Kapp Putsch in Thuringia

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Under the name Kapp Putsch in Thuringia events are summarized here that during and immediately after in the 13 March 1920 Berlin made by conservative and right-wing groups attempted coup as a direct consequence and reaction precisely these processes in space Thuringia developed. In addition to the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial area (see Ruhr uprising and the Red Ruhr Army ), the Thuringian area, which was still politically split up into various individual states, was the only region of the German Empire in which the during the war and theNovember Revolution, the tensions between the bourgeois - conservative and socialist camps, which had grown continuously, escalated at this point in a civil war-like confrontation that transcended the local framework . Around 250 people were violently killed and many more were injured during the fighting and the repressive measures directed against the workers who were mobilized in many places. The course and constellation of the disputes shaped the domestic political climate in the emerging state of Thuringia for years and can be seen as an early setting of the course towards the Ordnungsbund and the Baum-Frick government .

background

In the individual states and Prussian territories of Thuringia, the Reich government had already intervened several times in 1919 with free corps and Reichswehr formations to prevent the sometimes radical workers and soldiers' councils , which were not controlled by the SPD and which dominated local politics in central cities and communities after the November Revolution , to disempower. During this phase, the Thuringian labor movement was characterized in many places by an activist tendency towards an actual socialist revolution. At the same time, bourgeois politics in the region were much less willing to compromise than elsewhere; Its wing, willing to cooperate and aiming at integrating the reformist labor movement into the state, was structurally weak in Thuringia. Workers' strikes were not infrequently answered with bourgeois counter-strikes; Occasionally, armed structures suitable for "self-help" were set up demonstratively - in Erfurt, for example, with official encouragement, an approximately 1000-strong so-called regulatory agency (initially as the Thuringia volunteer corps or the Wangenheim volunteer regiment ) had been formed since the spring of 1919 , which was exclusively owned - and the educated bourgeoisie and, in addition to handguns, had access to machine guns, light artillery and armored cars if necessary. One in November 1919 in Gotha formed, led by former officers of assault company was able to mobilize 300 gunmen.

In Thuringia, too, the military and civil proponents of the right-wing coup, which many observers had expected since the beginning of 1920, assumed that the bourgeois parties would quickly agree on a common program and procedure after it began. In doing so, however, they overestimated the conceptual unity and political reach of the bourgeois camp, as it should show. At the same time they underestimated the activist militancy and mobilization potential of the political left . The USPD , in particular , in which the revolutionary left wing, which was already strong in Thuringia, had been growing in influence since autumn 1919, had been able to continuously expand its organizational and political importance; At the turn of the year 1919/20, it had a decisive influence on the respective local labor movement in all the industrially important regions of Thuringia - with the exception of Altenburg , where the SPD had been able to maintain its old positions. In the industrial centers, the situation was extremely tense in view of the lack of the socialization promised several times by the government (see Socialization Commission ), the noticeably falling real income and the regulations of the new works council law passed by the Reichstag at the beginning of 1920, which were perceived as a step backwards . The activist potential was particularly pronounced in the Free State of Gotha , where the USPD won ten out of nineteen seats in the state elections on February 23, 1919. The conflict that had been simmering here for months between the old elites of the royal seat, who met the USPD government with stubborn obstruction, and the advancing workers' organizations that were ready for a “second revolution” immediately made Gotha the center of militant confrontation in the region during the critical days of March .

course

March 13th to March 17th

The commanding officers of the Reichswehr associations responsible for East Thuringia (Reichswehr Brigade 16, Weimar ) and Central and West Thuringia (Reichswehr Brigade 11, Kassel ) more or less openly sided with the Kapp government after the events in Berlin became known . The commander in Weimar, Major General Hagenberg, posted the following "announcement" on March 13th:

“The previous Reich government has resigned. In the interests of order, the instructions of the present Reich government must be followed. As a military commander in the area of ​​Reichswehr Brigade 16 (...) I will ruthlessly intervene against all attempts to disturb the peace and security and to instigate strikes. "

In the area of ​​responsibility of Brigade 11, an intensified state of emergency was imposed, the entire left press was banned, strikes and public gatherings were prohibited. The bourgeois newspapers that continued to appear printed the announcements of the Kapp government, the right-wing resident police were mobilized and, where necessary and possible, armed from the Reichswehr.

