Magnus
Diplocat
from http://www.colby.edu/personal/r/rmscheck/GermanyD3.html
"Free corps and a vast number of paramilitary units formed out of some remainders of the old army, partly drawing younger people who had not been old enough to be drafted into the army duiring the war. They were on the one hand radically anti-democratic, on the other hand passionately nationalist and opposed to every clause of the peace treaty. They secretly hoarded arms to fight Communists and participate in a war of liberation against France and Poland. Increasingly, they became a serious threat to the Republic. In March 1920, some Free Corps attempted a putsch. They occupied Berlin (without encountering any resistance) and proclaimed the rightist Wolfgang Kapp (formerly a close political associate of Tirpitz) new chancellor (Kapp Putsch).
When Germany's rump army refused to fight the putschists and declared itself "neutral," the legitimate government under SPD leadership fled to the south of Germany. The state administration in Berlin, however, did not cooperate with the putschists (because they doubted the success of the Kapp Putsch, not because they feared the destruction of democracy). The working-class parties, moreover, proclaimed a general strike. This brought down the Kapp government within a few days, even though the war hero Ludendorff joined it. The putsch showed dramatically how little the German army cared for the Weimar Republic; it was not adverse to fighting leftist putschists with great brutality but "neutral" toward rightist putschists. The same was true for the justice system, as the mild punishments of the putschists revealed. The success of the general strike, proclaimed by the KPD, USPD, and the SPD strengthened worker confidence in socialist action, but the strike turned into communist uprisings in many industrialized areas and thus brought further trouble and chaos to the Republic.
In the aftermath of Kapp's failure radical rightists resorted to terrorism. The murder of Kurt Eisner had set a bloody precedent, and Matthias Erzberger (former Minister of Finance and Center Party leader) and Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau were killed by rightist terrorists in 1921 and 1922."
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The Kapp putsch is a remarkable example of one of the few times non-violence has achieved stunning results. However, I wonder how Germany would have turned out if the Putsch had succeeded.
Would the return of Right Wing and Monarchist power to Germany so soon after Versailles have resulted in allied intervention? Would France, at the very least, have invaded Germany? What about Poland, who was winning a war with the fledgling Soviet Union at the same time, would they have interceded? And would nascent Nazism gone anywhere, when it no longer had an enemy to focus on in the form of the Weimar Republic?
Sidenote: one of Germany's most able and brilliant commanders in WW1 - Paul von Lettow Vorbeek - took part in the Putsch and thus had to end his political and military career as a penalty. If the Putsch had succeded, and with Kapp dying in 1922, and perhaps Vorbeek (or maybe Ludendorf) then taking control, who knows where Germany might have headed. If Vorbeeks skills with his ragtag assortment in Africa, which confounded enemies 10 times his size, and where he never lost a single engagement, what could he do with a nation like Germany?
Thoughts?
"Free corps and a vast number of paramilitary units formed out of some remainders of the old army, partly drawing younger people who had not been old enough to be drafted into the army duiring the war. They were on the one hand radically anti-democratic, on the other hand passionately nationalist and opposed to every clause of the peace treaty. They secretly hoarded arms to fight Communists and participate in a war of liberation against France and Poland. Increasingly, they became a serious threat to the Republic. In March 1920, some Free Corps attempted a putsch. They occupied Berlin (without encountering any resistance) and proclaimed the rightist Wolfgang Kapp (formerly a close political associate of Tirpitz) new chancellor (Kapp Putsch).
When Germany's rump army refused to fight the putschists and declared itself "neutral," the legitimate government under SPD leadership fled to the south of Germany. The state administration in Berlin, however, did not cooperate with the putschists (because they doubted the success of the Kapp Putsch, not because they feared the destruction of democracy). The working-class parties, moreover, proclaimed a general strike. This brought down the Kapp government within a few days, even though the war hero Ludendorff joined it. The putsch showed dramatically how little the German army cared for the Weimar Republic; it was not adverse to fighting leftist putschists with great brutality but "neutral" toward rightist putschists. The same was true for the justice system, as the mild punishments of the putschists revealed. The success of the general strike, proclaimed by the KPD, USPD, and the SPD strengthened worker confidence in socialist action, but the strike turned into communist uprisings in many industrialized areas and thus brought further trouble and chaos to the Republic.
In the aftermath of Kapp's failure radical rightists resorted to terrorism. The murder of Kurt Eisner had set a bloody precedent, and Matthias Erzberger (former Minister of Finance and Center Party leader) and Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau were killed by rightist terrorists in 1921 and 1922."
-------
The Kapp putsch is a remarkable example of one of the few times non-violence has achieved stunning results. However, I wonder how Germany would have turned out if the Putsch had succeeded.
Would the return of Right Wing and Monarchist power to Germany so soon after Versailles have resulted in allied intervention? Would France, at the very least, have invaded Germany? What about Poland, who was winning a war with the fledgling Soviet Union at the same time, would they have interceded? And would nascent Nazism gone anywhere, when it no longer had an enemy to focus on in the form of the Weimar Republic?
Sidenote: one of Germany's most able and brilliant commanders in WW1 - Paul von Lettow Vorbeek - took part in the Putsch and thus had to end his political and military career as a penalty. If the Putsch had succeded, and with Kapp dying in 1922, and perhaps Vorbeek (or maybe Ludendorf) then taking control, who knows where Germany might have headed. If Vorbeeks skills with his ragtag assortment in Africa, which confounded enemies 10 times his size, and where he never lost a single engagement, what could he do with a nation like Germany?
Thoughts?
It's a very interesting topic, and currently i try to create a scen about this era...
