Talk:Weimar Republic

Why does it say Weinar in the first sentence? With an N?

Chancellor

I think more chancellors should be mentioned in the article. Philipp Scheidemann, Gustav Bauer, Hermann Müller, Constantin Fehrenbach, Joseph Wirth, Wilhelm Cuno, Gustav Stresemann, Wilhelm Marx, Hans Luther, Wilhelm Marx, Hermann Müller, Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, Kurt von Schleicher were all the chancellors of the Weimar Republic. Not Adolf Hitler, when he became chancellor, the third Reich started. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hannes Kallwies (talk • contribs) 20:32, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Kurt Eisner

I just edited out a reference to Kurt Eisner which originally read: "The first challenge to the Weimar Republic came when a group of communists and anarchists, led by Kurt Eisner, took over the Bavarian government in Munich and declared the creation of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. The communist rebel state was put down one month later when Freikorps units were brought in to fight the leftist rebels."

This is incorrect. As is already shown on the pages for the Bavarian Soviet Republic and for Kurt Eisner himself, Eisner proclaimed a Bavarian "Free State" after the deposing of the King of Bavaria at the end of World War I and advocated a "Socialist Republic", but the Bavarian "Soviet Republic" was proclaimed after his assassination by Eugen Leviné and others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zachary Klaas (talk • contribs) 15:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Zachary Klaas (talk) 15:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Archives

1, 2,

Moresnet

May I remark that the position of Moresnet(blue white black flag) on the map is all wrong. it's much smaller and more northwarts. It's the most upper part of the properties gained by Belgium. Besides Moresnet ceased to exist after WW1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.197.0.162 (talk) 18:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Call for polish

Am I the only one who feels that the writing could be tweaked/polished beginning from the section "Franz von Papen calls new elections? I would do it myself, but I came looking because I don't know much about Weimar Germany. Oh, and I'm lazy. 09:52, 8 February 2006 unsigned by 64.180.47.30

Freistaat (Free State)

I have just copied a map onto the article page from the article States of Germany. I have left the caption alone. "The Länder of the Weimar Republic, with the Free State of Prussia (Freistaat Preußen) as the largest". But were the federal parts of the Weimar Republic called Länder in the constitution or some other name?

Articles like Free state (government)#Germany also use the term Länder,"In Germany the term free state (in German, Freistaat) was part of the full names of most Länder (federal states) during the inter-war period." is the term correct for the Weimar Republic?

In the article States of Germany has another map with "The Provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia (green) within the German Empire (1871-1918)" Was East Prussia a province of Prussia the Weimar Republic or did it have some other designation? --Philip Baird Shearer 11:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The Weimar Constitution called the states "Länder", much to the dismay of the states. This is one example of centralizing effects of the Weimar Constituion, which is an often overlooked problem of the new system. However, the various Länder all had names of their own and most of them called themselves Freistaat (Free state), Hessen was a Volksstaat (Popular state) and Baden a Republic. As for Prussian provinces. Everything that was Prussian under the Kaiser was also Prussian under the Weimar Republic (with the exception of the territories ceded to other nations, most notably Poland). The only change in provinces was that the remnants of the Provinces of Western Prussia and Posen were merged into a new province. Some parts of Western Prussia were also merged into Eastern Prussia. All other provinces remained the same. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 00:08, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

NB: The terminus "Freistaat" is an attempt to render into german the latin "res publica". Thus "Freistaat" is to be considered a synonyme to "republic" in the german context.

Zweites Reich

I wasn't a fan of the part that glosses over the political structure of Germany prior to WWI. I was under the impression that while the ministers in the Kaiser's government were ultimately answerable to the Kaiser, the Bundestag had control of the purse strings. Historically, this arrangement typically leads to parlimentary democracies (I think...like in Britain?). I usuallly think that the Zweite Reich gets treated too much as a totalitarian regime that was an enemy of democrcy, while in reality it was probably on a course to eventual parliamentary democracy. But, I'm not a student of Germany history...So feel free to enlighten me. 67.160.235.243 06:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

To call any German state prior to 1933 totalitarian is just ridiculous. Those who do probably haven't considered what the term actually means.