On March 14, Hagenberg declared the left state governments in Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach , Saxony-Altenburg and Reuss to be deposed and had the first arrests made; in Weimar he appointed the DNVP lawyer Hermann Jöck , in Gera the chairman of the local DVP Ebersbach as the new head of government. Early in the morning of that day the commander of the Erfurt garrison, von Selle , had Gotha occupied by hand strokes in order to deal with the USPD government of the Free State in exactly the same way. On the same day a department of the Meiningen garrison moved out to reinforce the resident defense in the Suhl / Zella-Mehlis area .

The obvious approach of the regional Reichswehr leadership - to enforce the state of emergency desired by Kapp and, moreover, to wait for the course of events in Berlin and in the rest of the Reich - was thwarted within a day by the action of the left parties and the trade unions ( ADGB ). The call for a strike by the Bauer government was largely irrelevant for this, as the countermeasures immediately and in full on local initiative and went far beyond the objectives of the Reich government. Almost everywhere - including in SPD strongholds such as Altenburg - the minimum goals of the general strike were the withdrawal of the works council law, the democratization of the administration, the dissolution of the Reichswehr and the immediate implementation of the socialization of the basic industries. In many places, things went much further: in Jena, for example, the factory stewards asked the workers on March 13th to “use all their strengths to implement the proletarian dictatorship as the only way to socialism”. The Action Committee for Greiz and the surrounding area addressed the public in the same spirit with the following appeal:

“We do not call on the people to protect the democratic imperial constitution , which is a constitution of capitalism , nor to protect the proper imperial government, which through its anti-revolutionary policy has helped the counter-revolution to victory. (...) We call on the people not to fight for a second edition of Noske , not for a capitalist constitution, but for socialism. "

The general strike in Gotha began on the morning of March 13th. Workers from the wagon factory stormed the Fliegerwerft and brought the 500 rifles found there to the Volkshaus zum Mohren , where an "executive council" was constituted from the USPD and the KPD's works councils. The same published the following call:

“In Berlin, Generals Lüttwitz and the like established the military dictatorship. That means the white horror of Hungary transplanted to Germany! (…) Truly, not for the sake of Ebert , Bauer and comrades, we appeal to the repeatedly proven strength of the Gotha proletariat in town and country. It is important to finally, finally, pave the way for socialism by completely suppressing reaction ! We are now gathering all our strength on the basis of the revolutionary council system . (…) Enjoyed! Fellow citizens! It's all about! Long live the revolution! High socialism! "

After a brief exchange of fire with the Reichswehr advancing from Erfurt - which resulted in the first deaths - the workers' armed forces set up by the Executive Council withdrew south to the Thuringian Forest , as reinforcements were expected from there.

In Erfurt, the general strike was led by an anonymous strike leadership operating underground, which thus escaped the control of the garrison and resident guard, who were far superior in terms of power. Many workers demonstratively disregarded the ban on strikes and meetings. Members of the law enforcement officers who posted the orders of the chief of the garrison entrenched in the Petersberg citadel were beaten. Members of this bourgeois militia then used firearms and hand grenades against "rioting" on March 15 on the Anger and other parts of the city; two, according to other sources, four people were killed. On the same day, the strike leadership extended the work stoppages and called for the cessation of bourgeois retail trade and commerce:

“All shops and entertainment venues are to be closed until further notice. We respond to violations with the complete shutdown of the electricity and water works. "

On March 16, more people died in scuffle in the city center. Selle responded a day later by setting up a court martial and threatening a death sentence for "riot, resistance and violence".

