Palm Sunday coup

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The so-called Palm Sunday coup on April 13, 1919 in Munich was an attempt by the Republican Protection Force under the command of Alfred Seyffertitz to overthrow the Munich Soviet Republic proclaimed the previous week and the government of the Bavarian State Parliament , which had fled to Bamberg in the course of the revolutionary events Restore Prime Minister Johannes Hoffmann ( SPD ). However, the term "Palm Sunday coup", which has become widely used, is problematic in several ways. On the one hand, it is not contemporary; on the other hand, it is not a matter of a coup d'état against a legitimate government (which is normally understood as a coup ), but rather of suppressing an uprising .

The government's military approach failed due to the resistance of the Munich Red Army under the command of Rudolf Egelhofer ( KPD ). The success of the revolutionary militia led to the initiation of the second - communist- dominated - phase of the Soviet republic . The Munich Soviet Republic, which had been dominated by pacifist and anarchist intellectuals until then , was replaced in government posts by communist cadres around Eugen Leviné and Max Levien . Rudolf Egelhofer was appointed city ​​commander of Munich . (See subsection Communist Soviet Republic )

prehistory

In the course of the November Revolution towards the end of the First World War , on 7./8. November 1918 by Kurt Eisner , the leading representative of the Bavarian USPD , the Wittelsbach Monarchy was declared deposed and the Free State of Bavaria proclaimed a republic. Eisner was elected by the Munich Workers 'and Soldiers' Council as the first Prime Minister of the new Bavarian Republic and formed a provisional government cabinet made up of members of the SPD (or at the time MSPD ) and the USPD. In the state elections in January 1919 , Eisner suffered a heavy defeat for himself and the USPD. When he wanted to resign on February 21, 1919, he was murdered on the way to the state parliament by the ethnic and anti-Semitic assassin Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley . This led to panic-like tumults in the state parliament with two other fatalities, so that the session was postponed. As a result, disputes intensified over whether democracy in Bavaria should be implemented through a pluralistic parliamentary form of government or a council republic . The opposing interest groups, the state parliament on the one hand and the council congress on the other, mutually agreed on the legitimation for a new government to be formed, which in fact meant a political power vacuum .

The provisional government took over power temporarily appointed by the Congress of Soviets Central Council of the Bavarian Republic , chaired by Ernst Niekisch to see the political rights of the now leaderless first Free State (later USPD MSPD,). The Central Council proclaimed Martin Segitz (MSPD) Prime Minister, but he did not actively take up this office. It took about three weeks, until March 17, the parliament against this interim solution presented by the Central and Johannes Hoffmann on the government one of the BVP tolerated minority government of MSPD, Bavarian farmer federation chose and for the time being the USPD. The Central Council and the Revolutionary Workers' Council opposed this approach . Another three weeks later, on April 7th, these committees proclaimed the Bavarian Council Republic in Munich, which several other Bavarian cities quickly joined. The USPD members in the Hoffmann cabinet have now left the government and joined the Soviet Republic. Hoffmann fell behind, was declared deposed and had to move to Bamberg, where he moved into the town hall with the remaining members of the cabinet and initiated measures that were supposed to lead to the overthrow of the Soviet republic.

Action by the Republican Protection Force

Alfred Seyffertitz, the commander of the republican protection force that remained in Munich and was loyal to the Hoffmann government , intended to overthrow the council government and arrest its members. To secure his plans he looked for Hoffmann on 10/11. April 1919 in Bamberg and, so to speak, formally received the order for the putsch .

At dawn on Palm Sunday on April 13, 1919, the Republican Protection Force broke into the rooms of the Central Council of the Soviet Republic in the Wittelsbacher Palais and arrested 13 people, including eight members of the Central Council, including the anarchist writer Erich Mühsam , who was one of the most influential until then Spokesman for the Soviet Republic. Immediately after his arrest, he and the other abductees were first taken by train to Eichstätt prison and later arrested in Ebrach prison. However, important decision-makers were able to evade arrest, including Ernst Toller , Gustav Landauer and leading KPD politicians. These called on the population to demonstrate. Seyffertitz's expectation that other Munich troops would join his action was not fulfilled. In the hope of receiving reinforcements from outside, the Republican Protection Force occupied Munich Central Station as a place of retreat. There they were besieged by revolutionary militiamen under the command of the former sailor Rudolf Egelhofer. There were firefights that ultimately killed 21 people. Around 9 p.m. Seyffertitz gave up with his remaining people and took a locomotive to Eichstätt .

Public order for the handover of arms of April 14, 1919, signed by the city commandant Rudolf Egelhofer; one of the first measures of the new communist leadership of the Soviet Republic after the thwarted Palm Sunday coup

An open conflict had arisen within the council government in the course of the fighting, in which the communists accused the pacifists and anarchists, who had previously represented the council republic, of having acted too inconsistently against possible counterrevolutionary activities and of having done too little to secure the council republic . In the debate at a meeting of workers 'and soldiers' councils called at short notice, Eugen Leviné claimed the leading positions within the council government for himself and his party, the KPD. After the news about the fighting over the main train station had arrived, he was finally able to convince the majority of the assembly to transfer the leading positions of the council government to him and other KPD members in the newly formed executive council . Rudolf Egelhofer was appointed Munich city commander and replaced Oskar Dürr , who had been in this position since November 24, 1918 . Ernst Toller and (initially) Gustav Landauer also recognized this change in leadership and initially remained in the closer leadership of the Soviet Republic, although Landauer resigned from his posts and functions after a few days after some of his decisions had been reversed by the KPD and were important to him Suggestions were not taken into account. Toller was assigned to Egelhofer as a deputy in the leadership of the Munich Red Army and took over command of the soldiers in the west of Munich.

