"Of the German regimes in the 20th century, the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) was more democratic than the Federal Republic (1949-1990)." How far do you agree with this statement?

The Weimar Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany share a number of similarities, something which is unsurprising given the fact that they are both regimes which emerged in the aftermath of devastating wars for Germany. For its time, the Weimar regime was incredibly ground-breaking - built on a constitution which gave universal suffrage to those over 20, a proportionally representative parliament and a Bill of Rights and Duties for its citizens. However, the democratic legitimacy of the Weimar Regime was consistently undermined by an article within the constitution which gave the President the ability to rule by decree - something which was exercised consistently in the Weimar period. Furthermore, the treatment of opposition by the Weimar regime was often characterised by violence, something which would inflame extremism within the fragile democracy. The Federal Republic of Germany was built on the Basic Law of 1949, a constitution which bears many similarities to that of Weimar. However, the FRG had learned from the mistakes of Weimar, no-longer giving the President dictatorial powers, requiring a 5% vote threshold to gain a parliamentary seat (which streamlined the democratic process) and banning extremist parties that threatened the status quo. It's clear that despite putting some restrictions on the democratic process, the longevity of the Federal Republic versus the Weimar regime implies that the formers version of democracy was by far the more successful of the two. In summary, the Weimar regime was perhaps more democratic on paper, yet in reality the Federal Republic made more of a success of it.