The Kapp Putsch (German pronunciation: [ˈkapˌpʊt͡ʃ] ⓘ), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (German pronunciation: [kapˈlʏtvɪt͡sˌpʊt͡ʃ] ⓘ), was an abortive coup d'état against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo the German Revolution of 1918–1919, overthrow the Weimar Republic, and establish an autocratic government. It was supported by parts of the Reichswehr, as well as nationalist and monarchist factions.
Although the legitimate German government was forced to flee the city, the coup failed after a few days, when large sections of the German population joined a general strike called by the government. Most civil servants refused to cooperate with Kapp and his allies. Despite its failure, the Putsch had significant consequences for the future of the Weimar Republic. It was also one of the direct causes of the Ruhr uprising a few weeks later, which the government suppressed by military force, after having dealt leniently with leaders of the Kapp Putsch. These events polarised the German electorate, resulting in a shift in the majority after the June 1920 Reichstag election.
Background
After Germany had lost World War I (1914–1918), the German Revolution of 1918–1919 ended the monarchy. The German Empire was abolished and a democratic system, the Weimar Republic, was established in 1919 by the Weimar National Assembly. Right-wing nationalist and militarist circles opposed the new republic and promoted the stab-in-the-back myth, claiming that the war had been lost only because the efforts of the undefeated German military had been undermined by civilians at home.
In 1919–1920, the government of Germany was formed by the Weimar Coalition, consisting of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), German Democratic Party (DDP, left-of-centre liberals), and Zentrum (Catholics). President Friedrich Ebert, Chancellor Gustav Bauer, and Defence Minister Gustav Noske were all members of the SPD. According to the constitution, the president was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, represented in peace time by the Minister of Defence. The most senior officer of the land forces was called Chef der Heeresleitung, a post held in early 1920 by General Walther Reinhardt.
Chancellor Bauer was obliged to sign the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, even though he disagreed with it. The treaty had been dictated by the victorious Allies of World War I; it forced Germany to assume responsibility for the war, reduced the area of Germany and imposed huge reparation payments and military restrictions on the nation. In early 1919, the strength of the Reichswehr, the regular German army, was estimated at 350,000, with more than 250,000 men enlisted in the various Freikorps ("free corps"), volunteer paramilitary units, largely consisting of soldiers returning from the war. The German government had repeatedly used Freikorps troops to put down Communist uprisings after the war. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which came into effect on 10 January 1920, Germany was required to reduce its land forces to a maximum of 100,000 men, who were to be only professional soldiers, not conscripts. The initial deadline was set for 31 March 1920 (later extended to the end of the year). Freikorps units were expected to be disbanded. After the suppression of the leftist uprisings, the government had no further need for the Freikorps units and came to see them as a threat. Some senior military commanders had started discussing the possibility of a coup as early as July 1919.
Coup
Run-up to the coup
Although the Putsch has been named after Wolfgang Kapp, a 62-year-old nationalist East Prussian civil servant, who had been planning a coup against the republic for a while, it was instigated by the military; Kapp played a supporting role. On 29 February 1920, the Defence Minister Noske ordered the disbandment of two of the most powerful Freikorps, the Marinebrigade Loewenfeld and Marinebrigade Ehrhardt. The latter numbered from 5,000 to 6,000 men and had been stationed at the Truppenübungsplatz Döberitz, near Berlin, since January 1920. An elite force, it had been created from former Imperial Navy officers and NCOs, boosted later by Baltikumer (those who had fought the Bolsheviks in Latvia in 1919). During the civil war in 1919, the brigade had seen action in Munich and Berlin. It was extremely opposed to the democratic government of Friedrich Ebert.
Its commander, Korvettenkapitän Hermann Ehrhardt, declared that the unit would refuse its dissolution. On 1 March, it staged a parade without inviting Noske. General Walther von Lüttwitz, in command of all the regular troops in and around Berlin (Gruppenkommando I), the highest ranking general in the army at the time and in command of many Freikorps, said at the parade that he would "not accept" the loss of such an important unit. Several of Lüttwitz's officers were horrified at this open rejection of the government's authority and tried to mediate by setting up a meeting between Lüttwitz and the leaders of the two major right-wing parties. Lüttwitz listened to and remembered their ideas but was not dissuaded from his course of action. Noske then removed the Marinebrigade from Lüttwitz's command and assigned it to the leadership of the Navy, hoping that they would disband the unit. Lüttwitz ignored the order but agreed to a meeting with President Ebert, suggested by his staff.
In the evening of 10 March, Lüttwitz came with his staff to Ebert's office. Ebert had also asked Noske to attend. Lüttwitz, drawing on demands by the right-wing parties and adding his own, now demanded the immediate dissolution of the National Assembly, new elections for the Reichstag, the appointment of technocrats (Fachminister) as Secretaries for Foreign Affairs, Economic Affairs and Finance, the dismissal of General Reinhardt, appointment of himself as supreme commander of the regular army and the revocation of the orders of dissolution for the Marinebrigaden. Ebert and Noske rejected these demands and Noske told Lüttwitz that he expected his resignation the next day.
