Weimar and the German Republic

Paying the price for World War I

At the end of World War One, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and fled to Holland. The new government which replaced him first met in Weimar as there were security risks in Berlin. Hence, it became known as the Weimar Republic.

The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic. The period's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar, which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" (a term introduced by Adolf Hitler in 1929) not commonly used until the 1930s. The Weimar Republic had a semi-presidential system.

The Weimar Republic came to bear for many of the humiliations of World War I and took the blame for all its accompanying hardships. In many ways, it never shook this association, particularly from the clauses of the Versailles Treaty that reduced the once proud German military to practically nothing and placed all blame for the war on Germany.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Parliament was elected through a system of proportional representation. This resulted in the election of many small parties. It was difficult for one party to gain a majority so the country was run by a series of coalitions. Which lead to an unstable Government, lack of decisive action and a public suspicion of deals between parties.

The German people had no tradition of parliamentary democracy so there was no general support for the new republic.

Due to the ruling Social Democrats being associated with Versailles they were nicknamed the 'November criminals' as they took the blame for Germany having to pay War reparations.

As such, they were not trusted by the general public, although this system ensured that Germans had a voice in government that they had never had before but it also allowed for a massive proliferation of parties that could make it difficult to gain a majority or form a governing coalition. For example, the Bavarian Peasants' League, a party representing purely agricultural interests in Bavaria won 0.8% of the vote and gained 4 seats. Proportional representation later allowed more extremist parties such as the Nazi Party to gain influence.

Cultural Changes

Not everything about the Weimar period was impoverishment and political turmoil. Germany experienced its own “Roaring Twenties” until they were cut short by the Great Depression. Cities burgeoned with new arrivals from the countryside in search of jobs, setting the stage for a vibrant urban life. Urban centers like Berlin became some of the most socially liberal places in Europe, much to the chagrin of conservative elites. Berlin had a thriving nightlife full of bars and cabarets. There were between 65 and 80 gay bars and 50 lesbian bars in the capital alone. Sexual liberation was a very real phenomenon, complete with a gay and lesbian rights movement led by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld who ran an Institute for Sexual Science.

Significant increases in women's rights were another achievement of the period. The Weimar Constitution extended the right to vote to all men and women over the age of 20 in 1919 (the United States did not adopt this standard until 1920, Britain in 1928). German Jews as well experienced a period of increased social and economic freedom which led to the term “the roaring twenties was mainly confined to Berlin and other big cities.

Culturally, the period produced important and lasting results. As historian Peter Gay wrote, “the republic created little; it liberated what was already there.” Weimar witnessed some of the most important developments of early film such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and Nosferatu (1922). It was home to famous authors such as Franz Kafka, Vladimir Nabokov, W.H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, and Graham Greene. In the art world, Weimar featured the Expressionist works of Otto Dix and George Grosz. The plays of Bertolt Brecht appeared on German stages. The cutting edge Bauhaus movement changed the face of architecture.

Weimar also produced great thinkers like Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. German scientists won at least one Nobel Prize a year from 1918 to 1933, including the physicist Albert Einstein.

German physician and sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld - Click on picture for more information

Walter Gropius, who founded Bauhaus. Click on picture for more information

Albert Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics. Click on picture for more information

The Nazis In Weimar and Hitlers rise to Power

A combination of political and economic dissatisfaction, some of it dating back to the founding of the Republic, helped create the conditions for Hitler's rise to power. By drawing together the fringe nationalist parties into his Nazi Party, Hitler was able to gain a sufficient number of seats in the Reichstag to make him a political player. Eventually, conservatives, hoping to control him and capitalize on his popularity brought him into the government. However, Hitler used the weaknesses written into the Weimar Constitution (like Article 48) to subvert it and assume dictatorial power.

The Weimar Republic ended with Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933.

The NSDAP movement had rapidly passed the power of the majority Nationalist Ministers to control. Unchecked by the police, the S.A indulged in acts of terrorism throughout Germany. Communists, Social Democrats, and the Centre were ousted from public life everywhere. The violent persecution of Jews began, and by the summer 1933 the NSDAP felt itself so invincible that it did away with all the other parties, as well as trades unions. The examples above ( Hirschfeld, Gropius & Einstein) like many other thousands that didn’t meet the Nazi Ideal either left Germany of their own will, were violently exiled or Murdered.

Weimar was seen as the ideal Nazi Town by Hitler and was used as a model to base the new regime on. This was due in part to Thuringia being one of the few states in which Hitler was allowed to appear and speak in public.

