User:Afrokidda

The Spartacist uprising happened in Berlin on 5th January 1919. The Spartacists were a communist group who were not happy with the new, weak Weimar government which had formed after WWI in Germany. Their aims were to have a communist government in Germany. They also wanted to overthrow capitalism and represent militarism. They were led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. During the uprising on the 5th January the Spartacists seized control of the headquarters of the government newspaper and telegraph bureau, they also called a general strike. This would surely of Brought the Weimar government to its knees had it had better organising, as a result of this the uprising didn’t have the effect they would of wanted so they received little support from the people of Berlin. On the 6th January 1919 a group of 4000 ex solders called the Freikorps were asked by the government to crush the weak and unsupported Spartacists. The Freikorps were far right wing and hated the left wing government but they hated the far left wing communists more. They succeeded in crushing the communists and killed the two communist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht for apparently ‘resisting arrest’. This uprising showed the weakness in the new Weimar republic because even though they were a left wing government they had been attacked by an organisation that was even more left wing than them! After the uprising the Government were also dependant on the support of the German army which they had needed to crush the Spartacist. Because the army had supported the government they promised that they would not change the army leadership. Even though the communists did succeed in creating a general strike, the lack of support meant that the majority of the German public preferred the Weimar republic to the communists. This was good for the new government as it showed that people were still willing to stick with them even though they did not have a lot of support.

The Kapp putsch happened in Berlin march 1920 it was led by Dr Wolfgang Kapp. He and the Freikorps were not happy because of the newly signed treaty of Versailles which had reduced the German military to 100,000 soldiers so there was no longer a need for the Freikorps. For this reason they wanted to get revenge on the Weimar government and the people who signed the treaty. Their aims were to overthrow the Weimar republic and form their own government. To do this in March 1920 the Kapp putsch took control of Berlin. The Weimar government turned to the army and asked them for help however it was refused because they didn’t want to fight against their ex fellow servicemen. Following this the Weimar government fled to Dresden where they hoped to gain the support of general major Maercker however he also didn’t want to be involved so the Weimar government moved again and this time to Stuttgart. When in Stuttgart the Weimar government called upon Germany’s workers to participate in a general strike which would overthrow the Kapp Putsch. This had huge support from the German workers and now the country was paralysed the Kapp Putsch could no longer operate for this reason Dr Wolfgang’s plan failed and he fled to Sweden. The reason for the Weimar government’s success came from the huge support from the workers in Berlin. However the rejection from the army showed that the Weimar republic was no longer supported by the army because they sympathised with the aims of the Putsch. However the Government did not have complete success and there were numerous victims among workers all over Germany who had supported the Weimar republic over the Kapp Putsch. This shows that some of the Freikorps would have killed some of the protestors who were against them.

By BJW --Afrokidda (talk) 16:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC)