Kapp Putsch (1920): The Right-Wing Coup Attempt in Berlin

The Kapp Putsch was an attempt by nationalist officers and Freikorps troops to overthrow Germany’s young democratic Weimar Republic in March 1920. On 13 March soldiers of the Ehrhardt Naval Brigade marched into Berlin and proclaimed Wolfgang Kapp chancellor, forcing the government to flee. Within four days the coup collapsed, defeated not by the army but by a nationwide general strike and the refusal of officials to serve the rebels.

Background

The Weimar Republic was born amid defeat and upheaval. In early 1919 the government had relied on the Freikorps, volunteer paramilitary units of former soldiers, to crush left-wing risings such as the Spartacist Uprising in Berlin. Many of these men despised the republic and blamed it for the Treaty of Versailles.

The treaty limited the German army to 100,000 men, and in early 1920 the government began to disband Freikorps units. Among them was the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, a unit of several thousand men under former naval officer Hermann Ehrhardt, camped at Döberitz west of Berlin. General Walther von Lüttwitz, the senior commander in the Berlin region, refused to accept the dissolution. On 10 March he confronted President Friedrich Ebert, demanding new elections and an end to the disbandments, and was relieved of his command the following day.

What happened

On the night of 12–13 March the Ehrhardt Brigade marched on Berlin, many of its men wearing a swastika on their helmets. When ministers asked the army to defend the government, most senior officers refused; the head of the Troop Office, General Hans von Seeckt, reportedly argued that soldiers would not fire on fellow soldiers. Ebert and Chancellor Gustav Bauer left the capital, first for Dresden and then for Stuttgart.

The rebels occupied the government quarter and proclaimed Wolfgang Kapp, a senior East Prussian civil servant and co-founder of the nationalist Fatherland Party, as Reich chancellor, with Lüttwitz as minister of defence. Before they left, the Social Democratic members of the government had issued an appeal for a general strike. The trade union federation under Carl Legien and other unions called out their members. Millions of workers stopped work, and Berlin was left without trams, electricity, gas or newspapers. It was the largest strike in German history.

The new regime also found the state machinery closed to it. Senior civil servants in the ministries refused to take orders, and officials at the Reichsbank would not release funds without proper signatures. On 17 March Kapp resigned and fled to Sweden; Lüttwitz followed him into hiding. The Ehrhardt Brigade marched out of Berlin and fired on a crowd as it left.

Consequences

The defeat of the putsch did not bring peace. In the Ruhr, armed workers formed a “Red Ruhr Army” of tens of thousands and took control of much of the industrial region. In April the government sent in the army and Freikorps units, some of which had just supported Kapp, and the rising was suppressed with heavy loss of life; over a thousand insurgents are thought to have been killed.

The Bauer cabinet resigned and was replaced on 27 March by a government under Hermann Müller. Defence Minister Gustav Noske, criticised for trusting the Freikorps, stepped down, and Seeckt became head of the army command. In Bavaria, the putsch led to the installation of a right-wing government under Gustav von Kahr, making Munich a refuge for nationalist extremists. In the Reichstag elections of June 1920 the parties that had founded the republic lost their majority.

The punishment of the plotters was mild. Most participants were amnestied; Ehrhardt escaped and many of his men joined the Organisation Consul, a secret group responsible for the murders of Matthias Erzberger in 1921 and Walther Rathenau in 1922. Kapp returned to face trial but died in custody in June 1922.

Key people

• Wolfgang Kapp (1858–1922), East Prussian civil servant and nationalist politician, the nominal head of the coup.
• Walther von Lüttwitz (1859–1942), the general whose refusal to disband the Freikorps set the putsch in motion.
• Hermann Ehrhardt (1881–1971), naval officer whose brigade provided the coup’s troops.
• Friedrich Ebert (1871–1925), Social Democratic president of the republic, who refused to negotiate with the rebels.
• Hans von Seeckt (1866–1936), army officer who kept the Reichswehr out of the conflict and afterwards led it until 1926.

Myths and facts

The putsch is sometimes described as a failed Nazi coup. It was not: the Nazi Party was still a tiny Munich group, although the young Adolf Hitler flew to Berlin during the putsch and arrived as it was collapsing. The plotters were mostly monarchists and old-style nationalists, and the swastika on Ehrhardt’s helmets was a symbol of the völkisch right before the Nazis made it their own.

Timeline

• 1920, 29 February: The government orders the dissolution of the Ehrhardt Brigade.
• 1920, 10–11 March: Lüttwitz confronts Ebert and is relieved of his command.
• 1920, 13 March: The Ehrhardt Brigade occupies Berlin; Kapp proclaims himself chancellor; the government flees and a general strike is called.
• 1920, 17 March: Kapp resigns and flees to Sweden.
• 1920, March–April: Rising in the Ruhr, crushed by government forces.
• 1920, 6 June: Reichstag elections weaken the pro-republican parties.

Why it matters

The Kapp Putsch showed both the strength and the fragility of the Weimar Republic. A democratic government survived because workers and officials refused to cooperate with the plotters, yet the army had stood aside and the far right went largely unpunished. Its failure taught later conspirators, including the organisers of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, lessons about the limits of seizing power by force alone.