Weimar - stengths and weekneses

Question	Answer
weimar strenghts	These features of the Republic served to ensure that it was the perfect democracy
Bill of Rights	guaranteed every German citizen freedom of speech and religion, and equality under the law.
the vote	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.
elected Reichstag	The Reichstag made the laws and appointed the government, which had to do what the Reichstag wanted.
weimar weeknesses	hidden in the detail were two flaws that eventually destroyed the Republic
Proportional representation	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.

Resource summary

	Created by eleanordaisy over 10 years ago