The Kapp Putsch 1920
Storyboard Text
- As agreed by the Treaty of Versailles, we need to begin to reduce our army. This includes the Freikorps.
- Ehrhardt
- The government want us to disband! Not happening!
- Lets come up with a plan to get rid of them!
- Kapp
- x 12,000
- Berlin
- In March 1920 the Weimar Government announced measures to reduce the size of the army and disband the Freikorps.
- Help us put an end to this. Go on strike!
- The leader of the Berlin Freikorps refused to comply. He joined with politician Wolfgang Kapp and created a plan to seize Berlin and form a new right-wing government with Kapp as Chancellor.
- We are under the instruction of the government not to work as part of a general strike, to force Kapp out of Berlin.
- Supported by the Berlin army, Kapp and around 12,000 Freikorps successfully seized Berlin on 13th March 1920. The government asked to regular army to put down the putsch but they refused to fire on their own.
- The putsch has failed I must flee!
- Instead Ebert called on the people of Berlin to help put a stop to the putsch. He asked them not to support Kapp and to go on strike.
- The people supported the strike and Berlin shut down for 5 days. Kapp realised he could not control the city and so was forced to give up his putsch.
- 5 Days
- The Putsch collapsed. More than 400 army officers were involved in the putsch but few were punished. Kapp fled to Sweden.
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