Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree: A Nineteen Eighty-Four Timeline

[Roberto El Rey]

Excerpt from The Times, Sunday, September 1, 1918

LENIN, LEADER OF RUSSIAN BOLSHEVIKS, SHOT IN MOSCOW
by Ralph Ludden

MOSCOW--Vladimir Lenin, leader of Russia's ruling majority Socialist (Bolshevik) Party and Chairman of the socialist government in Moscow, was shot in the stomach Friday following a speech at a Moscow factory. After giving a speech at the Hammer and Sickle, an agricultural equipment factory in the industrial area of the city, Lenin was returning to his car when a female assailant approached him, called his name and fired two shots into his lower abdomen before her pistol jammed[1]. Abandoning her malfunctioning weapon, the attacker fled the scene pursued by armed members of the Red Guard, while Lenin was rushed to the Kremlin to receive medical attention.

Surgeons brought in to Lenin's living quarters managed to remove the bullets from the chairman's body. Lev Trotsky, a high-ranking member of the governing Council of People's Commissars, made a statement on Saturday that Lenin's injuries were deemed non-fatal, and that his survival of the assassination attempt serves as "a symbol of the resilient and irrepressible heroism of the cause of worldwide revolution".

[1] In OTL, Lenin was shot in the neck and the shoulder--two much more severe wounds that were likely a main contributor to his declining health and fatal stroke in the years to come. This represents the POD for this TL--Lenin will die early but he will not be forced to withdraw from Party politics; rather, he will continue to have an influence on them for the next few years.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

From p. 52 of The Hammer and Bayonet: A History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Until the End of the Second Great War by Colin Morford, 1948

...However, the turning point in the war between Trotsky and Stalin came on 20 April 1923, at the Twelfth Party Congress in Moscow. By this time Stalin had already begun to use his position as General Secretary to his advantage, having appointed many of his followers to local delegate positions. However, most of the other voting delegates were still unaligned with either Trotsky or Stalin, and were undecided as to whom they preferred. Furthermore, even Stalin's supporters were largely unaware of the tension between Stalin and Trotsky, and so, for the most part, they still held Trotsky in high regard.

On the 22nd, hours before Trotsky was due to deliver his speech, a rumour spread through the Congress that Lenin had arrived to speak. Some initially disbelieved this--Lenin was not listed anywhere on the agenda, and as far as anyone knew he was still recovering from his latest bout of fever at the Gorki Estate--but, sure enough, in the late hours of the afternoon, a somewhat shaken Stalin, who was about to give a speech denouncing the localised imperialism of the Georgians, called for the audience to turn their attention to Comrade Lenin, who was about to deliver an unexpected oration. Any buzz that had been stirring in the hall was immediately silenced as the delegates leant in to listen to their respected leader.

Lenin's words found Stalin completely off his guard. Though they began tamely enough--a typical call for unity in the Party, a reminder not to forget the purpose and legacy of the October Revolution--they soon evolved into an attack on Stalin's increasing greed for power. Through his post as General Secretary, Lenin warned, Comrade Stalin "[had] unlimited authority concentrated in his hands", and he could not be expected to "[use] that authority with sufficient caution", as shown by the fact that his "appointments to the Central Committee [had seemed] to be based on loyalty rather than merit or dedication to the efficient progress of socialism". He was therefore "unfit to serve the position of General Secretary", and he should be replaced posthaste with "a man more tolerant, loyal, considerate, and less capricious" to serve the vital role. Comrade Trotsky, conversely, possessed "the outstanding ability to embody the traits of a proponent of the Communist cause", and was "undoubtedly the most able man in the Central Committee".* Though Lenin did not explicitly recommend a man to replace Stalin as General Secretary, the implication was quite clear.

Despite Lenin's coughing (One delegate wrote in his journal that it was quite obvious that Comrade Lenin was ailing), the words rang clear in the minds of the delegates. By the time Lenin finished his subdued attack, Comrade Stalin was red with anxiety. If it had been Trotsky or Zinoviev who had dared to speak out against him, he might been able to persuade the delegates in the seats that the attacker was not to be trusted, and that such an address was a blatant attempt to destabilise the Party by an enemy of the Revolution. But no one was more respected than Lenin; to the Bolsheviks, he was the wisest, purest source of Revolutionary perfection. To attack him as a traitor to the Revolution would be to hasten his own demise. Lenin had already turned much of the Central Committee constituency against Stalin in one short announcement.

The worst, however, was still to come. To Stalin's heightened horror, Trotsky's speech was not the expected, inoffensive request for party democracy, but an impassioned tirade on the dangers of the new "autocratic despotism" of the existing order and the increasing "bureaucratisation" of the Party, which, he argued, had allowed "enemies of progress" to infiltrate the Party ranks and "sabotage" the Party's economic plans. By the end, Trotsky's every remark was accentuated by raucous, fervouristic agreement. One Bukharan delegate would later write that "near the end of Comrade Trotsky's speech it was nearly impossible to distinguish the words that he was saying amid the noise, and yet it was just as difficult not to join in the shouting and denounce Secretary Stalin at the top of your lungs".

In an apparently spontaneous fashion, Trotsky called for a new referendum for the position of General Secretary, to which the crowds immediately agreed. A vote was hastily arranged; Stalin watched silently as even his carefully-selected followers cast their votes against him in a fit of controlled frenzy and hysteria. After the results came out, Stalin nearly fell out of his chair: by a margin of 268 to 155, he had been ousted from the position of General Secretary. In a single gesture, Trotsky and Lenin had unseated their main rival and swept away much of the power that Stalin had spent years gathering for himself.

Memo drafted after Politburo meeting, April 28, 1923

Effective 1 March 1923, Comrade I. V. Stalin is to be removed from his position as General Secretary and appointed President of the first Policy Council [Sovpol], membership of which will be his prerogative. In order to prevent autocracy and to maintain accountability and central democracy in the Party, the Policy Council's decisions will be reviewed and deliberated by the Politburo. To give his full attention to the issues decided the Policy Council, Comrade Stalin will resign from the Politburo. By will of the people's delegates, and thereby of the Soviet people, Comrade L. D. Trotsky will assume the role of General Secretary.

*This speech, known as "Lenin's Testament", was written by Lenin in OTL (albeit in a slightly different form) after he saw through Stalin's lust for power. But he had been unable to come to the Congress to deliver it due to a stroke, which was brought on by his wounds from the shooting in 1918. Without Lenin's support, Trotsky did not bring up the issue of Stalin's consolidation of power, and he missed his chance to finally turn the Party against Stalin before it was too late.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

A passage from p. 82 of The Hammer and Bayonet: A History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Until the End of the Second Great War by Colin Morford, 1948

After Stalin's "promotion" to President of the newly-created Sovpol, he knew he was treading on very thin ice. Although General Secretary Trotsky insisted that the Sovpol and the Politburo were to act as mutual checks on each other's power, it was clear from the start that the Sovpol's legislative power and influence over the Politburo was practically nonexistent. Whenever the Sovpol failed to approve a Politburo motion of any importance, Stalin and his fellow Council members were swiftly accused of trying to obstruct the implementation of socialism, or of trying to sow conflict and tension within the Party. On the other hand, the Politburo was essentially free to block the Sovpol at every turn with no repercussions, thanks in no small part to the Order for Information Security. Although its purpose was nominally to protect the "sensitive information" being discussed by the Sovpol from escaping to "enemies of the Party", in practice the law's primary function was to deny Sovpol members (and mainly Stalin) a voice to the Party representatives. This prevented them from lobbing similar attacks at the Politburo, from defending their decisions to the Party delegates, and from revealing just how little democracy there was in this "central democracy".

