In addition to appointing a chancellor and calling for Reichstag elections, he was the commander-in-chief of the German military. Under the Weimar Constitution, the people elected the president for a seven-year term. In fact, Reichstag elections in the Weimar Republic took place frequently, sometimes twice in one year. The president would then call for new elections. But, like other parliamentary systems, whenever the chancellor failed to win a majority vote in the Reichstag, his government would fall. Reichstag elections had to be held at least once every four years. After a coalition formed, the president of the republic chose a chancellor to put the government together and lead it. But one party rarely won a majority in the Weimar Republic, so two or more parties had to agree to rule together. This was like other parliaments in Europe. After a Reichstag election, the political party winning the majority of seats formed a new government. The upper house approved or rejected laws passed by the lower house, the Reichstag.Įlected by the people, the Reichstag made the laws. Each German state sent representatives to this body based on its population. The members of the upper house were appointed by regional governments. The so-called “Weimar Republic” included two legislative bodies-an upper and lower house. The delegates debated a constitution for several months and finally agreed to adopt a republic, a representative form of democracy. The city was considered safer from left- and right-wing extremists than Berlin, the capital. The National Assembly began its sessions on February 9, 1919, in Weimar, a small German city about 100 miles from Berlin. The purpose of this body was to write a new constitution and negotiate a peace treaty with the victorious Allied Powers. Amid the pandemonium, the politicians in the Reichstag promised a new form of government-a democracy.ĭespite the chaos and a Communist Party boycott, 83 percent of German voters (including women for the first time) turned out in January 1919 to elect a National Assembly. The German army and marauding bands of right-wing soldiers broke up these governing councils. Many set up local governing councils and called for communism as in Russia. The German Reichstag assumed the responsibility of signing a peace treaty.īefore the Reichstag politicians could act, mutinies by sailors, soldiers, and workers broke out all over Germany. The kaiser agreed and left Germany for exile in Holland. President Woodrow Wilson demanded that Kaiser Wilhelm give up his monarchy. To divert blame from themselves, the generals claimed that the German army had been “stabbed in the back” by Reichstag politicians who had not adequately supported the war effort.Īs a condition of the armistice, U.S. In the fall of 1918, however, with defeat certain, the German generals suddenly called for an armistice, a ceasefire until the signing of a peace treaty. Throughout the war, the kaiser and his generals had assured the German people of victory. In 1917, however, the United States entered the war against Germany. The western front turned into a stalemate, with neither side able to advance. In the west, the Germans advanced quickly, but were stopped about 60 miles from Paris. A new communist government in Russia sued for peace in 1917. Germany had to fight on two main fronts-the eastern and western. Kaiser Wilhelm largely ignored the Reichstag and directed the war along with his top generals headed by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II declared war on the Russia and France, calling it an act of self-defense. When war erupted between Austria and Serbia, Russia and France threatened to intervene. By 1914, a web of hostile alliances entangled Germany and most of the other European nations.
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