1. Soldiers in Berlin march toward Paris, 2 August 1914

2. Munich’s Odeon Square, August 1, 1914

3. German war dead, Battle of the Marne (published only in France)

4. Germany launched a drive on Paris on August 1, 1914

5. Kaiser Wilhelm II confers with the new heads of the Supreme Army Command, Hindenburg & Ludendorff, 1916/17

6. “A Warm Lunch for 35¢” (Berlin, 1917): Inflation and food rationing caused strikes and widespread black marketeering

7. German troops moving through San Quentin to prepare for the “Ludendorff Offensive” launched on March 21, 1918

8. American troops disembark at Le Havre, July 12, 1918

9. German POWs captured in France, April 1918

10. In October 1918 Ludendorff told the Kaiser to appoint Prince Max of Baden head of a “parliamentary” government, but Max soon turned to Friedrich Ebert of the SPD

11. A naval mutiny on November 4/5 caused the Imperial government to collapse: Gustav Noske addresses revolutionary sailors in Kiel

12. Philipp Scheidemann (SPD) proclaims Germany a Republic from the balcony of the Reichstag on 9 November 1918

13. TWO HISTORIC BARGAINS IN NOVEMBER 1918 PROMOTED ALLIANCE AMONG SOCIAL & LIBERAL DEMOCRATS 1.THE EBERT-GROENER PACT, November 10, 1918: Wilhelm Groener, chief of staff of the Imperial Army, telephoned Friedrich Ebert from Kassel to pledge the support of the officer corps, in exchange for Ebert’s promise “to take up the struggle against radicalism and Bolshevism.” 2. THE STINNES-LEGIEN AGREEMENT, Nov. 15, 1918: Hugo Stinnes and a delegation of business leaders agreed to implement the 8-hour day and collective bargaining in every branch of the economy in exchange for a pledge by Carl Legien and trade union leaders to oppose any factory occupations and leave the question of nationalization to a democratically elected National Assembly.

14. “The National Assembly: Dawn of our Social Republic” (Ebert called for democratic elections in January 1919)

15. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg founded the Spartacus League in 1917, proclaimed a “Soviet Republic” on November 9, 1918, and then founded the German Communist Party. They embraced Lenin’s slogan, “All power to the Soviets!”

16. Communist insurgents in Berlin, January 1919

17. A Free Corps unit sworn to crush the Reds Some Free Corps soldiers used the swastika as a symbol of Aryan racial purity; many later joined the SA They caught and killed Luxemburg and Liebknecht on January 15, 1919

18. Käthe Kollwitz, “Memorial to Karl Liebknecht”

19. George Grosz, “Ebert” (1934)

20. Munich experienced Communist rule for six weeks in April-May 1919 A Bavarian Heimwehr militia unit that helped to suppress the Munich Soviet Republic

21. In February 1919 the National Assembly convened in the Weimar National Theater, behind Goethe & Schiller

22. The first women elected to a German parliament: They helped to write an admirably democratic constitution

23. PROBLEMATIC ARTICLES OF THE WEIMAR CONSTITUTION OF 1919 An awkward mixture of parliamentary and presidential government, with a vaguely defined relationship between the Chancellor (who represented the Reichstag majority) and popularly elected President. Proportional representation guaranteed a voice for minorities but encouraged political splintering. Plebiscite campaigns enabled radicals to focus public debate on extremist proposals. Under Article 48 the President could issue emergency decrees with the force of law and suspend civil liberties. A two-thirds majority of the Reichstag could pass an “Enabling Act” to delegate its power to the cabinet.

24. On the 9 th of November 1919 (DNVP)

25. “The Stab in the Back” (Nazi magazine cover, 1924)

26. Finance Minister Matthias Erzberger (Center): Murdered in August 1921 Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau (DDP): Murdered in June 1922 Militant young nationalists murdered about 500 Germans suspected of collusion with the French from 1919 to 1923