Weimar represents the heyday of the classical period with its most famous stars Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller,  it also, and not by name only, represents all that was good with the Weimar republic period however it wouldn’t be long before the Nazis stamped their own identity on the town ousting all that was good and building one of the largest concentration camps “Buchenwald” next to the town

The entrance to the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald, near Weimar in Germany. Credit...Jens Schlueter/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Nazis in Weimar - A timeline

1930

The NSDAP emerges from the state elections as the third strongest party with 11.3%. The newly formed government assigns the office of Minister of the Interior and National Education to the National Socialist Wilhelm Frick. Among other things, he issues the decree "Against Negro culture, for German nationalism". This is the first time the NSDAP participates in a German state government.

1926

The NSDAP's first Reich Party Congress after its re-establishment takes place in the state capital of Thuringia. Over 7,000 participants come to Weimar for the major event. Thuringia is one of the few states in which Hitler is allowed to appear in public.

1933

Reich President Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor in Berlin on January 30. Political opponents are arrested en masse and basic democratic rights are suspended. In Nohra near Weimar, the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior sets up the first concentration camp with 200 "protective custody prisoners" in a former school. The most powerful man in Thuringia is Fritz Sauckel, who is appointed Reich Governor. The transformation of Weimar from a classical city to the
capital of the "Schutz- und Trutzgau Thüringen" begins.

1932

In July, the NSDAP emerges victorious from the state parliamentary elections, receiving 50.2% of the vote in Weimar. Fritz Sauckel, the Thuringian Gauleiter of the NSDAP, takes over the chairmanship of the state government and becomes Minister of the Interior at the same time.

1935

In August, the Weimar SA put up signs on the access roads reading "Out" and "Jews not wanted". The Schwansee spa and large hotels had already been similarly marked.

1937

On May 1, Rudolf Hess lays the foundation stone of the Gauforum at the new "Platz Adolf Hitlers". Hitler's court architect Hermann Giesler, who also builds the new Haus Elephant, plans the monumental building for the mass organizations of the NSDAP. A few weeks later, the first 149 prisoners arrive at the Buchenwald concentration camp on the Ettersberg near Weimar. By the end of the war, it was the largest concentration camp in the German Reich. Over 250,000 people from all over Europe were imprisoned here, and more than 56,000 died on the Ettersberg

1938

After November 9, the so-called Reichskristallnacht, around 10,000 Jewish men arrive at Weimar Central Station. They are taken to Buchenwald by beating SS men to force them to emigrate and give up their possessions.

1939

The exhibition "Degenerate Art" is shown in the State Museum, expanded to include the "Degenerate Music" section created in Weimar. With the invasion of Poland on September 1, the German Reich begins the Second World War. More and more inmates are brought to Buchenwald.

1942

Fritz Sauckel is appointed General Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment by Adolf Hitler. He is responsible for the deportation and organization of seven to eight million foreign workers to Germany, who have to perform forced labour for German industry and agriculture.

1945

On February 9, Allied aircraft bomb the armaments factories and the town. The air raid kills 528 concentration camp prisoners and 462 residents and forced laborers. Weimar surrenders to the advancing US troops on April 12. The Buchenwald concentration camp had been liberated the day before. At the funeral ceremony on April 19, the survivors of the camp swear: "We will not stop fighting until the last guilty person stands before the judges of the nations! The destruction of
Nazism and its roots is our slogan. The construction of a new world of peace and freedom is our goal."

1943

Within just three months, a ten-kilometre rail link is built between Weimar and Buchenwald. Numerous labor detachments are set up in Weimar, and the prisoners become an increasingly present presence in the cityscape.

Interactive Map - Nazi sites of interest in Weimar (External site)

Weimar Railway station 1936 and Now

Almost 10,000 Jewish men were deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp in the days following the November pogrom of 1938. They came from cities including Breslau, Dresden, Frankfurt, Bielefeld, Aachen and the whole of Thuringia. They were transported to Weimar's main railway station by the Reichsbahn, where they were driven through the tunnel and beaten up by SS men and auxiliary police. Survivor Ernst Cramer remembers: "Seemingly for no reason at all, we were herded together like cattle and beaten against the wall [...] 'Go, go!' our tormentors shouted and drove us out with their batons down the stairs to the station forecourt. Lorries were waiting there. We were crammed into them. When they seemed overcrowded, more and more people were beaten into them."
The abuse took place in public. Klaus Engelhardt from Weimar reports: "The news spread like wildfire among us children that Jews were being 'unloaded' at the railway station". In the early years, most of the Buchenwald inmates arrived at the main railway station, most recently large transports from Poland in October 1939.
A memorial plaque commemorating the arrival of the victims of the anti-jewish pogrom in Weimar was placed at the east entrance to the main railway station in 1998.

