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Allemagne, 1918: une révolution trahie
Haffners Klassiker als Neuausgabe zum 100. Jahrestag des 9. November 1918
Über kaum einen historischen Vorgang neuerer Zeit herrscht so viel Unklarheit und Dissens wie über die deutsche Revolution von 1918/19. Hat die sozialdemokratische Führung, die am 9. November 1918 die Regierung übernahm, die Revolution gemacht oder niedergeschlagen? Hat sie Deutschland vor dem Bolschewismus gerettet oder der Reaktion zum Sieg verholfen? Ist sie ein Ruhmesblatt oder ein Schandfleck der deutschen Geschichte?
Sebastian Haffner, für seine präzisen, scharfsinnigen Analysen und Kommentare zum Zeitgeschehen bekannt, rekonstruiert hier die Ereignisse vom November 1918 bis zum März 1920 und räumt mit alten Legenden mit der Leugnung des Faktums, dass überhaupt eine Revolution stattgefunden hat, mit der Behauptung, dass die Revolution eine bolschewistische gewesen sei, und schließlich mit der berühmten, bis in unsere Tage überlieferten Dolchstoßlegende.
«Deutschland krankt an der verratenen Revolution von 1918 noch heute», schrieb Haffner in seinem 1969 erstmals erschienenen Buch. Gilt das für das Deutschland des Jahres 2018 noch immer?
Über kaum einen historischen Vorgang neuerer Zeit herrscht so viel Unklarheit und Dissens wie über die deutsche Revolution von 1918/19. Hat die sozialdemokratische Führung, die am 9. November 1918 die Regierung übernahm, die Revolution gemacht oder niedergeschlagen? Hat sie Deutschland vor dem Bolschewismus gerettet oder der Reaktion zum Sieg verholfen? Ist sie ein Ruhmesblatt oder ein Schandfleck der deutschen Geschichte?
Sebastian Haffner, für seine präzisen, scharfsinnigen Analysen und Kommentare zum Zeitgeschehen bekannt, rekonstruiert hier die Ereignisse vom November 1918 bis zum März 1920 und räumt mit alten Legenden mit der Leugnung des Faktums, dass überhaupt eine Revolution stattgefunden hat, mit der Behauptung, dass die Revolution eine bolschewistische gewesen sei, und schließlich mit der berühmten, bis in unsere Tage überlieferten Dolchstoßlegende.
«Deutschland krankt an der verratenen Revolution von 1918 noch heute», schrieb Haffner in seinem 1969 erstmals erschienenen Buch. Gilt das für das Deutschland des Jahres 2018 noch immer?
223 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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About the author
Sebastian Haffner
37 books172 followersSebastian Haffner (the pseudonym for Raimund Pretzel) was a German journalist and author whose focus was the history of the German Reich (1871-1945). His books dealt with the origins and course of the First World War, the failure of the Weimar Republic and the subsequent rise and fall of Nazi Germany under Hitler.
In 1938 he emigrated from Nazi Germany with his Jewish fiancée to London, hardly able to speak English but becoming rapidly proficient in the language. He adopted the pseudonym Sebastian Haffner so that his family back in Germany would not be endangered by his writing.
Haffner wrote for the London Sunday newspaper, The Observer, and then became its editor-in-chief. In 1954, he became its German correspondent in Berlin, a position which he kept until the building of the Berlin Wall.
He wrote for the German newspaper, Die Welt, until 1962, and then until 1975 was a columnist for the Stern magazine. Haffner was a frequent guest on the television show Internationaler Frühschoppen and had his own television program on the German channel, Sender Freies Berlin.
In 1938 he emigrated from Nazi Germany with his Jewish fiancée to London, hardly able to speak English but becoming rapidly proficient in the language. He adopted the pseudonym Sebastian Haffner so that his family back in Germany would not be endangered by his writing.
Haffner wrote for the London Sunday newspaper, The Observer, and then became its editor-in-chief. In 1954, he became its German correspondent in Berlin, a position which he kept until the building of the Berlin Wall.
He wrote for the German newspaper, Die Welt, until 1962, and then until 1975 was a columnist for the Stern magazine. Haffner was a frequent guest on the television show Internationaler Frühschoppen and had his own television program on the German channel, Sender Freies Berlin.
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July 24, 2020
In my opinion, there have been two mostly overlooked “what if” (always a useless premise, I know) episodes in German history that might have averted the two greatest catastrophes of the 20th Century. The first was the 99 day reign of Friedrich III, the father of Wilhelm II, who died of throat cancer. Friedrich, an Anglophile proponent of constitutional monarchy, would never have gone down the imperialist path that led to World War I. The second is the failed German revolution of 1918/19 which sowed the seeds of Weimar’s failure and the rise of Nazism. I’m more convinced of the tragedy of the latter after reading Haffner’s account. He succinctly reconstructs a chronological narrative that is filled with convincing analysis and devoid of exaggeration.
September 29, 1918 is not a date much remembered in history, but as Haffner writes, it was a May 8, 1945 (German capitulation) and a January 30, 1933 (Hitler taking power) all rolled in one. It was the day that the de facto leader of Germany, General Ludendorff, set into motion the surrender of the German military in WWI and the transformation of the German state from a monarchy to a parliamentary system. His goals were to save and keep the army together and prepare to shift the blame of defeat to the Social Democrats and the soon-to-be constituted parliament. This laid the foundation for the mythical “stab in the back” theory that crippled the later Weimar government before it even came into existence. (I wonder if the critics who are trying to shift the blame to President Obama for adhering to a Bush-era agreement to pull out troops out of Iraq were students of this history.)
Haffner credibly builds a thesis that Social Democrats, led by Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Noske, were their own worst enemies and completely complicit in the events that eventually led to the consolidation of power of the reactionary, counter-revolutionary forces that later emerged to cripple and eventually end the Weimar Republic. The tragedy was that the majority of the population were arguably supportive of a peaceful revolution that would get Germany out of the war, bring an end to the monarchy and its foundation of inherited and class privilege, and create a democratic meritocracy led by workers and farmers.
Up to and through November 9, 1918, they were willing to defend the Social Democrats even as the party leaders worked behind the scenes with counter-revolutionary forces. Order and power were more important to the leadership than the fundamental reform that was initially led by marines who revolted against continued war in Kiel. Haffner provides a number of examples of how hundreds of thousands of demonstrators peacefully joined with military regiments throughout Germany, especially in Berlin, to support a new social and political order. But they had no leaders. The leaders they were counting on were in back rooms with reactionary military leaders who were plotting a very different outcome.
Even the far left, embodied in Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, had little, if any, influence on the transpiring events. Their brutal murders by far-right military militia created a martyrdom that was exploited by later East German regimes as a communist revolution—something it most certainly was not. But they were murdered not for what they had done but rather because of fear of the leadership they might provide. And with the exception of the tragic, short-lived success of Kurt Eisner in Munich, the masses that demonstrated for fundamental reform would remain leaderless and never find a cohesive, constructive voice until their fears were exploited by the fascist right.
Ebert, Noske, and other Social Democrats enabled this movement by appeasing counter-revolutionary military leaders who despised and hated them. They also pushed through new governing entities of ruling councils (or committees) that mirrored the mechanisms of the Kaiser’s reign, just without the Kaiser. The majority of Germans were thirsting for an egalitarian checks-and-balances system, but what they got was more of the same with different window dressing.
The final nail in this sordid tale is the wrongly named Kapp Putsch, which was a military revolt led by the Ehrhardt Brigade to violently protest the provision of the Versailles Treaty to drastically reduce the German military. They marched on Berlin and were given the order to “break any resistance” to their attack. The defending military regiments had no intention defending the government. As Haffner writes, “One part of the army was committed to violently topple the regime; the other not to defend it.” (Der eine Teil der Reichswehr war entschlossen, die Regierung gewaltsam zu stürzen; der andere, sie nicht zu verteidigen.)
The Putsch was eventually defeated by a nationwide general strike that last from March 14-21, 1920. It mirrored the events of November 9 in that it was “not socialist, but democratic and anti-militaristic.” And although the Social Democratic regime was ultimately saved, it was crippled and didn’t respond assertively on behalf of the people who supported it. Although innocent in the false “stab in the back” theory of WWI, Ebert and Noske did stab the revolution that supported social democratic goals in the back. And the hate between Communists and Social Democrats that was born out of this era certainly had something to do with the post WWII split of Germany and still hinders coalitions between the two today.
While I’ve never commented on other’s readers comments before, there was one on this book that irked me to no end. The idea that Haffner was “Too biased in favour of the communist violent seizure of power” is just absurd. Not sure what that reviewer was reading. It certainly is not a conclusion one would have after a fair reading of this book. Violence was consistent and unrelenting on the right. It was lawless, vicious and cynical. Whatever “violence” came from the left was overwhelmingly in defense of the government that, unknown to its supporters, was consistently working behind the scenes to betray the revolution. The revolution was mostly peaceful from the left and in no way communist. The counter-revolution, however, was brutally violent and sowed the seeds for fascist dominance. This is how history should be written.
September 29, 1918 is not a date much remembered in history, but as Haffner writes, it was a May 8, 1945 (German capitulation) and a January 30, 1933 (Hitler taking power) all rolled in one. It was the day that the de facto leader of Germany, General Ludendorff, set into motion the surrender of the German military in WWI and the transformation of the German state from a monarchy to a parliamentary system. His goals were to save and keep the army together and prepare to shift the blame of defeat to the Social Democrats and the soon-to-be constituted parliament. This laid the foundation for the mythical “stab in the back” theory that crippled the later Weimar government before it even came into existence. (I wonder if the critics who are trying to shift the blame to President Obama for adhering to a Bush-era agreement to pull out troops out of Iraq were students of this history.)
Haffner credibly builds a thesis that Social Democrats, led by Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Noske, were their own worst enemies and completely complicit in the events that eventually led to the consolidation of power of the reactionary, counter-revolutionary forces that later emerged to cripple and eventually end the Weimar Republic. The tragedy was that the majority of the population were arguably supportive of a peaceful revolution that would get Germany out of the war, bring an end to the monarchy and its foundation of inherited and class privilege, and create a democratic meritocracy led by workers and farmers.
Up to and through November 9, 1918, they were willing to defend the Social Democrats even as the party leaders worked behind the scenes with counter-revolutionary forces. Order and power were more important to the leadership than the fundamental reform that was initially led by marines who revolted against continued war in Kiel. Haffner provides a number of examples of how hundreds of thousands of demonstrators peacefully joined with military regiments throughout Germany, especially in Berlin, to support a new social and political order. But they had no leaders. The leaders they were counting on were in back rooms with reactionary military leaders who were plotting a very different outcome.
Even the far left, embodied in Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, had little, if any, influence on the transpiring events. Their brutal murders by far-right military militia created a martyrdom that was exploited by later East German regimes as a communist revolution—something it most certainly was not. But they were murdered not for what they had done but rather because of fear of the leadership they might provide. And with the exception of the tragic, short-lived success of Kurt Eisner in Munich, the masses that demonstrated for fundamental reform would remain leaderless and never find a cohesive, constructive voice until their fears were exploited by the fascist right.