After gaining his ineffectual position, Stalin filled the Sovpol with his most trusted and loyal followers and allies, and swiftly began plotting his reascension, never believing that Trotsky would bother to interfere until it was too late. Though he was careful never to refer to his plans directly in official Sovpol mandates, his preferred euphemism--"Socialism in One Country"--was just as damning when the curtain was finally lifted. Trotsky knew that if he could get Stalin to incriminate himself, there would be no need to exaggerate the evidence, lob lofty accusations, or stack the membership of the Central Committee against him--all that would be necessary would be to present the facts, and the two-man war would be won. As an added bonus, the fact that Stalin had filled his ranks with his most devoted followers meant that they all went with him when the Sovpol was disgraced, dashing any last hope Stalin may have had of regaining power with the help of a friend in the Party.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Transcript from a speech given by General Secretary Trotsky to Communist Party delegates at the Seventeenth Party Congress, 12 September 1924

...Comrades, the true motive of the revolution is inherently clear to anyone who truly invested his or herself into it. Marx, the very man whose revelations drove the Russian peoples to liberate themselves from the chains of autocracy, was adamant that world revolution--immediate, unrelenting, and violent--is the only instrument through which the oppressed victims of other imperialist states may liberate themselves as we have done. We, in particular, know that the struggle for liberation is plagued by hard resistance from the apparatus of state oppression, and that the bourgeoisie will do whatever is necessary to protect the defective imperialist states that fuel their capitalist enterprises. The years of counterrevolution that ravaged this country have proven these reactions to be inevitable.

However, our revolution has also shown it to be inevitable that any bourgeois society, weakened by the ravaging of capitalism, will soon crumble in the face of continued pressure from the united proletariat. It is for this reason that our comrades in Germany and Hungary, who so bravely took up arms against their oppressors, cannot be considered to have failed in their efforts to bring down the government of the bourgeoisie; rather, the speed with which they broke down the oppressors' initial defenses has exposed just how weak the bourgeois state model is. It follows, therefore, that even the best-defended, most deeply entrenched hives of capitalism--Germany, Britain, America, Japan, and the rest--will all yield, sooner or later, to the progress of history and be swept away by the inevitable tides of revolution. A true believer in the revolution must see the events of 1918 and 1919 as encouragement, rather than discouragement, to permanently continue with fierce resolve the crusade against imperialistic oppression until the proletariat classes of all nations have been freed from the enslavement of capitalistic greed!

[Excited cheers and applause from the audience]

President Stalin has a wholly different perspective on this matter. The documents which have just been revealed to you prove not only that Stalin and his cronies have abused their positions to stir up conflict within the Party, not only that their primary goal is autocratic power, not only that they have consciously ignored the need for central democracy by acting independently of the will of the Party--but that their ultimate aim, referred to in their secretive protocols as "Socialism in One Country", is an affront to the revolution. [Angered murmurs from the audience]. As I have stressed, the revolution will only be complete when the proletariat classes of every nation, state and city worldwide have liberated themselves from their bondage to the bourgeoisie, and until that day, we must fight, rebel, chip away relentlessly at every capitalist establishment until all its subjects are free. Stalin (a name which, I feel, no longer merits the term "Comrade"), [Inaudible due to audience noise]...abandon the Marxist cause where it lies and selfishly cower behind our own borders, leaving our fellow revolutionaries to be torn down by their brutal imperialist overlords! To be content with a lone, socialist Russia, therefore, is not only to leave it without allies in the face of foreign imperialist aggression, not only to enjoy freedom while others suffer, not only to block the natural course of history--but to betray the socialist cause, our foreign allies and the revolution itself! And it is in light of this betrayal that I pronounce President Stalin, Deputy Chairman Kamenev, and all other members of the Sovpol to be enemies of the Party and of the revolution!

[As audience members resume their cheers (even more loudly this time), some begin to stand up and shout "traitor" at the top of their lungs]

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Тhe Times, 20 September 1924

FORMER SOVIET STATESMAN STALIN REMAINS AT LARGE
by Connor Eldridge

MOSCOW--In the Soviet Union, the massive manhunt for former statesman Joseph Stalin has been extended to all the Soviet republics today with the discovery of a new lead.

Stalin, who was President of the Soviet Union's Policy Council (Sovpol) until its dissolution at the Seventeenth Congress of the Communist Party on 12 September, was missing from his apartment when Moscow police arrived to take him into custody. It was soon determined that he had fled hours before, after learning of his imminent arrest. The former President was, along with all other members of the Sovpol, disgraced in an impassioned speech by General Secretary Lev Trotsky, who determined them to be "enemies of the Party and of the [Russian] Revolution". The dissolution of the Sovpol came after the revelation of documents purportedly produced in secret by the Sovpol, which appear to describe plans to overthrow the government.

By the morning of 13 September, all former Sovpol members other than Stalin had been apprehended. The intensive search for Stalin was confined to Moscow until 18 September, when Viktor Rolovich, a railway attendant at the Kazanskaya Railway Station, admitted to having taken a bribe on the day of Stalin's condemnation to allow a man fitting Stalin's description, accompanied by two other men, to board a train to the city of Samara without showing transit papers or passport.

In response to this new lead, Soviet authorities have closed the borders and shut down all naval ports, airports and railway stations in the country. Nearly all houses and public buildings in the major cities are to be searched by military and local police troops, and citizens have been forbidden to leave their homes without government permission. An 800,000 ruble reward has been offered in exchange for information on the man's whereabouts. Karl Radek, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), has declared that the only explanation for Stalin's escape despite the capture of all other Sovpol members is the presence "traitorous elements in the greater [Communist] Party" who informed Stalin of his looming disgrace and helped him to escape. The fate of the other Sovpol members has not been disclosed, but it is presumed that they have been executed or incarcerated.

