>President Hindenburg appoints Hitler chancellorhow does this work? Is the french system like this? What does the president do vs the chancellor? do they have 2 legislative house?
>>18294933I just think of it like president and vice president. Also you can just Google this shit dude. Make better threads
>>18294933President was the replacement monarch, Chancellor is like the Prime Minister.Basically the President, as head of state, gets to pick someone from the Parliament (Reichstag) to lead a cabinet/form a government. The Chancellor obviously needs to have a majority of the Reichstag though hence coalitions which brought von Papen with Hitler.
>>18294937I'm pretty sure you're wrong and half the threads on here are just seething about Jesus
>>18294933The president is just a representative of the state. He has some power, like he's the one who swears in the government and he can dissolve parliament. But the real everyday power lies with the chancellor, who is the head of the government and who picks his ministers.
>>18294939This is the correct answer.Also it was a weird system because the President was a ceremonial figure but he could dissolve the government and had to agree for the Chancellor to be appointed. The Chancellor was accountable to the President, rather than to Parliament.Modern parliamentary republics don't work like that. If the President is ceremonial then he shouldn't have so much power. The Prime Minister / Chancellor should be accountable to the Parliament (and much more than in Weimar), and not to the ceremonial President.Weimar had a weird system.
>>18294984>Modern parliamentary republics don't work like that.Present day Federal Republic of Germany works exactly like that. Want to get rid of a government? Ask for a vote of confidence in parliament and see if it goes through or not. It did not for the last chancellor Scholz in December 2024 for example, so early new elections were called in February of 2025.
>>18294988>Want to get rid of a government? Ask for a vote of confidence in parliament and see if it goes through or not. It did not for the last chancellor Scholz in December 2024 for example, so early new elections were called in February of 2025.But in that case, it is the Parliament dissolving the government and calling for snap elections.That is, the Chancellor answers to the Parliament. But in Weimar, the Parliament could NOT dissolve the government and call for elections, only the President could. Which was weird. One the Enabling Act was passed, the only one who had the institutional authority to stop Hitler was von Hinderbourg and he was bed-ridden and terminally ill.
>>18294994>But in that case, it is the Parliament dissolving the government and calling for snap elections.No, it is not and was not. It was president Steinmeier who dissolved parliament, because that's the job of the president.Also the president has the power to veto any law that the two chambers pass. In my life however I've only ever witnessed it once that the German president refused to sign a new law into effect. It was some bill funding house owners through general taxes that he thought was unconstitutional and that was then passed to the constitutional court for evaluation.
>>18294999>No, it is not and was not. It was president Steinmeier who dissolved parliament, because that's the job of the president.Only after a vote for no-confidence. Then the president ceremonially does his duty and calls for elections. In Weimar, the President could dissolve Parliament without a vote of no-confidence, do you understand the difference? Weimar:Directly-elected President, has a ton of power despite being "ceremonial", can dissolve parliament and appoint Chancellor. Parliament cannot dissolve government or dismiss chancellor.Modern Germany:President fully ceremonial, Parliament appoints Chancellor and can dismiss him.Modern Germany was designed to avoid the bad design of Weimar, following a more conventional model.
>>18295004See that's where you are wrong. The present day president still has the power to fire a chancellor and dissolve the parliament. (Which would lead to a crisis, of course.) He must dismiss the chancellor if parliament has lost confidence in him, but he will ask him to keep in government until a new paliament have been convened after elections a few months later.The most notable change since Weimar is the 5% hurdle in elections. To prevent an unstable goverment made up of many political parties, only political parties that get at least 5% of the votes will be represented in parliament. There's one exception, the Danish speakers of Schleswig-Holstein always get a seat, even though they're a sub 1% minority.This was meant to prevent the votes being split up into 20 political parties and the government then being made up of 5 or 6 parties that disagree with eachother and break apart a year after the elections. So basically what happened with the Scholz government made up of socialists, greens and liberals that broke apart when the liberal finance minister wouldn't take on debts to finance socialist pipe dreams anymore.
