Victor Klemperer. Munich 1919: Diary of a Revolution. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017. 220 pp. $25.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-5095-1058-0.

Reviewed by Douglas Peifer

Published on H-War (December, 2017)

Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air University)

Victor Klemperer’s diary created quite a stir came an increasingly desperate struggle. Translat‐ when frst published in Germany in 1995. Klem‐ ed into English in 1998/99, his frst-person refec‐ perer’s diary entries for the period 1933-45 have tions of life in the Third Reich have been used ex‐ been used extensively by scholars of the Third Re‐ tensively by scholars such as Richad J. Evans, Saul ich and the Holocaust to illustrate how Nazi ideol‐ Friedländer, and Omer Bartov.[1] ogy and racial policies afected even thoroughly Klemperer’s Munich 1919: Diary of a Revolu‐ assimilated, converted Jews. Klemperer, the son tion provides a remarkable eyewitness account of of a rabbi, was born in Wilhelmine Germany. His an earlier crisis in German history, one connected education, professional development, and life to the Third Reich by the myths and memories choices were thoroughly bourgeois, with Klem‐ that ideologues on the far right exploited through‐ perer’s conversion to Protestantism signaling his out the Weimar era. Two days before the abdica‐ self-identifcation with German culture and his tion of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the declaration of a desire to assimilate. Klemperer attended Gymna‐ German Republic in Berlin on November 9, 1918, sium in Berlin and Landsberg on the Warthe, worker and soldier councils in Munich toppled studied German and Romance philology in Mu‐ the 738-year Wittelsbach dynasty in Bavaria. Kurt nich, Geneva, Paris, and Berlin, and completed a Eisner, a leader of the Independent Social Demo‐ doctorate at the University of Munich in 1913. cratic Party of Germany (the USPD), proclaimed a Klemperer served on the front in World War I, “Free State of Bavaria” on November 7, and was and after the war secured a professorship at Dres‐ designated its frst prime minister by council rep‐ den’s Technical University, where he lectured, resentatives. Over the course of the next fve wrote, and taught until the Nazis dismissed all months, Bavarian politics veered erratically be‐ Jews from public service in 1935. Klemperer’s tween extremes. Eisner organized elections to de‐ wartime service in the First World War, for which termine the people’s will, discovering to his disap‐ he was awarded the Royal Bavarian Cross of Mer‐ pointment that the Bavarian populace was much it 3rd class with swords, and his marriage to a more enthused by the vision of the mainstream non-Jewish German woman provided some pro‐ Social Democratic Party (the SPD) and the conser‐ tections against Nazi anti-Jewish legislation dur‐ vative Bavarian People’s Party than by the USPD’s ing the frst years of the Third Reich, but as his di‐ more radical agenda.[2] On his way to Parliament ary attests, existence and eventually survival be‐ to announce his resignation on February 21, 1919, H-Net Reviews

Eisner was assassinated by Anton Graf von Arco provide a gripping, frsthand account of the city’s auf Valley, a furloughed ofcer and university stu‐ sharp turn to the left and of the forcible suppres‐ dent associated with the anti-Semitic, anti-demo‐ sion of the Bavarian Soviet Republic by Freikorps cratic Thule Society. Eisner’s funeral attracted units. His perspective is unique, combining bour‐ over 100,000 workers, tradesmen, and shopkeep‐ geois distrust of the leftward drift of Bavarian pol‐ ers, intent on demonstrating that Munich’s work‐ itics along with sensibility and aversion to Bavari‐ ing population would not stand by and allow an particularism and the anti-Semitism of the counterrevolutionaries to intimidate them. Repre‐ Right. His chronicle of the Munich revolution is sentatives from the radical self-proclaimed work‐ deeply erudite, with frequent allusions to Ger‐ er and soldier councils soon seized power from man, French, and Latin authors, poems, and the weak Bavarian State Parliament, which fed to works of literature. Yet these professorial asides Bamberg in April. In Munich, radical socialists enhance rather than detract from Klemperer’s ac‐ proclaimed a Council Republic on April 7, initially count of history in the making. Kurt Eisner, for ex‐ led by anarchists, pacifsts, and intellectuals such ample, is compared to mad king Ludwig, with Eis‐ as Gustav Landauer, Erich Mühsam, and Ernst ner’s claim to be “a visionary, a dreamer, a poet!” Toller. This radical circle of theorists, poets, essay‐ echoing Ludwig II’s penchant for building “ex‐ ists, and playwrights had little experience in ei‐ travagant fairytale castles” (p. 31). Klemperer por‐ ther government or revolution, and were soon trays Munich’s revolutionary atmosphere in early pushed from power by communist revolutionar‐ 1919 as “carnevelesque” in spirit, more bohemian ies such as Eugen Leviné, Max Levien, and Rudolf and artistic than Marxist and political. His sketch‐ Egelhofer. They attempted to communize facto‐ es of Eisner, Mühsam, and Levien are priceless, ries, utilities, and schools; seize and control all and his account of the proceedings of the “Politi‐ food and cash; redistribute housing; and carry out cal Council of Intellectual Workers” is droll and a communist revolution. The short-lived Council cutting. Meeting in an elegant hall in the Bay‐ or Soviet Republic lasted only three weeks. On erische Hof hotel, the council consisted of a “half May 3, 1919, troops loyal to the Berlin and dozen literary types” sitting at a podium before Bavaria’s State Parliament crushed the Bavarian some two hundred intellectuals, academics, and Soviet Republic. Approximately 9,000 government artists who had more in common with the bo‐ troops participated in the action, with an addi‐ hemians of Munich’s Schwabing district that the tional 30,000 Freikorp volunteers playing a cen‐ working proletariat with whom they ostensibly tral role in defeating Egelhofer’s outnumbered identifed. and poorly equipped Red Guards. Munich became While Klemperer could dismiss the Council the scene of bitter street- fghting, with govern‐ Republic run by Landauer, Mühsam, and Toller as ment and Freikorps units killing and summarily utopian, inefectual, and amateurish, his attitude executing approximately 1,000 actual or suspect‐ toward the hardcore communists who took over ed communist fghters and sympathizers.[3] The is unrelentingly hostile. While he recognized that government’s dependence on Freikorps forma‐ many of the horror stories about Red brutality tions alienated the Left and stimulated the growth were untrue, he characterized the rule of the Reds of right-wing paramilitaries and populist parties, as one marked by “arbitrary arrests, hostage-tak‐ with antidemocratic forces on the right staging ing, house searches that degenerate into the their own coup attempt (the Munich Beer Hall basest looting, and always, always, incitement of Putsch) in 1923. the worst, bloodiest, most heinous kind against Klemperer’s observations of Munich during the now defenseless, completely disenfranchised, the turbulent period November 1918-May 1919 completely beaten populace” (p. 107). While Klem‐

