After the German Empire lost the First World War and the Kaiser abdicated,
the newly established Weimar Republic lingered in an incredibly unstable and chaotic situation.
Both the far left and far right rejected parliamentary democracy. It’s a very fascinating
time period with many different parties, interests and developments rapidly following each other up.
As a matter of fact, I wrote my thesis in university about the democratisation process
of the Free State of Prussia, and it was very intriguing to delve into the political
machinations developing within that young Weimar Republic. One of the most infamous
events must have been the Kapp Putsch. During the night of March 12 1920, an elite paramilitary
unit entered Berlin. It aimed to overthrow the democratically elected government and install
an autocratic military regime. Surprisingly enough, these paramilitary troops enjoyed support
from the actual army and a considerable number of civil servants. For a moment,
it looked like the young Weimar Republic already came to an end, before it really had begun.
-intro-
Prelude to the Coup
President of the new Weimar Republic was the Social-Democrat Friedrich Ebert. As interim
chancellor following Kaiser Wilhelm’s abdication in November 1918, he immediately was confronted
with many obstacles and hurdles to establish anything that resembled a stable democracy in
the former German Empire. These early events and political developments are essential to understand
how the Kapp Putsch eventually came to be. The Social-Democratic movement, although
the largest party in parliament, itself wasn’t uniform. In December 1918, the Kommunistische
Partei Deutschland was established. It was a small splinter party without any mass support,
since most German workers didn’t feel much for a communist revolution. Yet there was increasing
radicalisation among the left-wing, such as the Independent SPD, a split-off left-wing version of
the traditional social democrats. This led to more moderate social democrats such as Ebert,
to drift towards the German Reich’s traditional powerhouses such as the army,
known as the Reichswehr, judiciary, bureaucracy and the centre- and centre-right parties.
Now, the Spartakists were a radical split-off group from the left-wing branch of the social
democratic party. Their goal was to unleash a communist revolution and establish a government
system similar to that of Soviet Russia, through violent means. Ebert was a man of the centre who
had an aversion to radical communism just as much as far-right extremism. So considering the
fragmentation of the political left, when the communist Spartakist uprising erupted in early
January 1919, Ebert resorted to requesting the help of the Reichswehr and Freikorps. Freikorps
were paramilitary units consisting of soldiers and veterans that served in the First World War.
These paramilitary bands often were far-right reactionary timebombs.
They helped to bloodily suppress the communist Spartakist uprising, however.
Another problem that contributed to the instability of the Weimar Republic
was the Treaty of Versailles. One of the Treaty’s demands was that the Reichswehr should be
reduced to 100.000 men by 1920. Considering 1919 estimations of soldiers enlisted in the Reichswehr
were between 350.000 and 400.000, this would lead to monumental lay-offs from the Reichswehr.
And the Allies also demanded that before April 1920 all Freikorps, paramilitary units, should
be disbanded. Considering it is estimated at that time Freikorps housed approximately 250.000
veterans and soldiers alike, this could lead to some real problems. The job prospects in the new,
unstable republic weren’t exactly promising. As time progressed, the democratic government
realised the danger, Freikorpses posed. Although they were useful in suppressing far-left revolts,
many politicians started to feel the reactionary sympathies of the Freikorpses were a grave
danger to the Weimar Republic as well. As such, something had to be done about them.
The Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch
When in February 1920 the Weimar Republic’s Minister of Defence, Gustav Noske, demanded the
disbandment of one of the most powerful Freikorps, Marinebrigade Erhardt, trouble broke out.
The elite Marinebrigade was named after its commander, Captain Hermann Erhardt.
Around 6000-men strong, most of its soldiers had seen combat during the First World War,
in the Baltics soon after, and many of them were officers from the former Kaiserliche Marine.
Erhardt’s response to Noske’s demand for the dissolution of his Freikorps was that he would
under no circumstances even consider it.
In protest, he staged a military parade through Berlin’s streets without notifying the democratic
government on March 1st. The commander of the Reichswehr in Berlin, Walther von Lüttwitz,
sided with Erhardt. He outright refused to disband the brigade, claiming it was imperative to
combat far-left agitators. During the next week, he demanded the democratic government step down,
organise new elections and have himself appointed as commander of the entire Reichswehr.
Openly rejecting the democratic government’s authority could lead to nothing else but the
resignation of Lüttwitz, which is precisely what president Ebert and Noske demanded.
Following a meeting between Lüttwitz, Noske and Ebert, the former was dismissed from active
service. Still, the democratic government didn’t realise a coup was on its way. Because Lüttwitz,
in fact, had already ordered Erhardt to prepare his troops to take over Berlin.
