Weimar, Germany  - The German city of Weimar commemorated its role Friday in the brief flowering of German democracy between the monarchy and the Nazis 90 years ago, with Foreign Minister Frank- Walter Steinmeier saying the Weimar Republic deserved more respect.

German legislators met on February 6, 1919 in Weimar, a quiet provincial city far from the riots and violence of Berlin, to found a republic, replacing the monarchy which had lost the First World War.

The assembly stayed in the town till August 1919. Despite its ferment of creativity and reforms, the Weimar Republic disappointed many voters, who replaced it with a Nazi dictatorship, the Third Reich, in free elections in 1933.

Many Germans still view the fractious Weimar period as a failure. Chancellor Angela Merkel did not attend Friday's ceremonies, which were organized by the city and left-of-centre parties which take a more sympathetic view of the first German democracy.

Steinmeier, the top-ranking Social Democrat in the Merkel government, said at a ceremony in the city's National Theatre that the first democracy failed because its citizens had not been committed to its preservation.

"The Weimar Republic was not condemned from birth to failure," said. "It bore hope and the promise of a free order in Germany."

He hailed its achievements including the vote for women, freedom of expression, the legalization of trade unions and unemployment insurance. Steinmeier said the republic had been destroyed by an "unholy alliance" of the far left and far right.

This year contains two other important German anniversaries where Merkel is to preside. They are the 60th birthday of the present-day German Federal Republic and the
20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and with it the end of communism in Germany. dpa