Ebert, Noske, and other Social Democrats enabled this movement by appeasing counter-revolutionary military leaders who despised and hated them. They also pushed through new governing entities of ruling councils (or committees) that mirrored the mechanisms of the Kaiser’s reign, just without the Kaiser. The majority of Germans were thirsting for an egalitarian checks-and-balances system, but what they got was more of the same with different window dressing.
The final nail in this sordid tale is the wrongly named Kapp Putsch, which was a military revolt led by the Ehrhardt Brigade to violently protest the provision of the Versailles Treaty to drastically reduce the German military. They marched on Berlin and were given the order to “break any resistance” to their attack. The defending military regiments had no intention defending the government. As Haffner writes, “One part of the army was committed to violently topple the regime; the other not to defend it.” (Der eine Teil der Reichswehr war entschlossen, die Regierung gewaltsam zu stürzen; der andere, sie nicht zu verteidigen.)
The Putsch was eventually defeated by a nationwide general strike that last from March 14-21, 1920. It mirrored the events of November 9 in that it was “not socialist, but democratic and anti-militaristic.” And although the Social Democratic regime was ultimately saved, it was crippled and didn’t respond assertively on behalf of the people who supported it. Although innocent in the false “stab in the back” theory of WWI, Ebert and Noske did stab the revolution that supported social democratic goals in the back. And the hate between Communists and Social Democrats that was born out of this era certainly had something to do with the post WWII split of Germany and still hinders coalitions between the two today.
While I’ve never commented on other’s readers comments before, there was one on this book that irked me to no end. The idea that Haffner was “Too biased in favour of the communist violent seizure of power” is just absurd. Not sure what that reviewer was reading. It certainly is not a conclusion one would have after a fair reading of this book. Violence was consistent and unrelenting on the right. It was lawless, vicious and cynical. Whatever “violence” came from the left was overwhelmingly in defense of the government that, unknown to its supporters, was consistently working behind the scenes to betray the revolution. The revolution was mostly peaceful from the left and in no way communist. The counter-revolution, however, was brutally violent and sowed the seeds for fascist dominance. This is how history should be written.
September 23, 2025
“History readily buries in silence what all participants remember with shame”
I truly cannot recall the last time I devoured a book with more voracity and enthusiasm. This is my first serious dive into the history of the German Revolution, and I was struck by how well Haffner captures the genuinely tragicomic unfolding of events, defined just as much by the deliciously ironic concatenation of petty betrayals and utter pandemonium as the ultimately miserable catastrophes for which they were responsible. I came away racked with a strange blend of palpable despair and sardonic enjoyment, relishing in the riveting and unpredictable course of events but simultaneously dejected by the recognition of just how much was needlessly lost in the process. Perhaps Haffner himself puts it best when, in reference to Ebert’s fate, he muses that:
“It is difficult to suppress a certain satisfaction at the aesthetic perfection of this complicated symmetry. It is as if at the climax of a symphonic composition all themes meet – and disclose their common root”
Amidst a captivating discussion of exactly how Germany surrendered, Haffner gives us an absolutely brilliant portrait of the man responsible for how it transpired. Whilst Erich Ludendorff certainly wielded serious influence, that he was able to almost single handedly execute Germany’s exit from the war by designing a “revolution from above” to fundamentally reconfigure the structure of the state is absolutely astonishing. In one fell swoop, Ludendorff had rescued the military from humiliation by entirely shifting responsibility for defeat onto the newly formed Reichstag government, who naturally accepted their tainted promotion with shock and glee: “an irresistible bait!”
Counterintuitively then, it was therefore in support of this new government that the revolution was largely practiced, defending its retreat from the war against bellicose military and monarchist elements who would have preferred to snatch defeat from the jaws of surrender. The tragicomedy of the German Revolution here yields its first irony in its very inception: in a strange reversal, the counter-revolution preceded the revolution. The former was initially a limited Naval Officer mutiny against the pacifying dictates of the “revolution from above”, whereas the latter only spontaneously arose in resistance to these attempts.
This spontaneity of the masses defines the febrile character of the German Revolution perhaps more than any other. Leaderless, party-less, without a unified ideological or political program, harmonised only in their opposition to war and support for the new government, the initial spur of revolutionary energy tore through the nation like a wildfire, effortlessly and bloodlessly uprooting both military and civil authority with soldier and worker councils. One can only imagine the astonished ecstasy of those initial days.
This extraordinary atmosphere would prove to be more evanescent than hoped, for the SDP leadership was anything but encouraged by the “revolution from below” enacted by their supporters. From day one, Noske and Ebert feared—if not outright resented—the revolution (Ebert famously hated the revolution “like sin”): a restoration of “order” at any cost was the name of the game. In this they were completely aligned with the wishes of reaction (from the Kaiser to the military), and would only deepen their elective affinities as time passed. Ultimately, following the Kaiser’s abdication and the subsequent dissolution of the monarchy, they would supplant the former’s role as arch-sentinels of reaction, presiding over a counter-revolution charged with a bitter and monstrous resentment which would one day be fully realised by the Nazis. Indeed, Haffner tells us that Hitler himself resolved with impassioned cries to avenge Germany upon learning of the events preceding November 10th.
It must be remembered that the Social Democrats were, even from the outset, chauvinists at heart. Revolution was once undeniably central to their program, but never really at the expense of the German Empire’s international stature. Is it any wonder that a party so ideologically (and materially, once they had been decriminalised and became politically influential in the Reichstag) invested in the power structures it supposedly sought to radically reconfigure would gradually succumb to complacency and eventually even reaction? Combine this with unprecedented dividends paid to the German worker as a surplus of Wilhelm II’s rampant imperialist expansion, and you have a recipe for anything but socialist revolution at the turn of the 20th century.
If any doubt still remained about the SDP’s revolutionary/internationalist credentials, it was surely (at least in retrospect) irrevocably cleared up by their overwhelming support for funding Germany’s WWI offensive. Celebrating this desertion of even the semblance of class struggle amidst the clamor of jingoistic enthusiasm, the Kaiser famously proclaimed “I no longer know parties, I only know Germans”. Recognising the writing on the wall, whatever remained of the principled socialists within the SDP splintered off from the party, wanting no part in what they were becoming.
Of these offshoots, we might have expected the USDP of Liebknecht and Luxemburg to carry the torch of authentic socialist politics, responsible for focusing the impending social turmoil down a revolutionary path. Although it hardly tells the full story, their impotence was perhaps destined from the very start. They were not borne out of a coalition seeking the active and conscious pursuit of revolutionary socialism; to the contrary, any ideological affinities on this front were largely incidental by comparison to their broad opposition to the war. In this state, they would never approach the organisational and ideological discipline of Lenin’s Bolsheviks, meeting conditions which would have been paramount for the effective pursuit of revolutionary aims. Should they have even gradually acquired a genuinely determined leadership and ideologically homogenous makeup, things could well have turned out very differently.
That being said, whilst the revolution might have conceivably allowed for a more explicitly socialist posture, it was overwhelmingly defined not by the hatred of private property or love for Marxist theoretical principles, but rather by an ardent anti-militarism and republicanism. The councils–the organs of revolutionary power–had effectively no desire whatsoever for dictatorial control; they merely wished to be the democratic means through which a refreshed and reconfigured executive–torn away from the entrenched forces of monarchy and military–might be constructed. Recognising this, whilst Liebknecht lamented that the councils “have no revolutionary character at all”, he was himself incapable of inspiring such a blossoming in consciousness even once the Spartacists finally split into the Communist Party. Lenin’s eager cries for "organisation, organisation and more organisation” were met with a maddening silence. And so, the councils remained servile to Ebert and broader SDP interests, even going to great lengths to dilute its own power in favour of the parliamentary system it saw itself building. How pitiful then that even such a diffident compliancy did nothing to discourage Ebert from ultimately crushing them.
When he and his SDP obediently allied themselves with the interests of the status quo against the feared revolution, bickering with the USDP over the latter’s demands for cooperation in the new “revolutionary” Reichstag, it was actually the Revolutionary Shop Stewards who took the initiative and broke the procedural deadlock stalling the revolution. Unlike the USDP, they were loyally backed by the factory workers, who could be relied upon to elect a new provisional government to (ever so briefly) break through the inertia of the fledgling Ebert administration.
Mass revolutionary praxis is always dependent, in one way or another, upon the enthusiasm—indeed, the desperation—of the participants, but few other revolutions were so profoundly sensitive to the subtle fluctuations in temperament. Amongst other critical issues, the trouble with an almost entirely spontaneous and unfocused revolution is that timing is so profoundly essential that from one day to the next the possibility of genuine systemic transformation can disappear as suddenly as it arose. Without the consistency of leadership and the realisation of a determinate program, much of the revolution’s stunning early November gains had been retracted and paved over within days. When the People’s Naval Division defeated Ebert’s regiments, if they had “not lacked [revolutionary] leadership - there would have been nothing… to stop it from taking control of the capital”. A new society cannot be built upon an absolute faith in contingency.
Look no further than Kurt Eisner’s Munich Republic of Councils for a fleeting glimpse of what might have been were the revolution not so disjointed and undevised. Unlike anywhere else in Germany, both the revolution and its subsequent administrative formations were orchestrated by Eisner with magnificent composure and consistency. Haffner dubs him “Germany’s only revolutionary realist”, and for very good reason; unlike others in similar positions of influence, he saw the balance of power with a shrewd discernment, realising that the true battle lay not between systems of governance, but between revolution and reaction. With his murder, so too died his clarity of purpose and the frankly beautiful stability he oversaw.
Another dreadful result of the revolution’s conspicuous disorganisation, and ultimately a contributing factor to its defeat, was that there was little to no suppression of counter-revolutionary activities. If you were an enemy of the revolution, you were free to militate against it however you pleased, whether in print or in person. This was so bewildering that even Ludendorff supposedly remarked that “the revolutionaries’ greatest piece of stupidity was to leave us all alive”. Unbelievably enough, it took until the civil war in April for any revolutionary to arrest a political opponent. About time!
“Nobody wanted to murder, not even in anger. The counter-revolution was to have no such scruples”
Their failed involvement in Germany’s 1848 revolution notwithstanding, the middle classes have surely earned their reputation as the real lifeblood of reaction. From the moment that word of German capitulation spread across the nation in 1918, they were crippled with shame and invigorated by visions of vengeance. And when the counter-revolutionary terror tore through the nation during the civil war, the middle classes welcomed the freikorps with relief and jubilation. After all, as Haffner aptly points out, “the civil war was a class was like all civil wars”.
Here we come upon the second, far more tragic irony of the German Revolution: after having been granted boobytrapped power themselves, the SDP sought to offer the very same to the revolution, totally unaware that they themselves were cynically foisted into the same position. In cahoots with reaction, Ebert and Noske realised that they would have to either co-opt the revolutionary fervor or be washed away under its efforts.
