National 5 History Exam

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Each party got given seats in the Reichstag which reflected the number of people who voted for them. This caused lots of small parties (and some extremist parties) to get in and it resulted in coalition governments that were unable to pass laws and make decisions

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article 48 meant that in the case of an emergency, the president could make decisions with the agreement of the Reichstag. Hitler used this as a means to take power while still doing so legally.

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The stabbed in the back myth proposed that the Weimar were responsible for Germany's defeat in ww1. However these claims held little sustenance but still people believed them and turned away from the Weimar.

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When the Weimar signed the treaty of Versailles it caused an uproar. They had essentially agreed to all of the terms of the treaty including huge reparations of 132 billion gold marks. This would later result in hyperinflation.

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Hyperinflation came about after the Weimar missed a reparations payment. In order to pay back, they began printing off more and more money. This resulted in hyperinflation and money no longer held much worth. For example, a loaf of bread which cost 250 makes in January 1923 had soared to 200,000 million marks in November 1923.

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The great depression of 1929 served to highlight weaknesses of the weimar. Germany was relying heavily on loans from the USA at the time and so when the USA suffered an economic crash they would be wanting their money back from Germany. The great depression caused mass unemployment and the Weimar tried to solve this by increasing taxes and introducing wage cuts (this clearly didn't work and caused people to turn to Hitler who had all the answers).

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The good thing is that you can use these points for a lot of things like: how did the nazis get to power (for that you should also mention propaganda, public speaking and terror and intimidation).

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Hope this was a help!