Was the Weimar Republic doomed?

[Alcibiades]

This was very much the traditional historiographical view, but it has been challenged in recent years as imposing a backwards reading of history. I would personally lean towards ‘no’, as at one point in the second half of the 20s things were looking up, and the Republic was arguably the victim of unfortunate circumstances.

[KaiserDave]

After the depression? Yes. Before the depression no not at all.

But after the depression it was going to be the Nazis, the KPD, or a monarchical restoration. The Republic wasn't going to survive.

[Alcibiades]

After the depression? Yes. Before the depression no not at all.

But after the depression it was going to be the Nazis, the KPD, or a monarchical restoration. The Republic wasn't going to survive.

The Depression started to lift right after Hitler took office. It is possible that if it hadn’t, he wouldn’t have survived. Hindenburg gave Hitler the Chancellorship with the view to discrediting him as he thought he would fail badly in the role.

[brucejoel99]

Definitely not, no. The Weimar Republic simply turned out to be the victim of extremely unfortunate circumstances. Had it not been for the Depression, Weimar Germany could've fully recovered economically & gone on to thrive as a nation.

[NewYorkExpress]

Given a large percentage of Germans did not support the Republic at any point, I wouldn't say they were doomed, but it was very difficult for them to survive.

[The Mikado]

Doomed from the outset? No. However, it essentially died in 1930 in the Brüning Chancellorship and it took two and a half years for people to notice.

[Alcibiades]

Given a large percentage of Germans did not support the Republic at any point, I wouldn't say they were doomed, but it was very difficult for them to survive.

True, but during initially the majority did support the Republic, or at any rate voted for parties which did.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This was very much the traditional historiographical view, but it has been challenged in recent years as imposing a backwards reading of history.

Are you referring to the Sonderweg thesis? True that that's been challenged - broadly speaking discredited actually, though still regarded as important and foundational to the historiography despite that - but historians who take a bullish view of the Republic's theoretical prospects at its foundation are still rather rare. And rightly so: what happened, happened; there is no ought in history, only did.

[Alcibiades]

This was very much the traditional historiographical view, but it has been challenged in recent years as imposing a backwards reading of history.

Are you referring to the Sonderweg thesis? True that that's been challenged - broadly speaking discredited actually, though still regarded as important and foundational to the historiography despite that - but historians who take a bullish view of the Republic's theoretical prospects at its foundation are still rather rare. And rightly so: what happened, happened; there is no ought in history, only did.

My understanding is that Peukert’s The Crisis Years of Classical Modernity has been enormously influential upon the current generation of historians and forced a re-evaluation of how successful Weimar actually was, especially during 1924-29, the “Golden Years”, as well as discrediting the thesis of “a republic without republicans”. But yes, there are probably still many who are far more negative about the Republic’s chances.

As for your point about hypotheticals in history, viewing everything as a series of inevitabilities is a very reductionist view, and asking about whether the Republic was doomed is not so much an exercise in alternate history as an attempt to understand its history as those who were there saw it; after all, it is they who make all history. To quote from Anthony McElligot’s volume on Weimar, published in 2009:

The idea of a doomed republic is difficult to shake off, even among a new generation of younger scholars. There is hardly a title without some reference to the impending disaster awaiting the republic and which places the republican experience firmly in the antechamber of the Third Reich. This approach to the republic continues to permeate secondary school curricula and still invades university lecture halls. And yet the picture is problematic, not least for the obvious reason that as historians we are trained not to read history backwards and yet we seem prepared to lapse when it comes to the Weimar Republic. For what these histories have in common is that they look back from the vantage point of ‘1933’. But to approach the history of Weimar Germany from this perspective in order to ask: ‘How was Hitler possible?’ and: ‘Was the Nazi “seizure of power” avoidable?’ skews our historical vision, as the German historian Eberhard Kolb has noted, and it militates against a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay of forces that shaped and reshaped the republic from its beginning. The fact is, in 1918 the republic’s future was open and its history yet to be determined; Hitler was neither its predestined nor its obvious conclusion. Weimar’s history, therefore, should not be told through this lens alone.

[palandio]

After the depression? Yes. Before the depression no not at all.

But after the depression it was going to be the Nazis, the KPD, or a monarchical restoration. The Republic wasn't going to survive.

