Should the Weimar Republic have banned Adolf Hitler from becoming Chancellor in 1933?

[Beet]

Should the Weimar Republic have banned Adolf Hitler from being eligible to run for President/Chancellor in 1933, based on the fact that he was involved in insurrection in 1923? On the one hand, it could have legally prevented the Third Reich from being established and/or Hitler from coming to power. On the other hand, it would go against democracy and could be seen as dictatorial, thus making the Weimar Republic just as bad as the hypothetical Third Reich.

[Beet]

Bump. Given the current controversy over Trump, I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on this dilemma.

[LBJer]

I voted no, because they didn't have the hindsight about Hitler that we do and if a country is a democracy, banning someone from becoming its leader requires a really strong justification.

[President Johnson]

Yes, since he was already convicted and jailed after the attempted coup in 1923 and released early for administrative reasons. Also, Hindenburg should have refused to appoint him since Hitler already showed is true colors at that time.

[Pericles]

Yes, since he was already convicted and jailed after the attempted coup in 1923 and released early for administrative reasons. Also, Hindenburg should have refused to appoint him since Hitler already showed is true colors at that time.

As a side note, Hitler was very clear in Mein Kampf about what he wanted to do. It was the rest of the world's fault that they were wilfully blind and took him "seriously not literally" so to speak.

[rob in cal]

Would the NSDAP just have a stand in like Strasser or Goering be appointed in his place, and then smooth the way for Hitler once the regime was consolidated like Campora did for Peron in 1972?

[wnwnwn]

Would the NSDAP just have a stand in like Strasser or Goering be appointed in his place, and then smooth the way for Hitler once the regime was consolidated like Campora did for Peron in 1972?

Even if Hitler dissapeared, other nazi would take his place.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This question is based on a significant misunderstanding of the Weimar constitution and also the wider political system. Strictly speaking, no one ran for Chancellor: the Chancellor was appointed by the President as the head of a coalition of parties capable of forming a government with the support of (ideally, in theory) a majority of the Reichstag. By the 1930s this system was in meltdown as a majority of seats were held by parties actively opposed to the Weimar constitution, and so successive Chancellors started ruling by decree (technically a Presidential power, but Hindenburg was senile and very easy to manipulate so long as his prejudices were pandered to) and without anything close to a Reichstag majority.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Hindenburg should have just had the military overthrow the government after the November election in 1932. It was obvious the Weimer Republic was doomed in 1932 and military rule would have been better than letting the NSDAP take power.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The NSDAP should never have been allowed to organize in the first place, and should have been forcibly dissolved at the first sign of trouble. By the time it controlled a third of the seats in parliament it was really too late.

[PSOL]

It isn’t logical given Weimar Germany smoothly transitioned into its logical form as a new Reich.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

This, along with the more pertinent question of whether the NSDAP should have been banned, is like asking whether the Titanic should have carried more lifeboats. Obviously, yes; but most of the time safety mechanisms are unfortunately not established until disaster strikes.

[KaiserDave]

I voted no, because they didn't have the hindsight about Hitler that we do and if a country is a democracy, banning someone from becoming its leader requires a really strong justification.

Well good thing Hitler tried to violently overthrow the state in 1923, there's your justification right there.

[Yeahsayyeah]

Obviously, it shouldn't have been possible for a Nazi "civil servant" in Braunschweig in 1932 to hand the German citizenship to a stateless convicted felon born in Austria.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Franz von Papen had essentially ended democracy in Prussia in 1932 because he didn't like that a coalition was impossible without the support of at least one of the Nazis or Communists. This ended helping the Nazis quite a bit in the long run and Papen deserves a lot of the blame for Hitler becoming dictator.

[Yeahsayyeah]

The point for Papen was, that it was a functioning "Weimar coalition" of the SPD, Zentrum and the liberal DDP that was a bulwark against his authoritarian measures and fantasies (as Prussia was basically almost two thirds of Germany by area and population). It had nothing to do with the Communists (lol) or even the Nazis in particular.

Of course, the right thing for Hindenburg to do would have been to stick with Brüning whose austerity policies where clearly misguided (but were in line with "economic theory" at the time), but who stood clearly on the ground of the constitution and could have been able to regain a working majority at some point in the future.

There was clearly some sense, that the Nazis would not break through in their own right after the presidential election of 1932. Hell, they didn't even have a majority in the highly unfair 1933 election, after Hitler was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg.

[Dan the Roman]

The point for Papen was, that it was a functioning "Weimar coalition" of the SPD, Zentrum and the liberal DDP that was a bulwark against his authoritarian measures and fantasies (as Prussia was basically almost two thirds of Germany by area and population). It had nothing to do with the Communists (lol) or even the Nazis in particular.

Of course, the right thing for Hindenburg to do would have been to stick with Brüning whose austerity policies where clearly misguided (but were in line with "economic theory" at the time), but who stood clearly on the ground of the constitution and could have been able to regain a working majority at some point in the future.

There was clearly some sense, that the Nazis would not break through in their own right after the presidential election of 1932. Hell, they didn't even have a majority in the highly unfair 1933 election, after Hitler was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg.

