bavarikon4UThe Controversy Surrounding Eisner’s Publications on the Issue of Culpability for the War
During WWI, Kurt Eisner (1867-1919) had become convinced that Germany held the responsibility for the outbreak of the war. He not only hoped to inform the German people by means of a clear confession of the German culpability for the war about the guilt of the former authorities but also to convince foreign countries of the true internal change in Germany. For this reason, in November 1918, he published documents of the Bavarian delegation to Berlin dated to June 1914, which was supposed to prove his thesis of the guilt of the Reichsregierung (Imperial Government). As late as in February 1919, he repeated his accusations at the Socialist Congress in Bern.
The result of Eisner’s confession of the responsibility for the war and of his publications were long-standing controversies in the German public sphere. With the exception of the radical left, Eisner’s actions in the run-up to the peace negotiations were considered treason and a political mistake. In addition, Eisner had shortened the documents handed to the press; therefore, he was accused of intentional forgery. The ensuing dispute continued far beyond Eisner’s death, since his confession of culpability for the war opposed the standard opinion among the German public.
Literature:
The War Culpability Trial of 1922
The Süddeutschen Monatshefte, published by Paul Nikolaus Cossmann (1869-1942), in the July issue of 1921 disseminated the thesis of Eisner’s forgery of documents under the title of “Der große Betrug” (The Great Deception). In the article, Eisner’s former secretary Felix Fechenbach (1894-1933) was accused of active involvement.
Fechenbach, therefore, sued Cossmann and other collaborators of the Süddeutschen Monatshefte and the editors as well as the editors of other Munich newspapers. The spectacular libel case took place from 27 April to 11 May 1922 at the Munich county court. Fechenbach was only successful against the editor of the Bayerische Vaterland, Conrad Adlmaier (1882-1966). All the other defendants were acquitted. The court specified in its opinion that Eisner’s publications had been a case of “forgeries in the proper sense of the word” and it regarded this forgery as “one of the obstacles in the battle against the allegation of the sole responsibility of Germany for the World War”.
The trial, which not only passed judgment on the issue of libel but also of who was to blame for the war, received much attention by the public. The Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, which were published by the Munich Knorr&Hirth-Verlag and were also edited by the defendant Cossmann, therefore, released their detailed reports in the form of a book before the end of 1922.
Among the former owners of the exemplar presented here in digitised form was once the “Forschungsabteilung Judenfrage des Reichsinstituts für Geschichte des neuen Deutschlands” (Research Department on the Jewish Question of the Reich’s Institute for the History of the New Germany). The interest of National Socialists in this trial may be explained by the fact that Fechenbach as well as his counsel, the renowned Munich barrister Philipp Loewenfeld (1887-1963) and the defendant Cossmann were Jewish.
Literature:
- Hans-Christof Kraus, Süddeutsche Monatshefte, publiziert am 24.07.2006; in: Historisches Lexikon Bayerns (26.07.2018).
- Paul Hoser, Das Bayerische Vaterland, publiziert am 03.07.2006; in: Historisches Lexikon Bayerns (26.07.2018).
- Paul Hoser, Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, publiziert am 03.07.2006; in: Historisches Lexikon Bayerns (26.07.2018).
Pius Dirr and the “Bayerische Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch und zum Versailler Schuldspruch"
Eisner’s publications also had a sequel in parliament. In 1919, the Bavarian state parliament appointed a board of enquiry, supposed to disprove Eisner’s revelations. The initiator was the DDP delegate Pius Dirr (1875-1943), who worked as archivist in the service of the Bavarian State and from 1919 was employed by the Münchner Stadtarchiv (Munich municipal archive).
Dirr’s collection of source material appeared for the first time in 1922 and went through two additional editions up to 1925. The introduction disputed Eisner’s foreign policy 1918/19 in a biased manner and dealt in detail with the cuts, which Eisner had made to the published sources. Next, it discussed their – according to Dirr – devastating consequences abroad.
The source material includes among other things:
- The sources published by Eisner in the original and in shortened format;
- Sources on the run-up and aftermath of the publication in 1918/19;
- Reports of the Bavarian delegation dated to the final weeks before the outbreak of war in 1914;
- The sentence of the Munich war culpability trial of 1922.
Dirr’s collection of sources is not only interesting because of the included documents on Bavarian politics 1918/19, but also as evidence of biased historiography.
Literature:
Fechenbach: Im Haus der Freudlosen (In the House of the Cheerless)
A few months after the sentence in the war culpability trial, Felix Fechenbach (1894-1933) was charged with treason. The legal background for this charge lay in the fact that Fechenbach had included in Eisner’s publication a telegram of the Bavarian ambassador to the Vatican, Otto Freiherr von Ritter zu Grünstein (1864-1940), dated to 24 July 1914. On 20 October 1922, the Munich Volksgericht (People’s Court) condemned Fechenbach to eleven years in gaol, which he spent in the prison at Ebrach. Public pressure led to the discharge of Fechenbach on 20 February 1924.
In 1925, he documented his experience in the Bavarian prison in a book published by the social democratic Vorwärts-Verlag (Forward Publishing House): Im Haus der Freudlosen (In the House of the Cheerless).
