The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic. The period's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar, which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" not commonly used until the 1930s.
The Kapp Putsch, also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch, was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo the German Revolution of 1918–1919, overthrow the Weimar Republic, and establish an autocratic government in its place. It was supported by parts of the Reichswehr, as well as nationalist and monarchist factions.
Reichswehr was the official name of the German armed forces during the Weimar Republic and the first years of the Third Reich. After Germany was defeated in World War I, the Imperial German Army was dissolved in order to be reshaped into a peacetime army. From it a provisional Reichswehr was formed in March 1919. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the rebuilt German Army was subject to severe limitations in size, structure and armament. The official formation of the Reichswehr took place on 1 January 1921 after the limitations had been met. The German armed forces kept the name Reichswehr until Adolf Hitler's 1935 proclamation of the "restoration of military sovereignty", at which point it became part of the new Wehrmacht.
Otto Karl Gessler was a liberal German politician during the Weimar Republic. From 1910 until 1914, he was mayor of Regensburg and from 1913 to 1919 mayor of Nuremberg. He served in numerous Weimar cabinets, most notably as Reichswehrminister from 1920 to 1928.
Gustav Noske was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He served as the first Minister of Defence (Reichswehrminister) of the Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1920. Noske was known for using army and paramilitary forces to suppress the socialist/communist uprisings of 1919.
Weimar paramilitary groups were militarily organized units that were formed outside of the regular German Army following the defeat of the German Empire in World War I. The most prominent of them, the Freikorps, were combat units that were supported by the German government and used to suppress uprisings from both the Left and the Right. There were also Citizens' Defense groups to maintain public order and paramilitary groups associated with specific political parties to protect and promote their interests.
These are terms, concepts and ideas that are useful to understanding the political situation in the Weimar Republic. Some are particular to the period and government, while others were just in common usage but have a bearing on the Weimar milieu and political maneuvering.
Wolfgang Kapp was a German conservative and nationalist and political activist who is best known for his involvement in the 1920 Kapp Putsch. He spent most of his career working for the Prussian Ministry of Finance and then as director of the Agricultural Credit Institute in East Prussia. During World War I, Kapp was a vocal annexationist and critic of the government's policies, which he saw as not aggressive enough. His strong dislike of parliamentary government and the Weimar Republic led him to take a leading role in the 1920 putsch that bears his name. Following the putsch's failure to overthrow the German government, Kapp went into exile in Sweden. He returned to Germany in late 1921 to appear in court, but died while under medical care before he could testify.
The Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, also known as the Ehrhardt Brigade, was a Freikorps unit of the early Weimar Republic. It was formed on 17 February 1919 as the Second Marine Brigade from members of the former Imperial German Navy under the leadership of Hermann Ehrhardt. The brigade was used primarily in the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and the First Silesian Uprising, both in the first half of 1919. In March 1920, faced with its imminent disbanding by orders of the government in Berlin, the Marine Brigade was one of the main supporters of the Kapp Putsch that tried to overthrow the Weimar Republic. After the putsch failed and the brigade was disbanded in May, many of the former members formed the secret Organisation Consul under Ehrhardt's leadership. Before it was banned in 1922, it carried out numerous assassinations and murders in a continuation of the attempts to overthrow the Republic.
Hermann Ehrhardt was a German naval officer in World War I who became an anti-republican and anti-Semitic German nationalist Freikorps leader during the Weimar Republic. As head of the Marine Brigade Ehrhardt, he was among the best-known Freikorps leaders in the immediate postwar years. The brigade fought against the local soviet republics that arose during the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and later was among the key players in the anti-democratic Kapp Putsch of March 1920. After the brigade's forced disbanding, Ehrhardt used the remnants of his unit to found the Organisation Consul, a secret group that committed numerous politically motivated assassinations. After it was banned in 1922, Ehrhardt formed other less successful groups such as the Bund Viking. Because of his opposition to Adolf Hitler, Ehrhardt was forced to flee Germany in 1934 and lived apolitically in Austria until his death in 1971.
