Weimar Society

Question 1

How did Weimar society seem to offer more freedoms that previous governments?

Answer 1

• Trade unions + arbitration boards, workers could control pay and conditions
  
  • Civil rights guaranteed by the constitution
  • Welfare provisions expanded
  • Women got the right to vote

Question 2

How did Weimar society reflect restrictions of previous governments/not reflect more freedom?

Answer 2

• Still clear class distinctions between Junkers and industrial elite challenging them, as their wealth was taken by agricultural problems
  
  • Smaller but still influential military
  • Largely upper bourgeoisie Reichstag politicians
  • Expanding middle class, who struggled with hyperinflation, growth of department stores, increasing cartelisation of industry
    Standard of living rose for working class + urban dwellers to a comfortable consumer lifestyle, but didn’t allow this for rural farming communities

Question 3

What happened as a result of an upsurge of the reformist left?

Answer 3

• Established democracy
  
  • Long term economic and technology modernisation
  • Promoted development of new ‘mass culture’
  • Attacks on modernism from the right became attacks on the state itself-> led to further destabilisation