Compare and Explain the Political Instability Experienced by France, Germany and Italy

The Weimar Constitution itself could also been seen as a threat to the stability of the Weimar Republic. In the Bundesrat, Prussian seats were elected by those who paid more tax, resulting in it therefore been dominated by conservatives. 17/58 seats in the Bundesrat were from Prussia and had power to veto bills. This in itself mean that any decisions in the Bundesrat were most likely to be that of traditionalist and conservative decisions as oppose to socialist or liberal. Furthermore, the Republic was trying to introduce democracy through this constitution. However, the Kaiser still had enough power to over-rule any decisions, making the system dependent on the abilities and personality of the Kaiser. Such a system would be seem as fundamentally flawed and therefore unable to provide stability and a working democracy. Additionally, the proportional representation voting system meant that a party had to have over 51% of the vote in order to form a government which normally resulted in many coalitions. This also resulted in six different governments coming into power between 1919 and 1923. This meant stability within the Weimar Republic was highly unlikely with so many governments coming in and out of power.

The Weimar Republic would have continued to be a functional government far longer than achieved if not for the defeat of WWI, the economic burdens imposed by the Versailles Treaty, and the flawed Article 48 which all contributed to the down fall of Germany’s first attempt at a legitimate Democracy. This paper will argue that the societal, economical, and constitutional aspects all played a role in the hopeless Democracy Germany attempted which ultimately lead Germany into a totalitarian state that would further shake the world with the rise of the NSDAP and Adolf Hitler.

Most people were dissatisfied with the current German government for several reasons. One was that they had surrendered to the Allies when their leaders had been telling them that they were winning World War I. The other was that they felt that the terms of the surrender were excessively harsh. Because they did not know that they were losing when they heard the government was suing for peace, they expected the terms to be equal, not to be completely in favor of the Allies. They also felt that even with the war reparations the government should have been doing more to help them out and not to hyperinflate their currency.

Italy’s problems started with the fact that it didn’t have one main ruler, but two people and a concept, resulting in a different approach to the unification. Gulseppe Mazzini had a radical program focusing on a centralized democratic republic based on universal suffrage and the will of the people. Vincenzo Gioberti, who was a catholic priest called for a federation of existing states

During the hardship of the 1920s and1930s, political incompetence was highlighted, the Weimar Government proved its incompetence time and time again. .The instability of the Weimar Republic was so great that the average life-span of Reich cabinets was from 6-7 months. Their incapability of providing justice to outbreaks of violence, such as political assassinations is one example of the incompetence of the Weimar Republic. When Germany found its self in undesirable economical situations due to the Treaty of Versalles, they printed money to pay off reparations, which resulted in super-inflation. During the period of super-inflation people’s life savings became worthless which contributed to the downward circle of a reduction in standard of living. As unemployment rose and people began to afford less and less with their money, people commenced searching for a better alternative to the Weimar Government. Hitler’s ability to build upon these feelings whilst offering security, prosperity and full employment, convinced Germany, in a state of disillusionment, to support the nazi party. The Weimar’s instability contributed to the collapse of the Weimar republic provided perfect conditions for the nazi party to rise to power.

Coalitions showed how weak Weimar was, he couldn't work single handedly with his party alone because he knew they had no support , I believe that coalitions were ineffective aas his longest serving coalition only lasted 2 years. proptitional representation also highlights the weakness of the constitution , it may seem fair but in reality it is not as a majority may of voted against Weimar. I believe that the biggest weakness in the Weimar government/constitution was the enabling act and article 48, this would later allow Hitler to became a dictator there was also no given time or amount of uses a person was allowed to have when using this, what counts as an emergency or a national crisis, this showed the weakness of the Weimar constitution as it allows one person to have too much

The collapsement of the Weimar Republic was due to many social, political and economical issues within. From its birth it faced numerous political problems, for which the causes were many and varied. These problems included political instability, deep divisions within society and economic crisis; problems were constantly appearing for the new government. The Weimar Republic never really had a stable political party, having a whole six different parties between 1924-1928 does not create stability. Many of these parties were also narrowly sectioned, with messed up

