Energy, climate, war - crisis, wherever you look.
2022 was undoubtedly a year of bad news.
And yet: Anyone who speaks of a catastrophe year has not yet dealt with 1923.
1923 – Munich history buffs probably think of the Hitler coup: on the evening of November 8, the later dictator announced his “national revolution” in the Bürgerbräukeller – where the Gasteig now stands.
But those who live in the Ruhr area may have grown up remembering other events.
Because the occupation of the Ruhr was the overriding national issue in 1923.
On January 11, 1923, a Belgian and two French columns marched into the Ruhr area.
Within five days, between 70,000 and 100,000 soldiers had occupied the industrial heart of Germany.
The commander of the occupying forces, General Jean-Marie Degoutte, demonstratively lodged in the 269-room villa of the industrialist Krupp in Essen.
Five years after its founding, the Weimar Republic went through its worst crisis.
The trigger was a dispute that had been simmering since 1922 about reparations, i.e. Germany’s atonement payments to the Western powers, which were victorious in World War I, in the form of gold, coal and steel.
Germany defaulted on reparations.
French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré, meanwhile, was convinced that the German requests for a payment delay were just a tactic to ultimately avoid payment altogether.
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Ruhr coal for France: a French soldier on a coal train.
© ullstein picture
The occupation of the Ruhr had one result above all: an unexpected national upsurge in Germany.
There was unanimous outrage at the occupation far into the left and left-liberal spectrum.
"The Rubicon has been crossed," said the well-known liberal "Vossische Zeitung".
In the flood of reports of alleged or actual atrocities committed by the French, it was probably difficult for the average newspaper reader to distinguish between truth and exaggeration.
Irish historian Mark Jones has followed through on files - the shooting of striking workers, accidental deaths on the streets, reports of the rape of German women.
Jones writes that there have actually been many cases of excessive violence.
Already on January 15, four days after the invasion, the French shot dead a youth, apparently a member of the nationalist Bismarck youth, who had provoked the invaders with the song "We want to beat France victoriously".
The national right was completely whipped up on May 26, 1923 with the execution of Albert Leo Schlageter,
28-year-old leader of a group that bombed railroad tracks to stop coal being transported.
Schlageter became a martyr, and the cult was also extremely popular among the National Socialists.
The climax of the orgy of violence was the "Bloody Saturday in Essen", when French soldiers shot 13 people in the Krupp works - "Blood of German workers spilled by the French in Essen", headlined the outraged "Münchener Zeitung".
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"The capitulation in the Ruhr" was the headline in the "Münchener Zeitung" at the end of September 1923 after the end of passive resistance.
© Repro: dw
The German government under the liberal Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno responded to the occupation of the Ruhr region with a campaign of “passive resistance”: colliery owners were instructed to suspend coal deliveries to France and Belgium;
Officials were forbidden to follow the orders of the occupiers.
Two million workers went on strike.
The Reich government assured them all that their full salaries would be paid.
However, the financing of the passive resistance continued to drive the printing press.
Inflation switched from trot to canter.
The events that followed can also be interpreted as a reaction to the occupation of the Ruhr - which is not entirely wrong, but misses the point, after all the separatists and the National Socialists were already present.
The occupation of the Ruhr gave both movements an unexpected boost.
The Separatists are a little-known movement today.
Activists such as Josef Friedrich Matthes and Hans Adam Dorten propagated an independent Rhenish Republic, the outlines of which varied, but which should in any case be free from Germany and above all from Prussia.
In November 1923, under the headline “The Pfalzputsch”, the “Münchener Zeitung” reported, not exactly neutrally, that the separatist movement was also spreading to the Palatinate: “After they took possession of the government building with the help of rabble from the Rhineland and with the participation of the French to Speyer, they issued the 'proclamation' of an autonomous republic of the Palatinate.” That was suppressed there as well as in the Rhineland.
The mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, whom the separatists had hoped for, did not side with them.
In any case, an English veto prevented any change in the political status of the Rhineland.
The situation in Bavaria was more difficult.
On September 26, the Reich government announced that passive resistance would be broken off.
The "Münchener Zeitung", now completely in the ultra-conservative waters, headlined: "The capitulation in the Ruhr".
In response, Prime Minister Eugen von Knilling of the Catholic Bavarian People's Party, under nationalist pressure, handed executive functions over to a state commissioner: Gustav von Kahr.
The "Münchener Zeitung" spoke openly of a "dictatorship of Kahrs", but meant it in a positive way.
