In Europe

or flee, and civilian authorities knuckled under. On 8 November the pacifist Kurt Eisner and the poet-revolutionary Ernst Toller proclaimed in Munich the ‘Free Popular Republic of Bavaria’. That republic of soviets would last precisely one hundred days.
    The army's top command quickly dispatched the 4th Rifle Regiment – one of its most reliable units – to Berlin, in case they were needed to crush a revolution. By the very next day, even these soldiers had experienced a change of heart. They took up defensive positions around the offices of the Social Democratic Party paper
Vorwärts
. On Saturday, 9 November, hundreds of thousands of badly nourished men and women marched on the centre of town. They were solemn in their conviction and prepared for the worst: a bloody Saturday. Those marching up in front carried signs with texts like ‘BROTHERS! DON'T SHOOT!’ But the barrack gates opened for them. In the home of Sebastian Haffner's parents, the newspaper was suddenly no longer called the
Tägliche Rundschau
, but the
Rote Fahne
.
    The new, uncertain government, deathly afraid of chaos and a loss of face, was quite unhappy with this huge and spontaneous popular movement. They feared a repetition of what had happened in Russia, where the Mensheviks and others had been devoured by their own revolution. At the same time they were eager to remain on good terms with their ‘own’ people on the popular councils. Hence their decision to ‘suffocate’the revolution, a term Chancellor Ebert actually used when discussing it with the German military commanders. The social-democratic foremen co-opted leadership of ‘their’ revolution, appeased the humiliated authorities, restored their power and then allowed the whole movement to fizzle out. Gustav Noske, Ebert's right-hand man, was enthusiastically welcomed by the sailors of Kiel when he arrived as the city's ‘governor’, and was able within a few days to call off the whole revolution, in the name of the Revolution. The councils remained, but stripped of all power. The
Rote Fahne
became the
Tägliche Rundschau
once more. Thus ended Act One.
    That winter the city filled with embittered veterans. Most of them had no job, and often no roof above their head. The Allies were still blockading the German ports. Never had Berlin suffered hunger the way it did during those winter months. By the end of 1918, the city was at least as ripe for a Bolshevik revolution as Petrograd had been in 1917. Still, those events did not repeat themselves. Why?
    The first reason was that the revolution's opponents had not come even close to being eliminated, as they had been in Russia. Everywhere on the outskirts of Berlin new troops were being trained, the so-called ‘Volunteer Corps’, composed of the most loyal and disciplined veterans. These corps, originally set up in order to have a few mobile and efficient army units available at a moment's notice, soon developed into autonomous, hardened combat groups who bowed to no one, except their own commander. Here the foundation was laid for the Waffen-SS.
    Gustav Noske – who would later become minister of civil defence – did all he could to maintain order, and was willing to cooperate with anyone to that end, including the leaders of these volunteer corps. What those
Freikorps
leaders actually thought about the social-democrat government, however, is clear from their diaries. ‘The day will come when I will settle accounts with this government,’ wrote the commander of the
Eiserne Schar
, for example, ‘and rip the masks off all this pitiful, whining riff-raff.’ Or the commander of the
Werwolf
: ‘We declare war on Weimar and Versailles! War – every day and by every means!’ The ‘Brigade’, Hermann Ehrhardt's elite corps, was the first to wear the swastika on their helmets.
    Meanwhile a wild bunch had gathered around the person of Karl Liebknecht. They were angry leftist veterans who roamed the city lootingwealthy homes and occupying strategic buildings. Along with Karl Radek, Liebknecht hoped to disrupt the coming elections with a coup. The Russian model was to be followed, the soviets of workers and soldiers were to take power at any cost. Liebknecht remained impervious to the fact that most of the German soviets were not themselves at all interested in his plan.
    The atmosphere in Berlin grew grimmer by the day, shootings became more frequent, it seemed as though everyone was carrying a pistol or a machine gun. On