That's why the 5% threshold was established.
But there are a lot or people who say that it wasn't the number of parties, it was the lack of democrats.
(Democrats, not the US party. People who support democracy.)
In fact the constituion back then was very progressive and ambitious, even by todays standards, but with the lack of support even in official positions (e.g. Justice, Army sticking with the former structure and personnel) it didn't last very long.
Add to that the people's wide spread opinion of being burdened with unfairly tough first world war reparations and the regular abuse of emergency law ("Notverordnungen", not sure if the translation is correct) and there are a lot of ears listening to the ideas of the NSDAP.
This may be true for most things in life, but if there's one subject that can't be explained with only one aspect or reason, it's the republic of Weimar. It's decline is the sum of several unfortunate developments and circumstances.
edit: I say it not to reflect on Israeli society or politics per se, but to agree that fragmented parliaments cause such problems.
The military overspend during WWI and draconian terms that the winners impose over Germany destroyed the economy of the country, creating a spiral of hyperinflation[1], both led to an inevitable second conflict, as Keynes pointed in "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" that was written many years before the WWII
[1] A great book about Weimar hyperinflation cycle is "When money dies: The nightmare of the Weimar collapse"
Similarly, the German public understands hyperinflation as leading to the rise of Hitler and the Second World War. There was a genuine and severe hyperinflation crisis in the years after World War I, but the main economic reason for the Nazi ascendance to power in the early 1930s was actually a period of _deflation_ and mass unemployment. The Nazi rise to power coincided with an inflationary policy (Germany exited the gold standard in 1931), in part supported by the Nazis, that decreased unemployment and increased economic growth.
This is why it’s kind of funny when the current inflation aversion of German policymakers is attributed to a national trauma about hyperinflation. It’s true that the hyperinflationary period 1919-1923 was deeply painful for Germans and you can understand that they don’t want to repeat that, but surely the consequences of the deflationary period leading to the rise of National Socialism were worse.
(That doesn’t mean that Keynes was wrong, but a story that sees hyperinflation leading to WWII is probably too simplistic. It’s more like hyperinflation → gold standard → Great Depression → deflation → Nazis gain more seats → leave gold standard → Nazis gain absolute power.)
See http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/06/30/197736/austerit...
Thats what he said. How do you know that he honestly sees this as a problem for the country and not just a problem for his party? He is literally advocating getting rid of political competition and decreaasing the overall possible choice for the electorate, so you have to be really really sure that he is honest and has no horse in this race, but as a member of a party which wouldnt be affected by the change but immensely profit off it, he has one.