Weimar Republic Research Paper

Ever since its establishment in in 1918, the Weimar republic appeared as though it was doomed to fail. It was created in the midst of vast and widespread political and social unrest as a result of the war. The Weimar republic was ultimately destined to be an unstable form of government due to the difficult economic circumstances facing Germany in the post war era; the violence that occurred from the extreme political left and the extreme political right.
Firstly, it can be argued that one of the main problems facing the new Weimar government was an economy that was entirely unmanageable. This problem came in the form of Hyperinflation. By 1923, the German currency was out of control and had become effectively worthless. There have been accounts …show more content…
The violence of the extreme right was indeed a clear threat to the Weimar republic as it in fact managed to succeed in briefly overthrowing the government. Between the years 1919-22 of the 376 political murders carried out, 354 were carried out by right wing activists including the murders of such high ranking figures as Matthias Erzberger, the finance minister, for having signed the armistice and Karl Gareis, leader of the USPD for being a committed socialist. These figures and examples demonstrate that the right wing was clearly a threat to the republic. These figures also point out how little of a threat the far left was by comparison; the far left was responsible for only 22 of the 376 murders in those 3 years showing that there was definitely a clear gulf in the threat that the two extremes posed to the stability of the republic. The clearest evidence that the Right-Wing was a huge threat to the stability of the Weimar Republic is that in the Kapp Putsch it actually managed to overthrow the government and install a new, right-wing government. In 1920, Wolfgang Kapp, leader of the right-wing, Fatherland Party led 12,000 troops alongside General Luttwitz on Berlin, managing to oust the Weimar government as no government troops opposed the movement. Not only does this show us that the Right-Wing were the greatest …show more content…
The main group of the extreme left devoted to the overthrow of the Weimar Republic was the KPD (German Communist Party). The KPD would seem to be a rather powerful force between 1919-23 as it held the support of up to 15% of the electorate, a relatively significant portion of the population. However, in terms of its ability to genuinely disrupt the Weimar Republic it is clear that it was never a true threat to the stability of Weimar Germany.The reason that the extreme left never posed a serious threat to the Weimar Republic was that they could always be crushed due to the opposition of right-wing organisations such as the Freikorps and also due to the Ebert-Groener Agreement signed in November 1918. This mean the Weimar Republic had two powerful, armed groups always at hand to prevent any left wing uprising. We can use the example of the Spartacist Revolt to show us how ineffectual the rebellions of the far left were. Although the Spartacists did manage to briefly capture a number of buildings in Berlin, January 1919 due to the intervention of the army and freikorps on behalf of Ebert and the government, their leaders Liebknecht and Luxembourg were quickly murdered and the revolution crushed. So, we can see that the extreme left never posed a significant threat to the stability of the Weimar Republic as