Kapp and Lüttwitz triumphant!

[Lothar]

Kapp and Lüttwitz triumphant!​

"On the field of Döberitz, the 2nd Marine Brigade under its leader Captain Ehrhardt stands in the adornment of arms. A core troop of the best kind, proven in battle against the external and internal enemy. Firmly bound in patriotism, discipline, comradeship and loyalty to its leader, the brigade has rendered invaluable, selfless services to the present government in maintaining order on its march from Wilhelmshaven via Berlin, Brunswick, Munich to Upper Silesia. On 17 February it had existed for one year. Today the government, feeling secure, intends to dissolve it! On 1 March, Excellency von Lüttwitz and Excellency von Trotha held the parade to mark the anniversary of the foundation. The assault company, the battalions, artillery, machine-gun and mine-thrower platoons passed by in excellent condition, with music playing and flags waving. Then field service under a blue spring sky, just like in the old days. In the afternoon a folk festival and in the evening a happy get-together, everything as it used to be. Even the weather, Hohenzollern weather!"​

Deutsche Zeitung, 4 March 1920.

"One thing is already certain, however, that certain circles were working according to plan towards "the day", the day of the counter-revolution. Unscrupulous capitalist and militarist actors, fully aware of their responsibility, spun the web of counter-revolution in whose meshes they finally entangled the German people. They used the strong party-political antagonisms for their dark work, and they endeavoured in particular to attract those officer circles who had considered themselves declassed since November 9, 1918, and who were further strengthened in this view by an irresponsible press agitation from the right. The planned counter-revolution was to be a counter-revolution of revanchism. Perhaps, however, the ulcer of the counter-revolution would still have been cleared up. With a progressive recovery of our national body, the poisonous counter-revolutionary juices would perhaps have been excreted naturally, if a coincidence of events had not suddenly offered those who were waiting to strike out an opportunity to strike out. The Marine Brigade Ehrhardt, which had been used against our comrades in March 1919 and parts of which had later murdered in the Baltic, was to be disbanded. In this force, as in other units of the Reichswehr, the selection of officers and enlisted men had been made with regard to possible planned events. The peace treaty, which provided for the reduction of the army, always offered an outward pretext for eliminating those on whom one believed one could not rely. Now, when the dissolution of the so-called troop section was really taken seriously, the conflict was there, and this conflict was used for the big blow."​

Die Freiheit (Newspaper of USPD), 25 March 1920, issue censored and never published.

Comrade, reach out to me,
Let us stand firm together.
No matter how they fight us,
The spirit shall never fade.

CHORUS:
Swastika on the steel helmet,
Black-white-red the ribbon,
The Ehrhardt Brigade
We are called.

Proudly we wear the stars
And our skull and bones,
Viking ship on our sleeve,
Emperor's crown in our button.

CHORUS

We have also been betrayed,
They toyed with us and played tricks on us,
We knew what we were doing,
Remained loyal to the fatherland.

CHORUS

Soon you too will realise,
What you have lost in us.
Comrade, join hands with me,
Keep what we once swore to each other.

CHORUS

Ehrhardt's spirit in the heart
Cannot perish,
The Ehrhardt Brigade
Will one day rise again.

Battle song of the Ehrhardt Brigade, 1920.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

Interesting!

 

[Gudestein]

Are you planning a full TL?
I like to speculate about the consequences of the early upheaval of interwar events

 

[Lothar]

I. A relationship of purpose​

The relationship between the government and the Reichswehr from 1918 to 1920 was determined by the agreement between Reich Chancellor Ebert and General Groener of 9 November 1918, which assured the new government the support of the OHL in its efforts to maintain peace and order, while the government refrained from any influence on the army, whose orderly repatriation was left to the OHL. The cooperation proved itself until the first half of 1919, as long as left-wing extremist unrest and attempted coups kept the armed forces busy and the later Reichswehr Minister Noske, who was appointed Commander-in-Chief on 6 January 1919, proved his will and his ability to take energetic action. However, as external pressure grew, cracks formed in the alliance forced by necessity.