To be sure, as much as Ebert was decidedly the primary candidate for the great villain of the whole affair, it cannot be said that he didn’t at least genuinely wish to ameliorate the conditions of the workers, in line with the SDP program of the day. The trouble is, of course, that this concern was subjugated to an odiously myopic and naïve understanding of how one might go about such a thing in the face of such profound opposition. He really seemed to believe that so long as “order” was restored (when in reality there was nothing chaotic about the council apparatus), then the SDP could get on with the business they had been elected to carry out, even if such stability came at the cost of peaceably allying with all of the most sinister forces of reaction. He was no Noske—Ebert’s “right fist”, a barbarous Schmidtian—but neither were his intentions or actions even remotely innocent.
Luckily for him, the workers had yet to catch on to irreconcilable dissonance between his counter-revolutionary desperation and their revolutionary aspiration. As a result, the new government bursting into action as a result of the Shop Stewards’ intervention had fallen into his lap — he still commanded great support and embodied the widespread hopes for consolidating the gains of the revolution. An icy shiver runs down my spine when I imagine Ebert singing the Internationale with the new “Council of People’s Commissars”, on the very same evening that he would seal his counter-revolutionary pact with General Groener.
Whilst the councils possessed no revolutionary threat towards the government, their existence was fundamentally intolerable to the old guard. Given Ebert’s cooperation with the establishment, it is no surprise that they were equally unacceptable to him as well. And so, the Ebert-Groener pact developed into something truly sinister in no time at all. Whilst it initially only managed a failed coup (probably killing more in the course of a single massacre than the revolution had throughout its entire lifespan), it would not allow the ratification of the ‘Hamburg Points’—ordering the wholesale reorganisation of the military hierarchy—to proceed unchallenged. In late December, Ebert’s majority allowed the Council of People’s Commissars to be dismantled without the least resistance from within.
Following Ebert’s flagrant and treacherous suppression of the People’s Naval Division in December, the masses finally caught on to his program of self-serving chicanery. This time, widespread anger would not dissipate with a whimper—instead, it erupted into what would become the second popular attempt at genuine revolutionary action in the space of three months. And again, just like the first attempt, proper leadership would fail to materialise. The newly formed “Provisional Revolutionary Committee” amounted to little more than a fleeting farce. It refused to direct violent revolutionary energies against reaction when it was most needed, and was blindsided by the lack of support it received from the troops. Reflecting on their impotence, Haffner writes:
“This paralytic monster of a committee was a pitiful sight from first to last: incapable of advancing, unwilling to retreat”
And so, self-nominated bloodhound Noske alongside traitor-in-chief Ebert pummelled the floundering revolution into the ground, without offering even the pretence of mercy. The freikorps—effectively a proto-SS/SA breeding ground (many of its members would indeed go on to enthusiastically join such organisations, and some would even help Hitler come to power)—unceremoniously murdered Liebknecht and Luxemburg, arbitrary massacres and summary executions were commonplace, and all of Germany was drowned in a sadistic deluge of brutality and fear.
Having betrayed and crushed the working classes beyond recognition, the SDP would now finally pay the piper in what would be the final great irony of the German revolution: in one fell swoop, Ebert’s blind desperation to quell the revolution at all costs absolutely decimated his support base beyond repair. In his determination to appease the military and monarchy, Ebert never quite realised that he and the SDP were little more than patsies saddled with taking the fall for the surrender and whatever consequences followed. The very moment they outlived their usefulness, they were to become the enemy of not only the workers they had betrayed, but the ruling classes they had gone to such great lengths to sustain.
The latter wasted no time in concocting plans to overthrow Ebert with a dictator from within their own ranks, and when the Treaty of Versailles was executed, they finally made their move, backed by a swastika-sporting freikorps brigade (in league with the police, naturally). In protest, a general strike of a truly unprecedented scale and fortitude rapidly ensued, utterly paralysing both the government and nation as a whole. Gradually mutating into a new phase of militant revolution, the resistance of the workers was—as one can only expect—once more callously and violently betrayed by the SDP, who again opted to ally with the very military elements who had overthrown their government. Words cannot describe how pathetic and contemptible the SDP had become at this stage.
And so, what does all this carnage and frustration leave us with? The balance sheet is undeniably grim: the left irreparably devastated, the ideal pre-conditions for the rise of fascism, and a Germany traumatised by a relentless maelstrom of institutional betrayal and chaos. If there is a somewhat positive takeaway, it is the memory of what could have been–indeed, it is the memory of what actually was, for a few brief moments, something supremely promising and profoundly human. The German working classes earnestly fought for peace, for democratic accountability, for the demolition of atavistic and arbitrary hierarchies… Why can’t we?
I truly cannot recall the last time I devoured a book with more voracity and enthusiasm. This is my first serious dive into the history of the German Revolution, and I was struck by how well Haffner captures the genuinely tragicomic unfolding of events, defined just as much by the deliciously ironic concatenation of petty betrayals and utter pandemonium as the ultimately miserable catastrophes for which they were responsible. I came away racked with a strange blend of palpable despair and sardonic enjoyment, relishing in the riveting and unpredictable course of events but simultaneously dejected by the recognition of just how much was needlessly lost in the process. Perhaps Haffner himself puts it best when, in reference to Ebert’s fate, he muses that:
“It is difficult to suppress a certain satisfaction at the aesthetic perfection of this complicated symmetry. It is as if at the climax of a symphonic composition all themes meet – and disclose their common root”
Amidst a captivating discussion of exactly how Germany surrendered, Haffner gives us an absolutely brilliant portrait of the man responsible for how it transpired. Whilst Erich Ludendorff certainly wielded serious influence, that he was able to almost single handedly execute Germany’s exit from the war by designing a “revolution from above” to fundamentally reconfigure the structure of the state is absolutely astonishing. In one fell swoop, Ludendorff had rescued the military from humiliation by entirely shifting responsibility for defeat onto the newly formed Reichstag government, who naturally accepted their tainted promotion with shock and glee: “an irresistible bait!”
Counterintuitively then, it was therefore in support of this new government that the revolution was largely practiced, defending its retreat from the war against bellicose military and monarchist elements who would have preferred to snatch defeat from the jaws of surrender. The tragicomedy of the German Revolution here yields its first irony in its very inception: in a strange reversal, the counter-revolution preceded the revolution. The former was initially a limited Naval Officer mutiny against the pacifying dictates of the “revolution from above”, whereas the latter only spontaneously arose in resistance to these attempts.
This spontaneity of the masses defines the febrile character of the German Revolution perhaps more than any other. Leaderless, party-less, without a unified ideological or political program, harmonised only in their opposition to war and support for the new government, the initial spur of revolutionary energy tore through the nation like a wildfire, effortlessly and bloodlessly uprooting both military and civil authority with soldier and worker councils. One can only imagine the astonished ecstasy of those initial days.
This extraordinary atmosphere would prove to be more evanescent than hoped, for the SDP leadership was anything but encouraged by the “revolution from below” enacted by their supporters. From day one, Noske and Ebert feared—if not outright resented—the revolution (Ebert famously hated the revolution “like sin”): a restoration of “order” at any cost was the name of the game. In this they were completely aligned with the wishes of reaction (from the Kaiser to the military), and would only deepen their elective affinities as time passed. Ultimately, following the Kaiser’s abdication and the subsequent dissolution of the monarchy, they would supplant the former’s role as arch-sentinels of reaction, presiding over a counter-revolution charged with a bitter and monstrous resentment which would one day be fully realised by the Nazis. Indeed, Haffner tells us that Hitler himself resolved with impassioned cries to avenge Germany upon learning of the events preceding November 10th.
It must be remembered that the Social Democrats were, even from the outset, chauvinists at heart. Revolution was once undeniably central to their program, but never really at the expense of the German Empire’s international stature. Is it any wonder that a party so ideologically (and materially, once they had been decriminalised and became politically influential in the Reichstag) invested in the power structures it supposedly sought to radically reconfigure would gradually succumb to complacency and eventually even reaction? Combine this with unprecedented dividends paid to the German worker as a surplus of Wilhelm II’s rampant imperialist expansion, and you have a recipe for anything but socialist revolution at the turn of the 20th century.
If any doubt still remained about the SDP’s revolutionary/internationalist credentials, it was surely (at least in retrospect) irrevocably cleared up by their overwhelming support for funding Germany’s WWI offensive. Celebrating this desertion of even the semblance of class struggle amidst the clamor of jingoistic enthusiasm, the Kaiser famously proclaimed “I no longer know parties, I only know Germans”. Recognising the writing on the wall, whatever remained of the principled socialists within the SDP splintered off from the party, wanting no part in what they were becoming.
Of these offshoots, we might have expected the USDP of Liebknecht and Luxemburg to carry the torch of authentic socialist politics, responsible for focusing the impending social turmoil down a revolutionary path. Although it hardly tells the full story, their impotence was perhaps destined from the very start. They were not borne out of a coalition seeking the active and conscious pursuit of revolutionary socialism; to the contrary, any ideological affinities on this front were largely incidental by comparison to their broad opposition to the war. In this state, they would never approach the organisational and ideological discipline of Lenin’s Bolsheviks, meeting conditions which would have been paramount for the effective pursuit of revolutionary aims. Should they have even gradually acquired a genuinely determined leadership and ideologically homogenous makeup, things could well have turned out very differently.
That being said, whilst the revolution might have conceivably allowed for a more explicitly socialist posture, it was overwhelmingly defined not by the hatred of private property or love for Marxist theoretical principles, but rather by an ardent anti-militarism and republicanism. The councils–the organs of revolutionary power–had effectively no desire whatsoever for dictatorial control; they merely wished to be the democratic means through which a refreshed and reconfigured executive–torn away from the entrenched forces of monarchy and military–might be constructed. Recognising this, whilst Liebknecht lamented that the councils “have no revolutionary character at all”, he was himself incapable of inspiring such a blossoming in consciousness even once the Spartacists finally split into the Communist Party. Lenin’s eager cries for "organisation, organisation and more organisation” were met with a maddening silence. And so, the councils remained servile to Ebert and broader SDP interests, even going to great lengths to dilute its own power in favour of the parliamentary system it saw itself building. How pitiful then that even such a diffident compliancy did nothing to discourage Ebert from ultimately crushing them.
When he and his SDP obediently allied themselves with the interests of the status quo against the feared revolution, bickering with the USDP over the latter’s demands for cooperation in the new “revolutionary” Reichstag, it was actually the Revolutionary Shop Stewards who took the initiative and broke the procedural deadlock stalling the revolution. Unlike the USDP, they were loyally backed by the factory workers, who could be relied upon to elect a new provisional government to (ever so briefly) break through the inertia of the fledgling Ebert administration.
Mass revolutionary praxis is always dependent, in one way or another, upon the enthusiasm—indeed, the desperation—of the participants, but few other revolutions were so profoundly sensitive to the subtle fluctuations in temperament. Amongst other critical issues, the trouble with an almost entirely spontaneous and unfocused revolution is that timing is so profoundly essential that from one day to the next the possibility of genuine systemic transformation can disappear as suddenly as it arose. Without the consistency of leadership and the realisation of a determinate program, much of the revolution’s stunning early November gains had been retracted and paved over within days. When the People’s Naval Division defeated Ebert’s regiments, if they had “not lacked [revolutionary] leadership - there would have been nothing… to stop it from taking control of the capital”. A new society cannot be built upon an absolute faith in contingency.
