1925 - A Fateful Year

In February 1925, the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert died. He had been the first President of the Reich to be appointed by the Weimar National Assembly and had led Germany through the crises of the revolution and the post-war period. Who would be his successor? In this book, the most in-depth account of the period to date, Wolfgang Niess gives us the background to the fateful election of 1925. Influential powers on the new right-wing movement wanted to use this election to drive a wedge between the bourgeois Democrats and the Social Democrats. They were looking for another Bismarck, a man who would repress parties and parliament and dismantle democracy step by step. But the Republicans had good chances to win the election. How could they have squandered this opportunity? How did an anti-democrat manage to get himself elected to the highest office in the land? And why did so many people not realise what the new incumbent’s long-term plans were? Sometimes election results do not unleash their destructive potential immediately, but only after several years.

• When an anti-democrat becomes president

• The fateful election of 1925 and its consequences