The four days leading up to the resignation of the Kapp government on March 17th in several cities in Thuringia passed with a similar tendency. In many small towns and rural communities, local committees made up of members of the USPD and KPD (more rarely the SPD) actually exercised power. They pushed through the general strike and, where necessary, disarmed local resident police. A continuously escalating confrontation could be observed in the urban centers; the Reichswehr located on site gradually slipped away from control. On March 15, two important cities, Suhl and Gera, fell into the hands of the workers' services after sometimes bloody battles. Local activists also took far-reaching initiatives in more remote regions; in Schmalkalden , for example, on March 17th, the ringing of bells proclaimed the soviet republic, an action committee proclaimed the “ dictatorship of the proletariat ” and demanded the “arming of the working people”. The members of the Reichswehr and resident services, nervous in view of the closed defensive front and frustrated by Kapp's failure, which quickly became apparent, caused additional bitterness through willful bloodbaths: on March 15, nine people died in a fire attack in front of the Volkshaus in Weimar, on March 17 A machine gunner shot - with a similar effect - from a window of the main post office in Gotha into the crowd waiting for news from Berlin in front of the building.

The coup against the symbolically important Gotha meanwhile mobilized and attracted workers all over western and central Thuringia. The USPD politician Curt Geyer , coming from Eisenach , was on foot to Gotha because of the dormant train traffic:

“The street was very busy. A lot of people moved with us to Gotha, workers, small farmers and travelers (...). On the march we asked an elderly small farmer who had greeted us kindly: 'Where are we going?' and he replied: 'To the fight for freedom in Gotha.' "

March 18 to March 29

On March 18, the Gotha workers' armed forces, which had grown to around 900 armed men from the Thuringian Forest, successfully attacked the Reichswehr formations that had holed up after the incidents of March 17 in the train station, in the main post office, the barracks and the flyer yard. On March 19, the Executive Council controlled the city; The Reichswehr and residents' armed forces withdrew to Erfurt, some of them fleeing. Heavy weapons were also used in the battles planned and carried out according to the war, which were coordinated by a “combat staff” set up in Petriroda . Curt Geyer, who had meanwhile arrived in Gotha, later recalled:

“The party secretary then gathered our troops. In a pub garden we examined them and checked the weapons. There were about 150 men, of course in civilian clothes, they looked like a band of robbers, placed in formation. There was enough ammunition for the mortar, but the trigger did not work, instead it had to be knocked off with a blow of a hammer. We marched into a lumber yard near the aircraft factory, which we made the center of the attack, and sent about a dozen people into the back of the factory on the street to stop those fleeing. "

During the particularly bitter fighting over the Fliegerwerft, around 30 workers were lured into an ambush and murdered by the defenders with rifle butts, axes and spades. Overall, around 110 people died in the fighting in Gotha on March 18 and 19.

In connection with these battles, the so-called 1st People's Army (People's Army) was established on March 17, which was assembled at the Ohrdruf military training area after the fighting . It is said to have briefly numbered around 5,000 men and even had some armored cars fetched from an armaments factory in Zella-Mehlis. With the creation of this formation, representatives of the left wing of the Gotha USPD around Geithner and Creutzburg attempted to counter the threatening deployment of Reichswehr and Freikorps units ( Rumschöttel Brigade , Marburg Student Corps [ StuKoMa ]) that was taking place near Eisenach with a serious resistance factor.

On March 19, officers of Reichswehr Brigade 11 and social democratic representatives of the Reich government (including Albert Grzesinski ) agreed on rapid action against Thuringia in Kassel . In Thuringia, it was said in a statement that there was “riot”, “armed gangs” were marching through “robbing and plundering the country.” The advance began on March 21st. It quickly became clear to the Gotha Executive Council and the state government that - with the Erfurt garrison behind them - prolonged, successful resistance against the advancing troop contingents was not possible, especially since in many places the unified strike front was already taking place through the disengagement of the SPD and individual USPD representatives began to crumble. Two with the aim of avoiding further bloodshed to Berlin sent negotiators (including Hermann Duncker ), however, were arrested at the request of the Chancellor and the back Döberitz returned Marine Brigade Ehrhardt passed; both escaped being murdered by accident.

In view of these developments, the Gotha Executive Council dissolved on March 23; the state government asked for the laying down and surrender of weapons. On March 25th, Reichswehr and Freikorps units entered Gotha without meeting any resistance; Arnstadt was occupied two days later, and Ilmenau finally on March 29th. Individual "pacification actions" in the Thuringian Forest lasted until April 3rd. With that, all of Central and West Thuringia was again in the hands of the imperial government.

