The November Revolution of 1918 had a wide range of causes. For decades, the Wilhelmine Empire had opposed the demands of the democratic parties, the labor movement, the feminist movement, and other forces pushing for societal change and democratic reforms. However, the position of the monarchic system was particularly shaken by the growing war-weariness of soldiers and the civilian population as well as the increasing hardship at the ‘home front’ during World War I. The mutiny of the German fleet at the end of October 1918 ultimately sparked the revolutionary movement. Its initial successes were thanks to the fact that the ailing political system found hardly any more active support.
After more than four years of war, the pent-up discontent of the war-weary Munich populace, which suffered from inadequate supplies, erupted into the open even before Berlin was seized by revolution. After an enormous peace demonstration organized by both social-democratic parties, the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD) and Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) at Theresienwiese on November 7, 1918, protesters under the leadership of Kurt Eisner managed to win over the city garrisons to the revolution. Eisner, a USPD politician, had just been released from prison a few weeks ago, where he had served his sentence for his role in organizing the strike of January 1918 in Munich. That same evening on November 7, 1918, a council of workers and soldiers formed in the Mathäser brewery near Stachus, electing Eisner chairman and State Premier of Bavaria. In addition, a provisional National Council was formed until the election of the National Assembly, which confirmed the first revolutionary government, predominantly comprised of members of the MSPD and USPD, and led by Eisner as the first State Premier of the ‘Free State’ of Bavaria. The Bavarian king, who had already fled Munich during the night of November 7-8, freed the royal officials sworn to him from their oath on November 12, 1918.
Eisner’s Government Program
Eisner pursued a domestic policy that aimed to completely abolish the monarchical state and envisaged the strict separation of church and state. He strove for a synthesis of parliamentary democracy and the soviet system, comprised of councils performing both legislative and executive functions. In the revolutionary soviets, Eisner primarily saw an instrument to control the public administration, ensure the achievements of the revolution, drive the socialist transformation of the economy, and above all, permanently democratize the broad masses. He rejected a soviet dictatorship according to the model of the Soviet Union. As far as Bavaria’s relationship with the Reich was concerned, Eisner was the representative of a decisively federalist state structure. At a conference of the German State Premiers on November 22, 1918, he called for tarnished representatives of the old system to be removed from the offices responsible for foreign affairs. Moreover, Eisner tried to put his mark on the government by means of his independent initiatives in foreign affairs. In order to build trust abroad and prove the profound transformation of the new Germany, he published the records of the old government with the intent of using them to document the culpability of the previous government in the outbreak of the war. With this act, Eisner drew the ire of especially the political right. They viewed his publishing of the records as a betrayal of the nation.
Eisner’s Appearance at the First International Socialist Congress in Bern
Eisner made a very high-profile appearance at the first international socialist congress that took place from February 3-10, 1919 in Bern. There, the speaker of the MSPD was overwhelmingly received with suspicion; he was accused of allying himself with representatives of the ‘old elites’ against the working class. His efforts to justify the MSPD’s support for the imperial war policy were also met with incomprehension. By contrast, Eisner mercilessly settled accounts with the old system and the wartime truce of the MSPD. He even suggested that the German working class take part in rebuilding destroyed regions in France. For most socialists, Eisner embodied the ‘new Germany’, the genuine commitment to breaking with the generally despised ‘Prussian militarism’. He was virtually the star of the conference. However, Eisner confided in the French socialist Jean Longuet that he had signed his own death warrant with this speech (Humanité, 2/22/1919). He was right about this prediction.
Eisner’s Assassination – A Prelude to the Escalation of the Situation in Munich
A few days after his return, Eisner decided to step down in view of his devastating electoral defeat. On his way to the State Parliament, where he intended to announce his resignation, Eisner was shot in the back by Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley, a monarchist and antisemitic student and officer, on February 21, 1919. The murder of Kurt Eisner was a signal, prompting the unprecedented mobilization and radicalization of Munich’s working class. The assassination by Graf Arco seemed like an attack on the revolution as a whole. The centrist social democrat Erhard Auer was blamed by many as being one of the intellectual perpetrators of the assassination. Consequently, an enraged, radical supporter of Eisner shot at him at the inaugural meeting of the State Parliament. Eisner’s funeral on February 26, 1919, turned into a massive protest consisting of nearly a hundred thousand participants. After Eisner’s assassination and the subsequent shooting in the State Parliament, its members fled the city. The decision on which path Bavaria should take now fell to the congress of the councils of workers, soldiers and farmers. However, these councils were just as unable to assert themselves as the new state government formed in the State Parliament by Johannes Hoffmann, Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), on March 17-18, 1919. The long-smoldering conflict over the government’s future form – parliamentary democracy or soviet republic – increasingly came to a head.
