PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE XXVI
Wolfgang Kapp
EARLY LIFE
Wolfgang Kapp, a Prussian civil servant and journalist, was born on July 24, 1858 in New York City, where his father Friedrich Kapp (a political activist and later Reichstag delegate for the National Liberal Party) had settled after the failed liberal revolutions of 1848 in Europe. Twenty-two years later, his family returned to a newly unified Germany, and Kapp’s schooling continued in Berlin at the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium.
Kapp married Margarete Rosenow in 1884, and the couple would have three children. Through his wife’s family, Kapp acquired a family connection with politically conservative elements.
In 1886, Kapp graduated at the conclusion of his law studies at the University of Tübingen. That same year, he was appointed to a position in the Finance Ministry.
THE POLITICAL ACTIVIST
After an ordinary official career, Kapp became the founder of the Agricultural Credit Institute in East Prussia which achieved great success in promoting the prosperity of landowners and farmers in the province. He was consequently in close touch with the East Prussian Junkers, and during the First World War, Kapp made himself their mouthpiece in an attack on Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. His pamphlet (entitled Die Nationalen Kreise und der Reichskanzler), was published in the early summer of 1916, criticized German foreign and domestic policy under Bethmann-Hollweg. It evoked an indignant reply from the Chancellor in the Reichstag, in which Bethmann-Hollweg spoke of “loathsome abuse and slanders.”
In September 1917, Kapp was one of the founders of the Deutsche Vaterlandspartei (Fatherland Party), of which he would briefly become chairman. It was backed by the Pan-German League and founded by Kapp, Heinrich Claß, former naval minister Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, Walter Nicolai (head of the military secret service), and media baron Alfred Hugenberg.
The party represented conservative, nationalist, antisemitic, and völkisch political circles, united in their opposition against the Reichstag Peace Resolution of July 1917. It played a vital role in the emergence of the so-called “stab-in-the-back” myth (Dolchstoßlegende) and the defamation of certain politicians better known as the “November Criminals”.
The party’s political influence peaked in the summer of 1918 when it had around 1.25 million members. Its main source of funding was the Third Supreme Command. Unfortunately, The Fatherland Party was officially dissolved in the chaos of the German Revolution on December 10, 1918. Most of its members later joined the German National People’s Party (DNVP), the major right-wing party of the Weimar Republic.
One of its members, Anton Drexler, went on to form a similar organization, the German Workers’ Party, which later became the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party) that came to national power in January 1933 under Adolf Hitler.
Wolfgang Kapp was one of a number of prominent figures of the right, including General Erich Ludendorff and Waldemar Pabst, who in August 1919 set up the Nationale Vereinigung (National Union), a right-wing think-tank which campaigned for a counter-revolution to install a form of conservative militaristic government. The Nationale Vereinigung did not, however, press for the restoration of the monarchy; the Kaiser having bowed to army pressure and left for exile in the Netherlands in November 1918. But the year 1919 saw the emergence of the Weimar Republic and Wolfgang Kapp as a member of the DNVP.
Germany’s defeat in the First World War was seen by Kapp and other nationalists as a humiliation and betrayal. He became an exponent of the “stab-in-the-back” myth (Dolchstoßlegende) and a vehement critic of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1919, he was elected to the Reichstag as a monarchist.
THE KAPP PUTSCH
“We will not govern according to any theory.”
– Wolfgang Kapp; March 13, 1920
In March 1920 Hermann Ehrhardt, the leader of the Freikorps known as the Ehrhardt Brigade, was authorized by General Walther von Lüttwitz (Commander of Reichswehr Command Group I) to proceed and use the marine brigade to take Berlin. The Weimar government fled to Dresden and then to Stuttgart in order to avoid arrest by rebel Reichswehr troops.
Though proclaiming a new government and state administration, Kapp along with Lüttwitz failed to calculate the lack of support for such a coup. The majority of the old establishment, civil service, labor unions, and general population did not side with the Putsch. As a result, the newly proclaimed state lasted for a mere two days before a general strike was called by the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The Reichswehr, under the command of Hans von Seeckt, failed to uphold their constitutional commitment as von Seeckt refused to defend the republican government against the rebellious Freikorps units. The Weimar regime was saved by the public by means of the strike, but the Putsch did not succeed. The reasons for its failure included the lack of outward and active support from the military elite, judiciary, and civil service who were reluctant to commit to the Putsch from the beginning.
DEATH
When the coup d’état failed, Kapp fled to Sweden to live in exile. However, he returned to Germany in April 1922 to justify himself in a trial at the Reichsgericht.
While in captivity, Wolfgang Kapp died of cancer on June 12, 1922 in Leipzig at the age of sixty-three.