- Germany from 1250 to 1493
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During the first days of World War I, many Germans experienced a sense of bonding that had eluded them since the founding of the empire. Differences of class, religion, and politics seemed to disappear as Germans flocked to their city centers to show their enthusiastic support for the impending conflict. Overwhelmingly, the parties, including the Social Democrats, voted for war credits. The euphoria of the early days masked Germany’s dangerous situation. The Triple Entente commanded the seas, had more than twice the population of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and had access to the world’s natural resources through their empires and close contact with the United States. Germany was immediately blockaded and had to rely on its own resources and those of Austria-Hungary and contiguous nonbelligerents such as The Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland. The Central Powers did have interior lines of transit, which was valuable in a two-front war. They also had a unified command structure—in contrast to the Triple Entente powers, whose rivalries resulted in three different wars being fought simultaneously with little coordination.
General Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the German general staff from 1891 to 1906, had recognized Germany’s vulnerability in a two-front war and seen the best hope in an overwhelming attack against France through Belgium. If all went according to plan, France’s eastern industrial region would be occupied in six to eight weeks and Paris itself surrounded. The slow-moving Russians would occupy Prussia’s eastern rural provinces, facing only a modest-sized German military force. After France’s capitulation following the occupation of its capital, whole armies would move to the Eastern Front to drive the Russians out. Schlieffen died in 1913, and the plan was put in motion by General Helmuth von Moltke. As often happens in history, the plans of men may go awry in ironic ways. The western armies of Germany did, indeed, move through neutral Belgium but were stopped at the Battle of the Marne (September 1914) in northern France. Meanwhile, General Paul von Hindenburg was reactivated at age 67 and sent with Major General Erich Ludendorff to halt the Russian advance into East Prussia. There the Germans unexpectedly defeated two large Russian armies at the Battle of Tannenberg (August 1914).
The fighting on the Western Front turned into a war of attrition as the two sides built opposing trenches from the Swiss border to the English Channel. For three and a half years neither side moved more than 30 miles despite titanic battles at Verdun, the Somme, and Ypres. In the east the outmanned German forces, with the help of the Austrians, inflicted a series of costly military defeats on Russia, but, given the vastness of its territory and population, the Central Powers were unable to knock Russia out of the war until after the seizure of power by Lenin in the October Revolution of 1917. In 1916 Ludendorff and Hindenburg became joint heads of all German land forces and recognized, as had their predecessor Erich von Falkenhayn, that the war would be won or lost on the Western Front. With Italy (1915) and Romania (1916) entering the war on the side of the Triple Entente, the Central Powers faced an almost impossible situation in a war of attrition. The two generals became de facto rulers of Germany and sought the mobilization of the whole society for total war. More than 11 million men, some 18 percent of the population, were in uniform, of whom almost two million were ultimately killed. Germany was unable to feed itself, and after the severe winter of 1916–17 malnutrition and even starvation were not uncommon.
On the diplomatic front the elites ruling Germany planned for vast annexations of Russian, Belgian, and French territory as well as for an African empire. The war costs were to be paid by the defeated powers of the Triple Entente. At no time during the war did the German government engage in serious negotiations to restore the sovereignty of Belgium or to return to the status quo before the start of the conflict. Nor were the Triple Entente and its allies very interested in a negotiated peace, but their situation was not as desperate as Germany’s. In fact, every belligerent government found it safer to demand ever-greater efforts from its people than to admit that their earlier sacrifices had been in vain. As the stakes grew higher and the game more dangerous, no player felt able to leave the table.
Ludendorff and Hindenburg adopted an all-or-nothing policy in regard to victory. They created an independent state of Poland in 1916, which prevented serious negotiations with Russia for a separate peace. They adopted submarine warfare in 1917, despite the knowledge that it would bring the United States into the war, because it offered a slim hope of quick victory if Triple Entente ships carrying men and supplies could be prevented from reaching France. Ludendorff also mounted a major offensive in April 1918, ignoring Woodrow Wilson’s proposal of Fourteen Points for a future peace and failing to offer any peace terms of his own. When asked what would happen if the offensive failed, he replied, “Then, Germany will be destroyed.”
In 1917 the Reichstag, following the lead of the Centre Party, passed a peace resolution that called for Germany to refrain from any annexations. Social Democrats and Progressives rallied to support the resolution. The military and civilian leadership ignored the resolution and enforced a draconian peace on Russia and Romania in 1917–18. When the major battle in the west was brewing in April 1918, there were more than a million soldiers in the east to enforce the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Russia.