Telegram from the Chief Commissioner of the Northwest Frontier Provinces to the India Secretary, London 9 September 1924

POST OFFICE TELEGRAM 27 9 1924
FROM: CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF NORTH-WEST FRONTIER PROVINCES
PESHAWAR, NWFP, BRITISH INDIAN EMPIRE
TO: OFFICE OF INDIA SECRETARY
INDIA OFFICE KING CHARLES ST LONDON UNITED KINGDOM SW1

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE INDIA SECRETARY LORD OLIVIER
NOON TODAY RUSSIAN MAN ENTERED PESHAWAR POLICE STATION ALONE STOP IDENTIFIES SELF AS STALIN FUGITIVE FROM RUSSIA STOP CLAIMS HE ESCAPED TO NORTHEAST AFGHANISTAN THROUGH SOUTHERN RUSSIAN BORDER ESCORTED BY UNKNOWN PERSONS STOP ILLEGALLY CROSSED NORTHERN INDIAN BORDER 25 SEPTEMBER STOP REQUESTS ASYLUM STOP ADVISE HOW TO PROCEED

 

[Roberto El Rey]

A passage from p. 134 of The Hammer and Bayonet: A History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Until the End of the Second Great War by Colin Morford, 1948

...Stalin's escape from capture was suspicious to say the least, especially considering the fact that every other Sovpolite was apprehended within a day of his damnation. In fact, quite a few aspects of his disappearance were suspicious. For example, it was somewhat suspicious that, by all accounts, Trotsky's condemning speech had been given roughly between 1:45 and 2:20 in the afternoon, and yet Viktor Rolovich seemed quite sure that he had admitted the mysterious passenger and the two companions just before his lunch break at 2:30. It is more suspicious that (after a bit of coaxing) Rolovich "recognized" the unknown escorts as Politburo members Andrei Bubnov and Grigori Sokolnikov--still more suspicious that, after these two men had been banished from the Party for their treason, Trotsky was the only original member of the Politburo who remained in power.

No matter the circumstances, Stalin was out of Trotsky's hair politically, but certainly not verbally. Being exiled to an unknown location turned a man who had never been known to write a single page of rhetoric into a prolific critic on the affairs of Trotskyism and the Soviet Union. As of the day these lines were written, hundreds of his essays and treatises attacking the principle of Trotsky's Bolshevism have found their way into the Soviet domain, despite the best efforts of the censors to keep them out. It would seem, in fact, that Stalin's writings were more widely circulated in the USSR than anywhere else in the literate world; even shortly after they began coming in, Trotsky feared their influence to the point that he would call Party Congresses for the specific purpose of demolishing Stalin's messages and reaffirming Stalin as the ultimate traitor to the Bolshevik cause.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Lidové Noviny*, 17 April 1925

THOUSANDS OF FIREARMS, AMMUNITION SUPPLIES DISCOVERED BEING SMUGGLED FROM USSR
by Pavel Šimčík

Several boxcars full of illicit weapons and ammunition were discovered hidden aboard a train attempting to enter Czechoslovakian territory, according to customs officers. On Tuesday night, the train arrived at the Polish border, having departed on Sunday from the city of Vinnytsia in the USSR. The train's manifest listed its cargo as including wheat, petroleum, and ferrous metals; however, while searching one car, border security officers found rifles and ammunition hidden behind boxes of grain. After further inspection, they discovered that three more boxcars were also clandestinely filled with arms and ammunition. The officers quickly determined that the operators of the train shipment were attempting to smuggle weapons and ammunition into Czechoslovakia.

Government authorities confiscated the contraband, which reportedly included 80,000 boxes of rifle bullets and 7,500 rifles. According to official government sources, it is suspected that the weapons were meant to be delivered in secret to members of the Communist Party, which has been subject to increasing controversy in the past months for increasing radicalism and militance. When pressed for an explanation of the attempted smuggling operation, Soviet Foreign Commissar Alexandra Kollontai vaguely blamed it on "extremist Party members" in the southwest of the country who acted without the knowledge or consent of the central government in Moscow. Kollontai pledged that Moscow would investigate the action, and claimed that the Soviet Union's foreign policy does not aim to disrupt the sovereignty of the Czechoslovak Republic. This comes in contrast to a speech given by Communist Party General Secretary Trotsky at a Party Congress in September, in which he claimed that it is the ambition of the Party to ensure that "all nations" be "swept away by...the tides of revolution".

Events attributed to the Communist Party include the January Workers' March in Ostrava, in which over 1,200 Party members and 400 factory workers demonstrated in front of the city's administrative centre and clashed with police, resulting in two deaths. Since November, over 300 members of the Party have been jailed for inciting violence against police and government officials; this arms shipment is an ominous sign not just of the Party's violent intentions, but of increasingly close relations with the government in Moscow, which has repeatedly voiced its ambitions to spark violent coup d'états in other countries.

*A center-right Prague daily newspaper

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Budapesti Hírlap*, 29 July 1925

KUN FOUND GUILTY OF TREASON; SENTENCED TO EXECUTION
by Ormos Benczyk

Today, the highly-anticipated verdict in the state trial of Béla Kun was announced. In a radio address to the country on the morning of 29 July, Prime Minister Bethlen announced that the National Court had found Kun guilty of "treason against the Hungarian people and the murder of dozens of Hungarian citizens" and that he had been sentenced to death by firing squad. Following Bethlen's announcement, public prosecutor Andras Kerekes read the official court verdict, in which Kun was accused of having abused his position in the short-lived communist dictatorship of 1919 to directly cause the "starvation, economic crises, and social turmoil which plagued Hungary" between March and August of 1919.

As readers will no doubt recall, during the ruinous months when Hungary was under the rule of the illegitimate communist government, the country suffered from grave food shortages and currency inflation which wreaked havoc on the economy and caused great hardship for hundreds of thousands of Hungarians. Though the nominal head of the dictatorship was Chairman Sándor Garbai, it was widely known that Kun wielded real power as Foreign Minister. Therefore, Kun was found to be primarily responsible for the treasonous Marxist policies which led to this economic and social decay. Though not officially mentioned in the trial, many Hungarians also hold Kun responsible for the country's defeat in the Rumanian war through ineffective military efforts; if he had been charged with this, he would likely have been held accountable for the countless lives claimed by the war.

In addition to reading out Kun's verdict and death sentence, Bethlen announced that the government would be pursuing a more defensive stance toward the Soviet Union. Although Soviet General Secretary Trotsky continues to deny the Soviet government's involvement in Kun's entry into Hungary, Bethlen maintains his accusation that the Kremlin sent Kun to Hungary for the eventual purpose of bringing about a second communist uprising. The evidence gathered during Kun's trial--including the Soviet-forged passport which Kun had been carrying as part of his disguise when he was captured in May--and confessions made by Kun himself corroborate the government's accusations of the CPSU's malicious intentions.

Despite Trotsky's denials, Prime Minister Bethlen posited that a conspiracy was in place between the Soviet Government and Marxist elements within Hungary to cause instability in the Regency, and announced that harsh measures will soon be introduced to root out communist activity in Hungary. The exact details of these measures have not been revealed, though it is likely that they will involve similar trials of other individuals suspected of collaborating with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to cause rebellion against the Regency. The cooperative individuals implicated by Kun during his trial will undoubtedly be the first to come under investigation.

