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129-526: Until the German Revolution of 1918–1919 , Bückeburg was the capital of the tiny principality of Schaumburg-Lippe . Schaumburg-Lippe continued to be an independent German state ( Free state ) until 1946. Houses began to gather around the castle c.  1365 and were protected by a city wall in the 17th century. In the 19th century, it was connected to the Minden and Hanover Railway and housed

258-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it

387-480: A dictatorship of the proletariat , he said to his staff officers on 1 October: I have asked His Majesty to bring into the government those circles to whom we mainly owe it that we have come this far. ... Let them now make the peace that must be made. They should eat the soup they have served up to us! His statement marked the birth of the " stab-in-the-back myth " ( Dolchstoßlegende ), according to which revolutionary socialists and republican politicians had betrayed

516-1052: A harpsichordist , then, from 1759, as Konzertmeister (director) of the Hofkapelle (court orchestra) there. Bach is buried in the churchyard of the Stadtkirchengemeinde-Bückeburg. Bach set several texts by Johann Gottfried Herder , who was at the Bückeburg court as its superintendent and chief preacher from 1771–1776. Bückeburg has a railway station and is served by line S1 of the Hanover S-Bahn . There are hourly train services between Bückeburg, Minden and Hanover . German Revolution of 1918%E2%80%931919 Weimar Republic victory 1918: [REDACTED]   German Empire 1918–1919: [REDACTED]   German Republic [REDACTED] Revolutionaries: Soviet Republics: The German revolution of 1918–1919 , also known as

645-534: A parliamentary monarchy . The chancellor and his ministers were made dependent on the confidence of the parliamentary majority rather than the emperor, and peace treaties and declarations of war required the Reichstag's approval. Because the chancellor was also responsible for the emperor's acts under the constitution, the emperor's military right of command ( Kommandogewalt ) became the chancellor's responsibility and thus subject to parliamentary control. As far as

774-402: A second language , and 75–100   million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220   million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90   million people, or 16% of

903-617: A synagogue . The poet J. G. von Herder was court preacher here from 1771 to 1776. Bückeburg is a former British garrison town and had a number of British residents until recently. Most of the British residents worked at the British Military Hospital (BMH) in Rinteln , or in the local English Prince Rupert School , also in Rinteln . The number of British military residents in Bückeburg decreased significantly in

1032-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become

1161-649: A greater degree – the Right. The fractures in the German Left that had become permanent during the revolution made Adolf Hitler 's rise to power in 1933 easier than it might have been if the Left had been more united. When World War I started, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was the one socialist political party of any significance in the German Empire and as such played a major role in

1290-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from

1419-474: A group of 100 Revolutionary Stewards from the larger Berlin factories occupied the Reichstag. Led by their spokesmen Richard Müller and Emil Barth , they formed a revolutionary parliament. Most of the participating stewards had been leaders during the strikes earlier in the year. They did not trust the SPD leadership and had planned a coup for 11 November independently of the sailors' revolt, but were unprepared for

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1548-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained

1677-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In

1806-504: A protest march by the sailors towards the prison in Kiel where the mutineers were being held. The soldiers opened fire and killed at least nine protestors. The following day, workers in Kiel declared a general strike in support of the protest, and sailors from the barracks at Wik, north of Kiel, joined the march, as did many of the soldiers sent to help control the protests. Faced with the rapidly escalating situation, Admiral Wilhelm Souchon ,

1935-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it

2064-572: A week, workers' and soldiers' councils were in control of government and military institutions across most of the Reich. On 9 November, Germany was declared a republic . By the end of the month, all of the ruling monarchs , including Emperor Wilhelm II , had been forced to abdicate. On 10 November, the Council of the People's Deputies was formed by members of Germany's two main socialist parties. Under

2193-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as

2322-660: Is adorned by an impressive gold mosaic, the second largest of its kind after the one in the Hagia Sophia . In the period around 1950 when the Royal Air Force had a base nearby, the children of the service families attended a school in the Schloss. Bückeburg is also home to a helicopter museum , which features the early drawings of flying objects by Leonardo da Vinci as well as 40 actual helicopters. The German Army 's Army Aviators School using Bückeburg Air Base

2451-558: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German

2580-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic

2709-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German

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2838-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25   million speak it as

