The German Revolution: What exactly was it?

First, a bit of context. Democracy had been weak in Germany before the war. The Reichstag was weak and unable to do much to control the Kaiser and the ministers he appointed. And during the war Germany was governed by a military dictatorship with Field Marshal von Hindenburg and General Ludendorff firmly in charge. But when the Ludendorff offensive of 1918 failed, Germany’s last gamble to win the war, failed with it. Ludendorff, Hindenburg and the Kaiser all knew this, but they wanted to try and maintain a strong position on the battlefields or else the peace terms would likely be extremely harsh. But each day the Germans were being pushed back, their soldiers were suffering and their people back home were suffering too as the Allies blockade caused tremendous hardship, and President Wilson would not negotiate with the Kaiser or the military. Wilson insisted that Germany be made more democratic before peace negotiations could begin. So the Kaiser was persuaded to appoint Prince Maximilian of Baden (the Kaiser’s cousin), as his new Chancellor.

But still the war went on. At the end of October, 1918 German sailors in the Grand Fleet at Kiel were ordered to sail and engage the British Navy in what Admiral Scheer saw as a last opportunity for an ‘honourable battle’. The seamen, however, saw it differently: a suicide mission, and they mutinied. What came to be known as the German Revolution had begun. It rapidly spread with a wave of strikes and military rebellions across Germany. It was a genuine nation-wide revolt – against the war, against the hardship – if not revolution. But there were to be revolutionary effects.

With Germany on the point of defeat and order collapsing, the position of the Kaiser was in question. The Communists had been openly calling for the Kaiser to abdicate, when on November 6th, the leader of the Social Democrats (the SPD), Friedrich Ebert, in order to reinstate a sense of order, reluctantly but publically called for him to abdicate (Ebert was personally in favour of retaining the monarchy). But the Kaiser refused.

Order was breaking down: a Bavarian Soviet Republic was declared in Munich, another in Saxony, and on November 8th, Prince Max telephoned the Kaiser, telling him that ‘Your abdication has become necessary to save Germany from civil war.’ Adding that, ‘The great majority of the people believe you to be responsible for the present situation. The belief is false but there it is.’¹ The next day Field Marshal von Hindenburg and General Groener (who had taken over from Ludendorff after he had resigned) went to see the Kaiser to press on him that the army was collapsing as was order at home, that indeed it was all over. Hindenburg broke down. But still the Kaiser wouldn’t abdicate.

Prince Max took it on himself to announce the Kaiser’s abdication and then resigned himself, handing the Chancellorship to Friedrich Ebert as the Social Democrats were the largest party in the Reichstag that was elected before the war. Ebert formed a provisional national government. Though a Socialist, he was determined to work with the Reichstag and other sources of power in Germany to build a lasting peace and rebuild a war-torn Germany on democratic principles. But at the same time, councils were being elected by workers and servicemen all over the country. Whilst the Kaiser finally accepted his fate, indeed a fait accompli, and on November 10th went into exile in Holland.

But the “revolution” was not over. Though Ebert was determined to restore order, there were armed revolutionary soldiers and sailors in Berlin and the capital resembled a powder keg ready to explode. The flashpoint came near the end of 1918. A Spartacist demonstration in December ended with troops firing into the crowd killing sixteen people. The Spartacists were a group of Communists agitating for a Bolshevik-type revolution. Germany was in chaos and they saw their chance to create a socialist state. They were led by Karl Liebknecht (a member of the Social Democrats before he co-founded the German Communist Party or KPD at the very end of 1918) and Rosa Luxemburg (a Jewess).

Ordered to leave the capital they refused and on December 23rd, ‘Red sailors’, under the command of the Spartacists, looted and vandalised the area of Berlin where they were stationed. They surrounded and broke into the Chancellery building, cut off telephone links and held Ebert and officials hostage. However, using a secret hotline, Ebert requested urgent military assistance which was given on Christmas Eve but failed to oust the Spartacists.

The events had polarised politics in Berlin and the extreme left thought that they could bring about the collapse of Ebert’s government. General Groener responded by calling for the formation of volunteer units, or Freikorps, to police the capital. They were ex-soldiers, extreme nationalists, they held a hatred of the Left in general and Bolshevism in particular and sought to undo the humiliation of German defeat; impartial, balanced, respectful of others’ opinions they were not. But they were heavily armed and a disciplined force. They were not a disorganised rabble.

Then, on January 4th, the provisional government ordered the dismissal of the Berlin police chief who had refused to support the government in its move against the ‘Red sailors.’ However, he refused to resign and a protest march against his dismissal on January 5th, 1919, sparked the so-called Spartacist Uprising.

The Spartacist Uprising involved members of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) and members of the Communist Party (KPD) as well as the Spartacist group itself. They took over the offices of the government’s newspaper and the telegraph exchange but nothing else, and they called for a general strike. But they failed to rally widespread support.

Gustav Noske, who had put down the sailors mutiny at Kiel and who Ebert had appointed as Minister of National Defence, instigated a ruthless response. With some 15,000 armed Communists and other left-wing groups involved and 40,000 government and Freikorps troops who used machine guns, field artillery, mortars, flame throwers and even aerial strafing and bombardment to quash the rebellion, it must have seemed as if WW1 had come to Berlin. At least one hundred were killed including the Spartacist leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht who were brutally murdered, before the fighting came to an end on January 15th. And thousands more Communists were killed across Germany in the aftermath.

Ebert now organised elections for a Constituent Assembly which were held on January 19th, 1919 (with state elections held at the same time). The Constituent or National Assembly was to govern Germany and write a new constitution, after which more new elections would be held. But Germany was in chaos. In Berlin there were more riots and strikes organized by the Communists in March, again put down with help from the Freikorps, this time at the cost of over a thousand lives. Whilst in Bavaria, the Bavarian king had abdicated and the Bavarian government was in the hands of the Independent Social Democrats who set up a ‘People’s State’ led by Kurt Eisner. But Eisner’s administration failed miserably and in the state elections that took place in January, 1919 Eisner’s Independent Social Democratic Party were resoundingly defeated. The Catholic Party in Bavaria fared best with the SPD also doing very well. However, a month later, Eisner (with his resignation letter in his pocket) was assassinated.

In the wake of Eisner’s assassination Communists seized power and set up a Bavarian Soviet Republic. Lenin telegraphed his best wishes. But Noske again acted swiftly and ruthlessly. He sent 35,000 men from the Freikorps, well-armed and supported by the army, and Munich was put under siege before the authorities regained control. There were atrocities on both sides. The Reds killed a dozen innocent hostages (it was Lenin who had suggested they should take hostages from the bourgeoisie) and Noske’s forces carried out indiscriminate revenge. Officially 606 lives were lost though the actual number might have been double that. The leader of the renegade republic was tried for high treason and executed.

So, the German Revolution was a revolution in that it brought about the end of the monarchy, though this had really brought about by Wilhelm himself. It was also a revolution, or at least an attempted revolution, when we consider the setting up of first, the People’s State in Bavaria and then the Bavarian Soviet Republic, and the Spartacist Uprising in Berlin. Indeed Germany was close to civil war. But the lasting consequence, and even then, tragically, only for a decade or so, was the Weimar Republic, but that was created by traditional democratic means, despite the German Revolution.

 Quoted in Joseph E. Persico, p. 316