Clearly, the military, agrarian, and industrial elites who ruled Germany considered themselves involved in two wars simultaneously, one against the Triple Entente and the other against the aspirations of the German people for full political emancipation. The latter conflict dictated victory at all costs on the military front. Defeat or a compromise peace on the battlefield would inevitably lead to democratization, because it would lead to a loss of legitimacy for the elite that had demanded so many sacrifices from the many millions of workers, farmers, and artisans while denying them effective political power. In November 1914 Alfred Hugenberg, a major industrialist and subsequent ally of Adolf Hitler, told German entrepreneurs,
The consequences of the war will be unfavourable to employers and industry in many ways. One will probably have to count on a very increased sense of power on the part of the workers and labor unions, which will find expression in increased demands on the employer for legislation. It would, therefore, be well advised in order to avoid internal difficulties to distract the attention of the people and to give fantasies concerning the extension of German territory room to play.
William II felt compelled to promise an eventual end to the restrictive Prussian franchise in his Easter message of 1917. Shortly thereafter the Fatherland Party was established with enormous support from the elites. Its program included a commitment to fight for an unequivocal German victory, including annexations, and maintenance of the Prusso-German political system.
The Ludendorff offensive of April 1918 made great breakthroughs in the west. But the effects of four years of attrition were apparent. The military did not have the reserves to take advantage of the initial gains. With almost a million fresh American troops in France, the Allies launched a counterattack that quickly gave them the initiative. Slowly the German forces began retreating. On August 8 the German army suffered a severe defeat in northern France, and not long thereafter William II installed a new, more liberal government in Berlin, headed by Maximilian, Prinz von Baden. The new ministers were informed that the war was virtually lost, and they were advised to seek an immediate armistice. Before the negotiations were successful, revolution broke out in the German navy on November 3, 1918, and spread to the military and urban workers. The government of Max von Baden resigned, and William II was forced to flee to The Netherlands on November 9, 1918. The Social Democrats declared a republic and took power at this appalling moment of defeat, while the former military and civilian leaders sought to escape responsibility for the calamity. A civilian, Matthias Erzberger of the Centre Party, signed the armistice, which took effect November 11, 1918.
Kenneth Barkin James J. SheehanGermany from 1918 to 1945
The rise and fall of the Weimar Republic, 1918–33
The republic proclaimed early in the afternoon of Saturday, November 9, 1918, is often called the “accidental republic.” When Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the so-called Majority Socialists, accepted the imperial chancellorship from Max von Baden, it was with the understanding that he would do his utmost to save the imperial system from revolution. Ebert believed that the only way to accomplish this would be by transforming Germany into a constitutional monarchy. Elections would have to be held for a constituent assembly, whose task it would be to draw up a new constitution.
Defeat of revolutionaries, 1918–19
Ebert, however, was faced with a precarious situation. The dangers confronting him were mounting all over the country. Four and a half years of seemingly futile combat and sacrifice had resulted in a disaffection with the war and discredited the imperial system, as well as its emperor. Shortages of food and fuel had rendered the population vulnerable to the influenza epidemic sweeping Europe. On October 18 alone Berlin authorities had reported 1,700 influenza deaths. Independent Socialists in Munich had forced the abdication on November 8 of Bavaria’s King Louis III and proclaimed a Bavarian socialist republic. The port cities along the North Sea and the Baltic Sea were falling into the hands of sailors’ and workers’ and soldiers’ councils (Räte) in the wake of the naval mutiny at Kiel in early November. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, leaders of the radical Spartacus League, were eager to transform Germany into a republic of workers’ and soldiers’ councils (a Räterepublik) in imitation of the soviet republic being established by the Bolshevik leaders in Russia. As Ebert was accepting the reins of government in the Reichstag building on November 9, Liebknecht was proclaiming a socialist republic at a rally of his own followers in front of the deserted Royal Palace about a mile away. Many Marxist revolutionaries believed that the Bolshevik Revolution was merely the spark that would set off the worldwide proletarian revolution that Karl Marx had predicted. Inevitably, that revolution would have to spread to Germany. Given this ideologically charged scenario, Liebknecht confidently anticipated his destiny to become the German Lenin.
