uprisings from the left and right

• THE SPARTACISTS LEAGUE (KPD)

  Led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht: communists (wanted everyone to work for the good of the state)
• Opposed the Weimar republic due to its parliamentary democracy; wanted to create a one-party communist state (encouraged by the Russian revolution)
• Enjoyed 10-15% of the electorate and engaged in continuous revolutionary disturbances: protests, strikes, uprisings
• → right-wing propaganda exaggerated fears of impending revolution (“red scare”)
• SPARTACIST REVOLT: 5th Jan. 1919
• Mass protests of 5,000 people turned into a spontaneous uprising: occupied public buildings, called for a general strike and denounced Eberts provisional government
• Three days of savage street fighting: 100 were killed
• Was easily defeated, proved to have no real strategy: leaders Liebknecht and Luxembourg were brutally murdered
• Ebert asked the Freikorps (band of ex-soldiers) to support the government and stopped the revolt
• Extreme left posed much less of a threat than it was believed: the extreme right exaggerated fear and violence
• Was not prepared to be part of the democratic opposition or work within the parliamentary system
• Used violence and weapons like guns
• Lacked any strategy, lacked support in numbers and the depth of commitment
• “SHEEP IN WOLVES CLOTHING” - Sebastian Haffner
• March 1920, in Ruhr: 

  Formation of the Ruhr Army by 50,000 workers to oppose Kapp Putsch 

  Crushed by German army and Freikorps
• Summer 1923, in Saxony: ‘German October’. A wave of strikes and the creation of a SPD/KPD government Overthrown by the German army
• March 1919, in Bavaria: 

  a soviet republic was proclaimed in Munich, which created red guards and workers councils. Brutally suppressed by the Freikorps and a right-wing government established.
• March 1921, in Merseburg and Halle: ‘March Operation’. Uprising of strikes organised by KPD 

  Put down by police
• THE KAPP PUTSCH (FREIKORPS)

  Led by Wolfgang Von Kapp: right-wing military that hated the treaty of Versailles, completely rejected the Weimar system. Cultivated belief of the “Stab in the back”. 
• Wanted to make Germany strong, felt that Ebert’s government was not strong enough to stop a communist revolt
• RIGHT WING: very mixed collection of powerful forces (the army, industrialists, landowners and members of the elite)
• KAPP PUTSCH: MARCH 1920
• Freikorps marched into Berlin and declared that they were starting a new government. The army did not stop them. Ebert’s government were forced to flee to the town of Dresden.
• Politicians asked the workers to help. A general strike, where everyone stops working, happened. This showed Kapp that the population of Germany did not support him. 
• However, the people who had been involved in the Kapp putsch were never punished and people saw that without the army to support them, the government was weak.
• In the years 1919-22 there were 376 political murders – 354 by the right
• The Weimar republic retained the support of the people for the six days of crisis.
• The government failed to confront the problem of right-wing attitudes: army leadership was unreliable and the judiciary continued with the old political values since before the Weimar republic
• Only one person was punished out of the 705 people prosecuted for the Kapp Putsch
• “In considering right-wing opposition to the Weimar Republic one is immediately struck by its DEPTH, RANGE AND VARIETY” - JOHN HIDEN