The Creation of the German Empire
The Collapse of The Western Front (August-November, 1918)
The German Revolution Begins (October-November 1918)
Armistice Day
“The Stab In The Back”
A couple of months back, a friend of mine recently that he was worried that a Trump victory could lead to a fascist government in the US. I have seen similar fears expressed in various places, including here. In essence, because Trump’s personality and his campaigning style superficially resembles Hitler’s, his election would have disastrous results for American democracy.
I believe that a review of the history of Germany from 1918 through 1933 strongly suggests that that what happened there, in my opinion, wouldn’t happen here. This period does have quite a few similarities to recent history of the USA, but it also has very significant differences. So, what did happen there? How did a parliamentary democracy become a murderous dictatorship in less than 14 years? How does Weimar Germany resemble current America? How does it differ?
Before you start, I need to warn you that there is a lot of history ahead, but I feel it is necessary for trying to answer this question. It will be presented in eight sections, each around 2500 words, for ease of digestion. If history really isn’t your thing, you might consider skipping these diaries.
The Creation of the German Empire
Up until 1871 there was no such place as “Germany.” There was a loose association called the German Confederation which consisted of some 39 separate German-speaking states and free cities. The largest of these by far was Prussia, followed by Austria . The German Confederation was created in 1815 after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It was never intended to be a unified German state. No one, not even most Germans, wanted that. Yet. It was instead an effort to coordinate the economies of the 39 states, which remained independent.
In 1862, King Wilhelm I of Prussia appointed Otto von Bismarck to the office of Minister President of Prussia. Bismarck, known during his lifetime and since as the “Iron Chancellor,” was perhaps the most influential German before 1933. Bismarck strongly advocated the idea of consolidating the independent states and cities – excluding Austria, which he considered a potential adversary – into a single country under Prussian hegemony. Between 1862 and 1871, Prussia and a few other German states fought and decisively won three short wars which effectively resulted in this consolidation.
o The Second Schleswig War of 1864. There were two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, under Danish control which had large German populations. Prussia and Austria in alliance invaded and fought a short war with Denmark. The treaty which ended the war ceded control of Schleswig and Holstein jointly to Prussia and Austria.
o The Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Bismarck wanted to take complete control of Scheswig-Holstein (which was up to now shared with the Austria.) He also wanted to shift the balance of power in the German Confederation from Austria to Prussia. A short war resulted in a Prussian rout of Austria. Prussia and the other German states in the north, including Schleswig-Holstein, formed the North German Federation (About 90% of the total area was Prussia.) Four states in the south, including Bavaria, which were nearer to Vienna than Berlin, and which were wary of Prussia, did not join Bismarck’s confederation. Austria ceased to be an important player in European affairs.
o The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Bismarck now had two goals. First, he wanted to increase pressure on the four hold-out states to join his confederation. These states were near France – Baden, the westernmost, bordered it. Second, he also wanted to annex portions of two French departments on the west bank (the French side) of the Rhine River, Alsace and Lorraine. These departments had significant German-speaking populations which considered themselves more German than French. They also had very large coal deposits. France had a strategic interest in maintaining the Rhine, a large river which was hard to cross, as its natural border with Germany. France was very aware of the Bismarck’s ongoing program of German unification, and that Alsace and Lorraine were natural targets.
France had a large veteran army of its own. It was widely considered by many in Europe, including many in the North German Federation, to be the best army in Europe, and that any war with Prussia would begin with a strong French invasion. France began preparing for war with Prussia.
On July 16, 1870, France, goaded by Prussian arrogance, declared war. Prussia, which had been anticipating this, mobilized its troops very rapidly and invaded northeastern France. By September, Prussia won several battles, including Sedan, during which it decisively defeated the Army of the Second Empire, and captured French Emperor Louis Napoleon. With the capture of Louis Napoleon, his Second Empire fell. A new government, the Third Republic, was formed on September 4. Two weeks later the Prussians began a siege and artillery bombardment of Paris, which fell in January, 1871. This ended hostilities.
