WI: Kapp Putsch succeeds

kernals12

Banned
In March 1920, an attempted coup d'etat occurred in the Weimar Republic. Elements of the military wanted to establish a right wing dictatorship. Obviously it failed and you know what happened next. If this had succeeded, would we still get the Holocaust and World War II? Almost all members of Germany's military elite were bitter about Versailles and had varying degrees of anti-semitism.
 
I find it hard to picture the Kapp Putsch succeeding. Even if the government throws in the sponge, as some of them clearly wanted after most of the military left them twisting in the wind, the unions would have overthrown Kapp's regime or made Germany ungovernable. Kapp could hold on by the atoms of his fingertips to parts of Berlin by massacring all opposition and Bavaria could have gone either way, but the rest of the country... it would have been a civil war and nobody in the Kapp upper echelon had the will to see it be taken that far. They really did think that they could overthrow an "unpopular" government, plant both feet on the desk and order brandy and cigars and make everything like it was. I can barely see them making it through a civil war even if luck is on their side and the legitimate government makes blunders. Now, an argument could be made that a civil war would unleash some demons and more ruthless men would have usurped the Kapp's cabal position and put themselves in charge of a reactionary regime, but we're talking the Spanish Civil War here with very few Francos (Ludendorff is to Franco as Lenny Kravitz is to Jimi Hendrix) and a ton of bloodshed.

One positive upshot of this, I highly doubt Musso- gets a chance in Italy ITTL because the Italian government would not wish what is happening in Germany in their backyard and would strive to keep a lid on things. And the socialists and communists in Italy might stop arguing over the color of their flags long enough to notice that Musso- represents a threat due to what goes in Germany.

The Red Scare would get amped up to 11 elsewhere, while simultaneously there would be an out-pouring of International Brigades level of support on the left side for the legitimate government in Germany being usurped by an almost cartoon like figures of extremists and militarists. Meanwhile, the epicenter of the original Red Scare would now steamroll towards Poland with a revolution/civil war brewing on their Western front. That might supersede all other butterflies so far I wrote about, as a Germany careening between reactionary usurpers and red rebels with the Red Army not far from breaking through the borders of a country immediately east of Germany... we got a world in turmoil.
 

Anchises

Banned
I find it hard to picture the Kapp Putsch succeeding. Even if the government throws in the sponge, as some of them clearly wanted after most of the military left them twisting in the wind, the unions would have overthrown Kapp's regime or made Germany ungovernable. Kapp could hold on by the atoms of his fingertips to parts of Berlin by massacring all opposition and Bavaria could have gone either way, but the rest of the country... it would have been a civil war and nobody in the Kapp upper echelon had the will to see it be taken that far. They really did think that they could overthrow an "unpopular" government, plant both feet on the desk and order brandy and cigars and make everything like it was. I can barely see them making it through a civil war even if luck is on their side and the legitimate government makes blunders. Now, an argument could be made that a civil war would unleash some demons and more ruthless men would have usurped the Kapp's cabal position and put themselves in charge of a reactionary regime, but we're talking the Spanish Civil War here with very few Francos (Ludendorff is to Franco as Lenny Kravitz is to Jimi Hendrix) and a ton of bloodshed.

One positive upshot of this, I highly doubt Musso- gets a chance in Italy ITTL because the Italian government would not wish what is happening in Germany in their backyard and would strive to keep a lid on things. And the socialists and communists in Italy might stop arguing over the color of their flags long enough to notice that Musso- represents a threat due to what goes in Germany.

The Red Scare would get amped up to 11 elsewhere, while simultaneously there would be an out-pouring of International Brigades level of support on the left side for the legitimate government in Germany being usurped by an almost cartoon like figures of extremists and militarists. Meanwhile, the epicenter of the original Red Scare would now steamroll towards Poland with a revolution/civil war brewing on their Western front. That might supersede all other butterflies so far I wrote about, as a Germany careening between reactionary usurpers and red rebels with the Red Army not far from breaking through the borders of a country immediately east of Germany... we got a world in turmoil.