The establishment of "peace and order" in East Thuringia was somewhat slower. On March 21, the 2,000-strong workers' brigades in the Russian territories, operating as a single unit, succeeded in defeating and encompassing two infantry battalions of the Reichswehr coming from Plauen and advancing along the White Elster in the direction of Gera in a battle near Zickra , and in a formal one to force surrender in connection with the disarmament of the troops - a unique process in the whole of the Reich. As a result, the Reichswehr was denied direct access to Eastern Thuringia until April. The arbitrary arrests and shootings associated with the rapid advance of the temporary volunteer and Reichswehr contingents in western and central Thuringia therefore failed to materialize in eastern Thuringia; the situation had calmed down in the meantime, the troop leadership did not find it expedient to cause further unrest through renewed aggressive maneuvers "which would also require strong use of forces".

Repressive measures and acts of violence

During the occupation, in some places, especially in the area between Eisenach and Gotha as well as in the Sömmerda area , the aggressive mood that was cultivated by local residents, peasants and invading troops, directed against activists and functionaries of the labor movement and pushed for "accounting", went into open lynching over. In Gotha, on March 25, 26 and 27, the resident service and assault company arrested and shot an unknown number of " Spartakist ringleaders" on their own .

"It was enough that someone had spoken only once in a meeting or was otherwise regarded as a confidant in the workforce, and he was already taken and led to the slaughter."

In this context, the Mechterstädt murders committed by members of the StuKoMa on March 25th caused a greater and longer lasting sensation - not least because of the mild treatment of those responsible, which turned into a judicial scandal in the following years . During this massacre, 15 workers from Thal who were denounced by farmers in the area were shot "while on the run" and some of them were mutilated by the perpetrators. On March 24th, members of the Reichswehr had murdered a total of 11 people in Tunzenhausen and Schallenburg . An investigation report prepared a few weeks later for the President of the Province of Saxony reveals the mechanisms of this violence:

“At that moment, the landowner Hoffmeister sen., Tunzenhausen, standing in his garden (…) called to Lieutenant Hagedorn: 'They must all be shot.' Lieutenant Hagedorn ordered accordingly. (...) [The worker Hermann Hessler came along on a bicycle.] Landowner Hoffmeister shouted: 'That's one too, get rid of it!' The soldiers then shot him in the left leg. Hessler fell off the bike. Thereupon Hoffmeister shouted again: 'Don't shoot him in the legs, shoot him in the head!' (...) [Another arrested man was brought in.] The son of the landlord (...) said to the bystanders: 'Two rows of vigilantes and through with him, really beaten up and then shot to death.' This happened."

On the same day - also after denunciations - two USPD activists were murdered in the basement of the town hall of Sömmerda, one of them by a local landowner. The district administrator of the Weissensee district drove around in a car draped with a black, white and red flag and, on the square in front of the town hall, gave individual prisoners a flogging with the words “double portion” and “single portion”. The chairman of the local USPD, the veterinarian Kurt Neubert, was badly mistreated in public by a mob and shot “on the run” in front of the city.

“Comrade Neubert, mistreated in the most terrible and cruel manner by the Reichswehr troops and the bourgeois mob, was driven to the market square with his hands raised. (...) [He was] sentenced to death by the 'people's court' set up by the mayor [Hohendahl] and the bourgeois Kapp murderer gang. He was then driven outside the city, hooted by the reactionary mob (...) [,] beat him up again and ordered him to run faster with the words 'Hopp, hopp, run you dog', whereupon he was shot down. "

In the days that followed, around 25 other people were arbitrarily or “civilly” killed in Sömmerda. The whereabouts of 46 people arrested on March 26 during house searches in Waltershausen and Friedrichroda is unclear. Some of them were demonstrably shot on March 27th in Gotha after they had been sentenced to death by a “court martial” formed by members of the StuKoMa . In the buildings of the Petersberg Citadel in Erfurt, days after the state of emergency was lifted at the end of March, at least 200 people arrested, mostly from the city or the northern Prussian districts, were detained and sometimes systematically mistreated.