The announcement of the Allied peace terms precipitated the first major crisis within the army and in its relationship with the government. The army saw itself threatened not only in its material substance by the harsh demands for army reduction, but also in its sense of self as a representative of the power and honour of the German Empire by the dishonouring terms of the treaty.

The plan to replace the parliamentary system, which had been devalued as "party rule", with a "Noske dictatorship" had already emerged at the beginning of 1919, seemed to be close to realisation at the height of the discussion on the Treaty of Versailles and was still being considered by Lüttwitz until the end of the year, when Noske finally refused. In a meeting of the higher troop and Freikorps leaders in Berlin, which Noske had convened immediately after the discussion with Lüttwitz, Ehrhardt and Captain Pabst, the first general staff officer of the Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Korps, took the floor as spokesmen for the radicals. Ehrhardt declared that the unworthy acceptance of the peace conditions, the attacks on the officers by the government and the press, but above all the fact that the Reichswehr Minister had refused to answer the "call for national rallying and national resistance", had together opened up an insurmountable gulf between the government and the military. Pabst, on the other hand, saw it as possible to overcome the antagonisms if the political thought processes of the military were adopted by the government. This meeting, too, did not lead to a favourable result for the military.

Wolfgang Kapp's "Nationale Vereinigung" would probably never have risen above the rank of a convocation had it not been for the fact that a number of dissatisfied military officers had gathered there. The goals of the "Nationale Vereinigung" were, in Kapp's opinion, "suppression of corruption, prevention of the economic sell-out of Germany, elimination of the forced economy and the war companies, reconstruction of the financial system, preservation of the unity of the Reich, securing Prussia, Restoration of peace and order" and "Preservation of the dignity and honour of the nation in the execution of the peace treaty," Once all this had been achieved, then the social difficulties were also to be remedied, in a clear front against socialism, through "economic individualism, internal colonisation, strengthening of the middle classes". Kapp's intention had been to eliminate the ruling government with military help and to establish a dictatorship that would undo the November Revolution in all its aspects.

 

[Lothar]

Are you planning a full TL?
I like to speculate about the consequences of the early upheaval of interwar events

That's the plan, as long as I don't lose my creativity and writing energy (again). I have researched the German situation intensively, but I lack sources (available online at best) on the organisation of the French military in 1919 and 1920. Maybe someone has an idea.

 

[NoMommsen]

...
The plan to replace the parliamentary system, which had been devalued as "party rule", with a "Noske dictatorship" had already emerged at the beginning of 1919, seemed to be close to realisation at the height of the discussion on the Treaty of Versailles and was still being considered by Lüttwitz until the end of the year, when Noske finally refused. ...

...In a meeting of the higher troop and Freikorps leaders in Berlin, which Noske had convened immediately after the discussion with Lüttwitz, Ehrhardt and Captain Pabst, the first general staff officer of the Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Korps, took the floor as spokesmen for the radicals. Ehrhardt declared that the unworthy acceptance of the peace conditions, the attacks on the officers by the government and the press, but above all the fact that the Reichswehr Minister had refused to answer the "call for national rallying and national resistance", had together opened up an insurmountable gulf between the government and the military. Pabst, on the other hand, saw it as possible to overcome the antagonisms if the political thought processes of the military were adopted by the government. This meeting, too, did not lead to a favourable result for the military.