Look no further than Kurt Eisner’s Munich Republic of Councils for a fleeting glimpse of what might have been were the revolution not so disjointed and undevised. Unlike anywhere else in Germany, both the revolution and its subsequent administrative formations were orchestrated by Eisner with magnificent composure and consistency. Haffner dubs him “Germany’s only revolutionary realist”, and for very good reason; unlike others in similar positions of influence, he saw the balance of power with a shrewd discernment, realising that the true battle lay not between systems of governance, but between revolution and reaction. With his murder, so too died his clarity of purpose and the frankly beautiful stability he oversaw.
Another dreadful result of the revolution’s conspicuous disorganisation, and ultimately a contributing factor to its defeat, was that there was little to no suppression of counter-revolutionary activities. If you were an enemy of the revolution, you were free to militate against it however you pleased, whether in print or in person. This was so bewildering that even Ludendorff supposedly remarked that “the revolutionaries’ greatest piece of stupidity was to leave us all alive”. Unbelievably enough, it took until the civil war in April for any revolutionary to arrest a political opponent. About time!
“Nobody wanted to murder, not even in anger. The counter-revolution was to have no such scruples”
Their failed involvement in Germany’s 1848 revolution notwithstanding, the middle classes have surely earned their reputation as the real lifeblood of reaction. From the moment that word of German capitulation spread across the nation in 1918, they were crippled with shame and invigorated by visions of vengeance. And when the counter-revolutionary terror tore through the nation during the civil war, the middle classes welcomed the freikorps with relief and jubilation. After all, as Haffner aptly points out, “the civil war was a class was like all civil wars”.
Here we come upon the second, far more tragic irony of the German Revolution: after having been granted boobytrapped power themselves, the SDP sought to offer the very same to the revolution, totally unaware that they themselves were cynically foisted into the same position. In cahoots with reaction, Ebert and Noske realised that they would have to either co-opt the revolutionary fervor or be washed away under its efforts.
To be sure, as much as Ebert was decidedly the primary candidate for the great villain of the whole affair, it cannot be said that he didn’t at least genuinely wish to ameliorate the conditions of the workers, in line with the SDP program of the day. The trouble is, of course, that this concern was subjugated to an odiously myopic and naïve understanding of how one might go about such a thing in the face of such profound opposition. He really seemed to believe that so long as “order” was restored (when in reality there was nothing chaotic about the council apparatus), then the SDP could get on with the business they had been elected to carry out, even if such stability came at the cost of peaceably allying with all of the most sinister forces of reaction. He was no Noske—Ebert’s “right fist”, a barbarous Schmidtian—but neither were his intentions or actions even remotely innocent.
Luckily for him, the workers had yet to catch on to irreconcilable dissonance between his counter-revolutionary desperation and their revolutionary aspiration. As a result, the new government bursting into action as a result of the Shop Stewards’ intervention had fallen into his lap — he still commanded great support and embodied the widespread hopes for consolidating the gains of the revolution. An icy shiver runs down my spine when I imagine Ebert singing the Internationale with the new “Council of People’s Commissars”, on the very same evening that he would seal his counter-revolutionary pact with General Groener.
Whilst the councils possessed no revolutionary threat towards the government, their existence was fundamentally intolerable to the old guard. Given Ebert’s cooperation with the establishment, it is no surprise that they were equally unacceptable to him as well. And so, the Ebert-Groener pact developed into something truly sinister in no time at all. Whilst it initially only managed a failed coup (probably killing more in the course of a single massacre than the revolution had throughout its entire lifespan), it would not allow the ratification of the ‘Hamburg Points’—ordering the wholesale reorganisation of the military hierarchy—to proceed unchallenged. In late December, Ebert’s majority allowed the Council of People’s Commissars to be dismantled without the least resistance from within.
Following Ebert’s flagrant and treacherous suppression of the People’s Naval Division in December, the masses finally caught on to his program of self-serving chicanery. This time, widespread anger would not dissipate with a whimper—instead, it erupted into what would become the second popular attempt at genuine revolutionary action in the space of three months. And again, just like the first attempt, proper leadership would fail to materialise. The newly formed “Provisional Revolutionary Committee” amounted to little more than a fleeting farce. It refused to direct violent revolutionary energies against reaction when it was most needed, and was blindsided by the lack of support it received from the troops. Reflecting on their impotence, Haffner writes:
“This paralytic monster of a committee was a pitiful sight from first to last: incapable of advancing, unwilling to retreat”
And so, self-nominated bloodhound Noske alongside traitor-in-chief Ebert pummelled the floundering revolution into the ground, without offering even the pretence of mercy. The freikorps—effectively a proto-SS/SA breeding ground (many of its members would indeed go on to enthusiastically join such organisations, and some would even help Hitler come to power)—unceremoniously murdered Liebknecht and Luxemburg, arbitrary massacres and summary executions were commonplace, and all of Germany was drowned in a sadistic deluge of brutality and fear.
Having betrayed and crushed the working classes beyond recognition, the SDP would now finally pay the piper in what would be the final great irony of the German revolution: in one fell swoop, Ebert’s blind desperation to quell the revolution at all costs absolutely decimated his support base beyond repair. In his determination to appease the military and monarchy, Ebert never quite realised that he and the SDP were little more than patsies saddled with taking the fall for the surrender and whatever consequences followed. The very moment they outlived their usefulness, they were to become the enemy of not only the workers they had betrayed, but the ruling classes they had gone to such great lengths to sustain.
The latter wasted no time in concocting plans to overthrow Ebert with a dictator from within their own ranks, and when the Treaty of Versailles was executed, they finally made their move, backed by a swastika-sporting freikorps brigade (in league with the police, naturally). In protest, a general strike of a truly unprecedented scale and fortitude rapidly ensued, utterly paralysing both the government and nation as a whole. Gradually mutating into a new phase of militant revolution, the resistance of the workers was—as one can only expect—once more callously and violently betrayed by the SDP, who again opted to ally with the very military elements who had overthrown their government. Words cannot describe how pathetic and contemptible the SDP had become at this stage.
And so, what does all this carnage and frustration leave us with? The balance sheet is undeniably grim: the left irreparably devastated, the ideal pre-conditions for the rise of fascism, and a Germany traumatised by a relentless maelstrom of institutional betrayal and chaos. If there is a somewhat positive takeaway, it is the memory of what could have been–indeed, it is the memory of what actually was, for a few brief moments, something supremely promising and profoundly human. The German working classes earnestly fought for peace, for democratic accountability, for the demolition of atavistic and arbitrary hierarchies… Why can’t we?
February 6, 2022
Similar to what Marx predicted, there was an actual socialist revolution in Germany. It happened at the end of World War One. But it was defeated, primarily because there was no vanguard revolutionary communist party, and leaders, in place. "Revolutionaries" Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Lliebknecht were among those against having a vanguard.
If this revolution had won, it could have joined with the Revolution in Russia, adding strength and stability. History would have been so much different. Think about it... World War Two, the Holocaust... And where we are today would be very much different. The future of humanity depends on whether we learn the lessons of revolution in the 20th century, including the lessons in this book.
Haffner does an excellent job of documenting how this all played out, in a way I have not read anywhere else. Read this important book.
Note that the counter-revolution used the swastika.
If this revolution had won, it could have joined with the Revolution in Russia, adding strength and stability. History would have been so much different. Think about it... World War Two, the Holocaust... And where we are today would be very much different. The future of humanity depends on whether we learn the lessons of revolution in the 20th century, including the lessons in this book.
Haffner does an excellent job of documenting how this all played out, in a way I have not read anywhere else. Read this important book.
Note that the counter-revolution used the swastika.
March 26, 2021
Excellent narration and analysis of the German Revolution from 1918 to 1920 (I guess the title downplays it to 1919 so as to not scare off people afraid of tackling more than two years at once). I was barely aware of the German Revolution beforehand, knowing only that Luxemburg and Liebknecht were assassinated in it; this book sets the record straight on its importance and meaning.
Too many 'marxists' assume social democracy is just a foil for capitalism, or inherently determined to squash the pure revolution that's just around the corner. The real story, in which SD parties play a role governed by their own internal logic and the balance of forces in society, is much more interesting, and it'd be wrong to see them as just traitors with a few extra steps. Having said that, man did the social democrats betray the revolution, but then again there wouldn't have been a revolution if it wasn't for the social democrats anyway, so stop hyperfocusing on Rosa Luxemburg and bear with me for a while.
As the German war effort began to crumble under the weight of desertions, the ruling constellation (namely the conservative government and the army brass) were starting to think about safeguarding their hegemony. Common people were tired of everything and demanded the Social Democratic Party (under Ebert and Noske) play a part in government; the military knew post-war negotiations were going to be tough and didn't mind handing them the hot potato. However, the demands went further than just having the SDP be present in government: from now on, governance would be parliamentary, not imperial. Neither the aristocracy nor the generals were enthusiastic about this prospect, and their procrastination was what triggered the nation-wide revolution, first among mutineering sailors in the harbour of Kiel, but soon everywhere. In its turbulence, schisms among the socialists did appear and the Spartacists were, well, loud, but they had zero organisational capacity and no popular legitimacy: the revolting masses saw themselves as pro-government social democrats, and the 'soviets' (in the sense of workers' and soldiers' councils) were mostly led by local social-democratic politicians in support of their party.
This posed an awkward problem to the SPD, which was very interested in governing but not at all in democratizing politics beyond the parliament, into the streets and the work place. They used the threat of revolution and their own authority among its proponents as a bargaining chip against the forces of militarism and conservatism: if only they betrayed their aristocratic backers and the imperial court, the social democrats would betray the revolution. To deal with the aristocracy, the conservative parties needed the threat of the masses; to deal with the new popular organisations, the social democrats needed the military leadership ánd an explicitly right-wing paramilitary force: the Freikorps who were later to form the vanguard of German fascism. As both parties were embarrassed by this turn of events, and the communists didn't mind claiming the revolution all for themselves, the myth was called into life that the forces of pragmatic governance had to defend themselves against a bolshevik uprising. If anything, the uprising lacked centralization and political vision beyond 'defending' the SPD, but the popular participation and organisational forms themselves were difficult for the party to co-opt and hence it had to be put down.
There's much more to the book if you're keen on it. Haffner isn't a communist by any stretch of the imagination, but he sees the bloody quelling of the revolution (in Berlin and Bavaria in particular, the Freikorps fascists executed anyone suspected of revolutionary aspirations, including women and children) as the original sin of German civilization which would later re-emerge in the guise of fascism. France, the US, Belgium and even the UK defined their contemporary statehood by its revolutionary heritage; Germany is the only nation-state that wrote its revolution out of history.
Happy to see it being spread. An English PDF is available here.
