The Weimar Republic was doomed from the outset

A detailed Summary of The Weimar Republic was doomed from the outset

Argument: 'The Weimar Republic was doomed from the outset'

The Weimar Republic was established in 1918 after Germany was defeated in WW1. The Republic faced many problems from its beginning to its end. In this chapter, I intend to argue that the Weimar Republic was doomed from its beginning and could have done nothing to avoid its eventual demise. As historian Sean Lang wrote, 'Hitler was bound to take power in the end. It was inevitable, wasn't it?

From it's very beginning the Weimar Republic was not popular, as it was seen by a large number of the German population as a result of defeat in the war rather than the deliberate choice of the majority. However, they did believe that as the Weimar Republic was a political democracy, it would be able to negotiate for a more lenient peace treaty. When the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles became publicly known, those who had supported the Weimar Republic now abandoned it.

Many people, especially the middle class, also blamed the Weimar Republic for Germany's actual defeat in the war. They claimed that Weimar's politicians, during the war, had been responsible for betraying the fatherland for their own gain. The German people believed, according to histori

an E. J. Feuchtwanger, that 'the German Army had never been defeated on the battlefield, but had been undermined by subversion on the home front'. This stirred a lot of ill feeling for the new republic among the patriotic German public.

This patriotism, which bound most Germans together in support of the war, was so massive (as they were constantly told that victory was just around the corner) that when the war ended with Germany's defeat, the moral of the German population took a tremendous nosedive. This was always closely associated with the Weimar Republic (as it was the Weimar politicians who campaigned for Germany to surrender in the war, as well as accepting the detested Treaty of Versailles) and so bred further feelings of contempt towards it. This further supports the argument that the Weimar Republic was doomed from the outset, as they couldn't possibly have controlled this massive dip in moral. Historian E.J.Feuchtwanger wrote, 'If even the political leaders has so little inkling of the catastrophe about to engulf them, it may be imagined how deep was the shock to the general public, fed on a propaganda diet of constant victory since 1914, when they found defeat staring them in the face'.

'Weimar was shaped in the period of crisis, both economically and politically, that hit Germany immediately after the First World War', historian P. Salmon.

The most crushing blow to the German economy was the Treaty of Versailles. This dictated that Germany should pay reparations for their part in the war. The German economy was already weak, and so couldn't take the strain of these payments. This failure to pay on Germany's part caused countries such as France to consider occupying even more of Germany's territory. More important that reparation payments, was the great loss of territory. The placing of the coal rich Saar Province under the League of Nations, as well as the occupation of the Rhineland was a terrible blow to the German economy, as i

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Approximate Word count = 1328
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History