... may I ask , what are you sources for :

• Lüttwitz consideration of a "Noske" dictatorship" ( though AFAIK he was given "executionary powers" in early 1919 to squash all the then mainly (only ?) leftish revolutionary ... unrests" (to put it mildly) by Ebert and the then goverment and acted with their consent and consult) and his contacts to Noske about his "efusal" of such an option
• the meeting - seemingly at "the end" of 1919 - of Noske with first Lüttwitz and then together with all the Free Corps leaders

Other than that :

.... shiver with anticip......pation :-D​

 

[Lothar]

• Lüttwitz consideration of a "Noske" dictatorship" ( though AFAIK he was given "executionary powers" in early 1919 to squash all the then mainly (only ?) leftish revolutionary ... unrests" (to put it mildly) by Ebert and the then goverment and acted with their consent and consult) and his contacts to Noske about his "efusal" of such an option
• the meeting - seemingly at "the end" of 1919 - of Noske with first Lüttwitz and then together with all the Free Corps leaders

The source is Gabriele Krüger, Die Brigade Ehrhardt, p. 39-40 (as far as I know only available in German). Meeting between Lüttwitz and Noske was on 24 June 1919, and the assembly of Noske and the troop- and Freikorps leaders was directly afterwards (no special mention of ALL the leaders, just THE leaders, I imagine not every company-sized unit leader was invited). To Lüttwitz, despite the refusal the idea was not dismissed until the end of the year.

 

[TheBalkanizer]

I don't know how Germany won't get invaded by the allies for this tbh

 

[Lothar]

I don't know how Germany won't get invaded by the allies for this tbh

There will definitely be a military response. But the occupation of the Ruhr OTL also showed that a breach of the Treaty of Versailles was not necessarily countered by all the Allies with drastic measures, but that fault lines were also recognisable there.

 

[stodge]

First, thanks for having a go at this - it's one of those parts of the immediate post-WW1 period that doesn't get much attention.

I think it needs a lot of luck for the putsch to succeed and Hitler was a big supporter travelling to Berlin to offer help but arriving too late.

The problem is it's 1920 not 1933 - the social conditions are very different and the power of the Communists and Unions much stronger. The fact was the putsch didn't enjoy much popular support and I don't quite see how the forces behind it could control Germany so the next obvious outcome is civil war which had existed in much of the country since the Armistice.

I don't believe the Western Allies would actively intervene were Kapp to take over - they'd be quite happy with such a fierce anti-Communist bulwark between them and the Soviet Union at least in the short term.

 

[Lautréamont]

The problem is it's 1920 not 1933 - the social conditions are very different and the power of the Communists and Unions much stronger.

What happened IOTL is that the Ebert government called for general strike. The coup collapsed once the Kapp-Lüttwitz clique realized that they didn't actually have a plan for dealing with strikers.

I'm anxious to know where the difference will be ITTL.

(Also, I think that that USPD party newsletter article doesn't use near enough insults like "Balticist criminals" and "bloody Landsknecht regime".)

 

[Lothar]

II. The last pieces of the puzzle are falling into place​

On 1 March 1920, the Ehrhardt Brigade celebrated its first anniversary in Döberitz as a clear demonstration of its self-confidence and thus as a protest against the dissolution of the army, which had become necessary in the course of the demanded reduction of the army to 100,000 men and which had been ordered for 10 March in mid-February. A commemorative publication was published and the superiors were invited: General von Lüttwitz, Admiral von Trotha and a large number of officers from Berlin and the surrounding garrisons; Noske, on the other hand, had been deliberately passed over.

"I will not tolerate such a core force being broken up in such a stormy time!" shouted Lüttwitz to the soldiers, who had already gained confidence from Ehrhardt's openly displayed confidence that their leader would not accept the dissolution order without objection.

The time was particularly favourable for an enterprise against the government on the part of the right at the beginning of March, since the anti-government mood in the public had been fuelled by a number of events and rumours. The demanded troop reductions, in the army alone to 200,000 men by 10 April, not only posed the almost insoluble task of integrating the large number of those dismissed into bourgeois life, but also meant a military weakening of Germany, which seemed all the more unjustifiable to many nationalists, since they expected both communist uprisings at home and a Bolshevik advance in the East. Lüttwitz in particular harboured such fears.

