ABSTRACT
The apparent return of stability and prosperity understandably induced a sense of self-satisfaction among those who had brought about the new order in 1918-1919. Although they had been on the defensive for the preceding five years as the republic staggered from crisis to crisis, they now took naive pride in their accomplishments. In his account of the revolution of 1918, written ten years after the events, the right-wing Social Democratic leader and Reich chancellor Hermann Müller expressed concern that his readers would take the blessings of democracy for granted. Müller should have directed his concerns elsewhere. Two years after the publication of his book entitled Zehn Jahre Deutsche Geschichte, 1918-1928 (Ten Years of German History), parliamentary democracy in Germany was no longer functioning; the Reich president-not the Reichstagmade and unmade Reich chancellors. A few months later, the Nazis-sworn enemies of democracy but until then the butt of numerous political jokes-had become the second strongest party in the national parliament.
