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outside factors which it could not control, but had to abide by. The fact that the government took on large welfare schemes did not help either, and it is possible that they were taking everything for granted, too soon. Germany displayed "a false image of prosperity", as Layton has said.

It seemed as if the political system was stabilizing between 1924 and 1929, and this gave people the hope that the Weimar Republic can live on. The election results showed that support for right and left wing extremist parties declined in favour of the more moderate parties, such as The Social Democratic Party, which increased its presence to 153 seats and held the majority.

However, on February 1925, Friedrich Ebert died and new presidential elections were held. After the two rounds of voting, in March and April, Hindenburg was elected as the second president of the Weimar Republic. But Hindenburg was the candidate of a right-wing coalition and many on the right hoped that he would bring down the Weimar Republic and return Germany to its former state; nevertheless, he did not attempt to overthrow the Weimar. This did however show that people did no longer trust the Weimar, and wanted a system closer to that of the Kaiser, thus they chose Hindenburg, an old war veteran, as they hoped that he could help steer the country back to its former glory. This was a warning sign for the new democratic republic. Carr says that "superficial prosperity and the growing international stature of the republic served to mask a state of chronic political weakness" and Layton agrees by saying "there was no effective consolidation nor any significant sign of political maturation in particular the main democratic parties had still not recognised the vital necessity of working together in a spirit of compromise". Maybe if the main democratic parties had worked together, and had formed a coalition, their representative would have won the 1925 presidential elections. But they did not, resulting in an insecure political environment and thus shaking the democratic foundation of the republic.

Stresemann was considered the man who could save Weimar Germany. He managed to keep the economy under some control by obtaining the foreign loans and delaying war reparations through the Young Plan; he also helped Germany join the League of Nations, increasing its international status once again. The Locarno Treaties and The Treaty of Berlin made up other diplomatic successes that Germany owed to Stresemann. But

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