Das Weimar-Experiment : die erste deutsche Demokratie 1918-1933 / Walter Mühlhausen.

"Weimar was an experiment, an attempt, a departure, a leap into modernity. The history of the first German democracy and its end is complex and still important to us today: Was it doomed to fail due to mistakes and omissions in the founding phase or did it not have a real chance of survival until the end? Walter Mühlhausen competently traces the developments of the Weimar Republic and provides an exciting picture of a republic torn by internal struggles, externally oppressed and economically burdened. Populist actions, contempt for politics and social disintegration today herald an erosion of the free-democratic basic consensus. A look at the failure of Weimar shows how fragile democratic orders can be: If the basic democratic consensus is no longer supported by everyone or if it is specifically challenged, then democracy is no longer of an eternal nature." --Translated from Publisher's website.