CHAPTER XV.

Liebknecht Tries to Overthrow the Government; Is Arrested and Killed.

In the six weeks that Emil Eichhorn had been Police-President of Berlin the situation in his department had become a public scandal. The arming of the criminal and hooligan classes by this guardian of public safety, which had at first been carried on quietly, was now being done openly and shamelessly, and had reached great proportions. Liebknecht and Ledebour, Spartacan and Independent, were in constant and close fellowship with him. A considerable part of the Republican Soldier Guard had been turned from allegiance to the government that had appointed them and could be reckoned as adherents of Eichhorn. The Berlin police department had become an _imperium in imperio_.

The _Vollzugsrat_ conducted a formal investigation of Eichhorn's official acts. The investigation, which was conducted honestly and with dignity, convicted the Police-President of gross inefficiency, insubordination, diversion and conversion of public funds, and conduct designed to weaken and eventually overthrow the government. _Vorwaerts_ was able to disclose the further fact that Eichhorn had throughout his term of office been drawing a salary of 1,800 marks monthly from Lenine's _Rosta_, the Bolshevik propaganda-central for Germany. The _Vollzugsrat_ removed Eichhorn from office.

Eichhorn, relying on the armed forces at his disposal and doubtless equally on the probability that a Socialist government would not dare use actual force against _Genossen_, refused to comply with the order for his removal. The more ignorant of his followers--and this embraced a great proportion--saw in the _Vollzugsrat's_ action the first move in that counter-revolution whose specter had so artfully been kept before their eyes by their leaders.

It is a current saying in England that when an Englishman has a grievance, he writes to the _Times_ about it. When a German has a grievance, he organizes a parade and marches through the city carrying banners and transparencies, and shouting _hoch_! (hurrah!) for his friends and _nieder_! (down) with his enemies. On Sunday, January 5th, a great demonstration was staged as a protest against Eichhorn's removal. It is significant that, although Eichhorn was an Independent Socialist, the moving spirit and chief orator of the day was the Spartacan Liebknecht. This, too, despite the fact that at the convention where the Spartacus League had been reorganized a week earlier, the Independents had been roundly denounced as timorous individuals and enemies of Simon-Pure Socialism. Similar denunciations of the Spartacans had come from the Independents. The psychology of it all is puzzling, and the author contents himself with recording the facts without attempting to explain them.

Sunday's parade was of imposing proportions, and it was marked by a grim earnestness that foreboded trouble. The organizers claimed that 150,000 persons were in the line of march. The real number was probably around twenty thousand. Transparencies bore defiant inscriptions. "Down with Ebert and Scheidemann, the Bloodhounds and Grave-diggers of the Revolution!" was a favorite device. "Down with the Bloodhound Wels!" was another. Cheers for "our Police-President" and groans for the cabinet were continuous along the line of march. The great mass of the paraders were ragged, underfed, miserable men and women, mute testimony to the sufferings of the war-years.

Liebknecht addressed the paraders. Counter-revolution, he declared, was already showing its head. The Ebert-Scheidemann government must be overthrown and the real friends of the revolution must not shrink from using violence if violence were necessary. Others spoke in a similar vein.

Conditions appeared propitious for the _coup_ that had been preparing for a month. Late Sunday evening armed Spartacans occupied the plants of the _Vorwaerts_, _Tageblatt_, the Ullstein Company (publishers of _Die Morgenpost_ and _Berliner Zeitung-am-Mittag_), the _Lokal-Anzeiger_ and the Wolff Bureau.

The Spartacans in the _Vorwaerts_ plant published on Monday morning _Der rote Vorwaerts_ (the Red _Vorwaerts_). It contained a boastful leading Article announcing that the paper had been taken over by "real revolutionists," and that "no power on earth shall take it from us." The Liebknechtians also seized on Monday the Buexenstein plant, where the _Kreuz-Zeitung_ is printed. There was much promiscuous shooting in various parts of the city. Spartacans fired on unarmed government supporters in front of the war ministry, killing one man and wounding two. There were also bloody clashes at Wilhelm Platz, Potsdamer Platz and in Unter den Linden.

