History of Berlin- Revolutionary Period and Weimar Republic

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History of Berlin - Revolutionary Period and Weimar Republic

1918

November 9 After the revolution had already broken out elsewhere, it finally reaches Berlin. Mutinying sailors arrived from Kiel. They formed themselves into the Volksmarinedivision and occupied the Palace. The government was handed over to the MSPD (Majority Socialists) under Friedrich Ebert. An offered coalition with the USPD (Independent Socialists) was turned down by the USPD. The Revolutionary Shop Stewards met that night and called for the election of workers and soldiers councils on the morning of the next day.
November 10 A 'separate' form of government came into being - the 'councils' (as in Rat or Soviet) organized themselves under the umbrella of the Rat der Volksbeauftragten (Council of Peoples' Commissars). Ebert (who had become Chancellor on November 9 by means which were not strictly constitutional), forestalled this development by ensuring active SPD involvement in the Council movement from the beginning, and had himself elected on to the Council of Peoples' Commissars. In the afternoon, representatives of the Councils met in the Zirkus Busch and a Vollzugsrat was established, ostensibly as a left-wing organization to overcome Ebert's influence. Nevertheless, Ebert managed to subvert this intention using similar methods as before.
November 11 As a result of the establishment of the Council system, the MSPD had agreed to a coalition with the USPD - they both held 3 of the 6 seats on the Rat der Volksbeauftragten. Ebert assumed the role of head of the government.
November 16 Theodor Wolff, the Chief Editor of the "Berliner Tageblatts" from the Ullstein-Verlag used his paper to issue a call for the founding of a new left-liberal bourgeouis party, a call which was supported by, among others, Albert Einstein. Four days later, members of the Fortschrittlichen Volkspartei and the liberal wing of the National Liberal Party founded the Deutsche Demokratische Partei (DDP). Members included Max Weber, Alfred Weber und Hugo Preuß.
December 6 Troops go to the Chancellery and the Reichstag, where they try to arrest the Berlin Vollzugsrat. A Spartacus counter demonstration results in about 16 dead and 12 seriously injured, after troops fire into the crowd. After confusion because of a lack of direction from the government, troops return to barracks. Ebert is given dictatorial powers, resulting in a loss of prestige for the Rat der Volksbeauftragten among Berlin's radical workers.
December 8 At least 30.000 take part in a Spartacus demonstration.
December 10 Army units under the command of Lequis enter the capital, but disperse into the population once they get there.
December 16 to 21 The first meeting of the Central Council of the German Republic (set up by the Councils). The atmosphere is far from revolutionary, and Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht are not even allowed into the hall.
December 24 The 'Christmas Struggle'. On Dec 23, the Rat der Volksbeauftragten had ordered the Volksmarinedivision to leave Berlin and reduce their numbers from 1500 to 600. The sailors reacted by besieging the Chancellery in demand of back pay. They also took Otto Wels, the Stadt Kommandant, as hostage.
The army (and Ebert) decided to meet the sailors with more violent means, and the Revolution, which until now had been relatively non-violent, changed character.
An unsuccessful attack on the Palace and its neighboring stables, on December 24., by army units under Lequis produced a toll of 11 dead sailors and 56 dead soldiers. The attack had been further opposed by Eichorn's special division, sections of the Republican Soldier Corps, and even groups of civilian women. The Rat der Volksbeauftragten had no choice but to agree to the sailors pay demands and rescind the demand for their reduction in numbers, especially as the sailors had been joined in the struggle by many armed civilians. This appeared to be the crucial point when Gustav Noske really decided to set up a strong Freikorps movement, which from March 1919 formed the core of the Reichswehr..
As a protest against the actions of the government, the three USPD members of the Rat der Volksbeauftragten. resigned on 28 December - however this left the Rat in the control of the remaining three SPD members.

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1919

January 1 Inaugaural Congress of the KPD (Communist Party), set up by the Spartacists and the Bremen left-wing radicals.