Effect and classification

The violent clash of the two camps, which was experienced in practice, led to a sharp development of the political poles in the state of Thuringia, which was formed a few weeks after the coup. The bourgeois camp remained fragmented in the years that followed, but appeared to the workers' parties - apart from the brief phase of the Paulssen minority government in 1920/1921 - as a closed "regulatory bloc", from the social-liberal DDP to the DNVP, which was consistently uncompromisingly right-wing extremist in Thuringia was enough. The entry of the NSDAP in January 1930 was not a real breach of continuity in terms of national politics. In contrast, the wing in the Thuringian SPD prevailed as early as 1921, which oriented itself towards merging with the USPD and KPD on a national scale. As a government option, this alternative was forcibly eliminated as early as 1923 through the intervention of the Reich government .

In addition to the form of violence that anticipated the early phase of the Nazi terror in 1933, the legal appraisal of the coup and the subsequent murders and extrajudicial killings proved to be a warning sign. There was no judicial or even disciplinary prosecution of officers like Hagenberg who acted repeatedly in breach of oath and constitution. On the other hand, NCOs and crews of the Altenburger Landesjäger , who had dismissed and detained their officers on March 14th, were called to account for " refusing to give orders ". The Mechterstädt murderers were acquitted in the last instance in December 1920. Not a single civilian appearing in Sömmerda and Gotha as a court martial and execution squad was prosecuted. Even the evidence provided in the investigation report on the events in Sömmerda that all of the shootings carried out there were unlawful, even according to the provisions of the martial law, and clearly only served to eliminate politically unpopular left activists (none of the victims had participated in acts of violence or was “with the Weapon in hand ”), was unable to impress the responsible public prosecutor's offices. The few proceedings against the officers commanding in Sömmerda were dragged off and stopped in early 1922.

The days of March were undoubtedly fruitful in terms of the conservative bourgeoisie interested in getting used to power through a state of emergency and open, terrorist violence. The traditional lines drawn in this regard by the protagonists themselves are quite clear: the former members of the Erfurter Ordnungshilfe , which was dissolved in April 1920, were recognized by the Nazi state as “fighters entitled to support for the national uprising” at their own request in 1937.

Memorial sites (selection)

Memorial stone in the Gräfenroda cemetery
  • Memorial at the main cemetery of the city of Gotha for the more than 90 workers who died or were murdered in Gotha in the March days, many of whom were buried here; there is also a memorial plaque at the main post office
  • Memorial stone for the 15 murdered workers from Thal near Mechterstädt (on Bundesstraße 7, exit towards Gotha)
  • Memorial for the five workers who were shot dead in house searches on March 18, 1920 at the entrance to Frankfurter Strasse in Eisenach
  • Memorial stone for three Erfurt workers who were killed or murdered in Gotha on the main cemetery in Erfurt
  • Memorial stone for two workers from Ohrdruf who died or were murdered in Gotha in the entrance area of ​​the Ohrdruf cemetery
  • Memorial and grave sites for three Arnstadt workers who died or were murdered in Gotha at the main cemetery in Arnstadt
  • Memorial stone for three workers from Graefenroda who died or were murdered in Gotha in the local cemetery
  • Memorial stone and communal grave for three workers from Frankenhain who died or were murdered in Gotha in the local cemetery; another victim's grave is also in the cemetery
  • Memorial for 15 Gera workers who fell during March, Gera Südfriedhof
  • Inscription on the portal of the Suhl town hall ("In the green forest the red city / The one shot town hall hatt '/ (1920)")
  • Memorial to those who fell in March in the historical cemetery of the city of Weimar
  • Memorial in Tunzenhausen for the victims who were arbitrarily murdered in Tunzenhausen
  • Memorial for those murdered in Sömmerda in the cemetery in Sömmerda

Literature (selection)