He now lobbied for support among nationalist and monarchist parties and persons, such as
war hero Erich Ludendorff and the ultra-conservative activist and high-ranking
civil servant Wolfgang Kapp and the nationalist DNVP party. Although the DNVP officially did
not conspire to overthrow the government, they neglected to inform them about Lüttwitz’s plans.
These groups now conspired to overthrow the Weimar Republic’s democratic government
and install an authoritarian military regime. During the whole coup, Kapp’s task was to
make sure that to the public it seemed most civil servants supported the coup attempt.
He was designated as the Chancellor of the new, illegitimate government. It’s where the
events that were about to transpire got its name. On the evening of March 12 1920, Marinebrigade
Erhardt marched into Berlin and made their way to occupy government buildings. When
Noske requested the Reichswehr put down the coup attempt in the republic’s capital, General Hans
von Seeckt refused. He argued that “Reichswehr doesn’t shoot at Reichswehr.” As such, Berlin
was relatively easily overtaken by Lüttwitz’s combined troops. And this course of events says
a lot about the dubious loyalties of many parties during those early years of the Weimar Republic.
Kapp formed a provisional government, declared himself Reich chancellor, minister-president
of Prussia and appointed Lüttwitz as supreme commander-in-chief and Minister of the Army.
Meanwhile, in Berlin, democratic politicians fled the city, afraid of being arrested and unable to
trust the Reichswehr that was supposed to protect them. In colonnes they drove to Stuttgart,
all the while communicating with commanders of the Reichswehr and trade union leaders in desperate
attempts to find a way to quash the coup. From then on negotiations between Lüttwitz,
the military, and the legitimate Weimar government ensued. In addition, the legitimate government
coalition supported several trade unions that opposed the coup. Soon after the government
left Berlin, they issued an official proclamation calling on the German people for a general strike.
As a sign of how little popular support the coup enjoyed, massive strikes broke out among not
just the working class, but also among civil servants throughout the country. In total 12
million people went on strike during these days. In Berlin daily life ran to a standstill. Gas,
light and electricity all cut off. Besides some slight annoyances, this resulted in the coup’s
orchestrators resolving to communicate via couriers’ letters instead of telegrams. It
was the single largest strike in German history. It’s rather challenging to understand who did
and who did not support the coup. Several Reichswehr and Navy commanders immediately jumped
at the opportunity to proclaim their support for the usurpers. There certainly was no military
resistance against the Marinebrigade parading through the streets. According to historians
Dietrich Orlow and Christopher Clark, large parts of the army, police and civil servants recognised
the new government and supported the coup. In East Prussia, for example, the entire bureaucracy
recognised the new government. Yet in the west of the country, most commanders and high-ranking
civil servants assumed a neutral position, waiting for events to unfold before they chose a side.
Whether the attempt enjoyed support among these groups or not didn’t matter eventually anyway.
Because the strikes among the working class and a considerable number of civil servants led to the
entire country to be paralyzed. The strikes spread throughout Germany and four days after Erhardt and
his troops entered Berlin, the coup was brought to an end by the same people that initiated it.
They simply were unable to govern the country. Brokering their resignation, the democratic
governing parties promised new elections following the resignation of Kapp and Lüttwitz.
Both Kapp and Lüttwitz received passports to flee the country from sympathisers in the police force.
Kapp fled to Sweden where he remained for two years. He returned to Germany due to his ill
health and was charged with high treason. Yet before his case was brought to court,
he passed away in June 1922. Lüttwitz fled to Hungary, and Erhardt went into hiding in Bavaria.
Other participants of the coup fled the country. Ironically, the Kapp Putsch nearly achieved the
exact opposite of what it aimed for. Following its failure, left-wing riots broke out,
orchestrated by far-left parties that tried to unleash the communist revolution in Germany.
These became known as the March-uprisings. The Ruhr Uprising is the best known of these,
where nearly 50.000 workers rose up against the Reichswehr and several Freikorps. It
resulted in nearly 3000 deaths, a significantly higher number than that during the Kapp Putsch.
In the subsequent June 1920 German federal elections,
the Social-Democratic party lost over a third of its seats. The nationalist DNVP and extreme
left-wing USPD were the winners of the election. The centre coalition of the Weimar government
lost its majority. Two factions emerged: an anti-democratic and pro-republican faction,
neither supported by a majority in parliament. Having his arm twisted in negotiating with the
army and giving a lot of concessions, Ebert’s moderate coalition remained heavily dependent on
the Reichswehr, which often had anti-democratic sympathies. Under General Hans von Seeckt,
later to be appointed as commander-in-chief, the Reichswehr became a ‘state within a state.’ And,
well, the Weimar Republic remained an unstable democracy. Although the democratic government
received an incredible amount of support from the working classes, which resulted in a popular
strike, it cannot be seen as anything but a hopeful development for German democracy.
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