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Summary

The coup was inspired by outrage at suppression of the Spartacist Uprising, and given hope by a successful Communist Revolution in Hungary ... but it was enabled by the collapse of the Bavarian government.

A Communist-Anarchist coup seized power and set up a Bavarian Soviet on 7 April 1919, but was chaotic –  a week-long government led by Ernst Toller made crazy decisions; a Russian-backed Bolshevik takeover led by Eugen Leviné attacked the wealthy.

The displaced MSPD leader Johannes Hoffmann did a deal with the Freikorps, who attacked on 1 May and slaughtered Soviet's makeshift 'Red Army', along with many civilians.

More than a thousand USPD members were executed, and many more imprisoned.  The people of Bavaria swung to the right, remembering the Soviet as a time of shortages and terror.

And the events inspired a former army Corporal named Adolf Hitler.

 

 

The Bavarian Soviet, 1919

Causes

  1. The collapse of the Bavarian government: the November Revolution had started in Munich, but the interim left-wing USPD government which took power in Bavaria was defeated in the January 1919 elections and its leader Kurt Eisner was killed on 21 February on his way to resign.  His assassination led to a gunfight in the Bavarian Landtag (Assembly) and for a while the government of Bavaria ceased to exist. 

  2. The Spartacist Uprising had outraged and inspired the USPD. 

  3. A Communist revolution in Hungary in March 1919 had also encouraged the Bavarian far-left.

  4. 'Coffeehouse anarchists': many of the leaders of the uprising were intellectuals – Toller was a playwright.

 

Events

  • On 7 April 1919 a Communist-Anarchist revolution chased out a ‘patched together’ coalition led by MSPD delegate Johannes Hoffmann, and declared a Soviet Republic. 

  • A government led by USPD member Ernst Toller was a farce – its foreign minister declared war on Switzerland, its Police Chef was a burglar, and its housing minister decreed that no house could have more than three rooms.  It lasted six days. 

  • On 12 April, a group of Communists led by Eugen Leviné, a Bolshevik Jew, seized power with Russian support.  He set up a ‘Red Army’; seized cash, food and weapons; gave luxury flats to the homeless; and arrested wealthy Bavarians as hostages. 

  • Leviné’s government survived a counter-revolutionary coup on 13 April, but then Hoffmann (who had fled to Bamburg) did a deal with a Freikorps unit of 20,000 men under General Oven – the ‘White Guards of Capitalism’, as the Communists called them. 

  • The fortnight of Leviné’s government was characterised by food shortages, especially of milk. 

  • The Freikorps attacked on 1 May with "flame-throwers, heavy artillery, armoured vehicles, even aircraft" and brought the Soviet to an end. 

 

Results

  1. More than 600 people were killed, half of whom were civilians.  The commander of the Red Army was murdered.  1,000–1,200 Communists and anarchists were executed; others were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. 

  2. Leviné was shot by firing squad, his statement when sentenced to death became an inspiration for Communists: “We Communists are always under sentence of death." 

  3. One person who took part in the events was Adolf Hitler, who testified against the insurgents in court; his later speeches were filled with hatred for ‘the intellectuals’ and the Jews.  Other future Nazi leaders – notably Rudolf Hess – fought with the Freikorps. 

  4. Bavaria shifted rightwards politically – people remembered the Leviné government a time of shortages and a ‘reign of terror’.  In 1923 it was to be the place where Hitler launched his Munich Putsch. 

  5. Events further cemented the hatred the USPD felt towards the MSPD, which it felt had betrayed the cause. 

 

 

 

Consider:

Study the events of the Soviet and analyse them into two columns of 'Messages for the Weimar Government':

   •  Reasons for Hope;

   •  Causes for Concern.

 

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