"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?

The Red · Jan 20, 2017

"We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words—Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."

~ Jack London, The Iron Heel

It was no surprise that Hitler’s criticisms of the Bavarian Soviet Republic in Our Struggle are in their most comprehensive and livid form when dealing with the Republic’s demise. It is always easy to talk about incompetence in the wake of defeats, though Hitler’s experience of Levine’s bureaucracy and its failings gained an ear not only because of his “fly on the wall” knowledge of events but also in the visceral nature of the retelling. Having barely survived the bloody battle for Munich, Hitler was adamant that he would never again have to take such risks because of bad planning.

Though it was not the greatest stir Hitler’s revolutionary programme would cause, the future leader’s defamation of so many “revolutionary martyrs” caused many dissenting voices despite his earnest efforts to analyse the situation based on Lenin’s own advice to the Bavarian Soviet and make comparisons whenever he could to situations where the Soviet Red Army had been victorious but where the KPD’s revolutionaries had been soundly defeated.

Naturally it was easy for Hitler to scold his former comrades, almost all of whom had died in the Spring of 1919, with the benefit of hindsight. These men and women were in no position to defend themselves, and those who had survived largely went along with Hitler’s analysis of events. Some sources argue that this was an exercise in ego, laying the blame on those who had already been slain whilst agreeing with the military man that more could have been done. To the east the Soviet Union had risen out of the ashes of the Russian Empire, the White Armies crushed and the Western Powers falling over themselves to open up relations. It is likely there was more than a hint of jealousy amongst those who had squandered their opportunity to join Lenin in his glorious victory on the basis of the KPD’s contemporary hope that military conflict could be avoided.

~ Geoffrey Corbett, Hitler’s First Revolution

---

The dry ground and paved roads of Bavaria had been far more accommodating than it had been in the Winter, the warm Spring weather had made the march a burden all the same. Reinhard liked to consider himself in good condition but even he was glad for the rest as the army halted outside the city they were preparing to besiege.

Though the Freikorps numbers would have been an insignificant fraction of the old Heer, the ongoing dismantling of the army had left the Freikorps as one of the most powerful military forces in the country, and Germany’s defenders. Now the two forces were marching in unison, the Heer ordered to crush the revolutionaries, and those who had sworn to protect Germany either out of duty or desperation.

For Reinhard and his fellow soldiers it was a self-proclaimed mission, though it was one that the new government had been quick to make official in the face of the revolutionary chaos spreading throughout the country. Reinhard had been one of the many who had been abandoned by the old army after his train home from the front had crossed the Rhine. He was penniless and the sight of the hunger around him made it clear that it would hard to turn that around any time soon. All he had was his rifle, his experiences of the last four years, and the nightmares that came with them. When the offer had come to put those prior qualities to use, he had had to bury thoughts of the darkness that lingered in his idle moments.

He had hated the war by the end, he hated the regime for losing it all the same, it was anger that had grown even stronger when he was discarded by those in charge with little more than an empty speech of thanks in a town hundreds of miles away from anyone he knew. He realised now that that had been the sort of delusional anger that drove drunk men to shout at the moon. He wanted to lash out at anything, without realising the true source of his ire. Germany had lost the war from within, it hadn’t been the fault of himself or anyone at the front. The military had been quick to make it clear it wasn’t themselves either. Many within his new group of comrades talked of the enemy within and as he dwelled on the idea, he realised there was something to it.

Whilst Reinhard had been fighting for Germany the communists had avoided the call to defend their nation, preferring to sow discontent and harm the war effort. Their hope was that a German defeat would progress their fantasies of a Communist revolution which would put themselves and their Bolshevik allies in charge. Reinhardt had been informed by one of his soldiers that the outbreaks of violence at Kiel and subsequently across the Baltic Coast had been in response to Germany being within sight of victory. It had been rather odd to think they had been winning when they had been on the retreat in the last weeks of the war but the violence at Kiel was clearly communist inspired and who knew how long it might have gone for prior to German reversal on the front?

Reinhard had joined the Freikorps for a meal ticket but he had had to admit that he enjoyed the camaraderie all the same. Most of his fellow fighters had the same story as he had, veterans who had picked up a cause, though many seemed more than happy to sort out the reds. Reinhard was regaled with stories from ex-soldiers who had been spat at in the streets by communists and in one case even beaten up. He hadn’t experienced this himself, though as they had marched towards Berlin he had begun to notice the distaste on the faces of many who watched them march by. He had wondered how many of them might secretly have been working against Germany whilst he had been fighting to defend his homeland.

The communists they had encountered so far had been easy enough to spot for the most part, all banners and barricades announcing their revolution to the world as if they weren’t expecting a response from the people they had betrayed. By the time they had been dealt with Reinhard was almost glad they had stayed idle during the war. They were a passionate lot, even in captivity, but militarily useless.

A call rang out for food and a line quickly formed, as the aroma of fat and salt from the pot worked its way into the nostrils of the armed camp he could see Munich behind it. With any luck the communists there would be just as incompetent. The rumours were that they were starving as well, that always softened up an enemy. He wasn’t much of a historian but he reckoned that had probably always been the case, he could hear many in the line joking about seeing if the communists would surrender for a plate of stew. A nice thought but the wrong one, they had to be taught a lesson and if possible wiped out completely. There was no way of negotiating with an infection.

To share the stew would have been a crime in any case, Reinhard had been constantly hungry for the best part of his military career but he would have sworn it would have tasted good under any circumstances. No bits of sawdust sausage and underdone turnip floating about today, this was proper goulash. The cook was very proud of himself, boasting about how even the bread was fresh. This was no coincidence but Reinhard enjoyed it all the same.

As had been the case before many battles a fatty meal had been given out to raise morale and ensure greater stamina before their final advance, the figure now standing where the stew pots had been blocked out much of the view of Munich indicated that that time was shortly before them. Their commander always enjoyed a speech before a battle.

Captain Drumpf was not in overall command of the Lutzow Freikorps though the men treated him as if he were their friend and leader at the same time. Despite his monobrow, his sulky features and the almost comedic parting on his balding head many drew inspiration from him. Reinhard would have included himself in that number, Drumpf was always able to get them riled up and ready to fight, a friend and a leader who actively revelled in his appearance as if it were some sort of affront to the communists they were destined to rid Germany of. He raised his hand in the air as a sign of his intention to speak, the man quietened but he remained silent before he began to roar.

“This certainly is a hellish place to be stuck with all you grim bastards!” The crowd began to feign jeering, “I’m just glad I’m your side!”

There was a genuine roar of approval.

“The traitors who occupy Munich are not so lucky, they will die at your hands! The Americans, the English, the French, the Italians, they all sit round and cheer on the enablers of their victory. The foreign enemy honours the communists, for they were the ones who sold us out. Today they are going to pay for their crimes, today we shall cleanse Germany of their filth!”

“You grim bastards, you are the men who fought to defend Germany from foreign evil and on your return stepped forward to eradicate those who betrayed their nation. A hundred years ago the Lutzow Freikorps freed Bavaria from the French, today we embark on a new mission, to free Germany from all of her detractors who would sneer at German greatness."

“Today, we take back control!”

It was not a particularly eloquent speech but Reinhard didn’t need one, none of the men did. They were all on the same side and the time had come to kill.

---

The woodcutting is from God's Man by Lynd Ward

And for our American comrades:

The Red · Feb 2, 2017

‘The war experience is an ultimate confirmation of the power of men to ascribe meaning and pattern to a world, even when that world seems to resist all patterning.’

~ John Leed, No man's land

‘As Marx once said, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." Having failed to learn anything about practicality from the prior examples of the Paris Commune and the Spartacist Revolt, we, the workers and soldiers of Munich, were told to hold the line against a force that outnumbered us thirty-to-one. Today it is clear that we were being led by those who believed in the same outdated tactics used in 1848.

And so the farce began. As in Paris and Berlin our movement was hopelessly outnumbered, and for the most part untrained. Anyone of any real military experience was forced into desperate improvisation over any attempt at basic strategy by our so-called leadership, I found myself in this position and tried my best to inflict as many casualties as possible on the counter-revolutionary forces who had come to sack Munich and murder its workers.

To think of the paradise we might have inherited if we could have made Munich the graveyard of people’s enemy!

The fall of Munich must serve as a final lesson to all of those within our movement that confrontation with counter-revolutionary elements in German society must always be met with the upmost mobilisation of collective resistance.

Why were the military formations loyal to the revolution broken up? Why were the piecemeal elements forbidden to officially train the revolutionary volunteers? Why did comrade Levine ignore comrade Lenin’s advice on the mobilisation of the workers? Why was greater use not made of the the many alleys, tall buildings and squares to isolate and destroy the enemy rather than them face head on in so many pointless and suicidal confrontations?

I have heard these questions repeated often from my fellow survivors of the Munich farce, it is pivotal now that we turn these testaments to military incompetence into lessons for the future, written in stone, so that we never make the same mistakes again!’

Adolf Hitler, Our Struggle

---

George felt himself shiver as the Freikorps approached, it had been a while since his last real combat, and he had never fought fellow Germans before.

The enemy troops were clearly experienced, not surprising as George guessed many would have been fighting in France alongside him not too long ago. They were perhaps a little too relaxed, perhaps a sign that they were growing accustomed to not being shelled and gassed every day. That could only be a good thing. George felt his own heart pounding at a rate he hadn’t felt since those last few humiliating weeks of retreat in France. That anxiety was normal for him, as was the way he whistled tunelessly in an attempt to stay focused. The prey would soon be in the trap, and the time to spring it would soon be upon him and his comrades.

Even this small group of Freikorps clearly outnumbered the militia forces that had been put under his disposal, though he felt confident all the same. They were a good bunch, not necessarily well drilled but cohesive at the very least, and willing to spit in the face of those in charge even whilst hopelessly outnumbered. The group of industrial workers and students had different ideas and backgrounds but George had managed to unite them around the very thing that had changed his own mind, a hatred of the authority that had got Germany into this mess.

The square he had been tasked with defending was a necessary artery of the city, lying in the middle of Sonnen street. The Palace of Justice sat most prominent amongst many government buildings, perhaps even more importantly for those they were fighting against the bank of Munich’s vaults were nearly as close by. After all, the council had warned them all about the true motivations of the ‘White Guards of Capitalism’.

The importance of these locations had caused George to fear a double envelopment, though there had been no commotion to indicate anything amiss. This wasn’t as reassuring as it should have been. The city was fighting but not nearly to the extent he had hoped, there was the distant rumbling of gunfire, and in the distance he could see a plume of smoke rising from behind the Volkstheater, but the Freikorps had clearly been able to walk leisurely through several blocks with little to no resistance. George hadn’t expected the enemy to be this complacent by the time they had arrived at his little patch of the city and he could at least turn that to his advantage, but he had expected there to be less of them as well. It had turned out that any hopes of attrition had been overly optimistic, if there was the slightest chance of survival, every shot had to count.

The leader of the column halted in front of the shambolic barricade that George had helped assemble, unlike the original plans of those in overall command, it was not to the basis of their defence. Instead it would be a focal point for a far more ambitious strategy.

More and more Freikorps came into the line of sight, swaggering and disorganised, as if this were a routine patrol in friendly territory. George’s whistle became almost inaudible as he placed the sight of his Mauser squarely on the chest of the one who seemed to be in charge, he was no sniper but he had already reckoned it was best to bag the commanding officer first. When the first shots rang out all surprise would be lost, as such it was best to make them count as much as possible.

George had drilled those under his command to wait for his shot but he realised that with every moment he lingered that that became less and less likely. He had wanted as many Freikorps within his little killing cauldron as possible but he could already imagine the nerves getting better of one of his comrades, giving the game away prematurely. He had waited as long as possible, soon the barricade would be torn down and the enemy below would have a direct route of escape.

‘The enemy’ were men he might have fought with less than a year beforehand, back before the Spring Offensive where it had seemed that victory might still have been possible. In different circumstances he might have been celebrating Germany’s victory with these men, or even in defeat he might have been advancing alongside them just now, advancing into Munich to crush a revolution that George had helped perpetrate, perhaps with someone else aiming at his chest instead of the other way around. George put such hypotheticals to one side and opened fire.

It was the first shot he had fired in anger since returning to Germany and it showed, George’s aim was nowhere near as strong as the drive that encouraged him to commit an act that he would have once seen as treachery. In the same way that a person will shiver and gasp after having just jumped into a cold body of water, George was temporarily stunned as he watched the man he had been aiming for throw his arms over his head and attempt to run for cover.

In the same way the body acclimatises to the new conditions around it, George had regained his composure before the Freikorps officer could make it. A small splatter of blood erupted from the man’s leg, then a larger one from his exposed back. George could see the man was in great pain but could not hear his screams over the gunfire from his comrades and those on the ground who had begun to fire back. Before he could put the man out of his misery a bullet smashed the window pane next to his head and George flung himself to the floor out of habit. He might have become a revolutionary now but his old soldier’s instincts were still with him.

Bullets were now slamming into the wall behind him, creating a cloud of dust that made it hard to crouch down the hallway without placing his hands on any broken glass. It was long before he was cursing and wrapping a handkerchief around the large gash across his left palm. The firing had stopped behind and down the hall his men were making a good account of themselves, peaking out from the window he realised they had managed to pin down those Freikorps still alive on the street. As he had hoped, the rest had been thrown into retreat.

Several grenades fell down from the upper floors of the gymnasium down the street as the enemy attempted to withdraw and regroup, he didn’t wish to risk sticking his head out of the window frame and as such missed the sight of the resulting, witnessing only the smoke and the anguish below him. He began to open fire, the men below were only temporarily disorientated despite the sight of so many dead comrades, it seemed as if they were veterans after all.

George put the whistle to his lips and screeched, the firing from the windows lost frequency as he and many others slung their guns around their backs and ran down the staircases as quickly as possible without breaking their necks. He had hoped it would have taken the enemy longer to organise themselves amidst the confusion but it seemed as if they were already adjusting to the shock. There was only one thing left to be done, abandon the high ground and charge.

The numbers were too weighted against them for Munich’s high buildings to be off any long-term value, the enemy could count on reinforcements whilst he couldn’t. Taking the fight to them was inevitable, and it was better to do it now than wait to be surrounded. Many of his men had seemed incredulous when George had suggested this the night before, he wasn’t even supposed to be in charge, but he was the only veteran amongst them and whilst it wasn’t the sanest of strategies it was aggressive enough to excite those who had never been to war. He had no doubts that he would be running out in the open by himself, his comrades had a taste for it now.

By the time George was outside the Freikorps were already on the back foot, exposed from cover they were scrambling back in the complete reverse of the way they had swaggered forward only a few minutes beforehand. George knelt in to the alleyway on the side of the library, relying on its cover to take aim at one of the retreating troops and fire. Satisfied that the body was on the ground for good he tried to find another target, amidst the panic there were many to choose from, all too late he remembered that panic was a two-way street in combat.

In his eagerness to press the attack, he had ignored the figure lurking in the shadows of the alley, only becoming aware of him when he felt the wind disappear from his lungs. The effect of being stabbed in the ribs was a terrible phenomenon, at the front George had always felt that he could emphasise with comrades who had been hit by shrapnel or run afoul of a bayonet but having to endure the experience first-hand was an entirely different matter. The confusion, the inability to breath, and above all the pain, everything seemed to arrive in rapid succession. He didn’t have time to fear for his life as the concealed soldier dragged him into the shadows in an attempt to finish him off.

Before George could react to this horrible end one of his comrades opened fire down the alley, his would-be killer’s face and neck were ground up behind him as he had attempted to use George’s body cover. The cadaver collapsed and George with him, still gasping for breath only to realise blood was coming up instead. His saviour attempted to help him to his feet, George wasn’t sure whether his own look of desperation had caused the student alarm or whether it was the blood he could feel coming out of his mouth.

An increasing numbness was coming upon him as the young man laid him to the ground once again and sitting him upright against some old scaffolding. The student was speaking now, reassuring him that everything was going to be alright, that he was going to just go and get help. George would have told him to forget him and concentrate on the task at hand but his senses were dulling and the only thing he seemed able to focus on was the speed of their decline. The student held his hand for a moment, squeezing it tightly, George faintly squeezed back, it was his one indication of having some sort of life left. It seemed to satisfy his saviour enough as an indicator that George wouldn’t necessarily die before he could go to get help.

Left alone in the alley George could barely hear the increasing amount of gunfire as it grew louder, something was firing off a lot of bullets and it was getting closer. His vision was becoming increasingly blurry but it was clear enough to see his fellow revolutionaries falling back. They had gotten too excited in their advance, or the enemy had arrived with reinforcements. He dreamily couldn’t be that they had simply lost their nerve, they had made him proud. He had made himself proud.

George saw that one of his comrades running past was still brandishing a large crimson banner even in flight. The flag’s colour remained vivid despite his consciousness slipping, as it disappeared he coughed up more blood into his hands.

So that’s what it means.

It was all he could think as he stared down at his hands with the image of the banner clear in his mind, George was rather happy to have made the connection as he finally fainted.

---

The poster is "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" by El Lissitzky

Special thanks to @iainbhx for his help in mapping the battle of Munich!

The Red · Feb 8, 2017

Comrades, and friends, before today's update I would like to take a little moment to thank everyone who has already voted for this TL in the Turtledove poll for Best Early Twentieth Century Timeline. It's such a great feeling to know people are enjoying the TL that much and I hope to you all continue to give me your thoughts, positive or negative, as time goes on.

So, thanks again, and without further ado:

“Without them, anarchy would reign and humanity would drop backward into the primitive night out of which it had so painfully emerged.”

~ Jack London, The Iron Heel

The little blue tram seemed like a miniature Bavarian flag as it trundled through the city. Freshly painted in the midst of the chaos that had engulfed the nation, it shone out in a city still far too full of grey, burned, blood stained rubble.

Peter hadn’t been into Munich for such a long time that he didn’t recognise many of the changes that had taken place in the city since his last visit. As the tram carried him and his mother down its usual route it was nonetheless quite obvious that there something had gone wrong.

It had been less than a week since the police had arrived at their house to chase away all of the people that the man with the bad breath had forced them to live with. His father had been shouting at them for some time beforehand but most had refused to leave, insisting they had a right to stay, as if they owned the place. By the time they had departed with the police Peter’s father had still been flustered, but he was smiling for the first time in weeks. Peter had smiled back as his father told him about how the heroic patriots had defeated the nasty men who had broken into their home, and though Peter was at an age where many children began to become suspicious of adults simplifying stories it seemed as if his father genuinely believed in this version, despite it sounding like something out of a fairy tale.

Peter had believed him at the time, but looking at the city was giving him a different perspective, there were soldiers everywhere but they were not particularly gallant looking. The tram had ground to a halt at the sight of a decorators hand cart having lost a wheel whilst trying to cross the line. An argument had broken out between the tram driver and the decorator, only for it to be resolved by a group of the soldiers his father had referred to as Freikorps kicking the decorator in his rear and dumping the cart on the other side of the rails, sending varnish and wallpaper flying everywhere. Some inside the carriage had laughed at the decorators exaggerated reaction to his misfortune but Peter wasn’t one of them. His schoolmaster had warned the class never to encourage bullies and the scene he had witnessed certainly resembled the playground, only with adults.

Munich seemed to be full of decorators and other construction workers all of, as if the city was trying to rebuild itself from the events of the last few months as quickly as possible. Perhaps to forget what had happened. There was certainly much repairing to do, many buildings he thought had seen before were hard to recognise as the tram went by, burned out and deserted. Others had windows missing, or occasionally doors, as if there had been a series of robberies in the heart of the city. Some shop fronts were covered in ash, as if they’d witnessed a large fire, every now and then there were vacant patches of pavement utterly covered in something resembling dog mess, sticking out due to the pedestrians trying to avoid walking on them.

There were many people out shopping, enough for the noisy construction to be drowned out by the thousands of conversations taking place. If the city was rebuilding it was also restocking, having been subject to a blockade that his parents had both told him the bad men who had stolen their house were responsible for. Shops that had been damaged in the fighting had hung canvasses over their shattered windows declaring themselves open for business and people from outside the city had brought in carts much like the decorators to provide an alternative source for those not too keen on the long cue that seemed to be outside every bakers, butchers and greengrocers.

