Dolchstoß

The stab-in-the-back myth is an antisemitic and anti-communist conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, but was instead betrayed by certain citizens on the home front – especially Jews, revolutionary socialists who fomented strikes and labour unrest, and republican politicians who had overthrown the House of Hohenzollern in the German Revolution of 1918–1919. Advocates of the myth denounced the German government leaders who had signed the Armistice of 11 November 1918 as the "November criminals".