German Armistice Commission 1918
The German Armistice Commission of 1918 (short: WaKo) was put together at the end of the First World War and was intended to represent German interests in the armistice negotiations with the Entente . The WaKo received the power of attorney to sign the contract, which took place on November 11, 1918 in a railroad car in the clearing of Rethondes not far from Compiègne .
prehistory
Since April 6, 1917 - when the USA entered the war on the side of the Entente - the Central Powers were faced with an economically and militarily stronger opponent coalition. After leaving Russia , the German tried Supreme Command in the spring of 1918 with a large-scale offensive in on the western front in the war of position to take a decision persisting conflict. After the failure of the offensive, however, the initiative finally passed to the Allies, who began the so-called Hundred Days Offensive on August 8 , while the German troops had to withdraw steadily.
On September 29, 1918, the OHL - led by Paul von Hindenburg - called on the Reich government to begin negotiations on an armistice. As a basis which served 14-point program of US President Woodrow Wilson , in which he pleaded for international understanding. It seemed to offer the potential of a negotiating situation that was more or less favorable for all parties. With this program in mind and with the knowledge that France would leave no stone unturned to push through its interests at their own expense, the German side decided to involve the USA in all peace considerations. In the course of the October reform , which transformed the empire into a parliamentary monarchy , the new government under Max von Baden gained a proper parliamentary majority. The November Revolution and the associated proclamation of the parliamentary-democratic republic on November 9th by Philipp Scheidemann allowed the armistice negotiations to take place at a politically rapid pace.
The way to Versailles
The delegates
The delegation was set up at the beginning of November. The proposal of the Supreme Army Command to appoint a military representative as chief negotiator was rejected by the Reich government . Instead, she appointed State Secretary Matthias Erzberger as chairman of the commission. He had to replace the designated Conrad Haußmann, who, however, tried to keep the revolution in Kiel peaceful. It was important for the rulers to demonstrate the politically renewed Germany to the Allies with a parliamentarian at the head of the WaKo. Other leading members were the head of army affairs, General Detlof von Winterfeldt , the sea captain Ernst Vanselow and the representative of the Foreign Office, Alfred von Oberndorff .
According to Erzberger himself, General Erich von Gündell was scheduled to be the first authorized representative of the Armistice Commission until November 7, 1918 . However, Gündell was classified as unsuitable by employees of the Foreign Office in Spa, so that, in coordination with the Reich government, Erzberger was appointed as head at short notice. Gündell then no longer took part in the negotiations at all, he was replaced by Winterfeldt.
On the Allied side, the French Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies, Ferdinand Foch , who was given supreme command of the "traffic routes in the occupied territory, including the Rhine River" on November 11, and the British Admiral and First Sea Lord Rosslyn Wemyss, signed .
The German delegation was driven first by car and later by train into the Compiègne forest. There they found two groups of railway wagons that were used as accommodation and negotiation facilities. The negotiations began inside a wagon, but they hardly lived up to the name. The German side was only allowed to submit written declarations and verbally explain the items in detail. The hopes aroused at the beginning of tolerable ceasefire conditions were ultimately far from being fulfilled. When the delegates heard of the outbreak of the revolution in their homeland, Erzberger did not know whether the new Chancellor Friedrich Ebert would want to exchange the delegates . He did not make any personnel changes and Erzberger was able at least to reduce the size of the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland and its German administration.
In Article 34 of the Armistice, Spa was chosen as the headquarters of the "Permanent International Armistice Commission". President of the International Armistice Commission was the French General Nudant . On the British side there were also: Lieutenant General Richard Haking ; on the American side General Charles Dudley Rhodes , who was later replaced by General Malvern Hill Barnum , and on the Belgian side General Delobbe was dispatched.
The International Armistice Commission began its negotiations on November 17, 1918. General Freiherr von Hammerstein - who took over the seat of General Winterfeldt on February 1, 1919, who had previously appeared for reasons of conscience (the conditions for peace that had to be fulfilled on the German side him as presumptuous) - reported the following in March:
“ While the German members of the commission in Spa were immediately on the spot, those of the Allies were a long time coming. The first ordinary meeting took place on November 17th. Since then, with few exceptions, meetings have taken place every day, both full meetings and meetings of the sub-commissions. "
The OHL was moved away from Spa after the armistice was concluded, except for one representative who remained in Spa.
