April strikes in 1917

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The April Strikes in 1917 were a strike movement during the First World War in Berlin and other cities in Germany.

Course and meaning

In the first two years of the First World War between August 1914 and mid-1916 there were only isolated and local strikes, most of which were directed against wage and working conditions, but not against the war or the political system of the German Empire .

However, this changed when the initial illusion of a short war lasting only a few weeks or months faded among the population. In addition, as early as November 1914 there were considerable increases in the price of staple foods. As the food supply deteriorated - starting with bread , which was rationed in early 1915 - there was resentment among the population, which was expressed on the one hand in local food riots mainly carried out by women. The protests took on an increasingly political character.

The arrest of Karl Liebknecht after an anti-war speech on May 1, 1916 was a turning point. Liebknecht was arrested of, treason accused and to imprisonment sentenced 4 years and 1 month. In June 1916 the first of three political mass strikes took place. The so-called " Liebknecht Strike " in 1916 was largely confined to Berlin and broke out spontaneously, although the revolutionaries around Richard Müller had made a decisive contribution to the organization.

The April strike in 1917 was the second mass movement during the world war. It was less related to Liebknecht's political demands, but was primarily a protest against the inadequate food supply, which is why the strike also became known as the "bread strike". He thus followed directly from the food riots in the turnip winter of 1916/17. In these riots, but also in the mass strikes, women were disproportionately involved, not only taking care of the household chores, but increasingly also taking on the industrial jobs of men serving in the war. Although the April strike was not confined to Berlin and thus marked an increase, it ultimately collapsed without major concessions on the part of the authorities.

The last political mass strike during the war was the January strike of January 1918. It already referred directly to the October Revolution in Russia and the prospect of peace negotiations with this turning point. In addition to peace, however, a democratization of the authoritarian structures of the German Empire was also called for. Although the strike was also organized on a supraregional level and, with several hundred thousand strikers, exceeded all previous movements in size and scope, the political leadership did not respond to his demands.

The internal turning away from part of the population from the previous political system therefore progressed, and so towards the end of 1918 the monarchy was finally overthrown in the November Revolution . It finally brought the end of the war called for in all strikes.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Ralf Hoffrogge : Richard Müller - The man behind the November revolution. Karl-Dietz-Verlag Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02148-1 .
  2. ↑ Chaja Boebel / Lothar Wentzel (eds.): Strikes against the war - The meaning of the mass strikes in the metal industry from January 1918. VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-89965-320-5 .