German October

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The term German October describes the plan of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (EKKI) to exploit the state crisis of the Weimar Republic at its height in 1923 for an armed coup in Germany. Following the example of the Russian October Revolution of 1917, the communists wanted to seize power and thus give the signal for a revolution in Central Europe. The long-term goal was the victory of the communist world revolution . When the KPD entered into government alliances with the SPD in Thuringia and Saxony under the slogan of a left " united front " in October 1923 , the actors saw a favorable starting point for a survey. The revolution, which was planned for October / November 1923, was thwarted by measures of the Reich government, in particular the Reich execution against Saxony and Thuringia.

Starting position in Germany

The events are part of the existential crisis of the Weimar Republic in 1923. Three major events in 1923, the occupation of the Ruhr , separatist unrest in the Rhineland and Palatinate, and the danger of a coup in Bavaria that would affect the Reich, were directed against the Reich government. In autumn 1923 they let the Weimar Republic sink into political chaos. By order of President Friedrich Ebert , a state of emergency was imposed on the German Reich on September 26, 1923.

Freiberg, Platz der Oktoberopfer, memorial for the demonstrators who were shot by the Reichswehr on October 27, 1923

Occupation of the Ruhr area by French and Belgians

Shortly after the Cuno government took office , Belgian and French troops marched into Germany on January 11, 1923 and occupied the Ruhr area . The reason was a pretext: non-fulfillment of reparations under the Versailles Peace Treaty by u. a. Lack of delivery of sawn timber, telegraph poles and coal. It was France a. a. on the one hand it was about obtaining leverage against his former opponent and on the other hand there were strong security interests. This approach has been heavily criticized and seen, among other things, as a policy “close to the edge of the war”. France received no support from the Allies. Great Britain protested against the occupation.

The response of the Cuno government was a policy of "passive resistance": "non-compliance with the occupiers' instructions." As part of the passive resistance, public silence was held or officials and employees of the Reichsbahn delayed train journeys for the coal trains to the west. When this took effect, after a while the occupiers began to seize and shut down mines and coking plants and to arrest people. They also took over the railway system. The Reich had to continue to pay the salaries of the officials and employees of the Reichsbahn and also give the mining companies large loans so that they could pay the salaries of their workers. This exacerbated the economic hardship that resulted in hyperinflation .

Strikes in the Reich and attempts to overthrow in Saxony and Thuringia

At the same time there were strikes and uprisings against the Reich government in the Reich, especially in Bavaria . The KPD- affiliated unions and workers' assemblies even tried to instigate a general strike against the Cuno government. During this time the KPD was very influential in Saxony , where a social democratic minority government under Erich Zeigner ruled with parliamentary assistance from the KPD, and in Thuringia . One consequence was that the paramilitary proletarian hundreds were not forbidden there, but began in August 1923 to intensify their military exercises and to collect weapons. In Thuringia, too, with a social democratic minority government under August Frölich , the KPD was influential and its hundreds were not forbidden.

Separatists in the Rhineland and the Palatinate

Also in the autumn of 1923 there were separatist unrest in the Rhineland with the aim of founding a Rhenish Republic and breaking away from the German Reich. From October 21, 1923, the separatists brought some Rhenish city and community administrations (e.g. in Aachen, Koblenz, Bonn, Wiesbaden, Trier and Mainz) under their control, partly with the military help of the Belgian and French occupying forces. On October 21st they proclaimed a "Rhenish Republic" and on November 12th an " Autonomous Palatinate ". Since no military was allowed in the Rhineland according to the provisions of the Versailles Treaty, the imperial government could not use soldiers to end the uprising. The rule of the separatists was first recognized by France. The background to this was the security interests of the French who wanted to establish buffer states between France and Germany. This met with clear disapproval from the German, British and American governments, as well as vigorous resistance from the population and led to the end of the uprisings through Prussian police operations and auxiliaries, as well as the abandonment of support by the French by November 1923.