Items for negotiation and sub-commissions
Both parties were concerned about the general follow-up provisions of a ceasefire after a military conflict . The WaKo summarized:
“ The evacuation of the occupied enemy [Allied] and German territories in accordance with Article II of the Armistice Treaty brought about the first difficulties in the implementation of the treaty. "
The evacuation periods from French and Belgian territories, which the German side perceived as too short, were part of the first major focus of the negotiations. Their attempts to postpone the expiry of the deadlines, however, were unsuccessful. The German military was to be withdrawn from Alsace-Lorraine and from the Rhine Province in nine days within 15 days of the conclusion of the Compiègne treaty . Allied troops left unoccupied areas in which the German army was still marching east. In some cases, however, there were riots that resulted in further victims.
The second focus was the deadlines and the amount of the delivery of German army equipment. For this purpose, the "Sub-Commission for Transport" was founded. This should u. a. make sure that over 5,000 trucks and 5,000 locomotives etc. passed into the possession of the victorious powers - the originally higher demands could be lowered somewhat through negotiations. The submission deadline was extended from December to mid-January at the request of the WaKo, but could not be met either. Thereupon the Entente levied a contractual penalty demanding the delivery of agricultural machinery. The transport sub-commission also worked with the “Schiffahrtsgruppe West” to support German parties involved in navigation on the Rhine.
The third negotiation sector - and a point that was particularly important for the German population - was characterized by the difficult food situation in Germany, which was caused by a sea blockade of the Entente during the war. This embargo continued after it was signed on November 11th. In this regard, Friedrich Edler von Braun was awarded the chairmanship of the special commission on food issues. On November 15, the German government asked for the dispute over vital supplies to be accelerated. State Secretary Wilhelm Solf had the conclusion of a preliminary peace examined, which would de facto have meant a complete lifting of the blockade.
A fourth area included the question of prisoners of war. For this purpose, the sub-commission for prisoner affairs was established. For its part, the Entente was allowed to send its own soldiers and all units back home, while German prisoners of war had to stay abroad. The extradition of the seriously injured, medical personnel and civil internees was carried out quickly. About 400,000 German prisoners remained in France.
From January 16th to June 28th
The first armistice extension took place on January 16, 1919. The conditions for this extension were u. a. the return of machinery and material that had been removed from Belgium and France during the war. Emil Guggenheimer , who later also belonged to the delegation in the negotiations in Versailles and was honorary president of the Reich Return Commission from 1920, was entrusted with the management of this return . The engineer Bernheim from Frankfurt am Main was selected for the implementation . In addition, a large part of the German merchant fleet was to be handed over to the Entente. Only then could food deliveries be made to Germany again. The Reich government declared to meet the demands, although they made a special protest regarding the loss of the fleet. But even among the Allies themselves there were disputes over the interpretation of the claims to be formulated.
Edgar Haniel von Haimhausen , the diplomat and later general secretary of the delegation in Versailles , was appointed to be responsible for political questions. The economic department headed by Brüsing and the finance department for which von Palm and von Becker were responsible, together with the Haniels department, formed the economic policy department of the WaKo, which was (presumably) managed by the former mayor of Poznan Ernst Wilms . In December the first economic envoys were sent to Spa. The reparation payments levied by the Allies , which were closely related to the Inter-Allied war debts , developed into a main contentious issue during the peace negotiations, which also acquired a special political dimension in the period that followed.
In total, four major areas of work were established in the WaKo up to the signing of the peace treaty on June 28, 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles : I. The West; II. Surrender of military equipment and equipment; III. The allied and hostile east; IV. The German East.
Effects on the Weimar Republic
With the transfer of responsibility in the negotiations, which were negative in several respects for Germany, to the parliamentary representatives on the one hand, the mutinous sailors in Kiel after the naval order of October 24, 1918 became known, and the subsequent November Revolution on the other, the potential arose of a thought construct. Conservative and national-conservative forces - including representatives of the OHL, such as B. the later Reich President Hindenburg - created the stab-in- the-back legend , according to which the social democrats and their sympathizers were responsible for the defeat in the First World War and the provisions of the Versailles Treaty. The German military did not lose the war against the Entente, but against the enemies within and thus remained “undefeated in the field”. This claim, which contradicts the facts, was later also taken up by the National Socialists and used for propaganda purposes.