This caused a huge issue in the Weimar republic as it meant that no party could get a majority vote leading to many disagreements and arguments between everyone, meaning nothing would get done. If the government had just one party and not coalition parties, then Germany’s recovery could speed up. Many people wanted a strong lead figure instead so difficult decisions were made quickly and progress would be made. Unfortunately, Stresemann’s government did not do this and took a long time to make decisions because the whole of the Weimar Republic had to vote. Germany was not ready to run a democratic government after the Treaty of Versailles stated it in the terms. Stresemann’s government did not help or speed up the recovery of

The German and Italian nations faced great challenges after the war, and the governments of said nations were unable to handle the problems with any efficacy. This precipitated a weakening of faith in German and Italian governments which led to the rise of Totalitarianism in

Another factor that made the public begin to lose faith in the government was the dual system of President and the Reichstag. Following the end of the war it was difficult for the German people to adjust to not following one ruler and to govern the country by the democratic process. Throughout the Weimar period the people were unclear to whether it was the president or the chancellor of the Reichstag who was the ultimate source of authority. The powers of authority that the president had were in fact very similar to that of the old Ersatzkaiser, many left wing Germans would have criticised this for taking power away from the Reichstag an effectively reinstating parts of the old monarchy. This could have been a way of compromising to gain support from the left and right.

It faced the problems similar to those of Italy. There were 9 cabinets in 1920-28. Moreover, Germany was unified by Bismarck. It inherited from Prussia the tradition of authoritarianism and contempt for democracy. German people were dissatisfied with the inefficient administration of the Weimar government.

The establishment of the new constitution drawn up on the 11th of August 1919 caused many internal issues within the democratic system as a result of continual economic disaster. Germany was to be a Federal State, with a parliament to be elected every four years following a system of proportional representation. This system faltered due to the amount of political parties (during the rule of the Weimar Republic, there were 21 separate coalitions) and a lack of political census. Economic conditions lead to a polarisation of extremists left and right support. In times of instability it was noted that poor standards of living meant the lower class leaned towards the left wing, while the higher class leaned towards the right due to lack of national pride. The extent of economic issues in Germany caused the middle class and aristocrats to consider political extremities. Consequently this caused huge political divisions in German society, which denied the republic of any political census, resulting in a large amounts of political parties and changes to government. This made it very difficult to establish stability in the republic, or even get laws passed, weakening the effect of the democratic system. The political chaos economic conditions brought about caused many Germans to lose faith in the new democratic system during its initial period of rule.

The unification of Germany and Italy was centered around the belief of nationalism. Nationalism is the belief that one’s greatest loyalty should not be to a king or an empire but to a nation of people who share a common culture and history. The nation will then become a nation-state when it has its independent government. Bonds that will create a nation state are nationality, language, culture, and religion. Germany and Italy both went to drastic measures to unify their countries

However, divergent values among parties could result in unstable governments. Such instability has been particularly highlighted by frequent national elections and coalition reconstruction in Israel.

      The majority of historians that agree the ill-fated Weimar Republic was a smudge on Germany during the Interwar Period have a large amount of validities to support that claim. However, these validities also apply to the latter (to a lesser extent) , with one major problem resolved by the republic. One of the claims is that the Weimar Republic was simply too weak to establish itself as a political power in Germany, being contested by left and right-wing extremist groups. There were often frequent rebellions in Germany, led by Communists and Marxists. The military at the time was far too outnumbered to quell these rebellions in their own jurisdiction. Another major impediment was the hyperinflation of the currency of that time, the German Mark. After the Great War, Germany was in a state of utter devastation and rebellion. The Kaiser had just fled Germany, and she was now without a leader, essentially cutting head off the snake. The military had also returned in a similar shape. The German economy was in ruins. The Weimar Republic was still responsible for