1918 Christmas crisis

1918 Christmas crisis
Part of the German Revolution of 1918–19
Machine gun position of the Volksmarinedivision in front of the Neptune Fountain at the Berlin Palace, December 1918
Date 24 December 1918 Location Berlin Palace Result Splitting of the left. Disaffection with SPD-led government. Growth of Freikorps.
Belligerents
Volksmarinedivision	German Army
Commanders and leaders
Unknown	Arnold Lequis
Strength
1,000	800
Casualties and losses
11 killed 23 wounded	56 killed 35 wounded

The 1918 Christmas crisis (German: Weihnachtskämpfe or Weihnachtsaufstand; lit. 'Christmas battles' or 'Christmas rebellion') was a brief battle between the socialist revolutionary Volksmarinedivision and regular German army units on 24 December 1918 during the German Revolution of 1918–19. It took place at the Berlin Palace, the main residence of the House of Hohenzollern.

Around 67 people were killed, and the event marked the point at which the hitherto largely bloodless revolution turned more violent. The fighting was the immediate cause for the more radical members to leave the revolutionary government and led to resentment among the workers against the Social Democratic government of Friedrich Ebert. This set the scene for the much larger-scale violence of January 1919 known as the Spartacist uprising. Since the revolutionary sailors defeated the regular army force sent against them, the engagement was also an important episode in the rise of the right-wing Freikorps on which the government increasingly relied.