Kaiser Abdicates: Germany Proclaimed a Republic

Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the German throne on November 9, 1918, ending the Hohenzollern dynasty's 500-year rule and four years of catastrophic war that had killed roughly two million German soldiers. Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a republic from a window of the Reichstag, racing to preempt Spartacist leader Karl Liebknecht, who was preparing to declare a socialist republic from the Berlin Palace. The abdication was forced by military collapse and domestic revolution. Germany's Spring Offensive of 1918 had failed to break the Western Front, and by September, Field Marshal Hindenburg and General Ludendorff privately admitted the war was lost. Ludendorff suddenly demanded the government seek an armistice and establish parliamentary democracy, a cynical maneuver to shift blame for defeat onto civilian politicians. Revolution erupted from below. Sailors at Wilhelmshaven mutinied on October 29 rather than carry out a suicidal sortie against the British fleet. The mutiny spread to Kiel, Hamburg, Bremen, and Munich, where workers' and soldiers' councils seized government buildings. By November 9, revolution had reached Berlin. Prince Max von Baden announced the Kaiser's abdication without Wilhelm's consent, then handed power to Friedrich Ebert of the Social Democrats. Wilhelm fled to the Netherlands, where Queen Wilhelmina granted asylum. The Allies demanded extradition for war crimes but the Dutch refused. He lived in exile at Huis Doorn until his death in 1941. The republic proclaimed in his absence inherited a devastated economy, a humiliated military, and a population that had never voted for democratic government. The Weimar Republic survived just fourteen years before Hitler dismantled it, building a dictatorship on the myth that Germany had been "stabbed in the back" by the civilians who signed the armistice.