Ultimatum at the Chancellery
Around six in the morning, Frankfurt Central Station. Men wearing berets and red armbands gathered one by one. With the ringing of bells and the chant of “Struggle! Struggle! Struggle!”, the workers seized the station. The first train had just arrived. The engineer, himself a union member, yanked the key from the locomotive. As the train halted and blocked the tracks, dozens of workers climbed onto the cold steel. Members of the Red Front Fighters’ League, the railway union’s militant wing organized by the Communist Party, distributed red pamphlets to the crowd. “Workers of the world, unite! (Proletarier, Vereinigt Euch!)”
“Here, take one!” The pamphlets bore the faces of the three leaders of the People’s Front. Meanwhile, the subway platform beneath Konstablerwache, the city’s central park, fell just as swiftly into union hands.
“Occupy the station and move upward! We march all the way to the Chancellery!”
Ernst Thälmann, chairman of the Communist Party, stood among them. Raising his fist to the sky, he led the demonstrators—waving a motley collection of red flags—up to the surface. There they joined forces with the Black-Red-Gold banner of the Republican Defense League, whose members had been urging citizens to join the general strike.
“Citizens of Frankfurt! Join the demonstration! Your participation can restore German democracy!”
What had begun as a strike of several thousand union members swelled to tens of thousands by morning as ordinary citizens poured into the streets. In the Westend district, students marched out of the Frankfurt University library. “Return democracy to the people! Awake, Parliament! Establish people’s councils!”
Though it was a Monday morning, the fervor burned hot. The three pillars of the strike—the SPD, the KPD, and the APD—marched beneath a sea of red: Marx and Engels, hammer and sickle, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Lenin. Interspersed among them flew the black-red-gold tricolor of parliamentary republicanism. Roughly 150,000 workers had walked out; when the middle class, petty bourgeoisie, and university students who supported the strike through SPD and press agitation were counted, the total became impossible to tally.
“Chancellor, repeal the Emergency Decree at once! Do not steal the people’s bread! Halt Eastern Aid immediately!”
I waited with the Social Democratic contingent outside the Chancellery, speaking through a loudspeaker. It was remarkable that the police and army had not yet been deployed. Then again, this was no ordinary strike. As the Frankfurter Zeitung put it, it was “the uprising of a people long crushed beneath an imperfect democracy.” The very fact that the SPD stood with the demonstrators rather than the forces of order marked the situation as extraordinary. In a democracy where voting rights were apportioned by property, the fact that the entire left—193 seats, a full third of the Reichstag—had united was proof that the people’s anger ran deep.
“Chancellor, come out now!”
Yet the absence of police did not mean the government intended to listen.
“Stop hiding and face us, Chancellor! The people’s fury stands before you!”
“If you are a democrat, come out and hear the voice of the masses!”
Brüning did not appear even after Thälmann’s militant unions and Wels’s citizen marchers had massed directly before the Chancellery.
“Heinz!”
Thälmann arrived last, bringing with him no fewer than tens of thousands. At least the lack of police meant the demonstration had not turned violent—an unexpected blessing. The unionists trailing the KPD and the RFB looked visibly relieved that the strike was proceeding peacefully.
“Faster than I expected.”
“No police. Strange—they usually can’t wait to send them.”
“The cabinet must be taking into account that the SPD is on our side.”
“Absurd. So the Social Democrats are no longer ‘extremists’?” Thälmann asked irritably.
“Where exactly are they, then?”
Instead of answering, I pointed toward the distant tricolor flags and Otto Wels.
“Deputy Wels!”
At my call, Wels approached with several fellow deputies.
“You said you would not allow this to become a violent demonstration, Deputy Thälmann.”
“I did not expect the police to stay away.”
“You took their absence for granted? That is the more surprising thing.”
“Of course. Clashes with the police are the left’s destiny.”
Thälmann and Wels shared a brief laugh that quickly faded.
“So the Chancellor has still given no reply, Deputy Heinz?”
“As you can see.”
I shrugged. The Chancellery doors remained firmly shut. Whether out of fear of the SPD or the sheer size of the crowd, Brüning had deployed no police or troops beyond a handful of guards. It was nearly eleven o’clock; he must have arrived for work by now.
“Chancellor!” Wels shouted, unable to wait any longer. “Come out at once! If you do not, we will enter by force. The People’s Front is here!”
Hearing the word “force” from Wels’s mouth was novel. In the end, the Chancellor yielded to the pressure of the largest parliamentary party. Surrounded by bodyguards, he emerged from the building.
“It’s the Chancellor!”
Well, well. So the man could be seen after all.
“A general strike without just cause is unacceptable,” Brüning declared.
“No just cause? Enough! Do you truly not know that your policies have steadily destroyed the people’s quality of life?” Wels demanded, confronting him directly.
