by walterkaschner on 28 Aug 2003 02:19 After five days the "Kapp Putsch" was brought to an end by the "Chancellor's" total incompetence and the astonishing effectiveness of a general strike which the Socialists called against Kapp and his "government". Kapp fled to Tempelhof, where a plane waited to take him to Sweden, and Ludendorff departed for the more congenial political climate of Munich. The sullen troops of the Ehrhardt Brigade formed columns of four on Under den Linden and, while a silent and obviously hostile crowd of Berliners watched from the sidewalk, prepared for their march back to Boberitz[sic, their barracks was actually at Döberitz]. Then, among the spectators, a boy laughed. Two Freikorps soldiers broke ranks, knocked the youth down with their rifle butts and kicked him where he lay in the gutter. The crowd began to hiss its hatred. In response, an officer shouted an order, and a rank of the Freikorpskämpfer at once raised their rifles and, at point blank range, fired a volley into the crowd. They then turned about, the order to march was given, and the brigade marched off to the west, passing through the Brandenburger Tor. Before they disappeared down the Charlottenstrasse, individual troopers broke ranks, ran to the sidewalk and beat lone civilians, using their potato-masher hand grenades as clubs. It was their final gesture to the people of Berlin.
Richard M. Watt, The Kings Depart, (Barnes & Noble Books, paperback, 1968) at 507. See also Robert G.L. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism (W.W. Norton & Company, paperback edition, 1969) at 162-63. IMHO Waite's chapter on the the Kapp Putsch is the best available description in English that I have read, although S. William Haperin's treatment in his Germany Tried Democracy (W.W.Norton & Company, paperback edition, 1965) is also quite good, although written from a somewhat different slant.
Incidentally, although Ehrhardt's naval rank is usually given in English as "Captain", that is somewhat misleading, in that a Captain in the U.S. or English Navy (in the sense of military rank rather than that of commanding officer of a ship, who is called "Captain" but may be of much lower rank, even down to a Chief Petty Officer) is the equivalent in rank to a Colonel in their respective armies, and to an Oberst in the German Army, and to a "Kapitän zur See" in the German Navy.
Unless I am very mistaken, I believe Ehrhardt's rank in the German Navy was that of a "Korvettenkapitän" (which doesn't really mean that he was commanding officer of a Corvette) which is two ranks below that of a full "Kapitän sur See", and , although there is no exact equivalent in the U.S. or British Navy, would fall somewhere between a Lieutenant Commander and a Commander - the Army equivalent of a Major or Lieutenant Colonel. In the German Navy, the rank immediately above "Korvettenkapitän" was "Fregattenkapitän", who would rank somewhere between a Commander and Captain in the U.S. and British Navies (between Lieutenant Colonal and full "Bird" Colonel in the U.S. Army.)
I point this piece of trivia out simply because I think it is important to recognize that in many, many cases the organizers and leaders of German Freikorps units were relatively junior officers, who were nonetheless able to lead and command the respect of groups of troops whose numbers in the regular army would have called for commanders of much higher rank.
Regards, Kaschner
I really like this tune, it is fun and it rhymes