How Did the Weimar Republic Come About? Why Did It Face Difficulties in Its First 6 Months?
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How did the Weimar Republic come about? Why did it face difficulties in its first 6 months?
In November 1918, Germany had clearly been defeated by their allies; Britain, France and the U.S.A. The allies offered Germany a peace offering, but under very strict conditions. The armistice that the allies wanted Germany to sign was called Article 231 and it consisted of the Kaiser taking the entire blame for World War 1. The Kaisers confidence had already been crushed because of their defeat so he refused to sign the armistice.
When Germany civilians found out that the Kaiser had refused to sign the Article 231; that would end all the refuge and problems that they were facing, they decided to protest.
When the pressure began to get to the Kaiser his fellow generals insisted he should leave Germany; as a general strike had taken place in Berlin, the Kaiser did so and abdicated his throne and left to go to Holland; never to return.
On that same day; 9th November, Von Baden; the chancellor, resigned and a government some hoe had to be formed, therefore a man named Philip Schiedmann, one of the leaders of the Social Democratics, declared Germany as a republic whilst announcing the news on the Balcony of the Reichstag.
On November 10th, Freidrich Ebert; the socialist leader became the new leader of the Republic , the day after Ebert signed the armistice straightaway to avoid further humiliation and to stop any further allies invading Germany.
But not everybody was happy about Germany becoming a republic, the Spartacists; who were named after the gladiator Spartacus, believed that there should be a communist uprising. The sparticist leaders were Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg and they had set up soviets in many towns whilst also taking over important buildings. There was also a group called the Freikorps, who were enemies with the Sparticists, they consisted of anti-communist people who were mostly ex-soldiers.
Ebert saw the Spartcists as a great threat to the Social Democrats, Ebert decided to make a deal with a man called Goneral Groener; who had a lot of influence with the army. Ebert and Groener decided to allow the army to put down the Sparticists. The Freikorps arrived in Berlin on January 11th and fought with the Sparticists for four brutal days, thousands of Sparticists were killed, and the Freikorps won. Both Rosa and Karl were killed. The communists never forgot the day