The _Vollzugsrat_ rose to the occasion like a _bourgeois_ governing body. It conferred extraordinary powers on the cabinet and authorized it to use all force at its disposal to put down the Bolshevist uprising. That it was Bolshevist was now apparent to everybody. The cabinet, still hesitant about firing on _Genossen_, conferred with the Independents Haase, Dittmann, Cohn and Dr. Rudolf Breitscheid, the last named one of the so-called "intellectual leaders" of the Independent Socialists. These men wanted the government to "compromise." The cabinet declared it could listen to no proposals until the occupied newspaper plants should have been restored to their rightful owners. The delegation withdrew to confer with the Spartacan leaders. These refused flatly to surrender their usurped strongholds.

Several lively street battles marked the course of Tuesday, January 7th. The Spartacans succeeded in driving the government troops from the Brandenburger Tor, but after a short time were in turn driven out. Spartacan and Independent Socialist parades filled the streets of the old city. The government did nothing to stop these demonstrations. Haase and the other members of Monday's delegation spent most of the day trying to induce the government to compromise. Their ingenious idea of a "compromise" was for the entire cabinet to resign and be replaced by a "parity" government made up of two Majority Socialists, two Independents and two Spartacans. This, of course, would have meant in effect a government of four Bolsheviki and two Majority Socialists. Despite their traditions of and training in party "solidarity," the cabinet could not help seeing that the "compromise" proposed would mean handing the government over bodily to Liebknecht, for Haase and Dittmann had long lost all power to lead their former followers back into democratic paths. The bulk of the party was already irrevocably committed to practical Bolshevism. The scholarly Eduard Bernstein, who had followed Haase and the other seceders from the Majority Socialists in 1916, had announced his return to the parent party. In a long explanation of the reasons for his course he denounced the Independents as lacking any constructive program and with having departed from their real mission. They had become, he declared, a party committed to tearing down existing institutions. Other adherents of the party's right wing refused to have anything to do with the new course.

The night of January 7th was marked by hard fighting. Spartacans repeatedly attacked government troops at the Anhalt Railway Station in the Koeniggraetzerstrasse, but were repulsed with heavy losses. They also attacked the government troops defending the Potsdam Railway Station, a quarter of a mile north from the Anhalt Station, but were also repulsed there. Government soldiers, however, had considerable losses in an unsuccessful attempt to retake the Wolff Bureau building at Charlottenstrasse and Zimmerstrasse. On Wednesday, the section of the city around the Brandenburger Tor was again filled with parading Bolsheviki, but the government had plucked up enough courage and decision to decree that no parades should be permitted to enter Wilhelmstrasse, where the seat of government is situated. Spartacans attempted to invade this street in the afternoon, but scattered when government soldiers fired a few shots, although the soldiers fired into the air. The Independent go-betweens again assailed the cabinet in an effort to secure the "compromise" government suggested the day before. The delegation was hampered, however, both by the fact that the cabinet realized what such a compromise would mean and by the fact that the Independents could promise nothing. The Spartacans stubbornly refused to surrender the captured newspaper plants, and the Independents themselves were committed to the retention in office of Eichhorn.

Eichhorn, still at his desk in Police Headquarters, refused even to admit to the building Police-President Richter of Charlottenburg, who had been named as his successor, and he and his aides were still busily arming deluded workingmen and young hooligans of sixteen and seventeen, as well as some women. The People's Marine Division announced that it sided with the government, but it played little part in its defense.

The rattle of machine-guns and the crack of rifles kept Berliners awake nearly all night. The hardest fighting was at the _Tageblatt_ plant, in front of the Foreign Office and the Chancellor's Palace, and around the Brandenburger Tor. Thursday morning found the government decided to put an end to the unbearable conditions. It was announced that no parades would be tolerated and that government soldiers had been ordered to shoot to kill if any such aggregations disobeyed orders to disperse. Spartacus, realizing that the government meant what it said, called no meetings, and the streets were free of howling demonstrants for the first time since Sunday.

