Wolfgang Kapp

The German nationalist politician Wolfgang Kapp (1858-1922) led a putsch in March 1920, an abortive rightist-military coup.

Wolfgang Kapp was born in New York City on July 24, 1858, the son of a lawyer-politician. Returning to Germany in 1870, the young Kapp earned a doctorate of law and entered the Prussian civil service in 1886. A hardworking bureaucrat, he advanced through the ranks of district magistrate in 1891 and councilor in the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture in 1900 until he was appointed director general of the East Prussian Land Bank in Königsberg in 1906, a position he held until his putsch in 1920.

A partisan of the ultra nationalist Pan-German League, Kapp emerged during World War I as a determined foe of a negotiated peace and campaigned bitterly against the moderate chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and the Reichstag (parliamentary) Peace Resolution of 1917 in two violent pamphlets. In September 1917, with Adm. Alfred von Tirpitz and others, he founded the ultranationalist German Fatherland party. From February until November 1918 he held a mandate in the Reichstag.

Outraged by the revolution of 1918-1919, Kapp reorganized his party with the support of several disenchanted army officers and freebooters under the new name of Nationale Vereinigung (Alliance for National Unity) in July 1919. Together with the Berlin army group commander Gen. Walther von Lüttwitz, he staged the so-called Kapp Putsch against the republican government of Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Bauer in March 1920. Kapp and Lüttwitz used the rebellion of the elite Marine Brigade Ehrhardt - which under Lüttwitz's command was defying a government order that they disband - to march on Berlin, seize the government buildings, and declare the republican government deposed on March 13. Kapp took over the chancellorship, Lüttwitz the Ministry of Defense. Lacking active army support, however, the putschists were unable to carry on the business of government in the face of general popular distrust and an effective general strike called by the labor unions at the request of the fleeing government in Stuttgart.

Kapp and Lüttwitz fled on the morning of March 17, making their way to Sweden the following day. Although its duration was brief, the putsch left the republic severely shaken and faced with new unrest in the industrial areas of the Ruhr and Saxony as well as several important power readjustments in the central and state governments. Kapp returned to Germany in May 1922 to stand trial but died in custody on June 12.

Further Reading

For general information on Kapp see Robert G. L. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism: The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany, 1918-1923 (1952), and Walther H. Kaufmann, Monarchism in the Weimar Republic (1953).

Kapp, Wolfgang (New York, 1858-1922, Leipzig), served in the East Prussian administration, and from 1906 held the appointment of Generallandschaftsdirektor. His political sympathies were Pan-German (see Alldeutscher Verband), and during the 1914-18 War he was bitterly opposed to any peace involving conciliation or concession. In 1917 he was, with Tirpitz, co-founder of the Deutsche Vaterlandspartei (dissolved Dec. 1918). In March 1920 he participated in the so-called Kapp-Putsch, and was proclaimed chancellor. After the rapid collapse of the revolt he fled to Sweden. In 1922 he surrendered to justice, but died a natural death during the early stages of the legal proceedings taken against him.

Wolfgang Kapp
Wolfgang Kapp
Born	July 24, 1858(1858-07-24) New York City, USA
Died	June 12, 1922 (aged 63) Leipzig, Germany
Nationality	Germany
Occupation	civil servant, politician
Spouse(s)	Margarete Rosenow
Children	3

Wolfgang Kapp (24 July 1858 – 12 June 1922) was a Prussian civil servant and journalist. He was a strict nationalist, and a nominal leader of the so-called Kapp Putsch.

Contents 1 Early life 2 The Political Activist 3 The Kapp Putsch 4 References

Early life

Kapp was born in New York City, where his father Friedrich Kapp, a political activist and later Reichstag delegate for the National Liberal Party, settled after the failed revolutions of 1848. In 1870 the family returned to Germany and Kapp's schooling continued in Berlin at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium (High School). Wolfgang Kapp married Margarete Rosenow in 1884, the couple would have three children. Through his wife's family, Kapp acquired a family connection with politically conservative elements. In 1886 he graduated at the conclusion of his law studies at the University of Tübingen and was appointed to a position in the Finance Ministry the same year.

The Political Activist

Kapp was politically active during the First World War. In the early summer of 1916 he produced a secret pamphlet critical of German foreign and domestic policy under Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg. In 1917 he founded the “Deutsche Vaterlandspartei” (Fatherland Party) along with Alfred von Tirpitz, of which he would briefly become Chairman. The next year he was one of a number of prominent figures of the right, including General Ludendorff, who set up the “Nationale Vereinigung” (National Union), a right wing think tank which campaigned for a counter-revolution to install a form of conservative militaristic government. This was not, however, a movement for the restoration of the monarchy, the Kaiser having bowed to US pressure and left for his exile near Utrecht in early November. The next year, 1919, which saw the inauguration in Germany of the Weimar Republic, found Kapp a member of the Deutschnationale Volkspartei (National Peoples’ party).

Germany’s defeat in the First World War was seen by nationalists such as Kapp as a humiliation and a betrayal. He became an exponent of the Dolchstoß legend, and a vehement critic of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1919 he was elected to the Reichstag as a monarchist.

The Kapp Putsch

Main article: Kapp Putsch

In March 1920 Hermann Ehrhardt, the leader of the Freikorps known as the Ehrhardt Brigade, attempted to overthrow the government of the Weimar Republic by marching on Berlin, occupying the city, and installing his preferred Government by force. As a figurehead he chose Kapp as Chancellor.^[1] General Freiherr Walther von Luettwitz, who commanded the troops in the Berlin area, supported the Coup d'etat with his own troops.^[2] The regular army under the command of General Hans von Seeckt, stood inactive and only a general strike by the united trade unions restored the democratic government

When the Coup d'état failed, Kapp fled to Sweden. After two years in exile, he returned to Germany in April 1922 to justify himself in a trial at the Reichsgericht. He died in custody in Leipzig shortly afterwards of cancer. ^[3]

References

1. ^ William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
2. ^ Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis of Power
3. ^ Biography at the German Historical Museum (German)

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