Matthias Erzberger, Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Finance Hermann Müller, Minister of Foreign AffairsEduard David (SPD), Minister of the Interior, then Minister without portfolioRudolf Wissell (left, SPD), Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Schmidt (SPD), Minister of Economic Affairs and of Food and AgricultureGustav Noske (SPD), Reichswehr Minister Johannes Bell (Centre), Minister of Transport and of Colonial MinisterOtto Gessler (DDP), Minister for Reconstruction
The Bauer cabinet, headed by Gustav Bauer of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), was the second democratically elected government during the Weimar Republic. Bauer's title was minister president until the Weimar Constitution came into force on 14 August 1919, after which he became chancellor of Germany. The cabinet took office on 21 June 1919 when it replaced the Scheidemann cabinet, which had resigned the day before in protest against the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Although the Weimar Constitution was not in force at the time, the Bauer cabinet is generally counted as the second government of the Weimar Republic.
The cabinet was initially based on a coalition of the Social Democratic Party and the Centre Party. The German Democratic Party (DDP), which had been part of Scheidemann's cabinet, had refused to support signing the Treaty of Versailles and did not join the Bauer cabinet until 3 October 1919, at which point the original Weimar Coalition of centre-left parties was restored.
During its time in office, the Bauer cabinet worked with the Weimar National Assembly (the interim legislative body of the Republic) to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, adopt the Weimar Constitution and begin a fundamental reform of the German tax system. It also passed a number of social welfare laws covering unemployment relief and health insurance.
The Bauer cabinet resigned on 27 March 1920 as a result of its unsatisfactory handling of the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch. It was followed by the government of Hermann Müller of the SPD.
Election and establishment
The government of Gustav Bauer was created under great time pressure and extraordinary circumstances. Early on 20 June 1919, the government of Philipp Scheidemann resigned when it was unable to agree on a common stance towards the Allied ultimatum to either sign the Treaty of Versailles or face a resumption of hostilities. Germany had less than five days to accept. It was widely feared that a refusal to sign would result in the dismemberment of the German state, occupation by foreign troops and a possible plunge into civil war.[1]
At a loss over how to proceed, the Scheidemann cabinet had seriously considered handing over supreme authority over Germany to the Allies. It had been unprepared for their complete refusal to negotiate the Treaty's terms. After the cabinet's resignation, it fell to President Friedrich Ebert and the majority parties of the Weimar National Assembly to create a new government and to decide whether to sign the Treaty. Out of this crisis emerged the Bauer cabinet.[1]
The parties themselves were split, with ongoing internal debates between those for and against signing. Under the leadership of Matthias Erzberger, the Centre Party was willing to sign provided that some "dishonourable" clauses were struck from the text, and the Social Democrats advocated a separate, parallel note of protest. However, the DDP, which had been most vocal among the coalition parties in opposing the Treaty, insisted on making substantial changes as the condition for its acceptance. It was seen as a tactical move, an attempt to preserve the appearance of a willingness to compromise whilst remaining true to their principles.[1]
Threats by Ebert to resign and even the readiness of SPD and Centre Party to accept the DDP's demands failed to bring the Democrats on board. On the morning of 21 June, the DDP forbade its members from taking positions in a new cabinet. This made it impossible for those in the DDP who were in favour of signing (such as Hugo Preuss and Bernhard Dernburg) to cooperate and also posed a problem for the Centre Party, which previously had refused to entertain the idea of a coalition without the DDP. Ebert, who had promised never to call for a cabinet based only on the SPD and Centre Party, had to give in. The Social Democrats in the Assembly named Eduard David, who next to Erzberger had been the member of the old cabinet most supportive of the Treaty, as candidate for head of government. Hermann Müller, the SPD chairman, was seen as a favourite by the public.[1]
On the morning of 21 June, Müller presented the SPD parliamentary group with an almost complete cabinet list (virtually identical with the cabinet eventually appointed). David had declined to become head of government for "health reasons". According to Müller, Gustav Noske, Rudolf Wissell and Robert Schmidt, all SPD, were needed in their respective posts as ministers. Former minister of Labour Gustav Bauer was then named as candidate for minister president even though he had been quite vocal in his opposition to the Treaty. The Social Democrats were surprised by the choice. They asked Müller to become head of government, but he refused. Overall, the formation of the cabinet occurred with minimal involvement by the SPD, for which Müller had to justify himself shortly before the initial meeting of the cabinet.
