Collapse of the Second Reich
The Weimar Republic was announced following the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in November 1918. The removal of the Emperor left an apparent power vacuum, with no Head of State the political structure of the Second Reich was obsolete, and an alternative form of government would have to be established. In fact the move towards a different form of Government had begun prior to the Kaisers abdication. As it became apparent to the German High Command that the war was lost moves were made to not only sue for peace but to amend the way in which the decision making process was conducted in Germany.
In October of 1918 a significant change in the constitution was instigated. The Chancellor and his ministers were no longer accountable directly to the Kaiser. Removed from the construction was the right of the Kaiser to install and remove his chief minister as he saw fit. From this point onwards the Chancellor was accountable to the Reichstag. Thus the first moves towards a democratic state were made prior to the abdication of Wilhelm II. This is significant in that this illustrates that there was recognition of the need to change. What is open to debate is where the pressure for this change came from (by fuller). Historians are split as to whether the impetus for change came from the High Command and the Kaiser himself, or whether pressure from leading members of the Reichstag led to the change in the construction whichever interpretation is more valid, it meant that upon the Kaiser’s abdication, there was still a form of government in which authority, no matter how much weakened, was held. This meant that to an extent the power vacuum left by the abdication was filled, if left in an extremely precarious position.
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