History UsefulNotes / WeimarRepublic

Then came the Reichstag Fire on Monday 27 February 1933, where the Reichstag building was subjected to a arson attack in the dead of night. There has been much speculation about the event, and the fact quite a few facts to this day still remain somewhat unclear, makes the event a popular target of various conspiracy theories. But since Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch communist, were arrested for the arson as he was caught near the scene of the crime and confessed to it, Hitler and the Nazis immediately jumped on the opportunity to declare the fire a part of a major communist conspiracy meant to undermine the German State, and used the event as a pretext for mobilizing the the Prussian police force, which, due to a quirk of how the Republic was constitutionally constructed, had come under the personal control of the high-ranking Nazi, Hermann Göring, whom Hitler had instated as the Minister of Prussia, to enact [[ThePurge a major purge against the German communist party]] (as well as some of the Nazis' other political opponents who were conveniently swept up in the confusion of the fire and the following mass arrests). At the same time, Hitler and his main propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, used the fire as a major set-piece for the upcoming election, declaring that it was proof that Hitler needed EmergencyAuthority, so he could be allowed to suspend civil rights and liberties and ban political parties in order to "restore order" and root out the enemies of the state (essentially arguing that in order to "rescue" the Republic, the Nazis should be allowed to kill its spirit). At the same time, some suspicious facts about the arson, most notably that Van der Lubbe was by all accounts in a confused state when he was arrested (he had been found half-naked and was described as acting "dazed") and the crime had been reported very quickly after its presumed outbreak, German leftists and other opponents of the Nazis would in the days afterwards claim that the fire was in fact a FalseFlagOperation staged by the Nazis in order to use the communists as scapegoats and enable their authoritarian takeover (mostly due to the fact that since the fire had worked out so well in Nazi's favor, it was only natural to assume that they had a hand in it). Van der Lubbe, for his part, claimed to have been acting alone, and he stubbornly maintained this story, even under torture at the hands of the Nazis, and up until to the day he was executed in January 1934. Four other communists (three of them Bulgarian citizens) where accused in the case and arrested under orders from Göring, but the changes against them where so transparently fabricated, that they where ultimately acquitted in December 1933 (Hitler, true to form, took this as a personal slight against him, and it motivated him to redouble his efforts to subvert the German justice system and bring it to heel under the Nazis). Consensus amongst historians in the aftermath of World War II and for most of the latter half of the 20th century was that Van der Lubbe was the most probable culprit and that he had probably acted alone, though latter historians, supported by the declassification and discovery of previously sealed or forgotten documents, would poke several holes in this story.[[note]]Most notably that Van der Lubbe was 80% blind due to a working accident, and it therefore seems unlikely that he could navigate a dark building at night by himself. He also appeared wholly ignorant in his testimony regarding the use of accelerant in the arson, despite the investigation turning up plenty of evidence to the use of accelerant. Also notable, is the fact that during the Nuremberg Trials, two Gestapo officers gave sworn testimonies which fingered the former SA Stormtrooper, Hans Gewehr, as the true culprit behind the fire. Gewehr himself denied the accusation, and was let off the hook mostly due to a lack of evidence, but his alibi about his whereabouts on night of the fire were noted to both be inconsistent and highly implausible, and later in life he would outright brag in private company of having had some hand in the incident.[[/note]] Whatever the case, the fire can be pointed to as the death knell of the Republic.

What also didn't help the legitimacy of the republic was the persistent "stab-in-the-back" myth: a ConspiracyTheory that blamed subversive elements, namely civilian politicians and Jews,[[note]]which was especially ludicrous considering large numbers of German Jews served in the army[[/note]] for Germany's defeat in the First World War, which major generals like Hindenburg and Ludendorff were happy to propagate to shift blame away from their own decisions. Between angry nationalists who were happy to use the Republic as their scapegoat and communists who hated the government for its less-than-ideal record on worker's rights, one German politician called the republic a "democracy without democrats."

The first few years (and, for that matter, the last few years) of the Weimar Republic was a time of enormous political instability. Between 1918 and 1923, there was an attempted coup by either the far right or the far left every year, as well as almost 500 political assassinations--most of them committed by right-wing organizations like the ''Organisation Konsul'', most of which went unpunished--especially those committed by right-wing extremists, as many judges were unreconstructed monarchists. The last one, the UsefulNotes/{{Munich}} Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, was led by UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. He got less than half a year in jail and wrote ''Literature/MeinKampf''. It didn't help that the Mark suffered from RidiculousExchangeRates, in which thousands of people lost any money that wasn't saved as gold, foreign currency, or silver. This might have also recorded one of the first cases of RidiculousFutureInflation...except not in the future, and with somehow worse inflation. Case in point: you could sit down for tea when the inflation was at its worst at taking the bill two hours later, only to find that your bill had somehow doubled within the two hours you were eating.

What also didn't help the legitimacy of the republic was the persistent "stab-in-the-back" myth: a conspiracy theory that blamed subversive elements, namely the civilian politicians and Jews,[[note]]which was especially ludicrous considering large numbers of German Jews served in the army[[/note]] for Germany's defeat in the First World War, which major generals like Hindenburg and Ludendorff were happy to propagate to shift blame away from their own decisions. Between angry nationalists who were happy to use the Republic as their scapegoat and communists who hated the government for its less-than-ideal record on worker's rights, one German politician called the republic a "democracy without democrats."

