The Weimar Republic was born amid the civil strife and open revolt that had engulfed cities across Germany in the closing weeks of the First World War. The November Revolution actually began at the end of October 1918, but spread from the port of Kiel to eventually reach as far as the southern Bavarian city of Munich by 7 November.
The German Republic was declared on 9 November, shortly after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II was announced. Power was swiftly transferred to Friedrich Ebert who reluctantly accepted the role of Reichspräsident and formed a coalition government known as the Council of the People's Deputies.
It was therefore Ebert’s government that signed the Armistice of Compiègne on 11 November, and which authorised the brutal suppression of the Spartacist Uprising in January 1919. Just four days after the deaths of Spartacist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht elections for the National Assembly took place, which convened in Weimar in order to avoid the unrest in Berlin.
Although the state of Germany from the inauguration of the new constitution until Hitler became Führer is generally referred to as the Weimar Republic, its official name continued to be Deutsches Reich or ‘German Empire’ which had first been adopted in 1871.
It took the best of part of seven months for the delegates of the National Assembly to agree on the terms of the new constitution, which Ebert signed into law whilst on holiday in Schwarzburg.