President Ebert apparently had exercised a considerable amount of influence on events (to which he was entitled under §8 of the temporary constitution, the Law on Provisional Reich Power). Since Bauer was a friend of Ebert, the President likely did not intend for him to "take a fall" as the head of government who had to sign the hated Treaty. Bauer was not a great leadership personality who could be confidently expected to deal successfully with the huge challenges posed by complying with the Treaty while fending off internal dissent both from the left and the right. Ebert's choice is seen today as a reflection of the fact that Ebert himself had only grudgingly accepted the inevitability of signing the Treaty shortly before the Scheidemann cabinet resigned. In contrast to those like David who had argued in favour of signing from the start, Bauer was – like Ebert – a reluctant convert. The choice of Bauer thus was based on a mutual feeling of party solidarity between two Social Democrats willing to take responsibility for the consequences of the lost war and on Bauer's personal friendship with Ebert.[1]
Bauer took on the thankless task, saying, "We are not standing here out of the interest of our parties, and even less – believe me – out of ambition. We are standing here out of a feeling of responsibility, in the awareness that it is our damned duty to save what can be saved." On 22 June he spoke defiantly to the National Assembly about the need to sign the Versailles Treaty:
Let us sign, that is the proposal I have to make to you on behalf of the entire cabinet. The reasons that compel us to make the proposal are the same as yesterday, only now we are separated by a period of barely four hours before the resumption of hostilities. We could not justify a new war even if we had weapons. We are defenceless, but without defence does not mean without honour. Certainly, our enemies want to take away our honour, there is no doubt about that, but that this attempt at stripping away our honour will one day fall back on the originators, that it is not our honour that will perish in this world tragedy, that is my belief until my last breath.[2]
A final attempt to have the so-called "articles of shame" 227 to 231[3][4] removed from the Treaty was rejected by the Allies. From the moment of its inception, the Bauer cabinet was thus tainted in the eyes of many in Germany, both for its submissive acceptance and its failure to negotiate an improvement in the Treaty.[1]
At that point there were rumours of an impending military coup, and the Centre Party started to reconsider its support for signing. Ministers Johannes Bell and Wilhelm Mayer[de] argued for a rejection of the Treaty. It was only the clear message sent by General Wilhelm Groener at the Supreme Army Command (OHL) that a resumption of hostilities would be "hopeless" that prevented the speedy collapse of the Bauer cabinet.[1]
Members
The members of the cabinet – known collectively as the Reich Ministry until the Weimar Constitution came into force in August 1919, when the official name became the Reich government – were as follows:[5]
↑ On 15 September 1919, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture was merged with the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
↑ The Ministry of Transport was newly created in 1919. Bell became its first minister on 5 November 1919.
↑ The affairs of the Colonial Ministry were transferred on 7 November 1919 to the Ministry for Reconstruction, newly created on 25 October 1919.
↑ Reinhardt, Prussian Minister of War until the institution's dissolution in September 1919, became head of the Supreme Army Command on 1 October, retaining his (non-voting) seat in the cabinet.
Actions
After the National Assembly's June vote to accept the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of 237 to 138 with 5 abstentions,[6] it formally ratified the Treaty and the regulations covering the occupation of the Rhineland on 9 July.
The Assembly continued to work on the new constitution for the Republic during the first few months of the Bauer cabinet. It passed the final draft on 31 July, 262 to 75,[7] with the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), German National People's Party (DNVP) and German People's Party (DVP) voting against. The Assembly had its first session in Berlin on 30 September, once the capital was considered to be safe.
On 7 July, Finance Minister Matthias Erzberger (Centre Party) presented a package of far-reaching fiscal reforms that fundamentally changed Germany's tax system. Tax legislation and administration were taken from the states and centralised at the Reich level. Income, corporate, inheritance and indirect taxes were standardised and increased, and a one-time property levy was imposed.[8]
Various improvements to unemployment relief (a form of welfare not to be confused with unemployment insurance, which was not introduced in Germany until 1927)[9] were also carried out during Bauer's time as chancellor. A winter supplement was provided in October 1919, and the maximum benefit for single males over the age of 21 was increased from three and a half to six marks in February 1920. In order to reduce government expenditures, a decree of October 1919 ordered all unemployment relief funds that went beyond the maximum scales to be withdrawn from the responsible municipal authorities.[10]
In the field of health insurance, a decree of 28 June 1919 bestowed on rural funds the same right of self-government that other insurance funds had. An order of 27 October 1919 empowered the minister of labour to use grants and loans to encourage "measures likely to create opportunities for employment".[11][pageneeded] In December 1919, laws were passed that extended compulsory insurance against infirmity and old age to certain new classes of workpeople.[12] The Factory Council Act of February 1920 established works councils at workplaces with 20 or more employees as a means of improving lines of communication between labour and management.[13]
In October 1919, a law came into force that entitled insured women to a lump sum of 50 marks from their insurance board to cover the cost of childbirth, together with confinement compensation for 10 weeks. In addition, maternity care was covered by a 25 mark payment and a daily breastfeeding bonus of one mark fifty for 10 weeks. The law entitled the wives and daughters of insured employees (both female and male) to certain types of support in connection with pregnancy.[14] Following a similar decree issued in December 1918, an important law was issued in support of youth welfare in November 1919.[15]
The Reich Settlement Law of August 1919[16][17] redistributed large estates among smaller farmers, although by 1928 only 3% of small-scale farmers had benefitted from the law.[18] The Allotment Garden and Small-Lease-Holding Ordinance of July 1919 provided legal protection for non-commercially used property such as workers' gardens and "Schreber" gardens (a rented plot of land used for growing fruits and vegetables).