Peter had noticed one specialising in chocolate and asked his mother if he could have some. She quickly pulled him away and said she would get him some somewhere else. Peter was a patient boy but he did wonder what was wrong with the chocolate at that particular stall and whether it had anything to do with the confectioner’s strange hat and curled hair.

As the crowds grew ever larger Pete’s mother continued to hold his hand, the simultaneous rebuilding and restocking of the city inevitably led to some disagreement over priorities and a lot of people insisted that people stay away from them as they sawed wood, hammered signs back on to shop fronts or tried to scrub the reddish-brown strains that everyone was avoiding off of the pavement. The Freikorps and the soldiers watched all of this without any attempt to get involved as if they were heavily armed but lazy policeman, only when a loud argument broke out could Peter see them walking over to break it up. It seemed as if they were happy for the city to get itself back on its feet without their interference provided the locals were quiet about it.

Peter could understand that, though he did wonder if they had to be so mean and whether they enjoyed kicking people and destroying their carts or whether it was simply their jobs. He thought once again about how they didn’t seem much different from the men he had first seen standing outside his house on his way back from school, concluding that it was probably something he should keep to himself, until he got a far more vivid reminder.

The man with the bad breath had shaved off his moustache but it was undoubtedly him all the same. Peter recognised his black eyes and his intense face as he walked down the street towards them, carrying a three sided box full of bricks over his shoulder. Suddenly his mother shrieked and Peter realised she had seen him as well. Expecting another argument the soldiers were already on their way over to her when she pointed directly at the man, whose expression had suddenly contorted into a menacing glare as he stopped both of them before becoming neutral almost as he attempted to ignore the pair and walk by them. Peter’s mother was having none of it.

As she began to explain why she had shouted at the man he began to walk faster, still trying to navigate his load of bricks around the packed crowd, before dropping the act altogether and pushing his way through the lines of people and threw his bricks to one side, breaking into a sprint. People shrieked and one man used curse words that Peter had never heard as the bricks went flying into the air, creating a gap in the crowd which allowed for the man who had broken into their house to gain more speed. The soldiers were in hot pursuit and even as they disappeared from view Peter and his mother stood speechless. Both hoping the criminal would be caught, and both dreading that if not he might come back to their home to wreak vengeance on the pair who had broken his cover.

Peter quickly came to the conclusion that the soldiers were heroic after all, he had already forgotten about the incident with the decorator.

---

No history bit today as this is something of a two-parter.

The Red · Feb 9, 2017

'Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.'

~ Mao Zedong

Before detailing the events of final battle in Munich it is unfortunately important to note how many conflicting accounts of Hitler’s role in the battle there are. Whilst there are of course restrictions provided by Hitler’s own unwillingness to go into any great depth about his actions it seems that this vacuum has been met not with any earnest attempts to seek great clarity but instead to manipulate the ambiguity to forward the political opinions of the author. Many have been quite forceful in doing this, with the British government being shamelessly complicit.

It has always been hard to find truly objective history and not always for conscious reasons. Whilst I have attempted to report my own research and those of reputable sources in this work there is no doubt that somewhere I will have accidentally printed a myth, an exaggeration, or some sort of bias which I’m not even aware of exuding. We are, all of us, subject to human error.

There is a limit to which this can be tolerated however. The willingness to skew the most objective of facts into politically loaded retellings deserves no place in British schools. Even those utterly opposed to any dialogue with the socialist states must acknowledge that understanding is more important than misinformation.

This is certainly what Hitler ascribed the disaster in Munich to and as accounts go he had a particularly bad time of proceedings. Many on each side would later claim to have fought in his midst, with some of such accounts being contradictory to the extreme. Often these are the exaggerated statements of liars and frauds who deliberately exaggerated Hitler’s bravery or cowardice in the name of sensationalism and profit.

What has been proven as almost certain is that Adolf Hitler was amongst a number of men who defended the large Marienplatz hotel and the streets adjacent to it. Like many instances of fighting in the city it seems that, like other small cells of KPD fighters involving former soldiers, this group held off the Freikorps advance for some time until being surrounded and forced to retreat into the hotel itself.

Whether at that point the fighting continued is a subject of some dispute. Captain Ernst Rohm, the Freikorps commander on the scene, describes how the communists continued to fire until running out of ammunition and setting fire to the hotel out of spite. Heinrich Stoph, a KPD member who fought alongside Hitler on the day insisted that Hitler had retreated in the hotel with the group but wasn’t to be seen by the time the Freikorps gave up trying to take the hotel by force and opted to burn out the defenders instead. Regardless of the final outcome, the Marienplatz was ablaze by the evening of May 8, 1919. Hitler and Stoph were only a handful of survivors from the communist ranks.

Though Stoph successfully escaped the city shortly after the collapse of the Bavarian Soviet, it seems that Hitler planned to stay in Munich for a while and allow the mood to calm before making his escape. Rebuilding the city after the battle called for many hands and Hitler worked as a labourer for several days, as he had done in Vienna, before being identified by an enraged passer-by who insisted that Hitler had thrown her out of her house.

Shortly after, Hitler found himself once again the hands of the Bavarian constabulary.

~ Geoffrey Corbett, Hitler's First Revolution

---

The cell was damp and dark, the drips of water and feint screeches of rats joining the chorus of the exasperated sobs of the shivering wretch sitting on his wooden board that doubled up as a bed and a seat. A moment beforehand it had been a scene of pounding and screeching but the guards hadn’t even bothered to check. This was a prison after all, after the inmates got over their little tantrum they would soon quieten down. Adolf had seemingly proven them right.

His leg was shaking, creating an odd effect between his boot and the detached sole flapping back and forth, as if it were a mouth guffawing at him. His knuckles were burst. He had done in his hands and one of his boots in conflict with the wall of his prison cell, and it wasn’t long before he was reminded that that was only the second most pathetic fight he had got wrapped up in in the last few months.

The imperialist slaughter would have to count as the first. He would have given his life for his country as has millions of Germans had had to, yet it had all turned out to be a horrific lie. The defence of Bavarian revolution was a truly noble cause at least but it had been so poorly led he’d had to flee before being completely overwhelmed by the white guards of capitalism, many of them former soldiers like him, unable to see their folly. His fight with the wall had no loftier ideals, it was sheer rage at his position. It had been an act of passion with no lasting benefit.

The temporary numbness was comforting but it was only there for a moment, the pain that followed at least served as a distraction but not nearly enough to remind him why was here.

He was Adolf Hitler and once again he had run afoul of the Bavarian police.

The last time he had been in their custody he had been full of hope and confusion, growing only more elated when the police had chosen to ignore his desertion when he had proclaimed his intention to join the German army. Now there was no admiration, not even any pity, he was an agent of chaos, a traitor. He was a communist.

Am I though?

In the same way he had joined up to fight for Germany only to be used as cannon fodder for some feckless aristocrats, hadn’t he been left to fend for himself and end up in a cell due to the orders of naïve intellectuals, self-proclaimed revolutionaries who wouldn’t know how to spell ‘strategy’ amongst their world of meetings and ‘isms’.

It was a demoralising state to be in, betrayed by both sides, aware that the glory of Germany had been turned into a malicious lie but now equally knowledgeable of how incompetent the purported leaders of the communist movement where. All he had got in reward for his idealism was living in hell amongst almost certain death thanks to the incompetence of others and eventually ending up in prison. He realised that he was just another young dreamer who had been used for the indulgence of imperialists and philosophers. It was a role he would play no longer.

He tried to think of going back to Franz in Vienna, or perhaps back to his family in Linz, back to painting and some more honest work where he could live and pursue his interests without being caught up in the endless cycle of humiliation and disappointment that he had found himself in.

Then he saw the wall again and it all came rushing back.

His blood was still on it, and the rage he remembered being afflicted with was printed on it as well. He wasn’t just in this cell because of others who had failed him for he had also helped put himself in here. He had been stupid, too easily led, too willing to ascribe a universal truth to questions he hadn’t thought about in any great deal by himself.

The answer wasn’t to wallow alone in self-pity nor to curse others, he had to become cleverer. He had to understand the motivations of those who had helped crush the revolution, he had to work out ways to mobilise those who had sat idle whilst the revolution was underway. Most importantly he had to excise the socialist movement of incompetence.

He was not going to give up on the communist party, he was too far gone now. He would never forget who he had been treated at the front and now he had seen the way the state reacted why they rose up. Those in charge would have to be cast out, and he would help build a movement to bring that about. Together the German people would restore German greatness by building a new society free of the bungling imperialists and the parasitic capitalist class and when that world was built he would go back to his painting.

Adolf looked at the blood on the wall again, there would be much more of that required, both within the party and without. His blood wouldn’t be wasted on rage anymore, only in the sharpest state of mind could it be spilled.

He flexed his broken hands and smiled, soon the German streets would be awash with blood and only the German workers could emerge victorious from such a mass struggle. In the wake of their victory, when the time came to wash the streets again, Germany itself would be cleansed of all filth.

The ceiling of the cell was utterly dark in the night, all above was the consuming darkness. A new day would come, and Adolf Hitler finally knew what he had to do.

---

The painting is "Black Square" by Kazimir Malevich

The Red · Feb 10, 2017

'I do not know how to avoid the conclusion that a man who is capable of taking the illusions of religion so literally and is so sure of a special personal intimacy with the Almighty is unfitted for relations with ordinary children of men.'

~ Sigmund Freud, Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study

‘Whilst the arguments as to whom or which nation it was more damaging towards, the First World War is perhaps unique in human history in it that virtually everyone, veterans and pacifists, those who lived through it and those born decades afterwards, share a collective agreement in the senseless tragedy of the conflict.

Nonetheless, the conflict had its victors.

The Entente Alliance, perhaps more popularly known simply as “The Allies” had suffered great losses, a generation of young men were sacrificed alongside the economic stability and long-term global positions of the old European imperial powers. The United States of America, late to the war and arguably the only nation to emerge stronger out of it inherited a world indebted to what had previously been the world’s largest debtor nation. The United States had a unique position to assume world leadership, yet the American congress was ambivalent to their role in international affairs and soon retreated into isolation. In doing so they began to ignore the rising trends of extremism that would develop across either side of the two oceans that most Americans felt protected them.

These radical ideas were arguably the true victors of the war, for though they were disconnected to the wars aims they nonetheless manifested themselves in the wreckage of the German and Russian empires and amongst the populaces who had suffered and endured the struggles of the bloodshed. Many developed a great loathing for the aristocrats and capitalists above them seemed to get by with little difficulty.

For whilst many talk of the horrors of shell-shock in regards to the trenches those same people generally tend to ignore the similar trend passing through the lines of both sides. People to who saw greater enemies back home. In doing so they put their class over their nation. Most important amongst these men would turn out to be Adolf Hitler, a man with the rare ability to not only suffer from disaffection but bend it to his own ends.

This was the ultimate price of total war to the old European orders. Total war demanded blood, to an extent that the mind set did not leave the populace even in defeat. As such “the war to end all wars” would inevitably beget another, greater, global conflict that would see the Marxist forces unleashed by the First World War threaten to consume the entire planet during the Second.

Many economists had warned in 1914 that the war would cause an economic and political upheaval which would be severe enough to eclipse the revolutions of 1848. The war that the European empires had made inevitable would lead to their mutual destruction, there were many who sought advantage in this contemporary hysteria. Vladimir Lenin predicted that the First World War would be the downfall of capitalism, but although this would turn out to be true in many parts of the world, it remains debated as to whether he believed that his adherents would throw themselves into an even more apocalyptic struggle in the ironic quest to end class conflict.’

~ Amy Wright, Europe’s Unravelling

---

In the packed and stuffy room, Robert liked to think back to the fresh sea breeze of the Atlantic as his delegation had come into France. He had been on board the George Washington alongside President Wilson as he had waved at the cheering crowds. The French people were so full of adulation that Robert wouldn’t have been surprised if they expected the President to walk over the water and onto the shore to greet them. Even the Germans seemed to pin their hopes on him, despite America having ensured their defeat.

In this room full of politicians and diplomats at the palace of Versailles there was a very different reception. There remained plenty of smiles and kind words amongst those from the victorious powers but plenty of mistrust and deceit at the same time. Not all of this was kept behind closed doors either, the Italian delegation had already walked out in disgust at what they saw as a raw deal for their country’s sacrifice.

Robert wasn’t there to deal with the Italians, otherwise he would have been out of a job. The French were his responsibility, he was responsible for gauging their priorities and trying to convince them they matched American aspirations. He was by no means a seasoned diplomat but Wilson thought that would work to America’s advantage by expressing themselves as the new, young, nation that had come to rescue the old world from Teutonic aggression. Robert also spoke French as his first language, something that not many American diplomats could claim. It was apparently this ability, the assumption that a French internal monologue would make him better at gauging the French psyche, that had seen the Tidewater folks all turn out to wave him off as he journeyed first to Washington, then to New York, and finally to Versailles.

It had been hoped that he would be able to prevent potential mistranslation but the French demands had been clear enough, they had remained consistent through the best part of fifty years. Revanchisme.

He had been assured by other, more experienced, diplomats on the journey that the French passion for revenge against the Germans was far less potent than it might be presumed and that it would likely be used as a card for extracting more concessions from the Germans on the basis of writing past wrongs. Robert was aware that the situation was far complex than it might have initially seemed but the anger of the French delegation seemed to be far more than bluster. Robert had initially been appalled by the stories of the German atrocities on French soil and the overwhelming damage the country had taken in defending itself had made him sympathetic to the French plight. He had previously never visited the nation of his ancestry but he had developed a kinship all the same, France had almost been broken by the war and it seemed their experience had ensured that any subtlety around their hunger for revenge was misplaced.

It had been Robert’s aim to try and find a common ground between the American delegation’s aim of a lasting peace based on international cooperation and self-determination and the French desire for revenge but the latter had proven itself to be beyond all basic objectivity. Instead, the conference had been spent trying to push for a watered down version of his President’s vision and curtail the French aim of hobbling Germany beyond all recognition. Not for the first time in the past weeks he wondered if all diplomacy was grand visions and cheering crowds quickly turning into sweating in dark rooms whilst losing count of the number of times you had repeated “No, Lithuania can’t be given Memel if the Germans haven’t even left Lithuania yet!”

Demoralised, he excused himself and walked out into the brightness. The Hall of Mirrors in Versailles was incomparable to anything he had seen before, the old French monarchy had built a moment to their excesses and Robert couldn’t help but resist its grandeur, especially not in a beautiful Summer’s day where the sunlight seemed to make the entire building glow and shimmer as if it were made entirely out of treasure. This was where the Germans had humiliated the French in 1871 by proclaiming German unification in the wake of their victory. Now, in the corners hidden away from the sunlight, the members of dozens of different delegations pondered whether they would grasp this historic opportunity for a lasting peace, or whether they were simply there to deliver a greater humiliation against Germany.

By that context the entire hall filled with experienced diplomats and delusional optimists had become claustrophobic and Robert found his way to the outside balcony in an attempt to find some fresh air. It was not to be.

Ferdinand Foch, Marshal of France, had already got a good acrid stench flowing from his pipe by the time that Robert joined him outside. Foch clearly didn’t know who he was, his drooping eyes glancing up at the American diplomat before dismissively returning to his pipe, it was a situation Robert sought to rectify.

“Marshal Foch!” Robert almost shouted as he marched over to shake the officer’s hand, “I am sorry to interrupt but I cannot tell you what a privilege it is to meet why back in Virginia I-“

“You speak excellent French.” The Marshal shook his hand with all the enthusiasm of a deceased doorknob.

“Thankyou Marshal, I was brought up with the language on m-“

“It’s too bad your President can’t seem to understand anything about us.”

“Well Marshal I can assure that we’re aiming for the be-“

“Speak some sense, boy! You’re aiming for compromise and half measures when the Germans have no choice to do anything we wish. Do you think we’ll ever get this opportunity again?!”

Robert paused on that for a moment, if only so the Marshal might actually let him speak.

“Marshal I am afraid that we can’t re-shape the world to our pleasing just because we won the war, the Germans thought like that when they attacked France in 1914 and look what has happened to them. We must create a world that is secure for all nations.”

The Marshal smiled cheekily and winked as he took a long draw on his pipe.

“Secure for all nations, against Germany, yes. Don’t you worry, you and your President will leave us to pick up the mess but we’ll find a way. Somehow.”

Robert was happy to think he’d got on the Marshal’s good side, but there was something about the look he’d given him and the wink, that would sit with for a long while after. In the sad, droopy eyes for a moment there had been a spark of a far younger man. It was a moment of clarity that many people would often receive in the midst of a Foch conversation, but in the face of Foch’s cynicism it made Robert slightly uneasy about the Marshal’s satisfaction with the future.

The Marshal left shortly after and Robert was on his own in the glorious afternoon. Staring down upon the beautiful scenery, he found himself whistling “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny”.

---

The picture is of onlookers trying to grab a sneak peak of the Treaty of Versailles being signed.

I hope everyone has a nice weekend.

The Red · Mar 2, 2017

“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”

~Georgi Plekhanov

By the summer of 1919 the new Weimar coalition had seemingly returned stability to Germany, the Spartacists and the Bavarian Soviet had bene crushed whilst the workers’ councils were rapidly diminishing in strength and in vision. Despite the liberalism of the new republic, the old conservative attitudes had remained entrenched and were rapidly returning to the mainstream.

Industrialists reasserted themselves as the dominant actors in the economy, quickly acting to “resolve” what had been characterised as economic hindrance on the back of expanded worker’s rights and a far larger workforce of women who did not want to give up their jobs after the war nor the expanded social freedoms that their roles had provided. Wages gradually decreased in value, and whilst the eight hour week had been ensured alongside union recognition, the bosses and foremen often appeared to be as overbearing as ever. The wartime shifts were gone but conditions seemed little better as Germany returned to peace.

The return of stability and an uptick in the economy caused by the sudden growth in exports had made it relatively easy for men to find employment, temporarily the cracks in German society created by class conflict were temporarily plastered over. Nonetheless there was plenty of resentment aimed at the Weimar coalition from a different angle.

The growth in German exports had been brought about due to both the weakness of the German currency and the lifting of the British blockade, both of these events were good for the German economy but they were nonetheless the consequences of defeat. These temporary improvements in Summer of 1919 will forever be overshadowed by the Treaty of Versailles, which amongst other punitive measures delivered by the victorious Entente, doomed the republic and ensured that the alliance with the established and more radical elements of the German right would soon come to an end.

The harsh terms of defeat were almost universally despised by virtually every facet of German society but someone had to implement them and in doing so the Weimar yoked themselves and republic to the despised treaty. Whilst both the far-left and far-right would eventually use this to their advantage in their own way the Communists were far too busy in attempting to rebuild their movement to attempt any immediate uprising in the wake of the hated treaty. This did not apply to those on the far-right, and their Freikorps legions.

The Communists argued that the Versailles Diktat was tantamount to the subjugation of the German working class, a bid to turn Germany into another colony of Britain and France. On this point the far-right agreed with them but with a very different analysis of the situation. These men saw both the social democrats and the communists as part of the same problem and via a variety of conspiracy theories and old grievances they were blamed for German defeat, for the treaty, and for almost every other problem afflicting German society.

Having been instrumental in crushing a revolution, these men were confident that they could successfully start one of their own.

Bridging the Horseshoe, David Irons

---

The morning always began early in the waning days of August, the sun hadn’t yet risen but Gerda was already aware of the smells and sounds that beckoned its arrival. Many people saw this as a far more preferable way of waking themselves up instead of a pounding alarm but Gerda had barely slept at all. The sensation was pleasant all the same, a welcome distraction from the complicated future she would have to face, her tangled thoughts were only exacerbating the hangover.

The cabaret was one of more established art forms in Berlin by the end of the war, though for many of the audience it continued to have the charm of an innocent indiscretion. Cristina and Gerda had been spellbound when they had first started working in Essen, despite the far lower quality of show you could see in the city, now they liked to think of themselves as regulars. They would forever resist the title ‘new women’ as a bourgeois construction but beyond the rhetoric they would have come across to most as the dictionary definition. She had gone with someone else last night and now she was in an unfamiliar bed, an unspoken evil in her rural past.

Gerda slumped out of bed to stare out at the steadily brightening sky and the city below. She was in the suburbs of Berlin, far enough that there was still more forestry than houses. She wondered how long that would remain the case, for even in the wake of a lost war and a failed revolution the city was already healing and expanding.

