The Weimar Republic: Preamble to the Third Reich
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The Weimar Republic describes the nation of Germany and its political system between the end of World War I (1918) and the rise of Nazism (1933).
The Weimar Republic was conceived as a bold political experiment. The men who took control of Germany after World War I were ambitious reformers. They hoped to create a modern liberal democracy in a nation that had known only militarism and authoritarian monarchy. Together they adopted one of the world’s most democratic and progressive constitutions.
The first years of the Weimar Republic were unsettled and tumultuous, marked by international isolation and economic suffering. In the mid-1920s, Germany moved into a more prosperous period dubbed the ‘Golden Age of Weimar’, a time of economic recovery, social renewal and cultural innovation. Much of this prosperity, however, was propped up by foreign loans, while the Weimar state remained weak and unstable. The Great Depression of the early 1930s brought the Weimar dream crashing to earth. By late 1933 Weimar democracy had given way to Nazi totalitarianism.
The Weimar Republic is of great significance to historians and history students alike. It proves a working example of how democracy can fail when its ambitions are lofty and when internal forces work against it. Weimar Germany was a society at the crossroads of history, torn between several old ideas and values of the 19th century (tradition, militarism and authoritarian government) and those of the modern era (republicanism, liberalism and democracy).
Understanding how and why the Weimar Republic failed is also essential for understanding the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement. In 1920, the Nazis were but one of many small political groups filled with disgruntled nationalists and ex-soldiers. Their growth, development and rise to power were shaped by the political and economic conditions in the Weimar Republic. The modernist culture of the Weimar era, which flourished in spite of Germany’s political and economic instability, is Weimar period.
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