“I should also like to know why the Social Democrats have joined this strike.”
“We will no longer tolerate a government that ignores the people’s will, abuses parliamentary procedure and the constitution, and rams through policies the people reject.”
The SPD’s participation had clearly lent the movement enormous moral legitimacy.
“…What do you want?” the Chancellor finally asked, apparently concluding that with half the city’s population in the streets, further resistance was futile.
“Five demands. No more, no less.”
I stepped forward. Brüning gave me a look that seemed to say, We even drank together—how could you betray me like this? What could I do? I was on the left; did he expect me to cooperate with undemocratic policies?
“First, submit the immediate repeal of the Emergency Decree to a national referendum within one month.”
“Under Article 73 of the Imperial Constitution, only His Majesty the Kaiser may call a referendum.”
“Are you joking? Then it is obviously your duty to persuade His Majesty.”
He had proclaimed the decree with the Emperor’s consent; now he played word games.
“This is not a matter of ‘persuasion,’ Chancellor,” Thälmann added coldly. Behind me stood the furious gaze of countless citizens ruined by austerity.
“Second, immediately halt the excessive internal devaluation and fiscal austerity. Restore all cuts to welfare and unemployment benefits.”
“I have explained repeatedly: without debt repayment there can be neither peace nor development.”
“I understand. But even setting everything else aside, caring for the German people must come before paying reparations and foreign creditors.”
“Reviving welfare spending will instantly destroy Germany’s credit. All investment, exports, imports, and financial transactions with the world will cease!”
“Third, redistribute factories and large estates—currently monopolized and operated inefficiently by a tiny class—to the poor, the unemployed, and the peasantry.”
“…Deputy Heinz is asking the impossible.”
“Impossible? Choose, then. Either this government is overturned here and now by an enraged people, or the privileged few surrender what rightfully belongs to the people.”
With no police present, we had no reason to remain moderate.
“Deputy Crispien said it himself: Germany’s industrial structure has not advanced one inch beyond the nineteenth-century aristocratic economy. The eastern Junkers still own vast estates worked by tenant farmers, and the agriculture based on that system is grossly inefficient. It would be far better to let the farmers themselves own and manage the land that produces their grain.”
This was not so different from the agricultural collectivization carried out in Russia a few years earlier—except that here the land would be held and managed collectively by agricultural soviets rather than by the state.
“Even partial collectivization of agriculture and industry would break the inefficient concentration of production in the hands of great landowners and industrialists. Because production would be directly tied to consumption, food shortages would ease and consumption would surge. Unemployment would also be alleviated.”
“…I will at least listen.”
“Fourth, abolish the property-based differential franchise and introduce equal suffrage—one person, one vote—immediately enshrining it in the constitution.”
“You demand constitutional amendment? That requires parliamentary consent—”
“You had no trouble overturning three parliamentary decisions with the stroke of a pen. Why is this impossible?”
“Obtain parliamentary consent, then. Two-thirds of the members present, a majority of those present. We can vote tomorrow.”
“Wait, Deputy Heinz. You know better than anyone that Germany’s present situation cannot bear so many simultaneous demands.”
“Nor can the people be expected to endure four more years of silent submission and hunger.”
The Chancellor stepped back, stunned.
“Fifth and finally, once equal suffrage is enshrined, hold a general election at once. The current parliament reflects none of the people’s will because of the unequal franchise; a new parliament is therefore necessary.”
“…”
“To summarize: first, decide the repeal of the Emergency Decree by immediate referendum; second, end austerity; third, partial collectivization of agriculture and industry; fourth, introduce equal suffrage; fifth, hold new elections.”
I had laid everything out plainly.
“The first, fourth, and fifth demands aim to restore Germany’s shattered democracy. The second and third aim to guarantee the people’s actual survival. These five points were unanimously adopted by the Labor Party, the SPD, and the KPD. There will be no withdrawal.”
I delivered the ultimatum.
“This is not a petition, Chancellor. Refusal will be met with further refusal,” Thälmann warned.
When Wels handed Brüning the neatly written list, the Chancellor hesitated, then spoke in a trembling voice.
“Disperse… for now. I will bring the matter before the cabinet tomorrow and give a positive review. You will have my answer by the end of this week.”
“Good! You should have said so from the start!”
“An excellent decision, Chancellor. Democracy is finally returning to its proper place.”
“No taking it back?”
Thälmann, Wels, and I were elated by the Chancellor’s positive reply.
“Everyone! The Chancellor has agreed to listen to the people’s will! We have won!”
Thus, as the People’s Front—not merely as Communists, Social Democrats, or Laborites—we secured our first victory. We began to wait for the Chancellor to confer with the Emperor and either repeal the Emergency Decree or call a referendum to do so.