Lüttwitz went to Döberitz on 11 March and asked Ehrhardt whether he would be able to occupy Berlin that evening. Ehrhardt said he needed another day, but on the morning of 13 March, he could be in the centre of Berlin with his men. Lüttwitz gave the order and Ehrhardt began the preparations. It was only at this point that Lüttwitz brought the group known as Nationale Vereinigung into the plot. These included German National People's Party (DNVP) member Wolfgang Kapp, retired general Erich Ludendorff, Waldemar Pabst (who had been behind the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in January 1919), and Traugott von Jagow, the last Berlin head of police in the old Reich. Their goal was to establish an authoritarian regime (though not a monarchy) with a return to the federal structure of the Empire. Lüttwitz asked them to be ready to take over the government on 13 March. The group was unprepared but agreed to the schedule set by Lüttwitz. One factor making them support quick action was that sympathetic members of the Sicherheitspolizei in Berlin informed them that warrants for their arrest had been issued that day.
Lüttwitz was not dismissed but suspended from his post on 11 March. To defend the government, Noske ordered two regiments of Sicherheitspolizei and one regular regiment to take position in the government quarter but doubted that a Putsch was imminent. The regimental commanders decided not to follow orders to shoot, a decision that received the approval of Chef des Truppenamts General Hans von Seeckt.
Occupation of Berlin
The reluctance to shed blood was one-sided. On the evening of 12 March, Ehrhardt ordered his brigade to march into Berlin, to "ruthlessly break any resistance" (jeden Widerstand rücksichtslos zu brechen) and to occupy the centre of the city with the government buildings. The Brigade, sporting swastikas on their helmets and vehicles, started off towards Berlin at around 22:00. An hour later, the Gruppenkommando knew about it and informed Noske. Two general officers met Ehrhardt and convinced him to give the government a chance to surrender before being taken into custody, assuming that all of Lüttwitz's demands were accepted by 07:00. This was reported to Noske, who met with Ebert. Ebert then called a cabinet meeting for 04:00. At 01:00, Noske asked the senior commanders to his office in the Bendlerblock.
Noske asked the commanders to defend the government buildings, but was turned down. All but two of the officers (one of them was Reinhardt, Chef der Heeresleitung) refused to follow an order to shoot at the rebel troops. Some suggested negotiations, others claimed that the troops would not understand an order to fire, and some argued that the regular units would not be able to defeat the elite Marinebrigade. Seeckt spoke about comradeship. His exact words were not recorded, but have been reported as: "troops do not fire on troops. So, you perhaps intend, Herr Minister, that a battle be fought before the Brandenburger Tor between troops that have fought side by side against a common enemy? When Reichswehr fires on Reichswehr, all comradeship within the officers' corps will have vanished". Others have quoted Seeckt's words as even more succinct: "Reichswehr does not fire on Reichswehr!"
Noske, depressed enough by the disloyalty of the military to speak about suicide to an aide, reported to the cabinet at 04:00. At a confused meeting at the Reichskanzlei, the undefended cabinet took two decisions: to flee the city and to issue a call for a general strike. These were not unanimous; the Vice-Chancellor Eugen Schiffer and some of the other non-SPD ministers refused to leave the city, to preserve the opportunity to negotiate with the putschists. Only Ebert and the SPD ministers signed the call for a general strike. At 06:15, they had to interrupt the meeting and flee. Within ten minutes of their departure, the Marinebrigade reached the Brandenburger Tor, where it was met by Lüttwitz, Ludendorff, Kapp and their followers. Shortly thereafter, Kapp's men moved into the Reichskanzlei. Supported by a battalion of regular Reichswehr, they occupied the government quarter.
Kapp declared himself Chancellor (Reichskanzler) and formed a provisional government. Lüttwitz served as commander of the armed forces and Minister of Defence. Several well-known conservatives and former secretaries of state were invited to assume government positions but declined. International con-man Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln became Kapp's press censor.
Reactions
There was no military resistance to the Putsch; the regular troops in Berlin, Sicherheitspolizei, navy, the army commands of East-Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg and Silesia, formally accepted the new minister of defence and Reichskanzler. Admiral Adolf von Trotha, the navy commander, came out in support of the coup as soon as he learned of it. In Bavaria, the Social Democratic state government resigned after refusing to install an emergency regime as demanded by Reichswehr General Arnold von Möhl, Georg Escherich and Gustav Ritter von Kahr. The Bavarian Parliament then elected Kahr, a right-wing politician associated with the Bavarian People's Party, as Minister President of Bavaria. In the rest of the Reich, the commanders of the Wehrkreise (military districts) did not declare for or against Kapp but were not neutral and most sympathised more or less openly with the putschists. The upper echelons of the bureaucracy were still dominated by those who had risen to their positions under the Empire and most were sympathetic to the coup, whilst remaining outwardly neutral and biding their time. In the eastern provinces, the bureaucracy fell in line behind Kapp and Lüttwitz.
General Strike against the coup
The government moved to Dresden, where they hoped to get support from Generalmajor Georg Ludwig Rudolf Maercker but he had been ordered by Berlin to take them into "protective custody" and they moved on to Stuttgart. The cabinet proclamation on 13 March, calling on German workers to defeat the Putsch by means of a general strike met with enormous success and received massive support from the working class. The majority of unions, sympathetic to the government dominated by social democrats, joined the call for a strike on the same day, as did the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) and the Democratic Party; the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) followed one day later.
In Berlin, the strike started on 14 March and by the next day it had spread all over the Reich. It was the most powerful strike in the history of Germany, involving up to 12 million workers. The country was paralysed. In Berlin, the gas, water and power supply stopped.