2967-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in

3096-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as

3225-475: Is generally set at 11 August 1919, the day the Weimar Constitution was adopted; however, the revolution remained in many ways incomplete. A large number of its opponents had been left in positions of power, and it failed to resolve the fracture in the Left between moderate socialists and communists. The Weimar Republic as a result was beset from the beginning by opponents from both the Left and – to

3354-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are

3483-541: Is located here. The Town Church of Bückeburg ( Bückeburger Stadtkirche ) was one of the first Lutheran churches built after the Reformation . It is known for its pulpit and especially for the ornately decorated bronze-cast font, made by the Dutch artist Adriaen de Vries . Composer Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732–1795), a son of J.S. Bach , worked at the Bückeburg court from before 1751 until his death, first as

3612-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and

3741-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as

3870-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German

3999-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c.  1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period

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4128-646: Is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),

4257-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish

4386-575: Is to last, it must be realised with democratic means. ... Therefore we must draw a thick, visible dividing line between ourselves and the Bolsheviks." On 3 March 1918, the newly established Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany to end Russia's involvement in the war. It arguably contained harsher terms for the Russians than the later Treaty of Versailles would demand of

4515-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers

4644-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to

4773-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as

4902-568: The Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German

5031-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share

5160-480: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language

5289-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout

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5418-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in

5547-533: The Imperial Fleet for a last battle against the British Royal Navy in the southern North Sea. The naval order of 24 October 1918 and the preparations to sail triggered a mutiny among the sailors involved. They had no intention of risking their lives so close to the end of the war and were convinced that the credibility of the new government, engaged as it was in seeking an armistice with

5676-607: The Majority Social Democrats (SPD), calmed the immediate situation with a promise of amnesty, but by then Kiel was already in the hands of a workers' and soldiers' council , and groups of sailors had gone to nearby cities to spread the uprising. Within days the revolution had encompassed the western part of Germany. By 7 November, the revolution had taken control in all large coastal cities – Lübeck , Bremen , Hamburg – and spread to Braunschweig , Cologne and as far south as Munich . There, Kurt Eisner of

5805-469: The November Revolution ( German : Novemberrevolution ), was an uprising started by workers and soldiers in the final days of World War I . It quickly and almost bloodlessly brought down the German Empire , then, in its more violent second stage, the supporters of a parliamentary republic were victorious over those who wanted a Soviet-style council republic . The defeat of the forces of

5934-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c.  765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in

6063-596: The Reichstag building , the SPD deputy chairman Philipp Scheidemann learned that Karl Liebknecht of the Spartacus League planned to proclaim a socialist republic. Scheidemann did not want to leave the initiative to the Spartacists and stepped to a window of the Reichstag building where he proclaimed a republic before the mass of demonstrators gathered there. Ebert, who believed that the decision about

6192-546: The Spartacists from having control of the strike's leadership, but its participation soured the SPD's relationship with the other parties in the Reichstag. The strike was put down by the military after a week. Because of the increasing intra-party conflicts centering around the opponents of the war, the leadership of the SPD under Friedrich Ebert expelled them from the party in January 1917. The Spartacists, who had formed

6321-676: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung

6450-550: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit.   ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this

6579-668: The Supreme Army Command (OHL) introduced the Auxiliary Services Act in December 1916. It proposed full mobilisation and deployment of the workforce, including women, and the "militarisation" of labour relations. It met with such strong criticism that the OHL had to agree to participation by trade unions and the Reichstag parties in the act's implementation. It accepted their demands for arbitration committees,

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6708-513: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and   Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German

6837-603: The Wittlesbach throne. By the end of the month, the dynastic rulers of all the other German states had abdicated without bloodshed. There was little to no resistance to the establishment of the councils. Soldiers by simple acclamation often elected their most respected comrades; workers generally chose members of the local executive committees of the SPD or USPD. With the support of local citizens, they freed political prisoners and occupied city halls, military facilities and train stations. The military authorities surrendered or fled, and civic officials accepted that they were under

6966-411: The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914, the SPD, like other socialist parties in Europe, organised anti-war demonstrations during the July Crisis that led up to the war's outbreak. In contrast to the widespread enthusiasm for the war among the educated classes (the " Spirit of 1914 "), the majority of SPD newspapers were strongly anti-war, although some supported it by pointing out

7095-406: The de facto leadership of Friedrich Ebert of the moderate Majority Social Democratic Party (MSPD), the Council acted as a provisional government that held the powers of the emperor, chancellor and legislature. Most of the old imperial officer corps, administration and judiciary remained in place. The Council needed their expertise to resolve the crises of the moment and thought that handling them