Best way to have the Kapp Putsch working:

The SocDems negotiate with the Spartakists/ the radical left never breaks away.

In 1918/1919 we actually have a Socialist Government.

The right wing lets them negotiate the ToV and assembles the Freikorps. Once the government starts nationalizing companies and banks Kapp launches his Putsch with actual support from the bureaucracy, middle and upper class.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Actually Kapp had only very few "supporters" even in the circles @Anchises named.

IOTL it WERE actually the unions, that stopped Kapp.

They called a General strike, that especially in Berlin almost completly paralyzed the Kapp-"Goverment", no one, not the civil Service officials, not the policemen, not the post men, not even the garbage collectors followed their commands and they simply did not have enough armed followers, aka FreeCorps members at their disposal to force such Services.

Therefore, after a few days the spook was over with only very, very few casualties.
(Something, that would have definitly been very different, if the "Reds" would have intervened with force themself.)


But for the question of the OP (however implausible a successfull Kapp-Putsch may be) :

No

IMHO there would not have been a Holocaust. True antisemitism was relativly widespread, but it was Kind of a "civilized" antisemitism with some discrimination on a personal Level also by officials, but nothing institutionalized.
There were attempts to find arguements for an institutionalized antisemitism during the war. Then war Minister Wild von Hohenborn tried to initiate some statistical surveys to that behalf. But ist results were so ... "significant", that ist results were very quickly made "Highly Confidential" and then were ... somehow ... lost.

Wit the conservativey in conjunction with the Military in Charge, there would be no institutionalized, radical and patghological anti-semitism, as under the Nazis, who (Hitler, Streicher, Esser, Himmler (?), ...) WERE pathological antisemitists.
These guys, if thgey would ITTL rise to some Kind of promonence would have rather quickly been charged and put into prison if only for "disturbing public peace" with their radical, fanatical antisemitism.
 

Anchises

Banned
Actually Kapp had only very few "supporters" even in the circles @Anchises named.

IOTL it WERE actually the unions, that stopped Kapp.

They called a General strike, that especially in Berlin almost completly paralyzed the Kapp-"Goverment", no one, not the civil Service officials, not the policemen, not the post men, not even the garbage collectors followed their commands and they simply did not have enough armed followers, aka FreeCorps members at their disposal to force such Services.

Therefore, after a few days the spook was over with only very, very few casualties.
(Something, that would have definitly been very different, if the "Reds" would have intervened with force themself.)


But for the question of the OP (however implausible a successfull Kapp-Putsch may be) :

No

IMHO there would not have been a Holocaust. True antisemitism was relativly widespread, but it was Kind of a "civilized" antisemitism with some discrimination on a personal Level also by officials, but nothing institutionalized.
There were attempts to find arguements for an institutionalized antisemitism during the war. Then war Minister Wild von Hohenborn tried to initiate some statistical surveys to that behalf. But ist results were so ... "significant", that ist results were very quickly made "Highly Confidential" and then were ... somehow ... lost.

Wit the conservativey in conjunction with the Military in Charge, there would be no institutionalized, radical and patghological anti-semitism, as under the Nazis, who (Hitler, Streicher, Esser, Himmler (?), ...) WERE pathological antisemitists.
These guys, if thgey would ITTL rise to some Kind of promonence would have rather quickly been charged and put into prison if only for "disturbing public peace" with their radical, fanatical antisemitism.

I agree completely. IOTL Kapp had a snowballs chance in hell of succeding. Especially 2 years after WW1 and with the Spartakists beaten.

That is why I proposed a scenario where the SPD is much further to the left. Liebknecht and Luxemburg as Ministers and not dead in a shallow grave by 1920.

This and some heavy handed economic policies might create the support that Kapp needs.
 
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