The Depression started to lift right after Hitler took office. It is possible that if it hadn’t, he wouldn’t have survived. Hindenburg gave Hitler the Chancellorship with the view to discrediting him as he thought he would fail badly in the role.

Another what if:
What if those among the German elites and Hindenburg's camarilla that wanted to keep out Hitler had been successful for another few months and the German Reich had remained in the semi-authoritarian limbo until after the depression started to lift?
Would there have been some kind of democratic recovery?

[Alcibiades]

After the depression? Yes. Before the depression no not at all.

But after the depression it was going to be the Nazis, the KPD, or a monarchical restoration. The Republic wasn't going to survive.

The Depression started to lift right after Hitler took office. It is possible that if it hadn’t, he wouldn’t have survived. Hindenburg gave Hitler the Chancellorship with the view to discrediting him as he thought he would fail badly in the role.

Another what if:
What if those among the German elites and Hindenburg's camarilla that wanted to keep out Hitler had been successful for another few months and the German Reich had remained in the semi-authoritarian limbo until after the depression started to lift?
Would there have been some kind of democratic recovery?

I think quite possibly. History hinges on so many moments big and small which could have gone either way, and I think it is important people recognise just how much of history is down to chance and dumb luck.

[The Mikado]

I don't think there was any coming back for the Republic after nearly 3 years of accepting that the Reichstag was meaningless theater and the governing would happen by handpicked Chancellors abusing Presidential decrees by a decrepit and senile figurehead. The credibility of democratic government had already pretty decisively collapsed in Germany by the time Hitler became Chancellor.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

My understanding is that Peukert’s The Crisis Years of Classical Modernity has been enormously influential upon the current generation of historians and forced a re-evaluation of how successful Weimar actually was, especially during 1924-29, the “Golden Years”, as well as discrediting the thesis of “a republic without republicans”. But yes, there are probably still many who are far more negative about the Republic’s chances.

I would say that Blackbourn and Eley's work has had a bigger impact, but, sure, the 1980s saw a huge shift in attitudes to modern German history, a shift that has continued, and which was largely generational.* You can probably now count on one hand the number of historians of modern Germany who believe in the Sonderweg thesis as originally proposed, and not that many who believe in the various modified versions that have sprung up since the early 90s.

_{*Of course it was not actually the most high profile historiographical debate in Germany in the 1980s, but the less said about that, the better.}

As for your point about hypotheticals in history, viewing everything as a series of inevitabilities is a very reductionist view, and asking about whether the Republic was doomed is not so much an exercise in alternate history as an attempt to understand its history as those who were there saw it; after all, it is they who make all history.

Ah, no. Inevitability is not a word I used, and I would agree to be wary of it. But 'ought' should be avoided as well. History does not make mistakes. If we assume otherwise then, oddly, we are not so very far removed from the old Sonderweg position, which was very much rooted in the assumption that German history had taken a deviant turn. What happened happened and one of the principle duties of the historian is to understand why. This does not mean that we cannot consider what might have been, but it ought not be the primary focus.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Without an external economic shock the Weimar Republic could have continued in perpetuity (although of course the problem is that panics and financial crises are endemic to the world economy). But the foundational flaw which made a great depression so dangerous to Weimar was the inability of German politicians of almost all stripes to accept Germany's defeat in WWI and the Versailles treaty. This took two forms: the German government preferring to suicide the country's economy by inviting French occupation and hyperinflation rather than keep up reparations, leading to an economic settlement based on foreign loans and dangerously exposing the German economy to the withdrawal of foreign capital, and leaving an excessive fear of inflation among German policymakers resulting in the inflicting of massive austerity in economic crisis; and the German right wing's refusal to accept the legitimacy of a republic that had been birthed in Germany's defeat in the war, and happily using undemocratic and extra-parliamentary tools to get round political gridlock whenever they could because that's how it worked under the Kaiser.  

Basically, German elites refused to accept the legitimacy of the postwar settlement and worked to undermine it in any way they could. And they were actually quite successful. But it came at the cost of destroying the health of the German economy and exposed the lack of legitimacy with broad swathes of the political spectrum which the Weimar Republic depended on.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

The weimar republic reminds me of present-day Belgium.

