Bacon coup

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Rally at the Bacon Coup on the lower market

The riots in Bayreuth between February 17 and 20, 1919, which were mainly triggered by problems with the food supply, are called the Speck Putsch .

prehistory

As elsewhere, there was also an effort in Bayreuth to reshape the political system and to replace the representatives of the old regime. In addition to the advocates of nonviolent action, there was a more radical movement, which, alongside the Spartacists, was an environment of economically and socially declassed people. Mostly workers and artisans were involved, i. H. social classes that suffered particularly from unemployment, food shortages and low social support contributions.

On January 12, 1919, elections were held for the Bavarian State Parliament and on January 19, 1919 for the National Assembly . While the Catholic-oriented Bavarian People's Party (BVP) won the national average , in Bayreuth city and country the Social Democrats clearly achieved an absolute majority. In the city colleges, their conservative opponents then joined forces across all parties to form the "civil association". In the weeks that followed, the confrontation between the political camps came to a head and several panes were broken.

course

On the afternoon of February 17, between 4 and 5 p.m., several hundred people gathered at Mainflecklein and marched in front of the building of the local daily newspaper Bayreuther Tagblatt as a demonstration . After the withdrawal of an insulting turn against the Bavarian Prime Minister Kurt Eisner ( USPD ) could be enforced, the crowd marched in front of the apartment of the mayor Leopold von Casselmann and on to the town hall. There, a three-person delegation demanded Casselmann's resignation and, among other things, an account of the alleged relocation of significant amounts of food to other cities.

After Casselmann had refused an immediate resignation and attempts to calm down on the part of the city administration had failed, the town hall was stormed by the crowd. A magistrate secretary was beaten and the local USPD leader finally managed to persuade the intruders to retreat. During subsequent riots, windows belonging to the book printer's owner Leonhard Tripß (board member of the community college) were smashed and damage was done to a dairy owner, a porcelain manufacturer ( Walküre porcelain factory ) and a major in the Landwehr. In the course of the night the provisions office was raided and large quantities of bacon and bread stolen, which were distributed among the followers the following day.

On Tuesday, February 18 at around 6 am, 15 to 20 people armed with military rifles "on behalf of the revolutionary committee" confiscated the car of the district court doctor Ferdinand Düring at the Hensel car dealership . The officers 'service building was later occupied and food worth 1,250 marks was fetched from the reserve hospital in the teachers' college. The police were disarmed, the telephone lines in the barracks were made unusable and ammunition and machine guns were captured. The standing quarters were set up in the Hotel Wittelsbacher Hof, the main station , the provisions office and the office of the garrison elder were occupied. Telephone traffic was interrupted, the press was placed under prior censorship, and all accessible vehicles were requisitioned. The red flag was hoisted at the Palace of Justice , opposite (in front of the officers' mess ) and in other places machine guns were deployed .

The main concerns of the "independents" were

  • the withdrawal of the state-ordered cut in unemployment benefits
  • clearing up alleged food shifts
  • the resignation of the Lord Mayor
  • improving food distribution.

The Bayreuth bourgeoisie stood waiting for the revolution, but by no means consistently opposed it. Commercial and technical employees submitted the immediately approved application for representation in the workers 'council, the officials founded a civil servants' council to represent professional interests.

The uprising ended bloodlessly, and Chevaulegers patrols took control of the city on February 20, 1919. There was only one dead victim - allegedly a coup who had eaten too much. After Lord Mayor Casselmann had submitted his resignation on February 18, 1919 due to the "wavering trust of a certain part of the citizenry", he officially resigned on June 30, 1919.

Aftermath

In May 1919, 56 participants in the bacon putsch had to answer before the People's Court in the Palace of Justice in Bayreuth , which was set up especially for this purpose and which is to be regarded as the forerunner of the later special courts .

The following year, Ferdinand Düring asserted a claim for damages of 429 marks for his damaged car . The claim was denied on December 17, 1920 because of his high income.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Rainer Trübsbach: History of the City of Bayreuth . Druckhaus Bayreuth, Bayreuth 1993, ISBN 3-922808-35-2 , p. 258 f .
  2. ↑ Bernd Mayer: Bayreuth as it was . 2nd Edition. Gondrom, Bayreuth 1981, p. 89 f .
  3. ↑ a b c Bayreuther Speckputsch in: Nordbayerischer Kurier of January 8, 2020, p. 11.
  4. ↑ Karl Müssel: Bayreuth in eight centuries . 1st edition. Gondrom, Bindlach 1993, ISBN 3-8112-0809-8 , p. 187 .