The government further addressed a proclamation to the people, addressing them this time as _Mitbuerger_ (fellow-citizens), instead of _Genossen_. It announced that negotiations had been broken off with the rebels, and assailed the dishonest and dishonorable tactics of the Independent Socialists represented by the Haase-Dittmann delegation. _Die Freiheit_ and _Der rote Vorwaerts_ assailed the government; still the proclamation had a good effect and decent elements generally rallied to the government's support. The day's fighting was confined to the _Tageblatt_ plant, where three hundred Bolsheviki were entrenched to defend the liberty of other people's property. The place could have been taken with artillery, but it was desired to spare the building if possible.

Friday passed with only scattered sniping. The Spartacans and their Independent helpers grew boastful. They had not yet learned to know what manner of man Gustav Noske, the new cabinet member, was. They made his acquaintance early Saturday morning. Before the sun had risen government troops had posted themselves with artillery and mine-throwers a few hundred yards from the _Vorwaerts_ plant. The battle was short and decisive. A single mine swept out of existence the Spartacans' barricade in front of the building, and a few more shots made the building ripe for storm. The government troops lost only two or three men, but more than a score of Bolsheviki were killed and more than a hundred, including some Russians and women, were captured. The _Vorwaerts_ plant was a new building and much more valuable than some of the other plants occupied by the Spartacans, but it was selected for bombardment because the cabinet members wished to show, by sacrificing their own party's property first, that they were not playing favorites.

The fall of the _Vorwaerts_ stronghold and the firm stand of the government disheartened the mercenary and criminal recruits of the Spartacans. Police Headquarters, the real center of the revolutionary movement, was taken early Sunday morning after a few 10.5-centimeter shells had been fired into it. The official report told of twelve Spartacans killed, but their casualties were actually much higher. Eichhorn had chosen the better part of valor and disappeared. The Bolsheviki occupying the various newspaper plants began deserting _en masse_ over neighboring roofs and the plants were occupied by government troops without a contest. News came that Liebknecht's followers had also abandoned the Boetzow Brewery in the eastern part of the city, one of their main strongholds. Late in the afternoon they also fled from the Silesian Railway Station, where they had been storing up stolen provisions, assembling arms and ammunition and preparing to make a last desperate stand.

The government, averse though it was to the employment of force to maintain its authority, had realized at the beginning of December the increasing strength of the Spartacans, and had begun assembling a military force of loyal soldiers in various garrisons outside the city. Three thousand of these troops now marched into the city. Hundreds of the men in the ranks carried rifles slung across officers' shoulder-straps. They marched as troops ought to march, sang patriotic songs and looked grimly determined. For miles along their route they were greeted by frantic cheering and even by joyous tears from the law-abiding citizens who had been terrorized by the scum of a great capital.[61]

[61] The task of the government was made harder throughout its darkest days by the aid and comfort given its enemies by the character of the reports published in certain enemy papers regarding conditions in Germany. Nearly the entire Paris press regularly published extravagantly untrue reports concerning the situation, and many English and American papers followed suit. The London _Times_ of December 10th gravely told its readers that "in a political sense Ebert is suspected of being a mere tool of the old regime, whose difficult task it is to pave the first stages of the road to the restoration of the Hohenzollerns months or years hence." Three days later it declared that "the German army chiefs propose to let the Spartacans upset the government so that they can summon Hindenburg to save the day and reestablish the monarchy."Articles of this stamp were eagerly pounced upon and republished by Independent Socialist and Spartacan organs of the stamp of _Die Freiheit_, _Die Republik_, Liebknecht's _Die rote Fahne_, and others, and were of great assistance to the enemies of good government in their efforts to convince the ignorant and fanatical that the government was organizing a "white guard" for counter-revolutionary purposes and was plotting the restoration of the monarchy. One dispatch from Paris, published extensively in the American press on February 26th, quoted in all seriousness "a prominent American Socialist in close touch with German Liberals and with exceptional sources of secret information," who had learned that "the German revolution was a piece of theatrical manipulation by agents of the militaristic oligarchy to win an armistice." That such a report could be published in responsible organs is a staggering commentary on the manner in which the war-psychosis inhibited clear thinking. The Conservative Deputy Hergt, speaking in the Prussian Diet on March 15th, said: "We Conservatives are not conscienceless enough to plunge the land into civil warfare. We shall wait patiently until the sound sense of the German people shall demand a return to the monarchic form of government." American papers carried the following report of this statement: "Speaking before the new Prussian Diet in Berlin, Deputy Hergt proposed that Prussia should restore the monarchy." Volumes could be written about these false reports alone.