  • Biereye, Johannes, Freikorps Thuringia, Resident Defense, Ordnungshilfe Erfurt. Origin, development and activity (especially during the Kapp Putsch) to protect the city of Erfurt and Thuringia from January 1919 to April 1920. A description of the experiences to commemorate difficult and content-rich days , Erfurt 1935 [material -rich work of the Erfurt historian, printed in small numbers who also writes here as a contemporary witness and directly involved; shaped by the author's conservative national standpoint]
  • Gutsche, Willibald , Der Kapp-Putsch in Erfurt , Erfurt 1958 [monograph which also goes into the events in the rest of Thuringia in the margin; in the meantime especially formally obsolete, since the author, who is committed to the style of the time, sometimes falls into an agitational diction]
  • Hammer, Franz, Free State of Gotha in the Kapp Putsch. According to documents and memories of old combatants , Berlin 1955 [in parts fictional, but for large parts based on the verbatim reproduction of minutes of meetings and negotiations as well as interviews with contemporary witnesses based representation of the events in Gotha and Mechterstädt]
  • Könnemann, Erwin , Krusch, Hans-Joachim , action unit against the Kapp Putsch. The Kapp Putsch in March 1920 and the struggle of the German working class and other working people against the establishment of the military dictatorship and for democratic conditions , Berlin 1972 [in the diction outdated extensive standard work with relatively detailed sections on regional development in Thuringia; has the tendency to absolutize the defensive character of strike and combat measures and thereby neglect the motivation of many workers to act that is emerging in Thuringia and aimed at a second, socialist revolution]
  • Könnemann, Erwin, Schulze, Gerhard (eds.), Der Kapp-Lüttwitz-Ludendorff-Putsch. Documents , Munich 2002 [standards-setting, mainly focused on the preparation and purpose of the coup as well as the events in Berlin and the Mark Brandenburg, here almost exhaustive source edition; but also offers a lot of material on the events in Thuringia]
  • Matthiesen, Helge , the bourgeoisie and National Socialism in Thuringia. Das bürgerliche Gotha 1918 to 1930 , Jena 1994 [political-sociological milieu study that traces the political transformation of the Gotha bourgeoisie and highlights the “powerlessness” of bourgeois politics in relation to the “permanent political coercion and threats” (p. 95) on the part of radicalized workers; contains a section on the March events of 1920]
  • Raßloff, Steffen , escape into the national community. The Erfurt bourgeoisie between the Empire and the Nazi dictatorship , Cologne-Weimar-Vienna 2003 [contains a section on the Kapp Putsch; like Matthiesen, the author emphasizes the passive "defenselessness" of the bourgeoisie immediately after the November Revolution]

