1. HISTORY REVISION – ARRRGHH!
LESSON 4 – Weimar Germany

2. Weimar Republic Summary
This is a PAPER 2 topic for your exam on 11th June.
You will need to revise the following:
1. The Strengths and Weakness of the
Weimar government.
2. The different problems the Weimar
republic had to face.
3. The Crisis of 1923.
4. Recovery under Gustav Stresemann

3. Weimar Republic
Strengths Weaknesses
• Proportional representation -
• A Bill of Rights guaranteed
Each party was then allocated seats
every German citizen freedom in the Reichstag exactly reflecting
of speech and religion, and (proportional' to) the number of
people who had voted for it. This
equality under the law.
sounds fair, but in practice it was a
disaster it resulted in dozens of tiny
parties, with no party strong enough
• All men and women over the
to get a majority, and, therefore, no
age of 20 were given the vote. government to get its laws passed in
the Reichstag. This was a major
weakness of the Republic.
• There was an elected
president and an elected • Article 48 - this said that, in an
Reichstag (parliament). emergency, the president did not
need the agreement of the
Reichstag, but could issue decrees.
• The Reichstag made the The problem with this was that it
did not say what an emergency was,
laws and appointed the
and in the end, it turned out to be a
government, which had to do back door that Hitler used to take
what the Reichstag wanted. power legally.

4. Failures of the Republic
• Many people felt that Germany had received a very harsh deal in the
Treaty of Versailles and they resented the government for
signing it and agreeing to its conditions.
• In Jan 1919 Spartacists rebelled in Berlin, led by the Communists
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Leibknecht.
• March 1920, Kapp Putsch. Right-wing rebellion. The army
refused to attack him; he was only defeated when the workers of
Berlin went on strike.
• The Weimar government's main crisis occurred in 1923, when the
Germans failed to make a reparations payment on time, which set
off a train of events that included:
▫ a French invasion of the Ruhr
▫ a general strike
▫ runaway inflation - hyperinflation
▫ a number of communist rebellions
▫ an attempted Nazi putsch in Munich

5. Recovery under Stresemann
• Gustav Stresemann had been a nationalist, but he realised that
something needed to be done to save Germany.
• The most important thing he did in 1923 was to organise the Great
Coalition of moderate, pro-democracy parties in the Reichstag. At
last, Germany had a government that could make laws!
• Under Stresemann's guidance, the government called off the strike,
persuaded the French to leave the Ruhr and even got the rest of the
world to allow Germany to join the League of Nations in 1926.
• Charles Dawes was the US budget director. In 1923, he was sent
to Europe to sort out Germany's economy. Under his advice, the
German Reichsbank was reformed and the old money was
called in and burned. This ended the hyperinflation.
• Dawes also arranged the Dawes Plan with Stresemann, which gave
Germany longer to pay reparations. Most importantly, Dawes
agreed to America lending Germany 800 million gold marks,
which kick-started the German economy.

6. Example GCSE questions
• Using your own knowledge, explain the effects of
the hyperinflation of 1923 on the people of
Germany. (7 marks)
• Describe how the Dawes Plan (1924) was
intended to help the recovery of Germany. (5
marks)
• ESSAY - In the years 1919 to 1923 Weimar
Germany faced many problems. Do these
problems suggest that the Weimar Republic was
doomed from the start? Explain your answer. (15
marks)