The German workers' and soldiers' councils of 1918–1919 () were short-lived revolutionary bodies that carried the German revolution to cities across the German Empire during the final days of World War I. Meeting little to no resistance, they formed quickly, took over city governments and key buildings and caused most of the locally stationed military to flee or stand down. In the face of the revolution being spread by the councils, all of Germany's ruling monarchs, including Emperor Wilhelm II, abdicated by the end of November 1918.

Many of the councils, including the major ones in Berlin, were divided between those on the radical Left who wanted to set up a system of soviet democracy and moderates whose goal was to establish a socialist-dominated parliamentary republic. Germany's interim national revolutionary government, the Council of the People's Deputies, was initially split equally between the radical Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) and the moderate Social Democratic Party (SPD). During the two large gatherings of workers' and soldiers' councils in Berlin, the voting generally followed the wishes of the SPD leadership. Crucially, and against the will of the far left, they were able to schedule an election for a national assembly that would allow all Germans, not just workers and soldiers, to determine the country's future form of government.

In the early months of 1919, there were a number of violent revolts by workers who wanted to carry the revolution forward to create a soviet democracy. The government in Berlin, at that point no longer with any USPD members, called on the army and the paramilitary Freikorps to suppress the uprisings, and there was considerable loss of life. The workers' and soldiers' councils in Berlin began turning their powers over to the newly elected Weimar National Assembly in early February. The remaining local councils gradually disbanded in the months following the formal establishment of the Weimar Republic on 14 August 1919.

First councils The straitened living conditions of German workers during World War I increased the appeal of radical left political parties such as the Independent Social Democrats (USPD). It facilitated the creation of workers' councils which promoted strikes and other popular agitation. The 1916 Auxiliary Services Act, which allowed workers employed in companies with more than 50 people to create committees to negotiate wages and working conditions, helped fuel their growth. Representatives from the committees and other formal and informal workers' groups joined the USPD-backed workers councils throughout Germany. The USPD and its left wing, the Spartacus League, were responsible for calling the massive but unsuccessful nationwide anti-war strike of January 1918.

Kiel sailors' uprising

The first revolutionary workers' and soldiers' council grew out of the sailors' revolt at Kiel that began after it had become clear that Germany would lose the war. On 3 November 1918, sailors, soldiers and workers in Kiel marched in protest against the arrest of sailors who had refused orders to prepare for a final battle against the British Grand Fleet. After a military patrol shot seven protestors, an armed uprising broke out. The insurgents brought public and military institutions in the city under their control, and on 4 November representatives of the sailors formed a council and issued a list of demands focused mostly on loosening military discipline. Revolutionary sailors spread out from Kiel in the following days, reaching Bremen and Hamburg on the sixth, Hanover and Cologne on the seventh, and all major cities except in the far eastern states of Germany by the eighth. Everywhere they went, workers and soldiers joined them and set up councils similar to the one in Kiel, although with demands that increasingly centered on the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II and a democratic reformation of the German Empire. Soldiers by simple acclamation often elected their most respected comrades; workers generally chose members of the local executive committees of Germany's two main socialist parties, the Majority Social Democrats (generally referred to simply as the SPD) and the more radical USPD.

There was little to no resistance to the establishment of the councils. Often 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 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. Princes and royals abdicated in the face of the revolution. All, including Emperor Wilhelm II, were gone without bloodshed by the end of November.

Berlin

The revolution reached Berlin on Saturday 9 November. The Revolutionary Stewards and the Spartacus League – groups that favoured a soviet democracy run by workers' councils – called a general strike with the backing of the SPD. Workers and soldiers established councils and occupied important buildings such as the police headquarters. A massive demonstration march through the city drew a large number of soldiers from their barracks. Many of the demonstrators carried placards calling for an end to the war and the authoritarian monarchical state. The SPD formed its own workers' and soldiers' council consisting of twelve factory representatives and the party leaders Friedrich Ebert, Otto Braun and Otto Wels. At midday, Reich Chancellor Max von Baden prematurely announced the abdication of the Emperor and, in formal breach of the Imperial Constitution, handed the chancellorship to Ebert. In the afternoon, Philipp Scheidemann of the SPD proclaimed a republic from the Reichstag building, while a few hours later Karl Liebknecht of the Spartacus League proclaimed the "Free Socialist Republic of Germany" at the Berlin Palace.