January 4 The SPD control of the Rat der Volksbeauftragten results in the sacking of the USPD-leaning Police President of Berlin, Emil Eichorn. This provides the opening act of the so-called Spartacist Uprising, although there is strong evidence that the Spartacists (or Communist Party) had very little to do with it. Certainly Karl Liebknecht seems to have supported it from the start and Rosa Luxembourg issued "encouraging" articles once it had been set in train, but neither Rosa Luxembourg or the Committee of the Communist party as a whole were involved directly. Rosa appears to have been unaware of tyhe full extent of Liebknecht's involvment until near the end. Richard Muller and daumig, prominent members of the Revolutionary Shop Stewards also refuse to support an uprising. The Marine Division did not take part either, and many workers prevaricated. Likewise, there is strong suspicion that Ebert and the powers-that-be deliberately provoked a strike so as to act as a pretext for bringing the army in.
January 5 The USPD call a protest and general strike. The demonstration starts on the Alexanderplatz, and from early morning, the crowd stretches from the City hall all the way to the Reichstag. But the USPD and its associates are unable to issue any directives to the crowd - they disperse by dusk.
However, by nightfall a revolutionary aspect has set in and all the important government buildings in the central district are under rebel control, as well as the offices of the Social Democrat newspaper, Vorwärts, on Belle-Alliance Platz being occupied. Most of the ensuing fighting on the government side is initially carried out by republican forces, but most of the brutality is due to the Freikorps, who arrive just when the revolt appears to be petering out..
January 6 200.000 workers joined the General Strike. Ebert made an alliance with the Lüttwitz and the Army - the Army structure would remain intact and, in return, the Army would attack the Spartacists. The Army would use their new force - the Freikorps.
January 9 The Potsdam Regiment of the Freikorps marched to the Belle-Alliance-Platz and engaged in a gun battle for the Vorwärts newspaper building, which had been occupied by the Spartacists. A delegation of seven rebels sent out to negotiate peace were murdered. While the white flag remained raised, the attack continued, and those rebels who did finally surrender were killed.
January 11 A vicious fight for the police station on Alexanderplatz. The Freikorps blew the fornt of the bulding with artillery, and summarily executed its defenders. The Communist Party Headquarters was destroyed.
January 13 Various Freikorps groups move in, although the revolt was almost over, and the Republican Army could claim that they had already done all the work required. The Freikorps involved themselves in the remaining struggles with great brutality. The shop stewards call off the General Strike.
January 14 Liebknecht had been hiding in Neukölln, but on the 14. January he moved to Mannheimer Strasse 53, where he was captured, along with Wilhelm Pieck.
January 15 Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are murdered, by members of the Mounted Rifle Korps, a Freikorps unit under Captain Waldemar Papst. Judicial proceedings for the murders produce farcically low sentences, and those who had actually instituted the murders went unpunished.
According to Maercher, a Freikorps leader, the population of Berlin was kept for 10 days in terror of their lives by irresponsible elements of the Freikorps.

January 19 National elections : SPD : 37.9%; USPD : 7.6 %; KPD : boycotted
February 11 Ebert becomes president, with Scheidemann as chancellor. The Constituent Assembly meets in Weimar, rather than Berlin.

February 27 Workers in Spandau express solidarity with those on strike in Central Deutschland.
March 4 A general strike is called. This degenerates into what is usually referred to as a second uprising, although again there is suspicion of the government using the strike as a pretext for a brutal reaction. The Communist Party stesses that this is a general strike, not an insurrection.
Troops fire on crowds in Spandau.
March 5 The People's Marine Division move in to defend the strikers. While a group of sailors sort out a small infringemnt by the strikers on Alexanderplatz, one of them is shot by a sniper in the Police Building. Fighting breaks out.
March 6 The SDP request workers to return to work.
March 9 Strike is largely over, although it is followed by the now-customary Freikorps brutality.
Berlin Blutwoche The terror of the Freikorps, fanned by stories of a (non-existent) massacre of 70 policemen in Lichtenberg, ended with 1.500-2000 victims. Particularly well-known is the story of the 29 sailors of the Marine Division, who had not themselves been involved in the events, being lured to a building where they were told they were to be paid off. Instead they were all murdered. Also murdered was Leo Jogiches.
Oberleutnant Otto Marloh, of the Freikorps Reinhardt, based in the Kriminalgericht Moabit, had let 30 sailors be shot, but was found not guilty in December 1919, in a trial in the same court building.

