I've often read that the German Empire, and particularly Wilhelmine Germany, had some of the forms but not the substance of parliamentary democracy, and that it wasn't until 1919 that Germany had its first fully democratic system of government. But statements like that are often short on specifics. I'd like to know what qualified Germany as only a partial democracy before 1919.
Were the legislative powers of the Reichstag curtailed in some way? Or was its composition broadly unrepresentative of the German population(but at the same time UK had the same situation)? Were civil liberties restricted?
Thanks in advance for any explanations.
The simple answer is that the German form of government wasn't very democratic because the Kaiser held most of the Executive power, while the Chancellor was the head of the Bundesrat, the Legislative part of the German government, meaning he mainly had Legislative power. Today, in the "genuine" parliamentary democracies as we see and known them today, this relationship of power between a Head of Government and Head of State is obviously reversed, with the Head of Government (Germany; Chancellor, Canada/Britain; Prime Minister, etc) holding Executive power and not Legislative, with a Head of State usually being ceremonial with only limited powers (some countries like modern German give their Heads of State some responsibilities, some like Britain make their monarch more ceremonial, and others like America give the Head of State a fair amount of power and duties as Secretary of State)
Back on topic, this is of course ignoring the fact that neither of the Heads were elected or responsible to the people or parliament. The Kaiser obviously reigned by hereditary means for life, while the Chancellor wasn't elected and was rather appointed by the Kaiser to serve at the pleasure of the Kaiser. The Kaiser could remain in office for life if the Kaiser so desired to do so. Finally, the German public could do little really if the Kaiser and the Chancellor worked together. Bismarck with Wilhelm I's support completely dominated German politics almost by himself. Bit worrying when two offices in the country can together control it. There isn't much democracy going on in this kind of relationship.
The Chancellor also was not responsible to the Parliament (Reichstag), the body of the government that was actually elected by German males over the age of 25. This means that if the Chancellor started doing things the Reichstag (or general public) didn't want him doing, they had almost no legal means of stopping him. While the Reichstag itself was a very progressive and highly modern parliament for its time, it still shared legislation with the Bundesrat, which was dominated by the Chancellor. (I believe the Reichstag was the lower house of Parliament and the Bundesrat was the upper house of Parliament). This means the Chancellor could use his influence, power, and position in the Bundesrat to influence the Reichstag and pass his own legislation with the right amount of support (which... Bismarck did innumerable amount of times).
All things said, i'm not a political expert and i'm speaking from memory of what I know. The German democracy post 1919 wasn't too much improved either since the new office of President was eerily similar to the office of Kaiser in the means that the President still had a lot of Executive power (the executive power of Hindenburg for example is the main reason why Hitler's rise had to be moderated and restrained at times.)