Too many 'marxists' assume social democracy is just a foil for capitalism, or inherently determined to squash the pure revolution that's just around the corner. The real story, in which SD parties play a role governed by their own internal logic and the balance of forces in society, is much more interesting, and it'd be wrong to see them as just traitors with a few extra steps. Having said that, man did the social democrats betray the revolution, but then again there wouldn't have been a revolution if it wasn't for the social democrats anyway, so stop hyperfocusing on Rosa Luxemburg and bear with me for a while.
As the German war effort began to crumble under the weight of desertions, the ruling constellation (namely the conservative government and the army brass) were starting to think about safeguarding their hegemony. Common people were tired of everything and demanded the Social Democratic Party (under Ebert and Noske) play a part in government; the military knew post-war negotiations were going to be tough and didn't mind handing them the hot potato. However, the demands went further than just having the SDP be present in government: from now on, governance would be parliamentary, not imperial. Neither the aristocracy nor the generals were enthusiastic about this prospect, and their procrastination was what triggered the nation-wide revolution, first among mutineering sailors in the harbour of Kiel, but soon everywhere. In its turbulence, schisms among the socialists did appear and the Spartacists were, well, loud, but they had zero organisational capacity and no popular legitimacy: the revolting masses saw themselves as pro-government social democrats, and the 'soviets' (in the sense of workers' and soldiers' councils) were mostly led by local social-democratic politicians in support of their party.
This posed an awkward problem to the SPD, which was very interested in governing but not at all in democratizing politics beyond the parliament, into the streets and the work place. They used the threat of revolution and their own authority among its proponents as a bargaining chip against the forces of militarism and conservatism: if only they betrayed their aristocratic backers and the imperial court, the social democrats would betray the revolution. To deal with the aristocracy, the conservative parties needed the threat of the masses; to deal with the new popular organisations, the social democrats needed the military leadership ánd an explicitly right-wing paramilitary force: the Freikorps who were later to form the vanguard of German fascism. As both parties were embarrassed by this turn of events, and the communists didn't mind claiming the revolution all for themselves, the myth was called into life that the forces of pragmatic governance had to defend themselves against a bolshevik uprising. If anything, the uprising lacked centralization and political vision beyond 'defending' the SPD, but the popular participation and organisational forms themselves were difficult for the party to co-opt and hence it had to be put down.
There's much more to the book if you're keen on it. Haffner isn't a communist by any stretch of the imagination, but he sees the bloody quelling of the revolution (in Berlin and Bavaria in particular, the Freikorps fascists executed anyone suspected of revolutionary aspirations, including women and children) as the original sin of German civilization which would later re-emerge in the guise of fascism. France, the US, Belgium and even the UK defined their contemporary statehood by its revolutionary heritage; Germany is the only nation-state that wrote its revolution out of history.
Happy to see it being spread. An English PDF is available here.
March 28, 2024
De Duitse arbeidersrevoluties, beginnend in November 1918 en bloedig neergeslagen in januari 1919, zijn één van de meest paradoxale momenten uit de Duitse geschiedenis, en door het belang en de gevolgen ervan eigenlijk ook van de Europese en Wereldgeschiedenis.
Op het hoogtepunt van hun macht kiezen de Sociaal democratische regeringsleiders van SDP in die periode namelijk om, met behulp van uiterste rechtse elementen uit het vernederde en verbrijzelde leger, de opstand van arbeiders en soldaten uit hun eigen achterban, genadeloos en gewelddadig te onderdrukken. Uit de as van deze wrange periode ontstaat daarna de Weimarrepubliek, die door deze vreemde ontstaansgeschiedenis gelijk vanaf het begin een legitimiteitsprobleem heeft, wat het nooit echt te boven is gekomen.
In een prachtige narratieve stijl beschrijft Haffner deze complexe periode en ontdoet hij het van een aantal hardnekkige mythes, die lang standhielden in het Duitse algemene besef over deze periode.
Zo toont hij aan dat, in tegenstelling tot wat algemeen gedacht wordt, het niet om een bolsjewistische Revolutie ging door de Communistische Spartakisten ontketend. Het was vooral een door leden van de SDP gesteunde roep om vrede, stabiliteit en het uitschakelen van de macht van het leger en adelijke elites. De Spartacus leiders, Rosa Luxemburg en Karl Liebknecht, zijn als martelaren beroemd geworden door gewelddadige dood die zij stierven in de handen van Contrarevolutionairen soldatenmilities, maar qua daden droegen zij weinig concreets bij aan de strijd. Daarnaast hadden zij ook nooit de intentie om, zoals Lenin, door een dictatuur van het proletariaat, de massa's naar hun hand te zetten.
Daaruit volgt volgens Haffner de tweede ontkrachtte mythe, dat de SPD leiding Duitsland had behoed voor een Bolsjewistische chaos.
En tot slot kaart hij kort ook de mythe van de dolkstoot legende aan. Het traumatische verlies van de oorlog, dat door de reactionaire meute in de schoenen werd geschoven van diezelfde SPD leiding. Dit is de aanzet is tot het wijd verbreide idee dat Duitsland de Oorlog onnodig had verloren. Een sentiment waar Hitler veel van zijn populariteit aan te danken had.
Haffner beschrijft deze verwarrende, maar vooral bedreigende periode met een heldere blik en heeft daarbij een haarfijn gevoel voor de psychologische kant van de individuele actoren, maar ook het Duitse volk. De ontwikkelingen volgen elkaar daarbij zo snel op, vanaf de aangekondigde Duitse nederlaag in de Eerste Wereldoorlog tot aan het tot stand komen van de Weimarrepubliek, dat het iedereen die het van dag tot dag beleefde duizelde.
In al deze ontwikkelingen laat Haffner er geen twijfel over bestaan dat in zijn optiek Friedrich Ebert, de leider van de sociaaldemocraten, de grote verantwoordelijke is voor tragiek van de mislukte revolutie en de opmaat die het vormde voor de opkomst van Hitler en Nazi-Duitsland. Ondanks zijn goede bedoelingen was het Ebert die als plotseling regeringsleider van een failliet land, met een misplaatste arrogantie en angst voor de grote massa's, er voor kiest een monsterverbond aan te gaan met zijn voormalige reactionaire vijanden, aangevoerd door de legerleiding, en het officierskorps van een gefrustreerd, verslagen Duits leger. Haffner spreekt zelfs van de banaliteit van het kwaad zoals Ebert en zijn sociaaldemocratische medebestuurders zich verscholen achter de angst voor het bolsjewisme om hun achterban gewelddadig te laten afslachten.
Een term die we later bij Hannah Arendt terugvinden bij haar beschrijving van Eichmann's daden. Hoe ambtsdragers, in hun obsessie voor orde, angstaanjagende beslissingen nemen met gevolgen voor grote groepen mensen. Waarvan velen het niet overleefden.
Op het hoogtepunt van hun macht kiezen de Sociaal democratische regeringsleiders van SDP in die periode namelijk om, met behulp van uiterste rechtse elementen uit het vernederde en verbrijzelde leger, de opstand van arbeiders en soldaten uit hun eigen achterban, genadeloos en gewelddadig te onderdrukken. Uit de as van deze wrange periode ontstaat daarna de Weimarrepubliek, die door deze vreemde ontstaansgeschiedenis gelijk vanaf het begin een legitimiteitsprobleem heeft, wat het nooit echt te boven is gekomen.
In een prachtige narratieve stijl beschrijft Haffner deze complexe periode en ontdoet hij het van een aantal hardnekkige mythes, die lang standhielden in het Duitse algemene besef over deze periode.
Zo toont hij aan dat, in tegenstelling tot wat algemeen gedacht wordt, het niet om een bolsjewistische Revolutie ging door de Communistische Spartakisten ontketend. Het was vooral een door leden van de SDP gesteunde roep om vrede, stabiliteit en het uitschakelen van de macht van het leger en adelijke elites. De Spartacus leiders, Rosa Luxemburg en Karl Liebknecht, zijn als martelaren beroemd geworden door gewelddadige dood die zij stierven in de handen van Contrarevolutionairen soldatenmilities, maar qua daden droegen zij weinig concreets bij aan de strijd. Daarnaast hadden zij ook nooit de intentie om, zoals Lenin, door een dictatuur van het proletariaat, de massa's naar hun hand te zetten.
Daaruit volgt volgens Haffner de tweede ontkrachtte mythe, dat de SPD leiding Duitsland had behoed voor een Bolsjewistische chaos.
En tot slot kaart hij kort ook de mythe van de dolkstoot legende aan. Het traumatische verlies van de oorlog, dat door de reactionaire meute in de schoenen werd geschoven van diezelfde SPD leiding. Dit is de aanzet is tot het wijd verbreide idee dat Duitsland de Oorlog onnodig had verloren. Een sentiment waar Hitler veel van zijn populariteit aan te danken had.
Haffner beschrijft deze verwarrende, maar vooral bedreigende periode met een heldere blik en heeft daarbij een haarfijn gevoel voor de psychologische kant van de individuele actoren, maar ook het Duitse volk. De ontwikkelingen volgen elkaar daarbij zo snel op, vanaf de aangekondigde Duitse nederlaag in de Eerste Wereldoorlog tot aan het tot stand komen van de Weimarrepubliek, dat het iedereen die het van dag tot dag beleefde duizelde.
In al deze ontwikkelingen laat Haffner er geen twijfel over bestaan dat in zijn optiek Friedrich Ebert, de leider van de sociaaldemocraten, de grote verantwoordelijke is voor tragiek van de mislukte revolutie en de opmaat die het vormde voor de opkomst van Hitler en Nazi-Duitsland. Ondanks zijn goede bedoelingen was het Ebert die als plotseling regeringsleider van een failliet land, met een misplaatste arrogantie en angst voor de grote massa's, er voor kiest een monsterverbond aan te gaan met zijn voormalige reactionaire vijanden, aangevoerd door de legerleiding, en het officierskorps van een gefrustreerd, verslagen Duits leger. Haffner spreekt zelfs van de banaliteit van het kwaad zoals Ebert en zijn sociaaldemocratische medebestuurders zich verscholen achter de angst voor het bolsjewisme om hun achterban gewelddadig te laten afslachten.
Een term die we later bij Hannah Arendt terugvinden bij haar beschrijving van Eichmann's daden. Hoe ambtsdragers, in hun obsessie voor orde, angstaanjagende beslissingen nemen met gevolgen voor grote groepen mensen. Waarvan velen het niet overleefden.
Read
September 27, 2022Devastating polemic on behavior of the SPD leadership. Highly compelling and readable, although it flits around a bit much to be a 'general history.' But as a (deserved) burial of the SPD, it's superb.
February 18, 2016
was meine Lehrer mir nicht bieten konnten: Seitenweise Schätze an Erläuterungen und Wortfindungen - endlich verstehe ich ... die Deutsche Geschichte!
October 22, 2024
Habe im Zuge eines Projektes vor Jahren mal eine Buchrezension für dieses Buch geschrieben und diese gerade wiedergefunden.
