In Berlin, Canaris and Pabst had agreed to form a Freikorps to take over from Noske’s ‘Iron Brigade’, so ridding themselves of the deck officers. Canaris convinced Loewenfeld to lead it. Loewenfeld, unaware that Pabst and Canaris were behind the idea, sent Canaris to see Noske and, with the help of Emil Alboldt, chairman of the Deck-Officers’ Federation, obtained from Noske on 3 February official permission to set up ‘Brigade Loewenfeld’.50 Over the next ten days, Canaris and Loewenfeld commuted between Berlin and Kiel and, at Noske’s request, also went to Weimar to ‘remove the last obstacles’ with the support of Pabst and the GKSD.51 These obstacles were the retrospective approval for the drawing of weapons, uniforms, equipment and rations for 2,000 men, which Noske had appropriated without the military apparatus being aware of it.52
The Iron Brigade arrived from Kiel on the night of 9 January 1919, its departure having been delayed by opposition and the protests of the Soldiers’ Council at Kiel when they had learned what the brigade’s mission in Berlin was.53 Noske was wavering about using military force against the demonstrators, but on 10 January he ordered ‘a number of formations, the Kiel Brigade at its core, to march during the night’.54 On Saturday morning, after a bombardment of several hours, the Spartacists vacated the SPD Vorwärts newspaper building. Five intermediaries, who had negotiated the surrender of the building, were summarily tried and executed; three couriers of the occupiers were murdered. Major Stephani, who was responsible for the action, was acquitted after a thirteen-month inquiry.55
Noske marched his 3,000 men through the city centre and government district to demonstrate the military strength and resolve of the government. There was no resistance and the other occupied publishing houses were taken before nightfall. The same day a Freikorps commanded by General Lüttwitz marched towards Berlin on Noske’s orders, but before it arrived the insurrection had already been put down.
6
The Murderers’ Helpers’ Helper
The GKSD under Pabst set up its new headquarters in the luxury Hotel Eden in Berlin on the morning of 15 January 1919. Luxemburg and Liebknecht, who had been on the run from the police, Freikorps and civilian militia for several days,1 were apprehended the same evening by the civilian militia at Wilmersdorf. The Reich chancellor was informed, and the militia brought Liebknecht before the ‘senior authority’ of the GKSD at Hotel Eden; Rosa Luxemburg was brought in half an hour later.2 A naval detachment under Kapitänleutnant Pflugk-Harttung was sent for to ‘look after’ the prisoners. When the ‘volunteer squads’ arrived at the Hotel Eden they already knew the task ahead: Luxemburg and Liebknecht were to be eliminated.3
At about 2245 hrs, to a barrage of insults from soldiers and hotel guests, Liebknecht was taken to a waiting car. He sat in the rear of the open vehicle flanked by the Pflugk-Harttung brothers. Rifleman Otto Runge was standing guard at the revolving door of the main entrance. When Liebknecht took his seat between the two officers, who for some reason were wearing ratings’ uniform, Runge ‘thought he [Liebknecht] was being released’, ran forward and struck Liebknecht a savage blow with the butt of his rifle. Liebknecht collapsed bleeding and the car drove off.
Meanwhile, Rosa Luxemburg had been brought before Pabst. An odd dialogue followed: Pabst started by asking, ‘“Are you Rosa Luxemburg?” She replied, “Please decide for yourself.” I said, “by the photo it must be you.” She responded, “If you say so”. I was therefore just as crafty as before.’4 The two Spartacists had not seen each other at Hotel Eden; while the murderers were finishing off Liebknecht elsewhere, Pabst waited with Luxemburg. She darned the hem of her coat and then read Faust in the WC.5 When Pabst received the report from the naval officers that Liebknecht was dead, his body being left as an unidentified corpse at the Berlin Zoo, he had Luxemburg taken outside by Oberleutnant Kurt Vogel, where Runge struck her twice on the head with his rifle, after which she was thrown into the waiting car.6 When the car was about forty metres from the hotel, a man jumped on the running board and shot Rosa Luxemburg dead.
