On 9 November,
- it has been 88 years since Scheidemann proclaimed
the German Republic
- it has been 28 years since the Berlin Wall came down
On Thursday 11 November,
- it will be 89 years since the end of WW1. Ah
yes, I remember it well!
Notes on Deluge, Chs 3, 4 and 5
Chapter 3
- Note the on-going discordance between the pursuit entertainment and the
growing political crisis. Note the civilian casualities in this period.
- The continuing tensions between the socialists and the communists. How
to explain Ebert's policy of seeking aid from the Freikorps (private militas)?
Why were the executioners of Liebknecht and Luxemburg go unpunished?
- Give some attention to the election results [47]. What do they suggest
about the wishes of the electorate?
- The qualities of the new constitution...pro and contra.
- Consider the Versailles treaty and the German reaction to it.
- Yet in the midst of all this controversy, international cooperation in scientific activity proceeds
unaffected. How to explain?
Chapter 4: 1920
- Conspiracy: to overthrow government. Role of Freikorps in mix? Aristocratic
contempt for republic (cf. Florence). Why was the government hated? For signing
Versailles treaty, and for raising taxes. Why necessary? Attempted assassination,
but note the assassin got off easily...why? Kapp Putsch...note tension between
government and the regular army as the nationalists (Kapp, et al.) plot.
Remember "the deal" concluded on p.27. Government flees Berlin.
- Film: what did the public want? sex and spectacle? To what extent does
film reflect the status of society? or does it affect the public order? The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: zombies, murder, the use of expressionist painter
to design sets heightened the insane distortion, and the use of hypnotic
power to force his will upon his tool. A premonition of things to come?
- The government proclaims general strike and then flees. The city shuts
down... But what was the goal of the putsch (p. 70)? Could the nationalists
and socialists find common ground? Unwilling to shoot anyone,
the leaders let the putsch collapse and march out of Berlin.
- Psycholanalysis: at the newly opened Berlin Psycholanalytic Inst. The beginning
of a system of standardized training. But why Berlin[74-5]? and not
Vienna?
- Ebert has new chance to reform army and civil service and to base power
more on labor unions and less on the Freikorps. Sources of power/authority???
Failed...why [76]. Paid freikorps the promised bonus (for its attempted putsch!!!)
and removed Noske, but why so lenient? socialist unions could not control
their radical minority. The Red Ruhr army of 50,000 attacked regular
army. Freikorps and Red Army ready for war. Election results (77)
show trend to extremist positions at cost of the middle.--Reichtag
without a pro-democratic majority.
Chapter 5 1921
- von Seekt and the new army.. Next war considered "inevitable". But note the contradictory relations with the Soviet Union.
- the russians in Berlin: [82]. monarchist, anarchists, poets, businessmen
--why did they leave? and why to Berlin?
- Russian revolution as prelude to German...direct Soviet encouragement
of revolutionaries...and the Germans feared the consequences (94)....Implications of the fact that Berlin was full
of militant Russian reactionaries.
- What do you make of the protocols of the Elders of Zion? and the emergence of an anti Russian sentiment. "...to
overthrow all states and religions, but such tricks as democracy and socialism,
and to replace them with a world wide Jewish empire.