the fall of monarchy in 1918, the same kind of democracy was established in Germany. Even the country itself between its defeat in the First World War and Hitler’s rise to power is known as the Weimar Republic, after the name of the city where the new German Constitution was enacted. Admitting that Germany was a republic, everything said above holds true for the country of that time. Any political activity must be fed by money, just as the furnace of an engine must be fed by coal. You won’t get anywhere without that “fuel”. Both the success and the duration of your future political “trip” wholly depend on the amount of banknotes to be spent. Here we come to the question for which we have undertaken this brief foray into the theory of politics.
What was the source of financial “coal” for Adolf Hitler, who only fifteen years after his “seminal” appearance in the Munich beer hall came to the top power in Germany?
The question is no sooner asked, than a ready reply given. The same old stereotype: he was sponsored by German industrial magnates. A good reply it is – and a very convenient one, too. Convenient for everybody. Soviet-time historiography did with that explanation alone. In the West, another ready reply is common, thanks to Suvorov-Rezun. They say that it was Stalin who guided and helped Hitler to his power, seeing him as a new “icebreaker of revolution”. This should mean, according to that judgment, that the Bolshevik communists gave money to the Nazi – a statement that has zero logic in it. One might as well blame the Yeltsin Russia, too poor even to print currency, for financing international terrorism on a large scale. Accusing the Soviet Union under Stalin of fostering the Nazi is similarly absurd. The Russian Civil War had not yet ended, when Hitler’s party was already toddling to its might. How could the Russian communists possibly have financed the German anti-communist movement? One might as well name Lenin the benefactor of Kolchak and Wrangel! Why concoct such obvious apple-sauce? That is to accuse Russia of the whole bag of tricks. There is a second reason as well – to avert suspicions from the true forces that stood behind that cannibal party…
German industrial magnates did go down in history as Hitler’s sponsors. But we will ask again: Did they have any reason for sponsoring the National-Socialists?
Why, you will say, the Nazi were all fiercely anti-communist; by sponsoring them, the bourgeoisie sought to prevent the risk of a Red revolution. This is another common bag of lies that has nothing to do with reality. Small wonder that no figures or dates are cited in books that use this kind of argument. We will yet take pains to compare things.
In November 1918, immediately after the monarchical regime came to ruin, Germany was teetering on the brink of a Bolshevik revolution. What is more, this Socialist revolution did take place in the country – a long time before the appearance of the obsessed Führer on the political stage. The period of chaos and anarchy caused by the fall of the Kaiser was followed by the emergence of two main political forces – a social democrat government and communists who sought to deepen the revolutionary movement. The situation came to a head in 1919, with mass skirmishes in Berlin, and the arrest and execution of the German Communist Party leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg (the so-called “Spartacist uprising”).
The struggle did not end there, though. The Bremen communists proved quicker on the draw, and on January 10, 1919, the Bremen Soviet Republic was declared. To back up the new-born Red republic, a detachment commanded by Ernst Thälmann set out for Bremen from Hamburg. But no backup could help the rebels – the German army was firmly on the side of the current government. As early as on February 4, the Red Bremen was seized by a division commanded by General Gerstenberg. The Bremen Soviet Republic bit the dust so quickly that all the children in the USSR knew that city only by the wonderful Grimm brothers fairy-tale and the still more wonderful Soviet animation film.
Early March 1919 saw a new wave of conflicts in Berlin. A national walkout organised by the communists took the form of an all-out revolt that was eventually crushed down, with some 1,200 casualties. The volunteer paramilitary units formed by regular and non-commissioned officers (the so-called Freikorps, literally “Free Corps”) and the police suppressed the uprisings with firmness and savagery. There are confirmed cases when a group of striking workers was mowed down by machine-gun fire just for flying a single red banner.
Who was it who made such a blood bath of the revolting communists? It was Gustav Noske, a German member of the Council of the People’s Deputies (Rat der Volksbeauftragten) during the November Revolution. This “glorious son of the German nation” went down in history as “the Bloodhound[19]”. The connection between this alias and the blood of those massacred by his command is but incidental, characteristic as it is. It was Noske’s own words about himself in the days of the revolt – “Someone has to be the bloodhound; I shall not shirk the responsibility”[20].
Still, April had new waves of chaos in store for Germany. On April 13, 1919, the Bavarian Soviet Republic was proclaimed in Munich. It was not to live long, however, and already on May 5 it collapsed. But in the beginning, everything looked not unlike the Bolshevik power grab in Russia. The short-lived republic had its own Council of Actions to represent the supreme authority, as well as an Executive Council headed by communists but comprising at first also independent social democrats. The young Red republic’s strategy would be easy to understand for everyone who is acquainted with the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The immediate programme included disarmament of the police and the “bourgeoisie”; confiscation of private property and nationalisation of banks; holding of hostages; workers’ control of enterprises; and even a German version of the Cheka[21] (a Committee for Combatting Counter-Revolution)[22]. The German “comrades” had yet some inventions of their own, for instance, the prohibition of history as a school subject, or the emission of banknotes with an expiration date[23].
Even a German Red Army was formed, which at once carried out a number of successful operations. At first, it routed the governmental forces north of Munich, taking over control of Karlsfeld and Freising. The German Red Army’s subsequent operations were also attended by success, markedly the battles for Dachau, the Bavarian town that was yet to gain its notoriety during the Second World War. But there the winning streak for the Munich communists ended – a 60-thousand-strong army commanded by Gustav “the Bloodhound” Noske pushed forward, surrounding the rebelling region. The army which consisted of regular units and volunteer veterans went down on the Bavarian Republic, destroying the rebels with as much atrocity as did the communists. House-to-house fighting in Munich lasted for five days, ending up in firing squad executions in a prison yard…
Notably, the counter-revolution actions in Bavaria were bloodier than the revolution itself. The Reds were guilty of shooting eight hostages (all members of the Thule occultist society). At the same time, the White volunteer units destroyed a Red medical convoy; shot 21 members of the Catholic Apprentice Society; 12 workers from Perlach; 50 recovered Russian prisoners of war; as well as the leaders of the Bavarian Soviet Republic – Rudolf Egelhofer, Gustav Landauer, and Eugen Leviné. Both Ernst Röhm and Rudolf Hess took part in the recapture of Munich. However, Adolf Hitler, who at the time was in the city, was oddly inert and did not take any active steps to help the struggle against communism. The Nazi historiography took pains to leave this page in the Führer’s biography in the dark.
The Red revolution in Germany was suppressed, but that was no merit of the Nazi. Simply because at that time no “national socialists” even existed; instead, there were some twenty or thirty beer-drinking gossips sitting around at their leisure in Munich struck by the Civil War. As to Adolf Hitler, he was a young self-conscious ex-serviceman and had nothing to do with big politics.
Did the communist do anything further to seize the reins? They did. But all such attempts were suppressed by the army and the police, and never by Hitler’s storm-troopers. A new wave
The Bloodhound is a large hound (dog breed), famous for its extraordinary sense of smell. In medieval Britain, these dogs would be frequently engaged in the pursuit of thieves, murderers, and other criminals. A bloodhound could take the scent of the fugitive(s), start the trail, and almost invariably track them down. Also, the bloodhound was sometimes used to dispatch a wounded animal in a hunt. In medieval times, these dogs were often trained to pursue the fleeing enemy on a battle field.
The original phrase in German is: “Einer muss der Bluthund werden, ich scheue die Verantwortung nicht”. (
The All-Russian Extraordinary Committee for Combatting Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage. (
