German Civil War

Demonstration of Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten- Major Paramilitary for Papen's Forces

### Outcome

* Pyrrhic German Reich victory
	+ Replacement of the Weimar Republic with the German Reich
	+ German Reich takes control of all German states east of the Rhineland and north of Bavaria.
	+ German Republic is founded as a French puppet state. It consists of the Rhineland, Baden, and Würtemberg .
	+ Bavaria enters into union with Austria, creating the Austro-Bavarian Union

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### Side 1

* Schwarz-Weiß-Rot Kampffront
	+ Reichswehr
	+ Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten
	+ Freikorps
	+ Kampfstaffeln (DNVP)

### Side 2

* National Socialist German Workers' Party
	+ Sturmabteilung

### Side 3

* Communist Party of Germany
	+ Roter Front Kämpferbund

### Side 4

* Pro-Weimar Forces
	+ Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold
	+ Loyalist Reichswehr

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### Side 1 Commanders and Leaders

* Franz von Papen
* Paul von Hindenburg
* Franz Seldte
* Alfred Hugenberg

### Side 2 Commanders and Leaders

* Adolf Hitler
* Hermann Göring
* Joseph Goebbels
* Gregor Strasser
* Ernst Röhm

### Side 4 Commanders and Leaders

* Otto Wels

The **German Civil War** (German : *Deutsches Burgerkrieg*) was a civil conflict which was waged between the authoritarian central government led by Franz von Papen against the forces of the Nazi Party and the Communists.

Germany was embroiled in chaos after the financial crash of 1929 and the subsequent rise of Hitler's Nazis and German communists. After von Papen successfully dissolved the Reichstag, he was able to successfully push through his planned constitutional reforms, whose emergency powers and electoral law changes made Papen a dictator in all but name. Papen reorganized the *Reichsrat* (Council of the Realm), the upper chamber of the legislature. Instead of the constituent members being appointed by the federal states of the Reich, they were instead appointed by the Chancellor personally. The Reichsrat was also given legislative authority, with the ability to supercede the Reichstag in the passing of legislation, and to even create it itself if the Reichstag was deemed "incapable" of fulfilling its duties.

By December, violence by the Nazi SA and the Communists had increased tenfold across the country, and both parties walked out of the Reichstag. Papen then on December 11th declared the Reichstag incapable of preforming its duties, transferred legislative duties to the Reichsrat, who were at this point filled with pro-Papen members (DNVP, Der Stahlhelm, DVP, and right-wing Zentrum), with the Reichstag effectively being stripped of any real power. The Reichsrat and Papen then began to unleash a flurry of new legislation. They banned all demonstrations, at the same time deputized the paramilitary *Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten* as official members of the police, who became the visual representation of the new order on the streets. Franz von Papen had in effect become Germany's new dictator. The new centralization of authority and seemingly "effectiveness" of the new administration began to attract support from not only the non-Nazi right, but also the center of the German political world.

On December 12th however, the day after the Reichstag was stripped of power, Hitler declared a "national people's war" (*volkskrieg*) against the Papen-government and the Communists, declaring that "reactionary and communist both will be wiped from the German *volk*." Hitler's SA began to mobilize and arm itself with secret weapons caches spread across Germany. The Nazis quickly seized control of a swath of territory across northern Germany, and the whole of East Prussia. Papen's government declared a national emergency, and the German Civil War had begun.

Soon after the Communists also rose up against the central government, but had little arms so from early on was fighting only middling battles with government forces. The Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (Realm's Banner Black-Red-Gold), the pro-democratic paramilitary dominated by the SPD, began to arm themselves in the Rhineland where allied themselves with local government forces, who were not as quick to support the government under Papen. The SPD however was for the most part split in its support, with some members wanting to put their support behind the Papen government and the stability it represented. In the south, the Bavarian Minister-President Heinrich Held and former Crown Prince Ruprecht, with the support of the Bavarian nationalist BVP and even the Bavarian SPD declared the formation of an emergency Bavarian government and began to move their local troops to the borders of Bavaria to prepare for a declaration of independence.