In the Kaiserreich, there actually were no ministers as such. There was the Chancellor appointed by the Kaiser. The Chancellor had his sub-secretaries that later developed into something like ministers but these were never politically responsible to anyone.

The Reichstag (=parliament) had legislative powers and budget power, though that was limited regarding the military budget (and that was the largest part of the budget): the military budget was voted every seven years - the Reichstag was elected every three years.

The Bundesrat (=states' representation) was in the beginning the central body and it was more powerful than the Reichstag.

In 1918 however, the constituion was changed, under the pressure of World War I (especially the US and the German military leaders that wanted to shift the blame): ministers were introduced and made politically responsible and the Chancellor needed parliament's approval. Members of parliament (Social Democrats, Centre Party, Left-wing Liberals) became ministers. But this arrangement was short-lived because of the revolution in November.

However, it should be clear that it were these changes and not the revolution that turned Germany into a parliamentary system. Ebert would have preferred a parliamentary monarchy with a different Emperor.

How things would have unfolded without the war, we cannot tell. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 00:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me, it's a while since I have studied German history, but I seem to remember a school of thought (Fisher, Berghan?) which argued that the contradictions and tensions within the Kaiserreich between feudal/militaristic and parliamentary elements made it inherently unstable? The war, this thesis continues, was in some respects a consequence of these contradictions. I doubt very much if the Prussian Junkers around Wilhelm would ever willingly have surendered power-and control of the military-to the Reichstag. You are right, though, to dismiss any suggestion that the Second Reich was 'totalitarian'; but does any state-with the possible exception of Stalin's Russia-come anywhere near this model? Hitler's Reich was such a bundle of madly competing interests that it cannot really be described as totalitarian in any meaningful sense. White Guard 02:50, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

You are right about this school of thought.

I also doubt that a parlamentarisation would have easily happened. There certainly would have been conflicts about that, the outcome of which we can never know.

About "totalitarian":

The difference between "totalitarian" and "authoritarian" is that the latter merely demands obedience from its subjects (and to the extent that any state does that, any state is authoritarian). The former however is not content with mere obedience, it wants complete internal assent, in a way, it wants to be loved. You could grumble about politics under the Kaiser and thought this didn't change anything, you were free to do it. You couldn't under Hitler.

Now, there were a couple of totalitarian regimes: you mention Stalin (but let us not forget, that the Soviet Union was already totalitarian under Lenin and remained totalitarian under Stalin's successors), but there's also Nazi Germany, Mao's China, the Khmer Rouge, or to go back in time, the French Republic under Robespierre. And certainly various revolutions (or wannabe revolutions) have created an totalitarian environment, but as they were short-lived I won't go into details.

One more thing: the totalitarian nature of a regime does not depend on whether it actually has the means to implement its totalitarian objectives - yes, there were niches under Hitler and also in the Soviet Union but they existed because the regime could not (yet) remove them.

Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 13:23, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

GA status

• Send it to peer review now for more insights. Lincher 03:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Constitution

Does anyone out there have the text of the constitution of the Republic? It seems like a relevant issue to me.

EDIT: Found it and put it in "see also"

King ofall1 13:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Reich or state?

To translate 'Reich' as 'Empire' is far too precise: it can indeed mean 'empire', but it also means 'realm', which is, I think, a far more accurate rendition for the Weimar Republic. White Guard 22:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest not to translate it at all. Whenever it is necessary to use the official name say "Deutsches Reich" (with possibly an explanation), otherwise say Germany. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 23:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

My view also. White Guard 00:53, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

See official use of "German Reich" in an official document (Kellogg-Briand Pact (AKA Pact of Paris)) on Talk:Deutsches Reich. --Orangerider 21:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Weimar stamp

Hi this might not be appropriate to ask.. but i was just wondering if you guys knew where the weimar republic stamp was (ie the ink rubber stamp, and it was black on white paper. on its own) . I'm sure i have seen it on one of the articles about weimar etc, 2-3 weeks ago. But now i cant find it. Would any of u hava clue.? please help thanx

Vandalism

"And They Liked Balls" has been shoved at the bottom of the page, I am putting this here so you know its happened once - if this happens again, you may need to lock the article... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.145.242.86 (talk) 22:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC).

