6331065
Description
Flashcards by Blessing uche, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Blessing uche
over 7 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| What happened after Germany lost ww1? | the Kaiser fled and a new democratic government of Germany was declared in February 1919 at the small town of Wiemar. |
| What did the Weimar Government attempt to create? | The Weimar Republic was a genuine attempt to create a perfect democratic country. |
| What were Weimar republics 2 great weaknesses? | proportional representation and Article 48. |
| How did Weimar republic ensure that it was a 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. |
| What were the 2 flaws that eventually destroyed the Republic? | 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. |
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