Political Problems and Uprisings

The Revolution of 1918

The Spartacist Rising

The Weimar Republic

On 19 January 1919, millions of Germans went to the polls to elect a new parliament. The most votes went to three parties that supported Ebert, the Social Democratic Party, the Centre Party and the Democrats.

The new parliament met on 6 February but because of the fighting in Berlin between the Free Corps and the Spartacists, it met in the small, south German town of Weimar, hence the name of the new republic. Its first action was to elect Friedrich Ebert as president of Germany. Its second was to create a set of rules about how Germany should be organised and run. A constitution.

The Constitution

The new constitution was published in August 1919 and when it was, many people praised it. It was so good for five main reasons:

• Firstly, it allowed men and women over twenty to vote. At that time, few other countries allowed women to vote.

• Secondly, it used PR (proportional representation) to decide which parties got seats in parliament. This is where each party gets a number of seats that is in proportion to the amount of votes they get for each of their candidates. This was thought to be fairer than the methods used in other countries because it gave big and small parties a share of the seats.

• Thirdly, the constitution gave the people many human and civil rights. They now had the right of free speech, they could travel freely, they could hold political meetings and they had freedom of religious belief. At that time, few other countries allowed their people so many rights and freedoms.

• Fourthly, there were two houses of parliament. One of them, called the Reichstag, was elected directly by the people. The other one, called the Reichsrat was made up of elected members of the eighteen German states (click on the pictures below and see picture 2). Most countries with parliaments at that time only had one house elected by the people.

• Fifthly, the head of state, the President, was also elected by the people. In Britain, the king or queen, the head of state, inherited the post.