A History of Germany 1918 - 2020. Mary Fulbrook

– rather than the individual – might be held responsible for the difficulties they found in feeding their families. This awareness of the responsibilities of the state continued after the war, heightened by more widespread dependence on state benefits and pensions.

During this protracted war – in which progress was measured from the trenches in terms of yards rather than miles – circumstances on the home front soon deteriorated. Food supplies became a problem as early as 1915. In April 1917 the first major strikes occurred, a consequence of the cutting of bread rations. Civilian government broke down with the resignation of the moderate Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg in July 1917, and the country was under the effective military rule of Chief-of-Staff Hindenburg and General Ludendorff (in conjunction with two short-lived and ineffective civilian chancellors, Georg Michaelis until October 1917 and Count von Hertling until October 1918). In 1917 there were two successful revolutions in tsarist Russia: a far less economically advanced autocracy and one that, according to a Marxist analysis, should not have been the first to experience communist revolution. Following the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power in the autumn, Russia concluded an armistice with Germany and entered into negotiations for peace. After abortive discussions, Germany renewed hostilities in February 1918, and, from a position of strength, was able to impose the annexationist Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on Russia in March 1918. This harsh treaty was greeted with a mixed reception at home and hardened the attitudes of Western powers against Germany.

      Meanwhile, rising domestic unrest in Germany played a role in the army leaders’ decision, in winter 1917–18, to ignore the chance of achieving peace with Western powers on relatively moderate terms, since they had begun to believe that only a spectacular military victory could now avert the threat of domestic revolution. In January 1918 there were more strikes, and a widespread war weariness and desire for peace, even as the Army High Command, supported by the recently founded right-wing Vaterlandspartei, propagated ever more extravagant military aims. Yet on the Left, the political forces opposing both the military and the right-wing nationalist parties were themselves divided. The Social Democratic Party, since its formation in 1875 out of two preexisting parties with different traditions, had long experienced tension between its reformist and revolutionary wings. Under the strain of responding to the war effort, the SPD finally split in 1917. The more radical wing formed the so-called Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), while the majority remained with the more moderate SPD, sometimes known as the Majority Social Democratic Party (MSPD). A loose, more radical grouping further to the Left of the Social Democrats was the Spartacus League, whose leading lights were Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. It was in this complex domestic configuration that the new Republic was born.

      The ‘Last Revolution from Above’

      Despite the success of the spring offensive against Russia, by summer 1918 it was clear even to the leaders of the army that the war was lost. The Army High Command now felt that it would be advisable to hand over power to a civilian administration: army leaders – who were already propagating the myth of a ‘stab in the back’, the alleged betrayal of an undefeated Germany by Jews and Bolsheviks at home, an enemy within – preferred that a civilian government should have to shoulder the opprobrium of accepting national defeat.

Accordingly, in October 1918 a new civilian government was formed under the chancellorship of Prince Max von Baden. Faced with considerable domestic unrest, this government introduced certain reforms. The reforms were not simply (as they are often described) a ‘last revolution from above’, a desperate attempt to salvage some credibility for the Imperial system; they also resulted from very strong pressures in Parliament, particularly on the part of the moderate Social Democrats. Most notable among the reforms were the introduction of ministerial responsibility to Parliament, the control of the armed forces by the civilian government, and the abolition of the iniquitous Prussian three-class voting system. The removal of this system, along with the other reforms, constituted a progressive move in the eyes of democratic forces; but there was one step that Prince Max von Baden’s government failed to take. Despite efforts to persuade Emperor Wilhelm II to abdicate in favour of one of his sons, the obdurate emperor, supported by his sons, refused to assume sole responsibility for Germany’s ills. Had he agreed to leave the political scene gracefully in October, the monarchy might have been saved.

      The Incomplete Revolution of November 1918

      However, matters developed otherwise. All the cautious moves for reform from above were swept away by a revolutionary tide on the streets that, by early November, it was no longer possible for Max von Baden’s government to control. Uprisings all over Germany were sparked off by a sailors’ mutiny in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel at the end of October. Ordered out on a last, suicidal mission against the British fleet, the sailors decided they would rather save their own skins than attempt to salvage ‘German honour’. News of the mutiny led to the formation, in a large number of places across Germany, of ‘sailors’, soldiers’ and workers’ councils’, which wrested control of administration from local governments. On 8 November a republic was proclaimed in the ‘Free State’ of Bavaria, under a workers’, soldiers’ and peasants’ council led by Kurt Eisner. The German war effort had clearly collapsed, the authority of the regime was rapidly crumbling, the threat of strikes and civil war on the streets loomed ever larger.

On 9 November Max von Baden made a last-ditch effort to salvage what he could from the situation. He felt that Friedrich Ebert – in his view the most level-headed of the Social Democrats and the one for whom he had most respect – might yet be able to maintain a modicum of control over the situation and avert the threat of radical social revolution headed by the far Left. Unable to reach the Emperor (who had fled the unrest of Berlin) by telephone by midday, Max von Baden, in something of a panic, took it upon himself to pronounce the abdication of the emperor and the intended appointment of Ebert as leader of a new civilian government. The shape of such a government had by no means been decided when, at around 2 o’clock, Ebert’s colleague Philipp Scheidemann went to a balcony of the Reichstag to proclaim a republic, in an attempt to marginalize the almost simultaneous proclamation of a socialist republic by Karl Liebknecht, speaking for more radical socialists assembled in front of the Hohenzollern palace towards the other end of Unter den Linden in central Berlin. It was clear that Ebert and the moderate Social Democrats would have to move fast to assert control over a situation of strikes, uprisings, mass demonstrations and the breakdown of governmental authority across a Germany that was, formally, still at war.

      Rapid negotiations took place between the moderate Social Democrats and the USPD leaders, and a compromise caretaker government was agreed. This consisted of a six-member ‘Council of People’s Representatives’ (Rat der Volksbeauftragten), of whom three – Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg – were members of the SPD, and three – Haase, Dittmann and Barth – were members of the USPD. Even before this body had been constituted, Ebert had declared his priorities to the people of Germany. The new government was committed to organizing elections for a national constituent assembly, which would be elected by all men and women over twenty years of age. Until this elected body could take power, the temporary government would agree an armistice, lead peace negotiations, seek to ensure an adequate food supply for the people and oversee an orderly demobilization of troops and the return of former soldiers to civilian life and work. In the meantime, law and order were to be upheld and the people were to desist from plunder and violence and help to build a better future.

      In the context of widespread strikes and demonstrations, the obstacles to a peaceful transition to a new order were formidable. The USPD did agree to cooperate with the SPD, despite their rather different general aims, and the new government – which was to last only a few weeks – was duly given popular legitimization, first by a meeting of council delegates in Berlin in November and then in December by a wider body of delegates from workers’ and soldiers’ councils from all over Germany. An armistice was achieved on 11 November, although it was not until the following summer that the terms of the peace treaty would be revealed.

      In the first few days after the proclamation of the Republic, two very significant agreements were reached, which embodied compromises which would have a profound effect on the subsequent course of events. The first