History of germany

The Weimar republic: from1919

The six months between the armistice of 1918 and the peace of 1919 are turbulent ones in Germany, where those hoping for a democratic version of traditonal German society are confronted by revolutionaries intent on introducing socialism on the Russian pattern. The two sides both emerge from the Social Democratic party, originally Marxist but by the time of the war a powerful mainstream party believing in democratic change.

Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the Social Democrats, is the man chosen by Prince Max of Baden as his own successor after the deposition of the Kaiser. He thus becomes the first chancellor of the German republic. But a splinter group from within his own party has a radically different concept of the republic. 

This more radical group (calling themselves theSpartakusbund orSpartacus League, after the rebel leader of the gladiators), has split from the Social Democratic party in 1916. It is led by Karl Liebknecht and the Polish-born Rosa Luxemburg.

On 9 November 1918, the day on which Ebert becomes chancellor, Liebknecht proclaims in Berlin the birth of a German Socialist republic along Russian soviet lines. On January 1 the Spartacus League is transformed into the Communist party of Germany. Five days later a vast crowd gathers in Berlin, demanding revolution. Though urged by Rosa Luxembourg to proceed cautiously, they seize many of the public buildings in the capital. 
Confronted by the strong possibility of a successful communist revolution, as has happened in Russia not much more than a year earlier, Ebert deploys army units and right-wing volunteer militias armed with machine guns and artillery.

The result, after several days of violent street fighting, is the death of more than 1000 revolutionaries and the collapse of their uprising. On January 15 Liebknecht and Luxemburg are captured and summarily shot. Luxemburg's body is unceremoniously dumped in a canal in the centre of the capital city. Four days later elections are held for a new national assembly, to be entrusted with the task of devising a constitution for the young republic. 

The assembly meets in Weimar in February and elects Ebert as president of the republic. When the constitution is drawn up (to be promulgated in August 1919), extensive powers are given to the president as the chief executive of the state. 

He will derive strong personal authority through being elected for a seven-year term by universal suffrage. He will be commander of the armed forces, with the right to appoint and remove officers. He will make international alliances and treaties. He can suspend civil liberties and impose a state of emergency. He can reject any law passed by the national parliament (the Reichstag), submitting it instead to a referendum. And he has the power to dissolve theReichstag. 

But the Reichstag, with its members elected by universal suffrage, is itself for the first time given a proper democratic role. The chancellor will be the leader of the party or coalition which can command a majority. And although Germany retains a federal structure (with theGerman states, orLänder, reduced to seventeen in number), the Reichstag now at last has control over all areas of taxation.

So the hope is that a viable new democracy has emerged from Germany's defeat. But in these same months of 1919 that defeat is being harshly emphasized in the Paris peace talks.