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The Economic Origins of the Noskepolitik
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
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On 29 December 1918 Gustav Noske was appointed as a People's Commissar and charged with command of the armed forces in Germany. Within days Noske was confronted with an armed in surrection in Berlin, the so-called Spartacist Uprising, and subsequent revolutionary outbreaks in Bremen, Braunschweig, and the Ruhr, where sympathy for the events in Berlin existed. Relying on volunteer units, the Free Corps (drawn from war veterans, students, and the middle classes), Noske developed a powerful army on which he could rely to suppress the revolutionary violence from the Left. Using military force and martial law, he reestablished order throughout Germany in 1919 and 1920. The results of the so-called Noskepolitik were at best mixed. Mass movements based on the councils (Räte), often identified as “bolshevism’ by Noske and his contemporaries, were indeed suppressed, but the price was very high: counterrevolution and right-wing terror developed to the point that massive protests were provoked among wide segments of the working class. Bloodshed ensued, including the political murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht by members of the Free Corps. Many workers became alienated from the newly formed Weimar Republic, while the Reichswehr drifted into hostility toward the young democracy, and some units joined in the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch in March 1920. Noske, already under serious criticism from his own party, the Social Democrats, was forced to resign because of his inability to control the army and guarantee its loyalty to the Republic.
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References
1. The best work on Noske is Wette, Wolfram, Gustav Noske. Eine politische Biographie (Düsseldorf, 1987).Google ScholarCzisnick, Ulrich, Gustav Noske. Ein sozialdemokratischer Staatsmann (Göttingen, 1969) is a shorter, more apologetic and less comprehensive work.Google Scholar Documentary material on military policy is collected by Heinz, Huerten, ed., Zwischen Revolution und Kapp Putsch. Militär und Innenpolitik 1918–1920 (Düsseldorf, 1977).Google Scholar See also Noske, Gustav, Von Kiel bis Kapp. Zur Geschichte der deutschen Revolution (Berlin, 1920) and idem,Google ScholarAufstieg und Niedergang der deutschen Sozialdemokratie. Erlebtes aus Aufstieg und Niedergang einer Demokratie (Zurich, 1947).Google Scholar
2. The problem of the Free Corps was treated by Waite, R. G. L., Vanguard of Nazism: The Free Corps Movement in Post-War Germany 1918–1923 (New York, 1952).Google Scholar I have found Schulze, Hagen, Freikorps und Republik 1918–1920 (Boppard am Rhein, 1969)Google Scholar and Diehl, James, Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany (Bloomington, 1977) to be more judicious interpretations.Google ScholarCarsten, Francis L., The Reichswehr and Politics 1918 to 1933 (Oxford, 1966)Google Scholar and Gordon, Harold J., The Reichswehr and the Germany Republic 1919–1926 (Princeton, 1957) confront the professional armed forces.Google Scholar The SPD's effort to disown Noske is covered by Miller, Susanne, Die Bürde der Macht. Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie 1918–1920 (Düsseldorf, 1978), 233–41, 301 ff., and esp. 410.Google Scholar
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9. KEA to RWA (5 August 1918), Bls. 62 ff., in BAP/ St. d. RK no. 45062. KEA received full support from the War Ministry, which argued: ‘Without the addition (of the Ukranian grain, WCM) we cannot make it in any case”; however, RWA and the Reichsbank raised objections. The Reichsbank refused to risk a more rapid depreciation of the Mark to purchase more than 10–20 million Rubels per month (KEA needed 250 million Rubels in August to close its grain deals for 500,000 tons of bread grain and 300,000 tons of feed at the end of the harvest; otherwise, the KEA feared the grain would either be taken over by the Austrians or be lost in the chaos of the East). RWA preferred to try a barter agreement with the Ukrainians and force them to accept a financial arrangement to depreciate the Rubel, see Besprechung über die Getreidelieferung aus der Ukraine am 10 August 1918 bei St. d. RK, Bls. 73 ff.Google Scholar
