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The September Insurrections of 1918 (German: Septemberunruhen) were a group of civil conflicts in the German Empire during the later stages Weltkrieg that directly led to the signing of the Enabling Act and the manifestation of the Ludendorff Dictatorship. While the insurrectionists failed to achieve their goals and the revolt was suppressed after several days, the uprising would eventually inspire similar revolution attempts in Italy and France a year later.
Important notice: This page contains lore relevant to the upcoming Germany rework, and it may not reflect the current in-game setup that well. The ultimate goal, to eventually fully transpose the changes made to the lore in-game, still stands. This lore also may not be final, and some minor changes may occur.
Background[]
The roots of the attempt at revolution lay in the strains placed on the population of the German Empire throughout the Weltkrieg, and the social tensions that became obvious alongside them. Even though the German Social Democrats agreed to the so-called Burgfrieden in 1914 and agreed to cooperate with the government throughout the war (eventually leading to the split of the Second Internationale), the German military increasingly started to crack down on activities such as strikes and peaceful opposition in the course of the war. Social injustice prevailed even among soldiers, with a deepening gap between enlisted and officers, while perceived anachronisms such as the three-class-franchise Prussian voting system remained.
Large-scale strikes in Germany would begin in June 1916, after the arrestment of socialist leader Karl Liebknecht. While this strike was mainly limited to the capital city of Berlin, the strike which would follow ten months later, the so-called April Strike of 1917, would be of a much larger dimension, with protests breaking out all over Germany. Cause of the strikes was a severe shortage of food after the harsh Turnip Winter caused by the British naval blockade. In January 1918, the next series of strikes would break out, now with hundred thousands of participants, this time even capturing Austria. Workers all over Central Europe demanded the end of the war, democratic reforms and better working conditions. The movement was inspired by the successful Russian October Revolution a few months earlier. However, all of these protests were eventually suppressed by loyal troops and socialist agitators were forcefully drafted into the military.
Things did not get better throughout the year. While the war in the east was finally over, Germany was now repelling the Great Allied Spring Offensive in the west, leading to the loss of ten of thousands brave soldiers. The effects of the blockade would hit Germany heavier and heavier with every week; Resources were still scarce and the people grew more and more war-weary with every day. Even though the Allied Offensive eventually bogged down in early summer, leading to a huge propaganda victory for the Germans, the war was far from over, with the frontline in the west looking basically the same as a few months earlier and the war on the Balkans still ongoing.
The months of June, July and August would be used by the Germans to establish new supply routes in the west and slowly transfer troops from the Eastern front over to prepare for a large-scale German offensive. High-ranking officials of the socialist USPD (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany), among them party chairman Hugo Haase, decided that this was the right time to overthrow the government via a peaceful revolution. Anti-war demonstartions began in late August 1918, mostly centered around the large industrial centres.
Attempt at Revolution[]
The Strike[]
Most of the USPD's supporters were workers, students and radical intellectuals. Again, several million people across the Empire took to the streets to protest against the war. Ludendorff's and Hindenburg's OHL as well as chancellor Georg von Hertling, de facto a puppet of the former, quickly became concerned by the movements and decided to enact a curfew. Despite these actions, demonstrations still took place with more and more people attending. The OHL tried to break the strikes by arresting various radical socialist leaders, but to no avail.
While the strikes organized by the USPD aimed for a peaceful revolution, there were movements within the German left which had a more radical solution in mind, namely the violent overthrow of the ruling elite. The most influential of these more extremist organisations were the Revolutionäre Obleute (Revolutionary Stewards), a group of union functionaries heavily in favor of Soviet council communism, the Bremer Linksradikale (Bremen Radical Leftists), a political splinter group in Northern Germany supporting international socialism very close to figures such as Karl Radek and Leon Trotsky, and the Spartakusbund (Spartacus League). The Spartacists had been founded in 1916 by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and pursued a proletarian revolution in order to overthrow capitalism, imperalism and militarism worldwide and represented the most popular far left-leaning elements within the Empire. As all former chairmen of the Spartacists (Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Jogiches) had been arrested, Paul Levi, socialist lawyer and fiancé of Luxemburg, was the central leader of the Spartakusbund at the time.
USPD demonstrations, mainly centered around large industrial centres like Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Saxony, Brunswick, Kiel and the Ruhr, were quickly undermined by Spartacist agitators. As the days went by and the gendarmerie began to use increasingly violent methods against the protestors, the strikers began to radicalize more and more; Eventually, many of them would throw their support behind the Spartakusbund, culminating in the outbreak of the September Insurrections on 9th September.
Spread & Disruption[]
WIP
Armed soldiers and militias in Berlin, September 9th.
On 9th September, when the strikes already had been ongoing for almost two weeks, longer than all other German wartime protests before, Spartacists in Berlin began to engage in combat with local gendarmerie forces, policemen and the Royal Guard and took over various government buildings including the Stadtschloss in Berlin and the Munich Residenz. The USPD leadership was angered by the escalation the Spartakusgruppe caused and decided to end its participation calling for an end of the violence. Ludendorff, backed by the Kaiser, the chancellor and Reichstag issued an ultimatum to the occupiers to leave the buildings and return to work. Unwilling to do so the Spartacists issued an ultimatum to the Kaiser demanding the release of political prisoners and to immediately abolish the monarchy in favour of a Socialist Republic. Ludendorff didn’t want to wait for the Kaiser to answer and commanded the police and the army to move in and restore order. The spartacists didn't stand a chance in the ensuring firefights and folded on 11th September 1918.
Aftermath[]
The Reichstag debates the Enabling Act
The remaining members of the Spartakusgruppe as well as some disgruntled USPD members formed the DOI (Deutsche Organisation der Internationale), an underground organisation in the aftermath.
The majority of the USPD members realized that their revolutionary movement stands no chance against the government, which made them re-approach the MSPD. Both parties started negotiating about a potential reunification. After two weeks of stiff negotiations the leaders of the MSPD and the USPD Friedrich Ebert and Hugo Haase, announced that the USPD would rejoin the MSPD once more. The reunified SPD was once again the largest party in the Empire and after it regained its more radical left wing was open to finally end the Burgfriedenspolitik. This didn’t sit well with reformist members of the SPD and their allies, the FVP and the Zentrum. The new chairmans of the reunified SPD became: Friedrich Ebert, Arthur Crispien, and Hermann Müller.
In the following month the Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz) was passed by a majority in the Reichstag, granting the Reichskanzler the ability to pass laws without the agreement of the Reichstag. The law was used for the first time on the same day by Chancellor Georg von Hertling on the behalf of general Ludendorff to ban all socialist parties (excluding the SPD) on the 14th of October.
The passing of the Enabling Act, the constant attacks by the right wing parties, the ban of socialist parties as well as the government's continued effort to issue war bonds finally led the SPD to the decision to officially end the Burgfriedenspolitik. The uneasy relationship between the reformist and the radical SPD members eases a lot afterwards . The deputies that formerly represented the USPD are pleased by the move. While the NLP, DRP and DkP immediately start to attack the SPD and discredit them as traitors to the fatherland, both FVP and Zentrum remain silent. DVLP members called for the SPD leadership to be put on trial for betraying the fatherland.