History of Berlin - First Word War
1915
- Bread rationing introduced to Berlin - the first city in Deutschland to enjoy this privilege.
- Rationing of other commodities are introduced later, and it becomes a criminal offence in Charlottenburg to bake a cake.
- The winter of 1915/16 becomes the Turnip Winter.
1916
In October, Hitler visited the city for the first time, from a hospital at M. Beelitz.
1917
- The March Revolution in 1917 caused 200,000 workers in Berlin and Leipzig to down tools demanding war negotiations, a protest which was put down by the army.
- Winter - the potato crop fails, rats are being used as food, riots break out.
1918
- 28 January Just as Ludendorff was preparing for a last push, 400.000 workers went on strike. Munition workers in Berlin led a national strike for peace and democracy. 440 delegates arrive in Berlin and set up a strike committee.
- 3. February 1918. Some leaders drafted into the army, although this possibly had the effect of spreading disaffection thru the army.
- Ludendorff and Hindenburg who had, up until then, operated a de fact military dictatorship, handed power over to Prince Max von Baden.
- At the end of October, two ships mutinied in Kiel. Before long the entire fleet had mutinied. Large numbers of people took to the streets. Soldiers sent to suppress the protests ended up joining them.
- 8. November 1918 Mutining sailors from Kiel reached Berlin. The mutiny had actually started in Wilhelmshaven on 28 October. By 4. November it reahed Kiel.
- November 9 The Revolution reaches Berlin. About 100.000 people form a demonstration in the center, a demonstration called by the Revolutionary Shop Stewards/USPD (the Independent Social Democratic Party). They were joined by sections of the troops who were still stationed in the capital (e.g. the Naumberg Chasseurs). Prince Max von Baden pronounced the abdication of the Kaiser. Friedrich Ebert became the chancellor, and at 1400 Scheidemann (apparently without Ebert's consent) declared a republic from a window of the Reichstag. This act is popularly considered as a pre-emptive announcement to Liebknecht's declaration a socialist republic at 1600 from a balcony of the Palace.
Events in Berlin had actually been anticipated by events in München, under the leadership of Berlin-born Kurt Eisner
- An estimated 150.000 men from Greater Berlin had died in the war. Out of 350.000 men from the central districts, 54.000 had been killed.
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