Many officials in the Weimar Republic were members of independent parties, why was this?

by SamuraiRake

In the USA, we've never had a president who was a member of an independent party (unless you count Jackson). What in German culture or the political structure of the WR made voting independent viable?

commiespaceinvader

I am unsure what you mean by officials but I assume you are referring to the chancellors of Germany in which case we are talking about Wilhelm Cuno, Hans Luther, and Kurt von Schleicher.

The problem here is that people in the Weimar Republic didn't vote independent. The chancellor of the Republic is not directly voted into office. The people voted for parliamentary parties and the Reichpresident usually gave the task of forming a government to the strongest partiy, which in turn was looking for partners in a coalition to form a government with a parliamentary majority.

Now usually these parties ran with a prime candidate who, if the party was to become the strongest, was to be the chancellor of the coalition government. Sometimes, parties used non-members as prime candidates to appeal to voters. Such was the case with Hans Luther, who ran for the DVP and became chancellor because he was able to project an image of being a financial expert, something voters felt was sorely needed after hyperinflation in Germany.

In the case of Wilhelm Cuno something similar happened. He became chancellor after the previous cabinet fell apart and he formed a government of "economic expertise". Unfortunately for him though, his expertise wasn't enough and his government fell apart because of the hyperinfaltion.

Schleicher is a bit different because by the time he became chancellor, democracy had all but fallen apart in Germany and it was president Hindenburg who enabled the government to rule by decree and who basically chose Schleicher to run it.