The week of terror had practically ended. There was still some sniping from housetops and some looting, but organized resistance had been crushed. Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had gone into hiding. Liebknecht's seventeen-year-old son and sister had been arrested. Ledebour, more courageous or, perhaps, more confident that a veteran _Genosse_ had nothing to fear from a Socialist government, remained and was arrested.

It had been no part of the cabinet's plan or desire to have their veteran colleague of former days arrested. On January 12th the writer, speaking with one of the most prominent Majority Socialist leaders, said:

"You can now hardly avoid having Ledebour locked up."

The man addressed shrugged his shoulders reflectively and answered:

"Well, you see, Herr Kollege, we can't very well do so. Ledebour is an old comrade, he was for many years one of the party's secretaries and has done great services for the party."

"But he has taken part in an armed uprising to overthrow the government and to destroy that same party," persisted the writer. The Socialist leader admitted it.

"But he is acting from ideal motives," he said.

This refusal to judge opponents by their acts instead of by their motives hampered the government throughout its career. It is less specifically Socialistic than German, and is the outgrowth of what is termed _Rechthaberei_ in German an untranslatable word exactly illustrated by the colloquy reported above. It is not the least among the mental traits that make it impossible for the average German ever to become what is popularly known as a practical politician; a trait that kept the German people in their condition of political immaturity.

In Ledebour's case, however, the government found itself compelled to act drastically. A proclamation was found which declared the government deposed and taken over temporarily by the three men who signed it. These were Liebknecht, Ledebour and another Independent Socialist named Scholtze. In the first days of the uprising they had sent a detachment of Spartacans to the War Ministry to present the proclamation and take charge of that department's affairs, and only the presence of mind and courage of a young officer had prevented the scheme from succeeding. In the face of this, no government that demanded respect for its authority could permit Ledebour to remain at liberty. His arrest was nevertheless the signal for some adverse criticism even from Majority Socialists whose class-conscious solidarity was greater than their intelligence.

Liebknecht was still in hiding, but it was less easy to hide in Berlin than it had been a month earlier, for the old criminal police were at work again. The experiment with soldier-policemen had resulted so disastrously that every Berliner who had anything to lose welcomed the return of these men who had been so denounced and hated in other days. The search lasted but two days. On January 15th Liebknecht's apartment was searched, and great amounts of propagandist pamphlets and correspondence showing him to be in constant touch with the Russian Soviet Government were found. On the evening of the next day policemen and soldiers surrounded the house of a distant relative of Liebknecht's wife in the western part of the city and Liebknecht was found. He denied his identity at first, but finally admitted that he was the man wanted.

He was taken to the Eden Hotel in Charlottenburg, which had been occupied in part by the staff of the government troops. Rosa Luxemburg, found hiding in another house, was brought to the hotel at the same time. After the two had been questioned, preparations were made to take them to the city prison in Moabit.

Despite all precautions, news of the arrests had transpired, and the hotel was surrounded by a vast crowd, mainly made up of better class citizens, since the district where the hotel is situated is one of the best residential districts of Greater Berlin. The feeling of these people against the two persons who were in so great measure responsible for the terrors of the week just past naturally ran high. The appearance of the soldiers guarding the two was the signal for a wild rush. The Luxemburg woman was struck repeatedly and Liebknecht received a blow on the head which caused a bloody wound.

