ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the general outlines of a model through an examination of the relationship between the general course of social and economic development during the Weimar Republic and the crisis and eventual dissolution of the Weimar party system. The dissolution of the bourgeois party system during the Weimar Republic passed through several distinct phases. The collapse of the Second Empire and the founding of the Weimar Republic did little to change the fundamental structure of the German party system. The problem of political integration was apparent from the very founding of the Weimar Republic and could be seen in the severe internal crises which not only the German Democratic Party but also the Zentrum experienced during the first years of the Republic. The rise of National Socialism was essentially a response to the disintegrative effect which the general course of economic development during the Weimar Republic had upon the social and political fabric of German national unity.
