Weimar Republic

The German republic established after World War I and governed under the Weimar Constitution from 1919 until Adolf Hitler became chancellor in 1933.

Weimar Constitution: Germany’s 1919 constitution established a parliamentary republic with proportional representation and a directly elected president. It created the offices and emergency powers that defined the republic’s political system.
Treaty of Versailles: The 1919 peace treaty that formally ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied powers. Its territorial, military, and financial terms became a persistent source of resentment in German politics.
German Revolution of 1918–1919: The revolutionary upheaval that ended the German monarchy and established a republic after World War I. It created the political opening in which the republic was proclaimed.
Kapp Putsch: A failed right-wing coup attempt in March 1920 that briefly drove the German government from Berlin. The coup tested whether workers and state institutions would defend the republic.
German Empire: The federal monarchy that governed Germany from 1871 until the revolution of 1918. Its imperial institutions and defeat formed the political order the republic replaced.
Article 48: A Weimar Constitution provision allowing the president to take emergency measures and suspend certain civil rights. Repeated use of this provision helped normalize rule by presidential decree before Hitler took power.
Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic: Germany’s severe inflation crisis of 1921–1923, during which the mark rapidly lost purchasing power. The crisis damaged savings and public confidence, though stabilization later restored economic order.
November Revolution: The November 1918 uprising that forced Kaiser Wilhelm II’s abdication and accelerated Germany’s transition to a republic. Its councils, strikes, and abdication crisis set the republic’s founding in motion.
Ruhr occupation: The 1923 occupation of Germany’s industrial Ruhr region by French and Belgian forces over reparations enforcement. The government’s policy of passive resistance worsened the fiscal crisis and helped fuel hyperinflation.
German Democratic Republic: The socialist state that governed East Germany from 1949 until German reunification in 1990. It was a later German republic with a one-party system, unlike Weimar’s competitive parliamentary politics.

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