Like the city, Gerda couldn’t believe how quickly events in her life seemed to be travelling by. This time last year she had been an apolitical farm girl working overtime in a munitions to ensure the victory of the German Empire, and now, after risking her life in partaking in an attempted revolution, she was devoting all of her spare time to rebuilding the KPD in the wake of the defeats in Berlin and Munich, trying to get her word in whenever possible.

Despite its official rhetoric it had become apparent the KPD had emerged as a rather masculine organisation in the wake of Rosa Luxemburg’s murder. Paul Levi, one of the few prominent survivors of the massacre in Berlin. Unlike those who had proceeded him he seemed far more interested in making the Communists resemble a more radical version of the Social Democrats, to steal the clothing of the USPD. The rhetoric remained largely similar, but a party that was preparing to fight elections had need of a hierarchical structure and hierarchy in practice usually featured very few women

The ongoing civil war in Russia seemed to dominate attention, and despite there having been some mixed feelings about Lenin it seemed there was a universal recognition that he was the only revolutionary who seemed to be enjoying any sort of success. In addition to their own failures, the revolutions in Austria and Hungary had petered, whilst stories of industrial trouble in Britain and France were uninspiring. There seemed to be a larger outbreak of violence in Ireland but Gerda had learned to understand that was nothing new and ideologically vague. Ireland had not been the quandary in the vast amount of literature she had been trying to devour as much as possible of in every free moment. There was universal favour for the ideas of those who had been martyred in Berlin but their deaths had led many to look east. She had read Marx’s views on Russia as being too underdeveloped to facilitate a revolution, now it turned out that even he was being contradicted by reality. She had needed a drink.

Berlin was far calmer than it had been, at least in the sense that there were no longer any armed bands shooting down Spartacists in the street. In the bars and cafes you still had to watch what you were saying. This went not just for people with right-wing sympathies but between Social Democrats and Communists as well.

This truth was almost universally apparent, and Ernst Muller was certainly aware of it. His time spent on the balcony, daydreaming about the bright future that would be provided by a democratic and socialist Germany only to see revolution break out on the streets below, had made him rather wary of hubris when there could be communists around. He feared that someone might have seen him and recognised him as Scheidemann’s secretary. This was paranoia on his part, perhaps mixed with some element of grandeur, He was not a particularly arrogant man but he nonetheless felt that he had a role in the future of the new republic and that this was a threat to his personal safety. It was a mantra that had called upon him to remain sharp, but it had been a particularly busy day at the office, and he needed a drink as well.

There were always plenty of staff available at the bar, and even on busy nights it was fairly easy to get served despite the line at the bar often descending into a scrum. Both Ernst and Gerda found themselves amongst this group of quickly expanding and departing patrons, similar to a shoal of fish if the beer on offer could be replaced with water. Despite for all his dedication to staying sharp on the chance of getting knocked on the back of the head by a vengeful communist, Ernst had managed to drop his wallet whilst trying to slam it down on the bar.

Gerda had been the one to pick it up amongst the scrum, and a mutual attraction had quickly arose out of her initial disdain. She had felt an inherent need to sneer at the way Ernst had flailed around on the floor trying to reclaim his lost property, typical bourgeois behaviour, yet the state of his suit and overall anxious manner made him appear as if he had all the world’s problems on his shoulders and had been trying to fix them. Overall there was an intense sense of joy in his eyes when she had handed him the wallet, a natural capitalist response at having money returned that they thought they had lost, but it seemed to go beyond that.

They had talked, they had laughed, they had danced, and oddly enough politics never came up at all. To Ernst, Gerda was a factory worker, and to Gerda, Ernst was simply a civil servant. Had Gerda been wearing a hammer and sickle on the lapel of her jacket, or even if Phillip Scheidemann’s card fallen out of Ernst’s wallet, there likely would have been a few awkward moments before both went their separate ways, but both had found themselves momentarily worn out and as such a connection was made long before politics could interfere.

Both Ernst and Gerda had found that they enjoyed each other’s company a great deal, probably a great deal more than they actually would have. Times of great stress had a way of doing that to people, alongside bringing up other urges as a way of relieving said anxiety. Alcohol was one of these, though in the company of others that could often exacerbate matters into creating certain feelings that might not have been there otherwise, or in bringing feelings that would have otherwise been concealed to the fore.

Gerda was aware that whatever demons had possessed her where out of her system, the same seemed to apply for Ernst, who would have appeared to be completely dead if it wasn’t for his light snoring. It hadn’t been something she had done before and afterwards she had been entirely unable to get any sleep, such was the confused mix of elation and misery within her. All Gerda knew was that the trains would be running soon, she would go back to Christina and they would see if there was any party work to be done.

She snuck out of the flat into the beginning of the new day, entirely unaware of the new life that she and the President’s secretary had created.

---

Plekhanov is one of the lesser known fathers of Russian Socialism, Husker Du less so but I felt as if they had thematic resonance.

The Red · Mar 18, 2017

"As an English general has very truly said, the German Army was 'stabbed in the back'."

~ Erich Ludendorff

By early 1920 the militant German right were both emboldened and furious. It is arguable that in this environment something resembling the violence of the Kapp Putsch may have been inevitable but the extent of the emotion involved is somewhat called into question by how calculated the plot was.

Even prior to German defeat many on the right had been prone to conspiracy theories and paranoia aimed at particular groups. Jews, Communists, Social Democrats, and Women were only a few of the groups held in particular disregard for being either responsible for defeat or failing to bring about victory. The potency of this poisonous rage was only increased by the speedy growth of the ‘Stab in the Back’ myth, a lie spread partially by those who had asked for the armistice that had led to the end of the war and now wished to exploit the defeat to their advantage. Pinning the defeat and the subsequent humiliation at the hands of the victorious powers on those who now formed the Weimar coalition was the instigator for action those who already despised the republic needed.

At the head of this large but disorganised revolutionary movement were members of the old establishment, defeated and deposed in the First World War and now convinced that it was not their fault and that in the wake of Germany’s humiliation at Versailles the nation called to them to lead once again and destroy the failed democratic experiment. The Social Democratic government they had propped up the year before was now the enemy.

The Weimar coalition wasn’t blind to these stirrings of rebellion but much preferred to look the other way than inquire as to the loyalty of certain radical officers. Though many of the leading culprits weren’t particularly secretive in their actions, there was a paranoia that any potential conspiracy went far deeper than those the government could see, there was a fear that the highest levels of the Reichswehr might turn on the government if any action as to be interpreted as unjust interference in their affairs.

Versailles would ultimately be the instigator that would force the confrontation between Weimar and the Reichswehr known popularly as the Kapp Putsch. The treaty had demanded a German armed forces of no more than one hundred thousand men and the numerous Freikorps militia were in contravention of this diktat. Having crushed the communists they were to be demobilised and disbanded.

The first major unit to face demobilisation was the 2nd Marine Brigade under the leadership of Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, whose namesake has often been ascribed to the group. Ehrhardt was representative of the disdain held for the republic within the Freikorps and was determined to the turn the attempted demobilisation into a conflict that would lead to its demise. The brigade’s six thousand men were to occupy Berlin and install a new provisional government, to be initially headed by Wolfgang Kapp, a Prussian civil servant with roots to the far-right DNVP, the German National People’s Party.

The paranoia of many in the Weimar coalition would soon be proven correct, for Erhardt and Kapp had successfully gained the tacit support of much of the German right and indeed the Reichswehr though this support manifested itself largely in inaction and calls for dialogue with Kapp’s new provisional government. Unlike Mussolini’s march on Rome the following Summer, the German right were never fully willing to throw their support behind the reactionary coup.

It was a mistake they would later seek to remedy.

~ Bridging the Horseshoe, David Irons

---

As he heard the marching sounds outside Ernst couldn’t help but feel a queasy sense of déjà vu. Once again the government he served was being forced to flee the capital, barely more than a year since they had had to do so the last time. Back then it had been Communists who had set out to destroy the republic, people whose principles he could basically agree with despite total revulsion for their methods, now Germany faced a half-baked politician from East Prussia and a Freikorps colonel, a slightly comedic duo if they hadn’t had such support from those who helped to stop the Communists the last time.

The Freikorps outnumbered the Reichswehr and by all he had heard the Reichswehr were sympathetic to the aims of the coup, or at least willing to see how it played out. Most on the German right seemed to have a similar attitude. They were willing to see democracy die but were hesitant about dipping their hands in the blood only to end up accountable to those whose political power they had wished to take away. Kapp’s provisional government had promised that they were in fact the guardians of democracy, that they wished to prevent the Weimar coalition from becoming a dictatorship, he trusted them about as far as he could throw them. As he looked out at the street below he saw an armoured car drive by with a slogan hastily painted on.

“HANG THE NOVEMBER CRIMINALS”

These were now people who could be reasoned with and now they were outside his flat.

Ernst had already resolved that he would have no part in the farcical provisional government set up by the reactionaries ad to his relief it seemed that most of the civil service remaining in Berlin had agreed. He had been lurking in his flat ever since, hopeful that the coup wouldn’t extend to the outer suburbs just yet.

That had been until there was a knock on the door and a large man in grey walked in without being beckoned. At that point Ernst just wanted to go home, even before he addressed him personally,

“Ernst Muller?”

“Yes?”

“By the order of the provisional government I am here to take you in for questioning.”

Despite his militaristic attire, the figure in front of Ernst certainly wasn’t in the Reichswehr. The German military might have changed since the end of the war but they still didn’t tend to have skulls on their helmets. It wasn’t just his uniform that seemed unprofessional, his entire manner seemed somewhat distracted and even in the awkward silence the soldier briefly looked behind his back. Ernst decided that this was a man whom it wasn’t best to disagree with despite the man’s nervousness. If something was going wrong then that could only be a good thing, and it was never wise to argue with an armed man in a hurry.

Ernst stared out at the city as he put on his suit, he had insisted that he be dressed in a businesslike manner if he was going to be interrogated, nothing seemed particularly different from when he had walked out at the start of the putsch. The Freikorps he had seen had been in high spirits when there were smoke plumes rising above the city and gunshots in the air, now all was quiet and this man seemed far more nervous, as Ernst accompanied his new friend out of the flat he hoped that the man’s disposition reflected on the entire situation. Outside there was a requisitioned taxi waiting for him, Ernst would have been pleased enough not to travel in the armoured car, but this was yet another hint that the reactionaries where causing the sort of disorder they claimed to be fighting against.

Ernst had been in cars before though the experience was hardly routine, he expected it was the same for many of his captors, whose eyes would widen with every pothole although they seemed to be anxious about more than just the mode of transport. It wasn’t long before he was proven right, as they drove the soldiers around him remained silent but the signs were obvious as the city came closer. Having previously only noticed that there were no fires of conflict, he now realised that there was no smoke coming from the large chimney’s either, the workers were out in droves and the Freikorps had given up trying to control the crowds. Over and over again he saw the banners of several different organisations with one common slogan,

“GENERAL STRIKE!”

---

The British General in question was actually asking Ludendorff if he thought Germany had been stabbed in the back but Erich wasn't going to let a little fact like that get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

The Red · May 7, 2017

"They were prisoners of their own leftism."

~ Gilbert Badia on the KPD

Whilst Hitler continued to languish in prison as punishment for his actions, the party he would eventually come to lead had fallen into dire straits.

Despite earnest efforts to rebuild from the failed revolutions of 1919, the KPD found itself in a dreadful state as the news of the Kapp Putsch spread across the nation. As such it is possible to understand with the hesitancy of the party's right-wing dominated central committee whilst still recognising that their bungled and incompetent response ultimately lies in their own actions.

Paul Levi was a survivor of the Spartacist uprising that had led to the murder of the founders of the party, most notably Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. It appears that his experience of the doomed revolt in the capital had made him wary of further direct action in the short-term and through his allies in the KPD central committee he had worked to remove those he suspected of overly anarchic or violent positions from influence. Levi feared that any further spontaneous actions by the party would be met with no more popular support than they had the previous year and only leave the party weaker than it already was. He asserted that the restoration of relative calm that the provisional government's alliance with Freikorps had brought would endure for several years and argued that this lull would be time that the party could use to better organise itself and build their support amongst the proletariat and the trade unions in preparation for the next crisis.

It was a line which many in the party detested, and when Levi's timetable fell apart in the spring of 1920 he was left with few sympathisers, especially as he continued to call for inaction in the face of the Weimar coalition's calls for a general strike. Levi had nullified the KPD to such an extent that the centre-left was now taking more radical steps to oppose the reactionary coup, a failure on his part that would leave his future leadership of the party untenable. Most party members and supporters ignored his calls for waiting out the putsch and took part in the strikes and protests sponsored by the democratically elected government. Others took more radical steps, and rose up in arms once more in the largest revolutionary struggle the young republic had yet seen.

The heavy industry of the Ruhr was the nirvana of Marxist theory, a strong working class resided there with a proud identity, one that was detached from the KPD in Berlin. Worker's councils had arose in the Ruhr as in many other places but here they had been far more radically inclined. Even as it seemed that the revolutions of 1919 had been crushed the communist presence remained in the hands of the workers and the large numbers of former soldiers returning from the front to their old jobs. They were bitter but they had hope, and more importantly they had organisation and experience that neither the neither the Spartacists nor the Bavarian Soviet could call upon.

In the chaotic days following the news of the Kapp Putsch, armed workers had assembled in Hagen for what had been planned as a peaceful, if intimidating, protest against Kapp and in support of the general strike. Local communists had been quick to ignore the orders coming from Berlin and marched out alongside other workers in the display of strength.

It was not long, however, before news spread of an ongoing shootout in the city of Wetter.

~ Benito MacDiarmid, The KPD, From Protest to Power

---

"They let them out? They didn't even have to escape, they just let them out?!"

Colonel Hans von Seisser was already suffering from the stress of the last few days, he certainly didn't need more work to do. It had been his job for the entire morning to try and maintain order in Munich, all of Germany seemed to have become a powder keg and after the events of the previous spring he was not going to take any chances. The news delivered by his secretary was not liable to help the situation.

The always helpful guards at Stadelheim prison had been on the line, politely telling Hans that their problem had become his, that an unknown number of convicts had disappeared and were now likely walking the streets of Munich. It wasn't the first time in the last week that he felt his head was ready to cave in from undue pressure from the outside world.

The irony was that he actually had a great deal of time for the ideas that had been put forward by Kapp’s provisional government. Germany had become weak and unstable and those who had thrown together a constitution in Weimar were largely to blame. It was only their fault if the army had refused to be broken apart by such weaklings, and if Germany could have been delivered from them then all the better. After all, he had been forced to spend the previous spring in exile as the Communists had run amok, if Germany had a strong nationalist government like they had had during the war then he wouldn’t have to endure such nonsense again.

Except here he was, trying to work out how he would cope with the fact that the Freikorps who had saved Munich last spring were now responsible for his colossal headache. They had sworn allegiance to Kapp’s provisional government and had almost immediately begun jailing anyone they considered to be their political opponents. Now Kapp was gone, it was impossible to tell who exactly was in charge in Berlin and the former soldiers had sullenly gone back to their homes.

With the putsch brought to an end amidst a general strike it had seemed that those who were concerned about Stadelheim overflowing had been overly keen to make sure that everyone imprisoned without trial was released as quickly as possible before a mob of workers showed up at the door. As it turned out, there had been no repeat of the revolutionary violence, at least for now.

He wondered how long that would remain the case, as the secretary continued his report.

“He claims that the Freikorps marched in and threw people into cells without any proper registry and it created some confusion as to which communists were to be held, sir.”

“They didn’t keep any records?!”

“It seems that they were incomplete sir, given the confusion from last year…”

“We were supposed to prevent the chaos from last year from happening again! Not causing it!”

The frustration was getting the better of Hans but he felt that he couldn’t help it any longer, the incompetence of his peers would ultimately reflect on himself. The workers who had gone on strike in Munich had not yet settled down and who knows how many dangerous would now lurk among them, spreading seeds of chaos and treachery wherever they wanted.

He held is head in his hands as he privately cursed everyone around him. Trying to find these people was not a task he was going to look forward to.

---

The woodcut is 'Man on a Plain' by Edvard Munch.

Thanks for everyone's patience.

The Red · Jul 12, 2017

'It is in this very concept of spirit as that which is what it is only
through itself and as infinite return into itself from the natural immediacy
of its existence that lies the possibility of an opposition, in that
what the spirit is only in itself may differ from what it is for itself '

~ F. W. Hegel

Unlike their land based counterpart, the origins of the Luftstreitkrafte can be found in Germany's imperial past. Not only is the name the same as that of the German air forces that flew in the First World War, for in the humble origins of the Communist air wing there were far greater similarities.

Though the Weimar-era Reichswehr trained pilots discreetly by using bases in the Soviet Union, a policy which increased its vigour in the wake of Hitler's revolution. However, German communists first took to the skies in the troubled early days of Weimar, when their enemy was the newly formed Reichswehr and the Freikorps militia that were collectively deried as the "white guards of Capitalism" by the official rhetoric emanating from the shortlived revolution in the Ruhr

The air forces of Imperial Germany had viciously contested the skies over the ruinous battlefields of the First World War against far more numoerus opponents. german fighter aces rose to spectacular fame on the home front and gained the grudging respect of enemy pilots. German innovations in both doctrine and technology would often cause despair to those had to send vast concentrations of aircraft against them. It was no surprise that there was mutual agreement amongs the victorious powers of the end of the war that Germany would be forbidden from ever having an air force again.

This was the diktat the came as one of the many demands of the Treaty of Versailles but it was not a demand that could be adhered to overnight. The Luftsreitkrafte was battered but its inventory remained substantial and was still in the process of liquidation in the Spring of 1920, when a failed reactionary coup once more gave rise to revolution in Germany's industrial heartland.

~ Len Deighton, Swarm Over The Sky: An Aerial History of the Second World War

---

---

As he heard the Mercedes engines began to stir into life, Johann feared that the mix of fear and anticipation within might cause him to go mad before it was his turn to go into the air. It would not be his first time in the skies, but it would be his first time dealing revolutionary vengeance against the reactionary enemy. This would not be like the fun he had had with is friends at the Duisburg Flying Club where they would take turns at using archaic old designs to get a few feet into the air, the flying club was gone, the university was gone, he felt that that entire chapter of his life was about to be closed, something to be remembered by the different man that he was about to become.

His own engine began to roar as one of his comrades sent the propellor spinning, there was a jolt to his back as the Albatros D.III began moving forward, first at a crawl, then faster and faster still, his cockpit rocking violently, as he trying to maintain his grip on the throttle as he adjusted his goggles in the face of the ever increasing wind resistance. The racket of the buzzing engine, and the protests of the ground below, were becoming almost unbearable, and yet all Johann could feel was his heart pounding and his stomach lurching as the Albatros made a final skip off from the runway and headed into the air.

Johann's relief at having successfully taken off was almost as overwhelming as the nasuea he had had just moments before, he couldn't help but join in the elation of the other pilots around him as they bobbed around in the air together, cheering noiselessly, their fists raised with joy. Johann could barely hear himself cheer over the buzzing of the engine and the sky. At this altitude all communication was based around sign language, and even that wasn't exactly coherent at the best of times, luckily they had been briefed beforehand. The Freikorps, and their allies in the Reichswehr, were evacuating the Ruhr area. They had been almost as surprised by the revolution unfolding around them as Johann had, it was important to damage them as much as possible before they could regroup, and the captured Albatros aircraft provided a unique opportunity to do so. For despite their frantic retreat, they had the hubris of prey who didn't know that their predator had wings.

This would be Johann's first hunt, but he hoped that his enthusiasm would be enough to counter his inexperience. His training with the flying corps had just began when it was announced the war had ended, it had apparently taken the army that long to realise they had a deficit of young romantics, or perhaps it was just the fact that they were facing an enemy with better and more numerous planes and needed to make-up the deficit even if it required the most pretentious little airheads they'd ever seen. Johann put the remarks of his old commanding officer to one side, as his comrade made exaggerated motions to look down below.

Despite being a reactionary militia the Freikorps were highly organised, even in retreat, it was very easy to spot their columns as they marched amongst a handful of armoured vehicles. These were the tinpot behemoths that had given them an advantage on the streets of Berlin and Munich, today it would do them no good. Johann was keen to make them a metal casket.