Attempt of a communist revolution in Germany

Decision in Moscow

The decision to attempt a communist revolution was made in Moscow . Numerous strikes against the right-wing government of Wilhelm Cunos ( Cuno strikes ) appeared to be the beginning of revolutionary events. Comintern chairman Grigori Zinoviev instructed the KPD on August 15, 1923 to prepare for an approaching revolutionary crisis. The agreed Leon Trotsky explicitly. On August 23, 1923, the Politburo of the Russian Communist Party held a secret meeting . The Germany expert Karl Radek also advocated an offensive approach there. Josef Stalin was skeptical . The calculation behind the plan: After a victory of the KPD, the highly industrialized "Soviet Germany", so it was calculated in Moscow, would support the economic development of the predominantly agrarian Soviet Union. The seriously ill Lenin no longer played a role. At the end of the meeting, a committee of the Central Committee of four members was formed and immediately sent to Germany for illegal work under false identities. The members were Radek, Unschlicht , Wassili Schmidt and Pjatakow . Radek was to act on the KPD Central Committee in the spirit of Moscow, Schmidt was to function as the organizer of the revolutionary cells within the German trade unions, Pyatakov was responsible for general coordination and liaison with Moscow, and Unschlicht was responsible for paramilitary issues and for the formation of a German Cheka for the time after the coup. The Soviet ambassador in Berlin, Nikolai Krestinski , was also supposed to provide unofficial support for their underground work . He was responsible for managing the secret funds (400,000 US dollars) in preparation for the German October.

For the leadership in Moscow, the situation in Germany seemed comparable to that in Russia in the summer of 1917. The domestic and foreign political crisis in Germany had come to such a head in 1923 that a violent solution from the right or the left was seen as logical. For the communists, it was initially a question of deciding whether the KPD or the fascists should strike first. Radek pleaded for an offensive soon. Inner-Soviet aspects also played a role here. As a supporter of Trotsky, he saw an opportunity to strengthen his position vis-à-vis Zinoviev and Stalin. Success in Germany was hoped to have a positive effect on the mood in Russia. In September the Comintern finally decided in favor of the German October. On November 9, 1923, exactly five years after the German November Revolution of 1918, according to Leon Trotsky's plans, the German Reich was to become a communist country through a revolution.

Role of the KPD

Heinrich Brandler , the chairman of the KPD, was initially skeptical, but let himself be convinced by the plans. Brandler, who had warned against hasty steps in August, now turned around and painted the company's prospects for success in the rosiest of colors: 253,000 communists were ready to fight in proletarian hundreds; from these fifteen divisions could be formed in six to eight weeks. Weapons are available in sufficient numbers. The left, including Ruth Fischer and Ernst Thälmann , were ready to strike from the start. Arkady Maslow from the Fischer group in particular remained uncooperative despite Moscow threats. As a prerequisite for the action, Zinoviev gave the KPD's entry into the Saxon state government. From this position the workers should be armed. In Saxony and Thuringia 50,000 to 60,000 workers were to be armed. Both countries should be defended against the National Socialists from Bavaria . The Reichswehr troops should be ignored.

Events in Saxony, Thuringia and Hamburg

Blocking off a street by the Reichswehr with a felled bayonet in Freiberg in Saxony
Action of the Reichswehr against the communist hundreds in Saxony. Arrest of a communist ringleader by the Reichswehr
Arrest of a member of the Proletarian Hundreds by Reichswehr troops

The domestic political situation in Germany worsened in the course of the preparations. The focal points were Saxony, Thuringia and Hamburg.

On October 10, 1923, the KPD joined the Zeigner government in Saxony as planned. However, the Ministry of the Interior and thus the command of the police did not succeed as hoped. Nevertheless, the chairman Heinrich Brandler took on an important role as head of the state chancellery.

On October 16, the KPD also entered the government in Thuringia. These operations were legal and the governments did not take any anti-imperial steps. The situation was fundamentally different from that in Bavaria, where Gustav von Kahr and his right-wing extremists were planning a coup. In Berlin, on the other hand, no one doubted that entry into government would only be a preliminary stage to an armed communist uprising.