*A conservative, nationalist-leaning Budapest daily

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Journal of Fritz Kleppermann, an Essen youth
Sunday, 4 October 1925

Went to another Party meeting today. Oskar went with me, but Julius couldn't go. I wish he hadn't missed it today--he asked us to fill him in tomorrow, but so much happened that I don't even know if I can remember it all. They read us the latest tract from the leader of the rogue Socialists. It was total dreck, like those people usually produce, but it was almost frightening this time. The future they want for Germany is scary, with the upheaval of the German people and society and all, and when you hear the crap he spews out you can't help but shout it down, because you're trying to drown out the message he's sending so that no one ever will hear it and so your friends know you're not one of them and so you fit in with the rest of them but you still know that there will be people to fall for it there will always be people to fall for it if we don't do something about it and God help us all if they ever come into power because that will be the death of us all. The way they want to crush the capitalists is alright enough, I don't want to be working in a factory my whole life, but if they get their way Germany will just be a puppet of the Russians. If the cause wants to succeed we'll need to be so strong that all of Europe will bow before us, that France and Britain will run from our might, and then we'll bring the real socialism to the places where it's needed. I can't wait till I can vote, our leader said today that our voices are necessary to elevate the cause into the Reichstag. He's wise, he knows the real path to socialism is through the government. The rogue Socialists aren't true revolutionaries or true Germans, they're wild dogs who riot on the command of that sheep-faced Jew in Russia. No one will ever let them get into power, I don't care how many riots they throw or how many seats they hold now, no one will elect them ever again. And when we've found our power we'll wipe them all out, we'll rid Germany of the Marxist poison running in its blood, we'll send Russia crashing down and purge the Jews who run the show there. Germany will win.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Journal of Paul Meitner, a Berlin youth
Thursday, 17 October 1925

We finally got our guns from Moscow. They came in last week and they showed them to us at the meeting yesterday. They were much heavier than I thought they would be and I asked Comrade Schreicher if we would have time to practise with them, but he said there wouldn't be enough time. He told us we might not even need to shoot--when the soldiers take our side they'll do the shooting for us. If we're lucky, maybe they won't even have to shoot--if enough of the workers join with us we'll overrun the police in no time. I simply can't wait till we get the order. I've been staying up every night thinking about how it'll go down. I've been missing some schoolwork but our history books are just a load of bourgeois propaganda anyway, and we won't have much use for biology once the revolution has succeeded. I know I've sworn to keep secret about it all but I couldn't help letting a few words slip at dinner yesterday. Mama and Papa seemed worried but they'll understand the sacrifice when the cause is complete.

After work I walked to the library on Tuesday and found a book on the revolution in Russia by some Englishman named Stinton Jones. He talks about how the rioting in Petrograd started small but grew and grew until the streets were full and the police and the Cossacks were overwhelmed. I was only nine when it happened but I remember there were celebrations in Berlin--I can just imagine us all marching down the Chausseestraße like it's the Nevsky, thousands of us, marching to bring down the tyranny of the Republic. I don't see how it can go any other way--our posters and pamphlets are everywhere, I reckon there's not a single worker who hasn't heard our message. It might take some time but once they see that we've cleared the way, they'll join in. We will win.

I've been giving a lot of thought to whether or not I'll die during the march. The book mentions some deaths from clashes with the police during the Petrograd marches. I hope it doesn't have to happen but I've decided that if it comes down to that, I'll be willing to lay down my life for the cause if I really have to. When the proletariat class is finally on top, Mama and Papa will understand. Maybe I'll even be a hero or a martyr. In any case I hope the police will see the gun and stay away, but I'll shoot if I have to. I don't want to kill my fellow man but the cause is more important than anything else--when the revolution succeeds they'll all understand the price that had to be paid. I only hope I live to see the day when everyone, not just in Germany, but in the world, is free, so that I can know I did my part in it (But I still hope that part doesn't involve much shooting).

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Excerpt from p. 78 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the World Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946

...The morning of 9 November in Berlin was, by all accounts, a cold one. There were few pedestrians on the streets other than those heading to work, and the Tiergarten was "almost totally deserted", in the words of the Berliner Tageblatt. For most of the morning, the loudest presence in the industrial quarters north of the Spree were the silent, but ubiquitous, posters of the KPD. Though the giant face which stared down on the street from the posters gave the feeling of a king watching over his people, he was meant to be an insurrectionist rather than an autocrat--this was evidenced by the caption, which encouraged Berliners to "Take up Arms with [Their] Comrades in the KPD" and insisted that "Only Revolution [Could] End the Oppression of the Capitalist Bourgeois Rulers!"

At this point in its history, the NSDAP was strapped for cash, and it showed: While the Communists, rich with Moscow's money, were printing thousands of faces and tacking them onto every street corner in Berlin, the National Socialists were calling meetings on weeknights so that their members could draw their propaganda by hand. It goes without saying that the KPD's anonymous worker inspired far more emotion than the NSDAP's shoddily-drawn caricatures of their Führer. To boot, with Hitler still awaiting his release from Landsberg, the amateur artists had no model for their drawings, and they were forced to go off the descriptions of those members who had actually seen Hitler before; the finished products reportedly convinced some citizens that there was a new Charlie Chaplin film about to be released by the name of "Germany for the Germans".

Eyewitness Account of the November Putsch on 3 December by Karl Höller, an ironworker from Mitte

I think it started sometime around noon, or a little after. The boss had called off work that day, so I was at home. I was planning on going to walk along the river but the weather was too cold, so I stayed home. I think I was having breakfast when it all started up. I started hearing some shouts outside my flat and I walked over to the window and I saw them all marching by. Thousands, there must have been...two or three, at least, and almost all of them were wearing those red shirts. I saw the red shirts and I figured they were from one of those red parties...at first I thought it was the National Socialists but from the slogans they were shouting it couldn't've been. They're always prattling on about the German race...these people were shouting about revolution, so I knew it had to be the Communists.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Excerpt from p. 181 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the World Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946

The strange silence which blanketed the industrial districts before the march was not a coincidence. Through a coordinated action, the KPD had used its influence in the workers' committees to get work cancelled in all of the major factories, and the usual sounds of machines running, steam whistling and hammers striking were replaced by an ominous peace. Interestingly enough, by silencing the city, the KPD had inadvertently made its own propaganda more effective. According to one shop clerk who had just gotten into work when the march started:

"I didn't really notice how quiet it was until I was nearly at work. For some reason I kept noticing those big posters with the face...most days I just walked right past them, but they stood out to me that day, especially the eyes--it felt like he was watching me from every street corner. I couldn't understand why I kept noticing them all the time, and then it hit me--without all the usual racket you heard in those parts, there was nothing to distract you...It felt like it was just you and him."

