The Weimar Triangle (19 page)

The Telephone Call

D
RAMATIC PERSONAE

Wilhelm Groener
, Ludendorff ’s successor as deputy chief of staff, in Spa, the German army headquarters in occupied Belgium. In charge of railways during the war, with good relations to the transportation unions. Career army man.

Friedrich Ebert,
saddler, son of a tailor, Marxist but not a revolutionary, moderate social democrat. Suddenly, unconstitutionally, on November 9, improvised successor to Chancellor Prince Max of Baden and head of a coalition government, later president. Unprepared for historic role.

Karl Liebknecht
, leader with Rosa Luxemburg of the radical Spartacist League, formed in August 1914 and dedicated to ending the war through revolution. The only member of the Social Democratic Party, which evolved into the Communist Party, to vote against the war. Assassinated on January 15, 1919, the same day as Rosa Luxemburg.

O
VERTURE

German democracy, the result of military defeat, was born not in November 1918, but in October
—
thanks to the addition of a few words to the German constitution, to please American president Woodrow Wilson.

The play has two acts. The story line was to be carved out of the elements described below.

A
CT 1:
S
ATURDAY
, N
OVEMBER
9

The German navy had begun its mutiny in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven on October 29, followed by a wave of strikes and the formation of workers’ and soldiers’ councils across Germany, led primarily by moderate social democrats. No resistance. Only in Munich had a radical regime taken power and ended the Bavarian monarchy. On November 7, a delegation had been sent from Spa to an unknown place in France to negotiate an armistice. On the same day, in Berlin, the moderate social democrats sent an ultimatum to the chancellor, demanding the abdication of the Kaiser and the crown prince or else they would resign. A split in the government would endanger the negotiations for a truce. On November 9, Karl Liebknecht’s
Spartakusbund,
afraid that Ebert and his moderates would swamp them and perhaps even join forces with non-Marxist parties, planned a general strike for eleven o’clock. There was reason to believe Liebknecht would also call for a nation-wide revolution modelled on the Soviets for Monday, November 11. The stakes could not be higher.

However, around two in the afternoon, the news spread that Liebknecht was going to seize the initiative right away and proclaim a soviet republic. Without a clear intention to pre-empt this move, but intending to say
something
, Ebert’s colleague Philipp Scheidemann stepped on the balcony of the Reichstag. Swayed by the crowd below and caught up in the excitement of the moment, he made a rousing speech. He ended it by shouting, “Long live the free German Republic!” Liebknecht’s proclamation, two hours later, of a free socialist republic from the balcony of the Schloss was an anticlimax.

It was widely reported that Ebert was displeased by his friend Scheidemann’s speech, on the grounds that a proclamation ending the monarchy could only be made by a constituent assembly.

In the evening radical soldiers held a meeting in one of the Reichstag chambers and called for a gathering of the councils’ representatives next day in the Zirkus Busch to pass a resolution establishing a provisional revolutionary government, i.e., not a parliamentary one. Such a government, they assumed, would naturally include the bourgeois parties and therefore
—
because only number of votes counted
—
distort the true power relationship between the classes and be incompatible with the interests of the proletariat.

A
CT 2:
S
UNDAY
, N
OVEMBER
10

Army Headquarters, Spa, occupied Belgium. There were reports that in the east there were Soviet incursions into East Prussia and Polish incursions into West Prussia, Posen and Silesia.

The army faced its most serious crisis since the defeat by Napoleon in the Battle of Jena in 1806. It saw itself as the invisible seat of ultimate power, above the government, above the parties, above the constitution. It was now without a head. Yesterday, after news of the developments in Berlin had reached army headquarters, the chief of staff, Field Marshall Hindenburg, had asked his deputy, Wilhelm Groener, to tell the Kaiser that the army no longer stood behind him. Early on the morning of November 10 the Kaiser abdicated and, with a small retinue, crossed the Dutch border into exile. In subsequent days Hindenburg did nothing to suggest publicly that he, Hindenburg, ever admitted military defeat.

For Groener, the only sensible solution was to make a deal with the chancellor, Friedrich Ebert. Only Ebert, he thought, was in a position to guarantee the army a continuation of its traditional role.

In the evening Groener made a telephone call to Chancellor Ebert in Berlin.

Ebert was sitting at Bismarck’s desk. Groener offered to place the army at the disposal of the government. In return, the government would pledge support to the High Command in its efforts to maintain law and order.

Ebert accepted the offer.

By the evening of November 10 the Weimar Republic had taken shape. The moderates in the social democratic party had won the race with the radicals. The price for this victory was the predominant role of the military within the state.

A
ND
N
OW — THE
M
URDERS

Handwritten note:

Doctor Paul Levi is a social democratic member of the Reichstag and one of the most prominent and eloquent defence lawyers in Berlin. He returned to Frankfurt where he had defended Rosa Luxemburg before the war when she was accused of seditious and antimilitary activities. Doctor Levi is a collector of Egyptian art and came to Frankfurt to see the Egyptian exhibits at the International Music Exhibition. He is also in the city to exchange views with his colleague Doctor Hermann Geisel on the case against Paul Jörns, the judge who in 1919 had obstructed the proceedings against the murderers of Rosa Luxemburg.

Transcript from the Archives of Radio Frankfurt, Stamped “Copy”. The interviewer is staff announcer Rolf Giller.

G
ILLER
:
Herr Doktor
Levi, how does it feel to be back in Frankfurt?

L
EVI
: Very good. I have always had the warmest feelings toward Frankfurt. I began my practice here, you know, in 1908, when I was twenty-five.

G
ILLER
: But you were born in Hechingen, in Württemberg. Isn’t that where the Hohenzollerns originally came from?

