ABSTRACT
The Weimar Constitution, though drafted at a time of extreme political emergency, did not provide for any such emergencies. It made the people both the source and to a large extent also the executor of sovereignty. The tension in the internal situation caused by the peace terms was further enhanced by the comments with which they were received. The reason for the collapse was said to be the ‘stab in the back’, a slogan approved especially by the military and meaning that the army had been willing and able to continue the fight, but had been discouraged by the revolutionary propaganda at home. On the formation of the new government, and at the instigation of the latter, an institution on the Russian model was called into being, namely a Council of People’s Commissars consisting of six members, three moderate and three independent Socialists, the above-mentioned Ebert among the first group.