After the failure of the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch on 17 March 1920, union and left-wing leaders such as Carl Legien, Arthur Crispien and Rudolf Hilferding put pressure on the government that had just returned to Berlin after having fled first to Dresden and then to Stuttgart. On 22 March the unions ended their general strike, which had been central to defeating the putsch, conditional on concessions by the government: withdrawal of troops from Berlin and a decisive influence of organized labour on the makeup of the next cabinet. Ultimately the Bauer cabinet had to resign because it had been unable to prevent the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch. It was to be replaced by a cabinet of politicians who could not be charged with leading Germany to the brink of class and civil war, precisely where it had been a year earlier. The new government was the SPD-led first Müller cabinet, which took office on 27 March 1920.[19]
Related Research Articles
The Kapp Putsch, also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch, was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo the German Revolution of 1918–1919, overthrow the Weimar Republic, and establish an autocratic government in its place. It was supported by parts of the Reichswehr, as well as nationalist and monarchist factions.
Friedrich Ebert was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the first president of Germany from 1919 until his death in office in 1925.
Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the first quarter of the 20th century he played a leading role in both his party and in the young Weimar Republic. During the German Revolution of 1918–1919 that broke out after Germany's defeat in World War I, Scheidemann proclaimed a German Republic from a balcony of the Reichstag building. In 1919 he was elected Reich Minister President by the National Assembly meeting in Weimar to write a constitution for the republic. He resigned the office the same year due to a lack of unanimity in the cabinet on whether or not to accept the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
Gustav Adolf Bauer was a German Social Democratic Party leader and the chancellor of Germany from June 1919 to March 1920. Prior to that, he was minister of labour in the last cabinet of the German Empire and during most of the German Revolution that preceded the formal establishment of the Weimar Republic.
Hermann Müller was a German Social Democratic politician who served as foreign minister (1919–1920) and was twice chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic. In his capacity as foreign minister, he was one of the German signatories of the Treaty of Versailles.
Karl Joseph Wirth was a German politician of the Catholic Centre Party who served for one year and six months as the chancellor of Germany from 1921 to 1922, as the finance minister from 1920 to 1921, as acting foreign minister of Germany from 1921 to 1922 and again in 1922, as the minister for the Occupied Territories from 1929 to 1930 and as the minister of the Interior from 1930 to 1931. During the postwar era, he participated in the Soviet and East German Communist-controlled neutralist Alliance of Germans party from 1952 until his death in 1956.
Wilhelm Marx was a German judge, politician and member of the Catholic Centre Party. During the Weimar Republic he was the chancellor of Germany twice, from 1923–1925 and 1926–1928, and served briefly as the minister president of Prussia in 1925. With a total of 3 years and 73 days, he was the longest-serving chancellor during the Weimar Republic.
The Weimar Coalition is the name given to the coalition government formed by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the German Democratic Party (DDP) and the Catholic Centre Party (Z), who together had a large majority of the delegates to the Constituent Assembly that met at Weimar in 1919, and were the principal groups that designed the constitution of the Weimar Republic. These three parties were seen as the most committed to Germany's new democratic system, and together governed Germany until the elections of 1920, when the first elections under the new constitution were held, and both the SPD and especially the DDP lost a considerable share of their votes. Although the Coalition was revived in the ministry of Joseph Wirth from 1921 to 1922, the pro-democratic elements never truly had a majority in the Reichstag from this point on, and the situation gradually grew worse for them with the continued weakening of the DDP. This meant that any pro-republican group that hoped to attain a majority would need to form a "Grand Coalition" with the conservative-liberal German People's Party (DVP), which only gradually moved from monarchism to republicanism over the course of the Weimar Republic and was virtually wiped out politically after the death of their most prominent figure, Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann in 1929.
Gustav Noske was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He served as the first Minister of Defence (Reichswehrminister) of the Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1920. Noske was known for using army and paramilitary forces to suppress the socialist/communist uprisings of 1919.
The Timeline of the Weimar Republic lists in chronological order the major events of the Weimar Republic, beginning with the final month of the German Empire and ending with the Nazi Enabling Act of 1933 that concentrated all power in the hands of Adolf Hitler. A second chronological section lists important cultural, scientific and commercial events during the Weimar era.
