Bavarian Soviet Republic

Coordinates: 48°08′N 11°34′E / 48.133°N 11.567°E / 48.133; 11.567
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Bavarian Soviet Republic
Münchner Räterepublik
1919
Flag of Bavarian Soviet Republic
Soviet republic
• 6 April 1919 - 12 April 1919
Ernst Toller
• 12 April 1919 – 3 May 1919
Eugen Leviné
Historical eraInterwar period
 · Revolutions of 1917–1923
 · Political violence in Germany (1918–1933)
• Established
6 April 1919
• Disestablished
3 May 1919
Currency
German Papiermark
(ℳ)
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Weimar Republic
People's State of Bavaria
Weimar Republic
Bavaria
Today part ofGermany

The Bavarian Soviet Republic, or Munich Soviet Republic (

Räterepublik means a republic of councils or committees, and council or committee is also the meaning of the Russian word soviet.[3] It was established in April 1919 after the demise of Kurt Eisner's People's State of Bavaria and sought to establish a socialist republic in Bavaria. It was overthrown less than a month later by elements of the German Army and the paramilitary Freikorps. Several individuals involved in its overthrow later joined the Nazi Party during its subsequent rise to power, even though Adolf Hitler
himself had been, at least publicly, a supporter of the Bavarian Soviet Republic.

Background

The roots of the republic lay in the

minister-president[8] of a newly proclaimed People's State of Bavaria
.

Though he advocated a

property rights. As the new government was unable to provide basic services, Eisner's USPD was defeated in the January 1919 election, coming in sixth place. On 21 February 1919, as he was on his way to parliament to announce his resignation, he was shot dead by the right-wing nationalist Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley
, also known as Arco-Valley.

After Eisner's assassination, the Landtag convened, and Erhard Auer – the leader of the Social Democrats and the Minister of the Interior in Eisner's government – began to eulogize Eisner, but rumours had already begun to spread that Auer was behind the assassination. Acting on these false allegations, Alois Linder, a saloon waiter who was a fervent supporter of Eisner, shot Auer twice with a rifle, seriously wounding him. This prompted other armed supporters of Eisner to open fire, causing a melee, killing one delegate and provoking nervous breakdowns in at least two ministers. There was effectively no government in Bavaria thereafter.[9]

Unrest and lawlessness followed. The assassination of Eisner created a martyr for the leftist cause and prompted demonstrations, the closing of the University of Munich, the kidnapping of aristocrats, and the forced pealing of church bells. The support for the Left was greater than Eisner himself had been able to command.[9]

Ernst Toller, circa 1923

On 7 March 1919, the Socialists' new leader,

counter-revolutionary behavior.[10][11]

The Hoffmann government fled to Bamberg in Northern Bavaria, which it declared the new seat of government.[12]

Ernst Toller government

Initially, the Bavarian Soviet Republic was ruled by USPD members such as

anarchists like writer Gustav Landauer, merchant Silvio Gesell, and playwright Erich Mühsam. Toller, who was also a playwright, described the revolution as the "Bavarian Revolution of Love".[13] Among the café society of Schwabing, the new government became known as "the regime of the coffeehouse anarchists."[14]

Toller's government members were not always well-chosen. For instance, the Foreign Affairs Deputy Dr. Franz Lipp – who had been admitted several times to psychiatric hospitals – declared war on Württemberg and Switzerland over the Swiss refusal to lend 60 locomotives to the Republic.[15][14] He also claimed to be well acquainted with Pope Benedict XV[16] and informed Vladimir Lenin and the Pope by cable that the ousted former Minister-President Hoffmann had fled to Bamberg and taken the key to the ministry toilet with him.[17]

Other Toller appointments included: as commissar for military affairs, a former waiter; a burglar with a conviction for moral turpitude as police president of Munich; as commissar for transportation a part-time railroad track maintenance worker; and – in Catholic Bavaria, where nuns ran the schools – a Jew as minister for education. Toller's minister for public housing published a decree saying that no house could thereafter contain more than three rooms and that the living room must always be above the kitchen and bedroom.[12] One minister declared that capitalism would be brought down by making money free, referring to Silvio Gesell's concept of Freigeld.[14]

Eugen Leviné government

Eugen Leviné

On Saturday 12 April 1919, only six days into Toller's regime, the Communist Party seized power, led by three Russian Bolsheviks, with Eugen Leviné as head of state and Max Levien as the chairman of the Bavarian KPD.[4][18] The Communists managed to secure power after the so called Palm Sunday Putsch, where the counter-revolutionary government forces were suppressed by the Bavarian Red Army commander Rudolf Egelhofer.[19]

Having received the blessings of

homeless and placing factories under the ownership and control of their workers. One of Munich's main churches was taken over and made into a revolutionary temple which would be presided over by "Goddess Reason." Bavaria was to be in the vanguard of the Bolshevization of central Europe, with all workers to receive military training.[14]

