Emil Barth was a German Social Democratic party worker who became a key figure in the German Revolution of 1918. Barth joined the anti-war Independent Social Democratic Party in 1917, and became leader of the revolutionary shop stewards in January 1918. He was one of six members of the Council of the People's Deputies created on 10 November 1918 in Berlin to govern Germany after Kaiser Wilhelm II had abdicated and the Republic had been proclaimed by Karl Liebknecht and Philipp Scheidemann. Three members of the Council were Majority Social Democrats, and three were Independent Social Democrats. While the former two USPD commissioners were moderate and interested in conciliation with the MSPD, Barth was the most left-wing, associated with Karl Liebknecht, who refused to serve on the Council because it had a non-revolutionary majority. That same day, 10 November, Barth first acceded to Ebert's plan to place the revolutionary soldiers back under the command of their officers, but then changed his position in a drawn-out but stormy speech later that evening. The soldiers should not submit to the old "discipline" of their officers. Many heeded Barth's call, and the revolution gained momentum during November. On 29 December 1918, Barth and the other USPD members resigned from the Council to protest Ebert's use of army regulars to disperse a 24 December demonstration by revolutionary sailors demanding back pay. The Council then added two MSPD members, Noske and Wissell, and began calling itself Reich Government. Although he became somewhat more moderate by the end of 1918, Barth had always been the Council's most radical member, calling on workers, for instance, not to 'debase the revolution to a movement for wages,' since that would merely ameliorate conditions, making fundamental change less likely. In 1920 Barth published his memoirs as From the Workshop of the Revolution, in which he claimed that the USPD had worked toward fomenting revolution against the German war machine already years earlier, and portrayed himself somewhat grandiosely as a major leader. That book was later used as evidence that the left had undermined the war effort. In 1921/22 Barth became a member of the SPD when the MSPD and USPD merged into one party again. He held some speeches for the SPD during the 1920s, and was arrested several times during the Nazi period after 1933. He died in 1941.
Works
Emil Barth, Geldwert, Geldentwertung und Proletariat, 37 pages.
Emil Barth, Sozialisierung: Ihre Notwendigkeit, ihre Möglichkeit, 37 pages.
Emil Barth et al., Aus der Werkstatt der deutschen Revolution, 158 pages.
Emil Barth, "Die Revolution vom Januar 1918 bis Marz 1919," NL Barth, K II: "Manuskripte und Aufsatze," No. 275.
Possible Work
Emil Barth, Cajetan Freund, and Theodor Heller, Das Erbauungsbuch des guten Handwerkers , 68 pages.
Secondary Literature
Contemporaries' Accounts
Dittmann, Wilhelm, Erinnerungen .
Müller, Richard, Vom Kaiserreich zur Republik.
Müller-Franken, Hermann, Die Novemberrevolution: Erinnerungen.
Maehl, William Harvey, The German Socialist Party. This work draws on unpublished manuscripts in Barth's papers in the Archiv der Sozialen Demokratie in Bonn.
Matthias, Erich and Susanne Miller, Die Regierung der Volksbeauftragten 1918/19: Erster Teil.
Miller, Susanne, "Der Nachlass Emil Barth," IWK 3, 26-27.
Ryder, A.J., The German Revolution of 1918: A Study of German Socialism in War and Revolt.
