The Ruhr Crisis of 1920

Red Revolutionaries in Dortmund

A crisis in Germany came to a head a hundred years ago that challenged both the enforceability of the newly implemented terms of the Versailles Treaty and the credibility of the Weimar Republic. It was triggered by an attempted right wing coup in Berlin on 13 March 1920 which aimed to replace the Weimar Republic. It failed, but Communist elements in the industrial Ruhr area seized on the instability to call for a general strike, as a preliminary to mounting their own revolution against the government. Within a week a Red Ruhr Army had been activated, took the initiative, and, after capturing several hundred paramilitary Freikorps troops, occupied the city of Dortmund.

The Weimar government had to respond, and on 2 April 1920 Germany sent troops into the Ruhr valley to confront the Reds. This was in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Wilhelm von Mayer, Germany's chargé d'affaires to France, met with Prime Minister Alexandre Millerand and said that some German troops had entered the demilitarized neutral zone (the 50 kilometers [31 mi] west of the Rhine River) on Thursday evening but requested a waiver of the treaty in order to confront the leftist rebels.

German Soldiers and Executed Reds

Premier Millerand informed von Mayer that the German troops would have to be withdrawn and on 4 April announced that he would send troops to occupy the German cities of Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Homburg, and Hanau, located within the neutral zone in the Ruhr Valley. Two days later French Army troops under the command of General Degoutte marched into Frankfurt and Darmstadt and began disarming striking workmen. Meanwhile, Germany's Army, the Reichswehr, marched into Essen, site of the largest concentration of leftist rebels in the Ruhr zone. Their suppression efforts, and those of the Red forces were especially brutal, and included summary executions. By 8 April the German Army had gained control of the entire Ruhr north of the River Ruhr with the remaining leftist forces fleeing to the kinder, gentler French-occupied sector.

In total, about a thousand of the Red forces died, with roughly half that figure for the German Army and Freikorps. The greatest victim of the crisis, however, was the Weimar Republic, which had shown itself both politically weak and diplomatically impotent due to the hated Versailles Treaty. The Ruhr Crisis was a signal that more emergencies were coming soon.