Leviné also had plans to abolish

paper money and reform the education system but never had time to implement them. There was time, however, for Max Levien, following Lenin's orders, to arrest aristocrats and members of the middle-class as hostages.[14]

During Leviné's short reign, food shortages quickly became a problem, especially the absence of milk. Public criticism over the milk shortage turned political, precipitating the communist government to publicly declare: "What does it matter? ... Most of it goes to the children of the bourgeoisie anyway. We are not interested in keeping them alive. No harm if they die – they’d only grow into enemies of the proletariat."[20]

An attempt by troops loyal to the Hoffmann government and the

volkische Thule Society[21] to overthrow the BSR on 13 April[22] was put down by the new Red Army, which consisted of factory workers and members of the soldiers' and workers' councils. Twenty men died in the fighting.[14]

Military clash and demise

The rival governments – Hoffmann's People's State of Bavaria seated in Bamberg, and the Bavarian Soviet Republic located in Munich – clashed militarily at Dachau on 18 April when Hoffmann's 8,000 soldiers met the Soviet Republic's 30,000. The BSR forces – led by Ernst Toller – were victorious in the first battle at Dachau, but Hoffmann made a deal that gave him the services of 20,000 men of the Freikorps under Lt. General Burghard von Oven [de]. Oven and the Freikorps, along with Hoffmann's loyalist elements of the German Army – called the "White Guards of Capitalism" by the communists – then took Dachau and surrounded Munich. Supporters of the BSR had, in the meantime, on 26 April, occupied the rooms of the Thule Society in the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, and arrested Countess Hella von Westarp, the society's secretary, and six others, to be held as hostages.[23] Egelhofer, panicked by Munich being surrounded by Hoffmann's forces, had these seven and three other hostages executed on 30 April.[20] They included the well-connected Prince Gustav of Thurn and Taxis.[24] The executions were carried out despite Toller's efforts to prevent them.[25]

The Freikorps broke through the Munich defences on 1 May,[25] leading to bitter street fighting that involved "flame-throwers, heavy artillery, armoured vehicles, even aircraft".[22] At least 606 people were killed, of whom 335 were civilians.[20][22] Leviné was later condemned to death for treason, and shot by a firing squad in Stadelheim Prison. Gustav Landauer was killed by the Freikorps,[26] and the Bavarian Red Army commander Rudolf Egelhofer was murdered without trial after being arrested as well. Numerous others were given prison sentences, such as Toller (5 years) and the anarchist writer Erich Mühsam (15 years); others received longer sentences, 6,000 years' worth in all, some of it to hard labour.[22]

After the trials and the execution of 1,000–1,200 Communists and anarchists, Oven declared the city to have been secured on 6 May, ending the reign of the Bavarian Soviet Republic.[25] Although the Hoffmann government was nominally restored, the actual power in Munich had shifted to the Right.[27]

The

Free State of Bavaria within the new Weimar Republic
.

Aftermath

The immediate effect of the existence of the

far-left. In this way, the right-wing parties were able to use the fears of those who had lived through both socialist states. The many separate strands of Bavarian conservatism found a common enemy in the far-left, and the former Kingdom became profoundly "reactionary, anti-Republican, [and] counter-revolutionary."[22]

The Left itself was permanently divided following the demise of the two states, through the mutual hatred between the Far-Left

Bolshevik Revolution, as social fascism. This hostility existed throughout Germany and prevented coalition talks between both parties in order to keep the Nazi Party from taking power in 1933.[28]

The division also outlived Nazism and continued to divide the German Left until the

German Democratic Republic
in October 1989.

Notable people

One notable supporter of the Soviet Republic was the artist Georg Schrimpf, then aged 30, who was arrested when the movement was crushed.[29] His friend, the writer Oskar Maria Graf, who was also arrested, wrote about the events in his autobiographical novel, Wir sind Gefangene (1927). The famed anarchist novelist Ret Marut (later known as B.Traven) was an active participant in the establishment of Soviet power and worked as head of the Press Department of the Soviet Republic.[30] During the early days of the Soviet Republic, representatives of cultural life also played an important role in the revolution. Some intellectuals such as the economist Lujo Brentano, the conductor Bruno Walter and the writers Heinrich Mann and Rainer Maria Rilke formed the Rat der geistigen Arbeit (Council of Intellectual Work) with Mann as its chairman.[31][32]

Adolf Hitler's longstanding chauffeur and first leader of the Schutzstaffel (SS) Julius Schreck signed up and served as a member of the Red Army in late April 1919.[33] Balthasar Brandmayer, one of Hitler's closest wartime friends, remarked "how he at first welcomed the end of the monarchies" and the establishment of the republic in Bavaria.[33]

