New episode of Revolutions Podcast is out: 10.85- The German Revolution: There was a revolution in Germany. But it wasn't like the revolution in Russia

So, as I mentioned last week, I'd been hoping for a whole episode on the German Revolution.  So I was delighted that Mike Duncan decided to devote a whole 45 minute episode just to the German Revolution.  It was what I wanted all along.

...actually, way back when, before Mike Duncan announced that the Russian Revolution would be his final season of Revolutions Podcast, many people were wondering if the German Revolution might be a whole season.  (I admit to being one of the number hoping for this.)  But aside from a whole season, a whole episode is the next best thing.

It was a fascinating episode.  I had known some of this before, but I also learned a lot.

Much of my knowledge of this period comes from the historical fiction series November 1918: A German Revolution by Alfred Doblin.  It's from that series that I recognize names of the SPD like Friedrich Ebert (W). Ebert was portrayed in these books as the antagonist of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.  I had initially assumed he was a force of the right, and I remember I had been reading Karl and Rosa (A) for a while before I realized that Ebert was the head of the German Socialist party!

Mike Duncan does a good job of explaining all of this--telling us who Ebert is, and the various factions in the German socialist party.

I also thought Mike Duncan explained the German Revolution very clearly, and he explained the differences between the German Revolution and the Russian Revolution--and why one succeeded and the other did not--in a very easy to understand way.

Granted I'm no expert, so I don't know what a historian would make of Mike Duncan's analysis, but I found it very easy to follow.

Other Notes:

* Based on Mike Duncan's brief biographical sketch, it sounds like Rosa Luxemburg had a really fascinating early life.  I'm only familiar with her - later - life, but it sounds like her early life would be interesting to read about.

* I thought Mike Duncan did a good job generally of tying the German Revolution to the Russian Revolution.  But I got the impression from Alfred Doblin's novels that some of the Bolshevik's were even more directly involved.  If memory serves, I believe Doblin portrays Radek (W) as being involved in the German Revolution in the capacity as Lenin's liaison.  I'm not sure how much of that is true.  (According to Wikipedia, it looks like Radek was in Germany at the time, but had a minor role on everything that was going on.)

* Mike Duncan says that after the German Revolution got put down, the hope of world wide proletarian revolution vanished.  But there were a lot more revolutions around this period, I believe (see Wikipedia: Revolutions of 1917–1923).  I wonder if any of these will get mentioned during the course of the podcast.