An option not to abdicate

[LouisFerdinand]

In 1918 Wilhelm II abdicated as Emperor of Germany. Was it also necessary that those who ruled a principality such as Waldeck and Pyrmont, a grand duchy such as Baden, and a kingdom such as Bavaria and Saxony also have to abdicate? Or did they have the option not to abdicate?   
 

:xmas7: :xmas7: :xmas7: :xmas7: :xmas7:

[Curryong]

None of these rulers abdicated just because the Kaiser did. By the November of 1918 and the end of the War, much of the civil structure of Imperial Germany was breaking down all over the country. Chaos ruled. In many places soviets and very left wing groups appeared and (briefly) seized power.

They were not amicable to the nobility and royal Houses of Germany remaining in power, demanded that the rulers comply and abdicate, and that titles cease henceforth to have any legal status. Some rulers complied straight away, some later but by the end of 1919, with Federal laws enforcing it, the separate kingdoms, Princedoms, Grand Dukedoms, Margravites etc of imperial Germany were no more and the Hohenzollens had been removed as well.

In 1918 Kaiser Wilhelm believed that he could still go back to being King of Prussia, the Hohenzollens' ancestral home. However he was soon disabused of that notion and in fact went into exile. Negotiations regarding rulers' estates and property went on for some years with provincial lawmakers however. 
Double post auto-merged: December 08, 2019, 01:28:13 AM

The end of Imperial Germany and then the rise of the Weimar Republic.

Germany - Germany from 1918 to 1945 | Britannica

[TLLK]

^^^And other monarchies surrounding the nation were also gone ie: The Austro-Hungarian empire. The remaining monarchies were barely hanging on in other parts of Central and Eastern Europe.