Berlin

Berlin was still reeling from this latest flare-up in its civil war when, on May 7, 1919, the Allies presented Germany with their bill for World War I: the Treaty of Versailles. By the terms of the treaty, Germany was to lose all its colonies, 13 percent of its home territory, and 10 percent of its population. The easternmost province of East Prussia would be cut off from the rest of the Reich by the Polish Corridor—a provision that was especially hard on Berlin, which depended on easy access to its agricultural hinterlands in the east. Germany’s new army, the Reichswehr, would be limited to 100,000 men, all volunteers, and its famous General Staff was to be disbanded. To guarantee fulfillment of the treaty’s military provisions, the Reich’s westernmost territory, the Rhineland, was to be occupied by Allied forces for fifteen years and kept demilitarized indefinitely after that. In the notorious “War Guilt Clause,” Germany was deemed responsible for the outbreak of the war and therefore liable for all the losses and damages incurred by her enemies; she would have to pay reparations (as yet unspecified) and hand over those of her citizens whom the Allies suspected of having committed acts in violation of the laws and customs of war. Germany was given no opportunity to dicker over these terms, which were handed over to the Reich’s representatives at Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors, where, forty-eight years before, the German Empire had been proclaimed. When the German government presented counterproposals, the Allies immediately rejected them and gave Berlin an ultimatum: sign the treaty or face invasion.

Chancellor Scheidemann could not bring himself to comply—“What hand would not wither that binds itself in these fetters?” he cried—and resigned with some others in his cabinet on June 19. President Ebert, convinced that Germany had no recourse but to sign, set about putting together a new government that would be willing to swallow the bitter pill. As he did so, Berlin broke out in new turmoil, with USPD-backed mobs marching in favor of signing, conservative factions demonstrating against. Rumors abounded that various Freikorps groups would stage a putsch if the government signed. On June 21 Ebert finally scraped together a new cabinet, which agreed under protest to sign the treaty two days later, just one hour before the Allied deadline elapsed. The most persuasive voice in favor of compliance was the Center Party politician Matthias Erzberger, who had also signed the armistice in November 1918. Upon learning of Erzberger’s role, Kessler wrote in his diary: “I am very much afraid that Erzberger will share Liebknecht’s fate. Not undeservedly, like Liebknecht, but self-incurred on account of his pernicious activity.” Two years later Erzberger would in fact be gunned down by right-wing assassins.

No group was more outraged over the Versailles Treaty than Germany’s military officers. Their anger increased when the Allies insisted upon immediate reductions in personnel to meet the new manpower ceiling of 100,000 men. In response, a group of counterrevolutionaries calling themselves the National Association began plotting to establish a military dictatorship. Among its members was General Lu-dendorff, who after a brief exile in Sweden found refuge at the Hotel Adlon under a false name, and Wolfgang Kapp, a Prussian civil servant who had been one of the founders of the Fatherland Party during the war. The leader of the group was Walther von Lüttwitz, the commandant of Berlin.

Under increasing pressure from the Allies, in February 1920 the German government ordered the dissolution of several units of the Provisional Reichswehr, among them the so-called Ehrhardt Brigade, led by Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, which in its earlier incarnation as the Ehrhardt Freikorps had earned a reputation for extreme brutality. It was now stationed at Doberitz, about fifteen miles west of Berlin. General Lüttwitz, who insisted that the Ehrhardt Brigade was vital for the protection of Berlin, demanded that the order to disband the brigade be rescinded. When Ebert refused, Lüttwitz ordered Ehrhardt to march on the capital.

An armored truck belonging to the Kapp forces, March 1920

Learning of the rebels’ plans, Minister of Defense Noske appealed to the military command to call out the Berlin garrison to defend the city. The army’s new commander, General Hans von Seeckt, responded that he could not order one unit of troops to fire on another. Surely, he added, Noske “did not intend that a battle be fought before the Brandenburg Gate between troops who [had] fought side by side against the common enemy.” The government would have to deal with this challenge on its own, he said.