Kapp Putsch
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For more information on Kapp Putsch, visit Britannica.com.
Kapp-Putsch, the name given to an unsuccessful attempt by rightwing elements to overthrow the legitimate government of the Weimar Republic. The dissidents were inflamed by a defeat of the right in the Reichstag on 9 March 1920 and encouraged by the light sentence passed three days later on the would-be murderer of Erzberger. On 13 March troops, including notably the Marine-Brigade Ehrhardt, occupied Berlin under General von Lüttwitz, and proclaimed an obscure rightwing politician, Wolfgang Kapp, as chancellor. The legitimate government fled, but the passive resistance of the civil service and a general strike of the trade unions discouraged the rebels, who abandoned Berlin after four days, whereupon the insurrection collapsed.
The Kapp Putsch —or more accurately the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch —was an attempt to
overthrow the Weimar Republic, based in opposition to the imposed
In early
In March 1920 orders were issued for the disbandment of the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt. Its leaders were determined to resist dissolution and appealed to General Walther von Lüttwitz, commander of the Berlin Reichswehr, for support. Lüttwitz, an organiser of Freikorps units in 1918–19 and a fervent monarchist, responded by calling on President Friedrich Ebert and Defense Minister Gustav Noske to stop the whole programme of troop reductions. When Ebert refused, Lüttwitz ordered the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt to march on Berlin. It occupied the capital on 13 March. Lüttwitz, therefore, was the driving force behind the 1920 putsch. Its nominal leader, though, was Wolfgang Kapp, a 62-year-old East Prussian civil servant and fervent nationalist.
At this point Noske called upon the regular army to suppress the putsch. He encountered a blank refusal. The Chef der
Heeresleitung General Hans von Seeckt, one of the Reichswehr's senior
commanders, told him: "Reichswehr does not shoot on Reichswehr". The government, forced to abandon Berlin, moved to
Stuttgart. As it did so it issued a proclamation calling on Germany's workers to defeat the
putsch by means of a
There were two main reasons why the Weimar Republic survived in 1920. First, the working class rallied to its defense. Second, most of the leading Freikorps commanders refused to join the putsch, perhaps with the view that it was premature.
See also 1920 in Germany.
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