Together with left-wing Social Democrats, the KPD put together combat units to bring about the revolution. These were called "Proletarian Hundreds".

The Saxon and Thuringian Social Democrats, who belong to the left wing of the SPD, promised each other that a coalition with the Communists would, on the one hand, overcome the enmity between the two workers' parties; on the other hand, with the help of the "Proletarian Hundreds", they wanted to stop the "March on Berlin" ( Hitler putsch ) feared in Bavaria . They failed to notice the revolutionary intentions of the KPD, controlled from Moscow.

On October 13, 1923, Lieutenant General Alfred Müller , who was in command in Saxony and who had held the executive power since September 27, had the "proletarian hundreds" prohibited. On October 16, the Saxon police were directly subordinated to the Reichswehr. The government was thus deprived of its most important power base and de facto already largely disempowered.

The possibility of a communist uprising remained real until October 21st. For this day the KPD had called for a workers' conference in Chemnitz . If the mood of the assembly proves favorable, a general strike should be called and the uprising should begin. 450 workers' delegates - communists, trade unionists and some social democrats attended the conference. Brandler, however, did not meet with the approval of the assembly with a corresponding initiative and the SPD threatened to terminate the coalition. August Thalheimer later described the events in Chemnitz with a view to the planned Red October as a "third class funeral". In fact, the KPD and the EKKI recognized that the communists were completely isolated even in Saxony. The plan for a survey was dropped.

Only in Hamburg there was an uprising ( Hamburg uprising ) of proletarian fighters between October 23 and 25, 1923 , in which 24 communists and 17 policemen were killed. Armed communist troops - around 300 men - raided 17 police stations as planned in order to steal rifles and occupied public buildings. One of their leaders was Ernst Thalmann . However, the police were able to prevail within a few days. The background is unclear; either the actionist Hamburg KPD leadership wanted to force the more cautious party leadership in Berlin to strike, or they were wrongly informed by their delegates, who only arrived in Chemnitz after the conference.

In Saxony, the Reichswehr used force against the communists. From October 21 to 27, there were shootings with the wounded and dead in various cities. The advance of the army took place without a formal resolution by the Reich government, but on behalf of Reich President Friedrich Ebert. After Zeigner's refusal to form a government without communists, there was finally a formal execution of the Reich on October 29 under Article 48 of the Reich Constitution. The Saxon state government under the Social Democratic Prime Minister Erich Zeigner was effectively removed from office by Reich President Ebert on the basis of these emergency ordinances. The Thuringian cabinet disbanded voluntarily in the face of this development.

The former Minister of Justice Karl Rudolf Heinze was appointed Reich Commissioner for Saxony by the Reich Government , and the previous Saxon ministers were driven from their offices by the Reichswehr. On October 30th, Prime Minister Erich Zeigner formally resigned in favor of Alfred Fellisch as head of a pure SPD cabinet, which also ended Heinze's mandate as Reich Commissioner.

Reaction in Moscow

Moscow was looking for a scapegoat for the October disaster. He was found quickly. In a "closed letter" dated November 5, the EKKI accused the KPD leadership of deliberately misrepresenting the situation in Germany. The " Troika " at the head of the Soviet Communist Party (Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev) used the criticism of the "right-wing" Brandler group to take action against Trotsky and his supporters at the same time. The dispute over the causes of the October defeat was thus linked to the factional struggles in the Soviet leadership, from which Stalin emerged victorious.

Historical classification of the German October

Historically not assigned to the German October, but initiated at the same time and failed in November 1923, the Hitler putsch was an attempt from the right-wing national camp to shake the first parliamentary democracy in Germany. As is well known, not only the KPD rehearsed the overthrow on November 9, 1923, but also the extreme right with the Munich beer cellar demagogue Adolf Hitler and World War General Erich Ludendorff at the helm.

The causal connections between the events are only now fully clear, since the archives in Moscow - and the corresponding secret protocols - are only now accessible to historians. The most extensive description of this can be found in " German October 1923. A revolution plan and its failure." (2003).

