Richard Muller, a leading figure of the German Revolution in 1918, is unknown today. As the operator and unionist who represented Berlin's metalworkers, he was main organiser of the 'Revolutionary Stewards', a clandestine network that organised a series of mass strikes between 1916 and 1918. With strong support in the factories, the Revolutionary Stewards were the driving force of the Revolution. By telling Muller's story, this study gives a very different account of the revolutionary birth of the Weimar Republic.

Walter Benjamin derided Werner Scholem as a 'rogue' in 1924. Josef Stalin referred him as a 'splendid man', but soon backtracked and labelled him an 'imbecile', while Ernst Thalmann, chairman of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), warned his followers against the dangers of 'Scholemism'. This first biography of Werner Scholem tells his life story by drawing on a wide range of original sources and archive material long hidden beyond the Iron Curtain of the Cold War era.