Explain the importance of the German Chancellors Br ning von Papen and von Schleicher in the
... This was the legacy that Brüning inherited when he became Chancellor in March 1930. Brüning contributed to the downfall of the Weimar Republic because he was the first Chancellor to use Article 48 to bypass the Reichstag. ... This started Weimar on the road to undemocratic and was behaviour that later Chancellors particularly Hitler copied with destructive consequences. Brüning also helped contribute to the collapse of Weimar by limiting democracy in other respects, under Brüning Parliament met on fewer days yearly, as with the use of article 48 they had a lot less to do. ... However when these decrees became common place the Reichstag complained which led to Brüning’s dissolution of the Reichstag, leading to elections in September 1930, as conditions were hard for the workers they voted in extremist parties who seemed to have more to offer, and from nowhere the NSDAP became the second largest party, therefore by holding dissolving the Reichstag Brüning allowed the nazis to have a power base in the Reichstag, which would continue to grow, allowing them to destroy Weimar from within. Brüning also collapsed Weimar by not resolving the economic crisis, he chose a policy of cutting government spending, which failed to put money into the economy and thus failed to tackle the problem of unemployment, which meant that Weimar was blamed for the depression and increased negative attitude towards the Republic, which contributed to the collapse. Although it seems that Brüning played a large role in the collapse of Weimar there were circumstances surrounding the decisions he made. For instance Brüning used article 48 and eventually dissolved Parliament, but the Reichstag wouldn’t cooperate with him, his coalition government could gather 170 votes meaning they needed the support of at least 52 DNVP MPs to gain a majority, and as the leader of the DNVP party, Hugenberg opposed the government this was difficult, article 48 and the dissolution were necessary in order to try and protect democracy and introduce a hopefully more cooperative Reichstag. Brüning was also constrained by Hindenburg and his clique, who were only willing to grant emergency powers to right wing Chancellors.