Representatives of the Soviet Republic arrested by the Republican Protection Force

  1. Josef Baison (1888–1945), locksmith at the JA Maffei locomotive and machine factory , said he was a participant in a meeting of the Central Council
  2. Rudolf Reimund Ballabene
  3. Hans Bastian, advisory member of the Central Council
  4. Alfons Braig
  5. August Hagemeister , People's Representative for People's Welfare
  6. Anton Hofmann ( KPD )
  7. Georg Kandlbinder ( MSPD )
  8. Otto Killer, temporary people's representative for the military
  9. Anton Kurth, chairman of the USPD Sendling
  10. Franz Lipp , People's Representative for External Affairs
  11. Erich Mühsam
  12. Fritz Soldmann , People's Representative for the Interior
  13. Arnold Wadler ( USPD ), People's Representative for Housing

Post-history

The Munich soviet republic was able to hold out for just under three weeks, until on May 2, 1919, the superior military strength of anti-communist and basically anti- republic free corps groups mobilized by the Bamberg state government and, a little later, by the Reich government in Berlin to reinforce Reichswehr troops (“White Troops ") Was subject. Between 600 and 700 people, mostly Red Army soldiers and supporters of the Soviet Republic, were killed in the fighting to defend the Soviet Republic. But after this crackdown, the Freikorps and Reichswehr soldiers continued their retaliatory actions, which are also referred to in the literature as "White Terror" . In addition to the people killed in the fighting, in the days and weeks after May 2, more than 2000 - including alleged - supporters of the Soviet Republic were murdered, executed after brief court judgments or sentenced to long prison terms in other court cases.

Gustav Landauer was humiliated, mistreated and murdered by Freikorp soldiers after his arrest on May 2nd in Stadelheim prison . Rudolf Egelhofer was tracked down in a hiding place on May 1st and also murdered two days later. Eugen Leviné was sentenced to death and executed in early June . Ernst Toller, who was charged with “ high treason ” in July , escaped the death sentence because renowned intellectuals stood up for him. His professor from his studies, the internationally renowned sociologist Max Weber , attested him the "absolute honesty of a conviction ethicist ". Toller was sentenced to five years in prison, which he served in full. The anarchist writer Erich Mühsam, who had already been imprisoned since the Palm Sunday coup on April 13th, was accused on July 7th as a “driving force” of the Soviet Republic and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, from which he was imprisoned after 5 years and 8 months in the course of a wave of amnesties at Christmas 1924 was released. Max Levien was one of the few leading representatives of the Munich Soviet Republic, who escaped death and conviction after its suppression. He managed to flee shortly after his arrest and to escape to Austria. The Austrian government did not comply with an extradition request from the Bavarian judiciary.

On the other hand, perpetrators from the circles of the Reichswehr and the Freikorps, who were responsible for numerous murders of representatives of the Soviet Republic, did not have to answer.

literature

  • Allan Mitchell : Revolution in Bavaria 1918/1919. The Eisner government and the Soviet republic. Beck, Munich 1967, 2nd edition 1982, ISBN 3-406-02003-8 (p. 277 f.)

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ^ Cabinet Segitz, 1919 ; Article on the proclaimed but inactive Bavarian Revolutionary Cabinet under Martin Segitz in March 1919 in the Bavarian Historical Lexicon , accessed on March 18, 2017.
  2. see short biography Erich Mühsam at a glance Short biographies on the history of the revolution of 1918/19 in Munich ; House of Bavarian History online (www.hdbg.eu)
  3. Josef Baison
  4. ^ Rudolf Raimund Ballabene in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna [1]
  5. Alfons Braig (* 1889) technician, KPD member, member of the Action Committee of the Council Congress as a representative of the unemployed and in the Revolutionary Central Council, arrested at the Palm Sunday coup. June 15, 1919 [2]
  6. People's representatives and commissioners elected by the Revolutionary Central Council .
  7. Anton Hofmann (* 1897), KPD member, baker, member of the arrest commission of the Central Council in Munich, arrested in the Palm Sunday coup, fellow prisoner Mühsams in Ebrach, co-defendant in the high treason trial against Mühsam and Comrades, transfer to the People's Court. May 15, 1919, May 30, 1919, July 3, 1919, July 12, 1919 [3]
  8. Otto Killer
  9. ^ Kurth, Anton (* 1889) painter, chairman of the USPD local group in Munich-Sendling, arrested during the Palm Sunday coup, prisoner on remand in Ebrach. May 24, 1919, June 15, 1919 [4]