7224-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from

7353-400: The war bonds requested by the imperial government. Fourteen deputies, headed by party co-leader Hugo Haase , and including Karl Liebknecht , spoke out against the bonds but nevertheless followed party discipline and voted in favour. The support was based primarily on the belief, actively fostered by the government, that Germany was fighting a defensive war. Haase explained the decision that

7482-429: The Emperor does not abdicate, the social revolution is unavoidable. But I do not want it, indeed I hate it like sin." Wilhelm II, still at his headquarters in Spa, was considering returning to Germany at the head of the army to quell any unrest in Berlin. Even when General Groener told him that the army no longer supported him, he did not abdicate. The Chancellor planned to travel to Spa to convince Wilhelm personally of

7611-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In

7740-405: The Entente, would be compromised by a naval attack at such a crucial point in the negotiations. The mutiny began on a small number of ships anchored off Wilhelmshaven. Faced with the sailors' disobedience, naval command called off the offensive during the night of 29–30 October, arrested several hundred of the mutineers and had the ships return to port. On 3 November, police and soldiers confronted

7869-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of

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7998-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of

8127-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c.  1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of

8256-623: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by

8385-474: The Germans. On 29 September 1918, the Supreme Army Command informed Emperor Wilhelm II and Chancellor Georg von Hertling that the military situation was hopeless in the face of the enemy's overwhelming advantage in manpower and equipment. General Ludendorff said that a request for an immediate ceasefire should be sent to the Entente powers. In hopes of more favourable peace terms, he also recommended accepting American president Woodrow Wilson 's demand that

8514-547: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are

8643-408: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c.  thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c.  1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy

8772-411: The SPD and formed a new party, the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) – from which the Communist Party of Germany broke off shortly after the end of the war. The SPD and USPD tried to work together during the early days of the revolution, but their differing goals – parliamentary versus council republics – proved irreconcilable. After the fall of the German monarchy, the increasing antagonism between

8901-407: The SPD's far left wing, joined with revisionists such as Eduard Bernstein and centrist Marxists such as Karl Kautsky to found the anti-war Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) under the leadership of Hugo Haase on 6 April 1917. After that point, the SPD was officially named the Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany (MSPD), although it was still generally referred to as

9030-419: The SPD. The USPD called for an immediate end to the war and a further democratisation of Germany but did not have a unified agenda for social policies. Both the USPD and the Spartacists continued their anti-war propaganda in factories, especially in armament plants. In April 1917, the German government facilitated Vladimir Lenin 's return to Russia from his exile in Switzerland in the hope that he would weaken

9159-432: The Social Democrats were concerned, the October Constitution met all the party's important constitutional objectives. Ebert regarded the formation of the Baden government as the birthday of German democracy. Since the Emperor had voluntarily ceded power, he considered a revolution unnecessary. On 5 November, the Entente Powers agreed to take up negotiations for a truce. After the third note, many soldiers had come to expect

9288-570: The cessation of submarine activities and (implicitly) the Emperor's abdication. Following the third note of 24 October, which emphasised the danger to international peace inherent in the power of the "King of Prussia" and the "military authorities of the Empire", General Ludendorff resigned and was replaced as First General Quartermaster by General Wilhelm Groener . On 28 October, the Reichstag passed constitutional reforms that changed Germany into

9417-622: The constitutional reforms would not be enough to bring the war to a quick end without the Emperor's abdication. The German revolution was triggered by a sailors' mutiny centered on the North Sea ports of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven in late October 1918. While the war-weary troops and general population of Germany awaited the end of the war, the Imperial Naval Command in Kiel under Admiral Franz von Hipper and Admiral Reinhard Scheer planned without authorization to dispatch

9546-413: The control of the councils rather than the military and carried on with their work. Little changed in the factories except for the removal of the military discipline that had prevailed during the war. Private property was not touched. The sociologist Max Weber was part of the workers' council of Heidelberg and was pleasantly surprised that most members were moderate German liberals. The councils took over

9675-518: The danger posed by the Russian Empire , which they saw as the most reactionary and anti-socialist power in Europe. Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg turned down plans by high-ranking military officials to dissolve the SPD at the start of the war and exploited the party's anti-Russian stance to gain its approval for it. After Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August 1914, 96 SPD deputies, among them Friedrich Ebert , agreed to approve

