Mainz is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 221,000 inhabitants, it is Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in the Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region—Germany's second-largest metropolitan region after Rhine-Ruhr—which also encompasses the cities of Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Offenbach am Main, and Hanau.
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.
The German Revolution of 1918–1919 or November Revolution took place in Germany at the end of World War I. It began with the downfall of the German Empire and eventually resulted in the establishment of the Weimar Republic. The revolutionary period lasted from November 1918 until the adoption of the Weimar Constitution in August 1919. Among the factors leading to the revolution were the extreme burdens suffered by the German population during the four years of war, the economic and psychological impacts of the German Empire's defeat by the Allies, and growing social tensions between the general population and the aristocratic and bourgeois elite.
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 Republic of Mainz was the first democratic state in the current German territory and was centered in Mainz. A product of the French Revolutionary Wars, it lasted from March to July 1793.
The Kiel mutiny was a major revolt by sailors of the German High Seas Fleet, against the military command in Kiel, on 3 November 1918. The revolt triggered the German Revolution which was to sweep aside the monarchy within a few days. It ultimately led to the end of the German Empire and to the establishment of the Weimar Republic.
The November 1918 insurgency in Alsace-Lorraine is a series of events which occurred when the region of Alsace–Lorraine passed from German to French sovereignty at the end of World War I. During this month, international events were linked to domestic troubles, particularly the German Revolution.
The People's State of Hesse was one of the constituent states of Germany from 1918 to 1945, as the successor to the Grand Duchy of Hesse after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, on the territory of the current German states of Hesse and the Rhineland-Palatinate. The State was established after Grand Duke Ernest Louis was deposed on 9 November 1918. The term "People's State" referred to the fact that the new state was a Republic and was used in the same manner as the term Free State, which was employed by most of the other German States in this period.
The Mainz Carnival is a months-long citywide carnival celebration in Mainz, Germany that traditionally begins on 11 November but culminates in the days before Ash Wednesday in the spring.
During the First World War (1914–1918), the Revolutionary Stewards were shop stewards who were independent from the official unions and freely chosen by workers in various German industries. They rejected the war policies of the German Empire and the support which parliamentary representatives of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) gave to the policies. They also played a role during the German Revolution of 1918–19.
The Spartacist uprising, also known as the January uprising, was an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It occurred in connection with the November Revolution that broke out following Germany's defeat in World War I. The uprising was primarily a power struggle between the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) led by Friedrich Ebert, which favored a social democracy, and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, which wanted to set up a council republic similar to the one established by the Bolsheviks in Russia. In 1914 Liebknecht and Luxemburg had founded the Marxist Spartacus League, which gave the uprising its popular name.
The Spartacus League was a Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. It was founded in August 1914 as the International Group by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and other members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who were dissatisfied with the party's official policies in support of the war. In 1916 it renamed itself the Spartacus Group and in 1917 joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which had split off from the SPD as its left wing faction.
The Bremen Council Republic, also referred to in English as the Bremen Soviet Republic, was an unrecognised revolutionary state in Germany formed in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Although not formally declared until 10 January 1919, the regime it represented presided in the industrial-port city of Bremen from 14 November 1918 until its suppression on 2 February 1919 by army and irregular forces engaged by the government of the new German Republic in Berlin.
The Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany was the name officially used by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) between April 1917 and September 1922. The name differentiated it from the Independent Social Democratic Party, which split from the SPD as a result of the party majority's support of the government during the First World War.
Saxony in the German Revolution (1918–1919) followed a path that went from early control by workers' and soldiers' councils to the adoption of a republican constitution in a series of events that roughly mirrored those at the national level in Berlin. Because some members of the revolutionary councils, which were set up in major cities such as Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz, wanted a soviet-style council government while others favored a parliamentary republic, there was considerable internal disagreement that caused a split between the two groups. In early February 1919, elections were held for a state assembly, the Volkskammer, in which the moderates gained control. An outbreak of violence at the time of the March 1919 Kapp Putsch led the national government to forcibly remove the Leipzig workers' council, the last one remaining in the state. Saxony went on to become a constituent state within the Weimar Republic in November 1920.
Bernhard Adelung was social democratic politician and President of the republic in the Peoples State of Hesse from 1928 to 1933.
The Volksmarinedivision was an armed unit formed on 11 November 1918 during the November Revolution that broke out in Germany following its defeat in World War I. At its peak late that month, the People's Navy Division had about 3,200 members. In the struggles between the various elements involved in the revolution to determine Germany's future form of government, it initially supported the moderate socialist interim government of Friedrich Ebert and the Council of the People's Deputies. By December of 1918 it had turned more to the left and was involved in skirmishes against government troops. In March 1919, after the success of the Ebert government in the elections to the National Assembly that drew up the Weimar Constitution, the People's Navy Division was disbanded and 30 of its members were summarily shot by members of a Freikorps unit.
The Berlin March Battles of 1919, also known as Bloody Week, were the final decisive phase of the German Revolution of 1918–1919. The events were the result of a general strike by the Berlin working class to enforce the widely anticipated socialization of key industries, as well as the legal safeguarding of the workers' and soldiers' councils and thus the democratization of the military. The strike action was met with violence from the paramilitary Freikorps, resulting in street fighting and house-to-house fighting around the Alexanderplatz and the city of Lichtenberg.
The Würzburg Soviet Republic was an unrecognized, short-lived state organized under council communism in Würzburg, Germany in April 1919. It had little support among the local citizenry or political parties and was quickly put down by a unit of the Bavarian Army.
The proclamation of the republic in Germany took place in Berlin twice on 9 November 1918, the first at the Reichstag building by Philipp Scheidemann of the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD) and the second a few hours later by Karl Liebknecht, the leader of the Marxist Spartacus League, at the Berlin Palace.
