Kapp Putsch
The Versailles Treaty required Germany to reduce its military to no more than 100,000 men. When the government of the young Weimar Republic tried to disband some units, right-wing officers backed by wartime chief Ludendorff mutinied, persuading a hapless civil servant to be the titular head of their resistance. When the War Ministry refused to disarm the rebels, the government fled. From 13 to 17 March 1920, Germany’s future lay in the balance. The Putsch failed, not least because of the huge General Strike in opposition to it.
In the minds of Anglophones, there’s a clearcut difference between 1918 and 1919: the former year = War, the latter year = Peace. In all of Europe east of the Rhine, the reality was very different. Woodrow Wilson’s doubtless well intentioned but ignorant insistence on Self Determination for the kaleidoscope of “peoples” hitherto the subjects of multi-ethnic empires led to unrest, massacres, expulsions, Freikorps depradations and general mayhem for another decade or more. Robert Gerwarth’s recent book The Vanquished: why the First World War failed to end 1917-1923 (ISBN 978-0-141-97637-2) sums up recent research across the continent (much funded by the European Research Council), and is a fine complement to Richard M Watt’s splendid The Kings Depart: the German Revolution and the Treaty of Versailles 1918-19, published in 1968.
One episode of mayhem was the so-called Kapp Putsch of March 1920. (Kapp was a civilian patsy/figurehead: the Putsch was led from behind by General Lüttwitz with discrete backing from the wartime supremo Ludendorff.)
In his disguise as Linke Poot (Left Paw) Döblin characterises the Putsch in another of his wide-ranging commentaries on current affairs, with his customary insight and pungent turns of phrase.
THE GERMAN MASQUERADE
Die neue Rundschau, I (May 1920)
by ‘Linke Poot’
GERHART Hauptmann wrote a play called “The White Saviour”. Into a beatifically lovely and decadently weak Mexico there breaks a militarised Christian horde of Spanish origin. The emperor of the Mexicans, expecting the promised White Messiah, experiences disillusion; Christianity is exposed. That’s how it seems: exposed. The play ends with curses on the Christian bandit rabble.
The artistry, the ballad-like conception, is not the point here. As in a picture by Rembrandt, all light falls on Montezuma, the emperor. The context is a transparent screen, squirming more or less shadowy in the background.
After reading the script I asked myself: what does it mean, placing the Mexican so much in the light, alone in the light? This play is indictment-literature, no different from other well-known recent examples. Infamy is heaped on the Christian military state. I have some objections. The supposedly polar opposition between Christianity and warriordom after a time makes no impression on me. One can, to one’s own satisfaction, describe the Christian military state as a fake; that doesn’t do much. Religious concepts and fictions from the start have never served the purposes of science and truth; everyone inherits his treasure of theories and images, builds on it, uses it for his own pretty little purposes. That’s all. Falsity never comes into it. Such religious teachings are like a garden rake: if a dog or a cat looks at the rake, it makes absolutely no sense, for in themselves the tines and the handle make no sense; the rake must be observed in conjunction with the gardener using it; then you understand. The Gospels purely as a literary document are irreal; you always have to add in who believes them, when they believed them, how and why. Gospel-believers of different eras and regions can’t be compared with one another; the same drops of opium can calm an adult, excite a nervous person to the point of vomiting, kill an infant, have no effect on a drunkard, give a mouse fits, and they’re all opium-believers.
It’s easy to say Christianity is ill-suited to warlike Spaniards or to us. I find it suits quite well. Convince yourself: count the number of Christians: there’s my proof. You can’t make much headway with theological nitpicking, moralistic outrage. The matter must be tackled in another way; then indignation abates and you have to get used to something cooler, a temperature unfavourable to tragic pathos.
There’s more. The superhuman goodness, the “true Christianity” of Montezuma is worthless against Cortez. Against Spaniards, Europeans and me. I protest against swindling fictions, against false measures and constructs. Brutality is the true face of Montezuma.