>>18295008>The present day president still has the power to [...] dissolve the parliament. Only in exceptional situations, I don't understand why you are trying to argue against the idea that Weimar had a weird system and different from the modern German system. This is well-known.
>>18295008>>18295012Meanwhile in Weimar the President could dismiss Parliament at any time and had much broader powers.Taken from this article:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Germany
>>18295008The nuance you are missing is that the modern German president is ceremonial and through convention is expected to act on the advice of the government (save for reserve powers which act similar to Commonwealth Governor-Generals etc). The president has 'the power' to do a lot of things in the modern republic which are for extraordinary situations or merely facades for actions approved by the government. The Weimar republic however still retained vestiges of the Prussian monarchy, in which the monarch was an autonomous executive that appointed a chancellor on their own discretion. This is why Bismarck was able to stay in power for so long, because he was officially non-partisan and in good relations with the monarch. It also happens to be the reason why Hitler appointed chancellor and given power (hence why it no longer exists in the modern republic) because his appointment was largely the product of backroom dealings not including major parties.
>>18295016The backroom deals continue, and there are antidemocratic tendencies in today's parliament. One such example is the party AfD being cut out in important legislative votes and on committees. They had the second most votes in the last elections, present opinion polls put them at number one if elections were held next sunday. However they won't end up in government, even if they won the elections. There exists a secret deal between the rest of the political parties to just not cooperate with them in any form. Say the AfD got 35% in the next elections (they won't but let's assume for the sake of argument), then all the other political parties would form a super-coalition to take the government from them. That coalition would break apart after a few months, but they don't care.
>>18295016Yes, you hit the nail on the head of what I was trying to explain. The problem with Weimar is that it had a strong president, that could dismiss parliament, but parliament could not dismiss him or the chancellor. It was quite weird.Typically systems either have:* A strong Executive President with several powers, who is checked by a Congress/Parliament that is totally independent from him. President has no power whatsoever over Congress, Congress cannot be dissolved under any circumstance. (American system)* A weak ceremonial President with very little powers to be used only in exceptional situations. The Executive who actually has power is a Prime Minister / Chancellor, who is appointed by and depends on the continuous confidence of Parliament. (Modern Parliamentary Republic system). There are provisions to dissolve Parliament and call for elections in situations of votes of no-confidence or exceptional situations where no PM can be selected, etc.* A strong executive President, who is checked by a Congress/Parliament, but also his entire cabinet of ministers has to be approved by Congress or can be dismissed by them. Basically the American system but the President is more cucked because he shares power with a weak PM. (French system)If Presidents are strong, then they have NO power whatsoever over Parliament.If Presidents are weak or ceremonial, then there is a PM, who has some power over Parliament, but he in turn depends entirely on Parliament to stay in power since Parliament can dismiss him at any time.But Weimar was unique, in that it had a strong executive President that could dissolve Parliament whenever he wanted.And a Parliament that was powerless to dissolve the Executive, either Prez or Chancellor. Which as you can see is unique. The Wiki calls it Semi-Presidential (French system) but it really wasn't the same as the French system either. It was very unique.
>>18295040>Congress cannot be dissolved under any circumstance. >(American system)congress can't be dissolved in the USelections are held every 2 years never sooner nor later. the only scenario where they're held out of term is special elections but that's only for vacant seats so typically not many seats. in theory if the president and vice president both died then they would have held a presidential election early, but that was only possible from 1792-1886 and all subsequent presidential succession acts have gotten rid of the snap elections and the 25th amendment allows for the president to appoint a new vp anyway
In essence, the Osthilfe scandal didn't directly gay Hindenburg to appoint Hitler, but it weakened his position, creating a political environment where desperate deals were struck, leading to Hitler's legal rise to power on January 30, 1933, under the misguided belief of the old guard that they could manage him
Article 48 granted him emergency powers however in practice this needed the compliance of the coalition government. It was used during the tumultuous years after the war, sometimes to shut down communists and preserve democracy.The next crisis however was different. The great depression saw unemployment reach 30%, wages drop, life savings lost and many turn to civil disobedience or extremist parties and it couldn't all be blamed on reparations. The Weimar coalition government had no real solutions as the depression deepened across the world, they were slow to debate and iron out policies so Hindenburg and Chancellor Brüning invoked #48. The coalition opposed it initially but ironically tying Brüning's hands resulted in public backlash and he successfully used it dozens of times to pass this or that economic measure.However the depression only grew colder with no end visible, without hindsight bias. By 1932 there was deadlock in the Reichstag with the NSDAP and communist KPD, both abstinentionist, representing around half of the vote. There was also deadlock in the streets, Hitler's SA had grown to 400k, KPD's Red Front to 100k and they often fought, outnumbering the Versailles limited ~200k police and army, themselves partly infiltrated by NSDAP.