Neither the man nor woman ever reached prison. Soldiers brought to the morgue late that night the body of "an unidentified man," alleged to have been shot while running away from his guards. One bullet had struck him between the shoulders and another in the middle of the back of the neck. The woman disappeared utterly.

On the following day (January 16th) it became known that both Liebknecht and Luxemburg had been killed. Exactly who fired the fatal shots was never clearly established, but an investigation did establish that the officers in charge of the men guarding the two prisoners were guilty of a negligence which was undoubtedly deliberate, and intended to make the killings possible.

The impression was profound. The _Deutsche Tageszeitung_, while deploring lynch law and summary justice, declared that the deaths of the two agitators must be regarded as "almost a Divine judgment." This was the tenor of all _bourgeois_ comment, and even _Vorwaerts_ admitted that the dead man and woman had fallen as victims of the base passions which they themselves had aroused. They had summoned up spirits which they could not exorcise. There was nevertheless much apprehension regarding the form which the vengeance of the victims' followers might take, but this confined itself in the main to verbal attacks on the _bourgeoisie_ and Majority Socialists, and denunciation of Noske's "White Guard," as the loyal soldiers who protected the law-abiding part of the population were termed. Disorders were feared on the day of Liebknecht's funeral, but none came.

The government gained a much needed breathing spell through these events. With Liebknecht and Luxemburg dead, Radek in hiding, Ledebour locked up and Eichhorn--as it transpired later--fled to Brunswick, the Spartacans, deprived of their most energetic leaders and shaken by their bloody losses of Bolshevik week, could not so quickly rally their forces for another _coup_. Their losses are not definitely known, but they were estimated at approximately two hundred dead and nearly a thousand wounded. The losses of the government troops were negligible.

Noske, who had taken over from Ebert the administration of military affairs, announced that there would be no further temporizing with persons endeavoring to overthrow the government by force. He issued a decree setting forth the duty of the soldiers to preserve order, protect property and defend themselves in all circumstances.

The decree said further:

"No soldier can be excused for failure to perform his duty if he have not, in the cases specified above, made timely and adequate use of his weapons to attain the purpose set forth."

Some six years earlier Police-President von Jagow had brought a flood of Socialist abuse on his head because, in a general order to the police, he referred to the fact that there had been an unusual number of escapes of criminals and attacks on policemen and added: "Henceforth I shall punish any policeman who in such case has failed to make timely use of his weapons." And now a Socialist issued an order of much the same tenor. The _Genossen_ had learned by bitter experience that there is a difference between criticizing and governing, and that moral suasion occasionally fails with the lowest elements of a great city.

Defeated in Berlin, the Bolsheviki turned their attention to the coast cities. The "Republic of Cuxhaven" was proclaimed, with a school-teacher as president. It collapsed in five days as a result of the government's decisive action. An attempted _coup_ in Bremen also failed, but both these uprisings left the Spartacans and Independents of these cities in possession of large supplies of arms and ammunition.

January 18th, the forty-seventh anniversary of the founding of the German Empire, brought melancholy reflections for all Germans. The Bolshevist-hued Socialists were impotently raging in defeat; the _bourgeoisie_ lamented past glories; the Majority Socialists were under a crossfire from both sides. The Conservative _Kreuz-Zeitung_ wrote:

"January 18th: What feelings are awakened on this day under prevailing conditions! In other times we celebrated today the Empire's glory, its resurrection from impotence and dissension to unity and strength. We believed its existence and power assured for centuries. And today? After less than half a century the old misery has come upon us and has cast us down lower than ever. This time, too, Germany could be conquered only because it was disunited. In the last analysis it was from the Social-Democratic poison of Internationalism and negation of state that the Empire became infected and defenseless. How painfully wrong were those who, in smiling optimism, ever made light of all warnings against the Social-Democratic danger. It will be our real danger in the future also. If we do not overcome the Social-Democratic spirit among our people we cannot recover our health."

The _Kreuz-Zeitung's_ diagnosis was correct, but it had required a national post-mortem to establish it.