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November 1918: The German Revolution

November 1918: The German Revolution

by Robert Gerwarth

Oxford University Press, USA ·2020 ·352 pages ·History
Academic Press
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About This Book

The German Revolution of November 1918 is nowadays largely forgotten outside Germany. It is generally regarded as a failure even by those who have heard of it, a missed opportunity which paved the way for the rise of the Nazis and the catastrophe to come. Robert Gerwarth argues here that to view the German Revolution in this way is a serious misjudgement. Not only did it bring down the authoritarian monarchy of the Hohenzollern, it also brought into being the first ever German democracy in an amazingly bloodless way. Focusing on the dramatic events between the last months of the First World War in 1918 and Hitler's Munich Putsch of 1923, Robert Gerwarth illuminates the fundamental and deep-seated ways in which the November Revolution changed Germany. In doing so, he reminds us that, while it is easy with the benefit of hindsight to write off the 1918 Revolution as a 'failure', this failure was not somehow pre-ordained. In 1918, the fate of the German Revolution remained very much an open book.


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Reviews

"While encouraging us to look at the Weimar Republic in the light of the eastern European politics which half surrounded it, he misses that Germany was only enmeshed in those politics because of Prussia ..."

James Hawes· The Spectator (UK) Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"This is a compact, lean book, about a third of which is the copious annotation backing up the author's claims."

Brendan Simms· The Irish Times Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Weimar democracy would not have survived several attempts by the extreme left and right to seize power from 1919-23 unless it had genuine popular support, Gerwarth convincingly argues ..."

Martin Ivens· The Times (UK) Read review ↗ Near the Top

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