Marine Brigade Ehrhardt

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Members of the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade on March 13 during the Kapp Putsch in Berlin

The Ehrhardt Marine Brigade , also called Ehrhardt Brigade , was a Freikorps after the First World War that was established on February 17, 1919 as the 2nd Marine Brigade in Wilhelmshaven from members of the former Imperial Navy - mainly officers and deck officers - under the leadership was set up by Corvette Captain Hermann Ehrhardt . The naval brigade was mainly used in the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic and in the " Border Guard East " against the uprisings in Upper Silesia . In March 1920, the naval brigade was one of the main pillars of the Kapp Putsch and occupied Berlin . After the brigade was dissolved in April 1920, members of the brigade formed the secret organization Organization Consul under the leadership of Hermann Ehrhardt , which carried out numerous assassinations and murders in order to overthrow the Weimar Republic , such as the assassinations of Walther Rathenau and Matthias Erzberger .

Origin and structure of the formation

In Wilhelmshaven had during the November Revolution one on 11 November 1918 Workers' and Soldiers formed which took over the executive power. On November 7th, a 21-member council was founded as an executive body, with Bernhard Kuhnt as its chairman . He was involved in the proclamation of the Free State of Oldenburg on November 11 and even became the first president of this country, which was governed by the majority Social Democratic Party of Germany and bourgeois parties after elections on January 19 . Nevertheless, Kuhnt joined the USPD and, together with the USPD-dominated Council of 21 in Wilhelmshaven, obviously had sympathy for an impending communist overthrow. This was carried out on January 27 by the Bremen communists with comrades from Wilhelmshaven. The putschists captured important buildings in Wilhelmshaven and stole 40,000 Reichsmarks from the Reichsbank branch . They declared Wilhelmshaven a socialist soviet republic . When the putschists encountered isolated resistance, they holed up in the 1,000-man barracks . Meanwhile, many citizens had gathered in front of the meeting place of the 21-er Council and demanded the end of the coup. The 21-er council promised to take measures against the entrenched, but acted cautiously in order to achieve a bloodless surrender. In the meantime, around 300 officers and professional soldiers from the former Imperial Navy, with the participation of Corvette Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, had come together, armed themselves by force and attacked the barracks. They shot at the barracks with artillery and machine guns. On the morning of January 28, the 400 putschists surrendered. There were eight dead and many injured in the storm. The Council of 21 was compromised by its inaction and the tolerance of the coup. Its chairman Kuhnt fled and was arrested the same day. The “storm on the 1000-man barracks” was later considered by the brigade to be the hour of its birth.

The Reich government, worried by simultaneous coups in Bremen and other cities, sent part of the Gerstenberg division to Wilhelmshaven on February 20, which had already eliminated the Bremen Soviet Republic at the beginning of February . The Röder state rifle corps , together with the social democratic Reich Commissioner Paul Hug, took over power and dissolved the workers' and soldiers' council and disarmed the workers' battalion. The Reich government had already decided beforehand to set up voluntary troops in Wilhelmshaven to combat Soviet republics. The reason for this was that Wilhelmshaven was full of soldiers as a Reich war port and that many soldiers there were opposed to radical leftist movements.

On February 13, 1919, an advertisement appeared in the daily newspaper Wilhelmshaven Die Republik , which was geared towards socialist majority, with the text excerpts:

“Call for the formation of a government force in Wilhelmshaven. The Reich government gave me the order to form a government force in Wilhelmshaven, which is directly subordinate to the government and which is available for the Eastern Border Guard. [...] signed by the head of the North Sea Michelsen naval station. "

This ad appeared frequently. Later advertisements also cited the prevention of civil unrest as a task . For this force there were mainly former members of the navy. On February 17, 1919 Ehrhardt received the order to assemble this force under the designation 2nd Marine Brigade Wilhelmshaven . This enabled him to determine the political orientation of the members of his brigade. The brigade was to be a mobile unit and deployed throughout the empire in uprisings. From March 24th, the Wilhelmshaven Marine Brigade was subordinate to the Guard Cavalry Rifle Corps under Lieutenant General von Hofmann and thus formed part of the von Lettow division.

The brigade initially consisted of only four infantry companies with a total of 367 men. In the course of further growth and the establishment of new units, the brigade was divided into the 3rd and 4th Marine Regiments and a brigade staff ( Ia was Captain G. Kempt) since it was moved to Jüterbog on March 30, 1919 . The 3rd Marine Regiment (Korvettenkapitän Lambert Werber) had six infantry companies, whereby the 1st company was filled with deck officers, the 2nd company with engineers and the 3rd company with NCOs. The other companies were set up with team ranks. In addition, the so-called storm company, which was set up with officers, ensigns and cadets, was subordinate to the regiment. The 4th Marine Regiment (Major von Puttkammer) had six infantry companies, a machine gun company, a pioneer company and a battery with 7.7 cm field cannons.

After being transferred to Munich on April 29, 1919, the 2nd Marine Brigade Wilhelmshaven had the following structure: Brigade Staff, Marine Regiment 3 with 1st and 2nd Battalion, Marine Regiment 4 with 1st and 2nd Battalion, Wilhelmshaven company , storm company, mine throwing company with two medium and six light mine throwers, pioneer company, flamethrower platoon, 1st battery with four 7.7 cm field cannons and 2nd battery with four light field howitzers and 12 heavy machine guns . The strength of the brigade at that time was about 1500 men.

Uniforms, badges and standards

The members of the Marine Brigade wore the field-gray uniform of the Old Army , with the Sturm-Company wearing uniform crew uniforms without a rank badge. The guard star with anchor was attached to the collar of the field blouse.