[Georg Ebner]

At least we "psephologists" should be aware, that the NSDAP had been exploding in regional elections (from 0-1%) already months before Black Friday.
The same applies for the permanently read claim, that the collapsing StockExchange 1873 killed liberalism - in hard-hit Austria the Liberals received their best result forever after that debacle!

[Kleine Scheiße]

Yeah

[palandio]

At least we "psephologists" should be aware, that the NSDAP had been exploding in regional elections (from 0-1%) already months before Black Friday.
[...]

It would be a misconception to think that before Black Friday it was all roses and flowers in the Weimar Republic.

Rural areas and peasants in particular had been in a structural crisis for decades. They blamed increasing free trade and taxes for their economic difficulties and felt that they had no political representation in the established parties. (SPD, DDP and DVP were considered to represent city/industry-interests, DNVP was considered to represent East-Elbian squires.)

Still I think that the new world-wide economic crisis that went far beyond agriculture heavily exacerbated things.

[Georg Ebner]

At least we "psephologists" should be aware, that the NSDAP had been exploding in regional elections (from 0-1%) already months before Black Friday.
[...]

It would be a misconception to think that before Black Friday it was all roses and flowers in the Weimar Republic.

Rural areas and peasants in particular had been in a structural crisis for decades. They blamed increasing free trade and taxes for their economic difficulties and felt that they had no political representation in the established parties. (SPD, DDP and DVP were considered to represent city/industry-interests, DNVP was considered to represent East-Elbian squires.)

Still I think that the new world-wide economic crisis that went far beyond agriculture heavily exacerbated things.

But the NSDAP was in protestantic Germany (and Austria) a party of the bourgeoisie in small/medium-sized towns&markets, in Germany's (by BISMARCK's KulturKampf endangered) catholic minority even one of the secularized cities. In Austria they did, as the studies of D.HÄNISCH demonstrate, electorally terribly in areas with a high PerCentage of peasants (even those of the german-nat. LandBund/LB).

[palandio]

At least we "psephologists" should be aware, that the NSDAP had been exploding in regional elections (from 0-1%) already months before Black Friday.
[...]

It would be a misconception to think that before Black Friday it was all roses and flowers in the Weimar Republic.

Rural areas and peasants in particular had been in a structural crisis for decades. They blamed increasing free trade and taxes for their economic difficulties and felt that they had no political representation in the established parties. (SPD, DDP and DVP were considered to represent city/industry-interests, DNVP was considered to represent East-Elbian squires.)

Still I think that the new world-wide economic crisis that went far beyond agriculture heavily exacerbated things.

But the NSDAP was in protestantic Germany (and Austria) a party of the bourgeoisie in small/medium-sized towns&markets, in Germany's (by BISMARCK's KulturKampf endangered) catholic minority even one of the secularized cities. In Austria they did, as the studies of D.HÄNISCH demonstrate, electorally terribly in areas with a high PerCentage of peasants (even those of the german-nat. LandBund/LB).

It depends. The strongest results for the NSDAP in 1928 came from areas of agricultural unrest in parts of Schleswig-Holstein, although the independent farmers of Dithmarschen probably don't fit the peasant stereotype.

Later many of the strongholds of the NSDAP were in rural and small-town areas that had experienced stagnation, emigration and and increasing marginalization during Germany's industrialization. The country's East, but also e.g. rural Northern and Central Hesse and the vast border areas between Franconia and Württemberg (The district of Rothenburg o.d.T. was the NSDAP's absolute stronghold, the villages even more than the medieval "city").

I was imprecise regarding the NSDAP being a party of the peasantry. More than anything else it became to represent the "old" downwardly-mobile middle-classes: Small-town civil servants, craftsmen, traders, independent farmers.

The point that I wanted to make originally is that the NSDAP had some (limited) success even before Black Friday, because even before Black Friday it wasn't all roses and flowers. But without Black Friday it would probably not have come anywhere near to its actual success.

[PSOL]

Exactly where did the KPD do best in?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Obviously some here will already know these, but:



The left-hand map shows results by constituency, the right-hand map by State or (if Prussian) Province.

Useful reference for quick interpretation:





Incidentally, it is my intention (at some point) to extend the election map series there back into the 1920s.

[Senator Incitatus]

Weimer democracy did collapse, but it also led to the Autobahn, so it's impossible to say if it's bad or good.

[Samof94]

Where does the fact the Communists and Thallman were around affect things?