What were the problems with the Weimar Constitution?
Two days after the Kaiser abdicated the Social Democratic Party; the leading in the Reichstag came into power. The new Republic was signed in a town called Weimar in South Eastern Germany, which is why it is often referred to as the ‘Weimar Government’. The constitution was a republic which was a major strength in the SDP, the Bill of rights was another strength of the Weimar Republic it granted every German citizen freedom of speech, religion and equality under the new law. The vote gave all men and women over the age of 20 the right to vote, in Britain the age was 18 for men but 30 for women. Although the SDP was seen as model democracy by others it had major flaws that would eventually lead to its downfall. There were social, constitutional, economic and political problems. …show more content…
Article 48 allowed the president the right to make new laws without consulting the Reichstag in case of a ‘crisis’ that would trouble the citizens, country or government; this was a major flaw because it did not specify what an emergency was, it gave the president too much power giving the opportunity to misuse this and use it even for ‘negligible’ emergencies. Proportional Representation was another problem in the German government, it meant that the percentage of votes a party received were the percentage of seats the party would get, it gave extremist parties power later on like the Nazi Party. It also made it extremely difficult for parties to be strong enough to get a majority vote, therefore making it very difficult for laws to pass. The German people had little trust in there government because they didn’t know what was going on as the coalition parties were constantly disagreeing and breaking up and forming another coalition with a different
Two days after the Kaiser abdicated the Social Democratic Party; the leading in the Reichstag came into power. The new Republic was signed in a town called Weimar in South Eastern Germany, which is why it is often referred to as the ‘Weimar Government’. The constitution was a republic which was a major strength in the SDP, the Bill of rights was another strength of the Weimar Republic it granted every German citizen freedom of speech, religion and equality under the new law. The vote gave all men and women over the age of 20 the right to vote, in Britain the age was 18 for men but 30 for women. Although the SDP was seen as model democracy by others it had major flaws that would eventually lead to its downfall. There were social, constitutional, economic and political problems. …show more content…
Article 48 allowed the president the right to make new laws without consulting the Reichstag in case of a ‘crisis’ that would trouble the citizens, country or government; this was a major flaw because it did not specify what an emergency was, it gave the president too much power giving the opportunity to misuse this and use it even for ‘negligible’ emergencies. Proportional Representation was another problem in the German government, it meant that the percentage of votes a party received were the percentage of seats the party would get, it gave extremist parties power later on like the Nazi Party. It also made it extremely difficult for parties to be strong enough to get a majority vote, therefore making it very difficult for laws to pass. The German people had little trust in there government because they didn’t know what was going on as the coalition parties were constantly disagreeing and breaking up and forming another coalition with a different