It wasn’t clear who had the power to suspend habeus corpus. The Constitution merely says in Article 1 Section 9 “The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” It is unclear exactly who may suspend it, but certainly the executive is intended as Commander in Chief to hold the power.

That was the problem with Article 48 “If public safety and order in Germany are materially disturbed or endangered” is too vague. Rebellion and invasion are terms that are more clear. The Framers were geniuses.

Always love to see a reference to the T-34.

The causes of the great Depression are rooted in the Versallies Treaty, which was a decision taken before and without Weimar. The great Depression certainly deserves much of the blame for the Weimar collapse. As I said: “not that it had much chance of sucess”

“A few stray gunshots during the Beer Hall Putsch, and Hitler would have been dead and he would have been a footnote in history, if that. No Hitler, no Nazi movement, or nothing like the way it played out, no “Third Reich”, whatever else might have happened.”

The Nazi movement was not unique in Europe during the interwar period. Fascist/Communist/Syndicalist Parties dominated Italy, Spain, Hungary, Russia and Romania among others. Extreme nationalism, racism, and anti-Semitism were common throughout Eastern and Central Europe. It is easy to imagine that without Hitler, there would have been another fascist/communist/syndicalist regime with a tyrant and an adverturist foreign policy that would have wound up in much the same position.

“No history of republican rule” is an overstatement.”

Yes, but not by that much.

“There was a long history of various free cities which had been self-governing for centuries in Germany and lots of participatory civic life in the West and South and the old Hanseatic towns.”

The towns and cities were places where a small minority of the population lived before the late 19th century. Tocquville describes the the institutions of rural areas, like town meetings and juries, that were the cradle of republican civic life in the united states. Those institutions did not exist in Germany.

“There was active party politics from the end of the 19th century.”

This is not different from what I said. The perspective is that Weimar was less than a generation after the inception of those party politics. There were lots of people who thought that party politics was a problem, not a way to find a solution.

“Konrad Adenauer did not come from nowhere and build a democratic Germany out of air and sand after World War II.”

Adenauer had not air and sand, but ashes, which had taught his people a bitter lesson. He also had the allied armies which worked actively to promote democracy. The fascist parties had been outlawed and political activites were forbidden to most Nazis. Not only that but the US and Britan through Breton Woods, GATT and the IMF were able to construct a solid basis for economic growth in the aftermath of WWII.

“The failure of 1933 occurred due to historical contingency and choices made by people, not some inexorable fate. There is no inevitability. There is just where you are now, the cards you hold now, the decisions you make now. The Germans played badly. But it was not inevitable.”

There is no inevitability, but there are better and worse odds. The odds on the Weimar republic at its foundation were bad, for a number of reasons. Two major ones — Versallies and the political culture of Germany — were cast in stone before Weimar’s foundation. In 1933 (or even 15 years earlier) no one in Germany could have done anything about them.

A global depression had something to do with it. The Weimar regime, like most regimes, was popular during good economic times. A badly written constitution also may have had something to do with. (Paul Johnson has a discussion of why writing a good Constitution is important, I think it is in Modern Times) Severe economic times and bad legal drafting weren’t inevitable. They were the result of decisions.

A few stray gunshots during the Beer Hall Putsch, and Hitler would have been dead and he would have been a footnote in history, if that. No Hitler, no Nazi movement, or nothing like the way it played out, no “Third Reich”, whatever else might have happened.

“No history of republican rule” is an overstatement. There was a long history of various free cities which had been self-governing for centuries in Germany and lots of participatory civic life in the West and South and the old Hanseatic towns. Not all of Germany was authoritarian, like Prussia. There was active party politics from the end of the 19th century. Konrad Adenauer did not come from nowhere and build a democratic Germany out of air and sand after World War II. There were some things there to work with, to build on. The failure of 1933 occurred due to historical contingency and choices made by people, not some inexorable fate.

There is no inevitability. There is just where you are now, the cards you hold now, the decisions you make now. The Germans played badly. But it was not inevitable.

Weimar was an experiment and it failed, not that it had much chance of sucess. Keynes had predicted the collapse of the Versaile settlement and it did.

The American Republic is now 230 years old. Analogies to Weimar are silly.

Re political violence, please see my post Be Afraid–the rise of political violence and intimidation in America

One thing I’ve thought before was that our megalomania tends to confine itself to the business world. While devastating, the damages are confined to money, ie we don’t have mass murder.

Judicial dictatorship on the other hand…

Richard, you have it backwards. The Constitution proved so flexible that it snapped back into place after the war and we still have habeas corpus. I think you are wrong about martial law. He was commander in chief during a rebellion. Similar arguments are made about emancipation, though those arguments are less popular these days. Anyway, on a blog which a has a libertarian readership I can always count on a lot of people telling me about how Lincoln was a tyrant, etc. I still think the interesting thing about Lincoln’s measures, legal or not, is that they mostly went away after the war. That is not what happens in most countries.

Obviously, our democracy is much more stable and long-lasting than was Weimar. But there are some trends worth worrying about, particularly the rise of political violence and contempt for free speech.

…

It did not use the word Fuehrer, but it conferred dicatatorial power, and it was meant to. Both the Nazis and the Communists were well aware of this article throughout the 20s and up to 1933. If either came to power it was generally understood that Article 48 would be invoked. Hitler immediately put into effect “emergency” decrees, and ruled under them with technical legality until the end of the war.

David, Lex, what the Weimar Republic died of wasn’t a defect in the constitution, but a lack of democrats. The ‘contempt for free speech’ mostly shows that people are simply fed up with the antics of your politicians, while the ‘political violence’ is perpetrated by a few nutcases.

And anyway, there are negative trends anywhere, at all times, but what counts is the resistance against them, and in Germany there simply wasn’t enough of that at the time.

Also agreed that the battle scenes were not very good. I guess they had a small budget.

*Article 48 of the German Constitution of August 11, 1919:

If public safety and order in Germany are materially disturbed or endangered, the President may take the necessary measures to restore public safety and order, and, if necessary, to intervene with the help of the armed forces. To this end he may temporarily suspend, in whole or in part, the fundamental rights established in Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 15.

It did not use the word Fuehrer, but it conferred dicatatorial power, and it was meant to. Both the Nazis and the Communists were well aware of this article throughout the 20s and up to 1933. If either came to power it was generally understood that Article 48 would be invoked. Hitler immediately put into effect “emergency” decrees, and ruled under them with technical legality until the end of the war.

See here for further details.

Obviously, our democracy is much more stable and long-lasting than was Weimar. But there are some trends worth worrying about, particularly the rise of political violence and contempt for free speech.

But not before devastating the lives of many others in ways they never imagined nor know.