Very big and happy news; we have a new addition to our family. I have a newgrandson. He is a lovely baby of 4 kg., born on the ninth of February and he is also number 500 on my family tree!
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In the autumn of 1918 an enormous lot of things were happening, which ended in the signing of the peace treaty, but it started with the German Revolution on 29th of October 1918, when sailors at Kiel refused to obey orders to engage in battle with the British Navy. The sailors in the German Navy mutinied and set up councils based on the soviets in Russia. By 6th November the revolution had spread to the Western Front and all major cities and ports in Germany. By the 9th of November 1918 the Republic is declared by Philipp Scheidemann from the balcony of the Reichstag. And as the head of the Social Democratic party Friedrich Ebert became the Reich’s Chancellor. Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates and flees with his family to Holland.
William Schwabacher returned early home in the autumn with a knee injury while riding in Rumania on the way to Turkey ….…….amazing the distances the soldiers covered………
On the 9th of November the day the Germans gave up, Lily, William and her son Ulrich stood at the window looking at the square below. They saw the epaulettes being torn from the officer’s shoulders. Lots of shooting went on the day that the republic was declared and large crowds of workers were marching, marching.
Ernst Oberwarth was still in Strasburg and while he was leaving home to go to the hospital, a policeman warned him to return and change into plain clothes otherwise the people might be dangerous. As a good soldier he was reluctant to do it, but found the advice sensible to follow.
It took three days to sign the peace treaty, which happened at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918; the Great War ends. They signed it at Compiègne in a rail carriage.
This photograph was taken in the forest of Compiègne after reaching an agreement for the armistice that ended World War I. This railcar was given to Ferdinand Foch for military use by the manufacturer, Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Foch is second from the right. There are only the British and French on the photo, the Germans left straight after the signing.
Both AEF commander Gen. Pershing and Allied supreme commander Foch of France were unhappy with the nature of the armistice and subsequent Versailles peace treaty. Pershing believed that it was a grave mistake to let the Germans simply lay down their arms without actually being beaten. (They were defeated, yes, but not beaten.) He correctly predicted that because they did not make the Germans beg for peace on their knees inside a ruined Germany, the Allies would soon be fighting them again. Foch was even more prescise. Upon reading the Versailles treaty in 1919, Foch was heard exclaiming, “This isn’t a peace. It’s a cease-fire for 20 years!” Twenty years and two months later, England and France declared war on Germany
Rosa Luxembourg (see blog: https://relativelyrelatives.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/social-work-women-movements-and-tante-lilly/) left the Social Democratic party, because the SDP fully supported Germany’s entry into the war and she was against the war. She started the Spartacist party (later the German communist party) with Karl Liebknecht. In January 1919, the Spartacists revolted in Berlin. Friedrich Ebert now saw his own power under threat and called in the German Army and the Freikorps (German volunteer military units. They formed the vanguard of the Nazi movement) to suppress the rebellion. On January 15th, 1919, Luxemburg, Liebknecht and Wilhelm Pieck, another Spartacist leader, were arrested. What happened next is unclear but Luxemburg, Liebknecht and Pieck were taken to the local prison. Pieck managed to escape. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were both murdered by their captors. Luxemburg’s body was found in a river half a year later. A revolutionary mass strike lasted until March 1919.
Although William Schwabacher returned early he was still in the army employed by the Reichkanzlei against the revolutionaries. Lilly and Ernst gave him Ernst’s waiting room as an office, where a secretary worked for him. It was an exciting time and everything was hush, hush. Lilly writes:” I remember one night: he did not come home at all and they were looking for him. It was after the incredible murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in which it was assumed that he was somehow involved. I never found out if anything of this was true and never knew what really happened.”
The Peace Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. One of the impositions on Germany was the sum of around 226 billion Marks they had to pay to the Allies. In 1921, it was reduced to 132 billion. Reparations of that magnitude would lead to hyperinflation, as actually occurred in post-war Germany.
Germany finally finished paying its reparations in 2012. (This week!)
TheTelegraphwrites: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8029948/First-World-War-officially-ends.html (watch only the the movie) The First World War will officially end on Sunday 11 February 2012; 92 years after the guns fell silent, when Germany pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies I quote Tante Lilly:” Economic conditions were catastrophic. Every day at noon the new rate was fixed and the people rushed out to buy something, may it have been ever so
- one million mark
valueless, just to make use of the money before it again deflated. A tram ticket cost 1 milliard, all wages were valueless, and accounts could hardly be kept for the figures chiefly consisted of zeros. Fortunes dwindled to nothing and when inflation finally stopped by the stroke of the pen of Mr. Schacht on the 22nd November 1923, most people had to start over again and everyone was penniless.”
Hjalmar Schacht was a banker and the president of the Reichsbank. The Rentenmark (literally, “Debt Security Mark”) (RM) was a currency issued on 15 November 1923 to stop the hyperinflation of 1922 and 1923 in Germany.
- Teddy and Alfred Strauss
Alfred Strauss returned home very soon after the war and resumed his old position as Director at EVA „Eisenbahn-Verkehrsmittel A.G. short for „EVA“(railway transport vehicle Co). In 1919 the family moved to a villa on the Im Dol 15 in Dahlem. Probably, because the flat in Meinkestrasse, although very central in the middle of Berlin, had no garden and I am guessing that schools were excellent in Dahlem’s elegant neighbourhood. Alfred rented this house. He planned to buy this or another one, but then the inflation started and alas he died too young.
The first written account of Dahlem dates to the year 1275. There was a landgood which was sold to the state of Prussia in 1841 and developed by dividing it into lots for building villas and mansions. In 1920 the village was amalgamated into Greater Berlin. During the Cold War Dahlem belonged to the American Sector of West Berlin. From 1945 to 1991 the seat of the Allied Kommandantura of Berlin was in Dahlem. Because so many of Berlin’s artistic, cultural, and educational institutions were located in East Berlin, West Berlin authorities established many museums in Dahlem, also the Free University in 1948.
The house in Im Dol was very large. Downstairs was a big dining room, study for Alfred and the salon with grand piano. Upstairs there were 5 bedrooms, sewing room with linen cupboard and only one bathroom! But every room had a washstand with running water. The cook slept in the basement, also the “portier” (concierge) with his family lived there. The maids slept in the big attic. This picture is from the back overlooking the garden. On the balcony a few family members are gathered. Erik and Teddy are recognizable; the rest is guess work, but note the blossoming fruit tree.
- Im Dol15 front
The garden had some cherry and other fruit trees; a big lawn where they played crocket. There were gymnastic lessons at home; in the summer on the lawn and in winter in the dining room .
This kind of idyllic family life seems to me amazing in those very turbulent times,but then they lived in this very elegant neighbourhood far from the center of Berlin.
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