Revolutions and revolts

• German attitudes at the start of the war

  • When the war first broke out, it had been very popular in Germany
  • Young, patriotic Germans thought the war would end quickly
• Germany at war

  • People in Germany soon started to suffer during the war, when the British used their large navy to stop supply ships getting to Germany
  • As a result, there were terrible shortages of food, medicines and clothing
  • As the war continued, people grew weary and tired of it
  • In 1915, 500 women gathered in front of the German parliament buildings and said that they wanted their men back from the trenches
  • A year later, 10,000 workers assembled in Berlin to shout, 'Down with war, down with the government!'
  • The police quickly moved in to make arrests and calm the situation
• Impact of war

  • By 1918, Germany was close to collapse
  • The German people were so short of food that they were surviving on turnips and bread, and a deadly flu epidemic was sweeping the country, killing thousands already weak from a poor diet
  • In October, General Ludendorff, a leading German army general and war hero, told German politicians that they could never win the war
  • He advised the Kaiser that the Allies might treat Germany more fairly if the country became more democratic - in other words, the Kaiser must share more of his power with the German parliament
  • The Kaiser reluctantly allowed the main political parties to form a new government and transferred some of his powers to the Reichstag
  • However, the changes came too late to satisfy the German people
  • More demonstrations were held against the war and some said the Kaiser should give up his throne, while others talked of overthrowing him in a revolution
• Mutiny and revolution

  • On 28 October 1918, the German navy was ordered out to sea from Kiel in northern Germany to attack British ships
  • Sailors on the ships refused to follow orders because they no longer wanted to fight
  • News of their mutiny began to spread
  • In ports nearby, other sailors refused to follow orders
  • Workers in the towns supported them
  • Soldiers, sent to deal with the protests, joined the sailors and workers
  • They took over towns there and set up special councils to run them
  • In just six days, workers' and soldiers' councils were governing cities all over Germany, such as Hamburg and Munich
  • The country was in chaos and there was little the Kaiser could do
  • He had lost control and his army generals refused to support him
  • On 9 November 1918, he abdicated and secretly left Germany, never to return
• The end of the war

  • Friedrich Ebert, the leader of Germany's largest political party (the Social Democratic Party), took the Kaiser's place as the leader of Germany, on a temporary basis
  • He promised to hold elections soon
  • If the German people wanted him as their leader, they would get the chance to vote for him if they wished
  • Meanwhile, he gave the people what they really wanted - an end to the war
  • On 11 November 1918, Germany surrendered: the First World War was over
• Impact of the war on Germany by 1918 - Germany was virtually bankrupt


  • German factories were exhausted by the war. They had been producing guns, bullets and shells, not goods to sell abroad and make money
  • The war left 600,000 war widows and two million children without fathers. War pensions would cost the government a fortune in the future
  • Germany had borrowed money from abroad, e.g. the USA, to pay for the war. This would need to be paid back
• Impact of the war on Germany by 1918 - The war had divided German society further


  • Some factory owners made a fortune during the war, while German workers had restrictions placed on their wages
  • Women worked in the factories during the war. Some Germans thought this damaged traditional family values
• Impact of the war on Germany by 1918 - Germany had become more politically unstable


  • Before the war, Germany had been a stable, rich nation. Now there was a mutiny and revolution
  • Many ex-soldiers and civilians felt Germany could have won the war. They felt they had been betrayed by the politicians (the 'November Criminals') who had ended it, and refused to support them
• Revolution in Germany

  • The Kaiser left Germany on 9 November 1918
  • He had taken the country into a war of which many Germans were now thoroughly weary
  • There were riots and rebellions all over Germany
  • Friedrich Ebert, the Social Democratic Party leader, temporarily became the leader of Germany
  • One of the first actions he took was to sign an armistice to end the First World War
  • Next, Ebert ordered improvements to working conditions, help for the unemployed, improved housing, and more food supplies
  • He guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and arranged elections for a new German parliament
  • Ebert declared that Germany would be a democratic republic from now on - there would be no Kaisers
  • Instead, the German people could choose their leaders by voting for them
  • Ebert appeared to be a leader who supported equality, and would allow German citizens to vote and have a voice in politics if they wished, but not everyone was pleased
• The Spartacists and the Free Corps

  • One of the political groups in Germany at this time was the Spartacus League
  • They believed in a new political idea called communism, and wanted Germany to be run by small councils of soldiers and workers, not by a large parliament
  • On 6 January 1919, the Spartacists tried to take over Berlin, Germany's capital
  • Thousands of them roamed the streets, firing guns and trying to take over important buildings
  • Ebert responded with a violent solution; he sent in a group of 2,000 tough ex-soldiers, known as the Free Corps, to attack the Spartacists
  • After three days of brutal street fighting, the Free Corps recaptured buildings and arrested Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the Spartacist leaders
  • After beating them savagely, the Free Corps murdered them; the Spartacus League's revolt was over
• Communism

  • The Spartacus League was a left-wing, communist political party in Germany
  • There was much fear of communism in many European countries
  • In 1917, Russia became the world's first communist country; communists took away land from landlords and gave it to peasants, put banks and factories under government control, and even murdered the Russian royal family
  • In Germany, many richer Germans feared that this would happen if the communists took over
• Free Corps

  • The Free Corps was a group of ex-soldiers who had recently come home from the First World War
  • They hated the Spartacists and communists in general because they blamed them for stirring up trouble in Germany near the end of the war
  • The Free Corps argued that this trouble was a major reason for uprisings in Germany, which the Free Corps ended with savage brutality