The Constitution and Politics

• Reichstag:

  • primary chamber
  • elected every 4 years
  • 50% needed to support chancellor
  • voted on laws and budget
• Individual votes:

  • Anyone over 20 years old
  • freedom
  • no wasted votes
  • not consulted regularly
• Reichsrat:

  • secondary chamber
  • 67 representatives of the 17 states
  • % of population means % of Reichsrat seats, not over 40% though otherwise Prussia would have all the power
  • override the Reichstag
  • gives advice to the chancellor
• The Chancellor:

  • chosen by the President
  • needed 50% of support from the Reichstag
  • proposed laws to the Reichstag
• The President:

  • elected every 7 years by the public
  • supreme leader of the armed forced
  • appointed and dismissed Reichstag
  • chose the Chancellor
  • Article 48 gave him the right to bypass the Reichstag and Chancellor all together
• The KPD (formally the Spartacist league but now the German Communist Party)

  Leader- Ernst Thälmann

  • wished to create a Bolshevik style dictatorship like the USSR
  • didn't like the Weimar Republic
  • far-left party
  • tried to win supporters through mass strikes
  • 1920 -> only had 2.1% of votes
  • guided by Moscow to win 10% of electorate
  • surged in support after Great Depression
  • mainly lower class workers voted for them
• The national assembly met in at Weimar due to Berlin being politically unstable due to the far right and the far left
• Although the SPD had the most seats at the 1919 January elections, they didn't have a majority they had a Plurality of seats
• Left: USPD (Independent Social Democratic Party)

  Leaders- Karl Kavtsky and Hugo Hasse

  • formed from the pacifist wing of SPD
  • mass strikes due to food shortages
  • turned against MSPD due to betraying socialism
  • worked with Council of Peoples Representatives
  • lower middle class
  • 17.9% of all 1920 votes
• Moderate Left: SPD (Social German Democratic Party)

  Leaders- Friedric Ebert and Phillip Scheidemann

  • committed to upholding the government
  • originally strongest force at 39.9% of the vote when Phillip first took over
  • strongest until 1932
  • aroused left and right hostility
  • Pursuit of a socialist programme meant 40% of voters lost
  • mainly working class
• Central Right: ZP (Zentrum Catholic Centre Party)

  Leaders- Matthias Erzberger Heinrich Bruning

  • political voice of Catholic population
  • worked with the weimar constitution
  • worked with SPD and DDP
  • 15% of vote until 1932
  • 1930 => Bruning became chancellor
• Moderate Right: DVP (German People's Party)

  Leaders- Gustav Stresemann

  • formed by the right wing of the National Liberals and parts of Progressive Peoples Party
  • indifferent to Weimar
  • upper and merchant classes
  • authoritarianism
  • Stresemann became chancellor
  • 1920s 10% of votes to 1% in the 1930s
• Right: DNVP (German National People's Party)

  Leaders- Karl Helfferich and Alfred Hugenberg

  • conservative monarchists
  • against democratic system
  • large landowners
  • cultivated anit-republic and anti-semitic tendencies
  • cooperation with NSDAP
  • coalition government with NSDAP in January 1933
• Far Right: NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party)

  Leader- Adolf Hitler

  • Otto and Gregor Strasser were high up Nazis, however Otto was exiled as he had socialist beliefs but his brother stayed under Hitler
  • used acts of violence from the SA to push their anti-semitic beliefs
  • against Treaty of Versailles
  • Before 1930, they had between 2.6%-6.5%
  • After Munich Putsch they gained more votes
  • 1930 gained 102 seats
  • January 1933 Hitler became chancellor
• Limited Weimar Republic support
• Central Left: DDP (German Democratic Party)

  Leaders- Walther Rathenau and Hugo Pruess

  • merge between Progressive Peoples Party and the left wing of the National Liberals
  • middle class intellectuals and small traders
  • supported the Weimar and the League of Nations
  • 17.3% of votes but that dwindled to less than 1%