I praise the Spaniards, against Montezuma. I praise reality at any time against the dream, and the dream only when it is creative and leads to something. Montezuma, deeply reflective and moving, following his Stations of the Cross – he serves none but the poetry of Gerhart Hauptmann. I say this for no one but myself. Here no justice is done to the Spaniards, to this cumulating-point of reality. I’ve never wanted a Messiah, I shouldn’t like to be alive if Montezuma were anything more than a character in “The White Saviour”. Montezuma is the complement to the whole world, into which it will all turn. And all the sleek horses, steeds groomed and ungroomed, lions with their terrible smell, little flitting butterflies, black beetles, Parliamentary bigmouths, fraudulent millions, assault on a girl and a leap from a window, holes in socks, children’s cries, the blue Adriatic, my darling is a weaver, gas stopcock: and Montezuma’s supposed to show his face and make it all kaput? That’s a bit steep. This emperor is nothing more than an idealised humbug, than the smoke on a European roof. Against him, the stopcock and the weaver darling are victorious. I take you under protection against him, you petty rabble. I take his most disgusting, most uncomfortable and smokiest opposites under protection, bombast, ugliness, banality.
The Mexican persists as a reaction to raging bellicosity. So I keep quiet and offer him a hand. But reaction can’t manage enough. Life in all its drives must be penetrated. Banter no longer carries you through. Everything wants to be rummaged over and answered anew.
This is certainly a desperate time for artists with a strong urge to phantasy and the statuesque. Now is the night between two days; there’s no world-view you can adopt for domestic use. The Conscience of the Age is at work. But paths must be cleared with force, over which you can drive a car. What lights up now can only be yearnings, and wants. The spiritual look to the East; they’ll look in vain; no new wine will be poured into old bottles. They exhume messages of salvation, Jesus, Buddha, Laozi: they’d do better to let the explosive called Spirit, urgent Instinct, play out.
*
The Kapp prank was no Putsch. Rather firstly a fact, secondly an unmasking. This time a real exposure. But only for two minutes. The dance goes on. Free entry for infants, generals and workers. The citizen pays. Music strikes up: It’s how we live, it’s how we live our days. A request goes out to hurl grenades from the balcony. Artillery and munitions available at the kiosk. The honest finder of a republican mood is requested to deliver it to the podium, where it will be auctioned to the highest bidder. Guests with foreign currency welcome. Warnings against Bolshevism, Imperialism, Syndicalism, Monarchism and other bodies of water: drink only Müller Extra and Afrikaner (“Alcohol’s no friend of mine, but Afrikaner suits me fine.”)
What unmasked itself is the Holy Roman Empire, it took off its heavy republican boots, removed its false parliamentary teeth, placed them in water, and whinged. For one desperate moment it was about to drink up all the water and choke on the dentures.
They banged on in a remarkable way for months about the Holy Roman Empire. We’ve known and revered Democracy for a long while now. In France, America and England it’s a shop where you can purchase everything that’s humane. When the Holy Roman Empire in the year ’18 had outgrown its day roost, it set down in the vicinity of a branch office and began to consume that healthy beverage. They had a belly. They drank. They did more than drink. They drank and drank until they had to lie on the ground. Becoming used to the beverage in a particularly passionate manner were officers, ministers, orators.
When after several spirited months the Germans asked about the new spirit, they discovered that it was: work. They discovered via their enthused ministers that the true Democrat and Socialist goes to the factory at six o’clock, heads home after eight or ten hours, pays taxes and increases output. They needn’t trouble themselves about the rest, for the folk song already sings it so beautifully: “Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten, und hoffet auf ihn alle Zeit”. Wherein it is left unspecified who is meant by this dear god.
This answer astonished the hesitant and uninitiated, who pointed out they’d already worked like that in the old curse-heaped Germany. But just as Christianity in the mouth of a Spaniard is something special, so Socialism as defined by a German: in opposition to monarchy and authoritarian rule it can only mean: more work, stricter order, higher taxes.
A number of workers were dissatisfied with this improvement. They had to express it. Slowly the government, which had drunk foreign gods and spirits to the full, came by the notion of the Minority. Which meant, it seems: flex the biceps. Minorities are there to submit. Minorities must betake themselves to the ground occupied by the majority. Appointed as saint and patron of the new Roman Empire was old Pythagoras, teacher of numbers. But this was only public worship; in secret other things were in train, other prayers being said, and the minorities to left and right could smell it. They had nothing against Pythagoras, only against his priests. In the name of the old Greek the majority drew their short swords and thrashed the minorities. Knocked them all into a heap. Because that’s what you do with a minority. And that was the excuse for a state of siege. And those who happened to be standing by made it worse. Finally they unleashed martial law, the minorities knew what time it was. The priests of Pythagoras blew fanfares. At once the minorities in arithmetical terms had to equal zero.