References

For this article to reach a rating higher than GA, it needs to be correctly cited. The references at the bottom of the article are not actually cited anywhere within the text. Does anyone have access to these publications? - 52 Pickup 09:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

merge proposal

Similar to the entry on the German Empire, I propose the incorporation of List of Weimar states into this article. That particular article is just a list that is only linked to from the member states themselves (probably just via the navbar {{States of the Weimar Republic}}). This article, at the moment, focusses heavilly on the historical aspects of the Weimar Republic, but not so much on the geographical. Information about the states that made up Germany at this period in time would round out the article more. - 52 Pickup 11:54, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Since there were no objections, I've gone ahead with the merge. - 52 Pickup 11:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Too much information in article on the rise of Hitler, not enough on ther Weimar Republic itself

While the rise to power of Hitler was a major event in the Weimar Republic's dissolution, there are other topics that should be added to give a full picture of the Weimar Republic such as more information about the "golden era" under Stressman, as well as culture and society during the time. User:R-41

Ruling onself?

The lead claims that the Weimar Republic ruled Germany 1919-33, but this is rather nonsensical. A country is ruled by one or more of its citizen in the form of dictators, political parties, juntas, etc, but the country doesn't rule itself. Could someone tweak this to make it seem less illogical?

Peter ^Isotalo 23:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

In light of a near complete lack of inline citations, I am taking this article to GA Review. --Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 19:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The result of the review was to Delist the article. An archive of the review can be found here. However, since the only issues seem to be lack of in-line citations, we encourage editors of this article to resubmit the article to WP:GA/R if the article is ever improved. Drewcifer 21:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Brüning a "conservative"?

I don't think it's OK to denote Brüning a "conservative". Brüning was Zentrum, i.e. Christian Democrat. The label "conservative" in the german pre-33 context would apply to DNVP and their ilk, i.e. monarchistic and nationalistic. In contrast to todays CDU, which combines a christian democrat (predominatly catholic) and a conservative wing (predominatly protestant), the Zentrum party was largely christian democrat and predominatly catholic. German protestants before 33 voted monarchistic, liberal or social democrat, but not Zentrum. Personally, I think that Brüning was a honest man, and his attemps to save democracy were earnest. The tragedy was that he attempted his noble goal via with anti-parlamentary means, thus paving the way for authoritarian regimes like Papen and Schleicher, and finally Hitler. In this sense, there may be paralleles to Dollfuss in Austria.

Edit summary for intro

I'm about to make what I think is a pretty minor edit for the introduction, but I wanted to provide an explanation here in case it turns out to be contentious. In the sentence "Despite its political form, the new republic was still officially known as the Deutsches Reich in German, rendered as "German Empire" or the half-translated term "German Reich" in English", I'm removing the words "the half-translated term". First, because the reader can see the words "German Reich" there on the screen, so doesn't need to be told it's half-translated; second because it's not half-translated, since "Reich" is a word in the English language, appearing in English-language dictionaries (including wiktionary); and third, because it comes across as dismissive (whether or not that was the original intent) and therefore POV, as if the author is looking down on people who use "German Reich" instead of "German Empire" (which is odd since, as noted in an earlier section of this talkpage, the original German "Reich" has connotations that are lost if it's translated as "Empire"). Binabik80 (talk) 13:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem. This all came up from a rather lengthy debate a while ago regarding the name, which I hope I managed to settle a while ago when I clarified the German Reich article. After going through a swathe of documents, it became clear to me that "Empire" is officially correct only for 1871-1918 Germany. I can't remember if I wrote the "half-translated" bit or not: I think I did, if only to stop people from incorrectly using "Empire" - the same can be said for the Nazi Germany article. - 52 Pickup ^(deal) 18:13, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

