page_title: Weimar Republic
section_title: Onset of the Great Depression
hierarchical_section_title: Weimar Republic / History / Renewed crisis and decline (1930–1933) / Onset of the Great Depression
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Zu dem Verbot der S.A. der "Privat Armee" Adolf Hitlers! Adolf Hitler der oberste Führer der verbotenen S.A. bei der Abnahme eines Vorbeimarsches in Braunschweig.
context_page_description: The Weimar Republic, officially the German Reich, also referred to as the German People's State or simply the German Republic, was the German state from 1918 to 1933. As a term, it is an unofficial historical designation that derives its name from the city of Weimar, where its constituent assembly first took place. The official name of the republic remained the German Reich as it had been during the German Empire because of the German tradition of substates.
  Although commonly translated as "German Empire," Reich here better translates as "realm" in that the term does not necessarily have monarchical connotations in itself. The Reich was changed from a constitutional monarchy into a republic. In English, the country was usually known simply as Germany, and the Weimar Republic name became mainstream only in the 1930s.
  Germany became a de facto republic on 9 November 1918 when Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the German and Prussian thrones with no agreement made on a succession by his son Crown Prince Wilhelm; and became a de jure republic in February 1919 when the position of President of Germany was created.
context_section_description: In 1929, the onset of the depression in the United States of America produced a severe economic shock in Germany and was further made worse by the bankruptcy of the Austrian Creditanstalt bank. Germany's fragile economy had been sustained by the granting of loans through the Dawes Plan (1924) and the Young Plan (1929). When American banks withdrew their line of credit to German companies, the onset of severe unemployment could not be abated by conventional economic measures. Unemployment thereafter grew dramatically, at 4 million in 1930, and in September 1930 a political earthquake shook the republic to its foundations. The Nazi Party (NSDAP) entered the Reichstag with 19% of the popular vote and made the unstable coalition system by which every chancellor had governed increasingly unworkable. The last years of the Weimar Republic was marred by even more systemic political instability than in the previous years as political violence increased. Four Chancellors Brüning, Papen, Schleicher and, from 30 January to 23 March 1933, Hitler governed through presidential decree rather than through parliamentary consultation. This effectively rendered parliament as a means of enforcing constitutional checks and balances powerless.
caption: Nazi Party (NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler saluting members of the Sturmabteilung in Brunswick, Lower Saxony, 1932
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