page_title: Ebert–Groener pact
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Ebert–Groener pact / Background
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Zum 25. Todestag des ersten deutschen Reichspräsidenten Friedrich Ebert am 26. Februar 1925 Letzte Aufnahme des Reichspräsidenten Ebert, photographiert am 15. Februar, vor 14 Tagen an seinem Schreibtisch.
context_page_description: The Ebert–Groener pact, sometimes called the Ebert-Groener deal, was an agreement between the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, at the time the President of Germany, and Wilhelm Groener, Quartermaster General of the German Army, on November 10, 1918.
  Groener assured Ebert of the loyalty of the armed forces. In return, Ebert promised that the government would take prompt action against leftist uprisings, call a national assembly, that military command would remain with the professional officers corps and most importantly the military would retain its traditional "state within the state" status. The agreement gave the government the means to defeat the challenge posed to its authority by those on the political left.
  However, it also drove a wedge between Ebert's Social Democratic Party and other socialist groups, who accused him of allying himself with the enemy of the revolution. It kept the military, which had been the true power in the German Empire during World War I, as a largely self-governing institution that operated outside of civilian control. Future governments of the Weimar Republic would thus be dependent on the goodwill or lack thereof of its leadership.
context_section_description: Historically, the German civil government and the Army supreme command had remained independent of one another with the military only responsible to the Kaiser, not the Chancellor. During the course of World War I, the military high command (OHL) and, in particular, Erich Ludendorff, the First Quartermaster General of the German Army, had become the de facto ruler of Germany. Although Paul von Hindenburg and Emperor Wilhelm II were both nominally Ludendorff's superiors, Ludendorff was taking the important decisions. 
  When it became clear that the war was lost in late summer/fall of 1918, Ludendorff started to favour the "parliamentisation" of the Empire, a transfer of power to those parties that held the majority in the Reichstag: Social Democrats (SPD), Center Party and Progress Party. The goal was to shift the blame for the military defeat from the OHL to the politicians of the majority parties. On September 29, 1918, Ludendorff suddenly informed the civilian government that the Western Front could collapse at any moment and that a ceasefire had to be negotiated without delay. However, he suggested that the request for the ceasefire should come from a new government, based on the Reichstag majority. A "revolution from above" was needed. Chancellor Georg von Hertling and Emperor Wilhelm II agreed, but the former resigned. In early October, the Emperor appointed a liberal, Prince Maximilian of Baden, as chancellor to lead peace negotiations with the Allies. The request for a ceasefire went out on October 4. 
  As US President Woodrow Wilson did not agree immediately to ceasefire negotiations, there was a delay of several weeks. Now, Ludendorff again changed tack and argued in favour of continued fighting and for the exchange of diplomatic notes to be ended. However, when he threatened to resign, a successful bluff several times before, this time, on October 26, his resignation was accepted. Ludendorff's successor was Wilhelm Groener.
  On October 30, a confrontation between officers and crews on board the German fleet at Wilhelmshaven set in motion a train of events that would result in the German Revolution, which spread over a substantial part of the country over the next week. On November 9, as the striking masses were marching on Berlin, Prince Max unilaterally and untruthfully declared that Emperor Wilhelm II had abdicated. He then resigned himself and unconstitutionally handed his office over to Ebert, who thus became Minister President of Prussia and Chancellor of Germany. 
  Ebert's first action as Chancellor was to issue a proclamation, asking the people to remain calm, get off the streets and to restore peace and order. It failed to work. Ebert found himself in a quandary. He had succeeded in bringing the SPD to power and was now in a position to put into law social reforms and improve the lot of the working class. However, as a result of the revolution, his party (and he himself) was forced to share power with those on the left that he despised, the Spartacists and the Independents of the USPD.
  On the afternoon of November 9, he asked the USPD to nominate three ministers for the future government, but they were slow to respond. That evening, a group of several hundred followers of labour leaders from Berlin known as the Revolutionary Stewards occupied the Reichstag and held an impromptu debate. They called for the election of soldiers' and workers' councils the next day with an eye to name a provisional government, the Council of the People's Deputies.
  On November 10, the SPD, led by Ebert, managed to ensure that a majority of the newly elected workers' and soldiers' councils came from among their own supporters. Meanwhile, the USPD agreed to work with him to share power in the Rat der Volksbeauftragten. That afternoon, Ebert announced the cooperation between SPD and USPD to several thousand representatives of the councils assembled at Zirkus Busch. Eager for a unified socialist front, they approved the parity of three members of the new government each from SPD and USPD.
  Ebert was one of those three SPD members and
caption: Friedrich Ebert in 1925.
exif: {}