Worshippers of German Pythagorean democracy were horrified at various moments: the whole thing looked like nothing less than dictatorship. But the high priests spoke in benedictory tones: it only looks like that, everything’s developing, continuous development is characteristic of Germany, peu à peu we’ll arrive at the real and genuine and sole blessed Pythagorean form of government as described in the holy books from England, America, France, word for word; it’s inevitable. Everyone must be patient, as soon as the disturbance caused by the godless minorities abates, the affair will sort itself out. And with that the high priests withdrew into their sanctuary. They were in a very strange mood. They didn’t like meeting the public. For on one occasion someone had shouted out: “If Number is the ruling idea of the State, why don’t you divide it up? Why don’t you fix it, you big’eads and State bonzes, so that everyone gets as much to eat as everyone else, how come you stuff yourselves and we go hungry?” And that couldn’t be right; but where was the man who’d brought the talisman from so far away, the Boniface of the new Mystery?
There was also a Republic there. They’d let the same man bring it to them. They’d no idea what to do with it, since in these parts they understood only rogues, laws and taxes and when you looked more closely a Republic was neither lathe bench nor drilling machine. But they tried to cope with it. Ten men of the government rolled up their sleeves, spat into their palms, set to, put the Republic on its feet. There it was. A marvellous thing. They wondered if they should put a glass house around it, they polished it up nicely, showed it off to all the neighbours, were pleased with it. A few older gentlemen and ladies were entrusted to keep it in good order and watch over it; for there was much stealing in the land.
Five minutes before the thing was set up, the land was still a monarchy. Monarchical to the marrow, so to speak. The marrow in the bones of the very same Pomeranian grenadier with whom Bismarck and his successors played at war. All were agog to see what impression the shiny new Republic would make on them. For them, as a bonus, a Constitution was made. Even in America they marvelled how scrumptious it was. It had to taste good to the Monarchists. In their exuberance they wove a new flag: black-red-gold. It was lovely. I travelled to many towns throughout Germany, from an artistic interest in this new combination of colours. I never saw any. One person I met claimed to have seen it, but the man, who had a strong lisp, proved to be colour-blind. I spoke to a member of the government, who told me: firstly, the German people should not be diverted from their work by fear of a new flag, and then you can’t cultivate pleasure in art just yet, until the old stock of flags is used up, those being black-white-red. I saw plenty of these in Berlin in every possible street and on every possible occasion; I marvelled at how systematic and continuous our development was in Germany. With my own eyes I saw the imperial flag and the old Marine war ensign over Berlin Castle. I was deeply astonished, during the March days in Lichtenberg after the uprising had been quelled, to see Republic government troops advancing under the imperial flag, and very well known songs blared from their bugles, it sounded strange and surprising. But you had to praise the flags; the white was immaculate, you could believe it when people said: it’s the new flags. They comforted me: gold is hard to come by, where can you find gold these days, those are children, they cling to their flags, let them have their flags. And when I declared: “I too am a child, and I want my flag,” they whispered in shock and pulled me into a corner: “Don’t joke about it, you’ll set the people off.” It’s one of the Republic’s most important tasks not to get on the wrong side of the Monarchists, especially if they’re military. For as said, the Republic was brought by a wise man from abroad into the Holy Roman Empire; what we were to do with it he never said; it was a Republic with no Instructions for Use. The military could wreck it, and then what would we have?
What the explanation was for this mysterious entity would emerge from lengthier interaction with it. Above all it must “embed” itself. Embed itself. Decrees were enacted : “The Republic must embed itself; consideration must be given to enabling it to do so with consideration and not dis-embed anything. And not annoy anyone. For we are one People!”
