Weimar VibesThe fate of the Weimar Republic stands as a warning of what happens when societies and their citizens indulge extremism.
Shalom Lappin
1 Jan 2026
Although history never repeats itself, it is a useful teacher and we ignore its instruction at our peril. To understand the nature of Western democracy’s current crisis, we must look for historical parallels that can help to illuminate the instability that we are experiencing.
The Weimar Republic (1918–33) is often taken as the paradigm of a failed democratic experiment. Forged in the immediate aftermath of Imperial Germany’s defeat in the First World War, it was designed to be a constitutional liberal democracy that opened the way to a new progressive future for the country. Instead, it suffered from chronic political instability, which was deliberately aggravated by strongly anti-Republican forces on the far-right and far-left, both of which launched uprisings and coup attempts in the initial five years of the Republic. Weimar was also rocked by two major economic crises that undermined its viability, and beset by difficult relations with the Western allies that had defeated Germany in the war. Following widespread political violence and constant civil turmoil throughout its fifteen year tenure, it finally collapsed with the Nazi rise to power in 1933.
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Source:
https://quillette.com/2026/01/01/weimar-vibes-nazism-fascism-communism-populism/