Though this was indeed the calm, the storm had in fact been brewing in secret all throughout the night. The evening of 8 November, every able-bodied KPD member had made his way incognito to a factory on the north side of the river, where they prepared, in secret, for the coming day. Secret passwords were given and lookouts were posted; through the night they stayed awake in deep anticipation. Maps were examined, routes were reviewed, guns were loaded. Signs and uniforms were gathered, slogans rehearsed, marching patterns practised; cold sandwiches were washed down with lukewarm coffee and quiet excitement. The main event of the night, however, and the climax of the rancor in each of the KPD's makeshift bases was the direct appearance of the Party leader. All through the night, Thälmann hurried from factory to factory, conducting at each one what a young Party member described as "the best meeting [he'd] ever been to"...

From the Journal of Paul Meitner, Sunday, 9 November 1925

...But by far the best part tonight has been the meeting. Thälmann was there and it was absolutely marvelous. It was the best meeting I've ever been to. First he read out loud what that bastard Stalin had to say about world revolution, how we're all wasting our time and how socialism should stay in Russia, well we're going to show him where he can stuff that then won't we! And Thälmann read it so loud and so hard you'd think the bastard was really there and, then someone started shouting traitor and everyone else just joined in. I didn't, I just wanted to hear what he had to say but pretty soon I couldn't help it and I just started screaming my head off, I didn't care what he said anymore because I knew it was all wrong and nonsense and awful and sooner or later they'd get him they'll find him and when they do goddamnit we'll bash his head in! We were all fired up beforehand what with us knowing we were going to bring down the Chancellery and all but after the speech he gave everyone was ready to tear them all apart, all the damned traitorous Social Democrats and all the horrible National Socialists they've all abandoned the cause, they've stomped it to death, we're the only ones who're going to uphold the truth, if they get to power it'll all be over that's why we're here that's why we're marching tomorrow we're going to make history me and everyone else here we're going to save Germany from those swine, those capitalist swine, just one more day before we do what we've been waiting to do once and forever!

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Excerpt from p. 187 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the World Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946

Finally the moment came. Throughout the city, the clocks struck thirteen and single bell tolls reverberated through the streets; after revving its engines for an intense night the KPD's revolutionary machine was set on the warpath. Endless rows of armed protesters poured out of the factory lots and clogged the roads. As the mobs took over the cold streets the slogans began pouring forth from their mouths--within a minute "Down with the bourgeois oppressors", "Freedom for the proletariat" and "Workers, unite" filled the air wherever the crowds blazed their trail. As a dozen angry, organized and armed columns converged upon the Chausseestraße from each conceivable direction, it was as though Berlin was under invasion by a red-clad army--how prophetic the image would become not twenty years later.

Eyewitness account of the November Putsch given by Karl Höller, an ironworker from Mitte

...No, I never cared much for their ideas and all but when I saw them out there marching I figured I had to go and see what they were getting on about. I saw they had guns but I figured I'd be safe--what were they gonna do, shoot at me? I'm a worker, aren't I? They're always saying the workers are superior and all, they'd never shoot me. Besides, they couldn't aim worth a dog's tail...Anyway, when I headed out on the street it was kind of hard to get through the crowd, there were so many of them, but I made it eventually. I couldn't figure why they'd be marching through these little streets when there were so many of them...I guess the idea was to head by the places where all the workers lived and get them to come and join in, but I couldn't see many others. It still worked on me though, I suppose...

p. 190 of Grünwald

By a quarter to fourteen, all of the various battalions of the Communist forces had made their rounds through the workers' neighbourhoods and arrived at the Chausseestraße. At that point, the KPD's forces were no longer a federation of free-moving brigades--they were a unified, advancing, apparently unstoppable army. Contemporary estimates centre around 12,000 men; eyewitness reports claimed 40,000 or more. As the massive force pressed on southeast, it was quickly closing the distance between it and its targets in the heart of both the city and the democracy.

Höller

It was maybe a half an hour had gone by, I was still marching with them. Then we got to the Chaussee, and that's when I saw it--it wasn't just us marching there, there were thousands more, and they all started in the same direction, yelling and shouting. It got so loud, I couldn't hear myself think! I tried to make out some of the slogans but they weren't as clear as before...it was just noise from where I was in the crowd. I kept wondering why the police hadn't turned up yet...I knew this wasn't just any protest, with the guns they were lugging...I started to hope they would come along soon, before these maniacs did some real damage. I started to worry any second someone would start shooting and it would all go to hell...

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Eyewitness account of the November Putsch by Karl Höller, an ironworker from Mitte

We were on the Luisenstraße, almost up to the bridge. Before then, I hadn't really thought much about where we were going...I guess I already knew it had to have been the Reichstag, but it was sort of in the back of my mind, like I wasn't even thinking about it. I guess I figured they would get stopped sooner or later...but after that police stop I didn't think anything could stop them. And when we got to the bridge and I saw the building just sitting there, defenceless, no one to guard it, I wanted to scream. I think I did scream but there was so much noise I couldn't even hear myself. I couldn't even imagine them if they got there...what the hell would they have done to it? Smashed all the windows? Set fire to it? Goddamn it, those bastards would have blown the whole thing up if they wanted! They were nothing but a bunch of red thugs with fancy guns and lunatic ideas...At least the other Socialists have a damn to give about this country.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Eyewitness account of the November Putsch by Karl Höller, an ironworker from Mitte

This must've been a half an hour after the roadblock. We were just getting onto the Königsplatz. The Reichstag was right in front of us, couldn't have been 200 metres, and getting closer with every step. I looked around, saw all the hate in their eyes...I couldn't quite tell if they were actually saying things or just making wild noises with their mouths. Before I joined up with the crowd, you could at least make out a few slogans, but now it was just gibberish. It was almost impossible not to join in yourself...I was shouting too, but I was just trying to tell them all to go home, turn back before it was too late. But every minute I had to resist the urge to start shouting along with them, bashing in the German people and name. All the while I kept imagining the Reichstag burning to the ground, some psychopath putting up a red flag and declaring a People's Proletariat Socialist Republic of bullshit. And that's when it happened.

I heard the first shot and I snapped my head around, looking for where it came from. I had noticed some mounted cops sitting in our way a minute ago, but after the show they put up with the roadblock I didn't think they'd be fit to stop a funeral procession. And that's when I saw them--the Freikorps men. They weren't quite up to where the police were, but they were gaining fast. I knew at once they weren't cops--for one thing, they weren't on horses, they were on foot. And they weren't uniformed, they had on brown shirts. I figured they had to be with the National Socialists, since they had a banner with that funny-looking diamond thing you see on those Chaplin posters. But that wasn't what I cared about...what mattered was that they weren't just sitting on their asses, watching as a horde of barbarians march on to tear down the German Republic. They were charging. And they were carrying guns but it looked like they might actually use them. Maybe if we'd had some of those folks in the police that mob wouldn't have gotten as far as it did!