From the air the enemy looked like ants with toy cars, creeping slowly towards the east, Johann and his comrades were too far to be heard, at least that's what he hoped, as the fighters flew high over their heads and turned with the sun at their backs, the descent began.

Johann tried to stay focused on the task at hand as the ground became closer and closer but failed to suppress a grin as he saw the first signs of panic from below. It appeared he and his comrades hadn't been seen after all, or perhaps they had simply been taken by surprise that German planes could be a threat. Either way, Johann's burst of fire sent several of the little men to the ground, never to get back up again.

The light, the heat, the noise that went over engine, the figures turning into little puddles of blood down below, it was all surreal a former student who had never fired a shot in anger, so much so that Johann had had to shake off the feeling that he had heard screams when he had pulled up for another attacking run. There was no way he couldn't have heard screaming, he was nowhere near low enough, not unless it was himself. He could no longer remember why he had been screaming or even if he had thought he had imagined by the time he swooped down like some vast predatory bird, for the second time.

Those down below where still scattered, their organisation broken by the death from above, a point that Johann attempted to accentuate by dropping one of his bombs before pressing down on the trigger again. The only uniformity in the response of the Freikorps now seemed to be to run for cover, especially the tree line that couldn't have been more than half a mile away, a desperate sprint that Johann cut short, this time one of his bombs actually hit something, he could see limbs stretching to odd lengths before retreating into the flames and smoke.

Up above he could see several smoke plumes now, it was encouraging to see that this comrades had caused as much chaos as he had. It allowed him to put any doubts about what he had just taken pleasure in doing, and why or whether he had started screaming when doing so. Once again the raised fist was in the air alongside his colleagues. He wasn't sure why he was crying, only that it was a very irritating phenomenon whilst wearing goggles, but it was a joyful moment as they headed home. No-one could blame him for being overly emotional.

---

Northern France, 1947

The infernal klaxon wouldn't stop going off, which along with the fire trucks sirens ruining Johann's concentration as the comrades below attempted to regain communication with those who hadn't returned. Even though the sun had been going down already, flames on the runway tended to make the evening darker than it might have been otherwise.

This was true in the figurative sense as well as the literal, although it was increasingly hard for Johann to be optimistic enough to remark that things weren't as bad as they seemed. He hadn't been aware that there was a way of inducing a migraine with a single word until he had started to hear the name "F-86" a few months beforehand.

Wonderful German designs, whether piston or jet, were being tossed out of the sky and even his best pilots were now being forced to crash land on the runway. How long would it be until the Americans could field thousands of these craft, alongside the thousands of jets that they and the British already seemed to be fielding? How long would it be before he was told that they would have to pull back from this base to avert further casualties? Johann couldn't help but feel these two dreaded events would soon be in sync.

The Comintern was running out of time.

Eleven years of war, eleven years of trauma and sacrifice, entire continents worth of production lying around as wreckage and all there was left now was to continue to fight in the hope that deliverance would come. The American and British slave factories seemed to be producing more now than ever, that had to be taking a toll on a working class that had lost so many in fighting the battles of the rich, the message had to be reaching them. It was his last best hope, even if it wasn't necessarily the official line he would tell his comrades when they would have to fly out on increasingly casualty ridden missions. The commissar was never far away from his shoulder.

Even as the blaze was tackled on the runway and those still out in the field were only replying with static he sat there perched, observing, unable to do anything but making sure that everyone else was doing their jobs., even though this would often take the form of encouraging words that didn't offer much help to anything that was going on. Now he just stared at the blazing wreck, the flames stealing light away from the setting sun, until he realised that Johann's eyes were on him. It wasn't long before he was walking over.

"Comrade, whenever you get free for a moment, let's have a talk in your office." His tone was casual, almost light-hearted, but there was a look in his eyes that betrayed that this wouldn't be about last months missing stationary.

The maze of corridors that made up the airfield's underground control centre always made Johann anxious. What was meant to ensure safety instead made him feel detached from the outside world, from the operations room he was aware of all the stress and the mania of all the outside world, the large fleets taking off majestically from the runways in their quest to finally smash imperialism, and the flames and wreckage that they sometimes spat back. This was all the real world, and he could view it like a movie, before disappearing below to a subterreanean void where he could pretend he was removed from reality. At least until he got to his office to inform a father that he would have to bury a daughter, and a wife that she wouldn't have to wait for her husband's letters ever again. It was a dreadful task, but it was one that he would rather have pursued in a heartbeat if it meant that his comrade the 'Revolutionary Field Officer' hadn't been in his office, waiting for him.

"I'm sorry for having just shown myself in but there's something that really needed to be adressed."

The calm demeanour was still very much there, but his words were more patronising than businesslike. Johann was in his own office and yet he was being treated like he had been sent to see the headmaster.

"There's been a drop in morale recently, entirely understnadable with the current casualty rate, but I'm afraid that matters aren't being helped by certain elements of confusion that have sprung up recently."

Johann already knew what this about,

"Comrade, let's not dance around the issue, if you want me to push for these absurd recommendations on attacking parachutists then I'll tell you what I've told everyone else. It's an impractical and immoral practice, and it's only going to make our pilots sympathise with the fascists and imperialists and in doing so begin to doubt our own cause."

The commissar was dismissive of such a notion, with a sigh he noted the usual elaborations of how just their cause truly was, as if he wasn't preaching to the converted, before finally getting to the point,

"I know that you're strongly opposed to this change of policy, a lot of our best comrades are, but they aren't walking around questioning the morality of our cause. Thsi was is reaching its climax and we are about to embark on decisions that will shape our world forever. Now is the time to tighten our will, and you're here asking questions about whether or not we should do everything we can to emerge victorious."

Johann couldn't help but roll his eyes,

"We derive our will from handing power to the powerless, no-one is going to fight harder in the knowledge that they'll be expected to gun down a pilot who has bailed out of his aircraft. Slaughtering a defenceless parachutist is not the sort of action that any army should aspire, especially ours."

"I know that it's difficult to justify to our pilots, but you're not helping matters by encouraging their misgivings, you know as well as I do that sometimes sentiment needs to give way to what's best for the cause as a whole."

"What's best for the cause is not to dehumanise the enemy, this isn't the great imperialist slaughter, we are a global movement that fights for the betterment of mankind, even those who live in the imperialist states."

The commissar's expression had become rather vacant, as if he had become tired of having this conversation. A career of rousing speeches and the occasional speech about the morality of war amidst that never seemed to end, not as comfortable as he might have thought at first. His eye turned to the picture Johann had placed on his wall with pride when he had first moved here,

"You knew him didn't you? Back in the day?"

Not for the first time, Johann considered taking that picture down. It was a question he was getting tired of answering.

"It wasn't anything major, we'd taken over a few imperial planes during the Ruhr uprising. I managed to crash, only for him to come and find me."

"He was on his way from Munich?"

"Yes, him and a few other prisoners, he picked up stragglers along the way. I was one of them."

Johann couldn't help but smile, of course he was a good athiest but he'd heard it joked that he was a disciple more than once. Could such a man really have given such odd orders if he didn't know what he was doing? It was a strange question, one that Johann now hoped someone else would have to answer.

"I'll tell you what comrade, I'm not going to encourage anyone to follow these orders, that's just not going to happen but to be honest I'm rather tired of giving orders in general now. I want to fight again."

The commissar seemed surprised, as if he hadn't just spent the conversation casting doubt over Johann's authority.

"You do know that I'm just here for morale purpoes don't you? I've no intention of forcing anyone away from their duty, nor could I do so if I wanted to." Johann couldn't help but laugh, he took a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the deep linen pockets of his beige uniform and offered one to his self-appointed judge, who quickly refused.

"I know that, but I also know you and your associates also like to make little notes and make gossip with the people who can make these decisions. Tell them that I'm bad for morale, tell them that I want to fly again rather than sit in an office all day. I started this war in a biplane and I'll end it in a jet! How does that sound? I'll even promise to gun down all the parachutists you want me to, if that makes it sweeter?"

The commissar no longer seemed as calm, although he only momentarily paused for thought,

"If you're going to be like this, there's no point continuing this conversation, you have your job, and I have mine, we'll fight the war in our own ways if you don't want my help."

He slammed the door as he left.

Johann sat back down and lit the refused cigarette, inhaling deeply as he stared at that picture of the two of them. A buzz going to his brain that was nothing like the one he had experienced on a disused airfield almost thirty years ago. He liked to think he hadn't lost his passion for the cause. The crimes that had been committed in the name of the cause was something he tended to think about as little as possible, as long as the final victory justified them. For an old communist that was usually reason enough, so long as he didn't see it.

As the air raid sirens began to wail for the second time of the day, he couldn't help but feel it was more complicated than that.

---

The painting is Angels and Aeroplanes by Natalia Goncharova.

The Red · Jul 14, 2017

"The revolutionaries' greatest piece of stupidity was to leave us all alive. Well, if I ever come to power again there will be no pardons. With a good conscience I would have Ebert, Schiedemann and company strung up and dangling."

~ Erich Ludendorff

993016a3d75a3f4f88610eafb4e89025--playing-cards-art-design.jpg

The success of the General Strike had been a decisive victory for the democratically elected government of the Republic, but there was more than a little concern at what had actually been achieved. It was a victory that did not only belong to the government, and Marx's influence once again cast a shadow over the party he had helped inspire for so long.

Having encouraged the workers to defend the new democracy with their own labour power, a consensus formed in the party's higher echelons that the threat to the republic now came from the left as it had the previous year. Having sat idly by as the Kapp's failed putsch played out, Von Seeckt now threw his weight behind the government and ordered the Reichswehr to march on Munich, the centre-left and reactionary right had once again found themselves a common enemy to unite around.

The putchsists looking for a way out now negotiated an agreement with those government ministers who had remained in Berlin. Gustav Bauer was replaced as Chancellor by Herman Müller, who oversaw the final end of the Ruhr Revolt, brought about a large offensive of Reichswehr and Freikorps troops in the area. The reactionary right could be seen as both beginning and ending the Spring chaos, some of the militia who had marched into the Ruhr had held Berlin hostage only a few weeks beforehand.

In this way the Kapp Putsch was far more of a success than a failure for its perpetrators, they had failed to topple the Weimar regime but they had exposed how tenuously it survived, reliant on elements of a conservative establishment who occasionally saw it as a means of keeping the working classes at bay, a constituency the Social Democrats existed to represent.

This was a betrayal that many saw as unforgivable, and whilst the left splintered the right-wing forces remained largely intact and unprosecuted. The Social Democrats would lose a third of their seats in the elections that Summer and for the first time since the birth of the republic, the new government would be led by those who had tacitally supported the putsch only a few months beforehand. Gradually all the achievements in social policy and worker's rights gained over the previous fifteen months would be whittled away at, until a new crisis threw the nation into chaos yet again.

~ Veronica Carlston, From Underground to Exile: The History of the Social Democratic Party

---

The crowd was coming close to a crush on the streets of Berlin, Gerda instinctively wrapped her hands around her bump as the man ahead of her temporarily lost his balance, he looked behind only to see her and awkwardly apologise, soon his head was turned back to the sight up ahead, the loud instruments and the roar of engines in a vicious, downtrodden symphony.

It had only been a few weeks since those same drums and flutes had inspired terror in the city, especially to Gerda. The march of the Freikorps into Berlin had all the echoes of the previous years massacre, and though she was no longer at the barricades she was also with child. She wasn't only responsible for herself any longer, when she had first heard that martial music she had begun contemplating whether a pregnant communist would be spared, or whether her baby was just a future communist ready to be thrown into the Landwehr canal?

It had been a paralysing fear, but not one that she couldn't get over. She had remembered the time that she had tried to hold off a tank with a kitchen knife, and that that same person still lived within her. She had lost her job a few months beforehand, apparently those in the new Germany who were willing to tolerate women working did not extend their good nature to pregnant women. Apparently she was fit only to carry a child, now that the reactionaries had marched into the city once again, she couldn't be worthless to herself. What sort of mother would that be?

Gerda had marched in the streets with the vast columns of striking workers, unemployed or not she was still one of them. Christina marched with her, whenever she wasn't finding odd jobs to keep their flat. They had been glad to see many of her party comrades in the crowds, they had also ignored Levi's idiotic orders to do nothing. Gerda had been worried about her baby, but the clique that claimed to run the central committee were merely worried about their own hides. A general strike was a general strike, and Gerda couldn't help but agree with Comrade Lenin that German communism was headed in the wrong direction. This was an opportunity to change that.

Many of the striking workers seemed keen to join despite the official party line on their activity, Gerda supposed that many would assume that the Communists were for direct action against Kapp because for it to be otherwise would be ridiculous. She hoped that the fact some communists were keeping the red flag flying would be encouragment enough, although the news from the Ruhr sounded too good to be true. The workers were rising up once more, and apparently more organised than ever.

There had been violence in Berlin as well, although nowhere near at the same level. Freikorps and workers were natural enemies and large groups of both in the same area was never going to be anyone's idea of day out. The tension had escalated into the odd brawl and scuffle, and though the reactionaries who had claimed to be the government had threatened to shoot striking workers, she had not heard any gunshots. She had had enough of that for a lifetime.

Now the game was up, Kapp had fled, and the Freikorps had decided their Spring holiday had lasted long enough. The workers were still out on the streets, if only to wave them off. They had won, and it seemed that the disgruntled militamen knew it to. As they began to march past a new noise joined the symphony, one of thousands of jeers as the putschists marched by, parading for themselves rather than the hostile crowd.

The palpable sense of anger in the crowd had grown with confidence as it had become clear that they had been triumphant. It was clear that this could be the start of something new, the government had called for the workers to save them, surely it could now become clear that it was the government that needed them, and not the other way around? The rabble marching by seemed to have the same prospect back, as they cursed back at their hecklers. Many of the milita still had the good luck symbols that they had painted on their coalscuttle helmets, making them seem all the more ridiculous as they followed the band out of the city. The humiliation seemed to be too much for some of them, as they started to argue with each other, momentarily it only added to the farce.

And then the band stopped playing.

The growl of the armoured cars seemed to follow the band's cue, settling down from a roar to hungry growl, even the jeering died down, as a confused silence settled over there streets. Those who had been marching fumbled around impatiently, as uncertain as most of the crowd as to what was going on. Gerda, however, was the same person who had been at the barricades. As she began to push through the crowd she noticed others doing the same, she wondered whether they had been there in 1919 as well, or whether they had simply realised the reactionaries had decided that the working classes wouldn't be allowed to have this victory. She could no longer see what was going on as the went deeper into the crowd, but it only took the sickening click of rifles to turn the jeers into screams.

"Feuer frei!"

The gunshots were deafening even as the screams grew louder. Gerda had no choice but to join the stampede of people as more rounds were fired sporadically. Some chose instead to stand, and began to throw projectiles, a policeman whistled helplessly before opening fire himself, as the Freikorps began to flee without order and a fresh riot broke out along the Bundestasse, once again she saw conflict break in Berlin from the relative safety of an alleyway, as smoke began to emerge from Bebelplatz square. Furious men and women piling on the fleeing militamen, their anger blinding them away from fear, the police imploring helplessly for calm. Somewhere a lonely child began to wail for its mother, and once again Gerda clasped her hands around her bump.

It was a very different version of the future than the one she had hoped for.

---

The painting is Invalids of War Playing Cards by Otto Dix.

The Red · Jul 20, 2017

“Fascism is not opposed to bourgeois democracy; to the contrary, it is its continuation by other means.”

~ Herman Gorter

Simply put, the inspiration of the Red Front came out of the Ruhr revolution. Never before had Germany seen such a well drilled force of far-left paramilitaries than that caused by the general strike of 1920. The Freikorps, pining for the incompetent rabble they had faced in Berlin and Munich the year beforehand, found themselves facing fellow veterans with adequate arms. It was a sight that caused them so much dread that after a few skirmishes the reactionaries had fled from the Ruhr altogether.

Unlike in Bavaria, the Ruhr revolutionaries did not bask in their presumed victory but continued to arm and radicalise the workers, it was a sober and effective strategy that had only begun to bear fruit when the Freikorps returned, this time with the full backing the of the Reichswehr.

This was the first victory of the forefathers of the Red Front, a sign of things to come, but also a sign of their limitations at this early stage. The Weimar government, having returned to Berlin, had reclaimed the support of the army, and then with a handful of objections they had established a new alliance with the reactionary elements that had attempted a string them up a fortnight beforehand. All of the revolutionaries enemies were once again aligned against them.

Eager to avoid further bloodshed, the government delivered an ultimatum on the 25th of April. The industries of the Ruhr would be removed from the workers but would not be returned to private interests, instead they would be nationalised. Further, it would be promised that those involved in the putsch would be prosecuted and that there would be no military presence in the Ruhr. These were the offers that were made, in condition for the revolutionaries laying down their arms.

The offer divided opinion amongst those who saw the deal as a victory for their cause and those who saw it as an attempt to prevent a national revolution, confusion was worsened by the decision of the Communist party's Berlin leadership to announce its support of the ultimatum. Having failed to support the government against Kapp. Levi now felt that a revolution that he had little control over was a far more dangerous prospect than Kapp's putsch.

By the beginning of May most workers had laid down their arms and gone home, leaving a greatly diminished worker's militia to face overwhelming odds once again.

~ Geoffrey Corbett, The Workers Hammer: A History of the Red Front

---

Trigger Warning: Racism

---

"It appears that the time has come to meet our hosts"

The blue figures had emerged a few moments before their checkpoint had came into view. No matter how much any of them despised it, the French occupation of the Rhineland was the saviour of what was now left of the Ruhr revolutionaries. There was no going back now.

Johann wasn't usually one for irony but he couldn't help but smirk at the situation he was in. Here they were, veterans of the First World War, fleeing towards the French lines to escape their own countrymen, French lines that now extended to the Rhine.

The Allied occupation of the Rhineland had angered virtually all Germans, regardless of politics. There were rumours of French atrocities, particularly those involving black troops, that were played up to hysterical levels by the right-wing press. Johann had read such stories with an air of scepticism, but he hoped that the reactionaries on their tail might be more trusting of the horror stories about French reprisals. Even if they didn't, it was likely that the French themselves would be intimidating enough. The Freikorps and Reichswehr may have defeated their revolution, but the milita and hobbled military wouldn't be a match for the victors of the First World War. At least that was what he hoped.

Having not seen any action whatsoever, even Johann would have admitted that he wasn't technically a veteran. By the November of 1918 the hours of flight time required for new combat pilots had been cut drastically but even then he hadn't been at the academy long enough to see any action. He had been drinking something that could charitably be called "coffee" when the news came of the armistice had come through to the training airfield. It was a frustrating feeling, a rather helpless one of seeing his country be given away before he had a chance to save it. He could understand why many turned to scapegoats for Germany's defeat, for it was those same feelings that had made him see the true cause of the world's problems.

Having spoken to some of his newfound comrades, he was beginning to doubt whether or not he regretted his lack of experience, some of the stories he had heard in their retreat had made him question how these men had managed to keep their sanity. They had been sat around the fire one night, but Johann felt he could see something other than the flames relfecting in their eyes. He had remembered screaming when he'd first pulled the trigger on his first sortie against the reactionary enemy, although he could still only barely remember the blur that was his last flight.

He wasn't sure whether he had been hit by anti-aircraft fire or whether the engine had simple exploded on its own terms, he hadn't stopped to examine the wreck whilst recovering from the shock, when he first saw a group of soldiers approaching he thought that he'd had it anyways. They had managed to bring him to his senses by demanding to know whether or not he had been in the plane bearing the red star. Still in shock, he could only nod in the affirmative as the men around him began to cheer. Soon he found himself marching with them, composed enough to join in with 'Solidarität für immer' after he had pointed them in the direction of Wetter.

It had quickly been made apparent to him that these men were not from the Ruhr, instead he got a bizarre story of retreat from Belgium to Bavaria, revolution, defeat, imprisonment, and then freedom due to a general strike and a confused prison guard. Some of the stories would differ but the one who spoke the most seemed to be the natural leader of the group. Adolf was his name, an intense man with a love of hyperbole, he was able to characterise everything as being part of the same conflict that Johann had first learned about in university, as well as convincing a local farmer that they were willing to dig up his fields all day for nothing more than a bowl of hot soup and a barn roof over their heads. The man had seemed courteous enough but it was clear that he had been happy to exploit their labour, it wouldn't be a great shame when he realised that buried guns were unlikely to sprout.

