The collapse of the Weimar Republic 1929 to 1933, including the impact of the Great Depression, the rule by presidential decree under Bruning, Papen, and Schleicher, and the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to explain why the Weimar Republic collapsed between October 1929 and January 1933. Strong answers integrate four levels of causation: the Depression as the structural trigger, Bruning's deflation policy and rule by decree, the Nazi electoral breakthrough, and the January 1933 elite politics. The Kershaw "handed power" thesis is the dominant interpretation.

The answer

The Wall Street Crash and German vulnerability

The New York stock market crashed on 29 October 1929. American banks recalled short-term loans to Germany. Industrial production fell 40 per cent between 1929 and 1932. Unemployment rose from 1.3 million in September 1929 to 3 million in 1930 to 6.1 million by early 1932. The 1928 Reichstag had counted around 1.4 million unemployed; the 1932 election was held with over six million.

Agriculture had been in depression since 1927; world grain prices fell 35 per cent between 1928 and 1932. Foreclosures and bankruptcies destroyed the rural Mittelstand that became the Nazi vote.

The end of parliamentary government, March 1930

The Grand Coalition under Hermann Muller (SPD, Centre, DDP, DVP) collapsed on 27 March 1930. The trigger was the unemployment insurance contribution: SPD and DVP could not agree on whether benefit cuts or contribution increases should cover the deficit. The SPD ministers resigned.

Hindenburg, advised by General Kurt von Schleicher, appointed Heinrich Bruning of the Catholic Centre Party as Chancellor on 30 March 1930. Bruning was the first chancellor since 1919 to govern without a Reichstag majority. When the Reichstag rejected his budget in July 1930, he used Article 48 to enact it by presidential decree, dissolved the Reichstag, and called the September election.

The September 1930 election returned 107 Nazi deputies (up from 12) and 77 Communists (up from 54). Anti-system parties controlled 39 per cent of the chamber. Coalition arithmetic was now impossible.

Parliamentary government had effectively ended in March 1930, almost three years before Hitler took office.

Bruning's deflation

Bruning (Chancellor March 1930 to May 1932) pursued deflation: cuts to public-sector wages (by decree June 1930), unemployment benefits, and pensions. The hope was to reduce reparations costs and restore international confidence. The effect deepened the slump.

His foreign-policy gamble was to drive reparations to default and obtain abolition. The May 1931 collapse of Vienna's Creditanstalt bank and the German banking crisis (July 1931) accelerated the process. The Hoover Moratorium (June 1931) suspended reparations for a year; the Lausanne Conference (July 1932) abolished them in effect. Bruning had fallen six weeks earlier.

The 1932 elections

Hindenburg's seven-year term expired in March 1932. He stood for re-election against Hitler and KPD leader Ernst Thalmann. Hindenburg won the second round (10 April 1932) with 53 per cent against Hitler's 36.8 per cent. The 84-year-old monarchist had been returned by SPD and Centre votes against the Nazi.

The July 1932 Reichstag election was the Nazi peak in a free election: 37.4 per cent and 230 deputies, the largest party. Hitler demanded the Chancellorship. Hindenburg refused, telling Hitler he could not entrust him with the office (interview of 13 August 1932). A November 1932 election saw Nazi support fall to 33.1 per cent and 196 deputies. The Communists rose to 100 deputies. The two anti-system parties now controlled a majority.

Bruning, Papen, Schleicher

Bruning was dismissed by Hindenburg on 30 May 1932. The trigger was a Schleicher-engineered withdrawal of confidence; Schleicher had concluded that an authoritarian "presidential" cabinet supported by the Reichswehr offered a route through the crisis.

Franz von Papen (Chancellor 1 June to 17 November 1932) was a Catholic aristocrat with little political base. His "cabinet of barons" lifted the ban on the SA (June 1932), held the July election, and dissolved the Prussian SPD-led government by emergency decree on 20 July 1932 (the "Preussenschlag"). Papen lost a no-confidence vote 512 to 42 on 12 September 1932.

Kurt von Schleicher (Chancellor 3 December 1932 to 28 January 1933) attempted to split the Nazi Party by negotiating with Gregor Strasser. The plan failed; Strasser resigned from the Nazi leadership on 8 December but did not lead a faction out.