Either way, once the first shot came off the bullets went flying in every direction. It looked like the police were volleying into the crowd at will, the bastards, not even caring if they hit the people like me, the ones who didn't want to be there, didn't want to do anyone a bit of harm...the Freikorps lads, they were looking around, making sure they only shot the ones who were shooting at them. I couldn't quite tell who shot first, but I'd give anything it was the damned Commies. Lord knows it wasn't the police, those cowards. And the Socialist fellows, they wouldn't have wanted to fire on their own people, but the reds wouldn't have given a damn who lived or died...it's all for the revolution with them, no matter how much needless blood they spill. I watched them shooting round after round into the crowd, just putting 'em all down, and the reds were scurrying about like madmen. A couple of them were trying to shoot back but they obviously couldn't hit the side of a barn if they tried. Most just dropped their guns and went screaming...I had to fight the urge to pick up a gun and pick 'em off one by one, those miserable bastards.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Frankfurter Zeitung, 10 November 1925

PROTESTS IN BERLIN LEAD TO FIREFIGHT WITH POLICE; 82 KILLED
by Robert Reintke

A large protest in Berlin led to a massive exchange of gunfire yesterday, as several thousand armed demonstrators clashed with mounted police near the Reichstag building. At approximately two-thirty in the afternoon on 9 November, a detachment of the Berlin Landespolizei, some 35 in number, confronted a mass of protesters on the Königsplatz. Witnesses say that the protesters numbered between eight and twelve thousand; in addition, it was reported that some of the demonstrators were dressed in the red shirts characteristic of the Communist Party, though this has yet to be confirmed. It is, however, known with certainty that a sizeable portion of the activists were armed with firearms. Over seventy rifles were recovered from the scene of the skirmish. According to police sources, most of these were of the mark Mosin-Nagant, the principal make of rifle used by the Russians during the Great War, and by both sides of Russia's civil war.

It is unclear exactly how the conflict was initiated. Some witnesses claim that the police fired the first shots, while others say that the protesters were the first to shoot. Enquiry into the event is further complicated by the arrival of a third party at the moment of the incident. This group reportedly was carrying symbology associated with the National Socialist German Workers' Party; This evidence suggests the possible involvement of the NSDAP-affiliated Free German Men's Corps, or Free Corps*, which are infamous for their frequent, unsanctioned patrols of both Berlin and the northern countryside. After several minutes of fire from both sides, the remaining combatants surrendered or fled from the scene. In total, 82 were killed by gunshots and a further 70 were severely injured. Seven of the reported casualties were police officers, while the rest were composed of protesters.

*The Freikorps. Up until this point, the KPD has been much more successful than the NSDAP (even more so than it was in OTL 1925), due in no small part to the massive funding and resources being poured into it by Trotsky's government. Since most of the poor, disgruntled workers have been stolen away by them dirty commies, the Nazi Party's Berlin membership is pitiful. Most of its members are now and urban middle class men and rural farmers. These Nazis' primary drive is their fear of the Communists, who already have the cities in their grip and who threaten to degrade the traditional conservative, Christian, populist, German way of life. In that regard, they may as well hold the copyright on the Freikorps, which were formed in late 1918 from of the same class of people for the same reason in response to the same political trend. Therefore, the Freikorps (or the Free German Men's Corps, as they are now officially called) have been revived by the Nazis to patrol the rural north (where most of their membership is concentrated) and, to a much lesser extent, Berlin, for an excuse to intimidate anyone who looks vaguely Communist.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Völkischer Beobachter*, 10 November 1925

ARMED BOLSHEVIK HORDE DESCENDS ON BERLIN!
Dozens of police murdered; Free Corps division saves Reichstag from certain destruction
by Fritz Klepperman

Yesterday, Berlin was attacked by an alien force hostile to the interests and welfare of the German people. The Communist Party, feared throughout the country for its frequent and oftentimes frightening displays of violence, finally showed its true intentions for Germany yesterday, as a hundred-thousand-man swarm of red-shirted hooligans--all of whom were reportedly armed with rifles--marched at a terrifying pace to the Reichstag, intending to destroy the foundations of the German Republic and transform the nation into a puppet of Bolshevik Russia. When the pathetic show of violence devolved, as it inevitably did, into a massacre of police and civilians, only the timely arrival of a brigade of the Free German Men's Corps saved the Reichstag from the rage of a mob of war-mongering lunatics.

For nearly an hour and a half, tens of thousands of communist agitators marched unstoppably through the city streets, intimidating helpless civilians and abusing the workers whom they claim to represent. At multiple points during the march, the police and the Communists met directly, but each time the police simply stood by and allowed the enemies of the German people to proceed; it appears from this that the Landespolizei, tasked with defending the German people from our enemies, is powerless to stop a pack of schoolchildren wielding guns they don't know how to use. This, of course, is ignoring the possibility that the police themselves are corrupted by the Marxist disease, and had willingly allowed the enemy to pass. Either explanation has serious implications as to whether or not we can depend on the police to protect us from further attempts to shake the strength of the German state and nation.

By two-thirty, it seemed that nothing could stop the rebels from reaching the Reichstag. As the rebellious mass set foot on the Königsplatz, mere metres away from its target, yet another detachment of police utterly failed to slow the attackers' path, standing down while it passed like a row of mounted statues. Suddenly, a shot rang out; within mere moments, the supposedly unified mass of rebels scattered into a frenzy of confused fire. In the ensuing firefight, dozens of police officers, all of whom were valiantly serving their duty in defence of the nation, were murdered by the communists; hundreds of insurrectionists were given the violent deaths they deserved. When the smoke cleared, only the brave members of the Free German Men's Corps, which had heroically intervened to save the Reichstag from the Bolshevik menace, remained standing amid the corpses of the violent revolutionaries and the useless police.

*The Nazi Party's official newspaper.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Excerpt from p. 206 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the Great Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946

There comes now an inevitable question: Why did the November Putsch fail? Not just why its perpetrators failed to reach the Reichstag, but why did the sight of thousands of protesters marching in the streets fail to rouse the downtrodden people of Berlin to the righteous cause of revolution? And perhaps more importantly, why did the swift crushing of the rebellion fail to provoke the necessary outrage from the people of Germany, which would have made possible the people's revolution which Trotsky, Thälmann and the others were trying to accomplish?

The first part of the question is the simplest to answer. The November Putsch was unsuccessful in storming the Reichstag and overthrowing the government because it pitted several thousand young, disunified, untrained, inexperienced young men--in a word, amateurs--against the numerically inferior, but astronomically more competent, police. Thälmann's Russian advisors had placed far too much emphasis on indoctrinating the revolutionaries, and far too little on training them with their weapons or preparing them for the stress they would endure as Leninist-style "professional revolutionaries". The disastrous effects of this lopsided training strategy were made obvious during the march: hardly half an hour had gone by before the unanimous cries of "Down with the Chancellor" and "Freedom for the Proletariat" had devolved into a jumble of indistinguishable noises and shouts that said nothing about the purpose or the aim of the crowd. And when the shots rang out on the Königsplatz, the protesters, most of whom had barely touched a gun before that day, could do little more than panic and fire wildly in every possible direction--hitting more of each other than the police officers--while those well-trained policemen maintained their composure and fired back out of self-defence, inflicting embarrassing casualties on the Communists.