Adolf Hitler himself acted as a liaison between his army battalion – he had been elected "deputy battalion representative" – and the Soviet Republic's Department of Propaganda by soldiers who mostly supported the mainstream

USPD.[34][35] Both newsreel film footage and a still photograph show Hitler marching in Eisner's funeral procession. He wears both a black mourning band and a red band showing support for the Government. It is uncertain whether this indicated that Hitler was a true supporter of the soviet republic, or that he was simply taking an available opportunity not to return to his impoverished pre-war civilian life. Befitting what is now known about his character, Hitler's Far Left politics may have been purely opportunistic, rather than reflecting a deeper political belief. It is also known that once the Soviet Republic had fallen to the White Guard and the Freikorps, Hitler changed his loyalties without a beat and aligned himself with the Weimar Republic and – as part of a three-man committee assigned to investigate the behavior of his regiment's soldiers – he informed on other soldiers who had shown sympathy for the Soviet Government.[36][35]

Active participants in the Freikorps units – those of Oven, Franz Ritter von Epp, and Hermann Erhardt – that suppressed the Bavarian Soviet Republic included future powerful members of the Nazi Party, including Rudolf Hess, a member of the Freikorps Epp.[37][38][39]

Legacy

In his 1952 memoir Witness,

Igor Sazonov:

During the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919, Levine was the organizer of the Workers and Soldiers Soviets. When the Bavarian Soviet Republic was crushed, Levine was captured and courtmartialed. The court-martial told him: "You are under sentence of death." Levine answered: "We Communists are always under sentence of death." That is another thing that it meant to be a Communist.[40]

See also

References

  1. ^ Hooglund, Eric James (1966). The Munich Soviet Republic of April, 1919. Orono, Maine: University of Maine – via Google Books.
  2. ISBN 978-1400878802
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-1476614106
  4. ^ a b c Gaab 2006, p. 58.
  5. ^ "Bavarian Council Republic" in Encyclopædia Britannica (1969)
  6. ^ Kuhn, Gabriel ed. (2012) All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, Oakland: PM Press. p. 205
  7. ^ Sturm, Reinhard (23 December 2011). "Vom Kaiserreich zur Republik 1918/19" [From Empire to Republic 1918/19]. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (in German). Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  8. ^ Schuler, Thomas (December 2008). "The Unsung Hero: Bavaria's amnesia about the man who abolished the monarchy". The Atlantic Times. Archived from the original on 2013-12-19.
  9. ^ a b Mitcham (1996), p. 32
  10. ^ Mühsam, Erich (1929) Von Eisner bis Leviné, Berlin-Britz: Fanal Verlag p. 47
  11. ^ Mitcham (1996), pp. 32–33
  12. ^ a b Mitcham (1996), p. 33
  13. ^ Gaab 2006, p. 59.
  14. ^
    ISBN 0-14-303469-3
    .
  15. ^ Taylor, Edumund (1963). The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of Old Order. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 365.
  16. ^ Noske, Gustav (2015) Von Kiel bis Kapp, Vero Verlag. p. 136
  17. ISBN 978-3929008685
    .
  18. ^
    ISBN 0-394-58601-8
    .
  19. ^ "Palmsonntagsputsch, 13. April 1919 – Historisches Lexikon Bayerns". www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  20. ^ a b c d Burleigh (2000), p. 40
  21. ^ Bracher (1970), p. 110
  22. ^ a b c d e Kershaw (1999), pp. 112–116
  23. ^ Bracher (1970), pp. 109–110
  24. ^ Timebase Multimedia Chronography. Timebase 1919 Archived 2006-09-29 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed September 23, 2006.
  25. ^ a b c Mitcham (1996), pp. 34–35
  26. ^ Horrox, James. "Gustav Landauer (1870–1919)". Anarchy Archives. Retrieved October 20, 2015.
  27. ^ Shirer, William L. (1960) The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 33
  28. ^ Burleigh (2000), pp. 40–41
  29. ISBN 978-3-86335-174-8
  30. OCLC 86154513
    .
  31. S2CID 155049742
    .
  32. ^ Veitenheimer, Von Bernhard. "Heinrich Mann und der Politische Rat geistiger Arbeiter München – Versuch einer Chronik : literaturkritik.de". literaturkritik.de (in German). Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  33. ^ a b Kershaw (1999), p. 119
  34. ISBN 978-1-250-21086-9
    .
  35. ^
    ISBN 978-1-101-87205-5
  36. ISBN 978-1-250-21086-9
    .
  37. ^ Mitcham (1996), p. 35
  38. ISBN 0-261-63246-9
  39. ISBN 0-304-35843-6
  40. ISBN 978-0895269157
    . Retrieved 28 September 2021.

Bibliography

External links

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