Although Minister Erzberger resigned from his post on 12 March, to the nationalists, the government and the National Assembly as a whole appeared ripe for replacement. Arguing that the drafting of the constitution had been completed and that the National Assembly, which had been conceived as a provisional body, had thus fulfilled its task, they demanded early elections to the Reichstag, which had been postponed for the time being by a resolution of the National Assembly of 20 January 1920, and backed up their claim of a "breach of the constitution" by the parliament with the rumour that "the election of the Reich President by the people should be abolished".

In response, Lüttwitz personally put forward his demands for an end to the reduction of troops, early elections to the Reichstag, the election of the Reich President by the people and the appointment of specialist ministers on 10 March.

On the eve of the putsch, Lüttwitz presented his demands to Ebert and Noske, but was firmly put in his place by both. After this final rejection, the last resort for Lüttwitz and Kapp, who was interwoven with him, seemed to be the uprising.

 

[Lothar]

I think it needs a lot of luck for the putsch to succeed and Hitler was a big supporter travelling to Berlin to offer help but arriving too late.

The problem is it's 1920 not 1933 - the social conditions are very different and the power of the Communists and Unions much stronger. The fact was the putsch didn't enjoy much popular support and I don't quite see how the forces behind it could control Germany so the next obvious outcome is civil war which had existed in much of the country since the Armistice.

Like OTL, Hitler will not play a role. Because of his appearance and manner, he was not even taken seriously by Pabst. You are certainly right about the trade unions, but in my view the communists were already much more powerful in the early 1930s. In 1920 the party was just being built up and as far as I know there was no material support from Moscow. In the historical materials I have gone through, especially the proclamations of the Kapp government, it was always emphasised that they would not carry out a monarchist coup and that they were opposed to a completely unleashed capitalism. Most Freikorps members were not reactionary in the monarchist sense, but rather national revolutionary or national Bolshevik (the memoirs of Ernst von Salomon, for example, are very interesting in this context). This situation openes up possibilities for a transverse front, especially in view of the expected Allied backlash.

I don't believe the Western Allies would actively intervene were Kapp to take over - they'd be quite happy with such a fierce anti-Communist bulwark between them and the Soviet Union at least in the short term.

At the moment of the coup, Pilsudski is currently pushing the Soviets eastwards. It was only after the front shifted towards the Vistula that the concerns of a Bolshevik threat began to intensify, if I remember correctly. France, in particular, will pose problems, as it will not be clear to what extent the new right-wing government will want to revise the Treaty of Versailles.

What happened IOTL is that the Ebert government called for general strike. The coup collapsed once the Kapp-Lüttwitz clique realized that they didn't actually have a plan for dealing with strikers.

I'm anxious to know where the difference will be ITTL.

(Also, I think that that USPD party newsletter article doesn't use near enough insults like "Balticist criminals" and "bloody Landsknecht regime".)

You're probably right about the newspaper. Regarding the general strike and the corresponding government call, it should be noted that OTL the coup plotters missed arresting the government by only 10 minutes. This because the march was complicated by Pabst's worries about success and his escape to the East, and Ehrhardt was held up by delaying tactics in the absence of clear announcements. There will be ITTL changes in this regard.

 

[Horseshoe]

What the plotters plan if France intervenes to restore democratic government?

 

[Lothar]

What the plotters plan if France intervenes to restore democratic government?

I am not so sure that France is actually concerned with Germany's democratic form of government, but rather with the fulfilment of the Treaty of Versailles itself. The democratic government also tried throughout to water down the treaty. Away from an "honourable peace", Kapp and Lüttwitz did not clearly declare any aims apart from the rejection of the army reduction. From my point of view, it therefore seems likely that instead of a full-blown intervention in the form of a march on Berlin (which itself could well be seen as a violation of the peace treaty), measures would be taken as happened OTL in the refusal to pay in 1923. In addition: Since criticism from the British and Americans already arose during the (largely non-violent) occupation of the Ruhr OTL, I very much doubt that they would support an invasion in any form ITTL.

 

[Horseshoe]

What the German army size the French wil find acceptable and no a danger to France maybe half a million?

 

[Dolnikan]

What the German army size the French wil find acceptable and no a danger to France maybe half a million?