The January 1933 intrigue

Papen, sidelined and resentful, met Hitler at the Cologne home of banker Kurt von Schroder on 4 January 1933. They agreed on a Hitler-led coalition with Papen as Vice-Chancellor. The agreement was kept from Schleicher.

Hindenburg, persuaded by Papen and by his son Oskar, accepted Hitler. The cabinet sworn in on 30 January 1933 held three Nazis (Hitler as Chancellor, Wilhelm Frick at Interior, Hermann Goering as Minister without Portfolio but Minister-President of Prussia from 11 April) and eight conservatives. Papen was Vice-Chancellor and Reich Commissar for Prussia.

Papen reportedly told a colleague, "Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far into a corner that he'll squeak." Hindenburg called Hitler "the Bohemian corporal" but appointed him.

Timeline of the collapse

Historiography

Ian Kershaw (Hitler: Hubris, 1998) is the modern consensus: Hitler did not seize power; conservative elites under Papen handed him the Chancellorship in the belief they could control him.

Richard Evans (The Coming of the Third Reich, 2003) integrates structural causes (the Depression, constitutional design) with the contingent politics of January 1933.

Henry Ashby Turner (Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, 1996) emphasises the genuine contingency of January 1933: with different Hindenburg advice, the appointment might not have happened.

Detlev Peukert (The Weimar Republic, 1987) places collapse in the longer "crisis of modernity" framework, but accepts the contingent role of Papen.

Knut Borchardt's "structural deficit" thesis argues Bruning had little room to manoeuvre; the Weimar wage and welfare structure was unsustainable in the slump. The thesis is contested by Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich.

How to read a source on this topic

Section I and Section II sources on the collapse commonly include unemployment graphs, Nazi election posters from 1930 and 1932, photographs of Hindenburg and Hitler at the 21 March 1933 "Day of Potsdam," Bruning's deflation decrees, Papen's memoirs, and Goebbels' diaries. Three reading habits.

First, fix the date precisely. A September 1930 source captures the Nazi breakthrough; a July 1932 source captures the Nazi peak; a January 1933 source captures the elite intrigue. The Depression turns the page.

Second, separate the public claim from the elite negotiation. A 1932 Nazi poster shows the appeal to mass voters; the Schroder meeting of 4 January 1933 shows the private deal that delivered the office. Both are evidence, of different things.

Third, watch retrospective self-justification. Papen's Memoirs (1952) downplay his role. Schacht's testimony at Nuremberg minimised his complicity. Treat memoirs as historiography, not as transparent fact.

Examples in context

Example 1. Bruning's deflationary decrees (1930 to 1932). Heinrich Bruning ruled by Article 48 decree from March 1930. His deflationary policy cut wages and benefits while unemployment rose from 1.3 million (1929) to 6.1 million (early 1932). Knut Borchardt's revisionist thesis (Perspectives on Modern German Economic History, 1991) argued there was no fiscal alternative; Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich and others (Die Borchardt-Kontroverse, 1990) reject the Sachzwang (objective compulsion) reading. Richard J. Evans (The Coming of the Third Reich, 2003) treats the deflation as a political choice.

Example 2. The Papen-Schleicher-Hitler back-channel (November 1932 to January 1933). Franz von Papen met Hitler at Joachim von Ribbentrop's villa on 4 January 1933. Henry Ashby Turner (Hitler's Thirty Days to Power, 1996) reconstructed the day-by-day negotiations. Ian Kershaw (Hubris, 1998) emphasises the conservative miscalculation that Hitler could be "framed in." Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor on 30 January 1933 with only three Nazis in a 12-member Cabinet.

Try this

Q1. Source A is an extract from Goebbels's diary entry for 30 January 1933. Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain how Hitler became Chancellor. [5 marks]

• What the marker wants. Identify Papen's role; cite Schleicher's fall on 28 January; link to Hindenburg's reluctance overcome by elite assurance.

Q2. Evaluate the extent to which the collapse of Weimar between 1929 and 1933 was a result of the Depression rather than constitutional weakness. [25 marks]

• What the marker wants. Weigh Depression unemployment and deflation against Article 48 and elite intrigue; use Borchardt, Evans, Kershaw.

Q3. Compare the views of Knut Borchardt and Richard Evans on Bruning's deflationary policy. [10 marks]

• What the marker wants. Borchardt (no alternative) versus Evans (political choice); judgement.