Flashcards
Weimar - stengths and weekneses
Cards in this deck (7)
- 1weimar strenghtsThese features of the Republic served to ensure that it was the perfect democracy
- 2Bill of Rightsguaranteed every German citizen freedom of speech and religion, and equality under the law.
- 3the voteAll 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.
- 4elected ReichstagThe Reichstag made the laws and appointed the government, which had to do what the Reichstag wanted.
- 5weimar weeknesseshidden in the detail were two flaws that eventually destroyed the Republic
- 6Proportional representationWeimar 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.
- 7Article 48this 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.