Now, to answer the second part of the question: why did the common folk not join in the protest? Those who planned this Putsch--Radek, Trotsky, Thälmann, and the rest--were hoping to trigger a "1917" in Germany: to invite throngs of masses, too huge to ignore, onto the streets with the revolutionaries to voice their hatred of the regime, to clamor so loudly for Ebert's resignation that he would have no choice but to heed their wishes. This was an absolute failure, and, with knowledge of the conditions that day, it's easier to understand why.

Firstly, this was a cold day, with temperatures as low as freezing. Few people were out on the streets when the march began, and even fewer were willing to endure the cold just to participate in some political protest. Secondly, 9 November 1925 was a Monday. While the KPD had managed to procure a day off in the factories, it was business as usual in non-industrial Berlin, and most potential revolutionaries were at work for the day. Even those who could have joined had a good reason not to: the demonstrators were armed. Without guns, they could be perceived as a mass of disgruntled citizens who were democratically voicing their concerns. With the guns, they were indistinguishable from a foreign invasion. No person in their proper mind would have wanted to throw in his lot with a troupe of gun-wielding maniacs who looked as though they might begin massacring civilians at any moment.

If a "1917" was unattainable, then the communists would have hoped at least for a "1905"--a situation in which the swift crushing of the rebellion would turn the people against the government to such a degree that a true people's revolution--in other words, a true "1917"--would be only a matter of time. In this regard, the coup failed perhaps even more spectacularly than it did in its immediate goals. For one, the event that constituted the original "1905" began with a few thousand patriotic, loyal workers peacefully imploring their beloved Tsar to improve the conditions of their lives. It ended with the unprovoked massacre of hundreds of unarmed demonstrators, because Nicholas preferred to suppress his nation's problems rather than to solve them. Bloody Sunday was so incisive in the minds of the Russian people because it was a case of a tyrannical government trampling innocent civilians. The November Putsch was quite obviously a case of a democratic government defending itself and its citizens from a violent aggressor. There was no reason at all for the German people to feel indignant towards their government as a result of the November Putsch.

Perhaps an even larger reason is that the Communist Party was frightening. With its outward militance, inescapable posters and slogans, and incessant worship of some strange, twisted idea of the future, the Communist Party was generally feared by the public, even hated and despised. The Communists failed to realize that their success in the electorate was due to their being the largest option outside of the Social Democrats, rather than a wide-scale acceptance of their ideas by the German people. Most ordinary Germans were indeed hungry for an ideological change from the tired reign of the SPD, but they wanted to feel empowered and patriotic after the embarrassment of the War. The KPD claimed to the people that they must endure even more hardship for the sake of the future generations, and that the workers of France, Britain and Russia were their comrades--a rhetoric which did little to satisfy the nationalist and populist urges that were brewing in the hearts of most Germans.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Excerpt from p. 207 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the World Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946

The failure of the November Putsch was the beginning of the end for the KPD, and the end of the beginning for the National Socialist Party. Before the coup, the KPD was performing better in election after election, and was well on track to overtaking the Social Democrats as the majority party in the Reichstag. If Trotsky had allowed it, the communist movement would have secured its first foothold outside Russia through entirely legal means within just a few years. After the coup, the Party's reputation was permanently damaged. No longer the new, maverick foil to the SPD, now they were a violent, unstable, and dangerous fringe movement which intended fully to destabilise and destroy the government. No ordinary German, however jaded with the system he may have been, could support a cause like that. The electoral demise of the Communist Party of Germany was, therefore, sealed with the failure of the November Putsch.

And yet, even after the KPD had been thoroughly discredited in the minds of the public, the Party leadership believed that just by setting the example, they had set the stage for the people to eventually throw off the chains of oppression and establish communism in their own right, as they were naturally destined to do. This shows a level of self-delusion that is truly strange and somewhat frightening, when considering that these were the minds which might have come to rule Germany if they hadn't squandered their popularity in the way that they did.

The truth was that communism were never nearly as popular in postwar Germany as the Party believed it to be. As mentioned before, most who voted Communist did so mostly, if not entirely, out of disillusionment with the existing political order. Few KPD supporters adhered to, or were even familiar with, Marxist-Leninist ideals. As would become clear in the near future, any movement calling for radical economic and social change could easily capture the fickle hearts of interwar Germany, and up until that point, the Communist Party had simply been the most noticeable choice (thanks in no small part to the generous “donations” it received from the Russian government, which allowed it to saturate the country with propaganda at a rate that smaller parties could only imagine).

The ideologies of the Nazi Party, on the other hand, were perfectly suited to the political currents of '30s Germany. The people of Germany were resentful—hateful, even—of France, Britain and America for what they'd done to the nation at Versailles. And as a nation, they desired more than anything to regain the feeling of pride and superiority that they'd felt before the humiliation of the war. The Nazis, with their extreme, all-consuming nationalism and prominent enmity to the Allied Powers, were perfectly suited to capture the profound anger felt by the German people, and bend it to their own ends. And as anyone who reads this book will certainly be aware, once the Communists fell out of favour (largely as a result of the Nazis' own contributions to the field of journalism), the National Socialist Party was extremely effective at capitalising on these advantages.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Note: There are a lot of words in this entry, so here's the short version:
Ok, here's what happens after the November Putsch. Immediately after the Putsch is put down, Goebbels (essentially the leader of the Nazi Party with Hitler still sitting at Landsberg) realizes this is the Nazis' chance to get ahead. So he organizes a "special edition" of the Nazi Party's official newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, which claims that hundreds of innocent bystanders have been killed by the bloodthirsty communists and that the Freikorps, not the police, saved the day. This is of course false, but they print thousands of these issues, nail them to the walls and beat the bigger papers to the punch. Also, people already don't have much faith in the government so they're more willing to believe that the Reichstag was saved by a band of patriotic citizens rather than the police.

The people start to take notice of this new newspaper which gets its content out before everybody else. Some of the accusations it immediately makes about the KPD, such as that they are connected to Russia, actually turn out to be true, which gives the paper the reputation for reporting the truth long before anyone else does. On top of that, as established before, the Nazis are perfectly suited to take advantage of the emotions the German people are feeling post-World War I to gain. All of these things cause the Nazi Party's official newspaper extremely popular, giving the Nazis a suitable platform for their propaganda. And even though the communist movement has disgraced itself, the German people's anger at the state of things hasn't gone anywhere, and now it needs a new extreme ideology to latch onto, and Nazism is perfect for that. By 1928, the KPD is completely discredited, while the Nazi Party, through its influence over the extremely-popular Beobachter and by appealing to the German people's disillusionment, has convinced millions to hate Trotsky, Russia, Bolshevism, the Jews, and all combinations thereof. Just in time for the 1928 federal elections...



