One thing that has interested many historians who study Nazi Germany is how, exactly, the democracy of the Weimar Republic failed. Did it commit suicide, self-destructing from within because flawed laws and principles, or was it murdered by those who hated liberalism and democracy? Or both?

In “The Decay of German Democracy” (Political Quarterly, October 1933), Dr. Franz Neumann writes:

[T]he efforts of all reactionary parties were concentrated on one single point: to destroy parliamentary democracy, the constitutional platform for the emancipation of labour. And they succeeded. They succeeded because the framework and the practice of the Constitution facilitated it and because the Social Democratic Party and the Trade Unions, the sole defenders of the Weimar system, were weakened. After the election of Hindenburg the whole of the bourgeoisie including the Catholics adhered unanimously to the slogan “all powers to the President.”

So, it sounds like the Weimar democracy was murdered by reactionary parties which never liked democracy, never liked liberalism, and was determined to roll back the rights and power of the German workers. Conservative elites saw their own power slipping away but they didn’t have the ability to do anything about it. This is why they turned to alliances with small, violent, reactionary parties which had populist appeal. The Nazis weren’t the only example of such a political party, but they were one of the largest, most violent, and most populist.

Parliament was never anxious to retain its authority. Little by little it lost power, authority and dignity. It may be true that “it is not a paradox to argue that a legislative assembly is unfitted by its very nature directly to legislate.” It is true that in a State which is no more a liberal one but which interferes with nearly all aspects of human life, Parliament is unfitted to perform its legislative tasks. But if that is so, Parliament has a duty to create other organs of legislation and to be satisfied with discussing the main principles of home and foreign politics.

But it means the destruction of the sovereignty of Parliament if dozens of private and public organisations deprive it of legislative power while it still pretends to be the real sovereign. Since 1923, the German Parliament has more than once given emergency powers to the Cabinet (Ermächtigungsgesetze). A large number of very important statutes are the creatures not of the Reichstag but of the ministers. In addition to that, Parliament was satisfied with laying down general principles and leaving their application to the Ministers (Blankettgesetze) so that parliamentary legislation very often consisted of two or three sections while the very important by-laws for the introduction of the acts issued by the Ministries had hundreds of clauses.

In the end, from 1930 onwards, parliamentary legislation was replaced by that of the President (Article 48). According to the original meaning of the Constitution, the President had no emergency power of legislation. He was only entitled to execute individual administrative acts in defence of public security and order. His power was only a military and police power. But since September 1930 he became the real and sole legislator. These three facts destroyed the authority of Parliament.

Well, it sounds like the Weimar democracy committed suicide as well. Those charged with defending and maintaining democracy either weren’t up to the task or, in so many cases, weren’t all that interested in the job in the first place. Democracy is hard work but it sounds like the “democrats” in Weimar found it too much trouble. Elected representatives, like so many of the people, had bought into the idea that Germany needed a “strong leader” who should be allowed to take over and run the government by the force of his will alone. If they hadn’t picked Hitler, someone else might have tried to apply for the job.

Murder and suicide together? Perhaps it is possible: murder was made easier by the fact that the strongest defenders of democracy were looking for ways to undermine and kill it off themselves. They may not have had such a violent replacement in mind as the would-be murderers, but the outcome was the same anyway: the democracy of the Weimar Republic died because people didn’t do enough to keep it alive.

 

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