WhatIf… THE KAPP PUTSCH HAD SUCCEEDED?
In 1920 Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz tried to seize control from the fledgling Weimar Republic. What if they had prevailed?
Written by Callum McKelvie
INTERVIEW WITH
Eric Weitz is a Professor of History, specialising in modern German and European history. He is the author of A World Divided: The Global Struggle For Human Rights In The Age Of Nation-States and Weimar Germany: Promise And Tragedy.
What was Germany like in the two years following World War I?
Germany was very divided and fragmented, and the shadow of the war hung over everything. Two million German soldiers were dead, another three million wounded – psychically as well as physically. The defeat itself was highly contested. German troops had been in France and far into Russia, so some extremists claimed that Germany had never been defeated. It was a totally specious claim because there were no resources left to fight. But that’s the infamous stab in the back legend, that the Jews and socialists and other people at home caused the defeat, not the military itself. But the other issue, which is often neglected, is that these were also years of great hope and opportunity. And they were based in the revolution of 1918 began by sailors who were needed in the last weeks of the war, at the German port of Kiel. And then the revolution spread throughout the country, sent the Kaiser packing into ignominious exile in the Netherlands, and sent the other princes and kings packing. They all had to abdicate or run out of office. There were great democratic hopes and those hopes were for many people fulfilled in the Weimar Constitution.