Individual evidence

  1. ^ See Drabkin, Jakow S., The emergence of the Weimar Republic, Berlin 1983, p. 129.
  2. Exemplary information on the situation in Erfurt from Gutsche, Willibald, Der Kapp-Putsch in Erfurt, Erfurt 1958, p. 38ff.
  3. See Bieber, Hans-Joachim, Bürgerertum in der Revolution. Citizens' councils and citizen strikes in Germany 1918-1920, Hamburg 1992, p. 212ff.
  4. See Biereye, Johannes, Freikorps Thuringia, Resident Defense, Ordnungshilfe Erfurt. Origin, development and activity (especially during the Kapp Putsch) to protect the city of Erfurt and Thuringia from January 1919 to April 1920. A description of the experiences in memory of difficult and meaningful days, Erfurt 1935, passim.
  5. See Matthiesen, Helge, Bürgerertum und National Socialism in Thuringia. The bourgeois Gotha 1918 to 1930, Jena 1994, p. 94.
  6. On the preparation and calculation of the coup, see Könnemann, Erwin, Krusch, Hans-Joachim, Aktioneinheit contra Kapp-Putsch. The Kapp Putsch in March 1920 and the struggle of the German working class and other working people against the establishment of the military dictatorship and for democratic conditions, Berlin 1972, pp. 44-88.
  7. According to Curt Geyer, at that time a leading representative of the left wing of the USPD, "Thuringia (...) was one of the districts in which we had real fighting power." Geyer, Curt, Die revolutionäre Illusion. On the history of the left wing of the USPD (edited by Wolfgang Benz and Hermann Graml), Stuttgart 1976, p. 181.
  8. See Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, p. 42. See also Wheeler, Robert F., USPD and Internationale. Socialist internationalism in the time of the revolution, Frankfurt am Main-Berlin-Vienna 1975, pp. 144f.
  9. See Krause, Hartfrid, USPD. On the history of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, Frankfurt am Main-Cologne 1975, pp. 140ff.
  10. See Dressel, Guido, sources for the history of Thuringia. Elections and voting results 1920-1995, Erfurt 1995, p. 15.
  11. ↑ Printed as a facsimile in Könnemann, Krusch, Kapp-Putsch, p. 106.
  12. See Könnemann, Erwin, Schulze, Gerhard (eds.), Der Kapp-Lüttwitz-Ludendorff-Putsch. Documents, Munich 2002, p. 736, footnote 2.
  13. See Raßloff, Steffen, Flucht in die nationale Volksgemeinschaft. The Erfurt bourgeoisie between the Empire and the Nazi dictatorship, Cologne-Weimar-Wien 2003, p. 199.
  14. See Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, pp. 739, 744. See also Könnemann, Krusch, Kapp-Putsch, pp. 106f.
  15. See Könnemann, Krusch, Kapp-Putsch, p. 106.
  16. See Könnemann, Krusch, Kapp-Putsch, pp. 210f.
  17. See Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, pp. 748, 760f., 763f.
  18. Quoted from Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, p. 737.
  19. Quoted from Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, p. 737, footnote 2.
  20. See Könnemann, Krusch, Kapp-Putsch, p. 102. See also Matthiesen, Bürgerertum, p. 95f.
  21. Quoted from Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, p. 738.
  22. See Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, p. 50.
  23. See Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, p. 69. See also Raßloff, Flucht, p. 202.
  24. See Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, pp. 69f.
  25. Quoted from Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, p. 70.
  26. See Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, p. 68.
  27. See an example of the detailed presentation of the events in the area of ​​today's Ilm district at Schörnig, Fritz, Read-told-experienced. From the history of the social struggles and the workers' movement in the Arnstadt and Ilmenau districts. Part III. From the Great October Socialist Revolution up to 1923, oO, no date [Erfurt 1968], pp. 84–112.
  28. See John, Jürgen (ed.), Sources for the history of Thuringia 1918-1945, Erfurt 1996, p. 88.
  29. See Hammer, Franz, Free State of Gotha in the Kapp Putsch. Based on documents and memories of old combatants, Berlin 1955, p. 35.
  30. ^ Geyer, Illusion, p. 181.
  31. See Hammer, Free State of Gotha, p. 34ff. See also Matthiesen, Bürgerertum, p. 97.
  32. See Schörnig, Gelesen, p. 92.
  33. Geyer, Illusion, pp. 182f.
  34. See Könnemann, Krusch, Kapp-Putsch, p. 212. See also Schörnig, Gelesen, Appendix 8, pp. 182-184.
  35. See Matthiesen, Bürgerertum, p. 97.
  36. See Dreetz, Dieter, Gessner, Klaus, Sperling, Heinz, Armed Fights in Germany 1918-1923, Berlin 1988, p. 146.
  37. Quoted from Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, p. 748.
  38. See Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, p. 768ff.
  39. See Hammer, Free State of Gotha, pp. 95f.
  40. See Schörnig, Gelesen, pp. 103f.
  41. See Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, p. 117.
  42. See Dreetz, Gessner, Sperling, Kampf, p. 180.
  43. Quoted from Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, p. 764.
  44. See Matthiesen, Bürgertum, p. 98. See also Hammer, Free State of Gotha, p. 96.
  45. ^ The USPD member of the state parliament Wiegleb on March 30, 1920. Quoted from Könnemann, Schulze, documents, p. 775, footnote 4.
  46. See Gumbel, Emil Julius, Vier Jahre political Mord, Berlin 1922, pp. 56ff. and Hammer, Free State of Gotha, pp. 99f.
  47. Quoted from Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, p. 112.
  48. See Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, pp. 772f.
  49. See Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, p. 114.
  50. See Gumbel, Mord, pp. 58f.
  51. A witness in the Erfurt daily Tribüne , April 12, 1920. Quoted from Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, p. 773, footnote 2.
  52. See Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, p. 115.
  53. See Könnemann, Krusch, Kapp-Putsch, p. 416.
  54. See Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, p. 775, footnote 1.
  55. See Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, pp. 765ff.
  56. See Könnemann, Schulze, Documents, p. 777, footnote 2.
  57. See Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, pp. 113, 139.
  58. See Gutsche, Kapp-Putsch, p. 157.