October 8 Hugo Haase, socialist and USPD member of the Reichstag, was shot on the steps of the Reichstag. He died on the 7. November.

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1920

January 13 A mass demonstration is organized by the USPD, against the Factory Council Act.
After a group of workers, gathered outside the Reichstag, refuse to disperse, Lüttwitz orders the Freikorps to open fire with machine-guns - 42 are killed and 105 wounded. A state of siege is re-imposed in Berlin.
March 13 Ebert had ordered the dissolution (in line with the wishes of the Allies) of, among others, the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, a Freikorps unit which formed Lüttwitz's elite troops, and which was currently stationed near Berlin. Lüttwitz responded in such a way as to cause the government to dismiss him.
On 13 March 1920, Lüttwitz lead the Marinebrigade Erhardt in a march on Berlin (displaying the swastika and flying the old flag) and pronounced the Kapp Putsch (Wolfgang Kapp was a founding member of the Vaterlandspartei).
This putsch was defeated after 6 days, by a general strike. Furthermore, the Central and Prussian civil service bureaucracy adopted a 'wait-and-see' attitude, refusing at first to carry out the orders of the Kapp Government. The 'official' army - the Reichswehr- were not prepared to act to counter the Putsch (apart from General Reinhardt, the Commander-in-Chief), and the 'official' government, under Chancellor Bauer, had to flee, eventually to Stuttgart. When Bauer returned, he denied that the General Strike had been instrumental in bringing down the Putsch.
However, the underlying unrest which had produced the General Strike, turned into open revolt in places, especially in the Ruhr. The supporters of the Kapp Putsch were dealt with leniently or let off scot-free, and in fact the Erhardt Brigade ended up in the Ruhr fighting the workers there (the people who opposed the Kapp Putsch seemed to have come off considerably worse than those who supported it).
The most prominent leaders were able to escape justice with the help of Justice Minister Eugen Schiffer. Kapp died while awaiting trial, Lüttwitz was retired on a General's pension. The only prosecution was a 5-year sentence on the Berlin police chief, Traugott von Jagow, of which only 3 were served. Military officers who had expressed allegiance to the Republican Government were either demoted or dismissed. There was general amnesty soon afterwards.
The Head of General Staff, Seeckt, who had expressly refused to act against the putschists, was promoted to Chief of Army Command, at the end of March 1920.
Politically, Noske, the Defense Minister, was forced to resign, and the Chancellor, Gustav Bauer, was replaced by Hermann Müller.
April 27 Greater Berlin created. The city grows from 65 sq. kms to 880 sq. kms. Spandau was incorporated very reluctantly. However, Babelsberg successfully pleaded the case for not being incorporated into Berlin.
June 6 National elections - SPD : 21.6%; USPD : 18.0%; KPD : 1.7%.

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1922

June 24 Walter Rathenau, the Foreign Minister, was murdered on the Kudamm, near to Erdenerstrasse, by members of the Consul organization, an organization lead by Captain Erhardt (see Kapp Putsch). Two of the five murderers were killed in the ensuing manhunt, but were given military funerals. Rathenau had refused to take precautions to protect himself.
Inflation - by Summer 1922 it was fairly bad, but had become really serious by early 1923.

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1923

Inflation - by Summer 1922 it had been fairly bad, but it become really serious by early 1923. The French had occupied the Ruhr, aggravating the situation. Nevertheless by the end of 1923, it had stabilized, helped also by the Dawes Plan of 1924.
November 23 Anti-semitic excesses in the Scheunenviertel

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1925

The German delegation returning from the Locarno treaty discussions had to be protected by a cordon of Berlin police.

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1926

March 22 Joseph Goebbels arrives in Berlin, as the city's Nazi gauleiter.

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1927

11. February First 'important' meeting hosted by Goebbels, at the Pharus Hall, in Wedding. Almost as soon as Goebbels climbed on stage, the KPD attacked. The ensuing fight resulting in much publicity for the Nazis.
20. March Group of 400 Nazis deliberately beat up Jews. Nothing is done against them.