External link to Weimar Germany by Eric Weitz

I would like to add a link to the radio interview I did with cultural historian Eric Weitz about his 2007 book Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy. I've been working on a book about a resistance group in Occupied Holland that was led by a writer who came out of the disparate currents of Weimar (he was a gay, philosemitic, conservative tangentially linked to the circle of Stefan George who published a book called der Dritte Humanismus)and so the cultural history of Weimar has figured significantly in my research. I only mention this as a bona fide to say that Weitz' book is an excellent treatment of the period and our interview would add, I think, to the knowledge of people visiting this article. The link to the interview is [1] --Francesca Rheannon (talk) 19:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Weimar-Bonn-Berlin Republics

Concept calling the different German Republics after towns (it's relativly often used by German media, don't know if it's used outside Germany)
Weimar Republic
Bonn Republic (West Germany)
Berlin Republic (Reunited Germany) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.164.208.244 (talk • contribs)

I've never seen these Bonn/Berlin names used in English. Not very often in German, either. - 52 Pickup (deal) 15:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Nothing about cooperation with Soviet Union, avoiding Versailles military restrictions, waging economical war, lack of minorities treaty...

The article lacks information:

• About vast Soviet-German cooperation in political matters, military matters, aimed at third parties that lasted till 1933.
• About lack of protection for minorities in the state as Germany never signed the minorites treaty
• About harassment and discrimination of ethnic minorities like Masurs that happened for example by state officials in education system
• Weimar Republic's attempts to re-arm avoiding limitations of Versailles Treaty.
• Weimar Republic's destabilisation of European economy by waging economic war against Poland
• Attempts by Weimar Republic to revise borders in Central Europe by economical and political blackmail

This and other important aspects of Weimar Republic's history and action need to be presented in the article. I shall try to work on this when time permits. --Molobo (talk) 22:02, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I see you are not making much progress with that ! Not surprising, because the issues you raised are rubbish.Eregli bob (talk) 03:34, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Nsdap1932.jpg

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• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --07:09, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Judicial review?

This passage (of mine) got me thinking.

The constitution was never formally repealed, but the Enabling Act meant that all its other provisions were a dead letter. The Enabling Act itself was breached by Hitler on three occasions in 1934: Article 2 of the act stated that

'Laws enacted by the government of the Reich may deviate from the constitution as long as they do not affect the institutions of the Reichstag and the Reichsrat. The rights of the President remain undisturbed.'

The powers of the Länder (states) were transferred to the Reich, obsolescing the Reichsrat. A month later, the Reichsrat itself was dissolved. In August, President von Hindenburg died, and Hitler appropriated the president's powers for himself. The Enabling Act did not specify any recourse that could be taken if the chancellor violated Article 2, and no judicial challenge ensued.

1) Under the Weimar constitution, was it possible to challenge government actions in the courts, a la United States, on the grounds that they were unconstitutional?

2) If so, did it ever happen?

3) I'm assuming no-one was foolhardy enough to bring such a suit against Hitler's third reich, but could it have legally happened?

4) If you couldn't bring a constitutional suit, did they just trust that the gov would uphold the constitution? Or was there some other safeguard?

5) Hitler was not someone who respected legal proceedure for its own sake. But in the Enabling Act it says that "Laws enacted by the Reich government shall be issued by the Chancellor and announced in the Reich Gazette. They shall take effect on the day following the announcement, unless they prescribe a different date".

Did Hitler actually bother to announce his laws in the Gazette once everyone was out of the way? And if he wanted to do something, he probably wouldn't bother to pass a law authorising it first (Night of the Long Knives, for instance). Does this mean that he was constantly breaking the law while he was in office, notwithstanding that it was extremely generous to him in the definition of his power? BillMasen (talk) 01:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

• Judicial review was possible and expressly contemplated under the Constitution. The most notable case related to Papen's seizure of power in Prussia in the summer of 1932 after Nazi electoral victories (the Preussenschlag).

