German Revolution of 1918–1919

The German Revolution of 1918–1919, also known as the November Revolution (German: Novemberrevolution), was an uprising started by workers and soldiers in the final days of World War I. It quickly and almost bloodlessly brought down the German Empire, then in its more violent second stage, the supporters of a parliamentary republic were victorious over those who wanted a soviet-style council republic. The defeat of the forces of the far left cleared the way for the establishment of the Weimar Republic.

The key factors leading to the revolution were the extreme burdens suffered by the German people during the war, the economic and psychological impacts of the Empire's defeat, and the social tensions between the general populace and the aristocratic and bourgeois elite.

The revolution began in early November 1918 with a sailors' mutiny centered at Kiel. Within a week, workers' and soldiers' councils were in control of government and military institutions across most of the Reich. On 9 November, Germany was declared a republic. By the end of the month, all of the ruling monarchs, including Emperor Wilhelm II, had been forced to abdicate.

On 10 November, the Council of the People's Deputies was formed by members of Germany's two main socialist parties. Under the de facto leadership of Friedrich Ebert of the moderate Majority Social Democratic Party (MSPD), the Council acted as a provisional government that held the powers of the emperor, chancellor and legislature. Most of the old imperial officer corps, administration and judiciary remained in place. The Council needed their expertise to resolve the crises of the moment and thought that handling them was more important than ousting many key government figures to ensure that the new democracy was firmly anchored against its opponents.

The Council of the People's Deputies' immediately removed some of the Empire's harsh restrictions, such as on freedom of expression, and promised an eight-hour workday and elections that would give women the right to vote for the first time. Those on the left wing of the revolution also wanted to nationalise key industries, democratise the military and set up a council republic, but the SPD had control of most of the workers' and soldiers' councils and blocked any substantial movement towards their goals.

The split in the socialist parties erupted into violence in the last days of 1918, sparked by a dispute over sailors' pay that left 67 dead. On 1 January 1919, the far-left Spartacists founded the Communist Party of Germany. A few days later, protests resulting from the violence at the end of December led to mass demonstrations in Berlin that quickly turned into the Spartacist uprising. It was quashed by government and Freikorps troops with the loss of 150 to 200 lives. In the aftermath of the uprising, the Spartacist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered extrajudicially by the Freikorps.

Into the spring, there were additional violently suppressed efforts to push the revolution further in the direction of a council republic, as well as short-lived local soviet republics, notably in Bavaria (Munich), Bremen and Würzburg. They too were put down with considerable loss of life.

The revolution's end date is generally set at 11 August 1919, the day the Weimar Constitution was adopted. The revolution, however, remained in many ways incomplete. A large number of its opponents had been left in positions of power, and it failed to resolve the fracture in the political Left between moderate socialists and communists. The Weimar Republic as a result was beset from the beginning by opponents from both the Left and – to a greater degree – the Right. The fractures in the German Left that had become permanent during the revolution made Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933 easier than it might have been if the Left had been more united.