It depends on the year. Just after the war the French position is really simple. A single soldier is threatening. And I really don't see them accept such a core part of Versailles being overturned so quickly.

 

[Lautréamont]

From my point of view, it therefore seems likely that instead of a full-blown intervention in the form of a march on Berlin (which itself could well be seen as a violation of the peace treaty), measures would be taken as happened OTL in the refusal to pay in 1923.

This kinda raises the question of whether hyperinflation still happens - and, if it does, whether hyperinflation happening under the reactionaries means that the Weimar order ends up stronger than OTL for it.

If the Ruhr occupation still happens, the OTL democratic government's approach of paying for a local general strike would be out of character for the Kapp-Lüttwitz clique. But then again they don't have many other options - going to war against France in the early '20s doesn't look promising, and doing nothing doesn't look great either, even taking into account that the German people doesn't know for sure that Ebert and Stresemann would have resisted. And even if there's no Ruhr occupation, the seeds of hyperinflation were present before 1923 and Kapp and Lüttwitz aren't the economists it would have taken to defuse the situation.

(You don't have to reply, I trust you with answering those questions in-story in due time.)

 

[Lothar]

III. The march on Berlin​

General von Lüttwitz, after being relieved of his post, drove out to Döberitz on the morning of 11 March to discuss the further course of action with Ehrhardt. Ehrhardt, however, met him halfway because he had been worried by reports about the events in Berlin. On the morning of 11 March, Noske had ordered the police chief to arrest Kapp, Pabst, Bauer, Schnitzler and Grabowski, because he had been informed of suspicious activity on the part of the "Nationale Vereinigung" recently. But the government could not be sure of the police either: warned in time, the wanted men, with the exception of Schnitzler and Grabowski, were able to evade arrest; temporarily, some of them found shelter with Ehrhardt in Döberitz. Waldemar Pabst had doubts about the success of an enterprise against the government in the exact moment, especially after a warrant for his arrest had also been issued. He briefly toyed with the idea of absconding, but finally decided to put all his eggs in one basket and travel to Döberitz as well [1].

Everything in the military's behaviour was primarily aimed at avoiding a situation where "troop fires at troop", i.e. a clear front position. Thus, on the eve of the Kapp-Putsch, nowhere - not even in Ehrhardt himself! - but a tactic of obfuscation that made it impossible for the government to distinguish between friends, enemies and neutrals, and which prevented the military from openly showing their colours. The resulting uncertainty paralysed the government to such an extent that Lüttwitz, in the conversation on the Döberitzer Landstraße, was still able to grant the captain the period of one full day to march in, which Ehrhardt demanded for full readiness to march, without thereby endangering his enterprise. Powerless against the wordless agreement among the anti-republican-minded, the government itself had to watch the preparations for its fall.

Ehrhardt's marching column, accompanied by the indefatigable Pabst, reached the Brandenburg Gate at daybreak on 13 March without any resistance and without delay. Ehrhardt approached Kapp and greeted him with the words - later fondly quoted by his supporters - "So now you're taking over the government - but start governing!" Lüttwitz had of course also arrived at the Brandenburg Gate.

The occupation of the government quarter and the most important buildings took place quickly and smoothly on the basis of the plans of the Reichswehr Group Command I, according to which the brigade had otherwise marched in to protect the republican government. The Reich government was immediately taken into protective custody and escorted by a company of the Ehrhardt Brigade to the Hotel Adlon, where the government members were placed under thoroughly luxurious house arrest.

The day began on a hopeful note for the brigade. The large population cheered their arrival and brought the soldiers small gifts. The troops marching in good order in the familiar field grey and the black-white-red imperial war flags seemed to be a visiting card of the new, otherwise little-known government and filled the bourgeoisie with confidence in the dawn of better, more orderly times. From Döberitz and from Berlin itself, new volunteers flocked to the brigade and strengthened the insurgents.

