Second Brüning cabinet

The second Brüning cabinet, headed by Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party, was the eighteenth democratically elected government during the Weimar Republic. It took office on 10 October 1931 when it replaced the first Brüning cabinet, which had resigned the day before under pressure from President Paul von Hindenburg to move the cabinet significantly to the right.

The new cabinet consisted of members of five centre-right to right-wing parties along with three independents. It was not a coalition. As had been the case in his first cabinet, Brüning's second was a presidential cabinet. Because it was not possible to form a stable ruling coalition given the Reichstag's growing anti-democratic and increasingly fragmented parties, Brüning governed through decrees issued by President Hindenburg. He survived numerous votes of no confidence because the Social Democratic Party (SPD) tolerated his government as a better option than new elections that would almost certainly increase the already growing power of the Nazi Party in the Reichstag.

Beyond the parliamentary crisis, the Brüning government faced the severe economic impacts of the Great Depression. Brüning nevertheless subordinated reviving the economy to attempting to free Germany from the reparations payments imposed on it by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. His policy of deflation made the economic situation worse.

When Brüning lost Hindenburg's trust, his second cabinet resigned on 1 June 1932 and was replaced on the same day by the Papen cabinet led by Franz von Papen.