Walther Karl Friedrich Ernst Emil Freiherr von Lüttwitz was a German general who fought in World War I. Lüttwitz is best known for being the driving force behind the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch of 1920 which attempted to replace the democratic government of the Weimar Republic with a military dictatorship.
The Black Reichswehr was the unofficial name for the extra-legal paramilitary formation that was secretly a part of the German military (Reichswehr) during the early years of the Weimar Republic. It was formed in 1921 after the government banned the Freikorps that it had relied on until then to supplement the Reichswehr. General Hans von Seeckt thought that the Reichswehr no longer had enough men available to guard the country's borders, but the army could not be expanded because of the manpower restrictions imposed on it by the Treaty of Versailles. In order to circumvent the limitation, Seeckt created the Black Reichswehr as purportedly civilian "labour battalions" attached to regular Reichswehr units. The Arbeitskommandos received military training, provisioning and orders from the Reichswehr, although ultimately they were never involved in military action. The Black Reichswehr reached a peak membership estimated at 50,000 to 80,000 in 1923 and was dissolved the same year after a group of its members launched the failed Küstrin Putsch. Its existence became widely known in 1925 when its practice of Fememord, the extra-judicial killing of "traitors" among its ranks, was revealed to the public.
The Ruhr uprising, or March uprising, was a left-wing workers' revolt in the Ruhr region of Germany in March and April 1920. It was triggered by the call for a general strike in response to the right-wing Kapp Putsch of 13 March 1920 and became an armed rebellion when radical left workers used the strike as an opportunity to attempt the establishment of a soviet-style council republic.
Walther Gustav Reinhardt was a German officer who served as the last Prussian Minister of War and the first head of the army command within the newly created Ministry of the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic. During the Kapp Putsch of 1920, Reinhardt remained loyal to the elected government and was one of the few senior officers of the Reichswehr willing to order troops to fire at the revolting units.
Oskar Walther Gerhard Julius Freiherr von Watter was a German Generalleutnant who came from an old Pomeranian noble family.
The Bielefeld Agreement was an agreement during the Ruhr uprising of 1920 between the representatives of the Ruhr Red Army and the German government.
Germany saw significant political violence from the fall of the Empire and the rise of the Republic through the German Revolution of 1918–1919, until the rise of the Nazi Party to power with 1933 elections and the proclamation of the Enabling Act of 1933 that fully broke down all opposition. The violence was characterised by assassinations by and confrontations between right-wing groups such as the Freikorps, and left-wing organisations such as the Communist Party of Germany.
The first Müller cabinet, headed by Chancellor Hermann Müller of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), was the third democratically elected government of Germany and the second in office after the Weimar Constitution came into force in August 1919. The cabinet was based on the same three centre-left parties as the preceding Bauer cabinet: the SPD, Centre Party and German Democratic Party (DDP), a grouping known as the Weimar Coalition. It was formed on 27 March 1920 after the government of Gustav Bauer (SPD) resigned as a result of the unsuccessful Kapp Putsch, which it was seen as having handled badly.
French occupation of Frankfurt occurred from 6 April to 17 May 1920 as part of the Allied occupation of the Rhineland. The principal city occupied was Frankfurt, but the French also occupied Dieburg, Darmstadt, Hanau and Homburg. The occupation was in response to the mobilisation of armed forces by the government of Hermann Müller to suppress the Ruhr Uprising, an attempt by left-wing workers to take over political power in the Ruhr Area. It grew out of the widespread strike movement that defeated the Kapp Putsch.
The Berlin March Battles of 1919, also known as Bloody Week, were the final decisive phase of the German Revolution of 1918–1919. The events were the result of a general strike by the Berlin working class to enforce the widely anticipated socialization of key industries, as well as the legal safeguarding of the workers' and soldiers' councils and thus the democratization of the military. The strike action was met with violence from the paramilitary Freikorps, resulting in street fighting and house-to-house fighting around the Alexanderplatz and the city of Lichtenberg.
Weimar Republic 
Freikorps 
