The Munich debacle

Gerwarth devotes pp. 11.173-83 to the communists' adventure in Munich. He titles that "Democracy Besieged". His own narrative undercuts its title.

Ludwig III lost his throne in the revolution(s). He was succeeded by a red armband, the infamous Kurt Eisner. Gerwarth rehabilitates this particular armband somewhat: although he was USPD, he wasn't KPD. He'd issued a slate of "Stalwart Kamarad, Let Us Nationalise The Means Of Production!!" edicts... which the rest of Bavaria laughed off. You see, Bavaria was pretty much Austria North, with Munich for its Vienna. The local farmers were a Catholic and conservative bunch who weren't about to surrender the (literal) fruits of their labours to cityfolk (i.e., Jews) without fair compensation.

After two months of local Fail, and seeing how the armbands were a-faring elsewhere (badly); Eisner chose to be a mensch and in January called an election. His crew got spanked. Eisner took the L and held out as a minority representative, under Hoffman's moderate Left government.

Unfortunately for Eisner, and for Munich, violence followed. He got murdered and various factions in the city took sides. A "Soviet" was declared. Some non-Soviets became hostages; others, led by Hoffman, fled. Hoffman did what they did in Berlin: he called in the Freikorps... and the Weimar government. "Look at what those RUSSIANS *wink* and FOREIGNERS *dogwhistle* are doing to OUR *winkity-whistle* fair city."

The Soviet government back in Munich "executed" - murdered - several hostages, Lenin style. Gerwarth chooses this moment to smear the dead as Thule-Society and aristocrats, as if that excuses the crime. No defence convinced Munich's burgers; instead they concluded that here were more Bolsheviks, thus proving the Freikorps right.

The Freikorps subsequently proved the commies right, but that didn't matter because after they were done there weren't so many commies in Munich. The surviving Bavarians blamed the armbands for everything and the region became stalwartly anti-Left.

Here, Gerwarth is too kind to the Soviet... to the edge of ethics. The Soviet had left no democracy to besiege; the democracy - Hoffman's legally-elected government - did the besieging. I recommend the summary in Black Book of Communism over the summary here.