The group were optimistic about their chances of the French giving them asylum, but had realised that bearing arms would be out of the question. So here they were instead, helpless workers on the run from the Freikorps. Refugees in their own nation.

They had not been the only ones looking for clemency from the French. Many genuine refugees had fled the last few weeks of fighting, alongside some of the not-so genuine, like themselves. If there was one thing that the French soldiers were liable to hate more than Germans it was German military veterans, and as such anything to frsutrate the Freikorps was a welcome move, even if it carried the possibility of certain unruly elements being allowed into their zone of occupation. Johann wondered whether the party was at all active under the Allies' nose, and if not whether they would be the ones to set it up. He wondered if he could convince any of the Frenchmen to join them, it was a country defined by revolution after all.

"They don't seem very French to me."

It was comrade Adolf who had pointed out that though these men wore French uniforms they appeared to be of African heritage.

"They were everywhere at the front, the British and French loved using them as cannon-fodder, they would be the first over the top and the last to retreat. The imperialist bourgeois liked to think that they could make a distinction that way. Can't really blame them, a lot of them hadn't seen a industrial society before being shipped to the front. Our own rulers would have done the same if they had had any colonies worth the name."

This wasn't the sort of attitude Johann was used to, although he had to admit he hadn't had as much experience as most of his colleagues, he wondered if they might have read different literature. He thought it would be best to ask anyway,

"But didn't comrade Lenin say that imperialism was the highest form of capitalism?"

There were some agreeing noises amongst the group although Adolf merely scoffed,

"Yes, yes, but that doesn't make them one and the same. The capitalists oppress the worker to maintain their own power, they pursue imperialism to prevent investment at home, the natives in the colonies they acquire are simply bystanders to the whole process."

As the group moved closer to the men ushering the refugees ahead, they looked to be very much part of the world around them,

"So what you're saying is that this isn't their fight?"

Adolf looked perturbed,

"It's got nothing to do with what I'm saying, Marx made it perfectly clear that they should go back to their huts and concentrate on their own affairs. Acting as they are now they're just the tool of the running dogs, they can't even be made to reason with..."

"Will you please shut up?!" An agitated woman in front of them hissed before Adolf could go off on his rant, the troops were coming within earshot and she clearly thought it was better to reason with them. However the revolutionary could not be dissauded, he called over to one of the soldiers and took out his packet of cigarettes.

This was one of the oddest quirks of the man, he always had a cigarette, yet Johann had never seen him smoke. The soldier did smoke however, and accepted one before trying to find a light.

"Speak German?"

As the soldier's match sparked Johann could see a glimmer in his eyes. He understood that question at least.

"A little."

"Can I ask you where you were born? Was it in France?"

The soldier shook his head,

"Senegal."

Adolf nodded and looked back to Johann, as if that answer proved his point.

"My friends and I were just discussing were you might have come from, obviously we knew that you weren't French and seeing as you aren't I was just wondering why you fight for them. Don't they occupy your own country? Surely it's better for you to go home and fight for independence?"

Adolf changed the wording of the question slightly amidst the four times he tried to get through to the Senegalese soldier, finally the man nodded and seemed to ponder an answer.

"Your accent is very thick. Austrian, maybe?"

Adolf nodded impatiently.

"Yes, yes, but I was hoping you under-"

"You do realise you are going the wrong way don't you, Austrian? You are in Germany. Why aren't you at home fighting for independence?"

Despite their fear of the French, some laughter erupted in the crowd.

At that point, Johann couldn't help but join. At least these French had a sense of humour. Adolf only seemed to scowl for the rest of the day, even once they had safely passed the French lines that would keep away the Freikorps. Having found lodging in the Rhineland that night, Johann couldn't help but overhear their leader muttering about some sort of reckoning.

Looking to the darkening sky in the east, Johann hoped that he meant a reckoning for those who had driven them from the Ruhr. It had to be.

After all, what sort of communist form a grudge over a bit of light mockery when there was a revolution waiting to be sparked?

---

The poster implores the working class to vote for the KPD after being 'betrayed by the SPD.'

The Red · Jul 22, 2017

"In the Germany of 1919 all roads led to Russia, all the roads that mattered, all the roads that were open."

~ E. H. Carr

It would be in 1922, at the Mediterranean seaside resort of Genoa, that the Germans and the Soviets would make their first forays into diplomacy with each other. The Genoa Conference would be the largest international meeting since the Paris Peace Conference had finally ended the First World War, and it would be the first that the Soviet Union had been invited to attened. Whilst the emphasis of the conference was the based on the need to reconstruct and re-order the economies of Europe in the wake of the war, it was also the first opportunity for the new Bolshevik regime to normalise relations with the outside world.

From 1918 to 1920, the British and French had been actively involved in the Russian Civil War. Amongst other Allied nations they had contributed large numbers of supplies and troops to support the 'White' forces, made up of moanrchist and other anti-communist groups, in their fight against the Bolsheviks. After this failed intervention had been abandoned, they had continued to blockade Soviet-held ports and support the Poles during the Russo-Polish war. It was a proxy conflict that had caused resentment at home and appeared to have no effect as to the Soviets continued survival. With the end of the Russo-Polish conflict, and the Whites facing imminent defeat, it was clear that the Bolsheviks would remain in power for the foreseeable future, the Western powers would now have to try to adjust to the regime that they had so recently attempted to destroy.

Accomodating the Soviets had not only become a matter of reality but in some ways it was also attractive to the Anglo-French. Whilst the Soviets had initially been closed to the idea of free markets and western investment, the destruction of Russian infrastructure as a result of the civil war had caused famine to break out in large parts of the Soviet Union. This had made it necessary to call a halt on the aggressive collectivsation policies the Soviets had been pursuing.

The resulting 'New Economic Policy' opened the door to foreign investment from the capitalist powers. At Genoa, the French were especially keen to re-establish some of their old economic links with Russia, pushed by press editorials which described the Soviet Union as a 'potential gold mine'. The British had already begun some trade negotiations and the French were wary of missing out on a prosperous new relationship. Realistically, it was unlikely to have ever worked.

The attitudes and individuals that had motivated the west's anti-Bolshevik interventions remained too powerful. The 'New Economic Policy' was welcomed due to its apparent endorsement of the capitalist model rather than any willingness to have a friendship with the Soviets. The British Prime Minsiter, David Lloyd George, continued to speak of Bolshevism as a menace whilst he was at the conference. He declared that the 'New Economic Policy' only proved that the Soviets had been "beaten" ideologically and that any economic relationship would be reliant on the Soviets taking on the old debts of Tsarist Russia, a huge sum of money. The French were not as ideologically hostile, but they too sought to redeem at least some of the large amounts of money that they had lent to the Tsar. It wasn't the greatest offer of friendship.

The Bolsheviks saw no admission of failure in the 'New Economic Policy', nor were they willing to take responsibility for the large debts they Tsar had accumulated. With these opposing viewpoints, nothing substantial would come from the conference in regards to Anglo-French-Soviet diplomacy. All continued to distrust each other, with the Soviets quietly leaving the conference to speak with the German delegation.

The Germans, still bitter towards the western powers for the harsh treatment imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, were far more open to a relationship with the Soviets and had already recognised the Bolshevik regime a year prior to the conference. Negotations were held first in the town of Santa Margarhita Ligure, and later in the city of Rapallo. In the resulting Treaty of Rapallo, the Germans and the Soviets renounced any territorial claims or past debts on each other and agreed to establish a new trade agreement with would very quickly make Germany the Soviet Union's largest trading partner.

These events in the Summer of 1922 would be a foreshadowing of the more major events of 1936, mutual distrust of the western powers had led to the first major German-Soviet treaty. It would be a treaty had held far more significance than what was agreed on paper, and not just for historical reasons.

~ John Penny, The Unpopular Front

---

---

"And then we sent him a letter of thanks!"

Laughter burst out around the room, the genuine smiles all around the table were a relief amongst such conspiratorial events. This conference room was dark, deep inside the Imperial Hotel the venue was spartan, without any of the splendour of the agreements of the previous few months. General Kurt Von Schleicher couldn't help but feel it had been an appropriate setting for agreeing the clauses of the Treaty of Rapallo that wouldn't technically exist.

"Oh well then, enough conspiracy, let's get out into the sunshine and have some more stories!"

There were loud calls of agreement from both sides as they began to exit the stuffy room, soon they had walked the past the hall where the official agreement had been made two months beforehand. All white walls, white furniture, and the sun puring in from a myriad of windows, it was a lovely scene but perhaps one that would have been rather tainted by the cause of today's discussions. Von Schliecher felt himself being patted on the back and nodded at General Oskar Von Niedermayer. The old spymaster had helped open up talks with the Soviets before Versailles had even been signed, and now he was back to cast even more shadows.

"They really are keen, aren't they?"

Von Niedermayer nodded severely, a scowl appearing on his face.

"I've seen hungry animals with more tact."

Von Schleicher shook his head, he wasn't exactly blind to political intrigue but the two faced-nature in which the Russians were discussed had become nasueating, one moment they were brave warrior colleagues, the next they were animals.

"I just hope that we can be as serious when the time comes."

Von Niedermayer sighed, but only for a moment.

"This meeting isn't officially happening, I think that underlines how much work this is going to take from here on to make sure that this deal goes under the noses of the Allies, not to mention our enemies in the Reichstag."

"I don't think this is going to work in the shadows. The amounts of money that were being talked about in there, it's a level of investment that would have raised eyebrows in 1917. Now the nation's broke and we're going to be funnelling millions into the Soviet Union. This is something that will be noticed."

Even as they joined the rest of the party on the balconies,neither the beautiful day nor the relaxed atmosphere could improve the mood of etheir man. Von Schleicher continued to think out aloud, all the more wary of who might be listening,

"To pull this off we can't hide this off we can't hide away from politics, we must use politicians for our own means, not to mention the civil service. It isn't enough to lie to them, they'll have to lie to themselves as well. Two Reicshwehrs will have to exist from now on, one for the public and for the foreign powers, another for us and the Russians. Both will have to be real, so that the French can sleep easily thinking that they can walk all over us whenever we want, whilst we can sleep soundly knowing that they'll actually be facing a force that is ten time larger and training with all the modern equipment the Russians can supply us with."

Von Niedermayer began to smile again,

"It looks like I might be of better service to my country in the worker's paradise then. This hidden Reicshwehr will need to find places for tank training, airfields, maybe even submarines. I'll make a start at trying to find them, Russia is vast after all. Von Seeckt and yourself are far more suited to the politics game, I'd rather spend my time dealing with people who don't pretend that they aren't communists."

Von Schleicher laughed and the two men shook hands, as the storytelling Russian apporached them three glasses, beaming under his large moustache. The German generals beamed as they noticed the bottle of riesling.

"Nothing but the best for our German friends!"

The way he poured the glasses, along with his odd little bowtie, made Smeyon Budyonny appear like an eccentric waiter from a Habsburg cafe. Neither of the Germans had seen him in action, but they had heard the stories of his military prowess. Here was one of Red Army's greatest officers, a man who had slain the White forces, and now was looking to the future. Von Schleicher couldn't help but see it as an act. He handed a glass to each of them and shouted "Let’s drink to love! Gorka!".

A few of the Russians behind them laughed, the two Germans instead chanted in unison:

"Prost!"

Budyonny beamed at the serious men underneath his thick moustache,

"Tell me, why is it that you Prussians always have such a stick up your ass?"

Von Schleicher shrugged,

"Something to do with history I imagine, frontiers, wild savages, that sort of thing"

As Budyonny refilled the glasses he left a large space in each, before producing a hip flask from his tweed coat and poured in a silvery, peppered liquid to fill them up.

"This always makes it taste better I find."

Von Niedermayer examined his glass before raising it,

"To new frontiers!"

Von Schleicher couldn't understand why, but the riesling really did taste better this time.

---

The painting is Lovers by Magnus Zeller

The Red · Aug 8, 2017

"I'll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council, a Labour council, hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers. I'm telling you, and you'll listen, you can't play politics with people's jobs and with people's services. The people will not abide posturing."

~ Neil Kinnock, Speech to the 1985 Labour Party Conference

When we consider the current crisis it becomes clear how feckless the bourgeois republic truly is, for in attempting to balance a worship of capital with a pretence of democracy it has revealed its own inherent contradiction.

Indeed, we can go as far as to say that it was revealed the roots of its own destruction!

The architects of the republic believed that they could ignore the underlying contradictions of their regime and for a handful of years they had breifly succeeded. The workers who had brought down the old regime were placated by promises of ever better wages, ever better insurance, even shorter hours. The landed gentry, the junkers, the old aristrocratic elites, were bought off by promises the republic safeguarding their hegemony over large parts of Germany. The British and French were promised that the republic would cooperate with their ludicrous demands for reparations in the wake of the great imperialist slaughter.

By the events of last year it has become clear that their attempts to placate all these groups have failed, they can no longer pretend that capital and worker can co-exist together in harmony, nor that we can fulfill the impossible demanda imposed upon powers by foreign powers!

As the breadbaskets have become too small for the larger and larger bundles of meaningless banknotes, it is now clear to the German people that this republic can do nothing but cause them further misery. It is time to end this charade!

~ Adolf Hitler, Our Struggle

---

Although Robert had once yearned for home, he had to admit that his life stateside was beginning to bore him.

Working at this new institution wasn't at all lacking in achievement but the library of Bluefield college didn't quite compare to the Palace of Mirrors. A few years beforehand he had been helping to shape the new world, now he could only tell his students about the world as it once was.

Nonetheless, it was a job, and there weren't many of those going for Democrats in this adminsitration so he could be blamed for going further afield. Warren Harding had boasted of a 'return to normalcy' as he had swept into office and it seemed to be working, America had turned it's back on the world and was being awarded for it. The thought made Robert's stomach turn.

Harding had ignored the League of Nations, choosing instead to strong-arm the Japanese into a secondary status in the Pacific whilst giving the go-ahead for some jumped up demagogue to take power in Italy. The American people had put an illusion of stability before a long-term peace and now he could already see how the world was setting itself up for further bloodshed. He wondered whether there had been any point of going to Versailles at all, when his phone rang he suprisingly got an answer on the other end.

"Professor Oaks? I have the White House,"

"Ah...alright?"

The switchboard voice he was used to was replaced by a more formal one.

"Hold for the President"

Wait, what?
Robert wasn't entirely sure what was going on

"Professor Oaks?"

"Mr...President?"

"The very same! I must admit it's a great relief to be speaking with you. A problem has been troubling this office, well, my office, these last few hours and I think that you might be the man to help us get our heads around it."

"Sir, I am honoured to serve my country in any capacity but I'm not sure what problem you're speaking of?"

"Well naturally you wouldn't, it probably hasn't been on the radio yet but we've just had three telegrams in quick succession from our embassies in Berlin, Brussels, and Paris."

Robert remained ignorant, but the three of those capitals being used in conjunction had already begun to subconsciously turn his stomach.

"It appears that French and Belgian troops have entered the Ruhr."

Robert sat in hurtful silence as President Harding continued to talk, keeping a jovial tone the entire time, as if he couldn't decide what picture to go and see tonight at the movies.

"Now I believe that you predicted that this would happen?"

"Not so much predicted as suggested Mr President, Marshal Foch seemed to indicate that France would act unilaterally to keep Germany in check if they felt that other countries didn't have the willingness to do so."

He could still remember that conversation, it wasn't often that you met a man of such esteem and simply forgot, but Robert believed that the Frenchman's manner would have stuck with him even if the man had been a frozen Charleston Chew vendor. The cockiness, the determination, the bitterness, these were emotions that couldn't be summed up via diplomatic language. But he was a diplomat, or had been at least, and he had tried his best.

"Do you believe that the French have a case?"

"Germany isn't my area of expertise Mr President, but I'd wager that it doesnt matter whether or not the Germans won't or can't pay. This is a point of pride."

"And how do you believe the situation will proceed now that your suggestion has come to pass?"

"I don't think this is a stunt Mr President, if the French truly are wary of the Germans trying to avoid their reparations payments then they are likely to believe that intimidation has failed. Instead, they're probably going to show that they can extract those reparations themselves until the Germans agree to play along."

Through the static murmur of the telephone, Robert thought he could hear the President thinking aloud, it took a moment for him to reply,

"How long do you believe the French would be willing to keep this up Professor? If the Germans do not "play along" as you say?"

"That's hard to speculate on Mr President, by all accounts Versailles has already been damaging to France's economic recovery, their trying to rebuild by economically hobbling the country that was previously their largest trading partner. We can't rely on rational thinking here."

"And the Belgians?"

"I'm afraid that they aren't my area of expertise either Mr President, revenge against Germany hasn't been part of their political culture in the same way it has been in France but their country was under German occupation for four years and by all accounts they suffered greatly for it. I wouldn't be surprised if they were in this for the long-term as well."

The President began muttering again, "No...no, this won't do...", Robert couldn't help but feel rather sorry for him, here was a man out of his depth in foreign affairs coming to terms with the idea that some problems in life couldn't be solved on a front porch with a glass of lemonade. Perhaps something stronger might have sufficed, another reason the bored Professor yearned for a return to Europe.

"Will the Germans fight this?"

"Again Mr President I'm afraid that my knowledge is very limited but given the state of their army after Versailles I wouldn't say so. The French army is the most powerful in Europe and if they now occupy the heart of the German war machine then it's unlikely the Germans can evict them by force."

"Would there be any chance that the Germans might see this is a wake-up call? Start taking their responsibilities seriously?"

"I can only hope so, sir. But I can assure you that you would be better with someone else to get a better picture of the German perspective."

"Yes...yes. Yes." Came the sound from down the line, it was clear by the sound that Harding was adressing someone in the room with him.

"Professor Oaks, I would like to thank you very much for your help this afternoon."

Robert couldn't help but smile, the administration that had discarded him in the trash was now raking around in it the can like a man who had accidentally dropped his watch.

"Anything I can do in the service of my country Mr President."

"I believe that there is more that you can do, why don't you go out to our embassy for a while, see what sense can be made of the situation from there?"

Robert had already begun dreaming that this was where the phonecall had been going but he had tried to ignore it as a flight of fancy, now it really was so, working in the embassy, Paris in Summer, the boats on the Seine, the myseteries conceiled with the Louvre, the small cafes where so many wonders could be..."

"Hopefully your time in Berlin will allow you to see the situation from both sides,"

The line went dead, just as Robert's head slammed into his desk. A hurtful silence descended as he was once again alone in his office.

He was beginning to fear that he might soon miss his boring life, a job in Berlin was the wrong type of excitement.

---

The painting is Before the Performance by Edgar Degas

The Red · Aug 17, 2017

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."

~ Bertrand Russell

It is common knowledge that economic problems have a tendency to radicalise a nation. A failed economic consensus can bring fringe ideas on the far-left and/or far-right to prominence practically overnight. Depending on the extent of the failure.

The trauma of German hyperinflation in the early twenties was a very different case. An economic catastrophe can be collectively pursued to such a degree that it can ultimately prove fatal to a state, but very rarely does the society re-shape itself so radically that when the the danger to the state manifested itself, it was received warmly and often blindly by virtually every part of the community.

This was the process of "proletarianisation" and it is ultimately responsible for Germany's stumble from an unloved democracy into a totaltarian state, The crisis of hyperinflation did not destroy Weimar, it did not even sow the seeds of its later destruction. It was far worse than that. The crisis actively re-shaped a society in such a way that communism not only became necessary but began to be seen as a component of the German character. Marx had envisaged this, although his prediction was that proletarianisation would come with increased accumulation of capital by the ruling bourgeoisie, instead it would be be brought about by a vitriolic mix of economic collapse, fervent nationalism and middle-class erosion

Weimar's hyperinflation had its roots in the First World War, where the German leadership gambled with large deficit spending almost immediately after the war had begun. As the military increasingly consolidated state power for themselves this was exacerbated, the first signs of out of control inflation were to be found in the promisory credits that the German Empire happily handed out to its subjects with no intention of honouring.

This was an economic gamble that was predicated on a German victory, where the risk was considered to be a necessary sacrifice for a victory that would allow Germany to redeem any losses from her defeated enemies. By 1919 this strategy had not only failed, but it had become apparent that the victorious Entente had a similar strategy in mind.

