The Second Council of People’s Deputies (December 29, 1918)

After USPD members Hugo Haase, Wilhelm Dittmann, and Emil Barth resigned from the Council of People’s Deputies on December 28 in protest over the Christmas Rebellion, they were replaced by SPD members Gustav Noske and Rudolf Wissell. That meant five instead of six members of the Council of People’s Deputies, all of them SPD politicians. The proponents of Germany becoming a parliamentary democracy had won for the time being, but the conflict with radical leftist-socialist elements of the revolution was by no means over. This photograph shows the members of the newly constituted Council. From left to right, they are Otto Landsberg, Philipp Scheidemann, Gustav Noske, Friedrich Ebert, and Rudolf Wissell. The image was taken in the Weimar Palace in January 1919, as the National Assembly convened in Weimar. Noske was later named defense minister, while Wissell briefly held the office of economics minister.

print version     return to image list

previous image      next image

© Bundesarchiv