Weimar Constitution - Weaknesses

Weaknesses

In his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, historian William Shirer described the Weimar Constitution as "on paper, the most liberal and democratic document of its kind the twentieth century had ever seen ... full of ingenious and admirable devices which seemed to guarantee the working of an almost flawless democracy." Yet, the Weimar Constitution had serious problems.

Proportional representation was one such problem. It meant that the number of votes gained was directly proportional to the number of seats gained by a party. This system, intended to avoid the wasting of votes, caused the rise of a multitude of splinter parties, most of which represented the extreme ends of the political spectrum. This in turn made it difficult for any party to establish and maintain a workable parliamentary majority. This factionalism was one contributing factor in the frequent changes in government. Shirer cites the presence of some 28 political parties in the 1930 national elections; Otto Friedrich cites 40 different groups in the Reichstag in 1933. Proportional Representation allowed no safeguards against a quick rise of an extremist party as only a tiny minority of the votes could get Deputies into the Reichstag as shown in the 1924 elections where the Bavarian Peasants' League got just 0.7% of the vote resulting in 3 Deputies in the Reichstag.

The allocation of presidential powers was also deeply problematic. The Weimar Constitution allowed the president to dismiss the chancellor, even if the chancellor retained the confidence of the Reichstag. Similarly, the president could appoint a chancellor who didn't have the support of the Reichstag. Further, the government structure was a mix of presidential and parliamentary systems, with the president acting as a "replacement Kaiser" and assuming some of the powers the monarch would have wielded. Article 48, the so-called Notverordnung (emergency decree) provision, gave the president broad powers to suspend civil liberties with an insufficient system of checks and balances. This presented an opportunity that Adolf Hitler was quick to seize once he became chancellor. (see Reichstag Fire).

Even without these problems, it should be noted the Weimar Constitution was established and in force under disadvantageous social, political, and economic conditions. In his book The Coming of the Third Reich, historian Richard J. Evans argues that "all in all, Weimar's constitution was no worse than the constitutions of most other countries in the 1920's, and a good deal more democratic than many. Its more problematical provisions might not have mattered so much had the circumstances been different. But the fatal lack of legitimacy from which the Republic suffered magnified the constitution's faults faults many times over."