Machtan, Lothar Kaisersturz. Vom Scheitern im Herzen der Macht 1918

Even before the empire collapsed in the turmoil of capitulation and subversion, it was suffering from a lack of political leadership: the decision-makers who tried to save it in the autumn of 1918 ended up becoming its gravediggers because they lacked drive and ideas. With a stupendous knowledge of the sources and empathy for the motivations of the main actors, Lothar Machtan paints a picture of the German monarchy dancing on a volcano.

The bizarre interplay of intrigue and politics in the innermost circle of power comes into view above all: the survival strategy of the German imperial couple, the political semi-treachery of the last imperial chancellor and the monarchism of reason of Ebert, the chairman of the powerful SPD. But the politics of the street are also focused on, as an accelerant in this countdown. This creates the exciting scenario of a self-dynamic "fall of the emperor", which casts the epochal upheaval of 1918 in a whole new light. It was a political community of fate doomed to failure: Kaiser Wilhelm II, the overpowering weakling, Friedrich Ebert, the supposed saviour, and Chancellor Prince Max of Baden, the unforeseen contender for the imperial throne. With great scenic power, Lothar Machtan tells of the main actors' driving forces at the heart of power: of recklessness and stupidity, of fear and defiance, of blindness and arrogance, of cowardice and failure in the face of the German Empire's most serious crisis. Instead of coming up with clever solutions to problems, they allowed themselves to become ever more deeply entangled in a political drama over which the curtain only fell on 9 November 1918.