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Republic of Violence: the German Army and Politics, 1918-1923

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Republic of Violence: the German Army and Politics, 1918-1923 University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2015-09-11 Republic of Violence: The German Army and Politics, 1918-1923 Bucholtz, Matthew N Bucholtz, M. N. (2015). Republic of Violence: The German Army and Politics, 1918-1923 (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27638 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/2451 doctoral thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Republic of Violence: The German Army and Politics, 1918-1923 By Matthew N. Bucholtz A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA SEPTEMBER, 2015 © Matthew Bucholtz 2015 Abstract November 1918 did not bring peace to Germany. Although the First World War was over, Germany began a new and violent chapter as an outbreak of civil war threatened to tear the country apart. The birth of the Weimar Republic, Germany’s first democratic government, did not begin smoothly as republican institutions failed to re-establish centralized political and military authority in the wake of the collapse of the imperial regime. Coupled with painful aftershocks from defeat in the Great War, the immediate postwar era had only one consistent force shaping and guiding political and cultural life: violence. This dissertation is primarily an examination of the development of a broad atmosphere of violence created by the deliberate efforts of the Freikorps movement to influence political and cultural activity in Germany in the immediate aftermath of World War I. Principally, it explores the activities of Freikorps units and their allies to use tactics and methods to threaten and intimidate their enemies and the civilian populace, and engage in what Hans von Seeckt called a broader “spiritual battle” for the fate of Germany. It traces the development, proliferation and termination of a violent network of civilian and militant organizations that served as a mouthpiece for a dissident and disaffected segment of German society after the war. It is a history of civil-military relations in an era when the boundaries between the two had become blurred and all but disappeared. It highlights a moment when citizens sought to settle their disputes, not just through democratic elections and political compromises, but also with rifles, pistols and murder. ii Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Department of History at the University of Calgary and I would like to acknowledge the role this assistance played in the completion of this work. I would like to thank my doktorvater, Dr Holger Herwig, for his insight, knowledge, guidance and advice. To all of my friends and colleagues who traveled this path with me, Mikkel, Abe, Adam, Christine, Shannon, Gavin, Mike, you made graduate school a wonderful experience. Finally, I need to thank my parents, Glenn and Karen, for their boundless support and love, which made this PhD a possibility. Thank you so much, words cannot adequately express my gratitude for all you have done for me. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Abbreviations v Introduction 1 Part One - Gewaltpolitik 19 Chapter 1: Collapse 25 Chapter 2: Divided Political Authority 43 Chapter 3: Crisis 91 Chapter 4: Gewaltpolitik 111 Part Two – The People at War 141 Chapter 5: The Creation of the Freikorps 145 Chapter 6: The Freikorpsgeist 184 Chapter 7: An Army of Believers 255 Chapter 8: The “Other” Freikorps 311 Part Three - Hegemony 339 Chapter 9: The Freikorps Revolution 342 Chapter 10: The Reichswehr Triumphant 393 Conclusion: The Legacy of the Freikorps 425 Bibliography 443 iv Abbreviations BA-MA – Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv – Federal Military Archive of Germany, Freiburg im Breisgau BArch-Koblenz – Bundesarchiv-Koblenz – Federal Archiv – Koblenz. BArch-Licht – Bundesarchiv-Lichterfelde West – Federal Archive – Lichterfelde, Berlin. BHStA – Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv – Bavarian State Archive, Munich. FLK – Freiwillige Landesjägerkorps GKSK – Garde-Kavallerie-Schützenkorps KPD – Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – Communist Party of Germany NARA – National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland, USA. NSDAP –Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - National Socialist German Workers’ Party OHL – Oberste Heeresleitung – Supreme Army Command SPD – Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – Social Democratic Party of Germany USPD – Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany ZFK – Zeitfreiwilligenkorps v INTRODUCTION Huddled together in their muddy trenches, hastily dug as German troops attempted to desperately hang on to the remaining strips of French territory still in their possession, the men of the Third Army had come to the end of a long and bloody war as November 1918 dawned. Most of them had suffered through the American-led Meuse-Argonne offensive that had pushed the German Army to the breaking point. Some troops still remained from First Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff’s last gamble to win the war with a German victory during the Champagne-Marne offensive earlier that year. A very small number of Frontschweine (“front pigs” in the nomenclature of the men in the front-lines) had fought in the First Battle of the Marne in August 1914. Despite the differences within the units of the Third Army, most soldiers, whether young or old, veterans or green recruits, committed monarchists or working-class socialists, believed that their long and violent ordeal was finally coming to an end. They had no idea how wrong they were. The Great War came to an end on 11 November 1918, but it did not bring peace to Germany. Instead, the former Hohenzollern Empire descended into political and military turmoil as old imperial authorities crumbled before a new wave of democratic and radical leftwing revolutionaries. Although more than two million Germans had been killed in the war, and an estimated 7 million wounded, people continued to die as the opening clashes of the Bürgerkrieg (civil war) raged across the countryside and in the cities. Violence and destruction from the industrial killing fields of the First World War returned with the demobilizing field armies as professionally trained soldiers engaged in a new form of deadly political discourse. 1 But what had really changed after the end of the war? Socialists and communists continued to clash with their opponents on the rightwing, and with each other. Captains of industry and organized trade unions still fought over wage increases, pensions and working conditions. Bavaria and the other former independent kingdoms chafed under the provisions of Otto von Bismarck’s Prussian dominated constitution. Yet even as these patterns continued to shape social, political and economic life, two major events initiated a sweeping alteration of the expression of these tensions and relationships. The complete defeat of the German Army in the First World War and the destruction of imperial political authority through the outbreak of revolution in Kiel, Berlin and the rest of Germany simultaneously destabilized all military and political relationships in a single week. As a result, the growing democratic impulses within German society that gave birth to the new republic developed alongside destructive violent tendencies, each playing crucial roles in the first few years of the Weimar experiment. Indeed, the ability to use deadly force played a central role in shaping everyday life in the early Weimar Republic. Unlike other instances of peacetime in Germany, directly following the First World War the pervasive use of professionalized violence was normalized through a variety of hybrid social- political-military organizations operating outside of the control of central institutions. Although the nation was nominally no longer at war and combat forces were dissolved, Germany failed to undergo a meaningful process of social demobilization. Expressed through political divisions, but supported by sub- sections of society which were now well-armed and trained, segments of German 2 society took to the streets and fields of their country, seeking to enact change through violent means, even ordinary citizens received new democratic access to control over the highest political authority and direction of the country. Further exacerbating this dangerous and violent climate were new challenges to pre-war political and military institutions, representing a violent breakdown of the complex system of compromises and agreements that had underpinned the Bismarckian constitution. Therefore, despite agreement made between the remnants of the officer corps and the new political masters of the republic seeking to stabilize military affairs in the new republic, between the November Revolution in 1918 and the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch in March 1920, central administrative bodies were unable to dominate access to the means of violence leading to a vast proliferation of violent political organizations
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