I.

Introduction

Weimar Republic, term used to describe the German republic that lasted from 1919 until 1933, when Nazi party leader Adolf Hitler suspended the constitution and assumed power. The republic was established after workers and troops in the German empire revolted in early 1918 against the government's refusal to end World War I (1914-1918). On November 9, Emperor William II fled the country and a provisional coalition government was formed between the moderate Social Democrats under Friedrich Ebert and the more radical Independent Social Democrats, who were hoping for a more fundamental socialist revolution. The new National Assembly met in Weimar, Thüringen, in February 1919 and wrote a constitution that established Germany as a democratic federal republic and provided for two houses of parliament, the Reichstag and the Reichsrat. Ebert was elected president of the new republic.