Towards 0300hrs Pabst called his commanding officer, Generalleutnant von Hoffmann, and told him the correct version of events. Hoffmann said that he had not ordered it, but would ‘take responsibility’ for Pabst’s action.7 Pabst enlisted the help of GKSD propaganda-chief Grabowsky to write up the ‘official GKSD report’, published by the Berlin press next day,8 in which Liebknecht had been shot while escaping and Luxemburg killed by a mob, and her body removed. Four months later her corpse was found in the Landwehr Canal: Oberleutnant Kurt Vogel had lost his nerve and dumped her there.
When Pabst rang his superior officer von Lüttwitz, Hauptmann Kurt von Schleicher – later Reichswehrminister and the last Reich chancellor before Hitler – took the call, congratulated Pabst on his work but then informed him that Hindenburg had ordered his presence next day before the deputies at the Chancellery. To be on the safe side, Pabst took along fifty of his best men, all armed to the teeth, with orders to take the Chancellery should he fail to re-emerge.9 Present at the Chancellery meeting were five deputies plus General von Lüttwitz and a State attorney, Kurtzig. Deputy Scheidemann demanded the immediate arrest of the murderers, but Ebert and Noske dissented. Finally, at Lüttwitz’s suggestion, a judicial inquiry was decided upon, to be handled by the GKSD military court; the friends of the alleged murderers opposed this decision.10 The same day Oberleutnant Vogel and Kapitänleutnant Pflugk-Harttung were arrested. While Pabst worked the strings behind the scenes, Kurtzig was replaced as presiding official of the inquiry by Kriegsgerichtsrat Paul Jorns, who ordered the release of the principal defendants from custody. Press, politicians and activists of the workers’ and soldiers’ councils followed the ‘proceedings’ with ever-growing criticism.11
In reality there was no mystery as to who had done what and in what sequence. Next day one of the murderers went to the Admiralty and confessed to a young naval officer, Ernst von Weizsäcker, who handled officers’ discharges and found work for them:
Kapitänleutnant von Pflugk-Harttung was at the Personnel Office today and, having sworn me to strictest secrecy, confessed that while transferring Liebknecht to the prison he faked a puncture at the Zoo, took Liebknecht by the arm, deliberately released him to give him a chance to flee, and then once he was a short distance away shot him from behind. Liebknecht was hit and then killed by several more shots. I advised Pflugk to flee.12
Where was Canaris during the Spartacist murders? It seems unlikely that he played a central role alongside Pabst during the fighting in Berlin or was directly involved in the murders,13 but he certainly touched up the evidence and played a leading role in ‘reducing the burden’ of the murderers. At the time of the killings he was probably at Weimar, where he had been seconded by GKSD as liaison officer and lobbyist for the citizens’ militia of the embryonic National Assembly.14
A military concept for the Republic was under discussion: the new Prussian war minister, Oberst Reinhardt, wanted a break with the past, but Quartermaster General Wilhelm Groener was in favour of ‘bringing the officer corps into the new Army, if possible in its old form and composition’.15 Central to the problem were the Freikorps and civilian militia for which Canaris was lobbying. The ‘ Law for the Formation of a Provisional Reichswehr’ of 6 March 1919 attempted to satisfy everybody and so to stabilise the situation. The legislation aimed at restoring the status and influence of the officer corps within a democratic framework. The Reichswehr would thus be formed from existing volunteer units and possibly civilian and other militia,16 all such organisations being strangers to the democratic ideal.
In October 1919 Reichswehrminister Noske promoted Reinhardt, Prussian war minister, to Generalmajor and made him chief of Army Command.17 The majority of the volunteer units were amalgamated into the regular Army while their pro-Republican counterparts were either disbanded or merged with formations having a conservative orientation.18 Brigade Loewenfeld, which Canaris had helped build, and 2nd Naval Brigade at Wilhelmshaven under Kapitän Hermann Ehr
hardt were merged into the GKS-Corps with Pabst at its head on 1 April 1919.19 The wheel had come full circle.
