Weimar Republic

Why did the Weimar Republic face political problems in the first few
years of its existence, 1919-1923?

From the very beginning of its existence, a lot of the problems facing
the Weimar Government arose from the weakness of its constitution. The
system of law was jeopardised by the fact that the President had the
right to pass any law, without the approval of the Reichstag, in the
face of an emergency. However there was nothing in the constitution
which dictated exactly what an emergency consisted of.

Germans were unused to the new form of parliamentary government. There
were too many different parties for people to choose from in voting for
the Reichstag, and, due to proportional representation, coalitions were
formed in order to create a majority. This meant that it was hard to
make decisions because the government was constantly trying to include
the range of different views within the parties. In the Reichsrat,
Prussia was able to outvote other states because it had the largest
population, and therefore had the most representatives.

Army officers and judges, although meant to be politically neutral,
were in favour of militant nationalists, which encouraged disorder. The
army kept trying to re-arm in secret. The Freikorps, used to put down
the communists, also contributed to the violence.

Germany under the Weimar Republic was supposed to be governed and run
differently to the way it was previously. However, the SPD party was
worried about the uprisings of extremist parties, and therefore made
secret agreements with the army and trade unionists, which meant that
the government was not able to be as radical as it had promised to be.
This lost a lot of the population's trust. This rising threat from left
and right-wing parties was the cause of many political problems. In
March 1919 there were many Communist riots and strikes. Attacks from
the Right wing included the Kapp Putsch on the 13th March, where the
Freikorps, led by Wolfgang Kapp, took over Berlin, in the hopes of
restoring the Kaiser. Although it didn't succeed, the government was
weakened because it was no longer able to use the Freikorps against
other opposition. Between 1920-22 many assassinations were carried out
by Right wing extremists. Because of the unrest, the Government had a
hard time keeping the faith of the people.

Of course, a lot of the problems arose from the Treaty of Versailles.
Because Germany had lost such a great amount of land (West Prussia,
Posen, Alsace and Lorraine, Memel, Eupen and Malmedy), and had to pay
large sums of money as reparations, the country's economy was damaged.
Due to the Clause 231, "War Guilt Clause", the country was deeply
humiliated. By signing the Treaty, Germany was admitting that it was
she who had started the war. Because the Government had signed the
Treaty, there were problems of confidence- people lost faith in them.
Nationalists claimed that they could have won the war, accused the
Government of "stabbing the army in the back" and of betraying the
country. The population felt vulnerable because of the depletion of the
army.

Although the constitution had a lot of weaknesses already, the Weimar
Government made some fundamental errors in their running of the
country: their use of the Freikorps, for example. There was nothing,
however, the Government could have done about the Treaty of Versailles,
because it had been signed before the Weimar Government came into
being.