The first Müller cabinet, headed by Chancellor Hermann Müller of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), was the third democratically elected government of Germany and the second in office after the Weimar Constitution came into force in August 1919. The cabinet was based on the same three centre-left parties as the preceding Bauer cabinet: the SPD, Centre Party and German Democratic Party (DDP), a grouping known as the Weimar Coalition. It was formed on 27 March 1920 after the government of Gustav Bauer (SPD) resigned as a result of the unsuccessful Kapp Putsch, which it was seen as having handled badly.
The Ruhr uprising, which broke out in the aftermath of the putsch, took place during the cabinet's time in office. It was suppressed with considerable loss of life by units of the Reichswehr and the Freikorps.
The first Müller cabinet resigned in reaction to the poor showing of its constituent parties in the Reichstag election of 6 June 1920 but remained in office through 21 June in a caretaker capacity. The Fehrenbach cabinet, headed by the Centre Party, took over on 25 June.
Election and establishment
In late March 1920, when President Friedrich Ebert (SPD) asked Hermann Müller (SPD) to form a new government, the parliament of Germany was still the Weimar National Assembly. It served as the acting Reichstag according to the Law on Provisional Reich Power that the Assembly had passed on 10 February 1919. Elections for the new Reichstag had yet to be held. The cabinet was based on the SPD, Centre Party and German Democratic Party (DDP). The three parties accounted for 331 out of a total of 423 seats in the National Assembly and were known as the Weimar Coalition.
The previous government, led by Gustav Bauer, also SPD, had become untenable and finally resigned on 26 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 Free Trade 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 socialisation 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 union leader and Reichstag member Carl Legien had presented the unions' demands, the SPD accepted that both the current government and the government of the state 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. It was a position not shared by the SPD's coalition partners. 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 Germany became increasingly pressing with the threat of a general uprising from the left (the Ruhr uprising), the positions of the coalition partners seemed to move further apart.
On the left, both Legien and Rudolf Wissell were unwilling to become chancellor. The eventual government to emerge thus largely ignored the unions' eight points. No changes of coalition partners were possible. The right-wing DVP had disqualified itself by its behaviour during the putsch and the left-wing Independent Social Democrats (USPD) insisted on a purely socialist government. Within the SPD, some favoured a coalition with the USPD, but the risk of a civil war or outright secession by some states in southern Germany was ultimately seen as too great. The decision ended all attempts to move ahead with the socialisation project that was promoted by many on the left such as Rudolf Hilferding.
On 24 March, president Ebert called the leaders of the coalition parties to discuss the new cabinet. The SPD had settled on Hermann Müller as new chancellor. The previous chancellor, Gustav Bauer, although blamed by many for not having prevented the putsch, remained in the new cabinet in the much lower profile job as Treasury minister. Former vice-chancellor and minister of Justice Eugen Schiffer (DDP), who had been in the forefront of those negotiating with the putschists, did not become a member of the new cabinet. However, many other ministers of the Bauer cabinet remained. Müller had been foreign minister under Chancellor Bauer and retained the office until a replacement was found in April 1920.