The Weimar Republic - Strengths and Weaknesses - Advantages and disadvantages table in IGCSE History


	The Weimar Republic - Strengths and Weaknesses
	Advantages it made Germany more democratic than it had been under the Kaiser more people voted, and there was a general election every four years NO SINGLE GROUP OR PERSON HAD ALL POWER - it had a system of checks and balances - for example, there were two houses in the new parliament and the power of one, the Reichstag, was checked (limited) by the power of the other, the Recishtrat... there were two key offices, president and chancellor - so power was shared or balanced between two	Disadvantages PROPORTIONAL REP MEANT THAT EVEN A PARTY WITH A SMALL NUMBER OF VOTES GAINED SEATS IN THE REICHSTAG - to get majorty support, chancellors needed coalitions of several parties, but they all wanted diff things, so making stable gov. was difficult careful balancing of powers made the strong decisive government by the chancellor very difficult in times of crisis - whenever compromise broke down, constitution suspended under article 48, ruled by decree, so gives impression that the new consitution didnt really work
	Evaluation The Weimar Republic was built on shaky foundations. Extremist parties didn't support it; moderate Germans feared it was too weak.

it made Germany more democratic than it had been under the Kaiser
more people voted, and there was a general election every four years
NO SINGLE GROUP OR PERSON HAD ALL POWER - it had a system of checks and balances - for example, there were two houses in the new parliament and the power of one, the Reichstag, was checked (limited) by the power of the other, the Recishtrat... there were two key offices, president and chancellor - so power was shared or balanced between two

PROPORTIONAL REP MEANT THAT EVEN A PARTY WITH A SMALL NUMBER OF VOTES GAINED SEATS IN THE REICHSTAG - to get majorty support, chancellors needed coalitions of several parties, but they all wanted diff things, so making stable gov. was difficult
careful balancing of powers made the strong decisive government by the chancellor very difficult in times of crisis - whenever compromise broke down, constitution suspended under article 48, ruled by decree, so gives impression that the new consitution didnt really work

The Weimar Republic was built on shaky foundations. Extremist parties didn't support it; moderate Germans feared it was too weak.

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