ABSTRACT
After the Communist council republic in Munich had been suppressed in the early days of May 1919, contemporaries were confronted with the challenge of explaining the causes and the peculiar development of this local revolution, one that at first glance seemed to share so many similarities with its ominous predecessor, the Russian revolution. Why, of all places in Germany, was the republic first proclaimed in November 1918 in a city which so cherished its own image of liberality, social peace and easy living and which appeared to be dominated by the petty bourgeoisie instead of the working class? Why Munich instead of Berlin? How does one explain the dynamics of the radical movement leading to the Communist council republic in April of the following year? These questions were just as confusing at the time as they are today. However, there were also some ready answers. The revolution was supposedly caused by a group of ‘uprooted’, primarily alien, socialists and Jews who were able in a moment of war weariness to capture the political initiative, grab the reins of power over the multitudes and keep that power in the hands of a few for a while. Medical experts diagnosed the revolutionary leaders as ‘psychopaths’. According to a modern author who argues in a similar fashion, the revolution’s origins lay in a ‘broad demoralised mass-not Volk but uprooted mob’ and this mass was led by a handful of ‘doctrinaires and writers’, who confused Schwabing, the Latin quarter of the city, with Munich itself and with Bavaria.1
