ruhr region, Dawes and Young plans etc.), while the only German attempt to distance from that control was the establishing of close relations with the Soviet Union. Soviet influence, however, most probably led to a rise of popularity of communists in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and, subsequently, to a dangerous polarization of German political stage .
The defeat in World War I and the subsequent revolution resulted in economic collapse. Economic and financial disorder (hyperinflation in early 1920s as well as sharp recession after 1929) and political turmoil came together in all occasions. Political polarization was, however, most important: it reached its height after 1930 parliamentary elections, which resulted in victory of Nazi party and a significant gain by the Communist party . Even before 1930 political scene was not unified at all: weak coalition governments crashed one after another. Weimar republic became a classical example of a “centrifugal democracy” as defined by Arend Lijphart — the most unstable type of a democratic government and party system .
The conclusion is mainly that Weimar Republic came to its end mainly due to the improper arrival of democracy: it was a wrong time for democratization, when nation was among defeated, subdue to harsh economic sanctions. Even the successes of Weimar Republic, such as so-called “Golden Twenties”, when Germany became dependent on American banks, were among the main reasons of its collapse — as that dependence led to abrupt crash in 1929.
Works Cited
Lijphart, Arend. "Typologies of Democratic Systems." Comparative Political Studies 1968: 17-35. Print.
Weitz, Eric D. Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2013. Print.