9804-477: The demands of the 9 November demonstrators for the unity of the labour parties. He offered the USPD equal participation in the government and was ready to accept Karl Liebknecht as a minister. The USPD, at Liebknecht's insistence, demanded that elected representatives of the unions and soldiers have full executive, legislative and judicial control. The SPD refused, and negotiations got no further that day. Around 8 pm,

9933-535: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with

10062-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in

10191-516: The distribution of food, the police force and the accommodation and provisions of the front-line soldiers who were gradually returning home. The workers' and soldiers' councils were made up almost entirely of SPD and USPD members. Their program called for an end to the war and to the authoritarian monarchical state. Apart from the dynastic families, they deprived only the military commands of their power and privilege. There were hardly any confiscations of property or occupations of factories. The duties of

10320-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of

10449-546: The expansion of trade union powers and a repeal of the act at the end of the war. After the outbreak of the Russian February Revolution in 1917, the wartime's first organised strikes erupted in German armament factories in January 1918. 400,000 workers went on strike in Berlin and around a million nationwide. Their primary demand was an end to the war. The SPD took part in the strike in order to keep

10578-524: The far Left Spartacists founded the Communist Party of Germany . A few days later, protests resulting from the violence at the end of December led to mass demonstrations in Berlin that quickly turned into the Spartacist uprising , an attempt to create a dictatorship of the proletariat . It was quashed by government and Freikorps troops with the loss of 150 to 200 lives. In the aftermath of

10707-500: The far left cleared the way for the establishment of the Weimar Republic . The key factors leading to the revolution were the extreme burdens suffered by the German people during the war, the economic and psychological impacts of the Empire's defeat, and the social tensions between the general populace and the aristocratic and bourgeois elite. The revolution began in late October 1918 with a sailors' mutiny at Kiel . Within

10836-416: The form of the new government was still in dispute. Once the monarchy had collapsed under the pressure of the workers' and soldiers' councils, it was up to the leadership of the socialist parties in Berlin to quickly establish the new order and address the many critical problems the defeated nation faced. From the beginning, the moderates of the SPD held the leading position. They had the broadest support from

10965-565: The future form of the government of Germany belonged to a national assembly of the people's democratically elected representatives, stormed angrily at Scheidemann for his spontaneous decision to announce a republic. A few hours later, in the Berlin Lustgarten , Liebknecht proclaimed a socialist republic, which he reaffirmed from a balcony of the Berlin Palace to an assembled crowd at around 4 pm. The Emperor had fallen, but

11094-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,

11223-409: The imperial civilian administration and office holders such as police, municipal administrations and courts were not curtailed or interfered with. In order to create an executive committed to the revolution and to the future of the new government, the councils for the moment left government officials in place and took over only their supervision from the military commands that had been put in place during

11352-690: The imperial government be democratised. His aim was to protect the reputation of the Imperial Army by placing the responsibility for the capitulation and its consequences at the feet of the democratic parties and the Reichstag. In a veiled reference to the workers who had struck the armaments plants, the Social Democrats who had helped pass the Reichstag Peace Resolution in July 1917 and the radical Spartacists who wanted

11481-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of

11610-561: The kind of bloody civil war that was occurring in Russia could also break out in Germany. The moderate SPD leadership consequently shifted away from the party's official stance as revolutionary socialists. Otto Braun clarified the SPD's position in an article titled "The Bolsheviks and Us" ( Die Bolschewiki und Wir ) in the party newspaper Vorwärts of 15 February 1918: "Socialism cannot be erected on bayonets and machine guns. If it

11739-518: The late 1990s, when BMH Rinteln closed down, however the staff of Prince Rupert School were still based in Bückeburg until the closure of the school in July 2014. Bückeburg Palace ( Schloss Bückeburg ) was the residence of the Princes of Schaumburg-Lippe . Although the Princely family surrendered political power in 1918, they still own it and live there today. The palace, part of which is open to

11868-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted

11997-467: The naval commander in Kiel, released the imprisoned sailors and asked the protestors to send a delegation to meet with him and two representatives of the Baden government who had arrived from Berlin. The sailors had a list of fourteen demands, including less harsh military punishment and full freedom of speech and the press in the Empire. One of the representatives from the Reich government, Gustav Noske of

12126-403: The necessity, but his plans were overtaken by the rapidly deteriorating situation in Berlin. Instead of going to Spa to meet with the Emperor in person, Chancellor von Baden telephoned him on the morning of 9 November and tried to convince him to hand the throne over to a regent who would constitutionally name Ebert chancellor. After his efforts failed, Baden, without authorization, proclaimed to

