Reasons For The Republic's Failure
The reasons for the Weimar Republic's collapse are the subject of continuing debate. It may have been doomed from the beginning since even moderates disliked it and extremists on both the left and right loathed it. Germany had limited democratic traditions and Weimar democracy was widely seen as chaotic. And since Weimar politicians had been blamed for the Dolchstoßlegende ("Stab-in-the-back myth")—a then-widely believed theory that Germany's surrender in World War I had been the unnecessary act of traitors—the popular legitimacy of the government was on shaky ground.
No single reason can explain the failure of the Weimar Republic. The most commonly asserted causes can be grouped into three categories: economic problems, institutional problems and the roles of specific individuals.
Read more about this topic: Weimar Republic
Famous quotes containing the words reasons for, reasons, republic and/or failure:
“One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“As if her velvet helmet high
Did turret rationality.
She fans her wing up to the winde
As if her Pettycoate were lin’de
With reasons fleece, and hoises saile
And humming flies in thankfull gaile”
—Edward Taylor (1645–1729)
“Absolute virtue is impossible and the republic of forgiveness leads, with implacable logic, to the republic of the guillotine.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The clearest explanation for the failure of any marriage is that the two people are incompatible—that is, that one is male and the other female.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)