[earthnail]

Worth mentioning that the Germans didn’t come up with this system - it was the allied forces: US, UK and France, drawing on their experience on the deficiencies of their own systems.

It was successful enough that it also served as a blueprint for the Eastern European countries once the Soviet Union fell.

Always puzzles me why these three countries never took the opportunity to learn from their very own experiment.

[paj]

> Always puzzles me why these three countries never took the opportunity to learn from their very own experiment.

It's very difficult to change the existing system because the people currently in power are there because of the way the system is built, so any change will almost by definition be disadvantageous for the people who have the power to change it.

[psunavy03]

Because they had a unique opportunity to design a government off a clean slate, whereas to change their own governments would mean working through the requirements of each individual government.

Which in the US is actually 51 separate governments consisting of the Federal government which only has enumerated powers, and also the 50 sovereign states.

[grotorea]

I heard it was a bit of a compromise since the Germans were used to PR, but felt it had shown weaknesses in the Weimar period, but the US and UK preferred the familiar to them single winner district system.