The German SPD and the First World War

One of the aspects of the First World War that most interests me is the position taken by the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in favor of the war.

How do we understand the SPD’s support for the Kaiser in the First World War?

One approach to understanding the SPD’s support for the Kaiseris to start with the events of January 1919.

To understand the problem it pretty much has to be seen from the ceasefire in 1918.

Heinrich Potthoff writes in "Die Sozialdemokrtied von den Anfängen bis 1945" in Susanne Miller/Heinrich Potthoff, Kleine Geschichte der SPD. Darstellung und Dokumentation, 1848-1990 (1991):

Doch die demokratischen Neuerungen wurden überschattet durch den alles überlagernden militärischen Zusammenbruch. Dadurch, daβ nach auβen hin die Regierung und in vorderster Front Erzberger die Verantwortung für den Waffenstillstand übernahmen, konnten die Initiatoren dieses Schrittes sich vor der Öffentlichkeit der Verantwortung entziehen. Es waren die Generale an der Spitze der Obersten Heeresleitung Hindenburg und Ludendorff, die auf den Waffenstillstand gedrangt, die Politiker vorangestoβen und im Falle Hindenburg die Annahme der Waffenstillstandsbedingungen gebilligt hatten. Die Militärs und die nationalistischen Kräfte jeder Couleur nutzten die Verschleierung der wahren Hintergriinde aus, um mit der sofort ins Spiel gebrachten „ Dolchstoβlegende“ die demokratischen Kräfte zu diskreditieren und zu kaschieren, daβ sie selbst es waren, die das Kaiserreich in die militärische Niederlage geführt hatten. (S. 81)

[Certainly the democratic innovations were overshadowed by the military collapse that overlay everything. Thereby, because the government and {Matthias} Erzberger {of the Center Party} above all assumed the responsibility before the world for the ceasefire, the initiators of this step could escape responsibility for it before the public. It was the generals at the head of the Army Senior Command, {Paul von} Hindenburg and {Erich} Ludendorff, who pressed for the ceasefire, put the politicians out in front and, in Hindenburg’s case, had approved the acceptance of the ceasefire conditions. The generals and the nationalist forces of every stripe {Couleur} exploited the concealment of the real background in order to immediately bring the stab-in-the-back legend into play to discredit the democratic forces and airbrush out the fact that it was they themselves who had led the Empire into the military defeat.]

Potthoff also quotes Susanne Miller giving the following points to summarize the major considerations on the SPD, quoting her from “Die Sozialdemokratie in der Spannung zwischen Oppoisitionstradition und Regierungsverantwortung in den Anfängen der Weimarer Republik” in Hans Mommsen, Hrsg., Sozialdemokratie zwischen Klassenbewegung und Volkspartei (1974):

• Responding to the general opinion among their voting base
• The SPD's view of Russia, expertly exploited by Bethmann-Hollweg
• Their (internationalist?) hostility to British and French imperialism
• The claims of France on Alsace-Lorraine
• “The hope of improving their own status through inner political reforms,” i.e., their desire to be accepted as a legitimate political party which they hoped supporting the war would achieve (my translation)
• Fear of repression which would roll back their political achievements and subject their Party resources and property to confiscation, censorship or banning

He quotes Miller: "to the German workers’ movement, the Wilhelminian Reich appeared to them as the group ground of their existence and their effectiveness, which they wanted to maintain." (p. 75 in Potthoff)

Potthoff also quotes August Bebel (p. 75) from the SPD Party convention of 1907: "If we at some time truly must defend the Fatherland, we will defend it because it is our Fatherland, as the ground on which we live, whose language we speak, whose customs we possess, because we want to make this Fatherland to a country to which there has never been the like in the world in the same fullness and beauty." (my translation) Whether this amounts to hurrah-patriotism is questionable.

Remarkably, the SPD leaders also were largely under the illusion that the Kaiser's government, headed by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856-1921), was genuinely interested in preserving the piece. Even as staunch a radical as Rosa Luxemburg (1870-1919) was under that impression!

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, German Chancellor 1909-1917

This is in no small part a tribute to the political skills of Bethmann-Hollweg, who passed himself off to the SPD as a counterweight in the government to the warmongers, which he was not. He played them, and played them effectively. Rainer Traub describes his strategy to win the antiwar SPD to the Kaiser war cause in "Das Debakel der Arbeiterbewegung" (Die Ur-Katastrophe des 20.Jahrhunderts; Spiegel Special 1/2004):

Aber Kanzler Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg verfolgt eine geschmeidigere Taktik. Mehrfach werden in den letzten Juli-Tagen SPD-Vertreter in Preußens Innenministerium bestellt. Die Friedensdemonstrationen, beteuern die Ministerialen, wolle man nicht unterdrücken. Auch die Regierung wünsche ja Frieden. Die deutsche Führung setzt auf die Russenfurcht der Arbeiterbewegung. Zuverlassigen Informationen zufolge, gibt sie zu verstehen, sei die antideutsche, panslawistische Stimmung in Russland sehr stark. Die SPD-Führung moge es darum vermeiden, durch Kritik der eigenen Regierung dieser Stimmung Vorschub zu leisten.

Albert Südekum vom rechten SPD-Flugel versichert dem Kanzler schriftlich und ehrerbietig, dass „gerade aus dem Wunsch heraus, dem Frieden zu dienen, keinerlei wie immer geartete Aktion (General- oder partieller Streik, Sabotage u. dgl.) geplant oder auch nur zu befürchten" sei. Befriedigt registriert Bethmann Hollweg, dass seine Taktik aufgeht.

[But Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg followed a more flexible tactic {than that to which the Kaiser was inclined}. In the last July days {before the war began}, representatives of the SPD were repeatedly invited to Prussia's Interior Minister. The {SPD-lead} peace demonstrations, assured the ministerial officials, would not be suppressed. The government also wanted peace, they claimed. The German leadership focused on the workers' movement's fear of Russia. According to reliable information, they gave {the SPD representatives} to understand, the anti-German, Pan-Slavic was very strong in Russia. The SPD leadership should therefore should want to avoid providing encouragement to this mood by criticism of their own government {i.e., the Kaiser's government}.

Albert Südekum from the right wing of the SPD assured the Chancellor in writing and deferentially that "precisely from the desire to serve peace, none of the many different actions (general or partial strike, sabotage and the like) are planned, or even to be feared." Bethmann-Hollweg realized with satisfaction that his tactic was working.]

Bethmann-Hollweg ran a political con on the SPD. And it worked. The majority of its Reichstag members fell for it and obediently endorsed and voted for the war credits in the Reichstag on August 4, 1914.

Conned by Behmann-Hollweg at the start, conned by Ludendorff at the end. Not an impressive outcome.

Tags: erster weltkrieg, first world war, spd