Kahr, former district president of Upper Bavaria and also prime minister in 1920/21, was a monarchist and anti-Semite.
He first drew attention to himself with the expulsion of an estimated 400 Eastern European Jews for alleged usury.
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Death notice for the four state police officers who were killed in an exchange of fire with the putschists (from the "Münchener Zeitung")
© Repro: dw
For a while, the impression was created in Munich that Bavarian Reichswehr units under Otto von Lossow ready for a putsch were ready to march on Berlin alongside the political right in order to overthrow the Reich government (Chancellor now: Gustav Stresemann) - analogous to Mussolini's march on Rome one year ago.
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Inflation era stamps.
© Imago
But Hitler's first attempt to "seize power" failed at Odeonsplatz, where state police officers shot 15 putschists.
One of the dead, Theodor von der Pfordten, had a draft of a dictatorial constitution in his breast pocket.
Four police officers (who are remembered today with a plaque on Odeonsplatz) and an uninvolved passer-by also died.
The attempted coup should not be trivialized or ridiculed as a “beer hall coup” (a corruption often found in American literature).
Political paralysis reigned in Munich for a day.
Troops from the “Bund Oberland”, a former volunteer corps, took advantage of the moment.
They arrested political opponents and, under threat of violence, took about 20 Jewish citizens with them in Lehel and Bogenhausen, who led them to the Bürgerbräukeller.
These were soon released, but suffered through anxious hours.
Hitler escaped to Uffing am Staffelsee, where he was arrested two days later.
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Curd soap for 7.5 billion - advertisement in the "Münchener Zeitung" in the summer of 1923.
© Repro: dw
Another concern was now a thing of the past: inflation.
As late as November 16, Victor Klemperer noted in his diary: "The dollar is rising and rising, now it's at 2.5 trillion." At the Oberpollinger department store in Munich, a bar of yellow curd soap, 200 grams, now costs 7.5 billion.
But then they switched to the Rentenmark – suddenly there were notes of 1 to 1,000 marks again.
1923 – that was certainly not a nice year.
But the young Weimar democracy has surprisingly survived all crises - perhaps a ray of hope even for today's pessimists.
New Literature:
1923 was the ultimate catastrophe.
The titles of the books published for the anniversary year already show it: “1923 – the year on the brink” is how the author Volker Ullrich subtitled his new publication (CH Beck, 28 euros).
“1923 – A German Trauma” is the name of the work by the Irish historian Mark Jones (Ullstein, 26 euros).
"Dance of Death" is the title of the columnist Jutta Hoffritz of her 1923 book (Harper Collins, 23 euros).
All three are recommended: Ullrich provides a solid classification, with the Berlin government perspective taking up a lot of space: His conclusion: The Weimar Republic might have survived its second major crisis in 1932/33 - if only a Reich President of the caliber of Friedrich Ebert (Reich President 1923, death 1925) would have been there.
The young historian Jones has specialized in meticulous research into violent excesses, of which there was no shortage in 1923.
He interprets the crisis year from the perspective of ordinary people.
Hoffritz's book is an easy-to-read collage consisting mainly of diary entries - the focus is on notes by the artist Käthe Kollwitz and the little-known President of the Reichsbank, Rudolf Havenstein.
Hoffritz considers the inflation to be more drastic and more characteristic of 1923 than, for example, the occupation of the Ruhr and its political consequences, which is why her conclusion is somewhat simple: "If you know what led to Germany's ruin a hundred years ago, then you can strengthen Europe and prevent new disasters. “(dw)
Hoffritz's book is an easy-to-read collage consisting mainly of diary entries - the focus is on notes by the artist Käthe Kollwitz and the little-known President of the Reichsbank, Rudolf Havenstein.
Hoffritz considers the inflation to be more drastic and more significant for 1923 than, for example, the occupation of the Ruhr and its political consequences, which is why her conclusion is somewhat simple: "If you know what led to Germany's ruin a hundred years ago, then you can strengthen Europe and prevent new disasters. “(dw)
Hoffritz's book is an easy-to-read collage consisting mainly of diary entries - the focus is on notes by the artist Käthe Kollwitz and the little-known President of the Reichsbank, Rudolf Havenstein.
Hoffritz considers the inflation to be more drastic and more significant for 1923 than, for example, the occupation of the Ruhr and its political consequences, which is why her conclusion is somewhat simple: "If you know what led to Germany's ruin a hundred years ago, then you can strengthen Europe and prevent new disasters. “(dw)
