2366297
Description
Mind Map by LittleRedSmalls, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by LittleRedSmalls
almost 10 years ago
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Weimar
Republic-Democracy
- The Weimar Republic comprised all the essential elements of a perfect democracy.
- After Germany lost the first World War the Kaiser fled and a new democratic government of Germany was declared in Febuary 1919 at the small town of Weimar.
- It was too dangerous to make a declaration in Berlin where there had just been a revolt by a Communist group called the Spartacists
- The Weimar Republic was a genuine attempt to create a perfect democratic country.
- The Weimar Republic was a genuine attempt to create a perfect democratic country.
- It was too dangerous to make a declaration in Berlin where there had just been a revolt by a Communist group called the Spartacists
- After Germany lost the first World War the Kaiser fled and a new democratic government of Germany was declared in Febuary 1919 at the small town of Weimar.
- The Weimar Constitution
- Comprising: An elected Reichstag which made the laws and an elected president using Article 48 in an emergency
- Underpinned by: a bill of rights, the vote by proportional representation.
- Underpinned by: a bill of rights, the vote by proportional representation.
- The Weimar Republic looked like the perfect democracy, but it had two great weaknesses -
proportional representation and Article 48.
- Comprising: An elected Reichstag which made the laws and an elected president using Article 48 in an emergency
- Perfect Democracy?
- A Bill of Rights guaranteed every German citizen freedom of speech and religion, and equality
under the law.
- All men and women over the age of 20 were given the vote. This was even better than Britain where
only women over 30 could vote.
- There was an elected president and an elected Reichstag (parliament).
- The Reichstag made the laws and appointed the government, which had to do what the Reichstag
wanted.
- Proportional representation - instead of voting for an MP, like we do in Britain, Weimar Germans
voted for a party. Each party was then allocated seats in the Reichstag exactly reflecting
(proportional' to) the number of people who had voted for it. This sounds fair, but in practice it was a
disaster it resulted in dozens of tiny parties, with no party strong enough to get a majority, and,
therefore, no government to get its laws passed in the Reichstag. This was a major weakness of the
Republic.
- Article 48 - this said that, in an emergency, the president did not need the agreement of the
Reichstag, but could issue decrees. The problem with this was that it did not say what an emergency
was, and in the end, it turned out to be a back door that Hitler used to take power legally.
- A Bill of Rights guaranteed every German citizen freedom of speech and religion, and equality
under the law.
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