The immediate result of the war was that German unification was completed. The four holdout states agreed to join Bismarck’s confederation. The new Deutsches Reich (“German Empire”) was proclaimed. King Wilhelm I of Prussia became Kaiser Wilhelm I. (“Kaiser” means ‘Emperor’ in German.) In May, the treaty that ended the war gave the portions of Alsace (most) and Lorraine (part) to Germany. After unification, Germany was the largest and most powerful country (both militarily and economically) in Europe. An ominous hint of the future was that another name for the Kaiser’s Empire was the Second Reich.
The French were enraged by their humiliating defeat and the loss of their territory. Young men who served in the French army during the war, or who grew up during that period, never forgot this humiliation These men would become the leaders of the French government and the army during and after WWI. When that war ended, the French would push much harder than any of its allies for the most punitive terms it could get.
Prussia was far and away the biggest part of the German Empire. They had a exceptionally strong militaristic tradition. By the end of Frederick the Great's reign, in 1786, the army had become an integral part of Prussian society and numbered 200,000 soldiers. The social classes were all expected to serve the state and its army — the nobility led the army, the middle class supplied the army, and the peasants composed the army. A Prussian government minister, Friedrich von Schrötter, quipped during Frederick’s reign that, "Prussia was not a country with an army, but an army with a country". After unification, they got their country.
By the 1890s, under Kaiser Wilhelm II, the country’s militarism sharply expanded. The army was three times larger than it had been at the time of the Franco-Prussian War. They had the newest and most powerful arms, courtesy of Krupp. Many civilian employees of the government had to wear military-style uniforms and were often given military ranks. It was said that women were expected to step off the sidewalk when encountering an officer going the other way. Despite the defeat of the German army in WWI, these traditions, generations old, formed the core of Germany’s societal ethos. As we shall see, democracy during the Weimar years did not change this at all.
The Collapse of The Western Front (August-November, 1918)
By August 1918, after over four years of grinding trench warfare, the German army was exhausted and unable to continue the war effectively. Germany had no more reserves to bring up to the front to replace their increasing losses. In August, the allies began what they called the “Hundred Days Offensive” which was meant to force the war to an end. German troops at the front knew it was over without being told. During the last few months of the war, a substantial number of soldiers deserted the combat areas and presumably went home. No one knows for sure how many, but estimates run around 500,000. Those still engaged in combat began falling back from their lines in northwestern France toward the German border. General Erich Ludendorff, the German commander in the west, began warning the government that defeat was inevitable.
The Kaiser’s government did not tell the public until October 5 that the war was lost. This didn’t matter. During the summer of 1918 an increasing number of German civilians realized this on their own. Soldiers returning home described what was really going on. Active opposition to the war was illegal, but it began anyway. Opposition came from the political left, primarily represented by the two Social Democratic parties. The larger, more centrist Socialist Party of Germany (SPD) wanted to replace the Empire with a federation of states under a parliamentary government. The states would partially govern their own affairs and would maintain the existing aristocracy. The more left-wing Independent Socialist Party of Germany (USPD) had more Marxist views. It wanted to abolish the aristocracy altogether and create a soviet-style command economy. Both parties agreed that the war had to end. The conservatives included monarchists, the middle class, and the military. They continued to support both the Empire and the war. And they loathed the socialists, which had been the case since the SPD had been formed in the 1860s.
Unrest and violent clashes between members of these groups increased during the summer and fall. The pressure on the government to quit the war increased. On October 3, the Kaiser appointed Prince Maximilian (known as Max) of Baden (a German state near the French border) to be Chancellor. The following day, a request for armistice was transmitted to the allies, specifically President Wilson of the USA. Germany hoped Wilson’s Fourteen Points would be the basis for the peace treaty that would end the war.