12255-532: The new imperial chancellor on 3 October. The Prince was considered a liberal and at the same time was a representative of the royal family. Most of the men in his cabinet were independents, but there were also two members of the SPD. The following day, the new government offered the Allies the truce that Ludendorff had insisted on, and on the fifth the German public was informed of the dismal situation that it faced. Even up to that late point, government propaganda and

12384-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from

12513-486: The parties of the centre and Right, and its members were often disparaged as "journeymen without a fatherland" ( Vaterlandslose Gesellen ) because their class antagonism was seen to transcend national boundaries. The SPD had attended the congresses of the Second International beginning in 1889, where they had agreed to resolutions asking for combined action by socialists in the event of a war. Following

12642-441: The party had made with the words: "We will not abandon our Fatherland in its hour of danger!" Many SPD members were eager to show their patriotism, in part to free themselves from the charge of being "journeymen without a fatherland". Since the SPD was the only party whose position was in any real doubt, its unanimous vote for the war bonds was greeted with great enthusiasm as a sign of Germany's national unity. The Emperor welcomed

12771-417: The political truce ( Burgfriedenspolitik ) among the Reichstag's parties in which they agreed not to criticise the government's handling of the war and to keep their disagreements out of public view. He declared: "I no longer know parties, I know only Germans!" As the war dragged on and the death toll rose, more SPD members began to question the party's support for the war. The dissatisfaction increased when

12900-428: The press had led the people to believe that the war would still be won. The shock of the impending defeat caused a "paralytic bitterness and deep resignation" which eased the way for those who wanted an immediate ceasefire. During October, President Wilson responded to the request for a truce with three diplomatic notes. As a precondition for negotiations, he demanded the retreat of Germany from all occupied territories,

13029-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation

13158-519: The public that the Emperor and the Crown Prince had renounced the German and Prussian thrones. Immediately thereafter, following a short meeting of the cabinet, the Prince transferred the chancellorship to Friedrich Ebert, a move that was not allowed under the constitution. Ebert quickly released a statement announcing the formation of a new "people's government" whose immediate tasks were to end

13287-584: The public, is an important major tourist sight and houses important works of art and an important library. The history of the building spans 700 years, with the most important contributions stemming from the 16th, 17th, and 19th centuries. The Princely Mausoleum in the palace grounds is open to the public as well. Built in 1915 in Neo-Romanic style and resembling the Roman Pantheon , it is the world's largest private sepulchre still in use. The cupola

13416-529: The radical Independent Social Democrats (USPD) was elected president of the Bavarian Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Council, and on 8 November he proclaimed the People's State of Bavaria . King Ludwig III and his family fled Munich for Austria, where in the 12 November Anif declaration he relieved all civil servants and military personnel from their oath of loyalty to him, effectively abdicating

13545-402: The resolutions of the revolutionary parliament, since they intended to replace Ebert's function as chancellor. On the evening of the ninth, the SPD leadership learned of the plans for the elections and the councils' meeting. Since they could not be prevented, Otto Wels used the party apparatus to influence the voting in the soldiers' councils and won most of them over to the SPD. By morning it

13674-478: The revolution also wanted to nationalise key industries, democratise the military and set up a council republic, but the MSPD had control of most of the workers' and soldiers' councils and blocked any substantial movement towards their goals. The split between the moderate and radical socialists erupted into violence in the last days of 1918, sparked by a dispute over sailors' pay that left 67 dead. On 1 January 1919,

13803-516: The revolution. It had been banned from 1878–1890 and in 1914 continued to adhere to the tenets of class conflict . It had international ties to other countries' socialist parties, all of which were ideologically anti-war. Patriotism nevertheless proved the stronger force when the war broke out, and the SPD threw its support behind the Fatherland. By 1917, some on the left of the party had become so outspokenly anti-war that they were expelled from

13932-404: The revolutionary events since Kiel. In order to take the initiative from Ebert, they decided to announce elections for the following day, a Sunday. Every Berlin factory was to elect workers' councils and every regiment soldiers' councils that were then to elect a revolutionary government from members of the two labour parties (SPD and USPD) in the evening. The government would be empowered to execute

