Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

The history of the period from 1918 to 1933 cannot be understood without some knowledge of the chief political parties. There were almost forty parties, but only seven or eight were important. These were, from extreme Left to extreme Right, as follows:

Spartacist Union (or Communist—KPD)

Independent Socialist (USPD)

Social Democrats (SPD)

Democratic

Center (including Bavarian People’s Party)

People’s Party

Nationalists

“Racists” (including Nazis)

Of these parties only the Democrats had any sincere and consistent belief in the democratic Republic. On the other hand the Communists, Independents, and many of the Social Democrats on the Left, as well as the “Racists,” Nationalists, and many of the People’s Party on the Right, were adverse to the Republic, or at best ambivalent. The Catholic Center Party, being formed on a religious rather than on a social basis, had members from all areas of the political and social spectrum.

The political history of Germany from the armistice of 1918 to the arrival of Hitler to the chancellorship in January 1933 can be divided into three periods, thus:

Period of Turmoil 1918-1924

Period of Fulfillment 1924-1930

Period of Disintegration 1930-1933

During this span of over fourteen years, there were eight elections, in none of which did a single party obtain a majority of the seats in the Reichstag. Accordingly, every German Cabinet of the period was a coalition. The following table gives the results of these eight elections:

Party

Jan.

1919

June

1920

May

1924

Dec.

1924

May

1928

July

1930

Sept.

1932

Nov. 1932

March 1933

Communist

0

4

62

45

54

77

89

100

81

Independent Socialist

22

84

Social Democrats

163

102

100

131

153

143

133

121

120

Democrats

75

39

28

32

25

20

4

2

5

Center

91

64

65

69

62

68

75

70

74

Bavarian People’s

21

16

19

16

19

22

20

18

Economic Party

4

4

10

17

25

23

2

0

0

German People’s Party

19

65

45

51

45

30

7

11

2

Nationalists

44

71

95

103

73

41

37

52

52

Nazis

0

0

32

14

12

107

230

196

288

On the basis of these elections Germany had twenty major Cabinet changes from 1919 to 1933. Generally these Cabinets were constructed about the Center and Democratic parties with the addition of representatives from either the Social Democrats or the People’s Party. On only two occasions (Gustav Stresemann in 1923 and Hermann Müller in 1928-1930) was it possible to obtain a Cabinet broad enough to include all four of these parties. Moreover, the second of these broad front Cabinets was the only Cabinet after 1923 to include the Socialists and the only Cabinet after 1925 which did not include the Nationalists. This indicates clearly the drift to the Right in the German government after the resignation of Joseph Wirth in November 1922. This drift, as we shall see, was delayed by only two influences: the need for foreign loans and political concessions from the Western Powers and the recognition that both of these could be obtained better by a government which seemed to be republican and democratic in inclination than by a government which was obviously hand in glove with the Quartet.

At the end of the war in 1918 the Socialists were in control, not because the Germans were Socialistic (for the party was not really Socialist) but because this was the only party which had been traditionally in opposition to the imperial system. A committee of six men was set up: three from the Social Democrats (Ebert, Philip Scheidemann, and Otto Landsberg) and three from the Independent Socialists (Hugo Haase, Wilhelm Dittman, and Emil Barth). This group ruled as a sort of combined emperor and chancellor and had the regular secretaries of state as their subordinates. These men did nothing to consolidate the republic or democracy and were opposed to any effort to take any steps toward Socialism. They even refused to nationalize the coal industry, something which was generally expected. Instead they wasted the opportunity by busying themselves with typical trade-union problems such as the eight-hour day (November 12, 1918) and collective bargaining methods (December 23, 1918).

The critical problem was the form of government, with the choice resting between workers’ and peasants’ councils (soviets), already widely established, and a national assembly to set up an ordinary parliamentary system. The Socialist group preferred the latter, and were willing to use the regular army to enforce this choice. On this basis a counter-revolutionary agreement was made between Ebert and the General Staff. As a consequence of this agreement, the army attacked a Spartacist parade in Berlin on December 6, 1918, and liquidated the rebellious People’s Naval Division on December 24, 1918. In protest at this violence the three Independent members of the government resigned. Their example was followed by other Independents throughout Germany, with the exception of Kurt Eisner in Munich. The next day the Spartacists formed the German Communist Party with a non-revolutionary program. Their declaration read, in part: “The Spartacist Union will never assume governmental power except in response to the plain and unmistakable wish of the great majority of the proletarian masses in Germany; and only as a result of a definite agreement of these masses with the aims and methods of the Spartacist Union.”

This pious expression, however, was the program of the leaders; the masses of the new party, and possibly the members of the Independent Socialist group as well, were enraged at the conservatism of the Social Democrats and began to get out of hand. The issue was joined on the question of councils versus National Assembly. The government, under Noske’s direction, used regular troops in a bloody suppression of the Left (January 5-15), ending up with the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the Communist leaders. The result was exactly as the Quartet wanted: the Communists and many non-Communist workers were permanently alienated from the Socialists and from the parliamentary republic. The Communist Party, deprived of leaders of its own, became a tool of Russian Communism. As a result of this repression, the army was able to disarm the workers at the very moment when it was beginning to arm reactionary private bands (Free Corps) of the Right. Both of these developments were encouraged by Ebert and Noske.

Only in Bavaria was the alienation of Communist and Socialist and the disarmament of the former not carried out; Kurt Eisner, the Independent Socialist minister-president in Munich, prevented it. Accordingly, Eisner was murdered by Count Anton von Arco-Valley on February 21, 1919. When the workers of Munich revolted, they were crushed by a combination of regular army and Free Corps amid scenes of horrible violence from both sides. Eisner was replaced as premier by a Social Democrat, Adolph Hoffman. Hoffman, on the night of March 13, 1920, was thrown out by a military coup which replaced him by a government of the Right under Gustav von Kahr.

In the meantime, the National Assembly elected on June 19, 1919, drew up a parliamentary constitution under the guidance of Professor Hugo Preuss. This constitution provided for a president elected for seven years to be head of the state, a bicameral legislature, and a Cabinet responsible to the lower house of the legislature. The upper house, or Reichsrat, consisted of representatives of eighteen German states and had, in legislative matters, a suspensive veto which could be overcome by a two-thirds vote of the lower chamber. This lower chamber, or Reichstag, had 608 members, elected by a system of proportional representation on a party basis. The head of the government, to whom the president gave a mandate to form a Cabinet, was called the chancellor. The chief weaknesses of the constitution were the provisions for proportional representation and other provisions, by articles 25 and 48, which allowed the president to suspend constitutional guarantees and rule by decree, in periods of “national emergency.” As early as 1925 the parties of the Right were planning to destroy the republic by the use of these powers.