German Empire
The high command under Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff increasingly controlled the country, but in October after the failed offensive in spring 1918, the German armies were in retreat, allies Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, and Bulgaria had surrendered. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution with the abdications of its monarchs. This left a postwar federal republic and a devastated and unsatisfied populace, which later led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.
Legal status of Germany
These incidents preceded the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces ("Wehrmacht"), signed by nominated representatives of the three German armed services and of the military High Command ("Oberkommando der Wehrmacht") on May 8 in Berlin-Karlshorst; from which, as it was a purely military capitulation, no direct consequences for the legal status of the German Reich arose. Nevertheless, as all central authority and power within Germany had already been extinguished "de facto" at the death of Adolf Hitler and as the perpetuation of Nazism in any form could not be countenanced, the surrender of all remaining military authority confirmed for the Allied Powers the total extinction of the former German state. "The unconditional surrender of Germany has thereby been effected...". Subsequent historians have treated 8 May 1945 as the date on which Nazi Germany ceased to exist.