The Prussian Landtag electoral rules had been revised by the then-majority coalition, such that if a government lost a no-confidence vote, a new government required an absolute majority to replace it. In April 1932 the Nazis and their German Nationalist allies won about 200 seats, while the SPD and Center gathered about 160. The KPD, who would not join a coalition with either, garnered 57 seats. The SPD-run cabinet resigned but also continued (under the re-defined rules) as a caretaker government until a new prime minister could be chosen.

On 14 June the national ban against the SA was lifted; that against the Red Front remained in place. On 28 June the national government prohibited state governments from imposing their own bans against the Nazi organs. Street battles ensued. On 14 July Papen obtained an Article 48 decree from Hindenburg, effectively allowing him as Reich Chancellor to assume the Prussian government's powers; the pretext was that the SPD and the KPD elements in the Prussian government were conspiring against the Nazis (a claim which was on its face ridiculous as those parties could have coalesced in April-June 1932 to form a majority government in Prussia).

On Sunday July 17 the Altona riot left 17 dead. On July 20 the Prussian government was forcibly removed from office and Papen installed himself as Commissar of Prussia.

The SPD brought suit in the Constitutional Court to enjoin Papen's actions, and the SPD prayer for preliminary injunctive relief was denied on 25 July. On 25 October the Court issued its final decision.

Papen's defenses were that:

• the disturbances in Prussia were ultimately the work of the communists. In this, the SPD dominated government of Prussia had collaborated. As a result, the government had lost its independence and was thus unable to carry out its duties under the Constitution.
• the actions taken by the defendant were not intended to obliterate the authority of the Prussian state. Even though the decree had entirely nullified the power of the Prussian state and had effectively transferred that to Papen as Commissioner, this was only a temporary measure aimed at removing the influence of the communists, and thus restoring law and order to Prussia. Thus, the arrogation of power was intended to further, and not to impede, the functioning of the Prussian government.
• he had offered to work together with the Prussian ministers, but this offer was refused, leaving him no choice but to seek the more drastic remedy of the Article 48 decree.

The SPD countered that:

• there was no collaboration between the communists and the SPD as alleged
• it was absurd to ignore the Nazi role in provoking the civil disturbances and to assign all blame to the communists
• if it were to "work with" Papen as he offered, the Prussian government would effectively agree to the claim that the national government had a right to interfere, a claim that the state government strongly resisted
• the Prussian government's difficultly in responding to the disorder had been largely created by the national government which had legalized the Nazi organization's demonstrations, outlawed the communists demonstrations or counter-demonstrations, and deprived the state government of the legal authority to take independent action to outlaw the Nazi demonstrations.

The Court in making its decision ruled that it had jurisdiction to decide the case and that it was not injudiciously making a "political decision" which was committed to other branches of the government.

In respect of Papen's argument under paragraph 1 of Article 48, the Court held that this presented a legal and factual dispute and that the national government bore the burden of demonstrating that the state government was not fulfilling its duties of contending with the breakdown of law and order, to the best of its ability. The Court ruled that Papen failed to demonstrate this and that therefore his argument to entitlement under paragraph 1 must fail.

However, it also held that paragraph 2 regulated a different situation than that contemplated by paragraph 1. Under paragraph 2, the Court taking note of the near total breakdown of public order and safety, the President was entitled to take the measures he had taken, assuming control not merely of the Prussian police but indeed the entire governmental apparatus of Prussia. The Court did not accept the Prussian government's argument that the displacement of all Prussian ministers, instead of simply the head of state and the minister of the Interior, was a flagrant abuse of discretion.

