Pre-emptive apology for poor writing.
>>670103>Are you an ex-wehraboo?Nope. Never been a Wehraboo, fascist, or anything else like that.
>How would you classify it, politically?Overall I'd say the Weimar Republic's ruling party and thus its general, if somewhat superficial, political character was social democratic or a motley coalition of centrist parties* united in their commitment to preserving the Republic, superimposed onto conservative structures and their hangers-on that survived the formal termination of the German Empire (e.g. the nobility, conservative judges who sympathized with fascists, etc). I say primarily social democratic if only because the largest state by far, Prussia, was itself a socdem stronghold until the 1932 coup d'état. The ruling party varied region to region, for example the Zentrum in the Catholic-majority southern and western states, the communist party (KPD) in the Ruhr, and the rural Protestant north whose local governments became increasingly Nazified.
*main cooperating centrist parties:
— the Social Democratic Party of Germany (basically everything you expect social democrats to be; abbrev. SPD; most popular party for most of the Republic's existence)
— the German Democratic Party (petty-bourg left-liberal; abbrev. DDP)
— the Zentrumpartei (Catholic center-right)
— and the German People's Party (abbrev. DVP) under the leadership of Gustav Stresemann until his death in 1929, afterwards it made a sharp pivot to the nationalist far-right
I guess you could also think of it is as especially ineffective welfare capitalism. Attempts to raise taxes were resisted by the capitalists for the obvious reasons and by nationalists who believed the stab-in-the-back legend and bitterly resented reparations paid to France. Ultimately the government didn't have the tax revenue to sufficiently support the many millions of people who depended on the welfare programs promised to them, particularly with so many wounded veterans, widows, and fatherless children in the wake of WWI or the two economic crises within 10 years. The government straight up declared that PTSD wasn't a real affliction just so they didn't have to pay out to its victims anymore (back then I believe sufferers were called "war neurotics" in Germany).
The government was never particularly stable, outside the 5 year "golden age" between the end of hyperinflation and the beginning of the Great Depression. First of all, the German public was politically contentious and each political position had its own party, often multiple competing parties. These can broadly be divided into pro-Republic from the center (relatively weak majority) anti-Republic from the far-right (second largest faction; the NSDAP specifically remained on the fringes until becoming the fastest growing party in the beginning of the Depression, then received fewer votes with each election in 1932), and anti-Republic from the far-left (smallest yet fastest growing in final months of the WR). Proportional representation allowed fringe parties to hold office as long as they received 1% of the vote, even has they openly declared themselves enemies of the Republic either from the far-left or far-right. Since no party held a clear majority, Reichstag politics were all about forming coalitions, or obstructing them. The Reichstag was dissolved 5 times between 1919 and the end of 1932, the average chancellor lasted about a year before his replacement, and Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution vested the president with dictatorial powers via rule by emergency decrees. Its first president, Friedrich Ebert representing the SPD, was the first to abuse this to put down communist revolts. To say nothing of the political assassinations and paramilitaries.
Ask if you want elaboration on anything.