The claim that the Weimar Republic was “a democracy imposed on Germany from 1918 to 1933 as part of the Versailles treaty” is incorrect (Beautiful, decadent, damaged: a walk back in time through roaring 20s Berlin, 14 October).
Quite to the contrary, the republic was chosen and implemented by the German people in the course of a revolution against the old imperial system that started on 9 November 1918. That a parliamentary democracy was the preferred outcome had been decided by mid-December 1918 with a majority vote by the Congress of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils, and elections to a national assembly took place on 19 January 1919. This outcome represented the will of the overwhelming majority of the German people. The democratic system was in place before the Versailles treaty was finalised.
I would also like to point out that recent historical research on the Weimar Republic is rather sceptical about the notion of a “dance on the volcano” as a key signature of Weimar-era Berlin, as portrayed in the TV series Babylon Berlin.
Prof Benjamin Ziemann
University of Sheffield