The Court held that nevertheless the Presidential decree had to stay within the bounds of the Constitution, but this gave the Prussian government very little. The Prussian government could not, for example, be deprived of its right to representation in the national Reichsrat or to relate to other Lander (Articles 17 & 63). This, however, in no way granted the Prussian government the relief that it sought. SixBlueFish (talk) 16:11, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

November Revolution

Midway through this section of the article (starting with the paragraph "As in other countries..."), the writing style changes radically from the reasonably clear and grammatical to the confused, awkward and ungrammatical. I am no expert in this period of German history and would therefore be very reluctant to undertake a revision of the kind and magnitude that is needed here. Can anyone else help out? Drichter53 (talk) 02:47, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Name change

Am I the only one who thinks this page should be renamed to "Weimar Germany?" Vichy France isn't titled "Vichy Regime" or "Vichy State." --Kevin W. 17:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Anti-Hitler POV

Otto Wels, the leader of the Social Democrats, whose seats were similarly depleted from 120 to below 100, was the only speaker to defend democracy and in a futile but brave effort to deny Hitler the two-thirds majority, he made a speech critical of the abandonment of democracy to dictatorship. At this Hitler could no longer restrain his wrath.

Brave effort? Restrain his wrath? Please more NPOV. 75.85.32.224 (talk) 21:47, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't see these as POV in the sense of being partial. However, I would say the sentence including "restrain his wrath" should be removed because it states as fact what is actually speculation on Hitler's state of mind; it is possible that Hitler's screaming etc. was not indicative of wrath but was just acting. The next sentence is referenced and states Hitler's reaction objectively. The reader can draw his or her own conclusions as to motivation and state of mind. The same could possibly be said of the word "brave", which could be removed without detriment to the article, in my opinion. Sometimes less is more. --Boson (talk) 06:44, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

This is no pov, it is just what happended there. "Futile" and "brave" also describe his actions accurately, because openly resisting Hitler could be very dangerous for later times. This is also not enough for a POV Tag. StoneProphet (talk) 17:30, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

wrong Coats of Arms

the site uses the Coats of Arms of the Federal Republic of Germany the style of the Coats of Arms of the Weimar Republic were different:
see: Coat of arms of Germany

Reparation

This article claims that in 1923, the Weimar Republic claimed it could "no longer afford the reparation payments," and that it "defaulted" on "some payments." According to the book "Paris 1919," Germany ignored reparation payments from the beginning. It seems ascribing any part of the economic collapse of the Weimar Republic to unreasonable reparation payments is a fallacious argument; no payments were ever made, so no drain on the economy. In fact, even if payments had been made, (according to the book), the German economy should have been able to handle it easily. By way of contrast, after France's surrender in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Germany extracted reparation payments which were much higher, proportionately speaking (considering the size of the French economy in 1871), than the payments expected from Germany in 1919. Yet, although France struggled, it managed to pay back all the reparations demanded of her. I suggest someone research this more thoroughly to ensure its correctness, and perhaps include it in the article. The book to which I refer seems very well researched; the author's name escapes me, but she's a female, and, I believe, Winston Churchill's granddaughter.

Coat of arms.

At the bottom of the infobox, there is a note stating "The above shown coat-of-arms was the conclusive version created by Emil Doepler (d. 1922), readopted by the then Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, an earlier version for Weimar looked like this:", followed by a small image. The thing is, the image is the same as the one at the top. There is obviously an error somewhere, either with the top image, the bottom image or the inclusion of the box in the first place. There is a citation, but it is a book citation, so I can't check to see which it is. Alphathon™ (talk) 13:56, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Name in info box on right-hand side

Why, in the info summary box on the right-hand side of the page, is the Weimar Repbulic referred to as the German Empire? Although what we would today call Germany was officially called the German Empire between 1918 and 1933, historians nowadays refer to it as the Weimar Republik (or Weimarer Republik) and seeing as this is the most widely-known term for the geographical entity being discussed on this page and it is indeed the name of the page, I maintain that one name for Germany is this period should be used consistently throughout. I therefore suggest that someone change 'Deutsches Reich/German Empire' to 'Weimarer Republik/Weimar Republic'.