Vorsicht, in der Rezension wird auf sehr viele Inhalte des Buches eingegangen. Also große "Spoilerwarnung"
In den Jahren 2018/2019 jährt sich die deutsche Revolution von 1918/1919 zum hundertsten Mal. Ein Ereignis, das in der deutschen Geschichte leider oft vergessen wird, trotz der fraglosen Relevanz für die Entwicklung der Weimarer Republik und mit ihr der ersten deutschen Demokratie. Durch den Jahrestag widmen sich die Historiker jedoch wieder vermehrt den Ereignissen dieser Zeit. Die Menge der Publikationen erlebt dennoch nicht den gleichen Höhepunkt wie um die Zeit des fünfzigsten Jubiläums in den 1960er- und 1970er-Jahren. Aus diesem Zeitraum stammt auch das Buch „Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19“ von Sebastian Haffner, welches erstmals 1968, also genau fünfzig Jahre nach Beginn der deutschen Revolution, noch unter dem Titel „Der große Verrat“ als Textserie in der Zeitschrift „Stern“ veröffentlicht wurde. Als Buch erschien es dann ein Jahr später unter dem Titel „Die verratene Revolution – Deutschland 1918/1919” und 1979 in der Neuausgabe mit dem endgültigen Titel „Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19”.
In diesem Buch rekonstruiert Haffner die Ereignisse im Zeitraum der deutschen Revolution – beginnend mit einer kurzen Kontextualisierung der Rolle der SPD im Kaiserreich – vom Revolutionsbeginn über Ereignisse im November 1918 und Januar 1919 hin zur Münchener Räterepublik in einer strikt chronologischen Reihenfolge. Dabei räumt er auch mit Legenden, wie der Leugnung der Revolution und der Dolchstoßlegende auf. Einen besonderen Fokus legt Haffner hierbei auf die Rolle der SPD und der Politiker in Machtpositionen. In dem Buch vertritt er hauptsächlich die These, dass die Matrosen der Revolte nur fehlgeleitet wurden, ein Bündnis mit der Regierung suchten und letztendlich von der SPD verraten wurden. Damit hätten sie sich selber mit den späteren Totengräbern der Republik eingelassen.
Sebastian Haffner hat das Buch vor allem veröffentlicht, um auf die Ereignis aufmerksam zu machen, allerdings hat er auch seinen Bekanntheitsgrad genutzt, um seine Meinung zu vertreten und auch andere Personen von einer anderen kontroversen Ansicht zu überzeugen.
Bevor sich das Buch wirklich beurteilen lässt, muss ein Blick auf den Inhalt des Buches, also die Rolle der SPD, Hinführung und Ausbruch der Revolution, die Rolle Friedrich Eberts und die letzten Ereignisse im Januar 1919, geworfen werden und zudem Haffners Meinung dazu erläutertwerden.
Nach dem Vorwort beginnt Haffner mit der Rolle der SPD im Kaiserreich, wo er besonders auf den Ideologiewandel der Partei in drei Stufen fokussiert. Er unterteilt die SPD-Ziele in die Zeiträume von 20 Jahren Bismarck, die Wilhelminische Periode und schließlich die Zeit während des Krieges. War während Bismarcks die SPD noch eine revolutionäre Partei, so war sie im Wilhelminismus „nur noch in Worten revolutionär“ (S. 16) und akzeptierte in der Kriegszeit sogar das System. Die Spaltung der SPD in USPD und MSPD wird nur beiläufig erwähnt.
Durch den Fokus Haffners auf die Probleme und Misserfolge der SPD wird schon direkt zu Beginn des Buches angedeutet, dass die SPD im gesamten Buch nur als Täter und nicht als Opfer dargestellt wird. Auch wenn diese eindeutig subjektive Wertung gleich zu Beginn einen leichten Eindruck der durchgängigen Subjektivität vermittelt, belegt Haffner seine Thesen und Aussagen fast durchgehend mit Beispielen und erläutert seine Kommentare rhetorisch sehr gut, indem er klare und wertende Aussagen trifft, welche er dann durch weitere Gegebenheiten und historische Ereignisse kontextualisiert.
Auf die Rolle der SPD folgt in drei Kapiteln die Hinführung zur Revolution und schließlich zum Ausbruch der deutschen Revolution. Hierbei liegt der Fokus insbesondere auf den Geschehen und Intentionen der Regierungspersonen und den Drahtziehern im Hintergrund. Besonders genau betrachtet Haffner den 29. September 1918 und die Intentionen und Motive von Erich Ludendorff in der Situation, der sich kurzum für eine Parlamentarisierung des Kaiserreichs mit der SPD als Führungspartei aussprach. Haffner geht dabei sehr genau auf die Intentionen von Erich Ludendorff ein, zu dessen Macht er schreibt „[…] Der wirkliche Kaiser hieß Hindenburg, der wirkliche Kanzler Ludendorff“ (S. 19), aber auch auf die Reaktion der SPD-Spitze, besonders Friedrich Eberts und Gustav Noskes. Ebert sei von einem Abgeordneten als „totenblass“ und „nicht im Stande zu einer Äußerung“ (S. 41) beschrieben worden. Die Ereignisse im Oktober und der Ausbruch der Revolution im November 1918 werden von Haffner nur wenig erläutert. Dabei fällt Haffners Reduktion auf das – in seinen Augen – Wesentliche zwar stark auf, ist aber durch die präzisen, scharfsinnigen und tiefgehenden Analysen zuvor nicht zum Nachteil des Verständnisses des Lesers.
Im Folgenden beschreibt und analysiert Haffner die Geschehnisse und die Motive der politischen Akteure im Zeitraum vom November 1918 bis hin zur Weihnachtskrise im selben Jahr. Bei den historischen Ereignissen bezieht Haffner sich besonders auf die Geschehnisse zu Novemberbeginn, also auf die durch Max von Baden bekannt gegebene Abdankung Kaiser Wilhelms II. und den damit verbundenen Antritt der Reichskanzlerschaft durch Friedrich Ebert, die Ausrufung der demokratischen Republik durch Philipp Scheidemann und der sozialistischen Republik durch Karl Liebknecht – wobei, entgegen Haffners sonst sehr ausführlichen und erläuternden Linie, die Intentionen und Motive von Karl Liebknecht kaum angesprochen werden –, die Bildung von Arbeiter- und Soldatenräten und den Ebert-Groener-Pakt. Zu den Ereignissen, die zum Niedergang der Republik führten, schreibt Haffner „Das Kaiserreich besaß kein Machtinstrument mehr zur Verteidigung seiner Existenz“ (S .83). Die Motive der anderen an diesen Ereignissen beteiligten Personen werden von Haffner kaum beachtet. Hier fällt seine Fokussierung auf die SPD und ihre Fehler und führenden Politiker besonders auf, da sie an diesem Punkt im Buch erstmals andere Ereignisse verdrängt. Ebert wird hier klar als Schuldiger der Instabilität des Systems genannt. Mit den wirklichen Intentionen von Ebert und Noske setzt Haffner sich an dieser Stelle jedoch nur einseitig auseinander, wodurch seinen Aussagen, wie der kompletten Schuld Eberts, etwas an Glaubwürdigkeit genommen wird.
Zum Schluss erklärt Haffner die letzten Ereignisse im Januar 1919 und schließt in der chronologischen Wiedergabe mit dem Bürgerkrieg ab, welcher jedoch nur wenig beschrieben wird. Nur zu der Ermordung von Rosa Luxemburg und Karl Liebknecht gibt Haffner nochmals seine Meinung über ihre Bedeutung für die Geschehnisse während der deutschen Revolution ab. „Sie [Rosa Luxemburg und Karl Liebknecht] trugen weniger oder nichts zu der Entwicklung zwischen November 1918 und Januar 1919 bei“ (S. 172). Generell bleiben die Abläufe nach der Weihnachtskrise in Haffners Buch nur kurz erläutert.
Als letzten Inhalt räumt Haffner endgültig mit den Legenden im Bezug auf die Revolution auf, hier folgt der einzige Punkt, an dem Haffner nicht der SPD die Schuld in die Schuhe schiebt. Im Gegenteil räumt er hier die Dolchstoßlegende aus der Welt, wodurch er trotz der oft wertenden Meinung zeigt, dass er die Ereignisse objektiv sieht und häufig nur subjektiv bewertet.
Inhaltlich lässt sich sagen, dass Sebastian Haffner in dem Buch eine kontroverse These vertritt, die von vielen anderen Historikern der Zeit, und auch der heutigen Politik, nicht geteilt wird. Haffner ist der Meinung, hätte die SPD unter der Führung von Friedrich Ebert die Massenrevolte genutzt, statt sie zu fürchten, und das Militär entlassen, statt sich mit ihm zu verbünden, wäre die Republik nicht gescheitert und die Nationalsozialisten wären nicht an die Macht gekommen. Somit vertritt er den extremen Standpunkt, dass Ebert und Noske die Hauptschuldigen am Untergang der Republik sind, und nicht, wie von der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft überwiegend publiziert , Ludendorff und Hindenburg. Dazu hat Haffner die Worte gefunden: „Sie [Noske und Ebert] haben die Revolution verraten, sie sind schuld an der Ermordung von Liebknecht und Luxemburg, ohne sie wäre Hitler nicht an die Macht gekommen“. Haffner vertritt damit als einziger „nicht kommunistischer Publizist“ die These über den Verrat der Revolution durch die SPD.
Insgesamt kann man sagen, dass das Buch „Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19” einen umfassenden Überblick über die Abläufe der Revolution gibt, wobei auch oft die Intentionen und Motive der Akteure beachtet werden. Mit der für Haffner typischen ruhigen, präzisen und schlichten Sprache, welche trotzdem sehr werten kann, analysiert er die Ereignisse. Das Buch ist für jeden lesbar und leicht verständlich, auch wenn man kaum oder kein Vorwissen zu den Geschehnissen hat. Für jeden, der sich mehrere Perspektiven auf die deutsche Revolution anschauen will, ist das Buch ein gute Empfehlung zum Lesen, sollte jedoch nicht als einzige richtige Sichtweise betrachtet werden, sondern mit kritischen Positionen anderer Autoren oder Historiker erweitert werden.
Vorsicht, in der Rezension wird auf sehr viele Inhalte des Buches eingegangen. Also große "Spoilerwarnung"
In den Jahren 2018/2019 jährt sich die deutsche Revolution von 1918/1919 zum hundertsten Mal. Ein Ereignis, das in der deutschen Geschichte leider oft vergessen wird, trotz der fraglosen Relevanz für die Entwicklung der Weimarer Republik und mit ihr der ersten deutschen Demokratie. Durch den Jahrestag widmen sich die Historiker jedoch wieder vermehrt den Ereignissen dieser Zeit. Die Menge der Publikationen erlebt dennoch nicht den gleichen Höhepunkt wie um die Zeit des fünfzigsten Jubiläums in den 1960er- und 1970er-Jahren. Aus diesem Zeitraum stammt auch das Buch „Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19“ von Sebastian Haffner, welches erstmals 1968, also genau fünfzig Jahre nach Beginn der deutschen Revolution, noch unter dem Titel „Der große Verrat“ als Textserie in der Zeitschrift „Stern“ veröffentlicht wurde. Als Buch erschien es dann ein Jahr später unter dem Titel „Die verratene Revolution – Deutschland 1918/1919” und 1979 in der Neuausgabe mit dem endgültigen Titel „Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19”.
