'The Great Depression caused the fall of the Weimar Republic'. Assess the validity of this view.

The collapse of the Weimar Republic has been an area of contentious debate for historians seeking to explain the emergence of the Nazi phenomenon. The political and socio-economic climate of 1930s’ Germany allowed for the extremist views of Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP to flourish and gain support. Thus, in this essay I argue that the Great Depression caused the fall of the Weimar Republic. I discuss the historiographical debates surrounding the fall of the Republic which have acknowledged the long and short-term factors which contributed to the failure of democracy in Germany. I acknowledge the socio-economic consequences of the Wall Street Crash, which created deep resentment amongst the German population and increased violence in the streets. Furthermore, I argue that the Great Depression had grave political consequences by creating a power vacuum for strong leadership and increasing the use of authoritarian measures in government. Although the Weimar political system was structurally weak, the Great Depression enhanced such flaws to the extent that its status as a democracy was illusory. Although the Social Democrats have been deemed responsible for preventing the slide to authoritarianism in the 1930s, I argue they were constrained by the dire economic situation which radicalised political opinion away from supporting mainstream parties. Thus, although the Weimar Republic had many pre-existing weaknesses, this was intensified due to the state of crisis which was prompted by the Wall Street Crash.The Great Depression had a cataclysmic impact on Germany, which felt the shock of the Great Depression far more than other European countries of the time. This was due to the economy’s reliance on American foreign investment and on American loans to finance economic recovery and pay reparations. Unemployment grew dramatically where approximately one in three workers were registered as unemployed in 1932. Unemployment meant groups of men were left to wander the streets; as a result, violence and criminal activity intensified. The growing levels of violence, encouraged by the NSDAP and KPD, further tainted the Republic with a negative image. For instance, the Berlin quarter of Wedding was proclaimed as a ‘red district’ of proletarian violence, instilling fear into ordinary Germans from entering this region. Violence played a central role in the Nazis’ pursuit for power with intense violent clashes unleashed by the brownshirts; Nazi street fighting somewhat paradoxically tainted the Republic with an atmosphere of fear whilst simultaneously accelerating Hitler’s rise to power and Nazi popularity. The violence caused many of the German middle-classes to turn against the Republic, as they associated Weimar Germany with instability and crisis. The right-wing sympathies of the police forces meant communist revolutionary action was brutally crushed, as seen on ‘Bloody-May’, whilst Nazi violence was somewhat accepted – this is symptomatic of the breakdown of the rule of law and the increasing authoritarian tendencies of the Weimar Republic in the 1930s. The main targets of the brownshirts were the NSDAP’s political opponents, most significantly communists and social-democrats which presented the NSDAP as the only political force able to rid Germany of the Communist threat. The violence perpetrated by the Nazis meant the ‘strongest organisational bulwark against dictatorship, the trade union movement’ was wholly undermined and weakened. The rise in unemployment meant violence began to intensify as Germans grew resentful of the Republic and increasingly desperate for economic relief. The growth in violence had grave consequences on the longevity of Weimar democracy by crushing the threat from the left and by heightening an atmosphere of chaos; this would allow for growing dissatisfaction of the Republic and increase the popularity of extremist parties.