THE TIDE OF WAR receding across Europe had left behind ugly whirlpools; Bavaria was in permanent unrest. Communists, socialists, regular army, and Free Corps disputed control, always keenly watched by the central government in Berlin.
The example of Hungary had struck terror into Munich’s middle classes: in Budapest Bela Kun, a Transylvanian Communist (born Bela Cohn) seized power. In Munich, the turmoil continued after the killing of Kurt Eisner: a triumvirate of ‘Russian’ Jews under the St Petersburg-born Communist Evgenii Levine, seized power on April 6, 1919, and proclaimed a ‘Soviet Republic.’ Levine had agitated among his fellow soldiers for an Allied victory – using an argument identical to that of Hans Oster and future traitors. ‘It is necessary,’ Levine said, ‘that Germany is humiliated: that the colonial troops of France and England march through the Brandenburg Gate.’
Himmler’s diaries and letters still make no mention of Jews but the backdrop to later events was already forming. The German government in Berlin, under socialist chancellor Friedrich Ebert, ordered the truncated army to crush the ‘Soviet Republic’ of Bavaria. Aided by the Free Corps and a substantial Bavarian army contingent under Colonel Franz Ritter von Epp it was bloodily suppressed, but not before Levine’s men took scores of middle-class burghers hostage, along with members of the right-wing Thule Society, and locked them away in the Luitpold Gymnasium building. These hostages were taken out two at a time, and bludgeoned and shot to death on the last night of April 1919. Levine’s accomplices were shot out of hand (except for Tovia Axelrod, who claimed Russian diplomatic status). Levine was executed by firing squad at Munich’s Stadelheim prison on July 9, of which we shall occasionally hear more.
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Irving’s book can be purchased on his website.