In the early hours of 8 May 1919, the Landgericht courthouse at Berlin Moabit resembled an army depot. Units of GKSD were stationed at all entrances, on the streets patrols broke up large gatherings, the whole east wing of the courthouse swarmed with soldiers and visitors, reporters and witnesses were searched for weapons. Hundreds wanted to watch the trial and see the accused in the Liebknecht and Luxemburg murders. British and American visitors were offering up to 5,000 Reichsmarks on the black market for a ticket.20
Charged with the premeditated murder of Karl Liebknecht were Otto Runge, naval officers Horst von Pflugk-Harttung, Ulrich Ritgen, Heinrich Stiege, Bruno Schulze and Rudolf Liepmann. Former Oberleutnant Kurt Vogel alone was accused of murdering Rosa Luxemburg. Kriegsgerichtsrat Paul Jorns was prosecuting counsel, and Chairman of the GKSD panel of military judges was Kriegsgerichtsrat Ehrhardt, assisted by three lay judges chosen by GKSD. One of these was Kapitänleutnant Canaris, who had been attached to the personal staff of Reichswehrminister Noske and active as liaison officer to GKSD since 15 February.21 When Canaris was requested to speak on this affair ten years later, he stated that he had been invited to sit as judge because ‘those involved had faith in me’.
The proceedings were organised by Pabst, who had even taken part in the questioning of the witnesses; his two trusted supporters in court were the prosecutor Jorns and the judge Canaris. For Pabst the trial had come about as a kind of accident.22 In a letter to publisher Heinrich Seewald in 1969, he wrote that neither Noske nor Ebert had wanted a trial; Noske had even promised him that there would not be one, but the pressure from the left wing of the SPD had become too strong.23 Pabst said in 1969: ‘My brave subordinates, who had stepped forward willingly to do what had to be done, were now indicted instead of praised. I was not given a free hand, for 50,000 soldiers . . . under General Hoffmann . . . had we used them, that would have been an end to the glory of Weimar. Noske knew I would have done it.’24
The accused had been arrested after pressure from SPD politicians and the public. Pflugk-Harttung had been Jorns’s clerk until his arrest. Rifle-wielding Runge had been smuggled away personally by Pabst to the Danish border as ‘Male Nurse Dünnwald’ and was only arrested there in April.25 Vogel had been the first to lose his nerve – he had admitted throwing Luxemburg’s body into the Landwehr Canal and lying about it afterwards. One of the accused related later that they had been very confident and comforted themselves with the knowledge that as long as Canaris was on the bench, having gone over their statements with them in role play,26 nothing could happen to them;27 Canaris had explained his visits to Pflugk-Harttung on remand as ‘discussions about the civilian militia problem’.28 The accused stuck to their false stories and Pflugk-Harttung, Stiege, Schulze and Ritgen were all acquitted. The Rosa Luxemburg case was more complicated; the ‘offical version’ of a mob and unknown assassin on the running board of the car was difficult to verify. Vogel, principal accused,29 and all other witnesses indicated the killer to be the mysterious person who had been variously riding in the car, had jumped on the running board, had been dressed in civilian clothes or was a naval officer wearing a rating’s jacket. Beyond any doubt this was the man who fired, but Vogel refused to name him.30 On 14 May 1919 the GKSD court found Vogel guilty of offences against military discipline, making a false statement and the unauthorised disposal of a body. He was sentenced to twenty-eight months’ imprisonment and to be discharged the service.31 Vogel was cleared of murder; Runge received two years’ imprisonment, two weeks’ arrest, four years’ loss of honour and was dismissed the service. The other defendants were acquitted.