L
EVI
: (Laughs.) Yes. Their medieval castle is still there, on top of a mountain.

G
ILLER
: Did that mean anything to you, when you were a child?

L
EVI
: Of course. The romance of the middle ages. Troubadours.
Minnesänger. Barbarossa
. But what meant much more to me was that in my area the peasant revolt began in 1514. That appealed to my rebellious nature. But if you meant, did I have any special feelings for the Kaiser and his ancestral family, then or later, the answer is no. I have been on the opposite side as long as I can remember.

G
ILLER
: Do you know why?

Levi: A well-developed sense of justice, that is all
—
not uncommon in southern Germany. My father was a small textile manufacturer. We were comfortably off but we always had a strong social conscience.

G
ILLER
: I can still hear the Swabian in your voice.

L
EVI
: I hope I will never lose it. It helps immensely in my practice in Berlin.

G
ILLER
: Well now. You have been involved in radical politics and at one point were a close associate of Lenin.

L
EVI
: Just a second,
Herr
Giller. I assume that you use the word “radical” in its true sense, meaning that I like going to the root of things. As you know, the word is derived from the Latin
radix
, meaning root. I am sure you cannot mean that I have ever been in favour of throwing bombs just for the hell of it.

G
ILLER
: Not just for the hell of it. You associated with Lenin in Zurich. You have often spoken about it. He certainly was prepared to use force to achieve his aims
—
and in due course did so, quite effectively. You must have had something in common with him,
Herr Doktor
. Tell us about it.

L
EVI
: What we had in common was that we were both Marxists and Marxists believe that when a revolutionary situation arises force may have to be used. As to my association with Lenin, that began during the war. I was called up. My regiment was sent to Alsace. I staged a slow hunger strike, for many weeks, lost a lot of weight and was eventually discharged. One of my sisters lived in Zurich. I managed to cross the border and join her. There were many kindred spirits in Zurich. We helped a number of people desert from the army. Our associates included Russian revolutionaries, among others Lenin. In 1917, I was at the station to see him off, when he left on that famous sealed train through wartime Germany to Finland Station in Saint Petersburg, with a visa from the German military authorities in his pocket. They hoped that this firebrand would provide
—
how shall I put it?
—
a certain
élan
to the revolution and therefore take Russia out of the war. Of course, the revolution was already in progress. That calculation was one of the few the German military made during the war that turned out to be eminently correct. The next time I saw him was in the summer of 1920, after Saint Petersburg had become Petrograd, and two hundred thousand men were marching past him.

G
ILLER
: And what were your relations with him at the time?

L
EVI
: This is too big a subject for this interview. Let me just say that toward the end of the war I joined the Spartacist League, which, in December 1918, evolved into the Communist Party. After the assassination of its leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, in the following month, I became their successor. In that capacity I headed the German delegation to the second congress of the Comintern in Moscow. The Russians thought all countries in Europe were ripe for revolution. Only France and England might prefer to remain capitalist for a few more years. In our view, so did Germany. The moment for revolutionary action had come and gone. On November 9, 1918, we communists had the power in our hands, for a few hours. But already the next day, after Scheidemann had made his proclamation, it became clear that the majority of social democrats were ready to make their accommodation with the bourgeois state and agree to calling a constituent assembly. Elections for the assembly were held on January 19, four days after the assassinations. As to my relations with Lenin, let me just say that there was a clash between his autocratic approach to the party and the Marxist humanism Rosa Luxemburg had advocated for many years. After her death, her old associates and I tried to maintain it among German socialists. In due course I was expelled. Since then I have tried to contribute whatever I can to the left wing of the social democratic party, which I represent in the Reichstag.

G
ILLER
: Do you think there is a chance that the two parties on the left, the social democrats and the communists, can be reconciled, perhaps under your leadership since you have been prominent in both?

L
EVI
: Not while the Russians call German social democrats social fascists and while German communists blindly follow Moscow’s party line. Should a serious threat arise in Germany, perhaps in the form of a determined
condottiere à la
Mussolini, I would agree, in view of the relative strength of the bourgeois parties, that the only chance of resisting such a threat would be through a reconciliation and a merger. Together we could outvote any conceivable combination of right wingers in the Reichstag. I would certainly do my utmost to bring it about.

G
ILLER
: Do you see such a threat on the horizon?

L
EVI
: Fortunately I do not. But I do not think it is beyond the range of possibilities that a marginal figure like that Austrian who tried a putsch in Munich with Ludendorff four years ago
—
I have forgotten his name
—
might one day emerge again and become a serious danger. Or others like him. Depending on the circumstances. As Goethe used to say, if there is a rose in one garden, the chances are there are roses in other gardens.

G
ILLER
: You knew Rosa Luxemburg already before the war, didn’t you?

L
EVI
: Yes, in 1913 she chose me as her lawyer. She was a few years older than I and already very well known at the time. I was greatly flattered. She had made a speech not far from here, in Bockenheim, that the police did not like. I was very impressed by her revolutionary spirit, by her high moral standards, her humanism, her superior intelligence and her effectiveness as a public speaker. She was a clear thinker and a superb writer.

Giller: What was it in her thinking that you particularly admired?

L
EVI
: As a follower of Karl Marx, she identified herself entirely with the interests of the working class, here and everywhere else in the world. She was convinced that after the revolution a socialist system could be established that was truly democratic and would guarantee freedom of thought and encourage self-criticism. I agreed with her entirely that a parliamentary government in a capitalist society was incompatible with the interests of the working class. The bourgeois parties could always outvote the workers’ parties. However, by the time she was assassinated, the decision had been made to call a constituent assembly and establish parliamentary government. She would have played her part in it, just as I do, until another opportunity arose to end the capitalist system.

G
ILLER
: And she felt just as German as you and I?