Abstract
The collapse of the Wilhelmine empire at a moment of farreaching international changes provided Germans with the opportunity to think afresh about foreign affairs and about their country's search for a system of absolute security. There were, after all, many at that time who thought that Imperial Germany had lost the war, despite its many victories, because, since Bismarck's overthrow, it had had no foreign policy. After the armistice had been signed, the young Republic had to seek the best possible terms of peace for Germany. All the controversies and power struggles over a new foreign policy centred on this objective.1 This paper will be concerned exclusively with the men and institutions whose influence helped to shape German foreign policy during the first few months of the new regime, without taking account of merely sporadic and short-lived attempts on the part of certain individuals and groups such as Kurt Eisner, Prime Minister of Bavaria, or the Hamburg Workers' and Soldiers' Council to pursue a foreign policy of their own. The aspirations in the foreign policy field of Matthias Erzberger,
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