Council vs. parliamentary republic In an initial written exchange of ideas on 9 and 10 November about the future form of the government, the USPD stated that it would take part only if political power was in the hands of the workers' and soldiers' councils. The SPD, which wanted a national assembly to determine the type of government, responded negatively: "If this request means the dictatorship of a section of a class that is not backed by the majority of the people, then we must reject the demand because it contradicts our democratic principles." The Spartacists declared that they wanted to abolish the Reichstag, all state parliaments and the existing Reich government; have the Berlin workers' and soldiers' council take over the government until the establishment of a Reich workers' and soldiers' council; elect workers' and soldiers' councils throughout Germany that would have full legislative and administrative authority; have the workers' and soldiers' councils take over all military and civilian authorities and command posts, all weapons and ammunition stocks, as well as all armaments factories; and to control all means of transport.

On the evening of the ninth, the Berlin workers' and soldiers' council, called together by the Revolutionary Stewards, decided to elect new councils the next morning and then to have them meet in the afternoon to elect a provisional government. In an attempt to put themselves in a position to control the newly elected councils, the SPD relented on its earlier stand and accepted the USPD's conditions for joining the government: the councils were to have political power, and a constitutional convention would be discussed only after the revolution was consolidated. Out of the agreement came the six-member Council of the People's Deputies () – the name was adopted at the insistence of the USPD – with three representatives from each party: Ebert, Scheidemann and Otto Landsberg for the SPD and Hugo Haase, Wilhelm Dittmann and Emil Barth for the USPD. Ebert and Haase were the co-chairmen. The Council of the People's Deputies was to derive its sovereignty from the workers' and soldiers' councils.

Circus Busch meeting In a rapidly executed plan to prepare the SPD for the new council elections, Otto Wels used the existing SPD party apparatus to bring the majority of the soldiers in Berlin over to the side of the SPD. He swore the 148 elected soldiers' representatives to the SPD platform, which called for equal representation of the SPD and USPD in the new government. In its 10 November edition, the party newspaper Vorwärts carried the same message of unity to the workers with the headline "No Civil War!" The SPD's efforts gave them enough support to feel confident that at the afternoon's meeting they would have a majority of the delegates behind them and the Council of the People's Deputies.

About 3,000 workers and soldiers gathered at Berlin's Circus Busch auditorium. A clear majority approved the six-member Council of the People's Deputies named earlier in the day. Emil Barth of the USPD, in a move that caught the SPD by surprise, then called for an action committee to oversee the Council and presented a list of radical leftists drawn up by the Revolutionary Stewards. Ebert thought the committee unnecessary and said that if it was established, it needed to have equal numbers of SPD and USPD members. When members of the Spartacus League threatened Ebert, he went for safety to the Reich Chancellery where he received the assurances of Prussian Minister of War Heinrich Schëuch that the Council of the People's Deputies would be protected.

At the Circus Busch, the Revolutionary Stewards backed down under pressure from both Hugo Haase (USPD) and the soldiers' representatives. The assembly then elected two 14-member action committees, one made up of seven members each from the SPD and USPD, and the other of soldiers, most of whom were politically independent. The two committees together formed the Executive Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils of Greater Berlin () under the leadership of Richard Müller, the head of the Revolutionary Stewards.

The workers' and soldiers' councils saw themselves as a provisional parliament to express the revolutionary will of the people. The goals they set were to be politically implemented by the Council of People's Deputies under the supervision of the Executive Council of Greater Berlin. Their program stated that:The bearers of political power are now workers' and soldiers' councils. Immediate peace is the slogan of the revolution. The rapid and consistent socialisation of the capitalist means of production is feasible without major upheaval, given Germany's social structure and the degree of maturity of its economic and political organisation. It is necessary in order to build a new economic order out of the blood-soaked ruins, to prevent the economic enslavement of the masses and the destruction of culture.

SPD dominance In its commitment to democracy, the SPD thought that the "revolutionary mandate" of the spontaneously elected workers' and soldiers' councils should not be used in advance of a national assembly. In Ebert's words, the Council of the People's Deputies was simply the "bankruptcy trustee" of the Empire. Decisions on whether the government should be a council system or a parliamentary democracy and whether industries should be nationalised were to be made only after the people voted. The USPD members of the Council, on the other hand, wanted to wait until the revolution had been consolidated and then, in a manner to be determined later, link the councils to a national assembly.