And all of them, ministers, parliamentarians, mere vote-fodder, lurked excitedly to see how it would manage it, the Republic, this crazy thing, this cunning devil, and “embed” itself. And every morning devoured the papers for clues. All swore to abide by their oaths, stand fast with the Republic. Stand fast with her. Looking left and right at the next man. Stand fast with her.
In this mysterious situation, pregnant with riddles, curious pranksters were piqued to see through the game. The Monarchists in particular were swollen with curiosity. Day by day they felt more strongly that their wrong side had not been infringed. They stood firm on the ground of actual conditions, raised the black-white-red flag, came together in columns, and consulted. German ministers felt the urgency of the times and the intense public interest; in every office, every leading section of the army, they placed men of the old system, with its passionate interest in the Republic. It was an event that filled everyone who stood by the Republic with a most intimate emotion: like when Old Conservatives to a man declared themselves ready to join the army and stay there. They would not leave the Fatherland in the lurch whenever the danger should come, from Poland. They said nothing about their curiosity. The War Minister himself, offspring of a socialist party, stood up in Cabinet, praised the effect of this so remarkable Republic on these men, and especially on them, and hence none could be as dependable as they. He drew them to his heart. They observed him during this procedure and found that it was easy to break a Republican’s neck.
And in spring the Republic had been made secure. Then a number of Germans set themselves formally in motion, equipped with swords and trumpets, with the blessing of representatives of the Republic. They wanted to welcome the Republic in the Temple of Pythagoras and see as well what she would make of an unsuspected blast of trumpets and a decisive attentat. Kapp turned up. It wasn’t Kapp, it was Lüttwitz who turned up and said to Kapp: Lindemann, you go first. In the temple, turning up without knocking, they asked left and right: “What would you like?” and resembled two people who don’t read and content themselves with knowing all the answers. In a word: High Treason. All of their movements had great hopes of several years in jail, Behind them several thousand people in the stage of puberty, who also could not read or write, but knew how to throw a hand grenade.
It’s interesting to observe how in Germany at decisive moments youngsters in the pubertal stage always pop up, ready to be commanded by conservative officers. Older age groups meanwhile wait at home to see what the pubertal youths and conservatives do, or go on strike. That’s how the German revolution goes.
When Lüttwitz appeared in Berlin with his youngsters and within ten minutes the youngsters had flowers in their buttonholes, the government fled shuddering at such antiquated proceedings and the lack of respect for highly cultivated institutions. Lüttwitz declared that out of a purely mathematical interest he wanted to ascertain who the minorities were, and glared so fiercely at the democratic government, raising his fists as well, that they slipped away via Dresden to Stuttgart. He knew he was in possession of select troops, who undertook immaculate exercises and other things, with whom he could make his calculations. On their armoured cars and steel helmets they’d painted friendly swastikas, and waved the flag of continuous development.
“What’s going to happen to me?” was the cry in every Berlin household, and not long after in the whole of North and South Germany.
“Wait, and have a cup of tea,” the Nationals said. Officers and senior teachers whinnied like horses to battle-music, but not so loud. Poco piu mosso. Sostenuto alternating with staccato. Order must be restored, can’t go on like this, food is no longer affordable, it’s the profiteers. Deutschland Deutschland über alles.
In the silence of the March days the moderate citizen looked in his purse; it hadn’t shrunk, they decided to go on existing, come what may. And anyway the Putsch was outrageous: the soldiers had been well paid, the black market had bloomed, one can live with taxes and the (tee-hee) works committees; how was that for interfering with the constitutional setup. Elections, God willing, should definitely no longer take place. They went to the window: nice to have a window; called out: “Workers, officials, protect the constitution!”
The workers listened. Grumbled: “Not on your nelly. It’ll be a long time before we strike for the likes of you lot.” And then suddenly: “We’re on strike. But –” and whistled, banged their slippers together, and came out merrily on strike.
“Thank God,” the moderate sighed, relieved, when he stepped to the command window and saw his serving maid bringing water from the well. “They’re on strike. The poor people will suffer greatly. But it’s for the Republic. The wretched Baltic lands.” And betook themselves with Madam to the store cupboards, sat on the sofa and said: “So, now the strike can begin. We’ll see how well it holds out.”