Brüning was replaced by von Papen, officially a centrist yet aligned with and supported by the DNVP, the predominant nationalist party before the rise of Hitler. Like Hindenburg during the presidential elections he was seen as diverting support from Hitler and helping unite the moderates against the extremists. In summer deadlock hit the state of Prussia, to break it von Papen tried to engineer a coalition between the centrists and NSDP and when this failed initiated a coup to prevent chaos. Fearing von Papen was going to declare martial law nationally and crack down on the KPD they broke their abstinence to declare a motion of no confidence in von Papen like a Mormon who discovers oral, which NSDAP unexpectedly supported. It was clear democracy had started to crumble and Hitler and his fanatical followers were holding out for more than just positions in government.Von Papen was now replaced by defense minister Schleicher who was the lowkey voice of the army in the Reichstag and perhaps viewed as someone who could maintain order, however Schleicher could not effectively navigate the instability which would now be a challenge for any politician. He lost the support of von Papen afer pressing Hindenburg to choose himself as replacement. He then instantly lost the support of Hindenburg when he admitted he was not a fanatical monarchist like von Papen. In Jan 33 he would lose the support of DNVP members over some gaff over agricultural tariffs, their party leaders had long considered throwing in their lot in with NSDAP and now finally did so. Elections could have been delayed on a technicality, but it seems Schleicher miscalculated and did not do so. Later March elections revealed a result of 44% NSDAP + 8% DNVP.
Due to his imminent fall from grace and spat with von Papen he recommended Hitler as Chancellor to the aged Hindenburg in the hopes Hitler would offer him a place in government. At the same time a rumor spread that Schleicher intended to orchecstrate a military coup, ironically Papen fueled this rumor and also recommended Hitler as chancellor. Hindenburg's decision was perhaps motivated less by his subordinates and more by their petty infighting. Hindenburg was born in 1847, he was 32 when Edison presented the light bulb and 61 when Ford introduced the model T and now nearly 86 years old, the old guard was long gone and these younger men were untrustworthy and constantly squabbling. He had no one to rely on to help impose martial law or orchestrate a coup and was now unfit to do so himself, perhaps with unannounced bladder cancer and in constant pain. If the NSDAP dominated Reichstag remained in power Hitler could call a Presidential election. Hindenburg was loyal to the cause and also Germany and perhaps just viewed Hitler as the lesser evil to continued chaos, Hitler at least would form a government and begin policies other countries had started to deal with the depression. Without hindsight bias of course he had no idea what Hitler planned. Though we will never know exactly what was going on in his mind. He didn't hate jews or anything as he would later complain about Hitler ending benefits to jewish veterans.
The rest of his rise to power is well known, the Reichstag fire and enabling act. It is important to note it was not the first enabling act, neither did he extend his party's "Führerprinzip" command hierarchy across the whole country in an instant. Hitler's support could disintegrate very rapidly if he made any grave errors, though gradually he cemented control until the night of the long knives 18 months later when it was established that violence against political opponents was the norm in his regime. The 4 men represented a different facet of power in Germany. Hindenburg the junta that emerged during the great war, Schleicher the army as it existed under the Weimar republic, von Papen the old school German nationalists and Hitler the new school of his own design. Schleicher was caught siding with Röhm and killed that night but later rehabilitated. In the end all 4 wanted to suspend the Reichstag and form an authoritarian regime in some format. For Germany democracy was a relatively new and limited thing and not considered an essential part of its national character as it was in France, the UK or the US, they would not be seen as traitors for this.
