Why were many Germans willing to stop fighting in late 1918?

Answer 1

Quite a few Germans had had enough by late 1918. German civilians had been suffering for more than two years from the effects of the blockade by the Royal Navy, which prevented food from reaching Germany. People were hungry, nearing starvation. The wealthy and the war profiteers were able to buy what food was available on the black market, and continued to live a happy, sleek, well-fed life, which was a cause of great resentment among the rest of the people, who had no choice but to do without. The constant near-starvation was very hard on children, the elderly, the weak of constitution, and lowered resistance to disease.

German soldiers began surrendering in large numbers in August 1918. There was no good military reason for this except that the soldiers had lost confidence in victory, and did not want to die in the last gasps of a losing, doomed effort. After the war the myth was that all the soldiers remained steadfast to the end, but at the time it was a different story. Without these tens and then hundreds of thousands of German soldiers giving up the war could have lasted much longer.

Those in the German government varied in their feelings about ending the war. They had believed what they were told by the Army high command, which was basically General Erich Ludendorff, through Ludendorff was not the highest ranking officer, nor the overall commander. Lundendorff had in fact been running the war, sometimes in partnership with Field Marshal Hindenburg, since 1916. One day he was telling Berlin everything was fine, and the next he was on the phone screaming and demanding that the government in Berlin make peace now, right now, today, immediately, on any terms they could get. Naturally, this astonished and dismayed the government, and the ministers refused to seek peace, thinking of the personal dishonor that would attach to being the men who went begging for peace. Prince Max of Baden, who had long been an opponent of the war and of the way the war was being fought, was summoned to form a new government with himself as chief minister. Once he was in Berlin the situation was revealed to him, that Ludendorff was demanding peace, now, right now. Prince Max was none too happy either, for having been summoned to take over, just to be the patsy that the odium of surrender would cling to. But aside from considerations such as these, the average person and soldier was well past the point of being ready for an end to the slaughter and starvation.