The German revolution of 1918-1919 was caused by a combination of factors: the extreme hardships suffered by German civilians during the war, the economic and psychological shock of military defeat, and deep social tensions between the general population and the aristocratic and bourgeois elite. The immediate trigger was a sailors' mutiny in late October 1918 at the North Sea ports of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, after naval commanders planned an unauthorised final battle against the British Royal Navy.
Who were the key leaders of the German revolution of 1918-1919?
The central figure was Friedrich Ebert of the Majority Social Democratic Party, who led the provisional Council of the People's Deputies and became Germany's first president. Hugo Haase led the Independent Social Democrats (USPD). Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht led the Spartacists, who founded the Communist Party of Germany on the 1st of January 1919. Gustav Noske of the SPD organised the Freikorps suppression of the radical left uprisings.
How did the German revolution of 1918-1919 end?
The revolution's official end date is the 11th of August 1919, when the Weimar Constitution was adopted. The first stage ended quickly and almost bloodlessly with the collapse of the monarchy in November 1918. The second stage was violent: the Spartacist uprising in January 1919 was suppressed with an estimated 156 deaths, subsequent revolts in Berlin's March Battles killed at least 1,200, and short-lived soviet republics in Bremen and Bavaria were overthrown with roughly 80 and 600 deaths respectively.
What happened to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht after the Spartacist uprising?
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were found hiding in an apartment in the Wilmersdorf district of Berlin on the evening of the 15th of January 1919. They were handed to the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division, whose staff officer Captain Waldemar Pabst had them interrogated. Both were clubbed with rifle butts and shot in the head that same night. Liebknecht's body was taken to a morgue without identification; Luxemburg's body was thrown into Berlin's Landwehr Canal and not found until the 1st of July. Most of the perpetrators were never punished.
What was the Ebert-Groener pact and why did it matter?
The Ebert-Groener pact was a secret phone agreement made on the evening of the 9th of November 1918 between Friedrich Ebert and General Wilhelm Groener, the new First Quartermaster General. Ebert promised that the military's command structures and hierarchies would remain unchanged; Groener promised the army's support for the new government. The pact left the authoritarian imperial officer corps in place and blocked any democratisation of the military, undermining the revolution's more radical aims from the start.
How did the German revolution of 1918-1919 contribute to Hitler's rise to power?
The revolution left the Weimar Republic beset by opponents on both sides. The stab-in-the-back myth, born when General Ludendorff told his officers on the 1st of October 1918 that republican politicians should "eat the soup they have served up to us", blamed socialists and Jews for Germany's defeat and was used to delegitimise the republic. The permanent split between Social Democrats and Communists, which hardened during the revolution, prevented a united left-wing response to the Nazi Party. Hitler deliberately chose the 9th of November, anniversary of the republic's proclamation, for the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, and was released from prison in under a year after his arrest.