Friedrich Ebert - Controversy About The Freikorps Collaboration

Controversy About The Freikorps Collaboration

Ebert remains a somewhat controversial figure to this day. While the S.P.D. recognizes him as one of the founders and keepers of German democracy whose death in office in February 1925 was a great loss, communists and others on the left argue that he paved the way for national socialism by supporting the Freikorps and their suppression of violent communistic uprisings.

Elements of the Freikorps, which consisted of World War I veterans, maintained that the German working class, supported by the S.P.D., was responsible for Germany's defeat in World War I. The alleged proof of this Dolchstoßlegende was found in a number of strikes during 1917 and 1918 which had partly disrupted production in the Imperial German armaments industry. The aim of the striking workers and their socialist allies was said to have been to turn the German Empire into a Soviet Socialist Republic. Most historians, however, say that military defeat was inevitable after the U.S. had joined the war against Germany. In November 1918, a delegation of members of parliament represented Germany in the ceasefire negotiations at the request of the military leadership after the generals had decided that the war could no longer be won. Critics say that thus the politicians exactly played the role that the military wanted them to play. Ebert later on even cooperated with the generals in order to prevent the country from falling into chaos, as he saw it.

Some historians have defended Ebert's actions as unfortunate but inevitable if the creation of a socialist state on the model that had been promoted by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and the communist Spartacus Group was to be prevented. Leftist historians like Bernt Engelmann, on the other hand, have argued that organized communism was not yet politically relevant in Germany at the time. However, the actions of Ebert and his Minister of Defense, Gustav Noske, against the insurgents contributed to the radicalization of the workers and to increasing support for communistic ideas.

Although the Weimar constitution (which Ebert signed into law in August 1919) provided for the establishment of workers' councils on different levels of society, they did not play a major part in the political life of the Weimar Republic. Ebert always regarded the institutions of parliamentary democracy as a more legitimate expression of the will of the people; workers' councils, as a product of the revolution, were only justified in exercising power for a transitive period. "All power to all the people!" was the slogan of his party, in contrast to the slogan of the far left, "All power to the (workers') councils!". In Ebert's opinion only reforms, not a revolution, could advance the causes of democracy and socialism. So he has been called a traitor by the far left, paving the way for the ascendancy of the far right and even of Hitler, whereas those who think his policies were justified claim that he saved Germany from Bolshevik excesses.