Hi ryanperlman,
Thank you for your question.
From 1918 to 1919 attempts to overthrow the government came from the
left and the right. This has been called the "German Revolution",
however, there was no *real* revolution in that the German Communists
who had tried to overthrow the government failed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic
"The period of German history from 1919 to 1933 is known as the Weimar
Republic. It is named after the city of Weimar, where a national
assembly convened to produce a new constitution after Germany's defeat
in World War I."
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Was there Revolution or Change?
http://www.kdhs.org.uk/history/as/as_unit2/revol02.htm
Revolutionary Feeling: The Process and Progress of Change (?)
"The six months between October 1918 and March 1919 witnessed a great
amount of turbulence, commotion, unrest, civil disobedience, change
and anxiety. Some of it was certainly revolutionary, some was just
evolutionary and organic change. There were the struggles between left
(socialist) and right (nationalist) who moved to establish a new
constitutional state. There was fighting on the streets and
negotiators and pragmatic politicians trying carve out a sense of
normalcy in what was a disorganised post-war Germany."
(read article)
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The early problems of the Weimar Republic
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/wei2.htm
"The Weimar Republic experienced severe problems from its start.
Ebert, the first head of the Weimar Republic, and his government were
in a very difficult position. Those on the left - communists and the
like - had no respect for the government and the success of Lenin in
Russia had boosted their self-belief. Those on the right - former
soldiers still bitter about the Armistice and the defeat in the war -
also had no respect for the government as it had 'betrayed' them.
Royalists, who wanted the Kaiser back, had no respect for the
government as it had been the Social Democrats who had told the Kaiser
to abdicate. On top of this, the civilian population was still
suffering from the affects of the war. In many senses, Ebert was
isolated.........yet he was head of Weimar Germany's government. The
most obvious symbol of his weakness was the fact that his control over
Berlin - the nation's capital - was very weak, yet he lead the
government.
1918 to 1919 saw take place what has frequently been called the
"German Revolution". Attempts to overthrow that government came from
both the left and the right."
[edited]
"On January 6th, 1919, the German Communists started their take over
attempt. By this time, the government had found an unlikely ally in
the Free Corps. These right-wing nationalists hated communists more
than Ebert's Social Democrats and agreed to help Ebert put down the
revolt by the communists. By January 15th, the Free Corps had crushed
the communists and murdered Luxemburg and Liebknecht. In this sense,
there was no "German Revolution" in that the German Communists had
tried to overthrow the government but failed miserably."
=========
COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC
http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/germany/lectures/23weimar_collapse.html
=========
History of the German Revolution (1918-1923)
http://www.marxists.org/subject/germany-1918-23/chron.htm
Chronology
=========
German Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution
"The German Revolution describes a series of events that occurred in
1918-1919, culminating in the overthrow of the Kaiser and the
establishment of a democratic republic. Like the Russian February
Revolution, no single political party led the rebellion, and workers'
councils similar to the soviets seized power across the country.
However, the events continue to polarise the Left, not least because
of the use of the right-wing Freikorps paramilitaries by the
Social-Democratic government in order to suppress the far-left
Spartacist revolt.
Like the Russian Revolution, the German Revolution occurred in the
context of the disastrous consequences of World War One. The
confession of defeat in war by the Supreme Command under Erich
Ludendorff triggered a political crisis, leading to the assumption of
power by the liberal Prince Max von Baden. Although the main mass
workers' party, the Social-Democratic Party, participated in the
Government, this proved insufficient in preventing rebellion.
The uprising began in Kiel on 4 November 1918, when forty-thousand
sailors and marines took over the port in protest at a proposed
engagement with the British Navy by German Naval Command, despite the
fact it was clear that the war had been lost. By 8 November, Workers'
and Soldiers' Councils had seized most of Western Germany, laying the
foundations for the so-called Räterepublik ("Council Republic"). The
Kaiser was forced to abdicate on 9 November, catapulting the SPD into
power alongside their more radical counterparts, the Independent
Social Democratic Party (USPD).
However, the united front disintegrated in late December 1918 as the
USPD left the coalition in protest at perceived SPD compromises with
the (capitalist) status quo. Furthermore, a second revolutionary wave
swept Germany in January 1919, led by the communist revolutionary
Spartacist League. In response, the Social-Democratic leader,
Friedrich Ebert employed nationalist militia, the Freikorps, to
suppress the uprising. The two most famous victims of this
counter-revolutionary operation were the Spartacist leaders Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who were murdered on 15 January 1919.
By May 1919, the revolutionary Left were routed.
The German Revolution laid the foundations for the Weimar Republic, a
parliamentary democracy that was plagued by instability and
polarisation, and that was hit by a series of social crises which
ended with its destruction in 1933 at the hands of the Nazis under
Adolf Hitler."
=========
The German Revolution of 1918
http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/germany/lectures/18rev1918.html
"The revolution that occurred in Germany in 1918-1919 was not really a
revolution-at least not in the traditional sense of the French
Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917, or even the
German Revolution of 1848. Perhaps, by calling it the "German
Revolution," we imply that things are conceived and done differently
in Germany. Perhaps, that is true. Her political traditions were
somewhat different from those of France and Russia.
The conditions which gave birth to revolution in November 1918 were
unlike those of 1789 in France, and although somewhat similar to those
in Russia in 1917, they were still not quite the same. Neither in
France nor Russia did revolution come as a complete surprise even to
purported revolutionaries. But it did in Germany. There was no
sustained revolutionary agitation and strategy preceding it and when
it came even the Social Democrats were completely overwhelmed by
events."
=========
Much more information can be found at The Democratic Experiment, 1918-29:
http://www.kdhs.org.uk/history/as/as_unit2/weimarnotes.htm
=========
keyword search:
Weimar Republic + German Revolution
Weimar Germany revolution change
Best regards,
tlspiegel |