There were lots of incidental effects as water and lights were cut off. It wasn’t easy for invalids; gravediggers didn’t bury their clients; the medical world urged consideration for the interests of the suffering. The War had lasted four years, in every waiting room there were posters, we must hold on, a little under-nourishment is not harmful, the most learned professors wrote experimentally-based treatises on the value of de-fatting and its excellence for the health. Now the layman learned that a health impairment is not so great when it lasts four years as when it lasts four days. In the days of the strike there were warnings of outbreaks of disease, and of the consequences, already long felt, of the lack of gas and water; clearly tuberculosis, shrewd as it is, makes up in four days what out of patriotism it missed out on over four years. There are secrets in medical science. Maybe a little doctors’ strike could paralyse a raging epidemic. Remarkable that the gentlemen haven’t thought of it.
In the houses of the moderates they looked out daily from their battle-window, happy, sometimes shaking the head a little: “They’re on strike. Still on strike.” Deep in thought they carried these words with them from the front back to base, the sofa. A heavy black suspicion tugged at the heart: “If only they don’t strike so very much.” Suddenly gunshots sounded in the night. Into the nocturnal silence someone shouted from a higher floor: “They’re striking too much! Woe! Woe is us! What can we do? Where’s Kapp?” And in bed they tossed and turned: “What do they have against Lüttwitz all of a sudden? When he did such a good job last year. Are we not all Kappitalists.”
And one day the dreadful news came: Lüttwitz had disappeared and the strike was continuing. Those who had defended the Republic at the front and back at base, were furious: “Scandal!” The Nationals placed their medals in the black-white-red casket “Farewell”, went about the streets in robber-civvies; people exchanged covert melancholy glances with them. And the bolder ones peeked at the flyers: “Are the Majority Socialists in on it? Are the trades unions in on it too? Where is Lüttwitz? Where is the old government?” They moaned: “It’s a catastrophe. The whole country will be ruined if there’s even one day’s strike. The economy’s gone. Exchange rate ratta tatta patta ta.” Some one heard “Brahmaputra” and wished to be in India. But there’s Bolshevism there too, apparently. All that’s left is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, wherein everything is somewhere else; how does that come about? No way to ask Einstein, with the telephones blocked.
Troops were marched to Döberitz,[x] not without having practised some dashing manoeuvres with public participation. Eunuchs banished by the strike obtained rest cures in the country to calm their nerves; they had well-founded hopes that nothing would disturb their cure. The so-called old government now returned badly decayed from Stuttgart, under Württembergian military cover. When they’d been carried inside and laid on the bed they said “yes” to everything anyone asked of them. Tearfully they thanked all visitors and bystanders for the loyal service they had rendered. They spoke again of the Köpenickiad[xi] they’d endured, it wasn’t clear and is now impossible to say if they meant the Kapp Putsch or their own behaviour. They expired gently in the arms of the trade unions.
Their successors are said to be strongly mistrustful of the god Pythagoras’ miracle powers. People declare they’ve learned something from the event. Pomerania is re-arming as a precaution; offices are being divided up. The masquerade continues, with shorter pauses likely between dances.
*
The Lüttwitz affair was a brief unmasking. In parallel a proletarian movement, namely of soldiers who were supposed to take up position in the streets, refused, and so were prepared to conquer Rome. That idea has worked through history, blithe and droll.
*
How funny, I forgot all about the black-red-gold flag in Berlin. It’s there. It flutters at the Schlossbrücke on a Spree barge beside a public convenience. In the barge, for a modest entry fee, a rotting whale can be viewed. Smelt. You pride of the Holy Roman Empire.
17th C. hymn. “Who lets the dear god govern and for all time places hopes in him.”
8th C. missionary in the Frankish lands.
“The Balkans aren’t worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.” Bismarck in late 1880s.
See the essay ‘Cannibalistic’ above.
General Walter von Lüttwitz, backed by Ludendorff. Kapp was an East Prussian civil servant.
i.e. Lüttwitz mistakes Kapp for someone else.
Lüttwitz had led the suppression of the Spartacist uprising in Berlin in 1919.
[x] Major troop training ground west of Berlin.
[xi] In 1906 a confidence trickster impersonating an officer induced a squad of soldiers to occupy the town hall in suburban Köpenick.