From around February 1919, the members of the Marine Brigade wore the special badge of the 2nd Marine Brigade Wilhelmshaven as a special badge on their left upper arm. The badge was made of silver-colored tinplate and shows, within an egg-shaped rope, a Viking ship sailing on waves with a single man at the helm. The water is closed at the bottom by an ornamented plaque with the inscription "Wilhelmshaven" in Gothic script. Below that, in a cross-hatched area, two oak breaks tied with ribbon and consisting of three leaves with an acorn. After the brigade was disbanded, successor organizations continued to use the badge in a modified form; the lettering "Wilhelmshaven" was replaced by the inscription "Ehrhardt".

The storm company and each battalion of the naval brigade carried the imperial war flag as a standard . From around October 1919, the members of the brigade adorned themselves with anti-Semitic plates. So they wore the swastika on their helmets when they returned from operations against the rebels in Upper Silesia .

Calls

Marine Brigade Ehrhardt during the Kapp Putsch in Berlin in 1920

The first deployment took the brigade to Braunschweig on April 17, 1919 , where, together with other units of the Maercker Freikorps, they thwarted the attempt to establish a soviet republic . From there the brigade was relocated to Ohrdruf in Thuringia , where it was held ready for the fight against the Munich Soviet Republic . The unauthorized and hasty advance of the brigade to Munich led to bitter street fighting, in which the workers' uprising was finally put down. More than 1,000 fighters lost their lives in these battles; in addition, around 800 men and women were arrested and executed. The brutal actions of the Freikorps in the street fighting, including the mistreatment and shooting of those arrested as well as looting, illustrates the increasing independence of the Freikorps movement in the fight against the revolutionaries. Since the summer of 1919, therefore, the naval command thought about the dissolution of the brigade.

In August 1919 the brigade was stationed in Upper Silesia before being transferred to the Döberitz camp near Berlin in November 1919 . In March 1920 the order was issued to disband the Ehrhardt Brigade. Their leaders - determined to oppose the dissolution - appealed to Reichswehr General Walther von Lüttwitz in Berlin. Lüttwitz, one of the organizers of the Freikorps in 1918 and 1919 and an ardent monarchist , turned to Reich President Friedrich Ebert and Reich Defense Minister Gustav Noske to stop the dissolution. When Ebert refused, Lüttwitz ordered the brigade to march to Berlin. On the night of March 12th to March 13th, 1920, the brigade marched to Berlin and occupied the government district during the Kapp Putsch in 1920.

After the collapse of the putsch, Vice Chancellor Eugen Schiffer Lüttwitz, Ehrhardt and Kapp built “golden bridges” to persuade them to undertake a peaceful task. In a daily order dated March 18, the new Reichswehr chief Seeckt spoke in praise of the discipline of the brigade and assured Ehrhardt in writing that he would be protected from arrest the next day. Only then did the brigade march out of Berlin, with singing and flying flags as they had marched in. When an unfriendly crowd of people booed at the Brandenburg Gate , they spontaneously fired machine guns into the crowd. Twelve dead and thirty seriously injured remained on the pavement of Pariser Platz .

On April 20, 1920, the Ehrhardt Brigade was officially disbanded at the Munster military training area . A large part was taken over as "reliable cadre" in the Reichsmarine , the rest went underground and lived on under different cloaks, including the "Association of former Ehrhardt officers", the " Organization Consul ", the Association Wiking and the "Sports Club Olympia “Until they finally disappeared from the scene.

The Ehrhardt song

When the troops were demobilized in 1920 because of their involvement in the Kapp Putsch in Munsterlager, a member of the brigade composed a song that became known as the Ehrhardt song. It was sung everywhere where one wanted to demonstrate an anti-republican attitude from the national point of view.

Known members

Well-known members of the brigade and their later ranks or positions were u. a .:

monument

A memorial for the dead of the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade was unveiled on Borkum in July 1921 .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gabriele Krüger: The Ehrhardt Brigade. Leibniz-Verlag, Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87473-003-4 , p. 24f.
  2. ^ Gabriele Krüger: The Ehrhardt Brigade. Leibniz-Verlag, Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87473-003-4 , p. 15.
  3. ^ Gabriele Krüger: The Ehrhardt Brigade. Leibniz-Verlag, Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87473-003-4 , p. 24.
  4. ^ Gabriele Krüger: The Ehrhardt Brigade. Leibniz-Verlag, Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87473-003-4 , p. 17.
  5. ^ Gabriele Krüger: The Ehrhardt Brigade. Leibniz-Verlag, Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87473-003-4 , p. 19ff.
  6. ^ The overthrow of council rule in Bavaria 1919 , Berlin 1939, p. 199.
  7. ^ KG Klietmann: Contributions to the history of the German volunteer formations 1918–1923. 2nd Marine Brigade Wilhelmshaven Marine Brigade Ehrhardt. In: Feldgrau , 16. Jg. 1968, p. 78 ff., Here p. 82 ff .; Charles Woolley: German Uniforms, Insignia & Equipment 1918-1923. Freikorps-Reichswehr-Vehicles-Weapons, Atglen 2002, p. 101.
  8. ^ Gabriele Krüger: The Ehrhardt Brigade. Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87473-003-4 , page 34.
  9. ↑ Sebastian Haffner: The Revolution Betrayed 1918/1918 , Scherz Verlag 1969, pages 207 ff.
  10. ^ Gabriele Krüger: The Ehrhardt Brigade. Leibniz-Verlag, Hamburg 1971, ISBN 3-87473-003-4 , p. 130.