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13. On the politics and diplomacy of food imports under the armistice, see Haupts, Deutsche Friedenspolitik, 211–329, and Schwabe, Deutsche Revolution, 363–79, and Kohler, Heinrich, Novemberrevolution und Frankreich. Die französische Deutschlands-Politik 1918–1919 (Düsseldorf, 1980), 106–27.Google Scholar The financing of the imports is covered by Schremmer, Eckart, ‘Deutsche Lebensmittelimporte und ihre Finanzierung zwischen Waffenstillstand und Friedensvertrag. Das Hungerjahr 1918/19”, in Wirtschaftskräfte und Wirtschaftswege, vol. 3 Auf dem Wege zur Industrialisierung. Festschrift für Hermann Kellenbenz, ed. J., Schneider (Bamberg, 1978), 627–53. The first imports began arriving in mid-April 1919.Google Scholar
14. Determining the ration at any time or place in Germany during and after World War I is very difficult because local plans were dependent on the cold realities of distributing limited reserves and on local circumstances. The national plan increased the bread ration to 316 gm. by January 1919, while the potato ration was cut about 200 gm., so that overall calories fell from 1619 to 1614, Rubner, Max, ‘Ernährungswesen im allgemeinen,” in Deutschlands Gesundheitsverhältnisse unter dem Einfluss des Weltkriegs, ed. F., Bumm (Stuttgart, 1928), 2:15–17. Transportation problems and disruptions by local councils (Räate) were often cited as the principle problems in the food administration. The grain supply, struggling under the increased ration, was hampered by the loss of Posen, coal shortages, and the loss of POW labor, not to mention the supplies abandoned during the army's retreat. The ration plan was jeopardized unless imports arrived in the spring. See Reichsgetreidestelle to Kuratorium usw. 4 January 1918[1919], Anlage: Niederschrift über die Sitzung des Kuratoriums und des Aufsichtsrats der Reichsgetreidestelle am 13 December 1918, p. 8, in BHSA/ Ges. Berlin 1609. Bavaria had problems maintaining its potato supplies and wanted to cut the ration, see Bay. MI to REA (19 December 1918), Bay. MI to Huber (4 January 1919), and Huber to MI (8 January 1919), in BHSA/ Ges. Berlin 1624. Things were always at their worst in Saxony and especially in Leipzig; the 7 pound weekly ration could not be held in December, see ‘Der Leipziger Bürgermeister über die Ernährung”, in LVZ, no. 287(10 December 1918) as well as Säch. Ges. Berlin to Säch MA (Lipinski) (6 January 1919), Bls. 172 ff., in STA-Dresden/ Ges Berlin no. 505.Google Scholar
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18. The SPD's response to the crisis of the summer of 1918 is shown in Henning, ‘Die Situation,” 186 ff. By September the SPD was pressing the Hertling government for real political change; see Denkschrift des Parteivorstandes und der Generalkommission, über die Ernährungsfrage (9 September 1918), in SPD-K, no. 14 (14 September 1918), 170 ff., and SPD, Protokoll der gemeinsamen Sitzung des Parteiausschusses und der Reichstagsfraktion. Montag, den 23 September 1918 im RT zu Berlin. Als Manuskript gedruckt. (Nicht veröffentlichen!), Scheidemann, 9, and Noske, 14. Noske's views had an impact in turn on the Zentrum, strengthening Erzberger's position against Herding, Säch. Ges. Berlin to Säch. MA (27 September 1918), no. 2630, Bl. 41 ff., in STA-Dresden/ no. 366.Google Scholar
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35. Regierung der Volksbeauftragten, vol. 2, (15 January 1919), 279–80.Google Scholar
36. Besprechung in RK über die wirtschaftliche Lage am 21 January 1919, Bls. 2 ff., 13, in BAK R 43 I/ 1146.Google Scholar
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40. The Spartacists and the Bremen Left, which together formed the German Communist party at the end of December 1918, expected a “second revolution” to develop out of the strikewave. See “Berliner Arbeiterrat und Streikbewegung”, Die Rote Fahne 13 (28 November 1918); ‘Die Streikwelle steigt”, RF 27 (12 December 1918); Lange, Paul, ‘Betriebsräte und Zentralstreikkommission”, RF (39 December 1918).Google Scholar Rosi Wolfenstein and Rosa Luxemburg stressed the significance of the miners' strikes, Hermann, Weber, ed., Der Gründungsparteitag der KPD. Protokoll und Materialien, (Frankfurt am Main, 1969), 129 ff., 189 ff.Google Scholar See also Waldman, Eric, The Spartacist Uprising of 1919 and the Crisis of the German Socialist Movement: A Study of the Relation between Political Theory and Party Practice (Milwaukee, 1958), 99–105, 129–31.Google ScholarPelz, William A., The Spartakusbund and the German Working Class Movement 1914–1919 (Lewiston, 1988) is poorly informed and largely mythological.Google Scholar
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