ABSTRACT
German corporatist theorists were numerous in various political camps and their concepts manifold. When dealing with corporatism in inter-war Germany, three periods of German history should be distinguished. From November 1918 until March 1930, the Weimar Republic was a parliamentary democracy with a pluralist party system and a broad variety of competing interest groups. The 1919 Weimar Constitution formed a parliamentary democracy based on universal suffrage, the separation of powers and the rule of law. The radical left, communists, syndicalist local unions and the revolutionary 'council movement', was particularly strong during the early years of the Weimar Republic. The Catholic Centre Party was the stronghold of political Catholicism in Germany, receiving well above 10 per cent of the votes in all Reichstag elections between 1920 and 1933. Political corporatism was incompatible with National Socialist ideology. The German debate on corporatism in the inter-war years was quite self-referential.