Also, political organisations like the Deutschvölkische Schutz- und Trutz-Bund, used the opportunity to considerably strengthen their propaganda. Many members of the brigade had painted the swastika on their steel helmets and vehicles, which, since it had been programmatically demonstrated in public in this way, had become part of the brigade's insignia, like the Viking ship and the black-white-red colours.

[1] This is the PoD.

 

[Lothar]

IV. A government of Order, Freedom and Action​

One of the central issues confronting the conspirators around Kapp and Lüttwitz was the question of how the government posts would actually be filled. In order not to jeopardise the enterprise, only a few politicians had been taken into confidence, which is why only the posts of Reich Chancellor, Minister of the Interior, Reichswehr Minister and Minister of Culture were actually filled at the time the Ehrhardt Brigade marched into Berlin. The following hours and days were therefore spent inviting various representatives of politics and business to the government offices on the basis of prefabricated lists and offering them positions. In particular, the fact that the former Reich government had become completely incapable of acting ensured that many people saw the coup as a new state foundation and therefore warmed up to taking part. By the end of the following week, the new government stood, touted as a "government of order, freedom and action".​

Reich Chancellor - Wolfgang Kapp, independent
Deputy Reich Chancellor - Erich Ludendorff, independent
Foreign Minister - Gustav Stresemann, DVP
Minister of the Interior - Traugott von Jagow, independent
Minister of Justice - Rudolf von Seckendorff, independent
Minister of Finance - Hans Luther, independent
Minister of Economics - Hjalmar Schacht, independent
Minister of Food - Andreas Hermes, Zentrum
Minister of Labour - Albert Südekum, SPD
Reichswehr Minister - Walther von Lüttwitz, independent
Minister of Transport - Wilhelm Groener, independent
Postmaster General - Otto Rüdlin, independent
Minister of Culture - Gottfried Traub, DNVP
Minister of Reconstruction - Oskar Hergt, DNVP

The composition of the ministries followed three clear lines. The absolute majority of cabinet members were non-party members, in line with Lüttwitz's original request to Ebert and Noske for the appointment of specialised ministers. Central positions were filled by Kapp's close confidants as well as high-profile military officers. Finally, it was also possible to win over individual representatives of other parties, even outside the political right, which was a propaganda tool to pacify broad sections of the population and give an impression of ostensible non-partisanship.

The involvement of generals Lüttwitz, Ludendorff and Groener was a matter of course. The hero of Tannenberg in particular had an excellent reputation among the population and Groener stood for the reliability he had demonstrated in the first tumultuous months after the November Revolution.

The arch-conservative civil servant and long-time Berlin police chief Traugott von Jagow was a close friend of Kapp's and a co-conspirator from the very beginning. Rudolf von Seckendorff had held the office of president of the Reich Court as the highest legal authority in the country until 1 January 1920. The bourgeois financial expert Hans Luther was ideologically close to the DVP, but had so far kept out of party politics. Hjalmar Schacht, a liberal freethinker and freemason, had been a board member of the National Bank for Germany. Otto Rüdlin, an administrative lawyer, had already been State Secretary in the Post Ministry until 1919.


Gustav Stresemann had already been aware of Kapp's and Lüttwitz's plans and had taken a wait-and-see attitude to them, by no means rejecting them. His economic policy insights had already served as a starting point for foreign policy considerations in the Empire, and with his rejection of the Treaty of Versailles he was an excellent fit for the portfolio. Before 1918, the Centre politician Andreas Hermes had been active in various scientific and advisory functions in the field of agriculture and subsequently served as Ministerial Director in the Reich Ministry of Economics. A major coup, however, was Albert Südekum as Minister of Labour. The latter was one of the leading right-wing Social Democrats and, like his party colleague Wolfgang Heine, had been privy to the enterprise from the beginning. The rapid publication of this personnel decision drove a deep wedge, in particular, into the ability of the major trade unions to act, which initially planned to resist the coup at all levels. The German nationalists Traub and Hergt again did not represent any political surprise.​