10/25: The Weimar Republic

Assignment due 11/1:
Interpret meaning and explain your choice


First Part Choice


"Article 51 (9)

In case the Reich President is unavailable, he is briefly substituted by the Reich Chancellor. Is it a presumably longer lasting situation, his substitution has to be regulated by a Reich law. The same applies in case a presidency ends prematurely, until the next election is held."


Response:

This article from the first part of the Weimar Republic's Constitution explains what would happen if the Reich President is unable to fulfill his duties and has to temporarily or indefinitely step down from his office. According to this article the Reich President is to be replaced by the Reich Chancellor. Anything the Reich Chancellor plans on doing while the Reich President is unable to be in office is monitored by the Reich Law. This is also the same case if the former Reich President is officially out of office and a new Reich President is to be elected up until that moment. The reason I chose this particular article is because I wanted to understand better what were the powers the Reich President and the Reich Chancellor had. I also wanted to know what would happen if the Reich President were to completely step out of his position. As discussed in todays lesson we do not have a Chancellor in our governmental system, we have a President and Vice President. If the President cannot fulfill his duties the Vice President steps in to take his place as the new president. In the Weimar Republic the Reich Chancellor seems to have authority almost equal to that of the Reich President with its own limitations of what he can and cannot do. It is not mentioned here that the Reich Chancellor is to definitely replace the Reich President if something were to happen, although he does become a step in until a new election is held and a new Reich President is chosen. This made me think of Adolf Hitler and the way he took over when the former Reich President Hidenburg died. As discussed in the lecture Hitler then proceeded to eliminate the Reich President position completely by fusing the two offices to create his own new title as Fürhrer. He changed the meaning of what his position was by calling himself a "Leader" rather than a "Reich President". Usually Leader is a word I would associate with someone that is benevolent, someone that doesn't chosen to necessarily become a leader but is appointed by his followers. Hitler did not encompass any of this. We all know about the Holocaust. He calls himself a leader the same way Napoleon crowned himself King post the French Revolution. He gave himself a good title that people are familiar with. Nobody automatically thinks that a leader will be a bad leader. Leaders, to me, are usually pretty empathetic, they think of themselves as one of the struggling "regular people" of society. A person who doesn't choose to have all the awesome power that they have. Hitler...no. None of this. He gave himself this image of this caring authoritative figure by eliminating the intimidation behind the title and simplifying it. A Leader sounds less threatening and intimidating that Reich President or Reich Chancellor. This article reveals to me the weakness of the Weimar Republic and its inevitable downfall. It shows me the huge crack that Hitler managed to slip through and crown himself Die Fürhrer. The crack Hitler slipped through was the fact that they did not specify that the Reich Chancellor or any other authoritative figure in absence of the Reich President is allowed to make changes that affect the position being held. I believe Hitler saw that as his opportunity. They did not say he couldn't change the title of Reich President to Fürhrer, much less say he couldn't fuse offices to his benefit which allowed him to change his position making the Reich Presidential and Chancellor position null and void. I am sure we will cover more of the Nazi Era later on in the semester, I don't know enough about it to go too deep.  


Second Part Choice

"Article 136

Civil and civic rights and obligations are neither conditioned nor limited by the exercise of freedom of religion. The exercise of civil or civic rights, the admittance to public offices are independent of religious confession.
Nobody is obliged to profess his religious confession publicly. Public authority may only ask for religious affiliation as far as rights and obligations derive or an officially decreed census requires. Nobody may be forced to participate in a religious act or festivity, to join in religious practices or to swear a religious oath formula."

Response:

This article from the second part of the Weimar Republic Constitution discusses a separation of Church and State with its own limitation. According to this article, religious freedom is granted to people and it does not influence if they want to hold public office. It goes a step further by explaining that people are not to be profiled by their religious beliefs and that information is kept private unless required by the census. It also states that nobody can force you against your will do participate in any religious acts, celebrations or other practices. Nobody can force you to say any kind of prayer that has some religious affiliation either. The reason I chose to look into the religious aspects covered in the Weimar Republic's Constitution is because it was discussed too much in the lecture. As discussed in the lecture this part of the Constitution is modeled by our American Bill of Rights which declares what rights as American citizens we have. Our Bill of Rights is vaguely simple by simply stating we have a right to freedom of religion covered in the First Amendment. The Weimar Republic's Constitution, however, seemed to find the necessity to specifically disassociate civil and civic rights from freedom of religion. It states what authoritative figures could do and what people are not obligated to do and how this might affect someone wanting to take a public office. I found this to be a very thorough way of telling people that they have religious freedom and that the government can't do anything against you because of that personal choice. This also brought me back to thinking about the future Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi. Hitler made great strides to engrave the idea that Jews were to blame for the misfortunes of Germany and their people. During what I like to consider his "Reign of Terror" Hitler and his officials allowed the profiling of their own people, "weeding out" the Jews to set them up in fortified ghettos and monitoring them like cattle before sending them to slaughter once the concentration camps were up and running. The jews that were identified were give different forms of identification which singled them out (you should be familiar with the star the had to wear). Hitler thoroughly violates this article when he becomes Die Fürhrer. It seems to me that he was hell bent on doing whatever he wanted. His title as Fürhrer was simply a title, to me, Hitler deceived everyone and actually became this tyrannical König (King). He not only stepped in and changed the government (as I mentioned in the above article response) but he also redefined what it mean to be German, to be a "worthy" human being. Eventually (and I only know very little of this from going to the Holocaust Museum in DC this summer) there was a set standard on what to look for. Not only was it blonde hair and blue eyes, but it was right down to the structure of your face that made you a true German. You needed to be a healthy (non-disabled, physically or mentally) on top of all that, other wise, even if you fit all the other criteria you were to be eliminated to prevent the "soiling" the gene pool for future German generations. Tying this back to my article choice, the Weimar Republic was weak. It was weak in the way they tried to make democratic nation out of Germany. Not to mention Germany wasn't really Germany for a while but a bunch of city-states. As briefly discussed in the lecture this would make Germany only well aware of how independent government systems work which they incorporated into the Reichsrat. To me it doesn't seem like there was ever any unity in Germany. Eventually post World War II, Germany became East and West Germany (Berlin Wall) followed by one unified country in the 90s.  They tried hard to copy this democratic government we live in but tried to make their own twists on it that did not benefit them at all, it's like bad plagiarism. They tried to give people freedom of religion only to have Hitler completely tear into that by persecuting the jews and anyone else that wasn't considered to be part of the supreme Ayran race. This article demonstrates the wishes (of a democratic republic) that the Weimar Republic was not able to uphold with the death of Hidenburg and rise of Hitler. In a way it also foreshadows, by specifically describing the limitations and abilities of the authoritative figures, what reformations Hitler was going to make by starting a genocide.