Fritz Sauckel

Fritz Sauckel posing in front of Hitler painting.©Bundesarchiv

Born in 1894, Fritz Sauckel was among the earliest defenders of the German Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP). He was a political radical and a committed anti-Semite. In the early 1920s he assumed a leading position in the anti-Semitic Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund, joining the NSDAP in 1923.

In Thuringia, Sauckel bore significant responsibility for the marked success of the NSDAP throughout Germany. He became the regional head (Gauleiter) of Thuringia in 1927. He was a secretary of state in the first government that the National Socialists participated in in 1931. 

After the Nazi’s took power throughout all of Germany, Sauckel’s plans became increasingly ambitious and violent. He transformed Thuringia and the then state capital of Weimar into a Nazi Model city. Using “Aryanized” money, he founded the company Simon in Suhl and the Wilhelm Gustloff Foundation to expand his influence on heavy industry and the defence sector. The Fritz Sauckel Factory in Weimar belonged to the foundation. Here during the war, civil forced laborers and concentration camp inmates were exploited in mass numbers. In 1937 the foundation was laid for the Gauforum in central Weimar and the Buchenwald concentration camp. Towards the end of the war, Sauckel oversaw the construction of an underground factory for airplane motors thereby once again proving himself as a reliable leading functionary.

Sauckel’s programs lead to an intensification in the recruitment of forced laborers. This resulted in the mass deportation of women, men, and increasingly also children—largely from occupied areas of the Soviet Union and Poland. Hunting people down and draconian punishments characterized this recruitment under Sauckel.

American soldiers arrested Sauckel shortly after the defeat of Germany. He was tried as a major war criminal at the Nuremberg Trials and sentenced to death for his central responsibility for the deportation of forced laborers.

Sauckel was hanged on October 16, 1946.

Sauckel’s page here

The Gauforum

For the National Socialists' prestige project in Weimar, the Gauforum, the northern part of Jakobvorstadt, a total of 139 houses, had to be demolished and the small river Asbach diverted. Such Gauforums, in which the central administrations of an NSDAP Gau were to be combined, were planned in all Gau capitals in Germany, but were only largely realised in Weimar. On 1 May 1937, Rudolf Hess laid the foundation stone of the "Hall of the People's Community" and renamed the square "Adolf Hitler's Square". The carefully staged mass event was attended by 40,000 people. The massive complex clearly shows the NSDAP's claim to leadership; the town houses of the city of Weimar were supposed to look small next to it. Hitler personally added the "Halle der Volksgemeinschaft" to the design with standing room for 20,000 people and a bell tower, which was to be the tallest building in Weimar.

Fritz Sauckel celebrated his 45th birthday in it in 1939. By 1943, all the buildings had been completed with the exception of the hall, and prisoners from Buchenwald concentration camp were used in the construction work. After the completion of the Gau Forum, Fritz Sauckel's Reich Governor's Office was planned to move from the State Museum to the southern wing of the Gau Forum, the "Reich Governor's Office and Gau Administration". An oversized study was planned for Fritz Sauckel on the first floor of the building, which was additionally emphasised by a balcony and the entrance portal. The plans for the structural remodelling of Weimar also included the immediate surroundings of the Gauforum. The new street, provisionally named "X Straße", today's Ferdinand-Freiligrath-Straße, was laid out in a nationalist homeland defence style. The flats that were built also served as a replacement for the approximately 1,650 residents of Jakobsvorstadt who were affected by the demolition of the neighbourhood.

The Gauforum remained empty until the end of the war, and on 1 May 1945 the square was renamed Karl-Marx-Platz. Although the shell of the unfinished hall was completed after the war, it was not utilised until 1967 when storeys were added. In 1976, the hall was given a concrete louvre façade that is barely visible today. Since November 2005, the former "Halle der Volksgemeinschaft" has been home to the "Weimar Atrium" shopping centre. The Thuringian State Administration Office is housed in the now listed buildings of the Gauforum. The tower building houses a permanent exhibition on the history of the site, while the Museum of Forced Labour under National Socialism, sponsored by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, opened in the south wing of the former Gauforum in 2024.

Buliding of the "Halle der Volksgemeinschaft" now home to the "Weimar Atrium" shopping centre

Hitler and Sauckel visiting the construction