History of Europe

Bloody Monday in Harburg:Massacre at the middle school

by Britta ProbolAfter the attempted putsch under Wolfgang Kapp, the founder of the radical right-wing German Fatherland Party, failed, he fled to Sweden on March 17, 1920.

The events of March 15, 1920 went down in history as "Harburg Bloody Monday":When national-conservative forces in Berlin under the East Prussian General Landscape Director Wolfgang Kapp tried to overthrow the government, a Hamburg residents' militia opposed supporters of the putschists in Harburg. While the attempted coup is repelled elsewhere, the political struggle in the vicinity of the Heimfeld middle school ends with 25 dead and around 50 injured.

"The building of the Heimfeld middle school looks desolate inside and out. Hardly one of the windows is even partially intact. The walls and doors show strong marks of the shooting. [...] The last bodies are out of the school this morning been brought out.""Harburger advertisements and news", March 16, 1920

There were dead and wounded, the "Hamburger Nachrichten" also reported in its morning edition, "including some women and children". The battered corpse of Captain Rudolf Berthold, an admired ace pilot from World War I, lies a few hundred meters away in an inn. What massacre had taken place there?

Putsch news from Berlin - call for a general strike

In Hamburg, the conflict surrounding the attempted coup in 1920 erupted in the vicinity of the former middle school on Woellmerstrasse. Bloody battles ensue.

It is the second spring after the First World War. The young German republic is still shaky on its feet:supply difficulties and rising prices are causing resentment among the population, and the immense reparations obligations to the victorious powers are depressing the economy. Robberies and theft are increasing. And after the failed November Revolution, party soldiers from the left and the right repeatedly attacked each other in the streets. In national-conservative circles, there is a growing desire for a strong man who can "really crack down".

On Saturday, March 13, the news from Berlin burst into the situation:"Overthrow of the government!" Word soon got around:General Landscape Director Wolfgang Kapp and Walther Freiherr von Lüttwitz, leader of the Reichswehr troop command on leave, had ousted the centre-left government. Reich President Friedrich Ebert (SPD) has fled to Dresden and, together with the unions, is calling for a general strike against the right-wing putschists.

Occupation of town hall in Hamburg - calm before the storm in Harburg

While Reichswehr troops under the command of Colonel von Wangenheim occupied the town hall in Hamburg in the evening, everything remained quiet in neighboring Harburg. Negotiations between the employers' association and the unions early on Sunday revealed that there should be no strike if the Reichswehr Pioneer Battalion No. 9 stationed in Harburg was neutral. As a precaution, workers arrest the commander of the battalion, Major Hueg, because he seems inclined to carry out any orders from General Lüttwitz. The risk of overturning seems to have been averted.

Captain Rudolf Berthold, pictured here around 1916, stops in Harburg with his troops on the way to Berlin.

But the calm is deceptive:Captain Rudolf Berthold and his Freikorps, the "Eisernen Schar", set off from the Kehdinger Land near Stade. The 28-year-old, whose right arm was crippled in a crash, wears the military order "Pour le Mérite" - the highest official honor an officer could receive for bravery. During World War I he shot down 44 enemy planes. After the end of the war, he and other volunteers continued to fight against Soviet troops in the Baltic States. Since this mission ended, the "iron crowd" has been missing a real task - and they are now apparently looking for a new one and are on their way to Berlin via Hamburg.

Residents and workers are arming

Meanwhile, the sirens are wailing in Harburg:since the rumor has it that the Baltic troops are approaching from Stade in a hijacked train under Berthold, the local militia is called together and armed - some activists from the working class are also given a gun. The pioneers guard their barracks.

Late in the evening, the 700-strong Freikorps unloaded at the Unterelbe train station in Bostelbek and swarmed out in Heimfeld. Captain Berthold made his demands:he demanded that the Reichswehr Engineer Battalion either recognize the new government and join the troops - or surrender. The negotiations are unsuccessful.

The Freikorps holed up in the school

The "Baltikumer" set up camp for the night in the school on Woellmerstrasse. Armed workers and some pioneers surround the building, trade unionists nail posters everywhere:"Mass strike!"