In diesem Buch rekonstruiert Haffner die Ereignisse im Zeitraum der deutschen Revolution – beginnend mit einer kurzen Kontextualisierung der Rolle der SPD im Kaiserreich – vom Revolutionsbeginn über Ereignisse im November 1918 und Januar 1919 hin zur Münchener Räterepublik in einer strikt chronologischen Reihenfolge. Dabei räumt er auch mit Legenden, wie der Leugnung der Revolution und der Dolchstoßlegende auf. Einen besonderen Fokus legt Haffner hierbei auf die Rolle der SPD und der Politiker in Machtpositionen. In dem Buch vertritt er hauptsächlich die These, dass die Matrosen der Revolte nur fehlgeleitet wurden, ein Bündnis mit der Regierung suchten und letztendlich von der SPD verraten wurden. Damit hätten sie sich selber mit den späteren Totengräbern der Republik eingelassen.
Sebastian Haffner hat das Buch vor allem veröffentlicht, um auf die Ereignis aufmerksam zu machen, allerdings hat er auch seinen Bekanntheitsgrad genutzt, um seine Meinung zu vertreten und auch andere Personen von einer anderen kontroversen Ansicht zu überzeugen.
Bevor sich das Buch wirklich beurteilen lässt, muss ein Blick auf den Inhalt des Buches, also die Rolle der SPD, Hinführung und Ausbruch der Revolution, die Rolle Friedrich Eberts und die letzten Ereignisse im Januar 1919, geworfen werden und zudem Haffners Meinung dazu erläutertwerden.
Nach dem Vorwort beginnt Haffner mit der Rolle der SPD im Kaiserreich, wo er besonders auf den Ideologiewandel der Partei in drei Stufen fokussiert. Er unterteilt die SPD-Ziele in die Zeiträume von 20 Jahren Bismarck, die Wilhelminische Periode und schließlich die Zeit während des Krieges. War während Bismarcks die SPD noch eine revolutionäre Partei, so war sie im Wilhelminismus „nur noch in Worten revolutionär“ (S. 16) und akzeptierte in der Kriegszeit sogar das System. Die Spaltung der SPD in USPD und MSPD wird nur beiläufig erwähnt.
Durch den Fokus Haffners auf die Probleme und Misserfolge der SPD wird schon direkt zu Beginn des Buches angedeutet, dass die SPD im gesamten Buch nur als Täter und nicht als Opfer dargestellt wird. Auch wenn diese eindeutig subjektive Wertung gleich zu Beginn einen leichten Eindruck der durchgängigen Subjektivität vermittelt, belegt Haffner seine Thesen und Aussagen fast durchgehend mit Beispielen und erläutert seine Kommentare rhetorisch sehr gut, indem er klare und wertende Aussagen trifft, welche er dann durch weitere Gegebenheiten und historische Ereignisse kontextualisiert.
Auf die Rolle der SPD folgt in drei Kapiteln die Hinführung zur Revolution und schließlich zum Ausbruch der deutschen Revolution. Hierbei liegt der Fokus insbesondere auf den Geschehen und Intentionen der Regierungspersonen und den Drahtziehern im Hintergrund. Besonders genau betrachtet Haffner den 29. September 1918 und die Intentionen und Motive von Erich Ludendorff in der Situation, der sich kurzum für eine Parlamentarisierung des Kaiserreichs mit der SPD als Führungspartei aussprach. Haffner geht dabei sehr genau auf die Intentionen von Erich Ludendorff ein, zu dessen Macht er schreibt „[…] Der wirkliche Kaiser hieß Hindenburg, der wirkliche Kanzler Ludendorff“ (S. 19), aber auch auf die Reaktion der SPD-Spitze, besonders Friedrich Eberts und Gustav Noskes. Ebert sei von einem Abgeordneten als „totenblass“ und „nicht im Stande zu einer Äußerung“ (S. 41) beschrieben worden. Die Ereignisse im Oktober und der Ausbruch der Revolution im November 1918 werden von Haffner nur wenig erläutert. Dabei fällt Haffners Reduktion auf das – in seinen Augen – Wesentliche zwar stark auf, ist aber durch die präzisen, scharfsinnigen und tiefgehenden Analysen zuvor nicht zum Nachteil des Verständnisses des Lesers.
Im Folgenden beschreibt und analysiert Haffner die Geschehnisse und die Motive der politischen Akteure im Zeitraum vom November 1918 bis hin zur Weihnachtskrise im selben Jahr. Bei den historischen Ereignissen bezieht Haffner sich besonders auf die Geschehnisse zu Novemberbeginn, also auf die durch Max von Baden bekannt gegebene Abdankung Kaiser Wilhelms II. und den damit verbundenen Antritt der Reichskanzlerschaft durch Friedrich Ebert, die Ausrufung der demokratischen Republik durch Philipp Scheidemann und der sozialistischen Republik durch Karl Liebknecht – wobei, entgegen Haffners sonst sehr ausführlichen und erläuternden Linie, die Intentionen und Motive von Karl Liebknecht kaum angesprochen werden –, die Bildung von Arbeiter- und Soldatenräten und den Ebert-Groener-Pakt. Zu den Ereignissen, die zum Niedergang der Republik führten, schreibt Haffner „Das Kaiserreich besaß kein Machtinstrument mehr zur Verteidigung seiner Existenz“ (S .83). Die Motive der anderen an diesen Ereignissen beteiligten Personen werden von Haffner kaum beachtet. Hier fällt seine Fokussierung auf die SPD und ihre Fehler und führenden Politiker besonders auf, da sie an diesem Punkt im Buch erstmals andere Ereignisse verdrängt. Ebert wird hier klar als Schuldiger der Instabilität des Systems genannt. Mit den wirklichen Intentionen von Ebert und Noske setzt Haffner sich an dieser Stelle jedoch nur einseitig auseinander, wodurch seinen Aussagen, wie der kompletten Schuld Eberts, etwas an Glaubwürdigkeit genommen wird.
Zum Schluss erklärt Haffner die letzten Ereignisse im Januar 1919 und schließt in der chronologischen Wiedergabe mit dem Bürgerkrieg ab, welcher jedoch nur wenig beschrieben wird. Nur zu der Ermordung von Rosa Luxemburg und Karl Liebknecht gibt Haffner nochmals seine Meinung über ihre Bedeutung für die Geschehnisse während der deutschen Revolution ab. „Sie [Rosa Luxemburg und Karl Liebknecht] trugen weniger oder nichts zu der Entwicklung zwischen November 1918 und Januar 1919 bei“ (S. 172). Generell bleiben die Abläufe nach der Weihnachtskrise in Haffners Buch nur kurz erläutert.
Als letzten Inhalt räumt Haffner endgültig mit den Legenden im Bezug auf die Revolution auf, hier folgt der einzige Punkt, an dem Haffner nicht der SPD die Schuld in die Schuhe schiebt. Im Gegenteil räumt er hier die Dolchstoßlegende aus der Welt, wodurch er trotz der oft wertenden Meinung zeigt, dass er die Ereignisse objektiv sieht und häufig nur subjektiv bewertet.
Inhaltlich lässt sich sagen, dass Sebastian Haffner in dem Buch eine kontroverse These vertritt, die von vielen anderen Historikern der Zeit, und auch der heutigen Politik, nicht geteilt wird. Haffner ist der Meinung, hätte die SPD unter der Führung von Friedrich Ebert die Massenrevolte genutzt, statt sie zu fürchten, und das Militär entlassen, statt sich mit ihm zu verbünden, wäre die Republik nicht gescheitert und die Nationalsozialisten wären nicht an die Macht gekommen. Somit vertritt er den extremen Standpunkt, dass Ebert und Noske die Hauptschuldigen am Untergang der Republik sind, und nicht, wie von der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft überwiegend publiziert , Ludendorff und Hindenburg. Dazu hat Haffner die Worte gefunden: „Sie [Noske und Ebert] haben die Revolution verraten, sie sind schuld an der Ermordung von Liebknecht und Luxemburg, ohne sie wäre Hitler nicht an die Macht gekommen“. Haffner vertritt damit als einziger „nicht kommunistischer Publizist“ die These über den Verrat der Revolution durch die SPD.
Insgesamt kann man sagen, dass das Buch „Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19” einen umfassenden Überblick über die Abläufe der Revolution gibt, wobei auch oft die Intentionen und Motive der Akteure beachtet werden. Mit der für Haffner typischen ruhigen, präzisen und schlichten Sprache, welche trotzdem sehr werten kann, analysiert er die Ereignisse. Das Buch ist für jeden lesbar und leicht verständlich, auch wenn man kaum oder kein Vorwissen zu den Geschehnissen hat. Für jeden, der sich mehrere Perspektiven auf die deutsche Revolution anschauen will, ist das Buch ein gute Empfehlung zum Lesen, sollte jedoch nicht als einzige richtige Sichtweise betrachtet werden, sondern mit kritischen Positionen anderer Autoren oder Historiker erweitert werden.
January 10, 2021
Mi escaso dominio del idioma tedesco me obliga a tomarme la lectura con mucha calma, diez o veinte páginas al día con frecuentes consultas al diccionario. Por eso, más vale que lo que leo valga la pena, lo que en este caso es cierto: un recuento pormenorizado de los hechos sucedidos en unos pocos meses (noviembre 1918-marzo 1920) y sobre todo el análisis de las motivaciones de los protagonistas, empezando por los líderes del SPD. Ebert y Noske como ideal de estupidez (definida como maldad que también perjudica al causante), Rosa Luxemburg y Kurt Eisner como todo lo contrario, qué pena.
June 6, 2016
Well, the second half of the book wasn't quite as easy to follow as the first, but I got through it. Haffner was an excellent historian and it was very interesting to see how the revolution and counter revolution from 1918-1920 set the groundwork for the early days of fascism. As always, the government plays with the lives of its workers and its military, with little to no care for their survival. It's easy to see how a woman such as Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret could become hardened by this.
