German Revolution Historiography

Question 1

Eric D Weitz
(revolution from below)

Answer 1

Revolution ‘spread from Kiel’

Question 1

AJ Nicholl
(Revolution from below)

Answer 1

The most significant changes only happened after the Kiel mutiny, thus it was a revolution from below.

Question 2

Detlev Peukert
(revolution from above)

Answer 2

The first phase of the revolution began at the end of Spetember 1918 when Germany’s leaders decided to face up to imminent defeat on the battlefield. But the origins of the revolution in fact ‘go back much further’ - to the disillusionment, dissatisifaction and anger caused by the authorities’ failure to win the war and failure to ensure that during the war standards of living did not fall and the burdens of war were shared equally.

Question 3

William Carr
(revolution from below)

Answer 3

By the end of October 1918 ‘a revolutionary situation in Germany’. Wartime privation and hardship had eroded the old relationship between the Kaiser and his people. The shock of military defeat ‘was the last straw’. Even so, it is only with the actions of the sailors at Wilhelmshaven from 30th October that the revolution can be said to have truly began.

Question 4

Eberhard Kolb
(Revolution from above)

Answer 4

The German Empire weathered the storm of war for as long as the majorty of Germans were brought up with the belief in ultimate victory, when this belief faded and military defeat was in sight the political and social tensions of the empire rapidly developed into an acute political crisis that ended in the collapse of the state, the coming of revolution and the founding of the Republic. It was the shock of the defeat that created ever-increasing support fro revolutionary groups from the population.

Question 5

Stephen Lee
(revolution from below)

Answer 5

There is a strong case for saying that the revolution from below was the real revolution: there was an undeniably popular momentum for more radical change that swept away the constitutional compromises made by the government of Max von Baden. Revolution caused by “deafeat in the war, a disintegrating army and a radicalised Left.”