German Democracy...1930-33

I've been looking through my books and cant seem to find the answer. Does anyone know WHY the elite (Hindenburg) began to use Article 48 as a way of governing with the cabinets of bruning, von papen, schleicher etc when they did???

I know there reasons for doing so, e.g. hated weimar, wanted more authoritarian state...but why do it when they did?

Reply 1

andy5788

Because they could no longer gain majoritys in the Reichstag (remember the chancellor could be anyone, none of bruning, von papen, schleicher etc actually headed the majority party in the Reichstag, which was SPD if memory serves...). As such they had to bypass it and use Article 48 to govern by decree.

Reply 2

Bismarck

I haven't done much reading on this for a few years, but as I recall, it had a lot to do with the the Reichstag being taken over by extremists (of the left and right), who didn't want to work with each other, which made the creation of a stable government impossible. Without a government to run German affairs (and without any Chancellor that had his own significant power base), that power was de facto granted to the President (Hindenburg).

Reply 3

sirwin

cheers, really appreciate the help

Reply 4

liamb

Article 48 was originally to allow the President to act decisively in crisis on a short term basis. (A sort of nod to the ancient Roman idea of a dictator [like Cincinatius or Fabius]). Ebert, when he did invoke it, used that way. Hindenberg (or rather his circle including his son Oscar) used it to gain long term control over a badly divided Reichstag and to keep Bruning's minority government in power. In fact between 1930 -32, the Reichstag was rarely called. This suited the President's clique - and if you were trying to argue in his favour - gave Bruning a chance to try to use conventional methods to sort out the depression. (His methods weren't that different from those of MacDonald and swondon in the UK). However, all this came at the price of eroding the legitimacy of Bruning and Reichstag. (Also had the SPD been more helpful things wouldn't have been so extreme). The end result was it gave Hindenberg and his advisors a heightened taste for meddling in a system they didn't want to prosper anyway.