President Wilson did not agree with the proposed armistice right away. He was skeptical about dealing with a government headed by a member of the aristocracy, Max of Baden, who had previously written about his opposition to parliamentary government. Wilson sent three notes to Germany expressing his doubts. The last one, on October 23, prompted General Ludendorff to decide that he wanted his troops to fight on. Against explicit orders, he traveled to from Spa (a city in Belgium which served as Ludendorff wartime headquarters) to Berlin to press his case. At Max’s request, Kaiser Wilhelm II asked for and received Ludendorff’s resignation. A few days later, Wilhelm fled Berlin and went to Spa himself.
During his brief tenure as Chancellor, Max ordered all political prisoners freed. Two of these were Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, founders of the far-left revolutionary Spartacus League. Both of them had been in prison since 1916 due to their political activities. As soon as they were free, they picked up where they left off. This would have repercussions in the immediate future.
In late October, a new Imperial constitution was was written, which, if it had been adopted, would have created a true parliamentary system. It would have retained the Kaiser as head of state, but real governmental power would reside in the Reichstag (the legislature.). It was never adopted. However, Wilson's third note of October 23 implied that any negotiations for an armistice would require the abdication of Wilhelm II. As October progressed, Max and the government began to fear that a complete military collapse on the front and a socialist revolution at home were becoming more likely with every day that went by. The revolt came within days.
The German Revolution Begins (October-November 1918)
On October 28 sailors on several ships mutinied at Wilhelmshafen. On November 3, sailors, soldiers, and workers began a full-scale revolt at the Kiel shipyards on the Baltic Sea. The revolutionaries established a “workers and soldiers council” (Arbeiter- und Soldatenrat) which was in effect, a soviet, which took control of the facility. The next day, representatives were sent to other military installations to get them to join the revolution and establish their own councils.
Gustav Noske, a SPD official who specialized in military issues, went to Kiel and persuaded the strikers to return to their barracks by assuring them that the SPD would represent their views in the new parliamentary government. The rebels at Kiel trusted Noske and did as he asked, but this did stop the revolts popping up elsewhere in Germany. By November 7, the revolution had spread to most major cities in Germany. The speed with which the “council movement” spread, and the fact that it nearly spontaneously assumed the same form everywhere, demonstrated that the military and civil structures of the monarchy had lost their legitimacy.
In Munich (capital of Bavaria) on November 7, the first so-called Council Republic (“Räterepublic”) was set up. Ludwig III, the last King of Bavaria, abdicated. He was the first. The Kingdom of Bavaria became the Bavarian Soviet Republic. In the following days, the royal rulers of all the other German states abdicated and their governments replaced by similar Council Republics, the last one on November 23.
Also on November 7, Maximilian met with SPD leader Friedrich Ebert. He persuaded Ebert to go to Spa and meet with Wilhelm and try to convince him to abdicate. Ebert readily agreed to do this. He felt that to keep the socialist uprising under control the Emperor must resign and a completely new government formed. Meanwhile, masses of protesters were gathering in Berlin.
November 9 was a very eventful day. At noon Max unilaterally announced the Kaiser’s abdication (he hadn’t actually done so) and the Crown Prince’s renunciation of the throne. Immediately after this, Ebert went to Max’s office and demanded that control of government be handed over to him and the SPD as the only way to maintain law and order. Max resigned as Chancellor and appointed Ebert as his successor. This was entirely unconstitutional. Later that day, Philipp Scheidemann, also of the SPD, appeared on a balcony of the Reichstag and declared the formation of the new German republic to the crowds. Later still, Karl Liebknecht declared from yet another balcony, this one on the Kaiser’s Palace, that Germany was now a “Free Socialist Republic” The Kaiser continued fleeing and ended up in the Netherlands, which had been neutral in the war, where he would live in exile for the rest of his life.
