Some context: Today are the elections for the European Parliament happening in several countries. Germany will send 96 representatives and there is no formal election threshhold (i.e. no 3% or 5% minimum percentage). This will lead to up to 13 parties from Germany being represented, with about half of them with only one member. I've come across a lot of commentors in various media who claim that the occurence of extremely minor parties was at least partially responsible for the failure of the parliamentary system of the Weimar Republic. How large was the influence of this, especially compared to other problems, e.g. the large amount of representatives from the far left and right not interested in democracy?
The Wiemar Republic is generally said to end when the Enabling act is passed in 1933, and this is true. But Hitler didn't get that act passed because of a large amount of minor parties, but rather because he managed to destroy the major parties that actually opposed him using violence and intimidation.
Around the time of Hitler's seizure of power (1932-1933) there were two major coalitions in the German government. A right wing one made up of the Nazis and a German Nationalist party known as the DNVP. And a left wing coalition made up of the SPD and KPD, other wise known as the Communists and the Social Democrats. The only other party that really commanded influence in the Reichstag was a Catholic centrist party. Hitler's right wing coalition held a slim majority, in the 1932 election The Nazis won 196 seats and their allies won 51 for a total of 247, which is only slightly more than the 221 seats won by the left wing coalition.
The people arguing that "too many minor parties led to the fall of Wiemar" probably mean there wasn't any one party or coalition of parties big enough to stop Hitler from seizing power. This clearly isn't the case. But what did help Hitler seize power was that the coalitions that could have fought against his Nazis, were ineffective at doing so and the parties failed to form a truly united front to stop Hitler. Infighting between the left wing parties was common. Communists refused to work with the Social Democrats, going so far as to label them “Social Fascists”. Each left wing party had their own paramilitaries that fought hard against the Nazi's SA stormtroopers, but the Nazi's were just far too numerous (their SA numbered more than half a million). Hitler also had the support of the Army and Nazis occupied key positions in the government, which helped him further repress the left wing parties.
The Social Democrats represented the “best” chance of stopping the Nazis. But they were often harassed and intimidated by the Nazis into not putting up a serious resistance. They, much like the communists, also suffered from serious repression. When Herman Goering was appointed Prussian minister of the Interior, he gave the Nazi stormtroopers the ability to act as an unofficial police force. They quickly used that power to attack the Communists and the Social Democrats. Political offices were raided, notable leaders and supporters were beaten, tortured, and throw into prison. Over 100,000 Communists and Social Democrats ended up in prison, and many others went into hiding.
This all came to a head when Hitler “created” a new worker's holiday and than while the workers were distracted had his Stormtroopers raid and loot the offices of the Social Democrats and the Trade Unionists (the Social Democrats biggest supporters). Mass arrests followed and just like that the biggest opposition to Hitler had been broken. After that Hitler began to deal with the other smaller splinter parties, and eventually he managed, through bribery and intimidation, to get the enabling act passed which ended the Wiemar Republic.
Two good books on the matter are “Third Reich in Power” and the “Coming of the Third Reich” both by Richard Evans.
Okay, I'm just a high school student, but i wrote my exam on the failure of the Weimar Republic a few weeks ago, so hopefully, I got it right.
The Weimar Constitution's system of 'political representation' was partly responsible for the failure of its government. By 1930, the govt was being run by a coalition (the People's Party, Social Democrats, Democratic party and the Centre Party) because, due to the radical difference in opinions throughout the country, no party was able to gain a majority in parliament on their own to run the country. When the three non-socialist parties decided they wanted to cut government expenditure by (I think) reducing welfare costs and unemployment benefits, the Social Democrats couldn't agree (because obviously, they didn't want to upset their working-class supporters). This meant that the coalition broke up, and in the next election only three parties (or so) got more than 10% of the vote. So while the government was now at a standstill (couldn't make anymore decisions because of lack of a majority), the minor parties (the communist party and the Nazis) started to gain support. The fact that no one could pass any laws meant that the president at the time (Hindenberg) had to use Article 48 (another huge flaw of the constitution that allowed the president to run a dictatorship in emergencies) - that's how Hitler gained power. But that's another, much longer story.
So basically: many parties = split power = inability to make decisions = Article 48 + increased support of extreme left and right (communists and Nazis)
I hope this helps - again, not a Historian so correct me if I'm wrong!
Edit: I got this all from my text book (From Second Reich to Third Reich: 1918-45 for Edexcel, History AS Unit 1 for the 2014 syllabus), and here's a link to the Merriam-Webster definition of proportional representation. And here's one more link (sorry, not a very useful source, but interesting nonetheless) to a yahoo answer on other failures of the Weimar Constitution.