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1928

May 20 In the City elections the Nazis receive 1.5% of the votes (the Social Democrats received 28.4% and the Communist Party received 24.6%).
Leading Nazi members, Otto and Gregor Strasser, found, in Berlin, the newspaper "Berliner-Arbeiter-Zeitung", which experiences bitter competition with Goebbels' "Angriff".
In the national elections, the Nazis received 800.000 votes (2.6%) and 13 seats (in Berlin they received 1.4% of the vote).
November 11 Hitler speaks at the Sportpalast

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1929

Jan 1 BVG (Berlin-Verkehrs-AG) came into being, under the guidance of Transport Secretary, Ernst Reuter.

May 1 Blutmai The police chief, Karl Zörgiebel, a Social Democrat, had banned all public demonstrations in Berlin in December 1928. In March 1929 he extended the ban to the whole of Prussia, and then renewed the ban specifically for Mayday 1929, asking the trade unions to abstain from public demonstrations and to organise only indoor meetings. The Communists, however, decided to challenge the ban and to demonstrate in the streets. The Social Democratic trade unions and the SPD organised their Mayday events in theaters, association offices etc.
The police, as has been shown from research in police archives, mounted a deliberate attack, organised by special anti-subversion units. There were violent clashes, which spread to include workers who were coming out of the indoor meetings of the Social Democratic trade unions. The Communist Party called a general strike for the following day, but despite pressure from many militants did not distribute weapons; nevertheless, in the quarters of Neukolln and Wedding the barricades went up and the police had to lay siege to the areas for three days before they were able to restore order.
The final balance was : thirty people dead, all of them demonstrators; 200 wounded; 1,200 people arrested. The Prussian Minister of the Interior, Carl Severing, seized this opportunity to ban the mass organisations of the Communist Party.
These events brought about an unhealable fracture between the Communist Party and the Social Democratic party. Oral history research has shown that in the memory of proletarian militants (not only communists) this was a turning point, a "point of no return" in their remembrance of their total alienation from anything to do with the SPD. Whereas the killings of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht might possibly have been attributed to the Freikorps and not purely to Noske's policies, the blame for the repression of Mayday 1929 in Berlin lay squarely at the door of Social Democratic ministers and functionaries. This trauma split the working class down the middle, right on the eve of the final clash with the Nazi militias.
Germany had recovered economically, in a spectacular way, and was second only to the USA in world exports. With new developments, Berlin looked like a large building site. May 20 d in Berlin.
Autumn Black Friday. Produced dire consequences for Berlin - all building work stopped.

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1930

Feb 23 Horst Wessel, leader of the SA in Friedrichshain, dies after being shot in a fight in a bar in Große Frankfurter Straße. 20.000 people attend his funeral, accompanied by severe socialist protests along the way, and hear an ovation by Goebbels. During the Nazi Period, Friedrichshain is renamed "Horst-Wessel-Bezirk".

Horst Wessel Lied
Die Fahne hoch die Reihen fest geschlossen
S. A. marschiert mit ruhig festem Schritt
Kam'raden die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen
Marschier'n im Geist in unsern Reihen mit

Die Strasse frei den braunen Batallionen
Die Strasse frei dem Sturmabteilungsmann
Es schau'n auf's Hackenkreuz voll Hoffung schon Millionen
Der Tag fur Freiheit und fur Brot bricht an

Zum letzen Mal wird nun Appell geblasen
Zum Kampfe steh'n wir alle schon bereit
Bald flattern Hitler-fahnen Uber allen Strassen
Die Knechtschaft dauert nur mehr kurze Zeit

Die Fahne hoch die Reihen fest geschlossen
S. A. marschiert mit ruhig festem Schritt
Kam'raden die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen
Marschier'n im Geist in unsern Reihen mit

Flag high, ranks closed,
The S.A. marches with silent solid steps.
Comrades shot by the red front and reaction
march in spirit with us in our ranks.