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/weimarar_republik_5.gif]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"They carry the name of the enterprise - but who carries its spirit?"'' [[note]]A ''Simplicissimus'' caricature depicting, from left to right: a cleric, an aristocrat, a Reichswehr soldier, a vagrant, a farmer, a capitalist, an intellectual, and an SA trooper.[[/note]]]]

The Weimar Republic (so-called because that's where the constitution was written--UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} remained the capital [[note]]but when the constitution was made, there was too much unrest there (again), so the delegates, fearing for their lives, moved to the much-quieter city of Weimar[[/note]]) was the regime that ran Germany from the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI until the UsefulNotes/{{Nazi|Germany}}s took power.

If you're ever on ''Series/{{QI}}'' and Sandi Toksvig asks you what Germany was called in 1930, don't say "The Weimar Republic". That name is an invention of historians and was not used at the time (like [[UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire 'The Byzantine Empire']] or 'UsefulNotes/TheBonnRepublic'). The correct term is "Deutsches Reich" (German Empire).[[note]]"Reich" directly translates as "realm", but "reich" is more casually used than "realm" is. The German word for France, for instance, is Frank''reich'' - Frankish Realm. The constituent assembly in Weimar actually had some trouble deciding whether the state should be called "Deutsche Republik" (indicating a democratic republic) or "Deutsches Reich" (smacking of monarchism). Ultimately, a compromise between the center-left that favored the former and the center-right that favored the latter was found with Article 1 opening with "Das Deutsche Reich ist eine Republik" - "The German Realm is a Republic".[[/note]]

The Weimar Republic (so-called because that's where the constitution was written--Berlin remained the capital [[note]]but when the constitution was made, there was too much unrest there (again), so the delegates, fearing for their lives, moved to the much-quieter city of Weimar[[/note]]) was the regime that ran Germany from the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI until the UsefulNotes/{{Nazi|Germany}}s took power.

The question of whether the Nazis were "voted into power" or seized it sometimes comes up. On the one hand, it's true that Hitler was defeated soundly in the 1932 ''presidential'' election, and that the Nazi party never won an absolute majority of votes -- in the March 1933 election with Hitler already chancellor, the National Socialist party gained 43.9% of the vote.[[note]]Though this result was very much enabled through widespread voter intimidation and open political persecution of leftists, most prominently the violent arrest of the Communist party chairman, Ernst Thälmann, on transparently trumped-up charges two days prior to the election.[[/note]] While this may seem extraordinary, it only seems so to countries with a two-party system (like the US). Many countries in the world have multiple parties in their governments, requiring parties to make alliances to govern effectively. In such a system, a party receiving 44% of the vote is a big win. Even though the Nazis "only" held 44% of the vote, its opponents were fractured into so many little parties that they didn't matter. The Nazis managed to get an agreement with another right wing party, and ''that'' got them over 50% both of the votes and of the seats in parliament. Furthermore, the third-largest party was the communists. Either way, democracy had been given a thumbs down by a majority of Germans. The Nazis banned the Communist party while still maintaining a facade of democracy, and there was a relatively free vote (with the Communists "abstaining" due to mostly being in jail) on whether Hitler should be given the power to make laws on his own. Hitler got the required two-thirds majority of those present, despite the Social Democrats voting against him, and the other parties (that had voted for Hitler in exchange for promises Hitler mostly broke) dissolved themselves, with the Social Democratic Party being forcibly dissolved through Hitler's new legislative powers.

The first few years (and, for that matter, the last few years) of the Weimar Republic was a time of enormous political instability. Between 1918 and 1923, there was an attempted coup by either the far right or the far left every year, as well as almost 500 political assassinations--most of them committed by right-wing organizations like the ''Organisation Konsul'', most of which went unpunished--especially those committed by right-wing extremists, as many judges were unreconstructed monarchists. The last one, the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, was led by UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. He got less than half a year in jail and wrote ''Literature/MeinKampf''. It didn't help that the Mark suffered from RidiculousExchangeRates, in which thousands of people lost any money that wasn't saved as gold, foreign currency, or silver. This might have also recorded one of the first cases of RidiculousFutureInflation...except not in the future, and with somehow worse inflation. Case in point: you could sit down for tea when the inflation was at its worst at taking the bill two hours later, only to find that your bill had somehow doubled within the two hours you were eating.

With the emergency powers granted to him by the Reichstag Fire Decree, Hitler launched a persecution of his political opponents on the left and the center, effectively beginning the Nazi's program of state terror, which allowed his coalition to make massive gains in the March 1933 elections. With his coalition having a massive majority in the Reichstag, Hitler passed the Enabling Act, which functionally killed the Weimar Constitution as a functioning document and granted Hitler absolute power. Soon, opposition parties were banned, trade unions were abolished, and all media was brought under the control of the Nazi Party. And with Hindenburg's death in August 1934, Hitler could assume complete control of the army, giving him total control over the German state.