Papen's strategy was basically that of Dolfuss in Austria. It was aimed in the long-run at the Nazis but the immediate target were the Social Democrats as he decided he needed to kill democracy to stop them. It was another instance where the initial idea was not fatally flawed, but he needed to form an authoritarian government in cooperation with the SPD and parties not against it. Schleicher sort of claim close to grasping it, but the major problem was the intellectual gulf in both states which prevented any nationalists from being able to cooperate with the SPD even if the SPD was largely willing to cooperate on their terms. If they themselves didn't perceive the SPD as traitors(as Brunning did not) then no one would take them seriously as revisionists if they did not revise the greatest legacy of 1918 - the SPD.

[ꙮ]

He should have been given a life sentence (if not worse) for treason in 1923, so the question is really moot.

[RINO Tom]

Yes, since he was already convicted and jailed after the attempted coup in 1923 and released early for administrative reasons. Also, Hindenburg should have refused to appoint him since Hitler already showed is true colors at that time.

I lean toward this.  You can't have a special "smarter than the rest of us" class that just decides who is and is not dangerous to lead a democracy or a republic ... or your government is just fundamentally neither.  Sam Harris-type ideology is horrifying and gross.

With that said, it's perfectly reasonable to have a law on the books that prevents anyone previously convicted of trying to literally overthrow the government from running for government, lol.

[Fuzzy Bear]

It would have been nice if they did ban the man.  But the Weimar Government was likely in no position to.  The nation was in bad straits in 1933 and Hitler's election victory showed he had popular support.  Hindenburg was old and weak, and I don't see where there was an effective opposition to truly stop him.  If they had actually tried to do so, there would certainly have been a Civil War in Germany, and a Civil War that the Nazis may well have won.  It was certainly not an outcome 1933 Germany wanted to face.

One of the outcomes of "democracy" anywhere can be the tyranny of the majority.  Our system has the Bill of Rights to blunt that by guaranteeing individual rights, but there is also a slew of court decisions reversing duly qualified candidates being thrown off the ballot (including convicted felons) because ''democracy" implies that the electoral decision is to be decided by the voters.  The alternative, however, is for elites of some sort being empowered to overturn elections because they don't like the candidate because he/she is being too extreme.  How well would that be received anywhere?  It would make a farce of democracy, saying to citizens:  "You can vote in anyone we approve of!" 

[Fuzzy Bear]

Bump. Given the current controversy over Trump, I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on this dilemma.

The comparision of Trump's present situation to 1933 Germany is excessive hyperbole of the highest order.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The Nazis didn’t actually have an election majority though. And in the last Reichstag election before Hitler was appointed Chancellor the Nazis had actually lost seats, though they remained the largest party (ie., they had a plurality of seats)

[All Along The Watchtower]

Franz von Papen had essentially ended democracy in Prussia in 1932 because he didn't like that a coalition was impossible without the support of at least one of the Nazis or Communists. This ended helping the Nazis quite a bit in the long run and Papen deserves a lot of the blame for Hitler becoming dictator.

At the federal level, an argument could be made for Brüning being the man who had ended Weimar democracy, who was the last Chancellor before Papen, Schleicher, and Hitler.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Given that the Nazis actually had lost votes in the November 1932 election as compared to the July 1932 election, and given that even with a massive curtailing of civil liberties and widespread voter intimidation they still hadn't been able to win a majority of their own in the March 1933 election, there's this old argument that had the Weimar system managed to hang only a little while longer the Nazi movement would have eventually collapsed.

Because, as other posters have noted, Hitler was a foreigner and a convicted felon who looked funny and talked in a funny way about weird stuff. Even the ones who were eventually responsible for appointing him Chancellor didn't take him serious as a person or politician.

Unfortunately, the timing was a bit bad. And as a result, about 40 million people died.

[Georg Ebner]

The point for Papen was, that it was a functioning "Weimar coalition" of the SPD, Zentrum and the liberal DDP that was a bulwark against his authoritarian measures and fantasies (as Prussia was basically almost two thirds of Germany by area and population). It had nothing to do with the Communists (lol) or even the Nazis in particular.

Of course, the right thing for Hindenburg to do would have been to stick with Brüning whose austerity policies where clearly misguided (but were in line with "economic theory" at the time), but who stood clearly on the ground of the constitution and could have been able to regain a working majority at some point in the future.

There was clearly some sense, that the Nazis would not break through in their own right after the presidential election of 1932. Hell, they didn't even have a majority in the highly unfair 1933 election, after Hitler was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg.

Papen's strategy was basically that of Dolfuss in Austria. It was aimed in the long-run at the Nazis but the immediate target were the Social Democrats as he decided he needed to kill democracy to stop them. It was another instance where the initial idea was not fatally flawed, but he needed to form an authoritarian government in cooperation with the SPD and parties not against it. Schleicher sort of claim close to grasping it, but the major problem was the intellectual gulf in both states which prevented any nationalists from being able to cooperate with the SPD even if the SPD was largely willing to cooperate on their terms. If they themselves didn't perceive the SPD as traitors(as Brunning did not) then no one would take them seriously as revisionists if they did not revise the greatest legacy of 1918 - the SPD.

In my Austria chancellor Seipel (ChristianSocials) had been shot by a SocialDemocrat and knew from his doctors, that the bullet was moving towards his heart, what would kill him - and nonetheless humiliated himself by attending the SDAP-headQuarters in order to beg for a grand coalition - without success. The same was tried later by the authoritarian regime, but the SDs just replied, that "we won't fight against our socialistic brethren".
Even CSR's benevolent Benes meant, that the AustroMarxists would be inable to coalition.