Even before the outbreak of the war, the more dis-
cerning conservatives such as Bethmann Hollweg
recognised that imperial Germany must move
in the direction of a more broadly based consti-
tutional monarchy. The kaiser, the big landed
and industrial interests and the powerful military
frustrated progressive constitutional policies.
Then it happened with the imminence of defeat
facing Germany in November 1918: the Social
Democrats joined the Cabinet of Prince Max von
Baden; government, it was intended, should in
future be dependent on a Reichstag majority.
The great change from a semi-authoritarian to
a parliamentary democracy had taken place
without a revolution. The revolution had been
anticipated and made unnecessary. The kaiser
had left for exile in Holland with his little-loved
family and the consequent vacuum of power had
to be filled.
The peaceful transfer of power was almost suc-
cessful and there can be no doubt that this is what
the vast majority of the German people desired.
They did not want to suffer a civil war and blood-
shed on top of the defeat. They feared revolution,
especially of the kind that had occurred in neigh-
bouring Russia. Indeed, deeply disillusioned by the
suddenness of defeat, they cared little about
politics altogether, wanted law and order and to
keep their possessions. This ‘silent majority’
showed an extraordinary capacity to get on with
their own lives regardless of the wild men, the bat-
talions of mutinied sailors and armed bands of var-ious political persuasions rushing around in lorries.
Life in Berlin during the early days of the republic
went on with everyday orderliness. If shooting
occurred, people sheltered in doorways, while in
neighbouring streets others shopped, ate and
amused themselves as usual. Prussia had been
renowned for its public orderliness. No one in
their lifetime had experienced violence on the
streets. Now the ordinary Germans coped with the
breakdown of their orderly world by simply ignor-
ing the disorder and turning the other way.
Political democracy requires that the majority
feel a concern for their rights and the rights of
others and are ready to defend them. In Germany
in the early years of the Weimar Republic it was
possible for the committed few who did not
shrink from using force to threaten to take over
control of the state, jeopardising peaceful change.
When on 9 November 1918, Prince Max von
Baden announced the abdication of the kaiser
and handed over his office to Ebert who thereby
became chancellor ‘on the basis of the constitu-
tion’, the German people were pleased to learn
not that there had been a ‘revolution’, but that
the revolution had been pronounced as having
occurred unbeknown to all but a few. The Social
Democrats had long ago given up any real inten-
tion of seeking revolution. Like the British
Labour Party they were intent on gradual parlia-
mentary and democratic change. They had
become the true heirs of the liberals of ‘the 1848
revolution’ including taking pride in German(^1) Chapter 12
DEMOCRACY ON TRIAL
WEIMAR GERMANY