The street free for the brown battalions,
The street free for the Storm Troopers.
Millions, full of hope, look up at the swastika;
The day breaks for freedom and for bread.

For the last time the call will now be blown;
For the struggle now we all stand ready.
Soon will fly Hitler-flags over every street;
Slavery will last only a short time longer.

Flag high, ranks closed,
The S.A. marches with silent solid steps.
Comrades shot by the red front and reaction
march in spirit with us in our ranks.

August Eastern SA units revolted, under the leadership of Walther Stennes. Reasons included payment and problems with the gauleiters and the rival SS. Sturmbann 31 in Berlin even attacked Joseph Goebbels offices and beat up the SS men who stood guard. The SA-men had to be removed with the help of the police.
Hitler rushed to Berlin to stop the revolt which had broken out an inconvenient time, just before the elections. He managed to convince the SA to return to duty by promising them more money and power within the movement. He took over the leadership of the SA himself, and in January 1931 recalled Ernst Röhm for the job.
Sept 10 First official speech by Hitler in the Sportpalast.
Oct In the elections, the Nazis received 6.500.000 votes and 107 seats, and became the second largest party. In Berlin, they had 395,000 votes (14.7%), compared with the Communist Party - 27.3% and Social Democrats - 27.2%.

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1931

March Political rallies and marches need to be announce to the police at least one day in advance. In February 1931 had Stennes begun causing problems again. He wrote in a letter to Röhm "it is much more important to undertake measures to relieve the economic position of the SA. In Berlin there are regiments containing 67% unemployed. In Breslau a company could not turn out for inspection ... in frost and snow - because it completely lacked footwear". Röhm disapproved of his actions and split up Stennes Gruppe into three smaller ones and Stennes was soon removed completely from office (something he found out from reading the newspaper).
Stennes originally refused to accept his removal but was forced to accept it when Hitler intervened. Stennes and several of his officers left the party and instead joined Otto Strassers' Black Front. Although only a handful of members followed Stennes, preserving the unity of the Nazi Party.
The SS greatly increases its relative importance as a result of this incident.
April 14 Heinrich Sahm becomes Oberbürgermeister of Berlin. His opponents were Wilhelm Pieck (KPD) Wilhelm Steiniger (DNVP).
September 12 The Kudamm Pogrom. Jews leaving synagogues are attacked, as are theatre-goers and passers-by who look Jewish. Count Hellersdorf is arrested and fined for his participation in the pogrom. In 1933 Hellersdorf became Chief of Police.
December Problems start with the film of Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. Eventually the Film Board withdraw the film, after the Nazis stir up incidents.
By the end of 1931 the unemployment rate had reached 323.000. In April 1932 it was 603.000. Many people were living in shanty towns like Kühle Wampe on the banks of the Muggelsee.

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1932

February 16 Heinrich Sahm, the Mayor of Berlin, had been actively collected signatures for Hindenburg to stand again for President, and announces his candidacy.
February 22 In the Sportpalast, Goebbels announces Hitler's candidacy for the presidential election.
July 20 Prussian Putsch. Although resistance was very muted, in Berlin the Academic Legion of the Reichsbanner and workers at the Berliner Stadtwerke were originally prepared to strike back. Gerd von Rundstedt appointed to executive power in Berlin and Brandenburg.
July 26 Rescinding of the occupation of Karl Liebknecht House.
over 200 people were killed in political clashes. The University was closed down. Martial law was declared in Berlin under General Rundstedt. Plötzensee was filled with detainees.
July 31 Nazis receive about 28.6% of the votes cast in Berlin in elections (compared with 24.4% for the Communists). Nine people are murdered on the day. Nationally, the Nazis become the largest party with 37.3%.
November 3 Transport strike in Berlin, just prior to the election. It was started by the KPD and RGO, but joined by the Nazis.
November 6 election

