Cabinet Müller I

Cabinet Müller I or the first Cabinet Müller (German: Kabinett Müller I or das erste Kabinett Müller) was the third democratically elected government of Germany and the second in office after the Weimar Constitution came into force in August 1919. It was named after the new Chancellor (Reichskanzler) Hermann Müller of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The cabinet was based on the same three centre-left parties as the previous one: the SPD, the German Center Party (Zentrum) and the German Democratic Party (DDP). It was formed in March 1920 after the resignation of the Cabinet Bauer. The Cabinet Müller resigned in reaction to the outcome of the Reichstag elections of 6 June 1920.

In late March 1920, when Reichspräsident (president) Friedrich Ebert (SPD) asked Hermann Müller (SPD) to form a new government, the parliament of Germany was still the Weimar National Assembly which served as the "acting Reichstag" according to Article 180 of the constitution. New elections for the Reichstag had yet to be held. The cabinet was based on the three centre-left parties that also made up the previous Cabinet Bauer: the SPD, the German Center Party (Zentrum) and the German Democratic Party (DDP). These parties accounted for 331 out of a total of 421 seats in the National Assembly and were also known as the Weimar Coalition.

The previous government, led by Gustav Bauer, also SPD, had become untenable and finally resigned on 27 March 1920 as a result of the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch. In the wake of the putsch's collapse, caused not least by a national general strike, the unions drew up an eight-point agenda as conditions for ending the strike. They demanded the punishment of the putschists, dissolution of associations hostile to the constitution, new social laws and the socialization of "appropriate" industries. They also demanded a right to participate in the creation of a new government. Although Otto Wels for the SPD rejected the harsh form in which Carl Legien had presented the unions' demands, the SPD accepted that both the current Reich government and the government of Prussia had been compromised and discredited by the putsch and would have to resign. The new government was to be based on politicians not tainted by the charge of having—voluntarily or involuntarily—aided and abetted the putsch. This was a position not shared by the SPD's coalition partners, however. The DDP did not see itself bound by any conditions the unions had attached to the ending of the general strike. Although the formation of a new government and restoring order in the Reich became increasingly pressing with the threat of a general uprising from the left (see Ruhr Uprising), the positions of the coalition partners seemed to move further apart.

...
Wikipedia