Philipp Scheidemann and Matthias Erzberger - two of the most famous German politicians of the 1910s and 20s - were instrumental in the reforms of the German constitution in October 1918. In these the emperor lost a large part of his power. So z. B. future declarations of war to other states can only be decided by parliament and the Reichsrat . The military received parliamentary control. These changes alone drew conservative critics in particular. They accused the reformers of fighting the monarchy and wanting to seize power themselves. For Erzberger himself, the monarchy was a matter of course. That Germany would develop into a republic would certainly not have occurred to him a year earlier. Reich Chancellor Scheidemann and his cabinet resigned four days before the end of the ultimatum that the Allies had imposed on Germany to sign the Versailles Treaty. Under no circumstances did he want to sign this dictated peace. After the members of the SPD and DDP had resigned, a new government had to be elected quickly in order to finally win a parliamentary majority for the decision to sign the peace treaty (which the German population hated in large numbers). All the accusations on Erzberger and the Social Democrats were aimed at damaging the political opponent in the Reichstag. The political struggle, which took on radical and terrorist features and was directed against the supporters and advocates of democracy (and against them in general), culminated in the murder of Erzberger on August 26, 1921 of two former naval officers - members of the terrorist group organization Consul - was shot dead.
See also
swell
- Suda Lorena Bane, Ralph Haswell Lutz (eds.): The blockade of Germany after the armistice 1918-1919. Selected documents of the Supreme Economic Council, Superior Blockade Council, American Relief Administration, and other wartime organizations (= Hoover Library on War, Revolution and Peace. Publication 16, ZDB -ID 2090501-4 ). Stanford University Press et al., Stanford CA 1942, (Reprint. Done, New York NY 1972).
- Karl Dietrich Erdmann , Tilman Koops (ed.): Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic. Volume 1: Hagen Schulze (arrangement): The Scheidemann cabinet. February 13 to June 20, 1919. Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1971, ISBN 3-7646-1543-5 .
- German Armistice Commission: The German Armistice Commission. Report on their activities from the conclusion of the armistice to the entry into force of the peace (= materials relating to the armistice negotiations. Tl. 8, ZDB -ID 2176609-5 ). German Publishing Society for Politics and History, Charlottenburg 1920.
literature
- Christopher Dowe: Matthias Erzberger. A life for democracy (= man - time - history ). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-17-021491-0 .
- Theodor Eschenburg : Matthias Erzberger. The great man of parliamentarism and financial reform. (= Piper series. 39). Piper, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-492-00339-7 .
- Heinrich Euler: The Foreign Policy of the Weimar Republic 1918/1923. (From the armistice to the Ruhr conflict). Pattloch in commission, Aschaffenburg 1957.
- Edmund Marhefka (ed.): The armistice 1918-1919. The documents relating to the armistice negotiations in Compiègne, Spa, Trier and Brussels. Exchange of notes, minutes of negotiations, contracts, overall activity report. 3 volumes. German Publishing Society for Politics and History, Berlin 1928.
- Volume 1: The Compiègne Armistice Agreement and its extensions together with the financial provisions.
- Volume 2: The implementation negotiations and agreements for the armistice treaties.
- Volume 3: The German Armistice Commission. Report on their activities from the conclusion of the armistice to the entry into force of the peace, presented to the German Reich in January 1920.
Web links
- The Federal Archives: Lecture by General v. Hammerstein in front of the Reich Cabinet on the work of the Armistice Commission in Spa, March 4, 1919, 10 a.m. in Weimar, Schloss
- Armistice terms of the Allies Compiègne, November 11, 1918
Individual evidence
- ^ Matthias Erzberger: Experiences in the World War . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, Berlin 1920, p. 326 f.
- ^ German Armistice Commission: The German Armistice Commission. 1920, p. 11.
- ^ German Armistice Commission: The German Armistice Commission. 1920, p. 7.
- ^ Lecture by General v. Hammerstein in front of the Reich Cabinet on the work of the Armistice Commission in Spa, March 4, 1919, Weimar
- ^ German Armistice Commission: The German Armistice Commission. 1920, p. 9.
- ↑ see web link: Armistice Conditions of the Allies