A new Republic, New hope for Germany?

After the World War I, Germany was in a very devastated situation. They had lost people and territory in the battle, unemployment, food problems, and had a strong feeling of revenge but also of despair, they wanted a change. Population didn’t want a small parliament that chooses Germany´s future, they wanted to participate. This led Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate and when a small social movement appears with the idea of democracy, a way that people could vote, citizens approve it immediately. Here is where the Weimar Republic appears.

In 1918, the leader of The Social Democratic Party, Friedrich Ebert started a provisional government where he had to face twice against the Spartacists, a radical communist group, that revolt because they weren´t happy with the new government ideas. After defeating this group, Ebert called for elections in 1919. Members of the Reichstag, the parliament, got reunited in the small town of Weimar and write a constitution, naming Ebert as the new president. The government took place in Weimar because Berlin, the capital, was in chaos. This new constitution consists in having a real democratic system that gave the right to vote to all men and woman over the age of 21. Also the parliament was going to be elected every 4 years. Germany was divided in states and each of them had its own government that manages internal affairs. The head of these states was the president, that was elected every 7 years and under the article 48 of the constitution, the president could declare a state of emergency and rule by decree. 

The new government was established in August 11, 1919, recognized as the Weimar Republic. Since the beginning the republic started to have many problems. The Treaty of Versailles shocked the government with a huge amount of money that Germany has to pay, exactly £6.6 Billion, to the Allies for reparations. The Treaty was signed by Ebert and it was his worst decision, people lost faith in the republic, which was really weak and unstable. Germany already has lost a lot of money in the war and didn’t have enough to pay the big debt. Also, the country wasn’t used to a democracy and didn’t have the determination or the security to make decisions, government was a chaos. 

It seems that Germany was falling apart. In 1923, the man recognized as the one that “save” Germany was Gustav Stresemann. He rapidly became popular because he gave money to the unemployment, built houses and the most important and started paying reparations again, etc. But the most important, he was giving German people faith and hope that they could make it and they would have a better life. That is why he became the new Chancellor of the Republic. The problem was that he leave the German economic prosperity on the American loans, this was a terrible dilemma because United States, in 1929, suffered the Great Depression a big economical problem, Germany started to show vulnerability again. In 1930 people was tired of all the crisis and chaos where they were living. People that in all this time have opposed to the Weimar Republic, the radical groups, were angry and desperate; they wanted a new idea of government, something that would help Germany to acquire stability. These groups started to act and work rapidly looking for a new ideology, in this moment a new political movement appears with the name of the Nazi party with its popular leader Hitler. This party promised a new and better government, very strong. In my opinion people was really confused, and hopeless, they wanted a change rapidly and they were app to everything and when this strong party with concrete arguments and ideas of a stable state, it catches people’s attention and they let the Nazis party to propague all around Germany, while they were putting all their faith in them. The Weimar Republic was a mistake, but now people was sure that this time they´ll go through it… 

But probably Germany has a really bad luck and their leader wasn´t as good as they think, he was really going to help them leading them to a second war?

Mariana Flores