In summary, was the mixture of the wrong decisions of the French occupying power and the Soviets, the disastrous economic situation of the German Reich due to the global economic crisis and the Treaty of Versailles responsible politically extreme and overthrow actions groupings of left and right for the difficult situation of the national government in the 1923rd The "German October" had to be broken off prematurely in Saxony and Thuringia, the "March on Berlin" did not even get beyond Munich, and Rhenish separatism collapsed miserably, not only because the actors were amateurish, but above all because one A "dictatorship of the proletariat" based on the Soviet model, a "Führer state" based on the Italian model, or the destruction of the unity of the empire were only considered desirable by a small minority of the population.

In the years from 1924 to 1929, Germany experienced a period of relative stability, economic recovery and foreign policy recognition and appreciation.

literature

  • Boris Bashanov : Stalin - The Red Dictator. Berlin 1931 (pp. 122–131 - the only source for the decisive Politburo meeting on 23 Aug. 1923, at which the uprising was decided; driving force alongside Zinoviev and Radek: Trotsky) New edition: Baschanow, Boris: I was Stalin's secretary, Frankfurt 1977, Ullstein
  • Bernhard H. Bayerlein, Leonid G. Babicenko and a. (Ed.): German October 1923. A revolution plan and its failure (= Archives of Communism - Paths of the XXth Century. Volume 3). Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-351-02557-2 . (comprehensive source work on 479 pages)
  • Frank Hirschinger : "Gestapo agents, Trotskyists, traitors". Communist party purges in Saxony-Anhalt 1918–1953. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-36903-4 , pp. 37-52 ( limited online version on Google Books ).
  • Harald Jentsch: The KPD and the "German October" 1923. Ingo Koch Verlag, Rostock 2005, ISBN 3-938-68633-2 .
  • Carsten Voigt, Michael Rudloff: The Reich execution against Saxony in 1923 and the limits of federalism. In: Michael Richter , Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (ed.): Länder, Gaue and districts. Central Germany in the 20th century. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle / S. 2007, ISBN 3-89812-530-0 , pp. 53-72.
  • Otto Wenzel: 1923 - the failed German October Revolution (= dictatorship and resistance . Volume 7). With an introduction by Manfred Wilke , Lit., Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8258-7246-7 .
  • Heinrich August Winkler : Weimar 1918–1933. The history of the first German democracy. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-37646-0 , pp. 213-227.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Arnulf Scriba: The "German October" 1923. In: https://www.dhm.de/ . Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, May 18, 2007, accessed on December 3, 2019 .
  2. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : History of the West. The time of the world wars 1914–1945. Beck, special edition of the BpB , Munich 2011, p. 303.
  3. a b c d e f g h i j k l m Reinhard Sturm: Kampf um die Republik 1919 - 1923. In: https://www.bpb.de/ . Federal Agency for Civic Education, December 23, 2011, accessed on December 4, 2019 .
  4. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: History of the West. The time of the world wars 1914–1945. Special edition, Munich 2011, p. 303f.
  5. Baschanow, Boris: I was Stalin's secretary , Ullstein 1982, p. 58.
  6. a b c d e f Volker Ullrich: The uprising that did not take place. In: https://www.zeit.de/ . Die Zeit, December 11, 2003, accessed on December 4, 2019 .
  7. Baschanow, Boris: I was Stalin's secretary , Ullstein 1982, p. 59.
  8. See the minutes of the cabinet meeting of September 27, 1923 in the files of the Reich Chancellery . Weimar Republic ( online )
  9. ^ Ordinance of the Reich President on the basis of Article 48, Paragraph 2 of the Reich Constitution, regarding the measures necessary to restore public safety and order in the Free State of Saxony in the Reichsgesetzblatt in retro-digitized form at ALEX - Historical Legal and Legal Texts Online ; on the course of events, see The Saxon Government to the State Court. Dresden, November 6, 1923 in the Federal Archives