What kind of government controlled Germany during 1930's and 1940's?

Answer 1

In the 1920s, the Weimar Republic, an impoverished, weak and ineffectual government sat in Germany. Communism was rampant, and it's a small miracle that Germany did not end up as a communist state, instead of the Nazi regime. Hitler was narrowly elected Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and his NAZI party ruled Germany until the end of WW2 in 1945.

While it was called the "National Socialist German Workers' Party", it was lead by a military dictator, Adolf Hitler, who had unlimited power, and passed laws by his own decree, so the best description of the type of government it was would be totalitarian.

Answer 2

There were two different governments: (1) Weimar Republic [1918-1933] (2) The Third Reich [1933-1945] The Weimar Republic was a democratic institution which has been seen as one of the most liberal and democratic government to have existed. Their was a President and a Chancellor, where the power laid mostly with the Chancellor however there was also a Reichstag which had the most power. It began in the defeat of WWI and ended with the destruction of the Reichstag by the Enabling Act and Hitler's assumption of power. The Third Reich was the government under the control of Hitler and the Nazi Party. It was a totalitarian government where terror and persecution was it's main weapon.

Answer 3

Germany's political situation was complicated, but in the 1920s, it was also messy. Germany had been a monarchy until the end of 1918, and then immediately fell into a short civil war, thus they had little experience with the ideas of "republic" and "democracy". So their hastily cobbled together government wasn't the most effective one ever.

The system that they used at the time was somewhat similar to the Parliamentary system used in the United Kingdom. That is, the party that has the most members ("seats") of the lower house of the legislature gets to control the government and appoint a Chancellor (Prime Minister). In Germany, the lower house is called the Reichstag (the upper house was called the Reichsratand generally didn't do much other than to approve whatever the Reichstag passed). If two or more parties can agree, they can form a coalition, and run the government together. If there's no majority party, the President (who was basically like an elected King) can appoint someone to be Chancellor.

However, in the 1920s, there were around 30 political parties in the Reichstag, and these parties generally refused to work together. So it was difficult for one party to obtain a majority (over half) of the seats in the Reichstag- without a majority, there was no guarantee that the Reichstag would pass bills that the largest party sought to pass. And with no cooperation between parties, the government generally didn't get much done. There were many times where the President was forced by necessity to use emergency decrees simply to get anything done.

Additionally, extremist parties saw an increase in membership. Since the regular, non-extremist parties were generally unable to get things done, far-right extremists like the Nazis and far-left extremists like the Communists grew more popular. This led to bloody violence in the streets of German cities as these extremists literally fought battles against each other.

All of this came to a head when the Great Depression started at the end of 1929. The parties in power were unable to effectively deal with the crisis, and as things got worse, people again turned to the extremists. The Nazis in particular were able to cash in on this discontent, and by the end of the 1932, they had replaced their sworn enemies, the Social Democrats, as the largest party in the Reichstag.

In early 1933, the Nazis formed a coalition with another right-wing party, the DNVP (the abbreviation of the German name for the "German National Peoples Party"). At the end of January 1933, Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, was appointed Chancellor by the President. He then abused his new position, using a national emergency to arrest/harass political opponents in order to gain more seats during the next elections.

In the March 1933 elections, the Nazi-DNVP coalition finally won a majority of the seats. They then brought in another right-wing leaning party, the Centre Party, in order to have a super-majority- that is, over 60% of the seats. With the super-majority in place, the Nazi-DNVP-Centre coalition was able to pass an amendment to the German constitution at the end of that same month. The amendment, called the Enabling Act, gave all of the government's power to the Chancellor and his cabinet for the next four years. Hitler used this power to almost immediately outlaw all other political parties- even the ones that had just helped him come to power!

With the Reichstag having only Nazi members, the Enabling Act would be easily renewed every four years, ensuring that Hitler remained in power. Chancellor Hitler then spent the next year and a half or so consolidating his power, and by August 1934, had become the absolute dictator of Germany, giving himself the new title of "Fuehrer" ("Leader"). He would remain so until he committed suicide at the end of April 1945, having led Germany to defeat and ruin in World War II.

Answer 4

Dictatorship