Extract from 'Mr. Norris Changes Trains' by Christopher Isherwood : Like a long train which stops at every dingy little station, the winter dragged slowly past. Each week there were new emergency decrees. Brüning's weary episcopal voice issued commands to the shopkeepers, and was not obeyed. "It's facism", complained the Social Democrats. "He's weak", said Helen Pratt. "What the swine need is a man with hair on his chest". The Hessen document was discovered; but nobody really cared. There had been one scandal too many. The exhausted public had been fed with surprises to point of indigestion. People said that the Nazis would be in power by Christmas; but Christmas came and they were not. Arthur send me the compliments of the season on a postcard of the Eiffel Tower.
Berlin was in a state of civil war. Hate exploded suddenly, without warning, out of nowhere; at street corners, in restaurants, cinemas, dance halls, swimming baths; at midnight, after breakfast, in the middle of the afternoon. Knives were whipped out, blows were dealt with spiked rings, beer mugs, chair legs or leaded clubs; bullets slashed the advertisements on the poster columns, rebounded from the iron roofs of latrines. In the middle of a crowded street a young man would be attacked, stripped, thrashed and left bleeding on the pavement; in fifteen seconds it was all over and the assailants had disappeared. Otto got a gash over the eye with a razor in a battle on a fairground near the Köpernicker Strasse. The doctor put in three stitches and he was in hospital for a week. The newspapers were full of death-bed photographs of rival martyrs, Nazi, Reichsbanner and Communist. My pupils looked at them and shook their heads, apologizing to me for the state of Germany. "Dear, dear !", they said, "it's terrible. It can't go on".
The murder reporters and the jazz-writers had inflated the German language beyond recall. The vocabulary of newspaper invective (traitor, Versailles-lackey, murder-swine, Marx-crook, Hitler-swamp, Red-pest) had come to resemble, through excessive use, the formal phraseology of politeness employed by the Chinese. The word Liebe, soaring from the Goethe standard, was no longer worth a whore's kiss. Spring, moonlight, youth, roses, girl, darling, heart, May : such was the miserably devalued currency dealt with in by the authors of all those tangoes, waltzes and foxtrots which advocated the private escape. Find a dear little sweetheart, they advised, and forget the slump, ignore the unemployed. Fly, they urged us, to Hawaii, to Naples, to the Never-Never-Vienna. Hugenberg, behind the UFA, was serving up a nationalism to suit all tastes. He produced battlefield epics, farces of barrack-room life, operettas in which the jinks of a pre-war military aristocracy were reclothed in the fashions of 1930s. His brilliant directors and cameraman had to concentrate their talents on cynically beautiful shots of the bubbles in champagne and the sheen of lamplight on silk.
And morning after morning, all over the immense, damp, dreary town and the packing-case colonies of huts in the suburb allotments, young men were waking up to another workless empty day to be spent as they could best contrive; selling bootlaces, begging, playing draughts in the hall of the Labor Exchange, hanging about urinals, opening the doors of cars, helping with crates in the market, gossiping, lounging, stealing, overhearing racing tips, sharing stumps of cigarette-ends picked up in the gutter, singing folk-songs for groschen in courtyards and between stations in the carriages of the Underground Railway. After the new year, the snow fell, but did not lie; there was no money to be earned by sweeping it away. The shopkeepers rang all coins on the counter for fear of the forgers. Frl. Schroder's astrologer foretold the end of the world. "Listen", said Fritz Wendel, between sips of a cocktail in the bar of the Eden Hotel, "I give a damn if this country goes communist. What I mean, we'd have to alter our ideas a bit. Hell, who cares ?"

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1933

January 22 The SA hold a demonstration directly opposite the Communist national headquarters on Bülowplatz. Three days later, the KPD held a demonstration in the same place - this was to be the last Communist demonstration not to be broken up by the police.
Monday January 30 The new Minister of the Interior lifted restrictions on demonstrations in the immediate neighborhood of the government area. This allowed the Nazi victory march to take place, starting at 1900, from the Tiergarten, then marching thru the Brandenburg Gate. The parade was 16 columns abreast, all marchers carrying a torch. They moved along Wilhelmstrasse and past the Presidential Palace. Hitler was on the balcony of the Chancellery.
January 31 Hitler made his 'Appeal to the German Nation' on the radio, in which he announced an end to the previous 14 years of Marxist rule, and announced his support for a classless society (see John Major 1990s).

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