2 H-Net Reviews perer understood that the brutal suppression of Klemperer’s life, and most importantly, extensive the Munich Soviet was creating “circles of people notes. These are extremely valuable, providing here whose grinding hatred for ‘bourgeoisie’ and explanatory information on literary references, ‘Whites’ is boundless” (p. 120), the people of Mu‐ biographical summaries of majorfgures, and de‐ nich cheered on government troops and Freikorps scriptive accounts of events taking place else‐ units as liberators, according to Klemperer. Read‐ where in Germany. The amplifying notes are a de‐ ing between the lines, one senses that Klemperer light to read. One wishes the publisher had not himself was relieved that bourgeois order had relegated them to the end and located them been restored though the human costs of ending where they belong, at the foot of the text. the Munich Soviet Republic appalled him. Notes Klemperer’s diary provides an invaluable, [1]. Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness: unique perspective on the creation and suppres‐ The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, 1933–41 and To sion of the Munich Soviet Republic. Observing the Bitter End: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, and recording how events unfolded from his uni‐ 1942–1945, translated by Martin Chalmers (Lon‐ versity perch, Klemperer’s account conveys the don: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998-9). sense of confusion, of isolation, and of uncertain‐ [2]. The SPD won 33 percent, the BVP 35 per‐ ty that pervaded. Rumors abounded, council cent, and the USPD only 2.52 percent of the popu‐ proclamations were distrusted, and information lar vote, respectively. Wolfram Wette, well known about who was in charge, what was happening for his work as a military historian and peace re‐ outside of Munich, and about military operations searcher at the West German Military History Re‐ was lacking. Born in Prussia to Jewish parents, search Ofce (the MGFA) in Freiburg, provides a Klemperer uneasily records how Bavarian partic‐ very useful overview of what was happening in ularism blurred anti-Prussianism, anti-Semitism, Germany as a whole and in Bavaria itself in the and anti-Bolshevism into a toxic brew of resent‐ volume’s appendix (pp. 135-48). ment, fear, and loathing. Klemperer’s Munich 1919. Diary of a Revolution will become essential [3]. Christopher Clark, the volume’s editor, reading for those interested in the Weimar Repub‐ writes that “an estimated 2,000 of [the council re‐ lic, Bavarian identity, and the backstory to the rise public’s] supporters--both actual and alleged --- of Hitler and National Socialism. were murdered, summarily shot or sentenced to imprisonment.” Elaborating in a later footnote, he The structure of the book lends itself to both notes that “from the start of the fghting to the de‐ specialists and generalists. The book’s appendix feat of the Council Republic, 606 casualties were includes a short historical essay on “The German reported, 38 of whom were members of the gov‐ Revolution of 1918-1919” that situates the events ernment forces and Freikorps; another 400 people in Munich in the broader context of war termina‐ were subsequently shot and killed, including 52 tion, revolution, and the struggle on the left be‐ Russian prisoners of war who were executed by tween mainstream socialists, independent social‐ Freikorps members in a gravel pit near Gräfelf‐ ists, and communists. Written by Wolfram Wette, ing” (pp. viii-ix, 182n203). who made his reputation as a military historian at the West German Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt in Freiburg, the essay does a fne job connecting developments in Berlin and Ger‐ many as a whole with those in Bavaria. In addi‐ tion, the monograph includes a chronology of

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Citation: Douglas Peifer. Review of Klemperer, Victor. Munich 1919: Diary of a Revolution. H-War, H-Net Reviews. December, 2017.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=50828

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