1918
During the German Revolution of 1918 he became chairman of the newly formed Workers and Soldiers council of Cologne. This council then successfully exercised authority over the fortress of Cologne, which had tens of thousands of retreating, demoralized soldiers. In this role Sollmann helped keep control of the city out of the hands of radical elements. Violence did not occur in Cologne, as it would in Kiel, Munich, and Berlin. In 1919 he was elected a member of the National Assembly in Weimar, and was a staff member of the German delegation to the peace negotiations in Versailles, where he served as an expert on problems of the Rheinland occupation. In 1920 he was elected to the German parliament, representing the district of Cologne and Aachen. Sollman was one of the organizers in 1923 of the passive resistance to the French occupation of the Saarland. In that same year he served as Minister of the Interior in two cabinets of Gustav Stresemann.
In parliament he served as a member of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, and as an expert on disarmament and adult education. Within the SPD, he founded and was director of the Social Democratic Press Service, the party's parliamentary press service. He also served on the executive board of the SPD.
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