The reparations bill that had been dictated to Germany in the Summer of 1921 been artificially inflated to seem harsher on the defeated nation than it actually was, the declared sum of 123 Bilion Goldmarks was actually closer to 50 Billion. It was little relief for the Germans, who for the last four years had already been printing large amounts of unbacked currency.

The Germans protested that they had no means of paying such a sum, the victors were sceptical. Since the end of the war, German manufacturing had enjoyed a minor boom based on strong exports. Diplomats reported stories of cafes and restaurants that were full of foreign tourists, alongisde tales of Berlin's thriving nightlife. They chose to ignore Germany's crippling deficit and her high unemployment rate. The distrust of the British, the emnity of the French, and the disinterest of the United States created a consensus that the German protests were disingenious, and that their economic vitality was a testament to that.

The strength of German exports was attributed to the weakness of the Goldmark and a toxic consensus had formed around this belief. The "inflationary" consensus was not only preached by the center--right government but also by the Social Democrats. Germany's only solution to the problems caused by her defeat was to grow itself out of poverty, for that to be achieved, German manufacturing and trade had to be competitive, which in turn required a weak Goldmark. A large majoirty of Germans, whether business owners and workers agreed. The symptoms of the oncoming crisis had already begun to appear by the Summer of 1921, they were dealt with disastorously.

It had become clear that inflation was causing prices to overtake wages, this was generally acknowledged as a problem that needed to be resolved but the government was not willing to raise taxes to pay for wage increases, whilst businesses were unwilling to see their profits suffer. The government simply printed more money, whilst business increased prices even further to make up for their own wage increases, creating a wage-spiral that would eventually drag the country into depression.

The rising inflation was relatively gradual at first, tempered somewhat by the strength of German trade with the outside world, but the signs of a larger emergency were apparent. Germany's credit rating was abysmal and whilst the government appealed for help from the capital markets it was not forthcoming. This caused further uncertainty in the finanical world, and runaway speculation soon began with little attention being paid to risk. The government even began to speculate against itself by deliberately devaluing the Goldmark in an attempt to lessen the damage of the reparations payments. An archaic picture of attempting to print an economy out of debt and out of an economic slowdown emerged, and the banks began to panic. All the while, the printing continued and expanded as larger and larger sums were required.

The liquidity crisis began to take its toll, business had slumped, exports were in decline, and unemployment was on the rise. The Reichsbank's solution had become predictable, business needed credit and workers needed paper money to buy products, ignorant of the fact that they had already lost control. Hyperinflation ensued. In October 1921 an American Dollar could buy roughly 100 Goldmarks, in October 1922 it could buy 3000. By the end of 1922 it could buy 7000.

The Goldmark had already become a bad joke in the autumn of 1922 but the Allies were unsympathetic. When the Germans asked for a moratorium on reparations payments they were accused of deliberately orchestrating the crisis. Germany was expected to pay in tangible assets rather than in her increasingly worthless currency. When Germany defaulted on a payment to France, a large shipment of timber, Raymond Poincare's government was unsympathetic to what they saw as German excuses. Poincare had been President when Germany had occupied large areas of France, he now chose to return the favour.

On January 11, 1923, Belgian and French troops entered the Ruhr, a move that provoked universal anger amongst the German people. The government's declaration that it would resist the occupation immediately strengthened their legitimacy amidst the economic crsis but ultimately it would only make things worse. As the Belgians and French marched by factories, workers packed up and left, whenever they came near a government building they would see the civil servants filing out of the doors. This was passive resistance on a mass scale, an organised attempt at making the Ruhr ungovernable and unproductive. The government promised to reimburse any worker who joined the general strike, and this naturally required printing more money.

If the government's response to the occupation worsened the crisis, the success of the passive resistance exacerbated things even further. The Ruhr made up 80% of German coal and steel production, it was not long before the regional shutdown created an economic depression across the country. Still, the printing of money continued. By July 1923, a Dollar could buy 160,000 Goldmarks, the following month it was up to a million and by November, four billion.

This was fertile territory for proleterianisation. By 1923 the distinction between white and blue collar workers was becoming increasingly meaningless, civil servants often found themselves earning little more than unskilled labourers whilst the hyperinflation rendered their savings meaningless. As money became good for nothing but kindling, the very existence of a bourgeois identity increasingly became one of pride rather than actual status. Many continued to own their own homes, but their interiors were increasingly cold and barren as more and more property was sold off to buy essentials. It was a fragile state of affairs, and as many lost their jobs and went hungry, resentments began to overtake the need to preserve a class identity.

The blame against the state, the Reichsbank, and their economists, was near universal. The promises of democracy and prosperity that the republic had seemed to promise were now often seen to have been nothing but lies that were leading Germany to destruction. Many lost their faith in the republic, and some were convinced that they now had to work towards its destruction. Anyone who was seen to be profitting from the crsis was often blamed for making things worse, with particular ire for those who had engaged in speculation. These attitudes were often of an anti-semitic or xenophobic nature, but increasingly they all agreed that the free markets that the inflationary consensus had been designed to service were the true cause of Germany's ills.

By the end of the Summer of 1923, the German people were increasingly used to the erosion of class identity and the shared misery, with a growing scepticism of capitalism and the republic itself, and a universal hatred of the foreign occupation. These were the products of proletarianisation, a mix of economic, poltiical, and patriotic fury that no-one seemed able to provide an aswer for.

Until, to the detriment of the world, one man did.

~ David Irons, Bridging the Horseshoe

---

There was a solid look of terror in the Frenchman's eyes, even as the bottom half of his face collapsed. It wasn't an expression that was likely to change The gun had jerked violently in Johann's hand but he was close enough for it not to matter. The other soliders were dead before they could realise. Johann was relieved for that, it had been a while since he had fired a gun in anger, and never from the ground. He realised it was rather different when you had to look into someone's eyes.

The French troops hadn't seemed particularly interested in the flea market they had been told to supervise. Johann supposed that they had drawn the short straw on a weekend where many fellow troops would be on leave or relaxing in their barracks in the old castle on the other side of the river. In a way, Johann could sympathise, he wasn't interested in the market either, only in them. Their friends' turn would come in due course.

Johann felt a strong urge to run, but, like his comrade, Freder, who had dispatched the other two troops, he had a job to do. He hoped he appeared calm to the outside world as he kneeled down and took the soldiers rifle and slung it over his shoulder, secreting his pistol into the pocket of his long jacket. He winced as he stood back up, his back was aching from all the digging he had done last night to find the weapon's secreted in an old farmer's field, but he had no time to moan.

Many people had fled the market after hearing the gun shots, abandoned baskets full of useless banknotes littered the ground, along with an overturned wheelbarrow, still here some who had stayed and peered fearfully at the spectacle, from behind tables or from partially closed doors. Johann circled around the market square and acknowledged them, he rustled around in his pocket to find his red armband before stretching it up his coat sleeve. It was a garish looking thing but he supposed that was the point, he raised his fist and shouted as loudly as he could.

"This is the vengeance of the German worker! This is the fate of all foreigners and capitalists who enslave our people! The Red Front will be victorious!"

As Johann and Freder walked off purposefully, he thought he heard a muted cheer, or it might have just been a gust of wind rattling through the square that they had reduced to silence.

At least we made our point, Johann thought to himself, trying his hardest not to break into a run. "How long do you reckon we have?", he muttered to his comrade.

"Doesn't matter, just keep walking until we're out of view, we need to look like we're not scared."

"Despite the fact that we are?"

Freder smirked, "Are you sure you never finished university, detective?"

The moment they reached a sufficiently dark close, the armbands disappeared and the rifles were secreted underneath their coats as they ran as quickly as they could down a long line of winding, impoverished, tenement slums around the silent factories, before finally reaching the Inn that now formed the centre of Wetter's KPD activity, or, if everything went to plan tomorrow, the new town hall.

The innkeeper bolted his doors as soon as Freder and Johann had entered, it was a fairly common sight to run out of beer in the middle of day thanks to the beer shortages, and his patrons didn't seem to mind being locked in for a few hours. Two men, only know to him as The Besotten Wretch and The Semi-Drunk, raised their glasses to Johann, he grinned back before beckoning Freder into the backroom, where the man who didn't imbibe was holding court.

All men stood, the original handful that had walked with him from Munich, and those who had joined since, either out of belief, anger, or desperation, they all now looked to him as he stretched his arms over the map of Wetter and looked to the two comrades who had just entered.

"A good haul?"

Johann nodded, "Three rifles, two hand-guns, and two hand-grenades for some reason?"

There was a chuckle around the room before Hitler spoke,

"I suppose they thought they might get some fishing done this evening, oh well, a stroke of good luck for us I'd say, we'll need all the explosives we can get tomorrow."

"I still think that we're being too fast with this, we've started killing French soldiers now, they're going to start going after us."The man was Joseph Linge, like Johann he had been a party member since the Ruhr had risen up, it wasn't enough experience for Hitler to not single him out.

"We've been hiding for three years, that isn't enough time for you?"

"It's not about that, the French know we're here now, I don't think it's too hard to see why attacking them at their most alert isn't a good idea!"

"You weren't listening last time were you? I've decided that it's best to attack tomorrow because they're at their most alert!"

"And are you to formulate strategy on your own?"

Hitler looked around the room before going back to his map, he spoke deeply.

"Who in this room has actually fought the French? Raise your hands."

There was an awkward silence as Hitler raised his right-arm into the air, along with a handful more, Johann and Freder awkwardly raised theres. They had just shot some French soldiers after all. Hitler looked around the room and smirked at Joseph,

"I've stormed French fortifications before, the men in this room who also have will know the same as I do, the best time to attack them is when they think they're in pursuit. You fire the shot, you crouch in the foxhole, and wait for them to run out into your field of fire. They aren't expecting us tomorrow, and that's why we're going to do it. They're going to be scurrying all around the town thinking that we're hiding under a bed somewhere. When he hit them with our full force, when we storm the gates of Castle Wetter, they will be as confused as they are terrified!"

There was a murmur of approval around the room, as if his confidence was infectious.

"Tomorrow, we emerge from the shadows as we have waited to do for so long! The Red Front will be no longer be whispered by those who are frightened of French reprisal, by tomorrow night, all of the Ruhr will be running to our banner!"

The murmur was now a cheer, and Johann found himself joining it.

"...And when we take the Ruhr, I pledge, We. Will. Take. Germany!"

This time, a vote was taken, but it was clear that Hitler already had the room. The plan was on, tomorrow they would march.

"Arise ye workers from your slumber!" Followed soon after,

"Arise ye prisoners of want!" boomed the response.

A few hours later, Johann couldn't recall when the singing had ended and the drinking began, only that there was a multitude of both.

Johann liked to think it was their last night as chattel. For many, it would be their last night regardless.

---

The painting is We Are Making A New World by Paul Nash.

The Red · Sep 9, 2017

'Marxists are too apt to forget that war has its own psychology, which is the result of fear, and is independent of the original cause of contention.'

~ Bertrand Russell, Scylla and Charybdis, or Communism and Fascism

It was in the midst of the economic collapse that the French would invade a vital economic heartland of the German people! They knew this action would only weaken us further, despite their stated aims. We were on the road to enslavement, and our government did not lift a finger. It was an action that I knew must be fought. No-one else rose to help us, once again the workers had to take matters into their own hands. So deep was the corruption and inertia of the republic that the white guards, as though seized by a melancholy, refused to defend the fatherland against a foreign invader. The enthusiasm with which they had murderers the revolutionary martyrs was entirely lacking when their masters held them back!

The Weimar regime seemed to have forgotten their endless betrayals of the working classes, and asked once again for our support in exchange for their worthless currency. It is understandable that the people of the Ruhr came to our banner, knowing full well that their government had abandoned them to their fate. The Berlin bureaucrats did not care about the people of the Ruhr, they were merely looking for a distraction whilst they found a way to sell a new surrender to the German people as if it were something other than another tribute to the lords of international capital. As we have seen, they ran from the fight like the cowardly officers who left men to die in the trenches at the end of the great imperialist slaughter.

This applies to all those for whom Germany is more than a mere stop-over for making and spending money. They, who, despite all their claims of patriotism and prosperity had no real desire to contain the economic collapse or the French invasion. To them Germany is merely another business, or another property, to be bought and sold to the highest bidder.

The omens of this betrayal were present and visible to the workers of the Ruhr, and despite the government's anemic calls for passive resistance, there were those who attempted to draw a real lesson from the events that had caused the French invasion.

The handful of comrades from Munich were sufficient to begin the raising of the militant organisation, soon others from the Ruhr rising jojned our movement, and soon others called to the cause of the socialist revolution. By the time the French attacked, the basis of the Red Front was already in existence, not designed to fight a foreign invader but to protect the German worker and assist in his revolution!

All the same, when the Berlin government passively bowed it was clear that we had no other choice but to act. There would be no help coming from the cowards who urged collaboration with the French, fearful that their paymasters would no longer tolerate their servants if they did not supply the products of German labour at slave rates. Their suspension of their sham democracy made it all the more clear the German people were not to interfere with this grand conspiracy.

It became clear that there was only one path that we could follow. We were not expecting to fight a French invasion, but we were faced with no other option. As our fellow Germans suffered around us we could not standby as the French capitalists ran roughshod over our own people.

And so we began!

This is the fundamental difference between the Communist Party and the republican government, our priorty is not international capital but the German worker!

It is on this basis that the Red Front was formed, the Communist Party can no longer be a bystander to events. When the crisis comes it will always hit the worker the hardest. The worker, who has nowhere to run from exploitation and usury, only has his own strength with which to fight. The Communist Party is the living representation of the worker's strength, and the Red Front is the worker's weapon.

~ Adolf Hitler, Our Struggle

---

---

The city of Wetter had already woken by the time the fighting had started.

As the French began to drag people out of their homes into the early morning sunlight, the shouts of protest had echoed throughout the quiet streets. The attacks Johann had participated in had finally convinced the local French garrisson to go through the town and eliminate all forms of resistance. Unwilling to distinguish guilt from innocence, it hadn't been long before any Germans suspected of any perceived sabotage, passive or otherwise, were being rounded-up by the garrison. The riots that had broken out were not by the initiative of the Red Front, but no-one involved was taken by surprise. They were, after all, there only to assist the workers. Johann took comfort in sticking to that line.

All the same Johann's comrades had been in the crowds, and when the French had started to shoot it wasn't long before they returned fire. Or perhaps it had bene the other way around. Johann couldn't be sure, he had already been lying low outside of the town, watching the violence unfold from their small camp as they had made the final preparations for their assault on Castle Wetter.

The crackle of the gunfire from the other bank of the river was by the French who were aiming directly at them. They had made little effort to fortify the castle before it had become clear that the Red Front was operating in Wetter, and now that it was too late they had chosen to face the revolutionaries head on, despite the fact that the majority of their garrison was busy fighting in the city.

Hitler had reassured them that this strategy would work, that an urban area could swallow far larger numbers of soliders than a fixed fortification, and thus whilst the French were tearing the town apart by fighting a few dozen men and an angry mob, the bulk of the Red Front forces would be able to storm the castle and smash the skeleton crew left behind..

The Red Front hadn't been much of a force to begin with, a rabble of escaped revolutionaries and local workers that had needed to be drilled into a fighting unit. It had taken time doing so underground, but now they exhibited a discipline that Johann hadn't seen since his own training in 1918, quietly surrounding what was left of the French garrisson until it was made clear that the riots would keep the French busy. It was at that point when Comrade Hitler had given the order to attack.

They had crept forward until the French machine gun had started to bark and Johann had acquainted himself with the lovely green meadow, as the tracer bullets glowed over his head. The clattering noise of the gun was deafening, made all the worse by the occasional splattering noise and a howl of pain. The familiar click of a jammed weapon was a welcome relief, and soon he took out the grenade he had taken from the Frenchman the day before and lobbed it as best he could at the hastily arranged machine-gun nest. There was an even louder noise from the reuslting explosion, and he was soon covered in blood and dirt. Johann was picking a worm out of his hair when he noticed that the Frenchmen were still there, twitching, whilst their machine-gun had seemingly disappeared. He heard a roar all around him and knew at once that it wasn't the screams of the injured, it was the call to advance and he joyously followed.

A handful of French soliders were perched on the high walls, firing off shots at the advancing Germans. They were outnumbered and outgunned but they had the height advantage and even though smoke was rising from the other side of the castle, it seemed they were adamant that their position wouldn't fall. Joseph continued to implore his comrades to charge. They had reached cover by the time that a grenade fell inbetween his legs, Johann winced as the explosion cleared. He hadn't supported this strategy, and now he had died for it. The French soon stopped firing, an explosion rocked the other side of the castle and an even larger smoke plume emerged in the sky.

"At least something's going right," Johann thought to himself, before imploring what was left of his comrades to move on once again. With the handful of Frenchmen distracted by shooting inside the walls, Johann attached what meagre dynamite the Red Front had been able to provide him with the bolted doors before lighting the fuse. A blast sent wooden splinters flying everywhere, and they charged in amongst the smoke. The French barricades, hastily assembled inside the castle, had all been focused on Hitler's initial breakthrough. The French had been holding on, only to now realise that the situation was hopeless. The Red Front had them surrounded.

Taken by surprise, the French troops fought on in the courtyard all the same. They were cut to pieces in the envelopment they could reorientate themselves, both by Johann's comrades but by those who were already inside. It was a miracle that neither group had accidentally fired on each other.

Hitler appeared to be frantic with bloodlust, he didn't seem to care about the fact that his original plan had required the French to meet them outside the castle. Standing amidst those who had survived, he seemed unable to stay in the one place for more than a few seconds, his eyes darted around the walls as if the men around him were available. Eventually, it seemed that he had found what he was looking for, as he focused on the tricolour fluttering on top of the tallest tower.

"We need to get that flag down!"

The businesslike, somewhat distracted, tone of their leader wasn't enough to prevent an outbreak of cheers. The castle was theirs, and the French flag would now be replaced by their own. It had been enough to illicit joy, until Johann remembered who had been responsible for carrying the flag.

Outside of the castle his body still lay, it wasn't going to be going anywhere on its own any longer. Joseph's eyes remained wide open, looking at nothing, as he lay still amongst the dirt. Gunshots began to ring out in the castle, slow and methodical now. The execution of the wounded. Johann remembered the look in Hitler's eyes, and wondered whether this was part of the plan, or if he had simply gotten a taste for killing. The flag remained in Joseph's hand, and Johann was dismayed to find that he stil had a firm grasp on it. Unwrapping the flag from Joseph's fingers, still warm, made Johann shudder. He hadn't realised how queasy he was, stumbling back through the castle walls.

The gunshots had ceased now, though Johann could still hear firing from the town itself, it appeared that Hitler had as well. A great rush had begun to take out everything that good be carried, guns, ammunition, even spare uniforms. Their leader looked at Johann, confused for a moment, before remembering why he had sent him away.

"Oh, drop that, the French have got a lot of explosives and paraffin hanging around. I need to you to make sure this feudal relic is ablaze after we've taken everything we can!"

It appeared that statements were no longer of the same importance that they had been upon the initial relief of taking the castle. The French fighting in the town would soon be back to avenge their brethern, and the Red Front had no intention of being there when they returned. One of the things Johann found most appealing about Hitler's leadership was his hatred of doomed last stands.

As they made off in small groups the first glimmers of fire had begun to appear from inside the castle, soon the entire structure would be burning long into the night, glowing as an emblem of resitance across the river. The city would suffer for this, far more than for his little shootings, and the workers would suffer the most. They always did. Johann could take comfort in his actions, knowing that they would hasten the inevitable uprisings predicted by Marx. The worker's had a breaking point, and the more acts of resistance around them the more would rise up. The French could not pacify entire cities for long, nor could Berlin once the foreign army had eventually fled.

Whilst dialectical materialism proceeded inevitably towards its final destination, it could not do so without agency. Such had been the case in Russia, soon it would be the case in Germany.. The crisis had come, and there was no longer any option to sit on the sidelines. As the flames began to roar, Johann put away thoughts of death and destruction that he had caused, or was still to cause. He was doing something, and that was what mattered.

He could dwell on what he had done when the revolution was won.