In August, 1919, Ebert’s government would take the form of a democratic federal republic, governed by a parliament and a president, which was what the SPD had been advocating all along. This government would be known informally as the Weimar Republic because it was set up in Weimar, but officially the name would continue to be Deutsches Reich.
Although Maximilian’s tenure as Chancellor was very brief and controlled by events beyond his reach, he played a vital role in the transition from the monarchy of Kaiser Wilhelm to the republic of Friedrich Ebert. This made Ebert’s republic somewhat more palatable to the more conservative forces in the bureaucracy and military. As much as they disliked the SPD, they agreed that the only alternative to Ebert was successful revolution by forces on the extreme left.
Armistice Day
The fighting stopped at 11:00 AM on November 11. The terms of the armistice called for an immediate evacuation of German troops from occupied Belgium, France, and Luxembourg to Germany within fifteen days. Additionally, allied forces would occupy German territory for the first time since the Napoleonic wars. They would occupy most of the Rhineland (the part of Prussia nearest France and Belgium.)
Germany had suffered staggering losses during the WW1. Over the course of the war, Germany had about 11 million under arms, about a third of Germany’s male population. Of these, nearly 2 million men were killed, mostly young men. There were also about 5 million men wounded. One of the wounded was Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler, who had been blinded during a mustard gas attack in October. He spent several months in a military hospital before regaining his eyesight.
On Armistice Day, there were still about 4 million German under arms. Most of these troops were demobilized immediately. Unemployment peaked for about a year. There was a degree of privation throughout Germany, but by the end of 1919 employment levels returned to normal. The war in the west had been fought entirely in France and Belgium. It had not affected German infrastructure, farms, or industrial plants.
The demobilized soldiers were able to find jobs, but after more than four years of warfare, many were unable to shed their militaristic outlook and settle comfortably into civilian life. Some veterans missed the order and regimentation of military life and the idea of protecting Germany. Others were angry about the German army’s sudden collapse and the leftist government that had replaced the Empire that had always been part of their lives. Some just wanted revenge for “the stab in the back.” Many of these soldiers were funneled into the so-called “Freikorps.” These were paramilitary units which were under the loose control of the Army or the Navy. (More on the Freikorps later. They would be very influential for the next couple of years.)
The “Stab In The Back”
Very soon after the armistice, the German right wing began expounding the myth of the “stab in the back.” (In German, “Dolchstosslegende.” The concept of being stabbed in the back was emotionally very significant to the German psyche. It implied treachery of the highest degree from a trusted entity.) The Dolchstosslegende was the notion that the German army in the west had still been strong and able to fight, that it was “unconquered.” The army had been betrayed by civilians at home, specifically Jews, leftists, and Ebert’s new republic. The nationalists on the far-right began referring to them as the “November criminals.”
General Ludendorff was an early and very strong proponent of the Dolchstosslegende, perhaps even the originator of it. He clearly knew he was lying. However, he was a war hero who was deeply admired by most Germans. His views were believed, particularly on the right. Six years later, Hitler wrote in “Mein Kampf” that he had come to the same conclusions on his own while hospitalized.
Wretched and miserable criminals!... What was all the pain in my eyes now, compared with this misery? What now followed were terrible days and even worse nights... In the days that followed I became aware of my own destiny... My own fate became known to me. I resolved to go into politics,
According to historian William Manchester in his fascinating book, The Arms Of Krupp, what happened in Germany over the next fourteen years…
makes no sense unless one massive fact is grasped: the Germans’ war did not end on Armistice Day. (My emphasis)
[snip]
A frightening new phenomenon – Hans Koln called it “the sudden brutalization of politics – had emerged. During one two-year period beginning in 1919 political assassins (Femen) committed at least 354 murders. The shadow of primitive terror appeared variously in every corner of the fledgling Teuton republic, and for a quarter century its dark menace would be just a scream away.
[snip]
... the swastika of 1933 did not bring the hobgoblins of fear. They were present in strength from the moment firing stopped on the western front.