Excerpt from p. 213 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the Great Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946

The press would play a massive role in the politics of Germany in the latter half of the 1920s. Dominance over the media was a crucial part of the National Socialists' supplanting of the KPD as the main opposition, and control of the press was elemental in its eventual rise to power. This all started immediately after the November Putsch, when Deputy Führer Goebbels*, in a moment of astounding inspiration, had somehow foreseen that this would be the Party's chance to propel itself into the mainstream political scene at the expense of its Communist rivals, and swiftly mobilised his Party to take advantage of the KPD's failure and advance their own popularity and anti-Communist agenda.

By special orders of Deputy Führer Goebbels, Party members far and wide gathered in cramped Party offices to endure a long night of rigorous work. Goebbels had always had a knack for communications, as well as a keen understanding of the effectiveness of print media over the opinions of the public. So, despite the financial limitations of the Party, Goebbels had ensured that the Party would always be well-equipped to produce its own brand of propaganda in the form of its official newspaper. Though some Party offices were little more than small rooms in members' basements, most were equipped with printing presses and stocked with ink and paper. All through the night of 9 November, copy after copy of the Völkischer Beobachter was slammed out until tens of thousands of issues had been produced just in the vicinity of Berlin. Typically it was released on Fridays, but a Tuesday “special edition” had been hastily drawn up specifically to condemn the KPD's involvement in the Putsch.

Once a suitably huge number of issues had been produced, the paper's printers became its handlers and merchants. By two in the morning, half of all able Party members in Berlin—two, even three thousand men—were scurrying around the city, tacking up copies of the Beobachter onto every available building and edifice. The other half stayed in the offices, producing more copies for their compatriots to distribute.

By morning, the “special edition” of the Beobachter was even more conspicuous than the KPD's posters. As the citizens left home to head to work, they were greeted with large, eye-catching headlines proclaiming the events of the previous day to be the work of Bolshevik conspirators aiming to destroy the government. Interested by the new, unrestrained description of the event, millions of Berliners read their fill of information from this remarkable new newspaper. By the time the paperboys emerged, hocking the more moderate accounts of the Putsch to be found in the Berliner Tageblatt, most Berliners were already fully convinced of the NSDAP's wild interpretation of the event, and had no need to spend a few pfennigs just to hear what the reserved, mainstream sources had to say about it. On that day, the Völkischer Beobachter changed from a little-known rag run by a radical fringe group to a credible and intriguing source of information about German affairs. The National Socialists had finally been proven right about the dangerous ideas of the KPD, and they intended to take full advantage of this new credibility in order to pilfer popular support from the disgraced Communists.

*Goebbels is effectively the acting Party leader with Hitler still at Landsberg

Excerpt from p. 279 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the Great Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946

By 1928, the KPD was seen as nothing more than a radical fringe group. They were outspokenly unpatriotic, which made them unpopular in a Germany which was giving in to the self-aggrandizing nationalism which so often plagues defeated nations. They were known to be connected with the Russians, the Bolsheviks, and—even worse in the minds of a growing number—the Jews. The Communist Party had essentially arranged its own downfall with the Putsch, and its actions were rightfully condemned by all the main news sources as well as by the far-right press, so this decline would have occurred without the meddling of the National Socialists.

On the other hand, the NSDAP's rise, which mirrored the decline of the KPD, was a direct product of the journalistic tactics employed by the National Socialist Party in the months following the Putsch. After making itself known through its direct coverage of the coup, the Völkischer Beobachter proceeded to establish itself as a credible news outlet which covered stories more frankly and more interestingly than the larger papers did. Though anyone today is aware that the Beobachter was little more than a propagandistic tabloid serving the whims of the National Socialists, its credibility was greatly helped at the time because many of the baseless claims it had made regarding the KPD—such as that it was closely tied to the Russian government, that the government in Moscow had supported the Putsch, and that a disproportionate number of the Party were Jews—just so happened to be true. This persuaded millions of citizens that the Beobachter was capable of delivering the truth earlier and more honestly than any other news source.

In addition, while the other newspapers waited for the facts to come out before reporting them, the Beobachter lobbed scandalous, intriguing accusations with hardly any basis in reality. And whereas the main newspapers only ever drew restrained, boring conclusions, the Beobachter made outrageous, memorable claims that were just plausible enough to be believable. In short, the Beobachter became more interesting and more honest than the Tageblatt and the Zeitung in the minds of the people, mostly through luck and through dubious journalistic practises.

Once the Nazis had the ear of the people, they set to work gaining political support and convincing the people of their contemptible ideologies. Soon after the November Putsch, the official enquiries established that the Putsch had been stopped by the police, and that the NSDAP-affiliated Freikorps unit which arrived in the midst of the shooting had had no effect on the battle. Despite this, the Beobachter aggressively pursued the myth that the Freikorps had single-handedly stopped the coup in its tracks, while the police had sat around powerlessly.

Due to the average citizen's deep disillusionment with the government, this lie was more “believable” than the truth, and millions of Germans believed it. In this way, the Nazis effectively painted themselves as the patriotic saviours of Germany from the Bolshevik tide. This alone gained the National Socialists millions of supporters and deepened the popular disillusionment with the government.

The Nazis were also largely responsible for turning the German people against Bolshevism and the “Jewish Bolsheviks” who supposedly were in control of Russia and the KPD. Of course, the KPD's connections with Moscow had been well established during the official enquiries into the Putsch, and they were dutifully reported by the mainstream press. Thus, Trotsky's and Russia's involvement in the Putsch would have been uncovered even without the influence of the National Socialists.

However, it was the Nazis who used these facts to manipulate public opinion of Russia so negatively. With such headlines as “BEOBACHTER INVESTIGATION UNCOVERS BOLSHEVIK PLOT TO SUBDUE GERMAN SOVEREIGNTY” after a and “JEWS NUMBER SIXTY PER CENT OF COMMUNIST PARTY”, it is quite obvious that the Nazis were “guiding” their readership toward the conclusion that Russia was a dangerous, Jewish- and Bolshevik-controlled enemy of Germany

Taking into account the influence the Nazi Party's propaganda had amassed by 1928, it is no surprise that by the time of that year's federal elections, so many voters were thoroughly contemptuous of Russia, which they saw as Germany's historical and current enemy, which had secretly orchestrated the November Putsch and was still sending its Bolshevik spies and agents to disrupt German affairs; of Communists, whom they viewed as Russia's treasonous agents in Germany; and of Bolshevism, which they saw as a miserable ideology which had no provisions for the welfare of race or nation.

But more than anything else, they were contemptuous of the Jews. By 1928, millions of voting Germans were convinced that the Jews were at the root of all of Germany's problems, and that they were in control of Russia and the Communist Parties of Germany, and the Soviet Union; that Trotsky, himself of course a Jew, was their leader; that Bolshevism was merely a tool for the Jews to achieve supremacy; and, of course, that the Jews had betrayed Germany during the War, had created the Weimar Republic, and were secretly engineering the German people's woes to this day. The results, then, of the 1928 federal election are quite predictable in hindsight.