Eugen Schiffer was a German lawyer and liberal politician. He served as Minister of Finance and deputy head of government in the Weimar Republic from February to April 1919. From October 1919 to March 1920, he was again deputy head of government and Minister of Justice. In 1921, he once more became Minister of Justice. Schiffer was a founder-member of the liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) in 1918 and 1919 and co-founder in 1946 of its East German successor party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD).
The Free State of Prussia was one of the constituent states of Germany from 1918 to 1947. The successor to the Kingdom of Prussia after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, it continued to be the dominant state in Germany during the Weimar Republic, as it had been during the empire, even though most of Germany's post-war territorial losses in Europe had come from its lands. It was home to the federal capital Berlin and had 62% of Germany's territory and 61% of its population. Prussia changed from the authoritarian state it had been in the past and became a parliamentary democracy under its 1920 constitution. During the Weimar period it was governed almost entirely by pro-democratic parties and proved more politically stable than the Republic itself. With only brief interruptions, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) provided the Minister President. Its Ministers of the Interior, also from the SPD, pushed republican reform of the administration and police, with the result that Prussia was considered a bulwark of democracy within the Weimar Republic.
Eduard Heinrich Rudolph David was a German politician. He was an important figure in the history of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and of the German political labour movement. After the German Revolution of 1918–19 he was a Minister without portfolio in the government of Philipp Scheidemann, before becoming Minister of the Interior in June 1919 in the succeeding government headed by Gustav Bauer. David remained in that position until October of that year.
The Weimar National Assembly, officially the German National Constitutional Assembly, was the popularly elected constitutional convention and de facto parliament of Germany from 6 February 1919 to 21 May 1920. As part of its duties as the interim government, it debated and reluctantly approved the Treaty of Versailles that codified the peace terms between Germany and the victorious Allies of World War I. The Assembly drew up and approved the Weimar Constitution that was in force from 1919 to 1933. With its work completed, the National Assembly was dissolved on 21 May 1920. Following the election of 6 June 1920, the new Reichstag met for the first time on 24 June 1920, taking the place of the Assembly.
The Ruhr uprising or March uprising (Märzaufstand) was a left-wing workers' revolt in the Ruhr region of Germany in March 1920. It initially took place in support of the call for a general strike issued by the Social Democrat members of the German government, the unions, and other parties in response to the right-wing Kapp Putsch of 13 March 1920.
Walther Gustav Reinhardt was a German officer who served as the last Prussian Minister of War and the first head of the army command within the newly created Ministry of the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic. During the Kapp Putsch of 1920, Reinhardt remained loyal to the elected government and was one of the few senior officers of the Reichswehr willing to order troops to fire at the revolting units.
The Scheidemann cabinet, headed by Minister President Philipp Scheidemann of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), was Germany's first democratically elected national government. It took office on 13 February 1919, three months after the collapse of the German Empire following Germany's defeat in World War I. Although the Weimar Constitution was not in force yet, it is generally counted as the first government of the Weimar Republic.
The first Müller cabinet, headed by Chancellor Hermann Müller of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), was the third democratically elected government of Germany and the second in office after the Weimar Constitution came into force in August 1919. The cabinet was based on the same three centre-left parties as the preceding Bauer cabinet: the SPD, Centre Party and German Democratic Party (DDP), a grouping known as the Weimar Coalition. It was formed on 27 March 1920 after the government of Gustav Bauer (SPD) resigned as a result of the unsuccessful Kapp Putsch, which it was seen as having handled badly.
The Fehrenbach cabinet, headed by Chancellor Constantin Fehrenbach of the Centre Party, was the fourth democratically elected government of the Weimar Republic. It took office on 25 June 1920 when it replaced the first cabinet of Hermann Müller, which had resigned due to the poor showing of the coalition parties in the June 1920 elections to the new Reichstag. The 1920 Reichstag replaced the Weimar National Assembly, which had served as Germany's interim parliament and written and approved the Weimar Constitution.
Rudolf Oeser was a German journalist and liberal politician. From 1922 to 1924 he was a member of several governments of the Weimar Republic, serving as Minister of the Interior and Minister of Transport.
↑ Henßler, Patrick (4 September 2007). "Versailler Vertrag, 1919/20"[Versailles Treaty, 1919/20]. Historisches Lexikon Bayerns (in German). Retrieved 10 August 2023.
↑ Altmann, Gerhard; Scriba, Arnulf (13 September 2014). "Die Erzbergersche Reichsfinanzreform"[Erzberger's Reich Financial Reform]. Deutsches Historisches Museum (in German). Retrieved 11 August 2023.
↑ Jeanne C., Barber (7 November 1934). "Unemployment Insurance in Germany". Social Security Administration Reports & Studies. Retrieved 28 March 2024.
↑ Wunderlich, Frieda (1961). Farm labor in Germany, 1810–1945; its historical development within the frameork of agricultural and social policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
