Editing Weimar Republic (section)

==== Political turmoil: Kapp Putsch and Ruhr uprising ====
The young republic was exposed from the beginning to attacks from both the extreme right and extreme left. The Left accused the Social Democrats of betraying the ideals of the labor movement because of their alliance with the old elites; the Right held the supporters of the Republic responsible for Germany's defeat in the First World War, denigrating them as "November criminals" and insinuating that the German army, which was still fighting on enemy soil when the war ended, had been stabbed in the back by them and the revolution (the [[stab-in-the-back myth]]).<ref>{{Cite web |title=World War I: Aftermath – The Undermining of Democracy in Germany |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/world-war-i-aftermath?series=20 |access-date=15 May 2023 |website=Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum}}</ref>[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 119-1983-0007, Kapp-Putsch, Marinebrigade Erhardt in Berlin.jpg|thumb|273x273px|Crowds in Berlin watching the [[Marinebrigade Ehrhardt]] march in under the [[Reichskriegsflagge|imperial war ensign]] during the Kapp Putsch]]
In the March 1920 [[Kapp Putsch]], Freikorps units under [[Walther von Lüttwitz|General von Lüttwitz]] occupied the government quarter in Berlin. In an attempt to reverse the revolution and install an autocratic government, the former Prussian civil servant [[Wolfgang Kapp]] appointed himself Reich chancellor and Lüttwitz Reichswehr minister and commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr. The legal government fled Berlin and called for a general strike. The putsch quickly failed due in large part to the refusal of the ministerial bureaucracy to obey Kapp's orders.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Harders |first=Levke |date=14 September 2014 |title=Wolfgang Kapp 1858–1922 |url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/biografie/wolfgang-kapp |access-date=12 October 2023 |website=Deutsches Historisches Museum |language=de}}</ref> The Reichswehr, however, proved itself to be unreliable. It adopted a wait-and-see attitude under General von Seeckt, the head of the [[Troop Office]], who said that "Reichswehr do not fire on Reichswehr".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Winkler |first=Heinrich August |title=Weimar 1918–1933. Die Geschichte der ersten deutschen Demokratie |publisher=C. H. Beck |year=1998 |isbn=3-406-43884-9 |location=Munich |pages=121 |language=de |trans-title=Weimar 1918–1933. The History of the First German Democracy}}</ref>

Some among the working class did not limit themselves to passive resistance to the Kapp Putsch. Especially in the [[Ruhr]], where dissatisfaction with the lack of nationalization of key industries was particularly high, councils were formed that sought to seize local power. In the [[Ruhr uprising]], civil war-like fighting broke out when the [[Ruhr Red Army]], made up of some 50,000 armed workers, mostly adherents of the KPD and USPD, used the disruption caused by the general strike to take control of the industrial district. After bloody battles in which an estimated 1,000 insurgents and 200 soldiers died, Reichswehr and Freikorps units suppressed the revolt in early April.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wulfert |first=Anja |date=22 January 2002 |title=Der Märzaufstand 1920 |trans-title=The March Uprising 1920 |url=https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/weimarer-republik/innenpolitik/maerzaufstand-1920.html |access-date=14 May 2023 |website=Deutsches Historisches Museum |language=de}}</ref>

In Bavaria, the Kapp Putsch led to an anti-republican government reshuffle that made the Free State a so-called "cell of order" ({{Lang|de|Ordnungszelle}}) within the Weimar state and a rallying point for right-wing conservative and reactionary forces.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Thoß |first=Bruno |date=11 September 202 |title=Kapp-Lüttwitz-Putsch, 1920 |url=https://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/Lexikon/Kapp-L%C3%BCttwitz-Putsch,_1920#Die_Situation_in_Bayern |access-date=13 May 2023 |website=Historisches Lexikon Bayerns}}</ref> The unstable political conditions in the early phase of the Weimar Republic were also evident in the [[1920 German federal election|Reichstag election of 1920]], in which the centre-left [[Weimar Coalition]], which until then had had a three-quarters majority, lost 125 seats to parties on both the left and right.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Das Deutsche Reich: Reichstagswahl 1920/22 |trans-title=The German Reich: Reichstag Elections 1920/22 |url=http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/Deutschland/RT1.html |access-date=18 May 2023 |website=www.gonschior.de |language=de}}</ref>