Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WWI & Revolution (Again)
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, on 28 June
1914 triggered a series of diplomatic decisions that led to WWI, the bloodiest European
conflict since the Thirty Years' War. In Berlin and elsewhere, initial euphoria and faith in a
quick victory soon gave way to despair as casualties piled up in the battlefield trenches and
stomachs grumbled on the home front. When peace came with defeat in 1918, it also ended
domestic stability, ushering in a period of turmoil and violence.
On 9 November 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated, bringing an inglorious end to the
monarchy and 500 years of Hohenzollern rule. Power was transferred to the SPD, the largest
party in the Reichstag, and its leader, Friedrich Ebert. Shortly after the Kaiser's exit, prom-
inent SPD member Philipp Scheidemann stepped to a window of the Reichstag to announce
the birth of the German Republic. Two hours later, Karl Liebknecht of the Spartakusbund
(Spartacist League) proclaimed a socialist republic from a balcony of the royal palace on
Unter den Linden. The struggle for power was on.
Founded by Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, the Spartacist League sought to establish a
left-wing, Marxist-style government; by year's end it had merged with other radical groups
into the German Communist Party. The SPD's goal, meanwhile, was to establish a parlia-
mentary democracy.
Supporters of the SPD and Spartacist League took their rivalry to the streets, culminating
in the Spartacist Revolt in early January 1919. On the orders of Ebert, government forces
quickly quashed the uprising. Liebknecht and Luxemburg were arrested and murdered en
route to prison by Freikorps soldiers (right-leaning war volunteers); their bodies were
dumped in the Landwehrkanal.
The Weimar Republic
In July 1919 the federalist constitution of the fledgling republic - Germany's first serious
experiment with democracy - was adopted in the town of Weimar, where the constituent as-
sembly had sought refuge from the chaos of Berlin. It gave women the vote and established
basic human rights, but it also gave the chancellor the right to rule by decree - a concession
that would later prove critical in Hitler's rise to power.
The so-called Weimar Republic (1920-33) was governed by a coalition of left and centre
parties, headed by Friedrich Ebert and later Paul von Hindenburg - both of the SPD, which
remained Germany's largest party until 1932. The republic, however, pleased neither com-
munists nor monarchists. Trouble erupted as early as March 1920 when right-wing militants
led by Wolfgang Kapp forcibly occupied the government quarter in Berlin. The government
fled to Dresden, but in Berlin a general strike soon brought the 'Kapp Putsch' to a collapse.
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