While the Liebknecht rally was proceeding in front of the Royal Palace, an angry crowd was gathering before the Reichstag building, the seat of the government. Because Ebert had just left the building, his friend and fellow Majority Socialist Philipp Scheidemann felt called upon to address the crowd. To meet its inevitable demands for change and to forestall whatever Liebknecht might be telling his followers, Scheidemann in his speech used the phrase “Long live the German republic!” Once made, the proclamation of a republic could not be withdrawn. Ebert was furious when he learned of Scheidemann’s “accidental” proclamation, but he realized that there was no turning back. He spent the afternoon seeking partners to form a provisional government to run the newly proclaimed republic. By nightfall he managed to persuade the Independent Socialists, a party that in 1917 had split from the Majority Socialists over the continuation of the war, to provide three members of a provisional government. To gain their cooperation, Ebert had to agree to name the provisional government the Council of Peoples’ Commissars and to transform Germany into a vaguely defined social republic. Despite this promise, Ebert still hoped that elections to a constituent assembly would lead to the creation of a moderate democratic republic. The Independent Socialists, however, though not as radical as Liebknecht, held to their vision of a socialist Räterepublik. They hoped that workers and soldiers would elect a multitude of councils across the entire country during the following weeks, assuming these would establish the foundation for a genuinely socialist republic.
For the time being, however, Majority and Independent Socialists jointly formed a provisional government for the defeated German nation, which everywhere seemed on the verge of collapse. Although the armistice of November 11 ended the fighting, it did not end the Allied blockade. The winter of 1918–19 brought no relief in the shortages of food and fuel, and the flu epidemic showed no signs of abatement. Soldiers returning from the military fronts by the hundreds of thousands were left stranded, jobless, hungry, and bitter—grist for the mill of revolution.
The push for revolution, led by an enthusiastic Liebknecht and a more reluctant Luxemburg, came on January 6, 1919, encouraged by Soviet Russia and further prompted by fear that Ebert’s plans for the election of a constituent assembly, scheduled for January 19, might stabilize the German situation. The Spartacists, now officially the Communist Party of Germany, initiated massive demonstrations in Berlin and quickly seized key government and communications centers.
The events of “Spartacist Week,” as the radical attempt at revolution came to be known, demonstrated that Germany was not nearly as ripe for revolution as leading radicals had believed. As Luxemburg had feared, mass support for communism did not exist among German workers; instead, most remained loyal to the Independent Socialists or to Ebert’s more moderate and democratic vision of socialism. The German army, moreover, had recovered its nerve and was determined to prevent a further move to the left. In December the army had begun secretly to train volunteer units drawn from the sea of soldiers returning from the front. These so-called Freikorps (“Free Corps”) units formed dozens of small right-wing armies that during the next years roamed the country, looking for revolutionary activity to suppress. The Spartacist revolt, which was confined largely to Berlin, was put down within a week by some 3,000 Freikorps members. When Liebknecht and Luxemburg were captured on January 15, they were both shot at the initiative of Freikorps officers. Although sporadic revolutionary activity continued elsewhere in Germany during the following months, its failure in Berlin clearly marked its doom. The proclamation on April 4, 1919, of a Räterepublik in Bavaria revived radical fortunes only briefly; Freikorps units put down the radical Bavarian republic by the end of the month.
The collapse of the Spartacist revolt greatly enhanced the chances for Ebert’s vision of Germany’s future to prevail. Moreover, the meeting of a national congress of workers’ and soldiers’ councils in mid-December 1918, upon which the Independent Socialists had pinned their own hopes for creating a socialist republic, proved to be far less radical than expected; it did nothing to interfere with Ebert’s plans to elect an assembly to draw up a democratic constitution. The elections on January 19, 1919—the first German election in which women had voting rights—produced a resounding victory for Ebert’s conception of democracy. Three of every four voters gave their support to political parties that favoured turning Germany into a democracy. After months of turmoil Germany was to become a democratic republic. The assembly began its deliberations on February 6, 1919, choosing to meet in Weimar, a small city that was considered less vulnerable to radical political interference than Berlin.
On January 18, 1919, representatives of the powers victorious over Germany began the deliberations in Paris that would establish a European peace settlement. Germany’s new democratic leaders placed high hopes in the prospects for this settlement. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points seemed to promise Germans national self-determination as well as to encourage the efforts to transform Germany into a democracy. When the German constituent assembly met in Weimar for the first time, it immediately declared itself sovereign over all of Germany. It selected a provisional government—with Ebert as president and Scheidemann as chancellor—whose first major task was to prepare for the expected invitation to Paris to negotiate a peace treaty with the empire’s former enemies.
But the invitation for a German delegation to come to Paris did not arrive until early April. Rather than being treated as a fellow—if fledgling—democracy, Germans soon learned that they were still viewed as the pariah of Europe. Wilson’s idealism had been forced to yield to still-fresh wartime resentments being articulated by the leaders of the French, British, and Italian delegations. Instead of offering negotiations, the Allies forced Germany to sign the treaty with no alterations.