14061-417: The state, Ebert wanted to win over the middle class parties that had cooperated with the SPD in the Reichstag in 1917 as well as the old elites of the German Empire. He wanted to avoid the spectre of radicalisation of the revolution along Russian lines and was also worried that the precarious food supply situation could break down, leading to the takeover of the administration by inexperienced revolutionaries. He

14190-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,

14319-419: The system that had led to the long years of hardship and privation for the people at home and to the impending defeat in the war, the conviction spread that he would have to abdicate. Historian Eberhard Kolb saw a vast "paralysis of the will" in the state's power to preserve order and a corresponding desire among the people for a more complete transformation of the political and social order. The German populace

14448-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in

14577-410: The three socialist parties drove the violence of the revolution's second stage. By 1912, the Social Democrats had grown into the largest political party in Germany, with 35% of the national vote and 110 seats in the last imperial Reichstag . In spite of its predominance, the party had no role in the imperial government. Its official espousal of Marxist revolutionary socialism aroused the distrust of

14706-475: The tsarist regime and its conduct of the war. After the 1917 October Revolution that put Lenin and the Bolsheviks in power, many in both Russia and Germany expected that soviet Russia would in return help foment a communist revolution in Germany. For Germany's far Left, it provided hope for its own success, and for the moderate socialists, along with the middle and upper classes, it was a source of fear that

14835-402: The undefeated army and turned an almost certain victory into a defeat. Although shocked by Ludendorff's report and the news of the certain defeat, the majority parties in the Reichstag, especially the SPD, were willing to take on the responsibility of government. Chancellor Hertling objected to introducing a parliamentary system and resigned. Emperor Wilhelm II appointed Prince Max of Baden as

14964-607: The uprising, the Spartacist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered by the Freikorps . Into the spring, there were additional violently suppressed efforts to push the revolution further in the direction of a council republic, as well as short-lived local soviet republics, notably in Bavaria ( Munich ), Bremen and Würzburg . They too were put down with considerable loss of life. The revolution's end date

15093-476: The war as quickly as possible and to ensure a sufficient supply of food for the German people, who were still suffering under the impact of the Allied blockade . The statement ended with "Leave the streets! Keep order and peace!" The premature news of the abdication came too late to make any impression on the demonstrators who had filled the streets of Berlin. Nobody heeded the public appeals. While having lunch in

15222-483: The war to end and were anxious to return home. They had little willingness to fight more battles, and desertions were increasing. The sociologist Max Weber attributed the collapse of the Empire to the "hollowing out" of Germany's traditional standards during the war. The expansion of black markets also revealed the economic and monetary failures of the Wilhelmine system. Since it was Emperor Wilhelm who embodied

15351-529: The war. Notably, revolutionary sentiment did not affect the eastern parts of Germany to any considerable extent, apart from isolated instances of agitation at Breslau in Silesia and Königsberg in East Prussia . Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the SPD, agreed with the chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, that a social revolution had to be prevented and order upheld at all costs. In the restructuring of

15480-423: The working class and the at least grudging backing of the imperial bureaucracy, most of which remained in place. When Ebert showed himself willing to use the military and Freikorps against opposing members of the socialist Left, it quickly led to fractures between the SPD and USPD and then to street battles with the Spartacists and communists. Ebert wanted to take the sting out of the revolutionary mood and to meet

15609-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during

15738-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching

15867-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of

15996-401: Was already war weary when the request for a ceasefire came like a thunderbolt. From that point, they wanted only peace. Wilson's Fourteen Points fed the belief that Germany would get a just peace if it democratised, and so the desire for peace led to demands for democracy. The revolutionary groups that had been weak and disorganized were emboldened, and even the middle class began to fear that

16125-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially

16254-494: Was certain that the SPD would be able to implement its reform plans in the future due to its parliamentary majorities. Ebert did his best to act in agreement with the old powers and intended to save the monarchy. In hopes that the Emperor's departure and the establishment of a regency would save the constitutional monarchy that had been established on 28 October, the SPD called for Wilhelm's abdication on 7 November. According to notes taken by Prince Max of Baden, Ebert told him, "If

16383-531: Was clear that the SPD would have the majority of the delegates on its side at the councils' meeting that evening. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It

16512-492: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which

16641-406: Was more important than ousting many key government figures to ensure that the new democracy was firmly anchored against its opponents. The Council of the People's Deputies' immediately removed some of the Empire's harsh restrictions, such as on freedom of expression, and promised an eight-hour workday and elections that would give women the right to vote for the first time. Those on the left wing of

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