Pabst stated later that he had attempted unsuccessfully to obtain Noske’s authority for the two killings; Noske said that Pabst should approach General von Lüttwitz for approval. When Pabst retorted, ‘I will never get it,’ Noske replied, ‘Then you must answer yourself for what has to be done.’32 From Noske’s own observations later it may be inferred that he at least knew about the murders before they happened and they were not inconvenient for him.33 He considered Liebknecht and Luxemburg to be the prime movers of the January unrest and bloodshed and remarked that ‘in those days of terror thousands had asked if nobody could stop those responsible’.34 Pabst had undertaken the mission. In 1929 when the affair came again to the attention of the courts, the editor of the liberal-democrat Berliner Volkszeitung wrote:
Herr Noske recruited men of the GKSD, reactionary officers with very dubious leanings . . . the knaves of the GKSD took their own kind of steps to restore the peace, which was the peace of the graveyard . . . Herr Noske was the prisoner of his office. He devised the system whereby the freedom of the young Republic was to be defended by the thugs of the old Army. A dreadful mistake! For Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were the first to be murdered by these thugs, but not the only ones.35
That Canaris had long been entangled in Noske’s system would become evident soon after the scandal.36 Three days after the sentences had been handed down, a ‘Leutnant Lindemann’ went to Moabit prison with a document purporting to be signed by Kriegsgerichtsrat Jorns, bearing a GKSD stamp. It read: ‘The sentenced prisoner Oberleutnant Vogel is to be handed into the custody of the bearer for transfer to Tegel penitentiary.’37 Vogel and ‘Lindemann’ got into a car and disappeared; ‘Lindemann’ was Canaris, the Jorns signature a forgery. An immediate scandal erupted.38 The press was doubtful that they could have got far because of the numerous GKSD traffic controls and street barriers. On 28 May, however, Freiheit reported that Vogel was in Holland using a passport in the name Kurt Velsen, issued to him by the War Ministry. The vehicle had been purchased by GKSD from Hermann Janschkow, the driver of the car in which Rosa Luxemburg had been murdered. Behind the escape plot were Pabst and his press chief Grabowsky.39
After enquiries to the German embassy in Holland bore no fruit, the press reported further that, on 13 May, a man had gone to the Foreign Ministry and produced a passport issued by Police Headquarters in the name of Kurt Velsen, to identify himself, stating that he was employed by the Armistice Commission of Matthias Erzberger and required to enter Holland in the execution of his duties.40 The Dutch consul-general had already issued him with an entry visa. The passport was a perfect forgery. The German ambassador to Holland denied all responsibility – the passport had been presented by a person ‘who appeared perfectly genuine’.41
The Dutch press considered that only the General Staff in Berlin had the technical equipment to forge perfect passports, and former USPD deputy Haase informed the Reich chancellor that in his opinion the criminal mind behind the operation was Noske’s adjutant Canaris. Canaris was then detained on Scheidemann’s orders; he was not held in prison but at the City Castle controlled by Naval Brigade Loewenfeld, and was freed three days later by General von Lüttwitz for lack of evidence, backed up by an undisguised ‘threat of a putsch’ to Scheidemann.42
The inquiry into the affair was conducted by State attorney Spatz of the GKSD after Jorns was relieved. Canaris maintained that on the day of Vogel’s escape he had not been in Berlin but in Pforzheim where he was celebrating his engagement to Erika Waag. (She was the daughter of factory-owner Carl-Friedrich Waag, who had died 1913. Canaris had met his future wife at Kiel in 1917 while on U-boat training. The engagement was announced publicly in May 1919 and the couple married on 22 November 1919.) In the third litigation in 1931 regarding the Jorns intrigues, the extent of Canaris’s help to the murderers of the Spartacist became evident: 30,000 Reichsmarks had been made available to assist the flight of the Pflugk-Harttung brothers, the intermediary being their sister Elli, assisted by Canaris.43
The murderer of Rosa Luxemburg was never satisfactorily identified. Pabst stated later that he had personally ordered Leutnant zur See Souchon to do it.44 In 1969 Souchon won an action for defamation against the radio station Süddeutscher Rundfunk and director Dieter Ertel for representing him as t
he murderer in a television drama. In two other investigations in the West German Federal Republic, judges decided on the basis of the GKSD trial in 1919 that it was probably Vogel who fired the gun.45
Despite all this, Canaris remained on Noske’s personal staff and, along with chief adjutant Major von Gilsa, was his most important assistant. The Reichswehrminister therefore tolerated in his close entourage men whose commitment to the Republic was more than doubtful. It is hardly surprising that as the Weimar Republic was gradually pulled apart, plans for a military dictatorship were openly discussed within Noske’s entourage. Canaris maintained a close contact to Pabst, perhaps the most vehement advocate of a dictatorship.
7
On the Side of the Putschists
On 7 May 1919 the conditions for peace of the victorious powers were made known, but the German Government had not prepared the public for their harshness. A treaty based on the fourteen points offered by US President Woodrow Wilson was believed to be the foundations for a just peace, and the German people reacted with shock. Particular outrage was caused by the ‘blame paragraph’ which attributed to Germany sole guilt for the war. On 12 May in an address to the National Assembly in the lecture hall at Berlin University, Reich Minister-President Scheidemann cried out: ‘Who would not shrink from putting himself and us into those shackles?’1
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