---

The painting is The Creation of Freedom by Jaber Al Azmeh

The Red · Sep 22, 2017

"There's a room where the light won't find you,
Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down,"

~ Tears for Fears

The passing of the Enabling Act on the 26th of September was essentially a recognition that, though Stresemann had only been Chancellor for a month, he had little confidence in Germany's young institutions to solve the crisis facing Germany. The act gave him wide-ranging powers over German society, with only minor exclusions over workers rights as a nod to the Social Democrats who tenuously supported his centre-right government.

As the autumn of 1923 wore on, the violence in Wetter had spread out across the French and Belgian occupation. Increasingly, Hitler was setting the Ruhr aflame.

~ Piloting the Sinking Ship: Stresemann and His Times, Karen Anderson

---

He had been told that Postdamer Platz was the single busiest area in Europe and amongst flurry of people he now found himself in, Robert found it hard to disagree.

Life in a large city was not too out of the ordinary for Robert, though the sights that could be seen in Berlin were rather alien to his experiences in Paris or Washington. The crush of people trying to get onto already packed streetcars amidst the industrial smog weren't all that unfamiliar, but the fashion for political radicalism, and the numerous viewpoints being put across, made him fear that German society might be as hopelessly divided as some in the embassy seemed to believe. From far-left to far-right, Robert could count at least twelve different parties preaching or recruiting, proclaiming their own solutions to the present crises and, more importantly, why they were better than all the other options on offer and how their opponents were ultimately in the pocket of some enemy or other; the French, the Jews, the Junkers, the Catholics, the international Bourgeoisie, the out of control unions, the Bolsheviks...it seemed that every party represented some sort of private interest that they hadn't declared. There was a overbearing sense of betrayal and desperation all around, and its source was evident.

Poverty was even more preponderant in Berlin than political fervour.

Hyperinflation had devastated the German economy, the French occupation had only exacerbated things. Many of the colourful shops across the city had begun accepting barter as payment, others lay abandoned despite their prime location in the city. Berlin had been defined by its cafe culture in recent years, and patrons still remained, nursing a single cup of coffee for hours and that they had paid for in advance. The price was liable to change in the time it took to drink it. The street stalls full of hot food and cakes had wonderful aromas, but though the city was hungry few were queuing up. The crises he had been sent to get a better understanding of continued to take their toll, and lines for people requiring charity were far longer than any others. As Robert walked by one such miserable gathering, he couldn't help but recognise that the smells from the soup kitchens were not nearly as good. A one-legged vagrant sipped his soup in silence as Robert walked past, next to him a sign had been positioned that stated

"I fought for Germany for three years. Help the GERMAN homeless!"

The sight made Robert shudder, were there was hunger there was resentment, and it seemed to be blaming everything, even the most humble act of charity. He felt as if he was living in a powder keg, ready to go off at any moment and burning everything with it.

He supposed that this feeling helped him in his role as special advisor on Franco-German relations. Robert went into work everyday trying to construct new analysis out of a relationship that didn't seem to exist. It was mundane, tiring work, a job that he felt necessary despite the encouragement of his boss. Mr Houghton seemed to be an idealist, though Robert felt that even he grown weary of the violence that seemed to permeate between the French and the Germans. As much as he desired a good night's sleep, Robert felt as if he needed to get out. The American embassy was not as bitter as the world outside, but it was claustrophobic all the same.

By the evening, he was resolved to venture out. although he feared that the queues of hungry people would be replaced by those desperate enough to commit acts of violence. The claims of a spike in violent crime recently had been dismissed officially but as a foreigner he was wary of hanging around on the streets for too long in the hope that the old stereotypes of well-ordered Germans were no longer true.

Robert didn't hate the city. As much as the assignment was grating he had felt compelled to go, he liked to think that his sense of national duty was stronger than his distaste for the Republican in the White House,

The cabaret remained as popular as ever, those who were hungry required escapism even more than usual. Of course there were those who simply didn't have the money anymore, for them were other means. It seemed as if Germany's Communist party was climbing above all others alternatives to the current order.

To spend all day working for increasingly meaningless wages often created a attitude of helplessness. Robert wasn't a Marxist but he knew that much. Their posters were everywhere to remind him regardless. It seemed that whoever did their posters had taken a rather savage delight amidst the crisis unfolding in the Ruhr. It seemed that international solidarity had taken a backseat to bragging about the death of the French.

A demonic figure with a tricoloured top-hat was grasping for the Ruhr, only to howl in pain as his claws got pierced on the dozens of red bayonets emerging from the soil. Another showed a black French solider burning a copy of the treaty of Versailles, upon closer inspection the fire was an entire German village aflame.

It wasn't a comforting sight to see these types of posters. as Robert walked down Friedrechstrasse there seemed to be violent imagery all around him. It was a relief to walk into the dimly lit rooms of The Black Cat. Here, at least, laughter reigned, although the stress of the outside world continued to reflect on Robert's escapism. He noticed on his way in that a freshly painted sign welcomed him to Schwarzer Kater rather than Chat Noir, too many German citizens had died at French hands in the recent months for the French language to continue be vogue.

As Robert sat down he wondered if the Cabaret would mention the recent troubles, it seemed that the communists bragging about their deeds had taken on a certain popular resonance.

On the stage was a bed, and one by one a number of caricatures of Weimar politicians began to stumble into a queue, cooing amongst themselves and jumping at their own shadows. La Marseillaise began to play.

Robert had just ordered a beer when he recognised that the act wasn't going to take his mind off things.

Marianne, a pretty girl rendered clownish by an absurd amount of make-up, swaggered seductively onto the stage, as she read a large, mocked-up, travel guide called "Things to Shaft in the Ruhr". After she had sat down on the bed several gratituitous acts were played out by the declining line of politicians, as an increasingly frustrated Marianne began to bash the heads of the gibbering men, all the time chastising them for "Not satisfying her needs"

After the weak politicians all lay dazed in a pile, Marianne lamented that for all the Germans tried to please her, they couldn't give her what she desired. and as the band stopped playing she declared her desire for "A Little Death All of My Own"

At that moment a man in a Bolshevik cap with a hankerchief over his face popped out from under the bed. The crowd burst into further laughter as the sinister looking figure crept behind the clueless Marianne before throwing a comically large bomb at her. With a pop and a whoosh of smoke the stage was quiet for a moment, before the dazed French woman appeared with her Phrygian cap having been blown off along with some other articles of clothing.

"We laugh at this farce whilst allowing it to consume us." Upon hearing the heaivly accented English Robert turned away from the spectacle to see a grim faced man standing behind him, he was younger than Robert, but the stress on his face had aged him. Robert had seen that look on many German faces recently.

"I'm sorry sir, but do I know you?", Robert was confused as Ernst finally smiled and shook his hand, sitting down at the table without being prompted.

"You don't I'm afraid, my name is Ernst Mehr, and I think that we should have a chat."

"If this is about a diplomatic issue, I would prefer if you made an appointment Mr Mehr."

"Please, it's Ernst, and I thought that this might be the best place for some diplomacy." As he motioned to the stage, Robert sighed as a semi-naked Marianne chased the Bolshevik round and round the bed. "What do you thnk of that little performance?"

Robert shrugged, "Trying times are easier to get through when humour can be found in them."

"And you find the death of French soldiers humourous?"

Robert scowled, "No more than the killing of German civilians."

Ernst looked around him and whispered, "I thought you were supposed to be the American Francophile."

"I'm supposed to be what my country asks of me, wouldn't you agree?"

Ernst laughed.

"It's rather hard to be 'German' diplomatically these days, but it's more important than ever. I might be a Marxist, but I have no interest in what Lenin and Trotsky are offering. If their German sycophants get their hands on a bit of power they'll turn on every left-wing ally they have, bourgeois or otherwise. We need to show that reform can work, that the republic can work. And for that, we're going to need dollars."

Robert now recognised the man, he was some sort of deputy for the SPD, it appeared that he had presumed that everyone would know who he was.

"I'm not sure that the ambassador sees much difference between one Marxist party or another."

"RIght now, all we want is calm, most of the party agree, things have gotten out of hand and a return to stability is currently more important than anything else, that's why we're in coalition with Stresemann in the first place! We need to stop this country from falling into madness before we can do anything of real worth!"

"I appreciate putting country first Mr Mehr. I really do..." I wouldn't be here otherwise, Robert thought to himself, "...but it wasn't too long ago that we were enemies. We all want a democratic and stable Germany but the only way to ensure that stability is for it ensure it pay its fair share for the war debt. If we make it seem to the French that we're letting your nation off the hook, I fear it will only make them more erratic."

Ernst threw up his hands in despair as he stood up, "It's no matter, really, I'm sorry I disturbed you, I just thought you might like to know. You've already had to send armies over once to sort out Europe's mess, is it not easier to solve things now than wait until you have to come over again?"

Robert shook Ernst's offered hand and smiled, "I'm sure it won't come to that."

Ernst couldn't help but laugh once more.

"You Americans really are an optimistic bunch, aren't you?"

---

The painting is Metropolis by Otto Dix

The Red · Oct 6, 2017

"They are wonderful . . . I do not know whether they will make shock troops, but there is one thing of which I am sure: it is people like these who make up the long columns with solid ranks of the revolutionary proletariat. It is on their unbreakable force that everything depends in the factories and the trade unions: these are the elements who must be assembled and led into action, it is through them that we are in contact with the masses."

~ Lenin on the KPD

Before Hitler had become a national figure, the German Communist Party (KPD) was in a state of flux. Those who argue that the party that would eventually become so wedded to the German Worker's Republic that it would be virtually indistinguishable from the state spent the early years of the Weimar republic wallowing on the fringes of German politics.

The party's role in the Spartacist uprising in Berlin and the Bavarian Soviet Republic in the early month's of 1919 had not gained them any popular appeal. The surviving leadership was overly lax, the party leader, Paul Levi, concentrated on maintaining his own power within small circles or control whilst averting direct action. Increasingly, the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) outshone the party as the left-wing alternative to the dominant Social Democrats (SPD). By the time of the Kapp Putsch, the party leadership was so stagnant that it ordered members not to join the general strike against the right-wing coup.

Though many members chose to ignore the official party line, the KPD appeared moribund as it stood on the sidelines whilst the trade unions defeated the reactionary coup and the workers rose up in the Ruhr. What Levi had dismissed as 'putchist' elements within the party had taken an active role in this process, including one Austrian private who had no intention of permanently laying down his rifle, even after the failure of the Ruhr's workers to endure much beyond the failure of Kapp's coup. The leadership of the KPD took virtually no lessons from the success of the general strike, beyond a bizzare confusion as to why the working classes had chosen to follow the trade unions raher than the KPD. The party that was in danger of becoming little more than an intellectual clique by the end of 1920, when salvation finally arrived.

The USPD was racked with inner turmoil. The party was far stronger than the KPD, in the summer of 1920 they had become the second largest party in the Reichstag, whilst having more members than the KPD had voters, and it had the moral authority of being unambigiously in favour of both the general strike and the Ruhr uprising. It was not usprising that to many communists, the USPD was the party of choice. Whilst this had been a boon for the party, the direction in which they should proceed would soon split the leadership from the majority of its members.

The basis of this division was based on whether to align the party with the international communist left. Though the Comintern in 1920 was not quite the intercontinental alliance of great powers that it would one day become, the grouping of communist parties was considered incredibly important by those in the USPD who wanted their party to coordinate with similar parties across the world. There were those within the party who were greatly resistant to such a move, particularly within the upper echelons of the party, who had largley been involved in the movement prior to the end of the First World War and the rise of the Soviet Union. Those opposed included the party's leader, Arhur Crispen, who after observing the Second Congress of the Comintern had come to the conclusion that if the party joined it would lose all independence of action.

The argument in favour of joining the Comintern fell to more recent and younger members. One of these was an employment office inspector and former docker named Ernst Thalmann, a man who not for the last time would take a leading role in growing the strength of the Communist Party to the detriment of democracy. Along with fellow comrades Heinrech Melzner and Jacob Walcher he argued that the socialist vision of the party was entirely embodied by the Comintern, and that it provided a modern means of building an alliance with smiliarly minded organisations across Europe, comparing the party's current strategy unfavourably with the failure for European socialists to collecitvely organise against the outbreak of the First World War.The pro-Comintern position was joined by older members such as Ernst Däumig and Walter Stoecker, who had been impressed by what they had seen whilst acting as observers to the Comintern congress.

At their Autumn conference, party delegates made their final decision, the option of joining the Comintern had won by a large margin and he KPD had finally began to emerge from the political wilderness. By the end of 1920 the USPD had effectively split into two separate parties. The vast majority of the party's membership formally merged with the KPD, whilst a majority of the party's deputies in the Reichstag attempted to retain the USPD brand, to little effect. The remnant USPD, having lost its mass membership, would go on merge with the SPD in 1922.

Paul Levi hadn't played a significant role in influencing the USPD's dissolution,he now found himself the main beneficiary. Almost overnight, his fringe movement now had over twenty deputies in the Reichstag a membership of over half a million Germans. Despite this strenghening of the party's position, he remained apprehensive towards any direct action, continuing to call for a parliamentary approach to socialism whilst the party extended its influence amongst the trade unions. Ironically, this moderate view left him alienated in the expanded party and he soon stepped down from the party's leadership. His vocal criticism of the March Action, a prolonged shootout between KPD members and the Reichswehr in the town of Mansfeld, would lead to his expulsion from the party altogether in 1921. Heinrech Brandler, a former labourer, found himself thrust into a leadership role where he worked closely with the Comintern, leaving some former-USPD members to wonder whether the warnings about a loss of independence had been valid.

~ Shaun Williams, Weimar's Rise and Fall

---

The Berlin offices of the Communist Party were far more frantic than usual, and Gerda had recently began to feel more and more like a cog in the machine rather than a party comrade. Briskly walking down the hallway, she couldn't help but frown at the long line of potential members waiting outside. Excellent for the party, but more stress for her.

Gerda was happy to devote her life to the cause of socialism, but under current cirumstances she hadn't had much of a choice. The revolution still hadn't come nor the liberation of women that it promised, life in Berlin as a single mother remained difficult. She loved Rosa, but couldn't help but wonder if her revolutionary activity wouldn't be of greater use if she didn't have an energetic three year old to look after.

The doting housewife option wasn't available to her, even if she had wanted such a bourgeois lifestyle, Rosa's father was invisible when it came to real commitment. Typical socal democrat. Her job at the factory had gone whilst she was pregnant. No matter how unattractive the prospect of a working women was to the German elites, they were tolerated up to a point, but women who wanted to be mothers and also have their own lives remained an outrage.

Gerda had resigned herself to the fact it wouldn't have mattered in any case. She couldn't rely on anyone to look after young Rosa even if she hadn't been told that she was no longer welcome in the factory that paid her a pittance for a day's labour. Christina had told her they could stay in the flat for as long as they wanted, but her friend's reassurances didn't stack up to the reality of feeding three people on one woman's wages. She had briefly thought of going home, but that wasn't an option any longer. Her family could probably have stomached the embarrasment of a daughter who was pregnant but unwed, but for her to be a communist also? The moment Gerda had found out she was pregnant, her infrequent thoughts of going back to her rural life was gone for good. She was a new woman now, her belief in the revolution would have to see her through.

The party had come to the rescue for her, offering her administrative work for what money could be arranged, as well as some food. A helpful group of her comrades were willing to take turns looking after little Rosa amongst other young children, There were even days when Rosa and some other children were allowed to stay in the offices, Gerda was looking forward to seeing her as she opened the door of the room for new applicants. It had been continuously full ever since the price of bread had gone into the billions.

"Very sorry about the wait today, the last few weeks have been chaotic as you might have imagined!" As she sat down with a sigh, the man across from her merely beamed, his cheek bones elevating noticeably, whilst his eyes seemed to bulge despite his arched forehead. The new applicant couldn't have been that much younger than her, yet he emoted an adolescent enthusiasm that alongside his unkempt hair took years off of him, he might have been in high school. Gerda had seen this before, especially in the last few weeks. The eagerness of the newly converted.

"Oh it's quite alright," the man-child assured her, "it's just good to see our movement finally getting the attention it deserves."

"Yes, it is all very encouraging," she smiled back, "although I believe the matter at hand is that you're not a party member..." The man simply shrugged.

"Our movement", Gerda had to suppress a giggle, a lot of latecomers seemed to enjoy claiming ownership to a party they hadn't done anything to build. She wondered where this man had been when she'd had to fight a tank with a kitchen knife.

"That's an oversight on my part, comrade. I can assure you I'm very keen to do anything I can to help." She hadn't managed to get the smile off of his face, but just because the man was arrogant didn't necessarily mean he couldn't be a good socialist, provided he actually believed in the cause that he had said he did.

"I hope you don't mind, but we do need to ask these sorts of questions when considering new members," Gerda couldn't help but think back to the previous days events, "we have to make sure that you haven't been sent by the army or the police."

The police hadn't bothered with subtlety, ever since the enabling act they had decided they could do whatever they liked. They had barged into the office yesterday, demanding to know where the party's ammunition and explosives were being held. Gerda had asked them whether they thought she would keep her daughter in the same building where explosives were being held, which seemed to make them blush. She didn't ask them if they thought the party was stupid enough to stockpile a weapons cache in their Berlin headquarters. Preferably they were that incompetent, but it was almost best to be wary of the enemy.

The aspiring party member seemed to agree, vigrously nodding as he assured Gerda that he understood why it was best to be careful. "The agents of international capital are everywhere, and it's often hard to tell the difference between them and normal people."

Gerda raised an eyebrow at that, "what do you mean by "tell the difference"?". He seemed to have realised that he had mispoken,

"I mean that they can be clever, that's all I'm saying."

The young man was smiling again, and Gerda put his confusion out of her mind, as he went on to explain what he had been doing for the last few years that had not involved him joining the KPD. It was a story of university and then writing that was fairly common amongst bourgeois members of the party, although Gerda was surprised to hear that that the impish looking man had a PhD.

"So it's Doctor Goebbels then?"

"Please, just Joseph,"

With a smug grin, Dr Goebbels continued on with his long-winded explanation as to how he had been reading Marx for several years now, apaprently for pleasure rather than study, until the violence in the Ruhr had finally inspired him to join the party. Recently, that had been an even more common story than the tales of woe caused by hyperinflation amongst new members. Gerda had presumed that the crippling poverty induced by the economic disaster that capitalism had brought about was leading to the swell in support but she had heard time and time again about this 'Red Front' that was causing so much bother for the French. She sympathised with them of course, but she couldn't help but wonder why they were so fixated on a foreign enemy. Some of the people Gerda had signed up recently seemed to have forgotten that Germans could just as easily have become the enforcers of capitalism as the French.

All the same, Dr Goebbels was another new member, one who would pay dues and help the revolution in that small way if in no other. There was no record of him being involved with any police force, he hadn't even been able to join the army due to his club foot. She was fairly certain that he was harmless.

"Welcome to the Communist Party of Germany."

Having filled out his membership card, she handed it over to him, he immediately stood up, placed it into his coat pocket, and extended his hand.

"It's been a pleasure, comrade, I'll hope we'll be seeing more of each other soon." His expression was a little too leering for Gerda to remain comfortable, though she smiled back neutrally as he left the room.

It was a brief sensation, but all of a sudden she felt a shiver down her spine. It was probably nothing to do with the little man she'd just turned into a comrade, but she felt as if her life would be just fine if she were to never see him again.

---

The painting is The Red Tower Of Halle by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

The Red · Oct 12, 2017

The Red Iron Chef said:
Are we, perhaps, going to see a Red Otto Skorzeny?

Benito Mussolini's bed was shaking.

"Typical." he remarked to the empty room. Recently his life had been one headache after another, the fiasco that had been the attempted liberation of Austria, the Comintern's breach of the Alpine Wall, the uprising in the Po Valley, the fall of Milan and then Rome, why wouldn't an earthquake make it so that we couldn't even get a decent night's rest? No doubt an avalanche would soon follow.

That would just make things even more perfect, the Italian dictator thought to himself. Messe and Wavell had insisted that this mountain lodge would allow him to stay near the frontline whilst out of the range of enemy artillery, as if they didn't just want him to leave them alone to the "real work". Was inspiring the Italian people not real work? Was inspiring the continued resistance for the glory of fascism not worth the time to the two generals? He couldn't help but feel that an avalanche would be an ironic punishment for the two of them, if he had to be killed by falling rocks, then at least he would embarrass those who had humiliated him so many times in this long, long retreat.