On March 15, public life in Harburg comes to a standstill. Freikorps soldiers with machine guns are posted at all major intersections and block traffic around the school. Negotiations continue there at half past eight in the morning, this time with the participation of Lord Mayor Heinrich Denicke, union leaders and other influential Harburg residents. Captain Berthold makes it clear that he doesn't want to mess with the local militia. But he doesn't allow himself to be persuaded to continue to Berlin without having achieved anything.

The violence escalates

Suddenly shots are fired. It is still unclear who fired first - but this signal unleashed the fight. The Reichswehr and residents' guards surround the school, machine gun and rifle fire is getting heavier and heavier. The medical column had "a lot to do in order to get rid of the increasing number of wounded and dead", the "Harburger Lokalblatt" later reported.

The coup attempt in Hamburg fails

In the course of the afternoon, the Baltic troops try to resume negotiations, hanging up a plaque with the appropriate inscription and ultimately a white cloth. Finally, parliamentarians from the Residents' Guard go into the school building with a white flag. Meanwhile, a plane is coming from the direction of Hamburg. It crosses over the school several times and throws down a message:Colonel von Wangenheim has resigned command in Hamburg - the coup failed there.

Shots are fired - despite the surrender in the Harburg school building

On the following March 16, 1920, the "Volksblatt" reported extensively on the bloodbath.

Around 6 p.m. the guns fell silent, Captain Berthold and his troops surrendered. The agreement reads:free deduction for the "Baltic States" if they leave their war equipment behind. The Freikorps soldiers step in front of the door in twos, disarmed and without belts, with the officers in the lead. But they didn't expect the anger of the crowd:"Down with the dogs!" The atmosphere in front of the school is extremely tense - not least because there are rumors that the Baltic troops have plundered the whole of Heimfeld. With scorn and obscenities, the besiegers rush at the officers, knocking four of them to the ground with rifle butts.

Suddenly machine gun fire is heard again. Did the residents' guard shoot at the disarmed people? Or are the shots coming from members of the Freikorps who are still entrenched in the school? That too remains unclear. The crowd flees, and some Freikorps soldiers try to escape. Despite the uproar, the Reichswehr and Residents' Guard manage to lead the Freikorps troops away - accompanied by the scolding crowd. They imprison the troops in the inns "Sanssouci" and "Gambrinus".

Captain Rudolf Berthold is lynched

Captain Berthold, however, can no longer free himself from the hands of the angry Heimfelders. They drag him a few hundred meters further to the restaurant "Zur Rennbahn" and start an interrogation in the club room. More and more people gather outside, eventually storming the room and dragging the war hero onto the street. The highly decorated fighter pilot is brought down with a rifle butt and further abused. A small-calibre pistol, which he was given to disarm, is no longer of any use to him:the enraged take it from him and point it at the captain. Resident guards bring his body back to the inn, otherwise the angry crowd would have mauled it.

The prosecutor's autopsy report later counted two shots in the head and four shots in the chest. Berthold's killer or killers are never caught. His grave is now in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin. In addition to the captain, at least 24 other people die in the fighting and around 50 are injured, some of them seriously.

"Harburg Bloody Monday":stuff for legends and propaganda

Since 2007, a commemorative plaque in front of the school building - today the Michael School in Harburg - has pointed to the victims of the clashes.

The events of March 15, 1920 are entwined with a number of half-truths and legends that surround the events in abundance. As early as the Weimar Republic and even more so in the Third Reich, right-wing forces exploited the "lynching of Captain Berthold," who was said to have been strangled "with his 'Pour le Mérite'," for propaganda purposes. In 1933, the Nazis renamed the middle school "Bertholdschule" in honor of their hero and erected a monument that has been missing since the Second World War.

Today a plaque in front of the school building commemorates the people who opposed the first attempt to overthrow the young democracy in Harburg. The Kapp Putsch ended on March 17, 1920 with Kapp's flight to Sweden.