Scheidemann went to a balcony of the Reichstag to proclaim a republic, in an attempt to marginalize the almost simultaneous proclamation of a socialist republic by Karl Liebknecht, speaking for more radical socialists assembled in front of the Hohenzollern palace towards the other end of Unter den Linden in central Berlin. It was clear that Ebert and the moderate Social Democrats would have to move fast to assert control over a situation of strikes, uprisings, mass demonstrations and the breakdown of governmental authority across a Germany that was, formally, still at war.
Rapid negotiations took place between the moderate Social Democrats and the USPD leaders, and a compromise caretaker government was agreed. This consisted of a six-member ‘Council of People’s Representatives’ (Rat der Volksbeauftragten), of whom three – Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg – were members of the SPD, and three – Haase, Dittmann and Barth – were members of the USPD. Even before this body had been constituted, Ebert had declared his priorities to the people of Germany. The new government was committed to organizing elections for a national constituent assembly, which would be elected by all men and women over twenty years of age. Until this elected body could take power, the temporary government would agree an armistice, lead peace negotiations, seek to ensure an adequate food supply for the people and oversee an orderly demobilization of troops and the return of former soldiers to civilian life and work. In the meantime, law and order were to be upheld and the people were to desist from plunder and violence and help to build a better future.
In the context of widespread strikes and demonstrations, the obstacles to a peaceful transition to a new order were formidable. The USPD did agree to cooperate with the SPD, despite their rather different general aims, and the new government – which was to last only a few weeks – was duly given popular legitimization, first by a meeting of council delegates in Berlin in November and then in December by a wider body of delegates from workers’ and soldiers’ councils from all over Germany. An armistice was achieved on 11 November, although it was not until the following summer that the terms of the peace treaty would be revealed.
In the first few days after the proclamation of the Republic, two very significant agreements were reached, which embodied compromises which would have a profound effect on the subsequent course of events. The first was between the new government and the army; the second between leaders of industry and the trade unions.
There were fears among members of the Army High Command, not only of the effects on the troops of the abdication of the Emperor, to whom they had traditionally owed obedience, but also of the possibility of a Soviet-style Bolshevik revolution in Germany. On 10 November General Groener (who had succeeded Ludendorff as Quarter-Master General) decided that the best approach would be to enter into a pact with Ebert, whom Groener, like Prince Max, considered to be the most sensible and moderate of the Social Democrats. Groener offered Ebert the support of the army in maintaining law and order and suppressing revolutionary uprisings; Ebert accepted. In this pact lay the seeds of many future problems. It illustrated the limited nature of the revolution – not only the army but also the other elites of Imperial Germany (including the civil service, the judiciary and the economic elites) were to remain untouched and unscathed by what remained a purely political, rather than a far-reaching social and economic, revolution. Perhaps more importantly, it also laid the foundations for the repeated repression of radical movements in the following months and years, inaugurating a split between moderate and radical socialists that was ultimately to contribute to their failure to unite in defence of Weimar democracy.
The other early compromise was that negotiated by the trade unionist Carl Legien and the employers’ leader Hugo Stinnes. With the ‘Stinnes– Legien agreement’ of 15 November 1918 the employers made certain crucial concessions to labour. These included recognition of the legitimacy of trade union representation of the workforce and agreement no longer to support ‘employer-friendly associations’; the smooth reincorporation, so far as possible, of former employees returning from war into their old jobs; the establishment of ‘Workers’ Committees’ (or Works Councils) in enterprises with more than fifty employees to ensure discussion between employers and employees over conditions of work; the limitation of the working day to 8 hours; and the institution of a ‘Central Committee’ (Zentralausschuss) made up of representatives of the unions and the employers to regulate not only the more immediate problems of demobilization and the reconstruction of a war-torn economy but also the longer-term issues of wages, working conditions and other contentious matters that might arise in labour affairs. This committee laid the foundations for the Zentral-Arbeits-Gemeinschaft (ZAG), which was to give Weimar democracy a corporatist element that later played a role in the economic elites’ utter rejection of the ‘system’ that allowed workers such a considerable voice. Concessions made by employers to workers, when the latter were relatively strong and the former feared a more radical revolution, were to be fundamentally queried and subject to sustained assault – as was the political system that guaranteed those concessions – when the relative circumstances of the parties had changed.
By December 1918 the USPD had fallen out with Ebert’s cautious course. The radical socialists had wanted to seize the opportunity for a thoroughgoing reform of the army and for the socialization of the means of production; in short, they wanted to effect a genuine revolution, not to administer affairs on a temporary basis pending national elections. The USPD left the government; and at the end of December the far Left formed the German Communist Party (KPD). In January 1919 the split between moderate Social Democrats on one hand and radical socialists and communists on the other became an unbridgeable chasm. A largely spontaneous uprising in Berlin, occasioned by the dismissal of the radical Police Chief Eichhorn, belatedly came under the control of the Spartacist leaders. The SPD overreacted to the demonstrations, requesting the support of the army and Free Corps (Freikorps) units (privately financed paramilitary groups of demobilized soldiers) to suppress the revolt by force. This they did with a vengeance. In the process of being arrested and imprisoned, the Spartacist leaders, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, were brutally murdered. Radicals never forgave moderate Social Democrats for their use of force – which was to be repeated all over Germany, many times, in response to unrest in the following months and years – and the bitter resentment and hostility aroused at this early date helped to sustain the Communists’ later (Moscow-dominated) view of Social Democrats as ‘social fascists’, a worse enemy even than the Nazis.
Street-fighting, strikes, demonstrations and barricades provided the backdrop for a national campaign for the elections of 19 January 1919. The SPD, which had been relying on this for a solid majority confirming its mandate to govern the new republic, was disappointed. It gained only 38% of the vote, which under the system of proportional representation entailed forming a coalition government in conjunction with the Catholic Centre Party (Zentrum) and the liberal German Democratic Party (DDP). On 6 February 1919 the National Constituent Assembly convened in the town of Weimar (hence the name ‘Weimar Republic’), because Berlin was deemed too dangerous. Within a week Ebert had been elected the Republic’s first President, while Scheidemann became head of the coalition cabinet.
The Weimar Constitution and the Treaty of Versailles
During December 1918 a group of experts under the leadership of Hugo Preuss, a left-liberal professor of law, started to develop a draft constitution for the Republic. This draft constitution was considered by the National Assembly, and an agreed version took effect on 11 August 1919. It appeared – and indeed was – very progressive but has subsequently come under much criticism for alleged weaknesses which facilitated the subsequent collapse of democracy.
The electoral system was to be one of proportional representation of parties in the national Parliament according to the percentage of votes cast by all men and women over the age of 20. In the event, the nature of the party system in the Weimar Republic, and what might be called the ‘political culture’ of a number of Weimar parties, rendered post-election bargaining over possible governmental coalitions much more difficult than it has proved to be in other democracies where proportional representation prevails. As we shall see, it was not so much the rules of the game as the
