AHC/WI: German FDR

Your challenge is, with a post-1918 POD, to get a "German FDR" ie a progressive that manages to deal with the Great Depression and, thus, severely reduce support for Nazism and Communism.
If this is possible, how would this timeline's Europe develop politically?
 
Karl Jarres.

He was Minister of the Interior and Vice Chancellor at some point, and won the first round of the presidential election in 1925 before voluntarily dropping out in favour of Hindenburg. As a Nationalliberaler, he was the biggest hope for Germany at that time to unite society, bring stability to the country and prevent the emergence of extreme elements such as the Nazis.
 
Karl Jarres.

He was Minister of the Interior and Vice Chancellor at some point, and won the first round of the presidential election in 1925 before voluntarily dropping out in favour of Hindenburg. As a Nationalliberaler, he was the biggest hope for Germany at that time to unite society, bring stability to the country and prevent the emergence of extreme elements such as the Nazis.

Think there was once a TL about him becoming President of Germany, will post a link if I can find it.
 
Your challenge is, with a post-1918 POD, to get a "German FDR" ie a progressive that manages to deal with the Great Depression and, thus, severely reduce support for Nazism and Communism.
If this is possible, how would this timeline's Europe develop politically?

The first problem is that the three most "progressive" non-Communist parties--the SPD, the Democrats (left-liberals), and the Zentrum--did not get a majority in the Reichstag even in the 1928 election. To form a coalition, they needed the support of the DVP (right-liberals), and that made any German "New Deal" impossible. Second, even if the three "Weimar parties" did get a majority, it would be hard for them to form a stable government, given that there was an important right wing of the Zentrum, which again would be opposed to any "New Deal." Third, and related to the above, fiscal orthodoxy was very strong in Germany (even among the Social Democrats) where many people had memories of the hyperinflation of several years earlier. Brüning's deflationary policies of OTL still look crazy to me (though they have their defenders--and in any event the fear of inflation was quite widespread in Europe at the time as noted in https://www.jstor.org/stable/40542979?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents ), but going to the opposite extreme with a major deficit-financed public works program may simply not have been politically possible for Weimar democracy.
 
The first problem is that the three most "progressive" non-Communist parties--the SPD, the Democrats (left-liberals), and the Zentrum--did not get a majority in the Reichstag even in the 1928 election. To form a coalition, they needed the support of the DVP (right-liberals), and that made any German "New Deal" impossible. Second, even if the three "Weimar parties" did get a majority, it would be hard for them to form a stable government, given that there was an important right wing of the Zentrum, which again would be opposed to any "New Deal." Third, and related to the above, fiscal orthodoxy was very strong in Germany (even among the Social Democrats) where many people had memories of the hyperinflation of several years earlier. Brüning's deflationary policies of OTL still look crazy to me (though they have their defenders--and in any event the fear of inflation was quite widespread in Europe at the time as noted in https://www.jstor.org/stable/40542979?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents ), but going to the opposite extreme with a major deficit-financed public works program may simply not have been politically possible for Weimar democracy.
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Was the Zentrum, really, progressive? Wasn't it a Catholic conservative party?
 
In Addition to what @David T has rightly pointed Out, there were also reparation obligations in gold--based currency to undertake - there was no fiscal room for maneuvres.
 
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Was the Zentrum, really, progressive? Wasn't it a Catholic conservative party?

I didn't mean that it was progressive, but that it was more progressive than the other "bourgeois" parties (except the Democrats)--e.g., the DVP, let alone the DNVP or the right-radical parties including the NSDAP.
With the SPD and the Democrats it was considered one of the three major "Weimar" parties--i.e., the parties that genuinely accepted the Republic (in the case of the DVP it was more acquiescence than acceptance, Stresemann and other party leaders still being monarchists at heart). "During the years of the Weimar Republic debates about the Catholic character of the party, as described above, persisted. The left wing of the party, led by Erzberger and Wirth, had close ties to the Christian trade unions led by Adam Stegerwald. The right wing advocated a move towards the right and a closer cooperation with the national movements. The middle-ground emphasised their loyalty to the Church and rejected both extremes..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Party_(Germany)
 
Theoretically, an alliance of the SPD, Democrats and the left wing of the Zentrum could form a stable, progressive government after 1928 if they had the KPD's support. The analogy would be the French Popular Front of 1936, where the Communists supported a Socialist-Radical government form the outside, not demanding any cabinet positions for themselves. But it was virtually unthinkable that the Comintern would support such a turn of the KPD to moderation in 1928, when the Comintern's position was that social democrats were "social fascists" (and left Social Democrats were considered particularly bad!). It took the triumph of Hitler to make the Communists open to popular-frontism. In 1928, I don't think even Bukharin, had he prevailed over Stalin, would be willing to go that far.
 
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