Max von Baden becomes chancellor

On 3 October 1918 Emperor Wilhelm II appointed Prince Maximilian of Baden (Max von Baden), heir to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Baden, as the new Reich chancellor. He replaced Count Georg von Hertling, whose resignation the Emperor had accepted on 30 September. The British chronology of the war lists this appointment under 4 October, but German documents and studies give 3 October. On that day the new chancellor, together with the vice-chancellor and the head of his chancellery, appeared in the Reichstag, and his cabinet held its first meeting. Like almost all the chancellors before him, the Prince also became Prime Minister of Prussia and, ex officio, Prussian foreign minister. The chronology states that he also replaced Admiral Hintze as foreign minister, but the Reich’s foreign affairs were taken over by someone else: the Foreign Office went to the existing Secretary of State for the Colonies, Wilhelm Solf, who also kept his old department.

A prince for hard times

Max von Baden was 51. Born in Baden-Baden, he was a general of cavalry, but after a short spell on the staff of the Baden corps he left the army in the autumn of 1914. Throughout the war he worked on behalf of prisoners of war as honorary president of the Baden Red Cross and sought to improve their lot on both sides of the front. He was regarded as a liberal and as an opponent of unrestricted submarine warfare, which in 1917 had drawn America into the war. That was precisely why his candidacy was backed by the vice-chancellor Friedrich von Payer and the majority parties in the Reichstag. It was hoped that President Woodrow Wilson would be more willing to listen to a chancellor with such a reputation. The Prince himself was by no means an ardent supporter of parliamentary government and openly admitted that he was not a politician. Many of his speeches were written by his adviser, Kurt Hahn.

He arrived in Berlin on 1 October. Only there did he learn that the Supreme Army Command had demanded an immediate request for an armistice. He was horrified. He believed that such a step would reveal Germany’s weakness to its enemies and preferred first to announce the new government’s peace programme. Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, however, came to Berlin and on 3 October, at a meeting of the new cabinet, presented a written statement that the Supreme Army Command maintained its demand, because “every day lost costs the lives of thousands of brave German soldiers”. The Prince gave way.

The first government with Social Democrats

The new cabinet rested on the parties that had voted the peace resolution through the Reichstag in July 1917. For the first time in the Empire’s history Social Democrats entered the government: Philipp Scheidemann became a secretary of state without portfolio, and the trade unionist Gustav Bauer took charge of a new labour office. From the Centre Party, Matthias Erzberger and Adolf Gröber became secretaries of state without portfolio, and a few days later Karl Trimborn took over the Interior Office. Payer of the Progressive People’s Party remained vice-chancellor, and in mid-October his party colleague Conrad Haußmann joined the government. Formally Germany still did not have a government responsible to parliament: the secretaries of state were appointed by the Emperor, and under the constitution Scheidemann or Erzberger would have had to give up their seats in order to take office. This provision was changed only at the end of October, together with a whole package of reforms that made the chancellor responsible to the Reichstag.

The Social Democrats hesitated for a long time. Some of their leaders felt that the party should not enter the government at a moment of defeat, so as not to take on responsibility for other people’s mistakes. The view of the party chairman Friedrich Ebert prevailed; as early as the end of September he had argued that only taking part in government would make it possible to save the country from chaos and revolution. The Supreme Army Command welcomed the new government with relief, though not out of sympathy. On 1 October General Erich Ludendorff told his officers that the people who had brought about this situation should now “eat the soup they have cooked”.

What came next

The new government’s first task was the one the army had demanded. During the night of 3–4 October the chancellor signed a note to Wilson requesting an armistice and peace negotiations on the basis of the Fourteen Points. There began five weeks during which his government conducted an exchange of notes with Washington while at the same time trying to reshape the constitution of the Reich. Max von Baden held office until 9 November 1918, when he announced the Emperor’s abdication and handed power to Ebert.