Mussolini could hear shouts of panic from outside, followed all too quickly by gun shots and screams.

His bed shook again, and all of the sudden it became clear that there had been no earthquake. Jumping out of bed, he ran to turn on the lights, only to realise the power had been cut. He tried to glimpse out of the window from the darkness, only to see his face reflect from the light of the full moon. For a moment, his old military training took over and he dived to the floor as a grenade flew through the window. A loud crump, and then only ringing, he realised that half of his room was in flames, as he noticed a large man in a coalscuttle helmet standing in the doorway.

Despite the ringing in his ears, he could hear the shadowed figure barking with laughter as the dictator realised that he was still in his pyjamas.

"Benito Mussolini, in the name of the Italian people, you are under arrest." The soldier sneered in a thick German accent.

Pyjama clad, Mussolini attempted to assert as much authority as he could muster, "You're not Italian! Who do you think you are to arrest me?!"

"My comrades have killed all of your blackshirts, this hotel is ours," the shadow from under the coalscuttle laughed again, "we are all the world to you right now."

That much was certainly true.

Mussolini looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing left that was useful, even the shards of glass had been caught up in the blaze. All that was left was to face the enemy, and die with some dignity. "If that's the case, then it's time for me to die. I would try to wrestle your weapon off of you but I'm much too tired. You've come at a rather late hour."

As the Austrian walked into the room, the shadow over his face was lifted, replaced with a horrific grin that was putting undue pressure an old but grevious scar. The fire reflected in his eyes all too well.

"My dear Duce, I'm afraid it's far worse than that."

---

Nah, not sure it would work.

The Red · Nov 2, 2017

"The street enters the house."

~ Umberto Boccioni

Johann shivered as he lay amongst the early morning frost, envious of the sight he was observing.

The Zollverein coal mine was one of the largest in the world, and the French held it. The workers of Essen remained on strike, so the French had brought in workers from France itself, before shipping the coal back to France. The light and the heat from the industrial area made the mine and the adjoining railway station stand out clearly amidst the dawn, it made it all the easier to make out the large number of French soldiers guarding the perimeter.

The French no longer felt safe in the cities, the Red Front had seen to that. To operate in the numbers large enough to ensure there wouldn’t be a communist waiting to drag individual soldiers into alleyways wasn’t worth the time or the expense, and as such large military concentrations were now only focused around the industries they had come for in the first place, yet that remained unacceptable to the boss.

There was no doubt that Hitler had taken the Red Front to great heights, his experience in Munich was helping them to galvanise popular support whilst giving them a bloody nose, although Johann had to wonder whether or not so many large raids were worth the visual impact when they would always result in so many casualties.

Hitler had boasted that the Red Front was like a hydra, that for every one of their number the French killed others would be inspired to join the cause thanks to their sacrifice. In one sense this was true, their numbers had swelled to the extent that Johann had lost count of how many cells the movement actually had inside the Ruhr and how many volunteers had slipped in from other parts of Germany, but on the other hand the constant losses gave him an unavoidable awareness of his own mortality. At every meeting he saw less familiar faces and more unfamiliar ones, and he couldn’t help but wonder how many martyrs he would inspire if today was the day that his luck ran out.

Johann drew comfort from the fact that he was taking risks for a cause which he believed in, it was at least one advantage he had over many of the French soldiers. If rumours were to be believed the French government was on the brink of collapse over their handling of the situation in the Ruhr, French workers were on the brink of a general strike in favour of their German comrades. A few more blows, and the Ruhr would be free. If France wasn’t getting anything from the Ruhr, even the bourgeois politicians would realise that there was no point in continuing their occupation, and Johann was confident that he and his comrades had enough mortar shells to ensure that the Zollverein would remain unproductive until it was back in German hands.

The minenwerfer they had secreted from the Wetter armouries were not perfect for the job, but they were the best they could afford. One potential advantage of the influx of new recruits was more veterans, some of whom were able to properly operate a mortar, at least that was what he had been told. A clatter behind him made Johann wince as he turned around and glared at the comrade who had created such a racket. He only hoped that the railway was noisy enough for their build-up to be ignored for it to be too late. Johann gave the order to fire.

A few loud clanking sounds behind him and the attack had begun, looking into his binoculars again he could see that one Frenchman was lying on the ground, whilst far too many more were alert to what was going on. He ordered his mortar teams to fire again, and after a more clanking noises, an explosion that was visible to the naked eye signalled that they had done their job. As the fire began to spread, he checked his newly acquired French pistol once more, before giving the order to attack.

Amongst the smoke and confusion, the first tracer bullets began to emerge. It had been a long time since the French could be taken for granted just because an initial surprise had succeeded. He tried to keep his head down as he ran headfirst into the fray, aware only of the sounds of gunfire to his front and the screams behind him. Eventually they were close enough to the burning railway station to open fire themselves, mowing down the French and suppressing the fire of those who remained, whilst Johann focused on secreting himself behind the platform entrance. He fired three shots, forcing the French inside the station terminal to take cover, whilst he threw in one of the few grenades he had been given for the task. There were shouts of distress before a loud crump rendered the entire room silent, Johann supposed the French inside couldn’t have seen the grenade until the last moment thanks to the smoke from the burning locomotive, although he could see all too clearly that the station had been taken at great cost. Out of the twenty men he had had by his side, only twelve remained. Including those who could actually use the mortars again. He hated to think in those terms, but it wouldn’t be long before they were under fire again, and without an equaliser they would soon have to flee. He considered whether or not to give the order to retreat before the smoke cleared, before a figure emerged from it.

The elderly man was clearly a worker albeit of some seniority, though he was not one Johann’s comrades. His face was blackened and his body was quivering, as he lurched from side to side. Clearly the man was in shock, it was the explanation as to why he would wander into a shootout, and why he would do so swearing loudly in French.

Johann could not speak much of the language but it was easy to tell that the man was not amused with the events that had taken place, by the same token the way the Frenchman went silent when he realised that he wasn’t amongst blue uniforms. He started to raise his hands and back away, gibbering something about a family, before one of the new recruits, a man by the name of Reinhard, shot him in the stomach.

The worker crumpled up on the ground, trying to breathe, as the comrade aimed at his head, before Johann blocked his way. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Johann snarled,

“Putting him out of his misery.”

The young man’s face seemed unfazed by what he had just done.

“And who ordered you to do that?”

The new recruit smirked, “There are no orders here comrade, aside from the our goal. I spotted a Frenchie and I shot him. Shall I consult you the next time we’re under fire?”

“That man was a railway worker. He wasn’t a soldier and he certainly wasn’t a threat.”

“He was still French.”

This was the sort of attitude Johann had come to fear from some of the new recruits. What had started as a struggle of workers against an army sent by capitalists for him was simply a return of the war between France and Germany for others, a punch and judy show compared to what had been the main event, but one with the same malice behind. The same malice that had been used the divide the international working class.

“And if he was a German worker would you shoot him too?” Johann scathed.

“Well if you love them so much you won’t want this old fart to suffer, will you?” Johann tried to control his breathing, standing back and looking away, as Reinhard raised his gun again. The old man let out a whimper of protest, before the ground began to shake.

The explosion had been off by some distance, though it had still caused the argument to cease as Johann dived onto the ground along with comrades, as he noticed they were safe, he tentatively looked up in the direction the shout had come from. It was a dread inducing sight.

The light of the dawn had not quite broken through the smoke, but the shape was visible nonetheless, a vast metallic fortress, spewing out black exhaust fumes, headed straight towards them. Before Johann could react the monster had fired another shell, this was came disturbingly close. He had heard of tanks before, but never like this, with its size and rapidity of fire. It even seemed to have two turrets, as if the French had brought a battleship ashore. He was tempted to give the order to run, before a voice behind spoke with greater authority.

“Mortars! Get into position!”

It was the upstart recruit again, betraying Johann’s suspicions that he likely had seen far more of the war than Johann had.

“Feuer frei!”

The mortar team that was left had also regained their composure, and they fired with a good degree of accuracy. A round exploded on top of the giant machine, but it didn’t even slow its progress. The French tank responded all too quickly.

Johann couldn't quite understand the sensation of being thrown off of the ground, only the winded feeling that followed. A bulk dropped in front of him, Reinhard. A face that had been so contorted with malice only a few moments before was now replaced with frozen expression of shock.

Johann tried to shout to him but he could barely breathe, he could only gasp desperately for air. He grabbed Reinhard’s shoulder and shook him as hard as he could, but received no response. Only the same miserable wide-eyes that no longer moved. There was no time to grieve for the man, for Johann knew that if he didn't move quickly he would share the same fate. With a wince he realised he could still stand without his legs giving out. He hobbled to find cover amongst the smoke.

Not everyone has died, two of his comrades were left alive after he’d checked. The three martyrs in waiting staggered together as French small arms fire opened up.

“Everything will be alright. It will be alright.” Johann said to no-one in particular as he heard shouts in French behind them. More bullets flew over their heads, making a zipping noise that was now all too familiar as the pinged and twanged off of the burning metal around them. The two did their best to keep moving, until one bullet found its target. The young man screamed as he collapsed, Johann dropped as well, the pain of doing so was exhausting.

The French voices grew louder as he began to slip out of consciousness.

---

Johann awoke to a sound of clanging, and for a moment he thought the mortars might still be firing, until he noticed a guard shouting at him to get up. He was in a cell at seemed, despite far too many parts of his body screaming in pain he had noticed the bars, and the guard telling him to get up. Johann tried to comply, but his legs protested as he found himself preparing to go back to sleep. The door clicked open, and the guard kicked him squarely in the stomach. Johann screamed, apparently he was no longer winded.

The man stood over him, shouting to another man unseen, before they both dragged him down a short corridor, his feet banging off the floor, before he was brought into a small office. Johann’s head was still ringing but it seemed somewhat cosier than the darkened dwellings he had just been battered and dragged from. Having been rested in an armchair, he realised that was now sat across from a French officer.

“I was a prisoner like you, once.”

The man was older than Johann, certainly old enough to have fought in the war. Had he learned German in prison?

Johann winced as he tried to sit up straight. “I hope you were never in as much pain as I am right now.”, he murmured. The Frenchman didn’t seem to take much notice, “No, I didn’t.” He said after a spell. “Your countrymen treated me about as well as I could expect. It would be my pleasure to grant you the same treatment.

“Your fellow countrymen don’t seem to agree.” Johann motioned to the guards who had woke him up so briskly.

“That is because we are not obligated to treat you well, herr…”

“Fischer, Johann Fischer,”

“Well, Herr Fischer, you are a violent terrorist operating in an area of French jurisdiction. I could have you shot just now and there would be nothing in international law to spare you. Your life is in my hands, and I would like to help you, if only you can help me first.”

“Is this the approach you’re going with? Soften me up and then have someone beat me in the next room until I’m crying out for you, Herr...”

“My name is Captain de Gaulle of the French Army of Occupation.”

“Well Captain, you can shove your help up your…”

The Frenchman held up the palm of his hand, and despite having temporarily recovered his energy, Johann quickly slumped back into silence,

“No torture here, that’s not how we do things. I’ve fought you reds before. It’s either life or death. We won’t torment you. You communists always want to have the power to control your lives, well now you have it. Is it, life or death, Fischer?

Johann sighed, and stared at the wall. He continued to sit in silence, whilst De Gaulle turned on the radio.

“If it is easier for you, I’ll tell you what I’d like from you, in return for your life.”

Static emanated from the device, until a faint voice began to speak. As De Gaulle adjusted the radio further, it arose over the crackling.

“Fellow Germans. This is Essen. This is the Red Front conducting the worker’s struggle in the Ruhr. We are fighting the French in the Ruhr, and addressing the German people. The time for revolution has come. The time has come to put an end to the French occupation. The time has come to put an end.”

Johann smiled, he knew that voice.

---

After over an hour of interrogation, Captain de Gaulle had had the terrorist sent back to his cell. The arrogant upstart had given him valuable information, and he would give him more in time, of that he was sure of. Just as he had seen in Poland, these communists loved talking, no doubt that was why they were broadcasting to anyone who would listen. It had allowed him to get a description of this ‘Shadow Man’ that had been causing them so much trouble. He would make sure the name Adolf Hitler was passed onto his colleagues in intelligence, he felt that they would vindicate his private beliefs that the the Red Front was not an avatar of the German government, and that it could be crushed without having to march all the way to Berlin. Perhaps, in some way, it might help get France out of the Ruhr.

Captain de Gaulle was a patriot but he liked to consider himself a realist, France was not helping itself rebuild from this occupation. The damage the communists had inflicted was only the most visible problem with directly extorting German industry rather than making it work for them. His superiors must also have understood this, not that many of them seemed to care. If he could help convince them that they were stoking a real communist rebellion in the Ruhr rather than responding to German provocations, then it might make sense.

If there was one thing that they hated even more than a German, it was a communist German.

---

Or a communist Austrian for that matter.

Boccioni was trying to summarise the basic principle of Futurism. He didn't survive the First World War.

The Red · Nov 14, 2017

“Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop.”

~ Kurt von Schleicher

The news of the storming of Castle Wetter quickly spread throughout the Ruhr, and subsequently through all of Germany. Whilst it did not lead to the national revolution that Hitler had hoped, the Red Front’s actions were inspiring further acts of violence throughout the area of French occupation.

The means with which the Red Front, a relatively tiny organisation, was able to organise was largely due to their acquisition of existing stocks of weapons that workers that seized during the Ruhr rising three years earlier. Hitler had been briefly in the revolutionary takeover of large parts of the Ruhr in the wake of the Kapp Putsch, as had many other Red Front members. When the putsch had been defeated the revolts died down, but many workers kept or hid their weapons. Hitler’s organisation abilities had been able to build a force of dozens of armed men and women, with the aim of building the organisation with the capture of French weaponry and the rallying effect of violent resistance against the French. Despite the seizure of weapons in the castle raid, the French reprisals in its wake were a far greater boost for Hitler’s ragtag movement.

As the ancient fortress burned, the French soldiers present took their own acts of revenge on the town’s inhabitants, with ad hoc firing squads killing dozens for suspected acts of violence. Red Front cells began to arise independently, along with individual acts of resistance, disconnected organisationally and arguably ideologically but still bearing the name "Red Front". It was a name that soon came to the attention of Berlin and Paris.

In the month of October, the Red Front killed at least twenty five French troops, with the death of over two hundred German civilians being the French response. It is unknown how many of those killed were members of the Red Front, or even suspected of being so. It did not take long for both French and German attitudes to degenerate back to a warlike state. Whenever Stresemann protested what appeared to be overt French reprisals, the French accused Stresemann’s government of supplying the Red Front. They did not know that Stresemann wasn’t sure of that himself.

~ Shaun Williams, Weimar's Rise and Fall

---

“Don’t swagger, it’s unbecoming.”

“Yes sir.”

As he paced through the corridors of the Reichstag alongside his superior, Kurt Von Schleicher couldn’t help but feel the halls of power were almost as chaotic as the streets outside. General Von Seeckt and himself were no strangers to political intrigue, but the disorganised manner in which the republic was run made him sneer. These people had made Germany weak, he was working to make Germany strong once again, and yet he had to answer to them?

Where was the justice in that?

The German officer was canny enough to know that there wasn't any to be had. The Reichswehr would continue to support the democratic institutions for as long as it was convenient and no longer than that. The Reichswehr remained weak, and the alternative to working with the democrats that he despised was even worse.

The communist threat remained a viable cause for concern, that was what they were here to discuss today. He'd just come back from the Soviet Union but for as long as Germany was isolated there were few other alternatives to dealing with them. The Soviets were a threat, but they were also an asset. German communists deserved no such distinction. They were the enemy, and as long as they remained a danger to Germany the Reichswehr would work with anyone opposed to them. Even if it was the poor excuse for a government whose leader they were due to meet.

Von Schleicher had only ever seen pictures of Gustav Stresemann. In the flesh the man was somewhat different, his face was wracked with stress and it appeared his portly frame was still somewhat diminished. The look in his eyes continued to display a keen intelligence, but there was desperation in his impression.

“Gentlemen.”

“Chancellor”

“Our communist problem is threatening to destroy Germany. I hope you aren’t contributing to this in any way.”

“No Chancellor”

“I hear your friend has been spending a lot of time with communists recently? Has he developed a fondness I wonder.”

Von Schleicher kept tight lipped as his superior spoke.

“I’m afraid that information is privileged Chancellor,” Stresemann smirked at this, “but the Reichswehr doesn’t recruit communists.”

Von Schleicher wondered if that could remain true. He thought back to the party the Bolsheviks had held for the German delegation, there were a large number of men who would be staying in Russia for quite some time, they would make Russian friends, some would probably be more than friends, he made a mental note to try and see if the Soviets could be persuaded to avoid any such fraternisation outside of the specified agreements. Russian communists could be tolerated for the moment, German communists would never be.

“They say this Hitler fought in the war.”

We have been checking the previous records Chancellor, and there is mention of a Hitler. Apparently got into some trouble for himself in 1915. His unit deserted just before the end of the conflict, he was likely with them.”

“Well at least we could use that against him” Stresemann muttered to no-one in particular, “He didn’t stay on?”

“No, it appears he went to Munich and participated in the Bolshevik takeover of the city. After it was retaken a woman identified him as having moved some vagrants into her house. He was jailed until he escaped during in March 1920.”

“Yes, there was a lot of chaos that month.” Von Seeckt did not respond, his own ambivalence over whether or not to support Kapp’s Putsch was well known. Von Schleicher supposed that there were democrats who saw the Reichswehr’s temporary allegiance to republic for what it was. He would give Stresemann that much.

“Yes sir, that’s when we believe he moved to the Ruhr to help the uprising there”

“Gentlemen, I hope that I don’t have to underline how important it is that you’re giving me all of the facts. If we make it clear to the foreign powers that this isn’t anything to do with us then we might just have a way out of this crisis. If it turns out you’ve been deceiving me and that this Hitler is secretly an agent of yours, or is in contact with any agents of yours, the French won’t just stay in the Ruhr. They’ll march all the way to Berlin!”

“They won’t be able to do that soon.” Not if everything goes well in Russia, he added mentally

“That doesn’t matter, we need more than that. We think we may be able to negotiate a deal with the Americans for them to lend us some dollars to deal with our debts,

“We understand that sir, but we can assure that this Hitler has had no connection with the Reichswehr. We don’t even think that Trotsky is in contact with him, although we can’t confirm that.”

Stresemann’s eyes narrowed at that.

“It would be very concerning, gentlemen, if the Bolsheviks are exploiting our arrangement to try and spread communism in this country.”

“We’ve ensured that that’s impossible Chancellor. The Reichswehr has defeated the communists whenever they’ve risen up, whenever the republic has called for us.”

Von Schleicher detected a tone of resentment in his superior’s voice, it appeared that Stresemann had sensed it too. For three years the unspoken truce between the Reichswehr and the Republic had held. Now, with Germany at her weakest, both had to work together regardless of resentments.

Stresemann sat down at his desk with a sigh, the man was clearly tired, “I thank you for you reassurances and for your time, gentlemen,” he muttered wearily, “but now I must get on” The Chancellor motioned to the door dismissively and the officers made their exit. Their car journey from Wilhelmstrasse to Bendlerstrasse was a tense one,

“I don’t know how much longer we can tolerate this farce,” Von Seeckt muttered, his subordinate nodded. “They’re still necessary, Stresemann’s apparently on the brink of something big, securing American money to try and get the economy out of the hole and the French off of our backs. Surely that makes him innocuous for the moment?”

“I don’t doubt the man’s clever but his time as an asset to the country will end soon, and those Social Democrats…” Von Seeckt scoffed, “their representatives are little men who are no match for French pressure. They’re ambitious busy-bodies who must have their fingers in every pie, like Stresemann. He is cleverer than most of them, but when it’s possible to clear out the whole circus he’ll have to go as well.”

Von Schleicher looked out at the street, to see KPD posters being put up once more after they had so recently been torn down.

“I fear we’ll have to stick together for a while longer, especially whilst this Hitler’s around.”

“Hitler’s a fanatic, and that’s how we’re going to get him on our side,” Von Seeckt smiled, “After all, there’s more to the Soviet Union than Trotsky.”

As their car pulled up at the offices of the War Ministry, the two officers began to hatch a new scheme.

---

The painting is The Grey Man Dances by George Grosz

"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?

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