And suddenly, there are newspapers again: between Saturday and Sunday, most — all? — of the occupied buildings were stormed, dozens of protesters killed in process, hundreds arrested, and on Monday, the papers all tell long, detailed stories of their occupation. Vorwärts, the Social Democratic party paper, whose building was the first to fall, appeared again on […]

This was the weekend when the government abandoned all negotiations with the striking and occupying protesters and turned to outright violence: by Sunday, all occupied buildings had been stormed by “Freikorps,” the heavily armed paramilitary volunteer forces assembled almost immediately after the war ended in November 1918. It was a detrimental weekend for relations between […]

It seems as though there was less outright street fighting this day, more a tense atmosphere of expectation — the occupants held firm but were awaiting an attack by government troops. At the same time, the unrest was now spreading through the entire country, with mass demonstrations and occupations of newspaper offices elsewhere in Germany. […]

Negotiations between the government and the protesters are failing. The government has issued a call to arms, offering payment to citizens willing to join defence corps and “protect the sacred order in Germany, particularly in Berlin.” The uprising is on the brink of being violently quashed. But, as ever, the theatres carry on. Perhaps fewer […]

The situation in Berlin remained chaotic: the police had ceased to operate, armed units of government forces and of revolutionaries could be seen all over the city, and public transport had ground to a standstill. Exactly who had the most popular support was a matter of debate: the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung portrays a Berlin under the yoke […]

Berlin remained in turmoil: the editorial in the morning edition of the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung called it “open war of citizens against citizens” and describes the scene: “Public life has slowed to a trickle, shops and banks are closing, vehicles are unable to pass the clogged-up streets, the barrels of machine guns are looming from windows and gates.” […]

Not an ideal date to start this project! 6 January 1919 was the day after the beginning of the uprising that became known (inaccurately) as the Spartacist Revolt (the English Wikipedia entry is not exactly sound historiography, but it’ll have to do), and many newspaper offices were occupied by protesters, including those of the Social Democrats’ […]