--SaraFL (talk) 13:21, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

purposely injected opinion

I don't know if this part is vandalism, but in the second paragraph it states: In its 14 years, of nothing that is worth recording, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems...

I am changing this now, but a quick check proved to me that there have been other instances of vandalism. There are obviously people here that cannot try to see history through as much of an objective lens as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The CIS (talk • contribs) 00:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Further reasons for the failure of the Weimar Republic

The Occupation of the Rhineland and the Occupation of the Ruhr may be further reasons of failure, because these occupations caused a lot of political disorder and problems for the first German republic. Many Germans of that time may have felt humiliated about these occupations and may have given the responsability for this humiliation to the democratic politicians of the Weimar Republic.-Tfjt (talk) 15:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Weimar Republic

"However, it overcame many of the oppressive requirements of the Treaty of Versailles"... This statement is more of an opinion rather than of fact. The Treaty of Vesailles did not impose economic requirements any more "oppressive" than those imposed on the French at the end of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, in equal economic terms. The fact that German nationalism of the 30s opposed them as 'oppressive' does not make them being oppressive a fact. Besides the fact that the Germans repaid all of the reparations required of Versailles in the 1990s would seem to invalidate this "opinion". Zargon2010 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:52, 10 July 2011 (UTC).

There are problems with the new, unsourced statement "even though Germany eventually repaid all the reparations required of the treaty in the 1990s". Firstly, the date needs to be confirmed. Secondly we need confirmation that the full amount specified in the Treaty of Versailles was repaid. Thirdly, the way the statement is formulated ("even though . . .") implies a point of view that is unattributed. --Boson (talk) 09:56, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The current status of reparations is referenced in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations, which states that "West Germany paid off the remainder by 1980. According to the agreement, the debt would be serviced for 20 years, leading to the last payments being due on 3 October 2010, the 20th anniversary of German reunification. About 10% of this debt, about 20 million euro, has not been claimed yet." And also from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreement_on_German_External_Debts, this: "The total under negotiation was 16 billion marks of debts from the 1920s which had defaulted in the 1930s, but which Germany decided to repay to restore its reputation. This money was owed to government and private banks in the U.S., France and Britain. Another 16 billion marks represented postwar loans by the U.S. Under the London Debts Agreement of 1953, the repayable amount was reduced by 50% to about 15 billion marks and stretched out over 30 years, and compared to the fast-growing German economy were of minor impact." And from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_reparations, "The last instalment of these reparations has been paid on 3 October 2010." I will change the article to reflect these more accurate statements. Zargon2010 (talk)

Another reference: http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=189637 Zargon2010 (talk)

"Faced with ... hostility from the victors of World War I." Where are the references and support for this statement? From everything I have read, Weimar enjoyed much support from the victors of WWI, including reducing the amount of reparations not once, but twice, through restructuring of their debt, including the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan. The major hostility to Weimar came from nationalist groups within Germany, not from groups outside Germany. Zargon2010 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:29, 10 July 2011 (UTC).

1923 inflation crisis

I don't quite agree with -

"In early the postwar years, inflation was growing at an alarming rate, but the government simply printed more and more banknotes to pay the bills. By 1923," etc.

In fact the imperial government had been printing money since August 1914 as it could not sell bonds outside Germany to pay for the war. It is true that the Weimar republic printed money, but the problem was 9 years old, not 4.86.42.192.218 (talk) 08:01, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Abdication of Emperor

How did this happen?

It seems that SPD illegally "founded" the weimar thing. without a popular election or any sort. --85.104.54.249 (talk) 09:34, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "the weimar thing". The Weimar Constitution was passed by the elected Weimar National Assembly. --Boson (talk) 13:29, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

"Council of the People's Deputies" consists of three guys. Three persons -out of nowhere- seize the power: legislative and executive. These three guys asssemble a council as they like. Make a republic. Where is the law here?--85.104.54.249 (talk) 04:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)