March 24, 2021
Well written and compelling history published in 1968 and inspired by New Left concerns. The main focus is on the rise and fall of the Ebert-Scheidemann-Noske government. The SPD, after decades of operating as a state within a state, is finally thrust into power via the machinations of General Ludendorff who needs someone to take the fall for the now inevitable defeat on the Eastern Front. Imperial Germany undergoes a constitutional revolution overnight and the SPD are now a leading party with real governmental power (as opposed to being at best a pressure group as they had been under the Imperial system) and are in charge of negotiating the armistice. However events spiral beyond the SPD leaders control and they find themselves having to contend with a mass revolution from below made by the SPD base, as well as war-weary soldiers and sailors, who rebel against the attempt by some members of the military to perpetuate the war. Mutiny on a few ships becomes all out revolt and the revolution spreads across Germany through workers and soldiers councils on the Russian model. Ebert and Scheidemann are horrified - their horizons are limited to the comparatively minor constitutional reforms that they had been initialled granted in October, the abdication of the Kaiser and his replacement by a regent, he convening of a National Assembly. It looks as if the demands of the revolution are comparatively extreme. At this stage the only way they can conceive of stifling the revolution is by appearing to lead it. Famously Scheidemann proclaims a republic on the spur of the moment from the balcony of the Reichstag. The revolution overtakes them - Richard Müller and Emil Barth's revolutionary shop stewards enter the Reichstag and convene a parliament in the main chamber. Representatives of the workers and soldiers councils are to meet the next day in Busch Circus to nominate a provisional government: the "Council of People's Commissars". The SPD manage to swing these elections to favour their party members and aims to bring the USPD in in order to present the appearance of "socialist unity" and, hopefully, conciliate the masses. It works - or at least from this point onwards it seems that the long, drawn out defeat of the revolution is underway. By Christmas 1918 the counterrevolution becomes increasingly militant. In January of the next year Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are murdered in cold blood by the Freikorps, the "Spartacist uprising" is underway, revolution is made in order to safeguard the gains of November against those - the SPD government - who were thought to have championed them. The free-corps recently assembled by Noske sweep across the country putting down uprisings. They crush the Munich republic of councils and carry out "white terror". It looks like Ebert et al. have tied the noose by which they will be hanged when, having wiped out the "reds", the counterrevolutionary military units turn back on the equally hated "lily-livered" defeatist government and a coup begins to take shape. In a blackly comic episode they then manage to rouse the SPD base, a great part of which has just been slaughtered at the orders of their leadership, to carry out a general strike and render the takeover by Kapp and the military untenable. It works but, alas, the revolution grows again out of the strike and the SPD are once again forced to put it down with the help of the counterrevolutionary troops whose coup attempt they had just fended off.
It's an entertaining and moving read. Haffner is concerned to cut through certain myths and legends about the events. He rightly emphasizes that the supposed "Spartacist uprising" was nothing of the sort. Luxemburg and Liebknecht, though especially in the former case, heroic and admired figures, held little organisational sway. The KPD was only formed, splitting from the USPD, in January 1919 at the very same time as the uprising. Luxemburg herself was very aware that for the KPD this was only the beginning and that the events currently underway should be understood on the analogy of the Russian July Days and not October itself.
There is also the suggestion that the assembling of the Freikorps in order to put down the revolution created some direct organisational precursors to Nazism and that Ludendorff's plan to have Ebert and the SPD take the fall for exiting the war was successful in establishing the Dolchstoßlegende (stab in the back myth).
In the first chapter Haffner gives a brief summary of the history of the SPD before and up and until the end of WW1. Of course this isn't the focus of the book but perhaps I could have done with a better sense of the careers of the chief players here (like Ebert, Scheidemann, Noske etc.). Otherwise it seems as if the drastic conservative turn they take during 1918/1919 is either just characteristic of the SPD officialdom per se (i.e. that something about the SPD itself meant this was always bound to happen) or that their villainy can just be attributed to personal/psychological factors. There certainly is something to the suggestion that they were swept off their feet by finally being allowed into the halls of power and treated with respect. As well as the link made with the practice of the SPD already tending towards reformism (cf. J. P. Nettl). Perhaps I think the fate of the SPD during the war years needs to be explored a bit more. Otherwise a great read.
It's an entertaining and moving read. Haffner is concerned to cut through certain myths and legends about the events. He rightly emphasizes that the supposed "Spartacist uprising" was nothing of the sort. Luxemburg and Liebknecht, though especially in the former case, heroic and admired figures, held little organisational sway. The KPD was only formed, splitting from the USPD, in January 1919 at the very same time as the uprising. Luxemburg herself was very aware that for the KPD this was only the beginning and that the events currently underway should be understood on the analogy of the Russian July Days and not October itself.
There is also the suggestion that the assembling of the Freikorps in order to put down the revolution created some direct organisational precursors to Nazism and that Ludendorff's plan to have Ebert and the SPD take the fall for exiting the war was successful in establishing the Dolchstoßlegende (stab in the back myth).
In the first chapter Haffner gives a brief summary of the history of the SPD before and up and until the end of WW1. Of course this isn't the focus of the book but perhaps I could have done with a better sense of the careers of the chief players here (like Ebert, Scheidemann, Noske etc.). Otherwise it seems as if the drastic conservative turn they take during 1918/1919 is either just characteristic of the SPD officialdom per se (i.e. that something about the SPD itself meant this was always bound to happen) or that their villainy can just be attributed to personal/psychological factors. There certainly is something to the suggestion that they were swept off their feet by finally being allowed into the halls of power and treated with respect. As well as the link made with the practice of the SPD already tending towards reformism (cf. J. P. Nettl). Perhaps I think the fate of the SPD during the war years needs to be explored a bit more. Otherwise a great read.
February 16, 2023
Incredibly insightful and maybe more relevant than ever. SH is a brilliant writer and outstanding historian! Made me realize how little I actually knew about German history and how distorted our education system's standard narrative is.
April 22, 2021
Een andere kijk op de Duitse revolutie! Het verraad van de sociaaldemocraten wordt in de geschiedenis met de mantel der liefde bedekt.
December 18, 2025
"Allemagne 1918 : une révolution trahie" est un petit bouquin assez efficace pour se familiariser rapidement avec les évènements de 1918-1919 en Allemagne. Si vous n'avez ni le temps, ni l'envie, ou des difficultés à lire des bouquins plus important sur l'époque (notamment ceux de Pierre Broué qui restent LA référence en la matière) ce livre très bien écrit de 270 p. est fait pour vous.
Il n'est cependant pas sans défaut : il faut avant avoir déjà quelques notions de ce qu'était le SPD ou l'Allemagne impériale du IInd Reich. Y est fait par l'auteur plus une "histoire des grands personnages", psychologisant, plutôt qu'un récit d'historien ou de matérialiste. Il est parfois trop sentencieux, avec des conclusions définitives sur les erreurs ou réussites politiques quelques peu douteuses de certains acteurs. Sa description de Kurt Eisner en Bavière n'est pas très fidèle à la réalité et il a parfois tendance à exagérer le manque de volonté révolutionnaire des travailleurs allemands.
En somme ce n'est pas exactement un travail d'historien, mais cela reste un livre de vulgarisation sur cette période très efficace, assez fidèle à la réalité, généralement conscient. Il faut aussi noter que même pour ceux connaissant les évènements, il reste quelques citations et éléments intéressants à en sortir, et la plume très agréable de l'auteur ne vous fera pas regretter d'avoir lu le livre.
Il n'est cependant pas sans défaut : il faut avant avoir déjà quelques notions de ce qu'était le SPD ou l'Allemagne impériale du IInd Reich. Y est fait par l'auteur plus une "histoire des grands personnages", psychologisant, plutôt qu'un récit d'historien ou de matérialiste. Il est parfois trop sentencieux, avec des conclusions définitives sur les erreurs ou réussites politiques quelques peu douteuses de certains acteurs. Sa description de Kurt Eisner en Bavière n'est pas très fidèle à la réalité et il a parfois tendance à exagérer le manque de volonté révolutionnaire des travailleurs allemands.
En somme ce n'est pas exactement un travail d'historien, mais cela reste un livre de vulgarisation sur cette période très efficace, assez fidèle à la réalité, généralement conscient. Il faut aussi noter que même pour ceux connaissant les évènements, il reste quelques citations et éléments intéressants à en sortir, et la plume très agréable de l'auteur ne vous fera pas regretter d'avoir lu le livre.
April 27, 2020
This is my favorite kind of book: a historical account that truly captures the drama and suspense of the moment. This is a major page turner. It gives a helpful general overview of the events of the revolution and the main social forces that were at play. It cuts through simplistic popular ideas about the revolution and gives a pretty nuanced account of the various crises in the social order that led to the breakdown of German society. There is an eerie feeling that runs throughout the book, as Haffner stresses how important the failures of the revolution were for allowing the growth of the forces that would soon create Nazism.
December 14, 2025
To understand the rise and downfall of the Weimar Republic, you must understand it's birth and the revolution that preceeded it. From the bloody affairs and betrayal in the aftermath of ww1, the SPD sealed the fate of the republic that was yet to come. To paraphrase Haffner: the SPD itself made the revolution over the course of many years. But when it finally came, the social democrats didn't want is anymore and were more than willing to put it down. No less with the help of proto-fascists, who themselves would not hesitate to put down the SPD not much later.
September 2, 2022
Excellent concise history of German revolution and its aftermath. Don’t know enough to evaluate its claims but it seemed persuasive based on evidence presented. Brilliantly written, clearly aimed at W German establishment in late 60s/70s but still relevant.
Would like to know more about actual balance of powers/constitutional arrangements between councils and government and how it was envisaged this would work.
Would like to know more about actual balance of powers/constitutional arrangements between councils and government and how it was envisaged this would work.
December 15, 2021
Talvez a tradução seja bem pouco confusa em alguns momentos, mas permanece um livro excelente e esclarecedor sobre o assunto, com detalhes suficientes e excelente interpretação dos ocorridos pelo autor.
Apenas senti falta de mapas mais detalhados, mas nada que atrapalhe a leitura ou uma visita ao Google Maps cure.
Apenas senti falta de mapas mais detalhados, mas nada que atrapalhe a leitura ou uma visita ao Google Maps cure.
November 6, 2021
Extraordinary and such deftness of English language usage!
This was a wonderful read. Sebastian Haffner’s whole inventory is essential for someone to critique modern German History. Highly recommended.
This was a wonderful read. Sebastian Haffner’s whole inventory is essential for someone to critique modern German History. Highly recommended.
May 13, 2024
Super geschrieben. Haffner nutzt eine lebhafte Sprache um die Taten, Szenen, Menschen und Verhältnisse einem wiederzugeben. Die Geschichte, die dabei erzählt wird, ist interessant und wenig bekannt trotz ihrer Wichtigkeit in der deutschen Geschichte. Ich kann das Buch nur empfehlen!
April 12, 2018
Enlightening!
December 10, 2023
Kei goed boek dat me beter doet begrijpen hoe de sociaal democraten het pat effende voor hitler door de arbeiders te veraden.
March 2, 2025
Fascinating primer on this period. A must read. Death to the SPD
November 30, 2025
Sebastian Haffner schreibt wunderbar, aber für dieses Buch fehlte mir das nötige historische Hintergrundwissen.
February 21, 2019
Pretty tragic book. Who knew that the first appearance of the swastika in germany was on the steel helmets of right wing death squads sent out by the social-democratic party government to shut down local workers' councils?
June 19, 2013
sehr empfehlenswert.
und eine gute erklärung, warum man die spd einfach hassen muss.
und eine gute erklärung, warum man die spd einfach hassen muss.
September 6, 2016
Quite an entertaining summary of the events in Germany of the 1919 revolution.
November 30, 2021
Great resource for learning more about 20th century socialism. The ending section about revolutions gave me chills.
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