How after the collapse of the Kaisers regime in 1918 was the political right able to recover its authority and control?

Nawal amari

On the 9th of November prince Max Von Boden leader of the liberal government announced the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm. The Kaiser had abdicated due to strikes carried out in Berlin and other major cities, which were headed by workers and soldiers.

The country was in great unrest and there was threat of revolution everywhere. After the war had been lost in 1918 there was the revolution from below, the people were angry that they had been led to defeat and believed that they had been “stabbed in the back” by the government, much of this idea was encouraged by general ludendoff.

When the war had ended a new government was set up this is known as the “revolution from above”. This was a great change; it was set up by the right wing with Max Von Boden, but was led by Friedrich Ebert, which meant it, was left wing controlled. Ebert left many of the traditional right wing structures in place such as the army.

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Ebert and general Groener made a deal, called the Ebert groener pact. Neither wanted a communist state and both needed each other’s support. If Ebert allowed the army to maintain their authority, they would suppress any uprisings against the new government. This was in order to avoid a communist state and allowed the right wing to act as “fig leaves” and retain control.

Although the army were willing to support the government against communist uprisings, they refused to support Ebert in their own political sides challenge. For example when Wolfgang Kapp led a right-wing attempt to seize power in Berlin in 1920. The army refused to act against Kapp's supporters who were often ex-soldiers, and the official government actually left Berlin; but a general strike by the trade unions meant that Kapp could not control the situation and the rebellion failed.

In November 1918, the steinnes liegien agreement was set up. This negotiated terms with the workers but left the industrialists in power. The industrialist were still unhappy with the power given to the workers, therefore from their positions of power they could later undermine it.

In addition the right wing was also able to keep on side the judiciary, which was a very useful “tool” against communism. In the suppressions of uprisings, the military got away with many things and the communists were tried strictly this helped the right wing a great deal to maintain control.

All of the above played a great part in helping the right recover after the collapse of the Kaisers regime. A lot of strength was gained through trying to avoid a communist uprising. The setting of article 48 gave a potential weapon to allow a right wing dictatorship as long as the right wing managed to manipulate the treaty of Versailles to their advantage and blame the left wing government for signing it, it would help them to regain support for right wing parties and by 1920 the nationalists had 66 seats in the Weimar.