1919 Details Page

HISTORICAL DATA-1919:

JANUARY: On January 3 of this year, in desperation, the government of Friedrich Ebert in Berlin has dismissed the chief of police, since he is known to sympathize with the revolutionary Sparticists, and has recently supported the sailors' mutiny. (SOURCE: Adolf Hitler by John Toland ((paperback)), page 75).
JANUARY: At sometime on January 6 of this year the chancellery building in Berlin, Germany is surrounded by an angry mob of anti-government workers. Inside the chancellery, Friedrich Ebert, the German Chancellor, and his associates are in hiding. (SOURCE: Adolf Hitler by John Toland ((paperback)), page 76).
JANUARY: By midmorning of January 6 of this year some 200,000 workers, carrying weapons and red flags, have marched froim Alexanderplatz to the Tiergarten in Berlin. Today's foggy and cold weather does not dampen the crowd's spirit. Groups seize the officers of the Social Democrat newspaper Vorwaerts and the Wolff Telegraph Agency. (SOURCE: Adolf Hitler by John Toland ((paperback)), page 76).

JANUARY: By the morning of January 7 of this year the communists in Berlin, Germany are ensconced in the statuary atop the Brandenburg Gate, their rifles covering the Unter den Linden, the Koenigstrasse and the Charlottenburger Chausee. In addition to strategic railroad stations, the Government Printing Office and the Boetzow Brewery have also been occupied. (SOURCE: Adolf Hitler by John Toland ((paperback)), page 76).

JANUARY: By January 8 of this year the German government holds only a few of this city's major buildings. The rest are in the hands of the rebellious radicals. (SOURCE: Adolf Hitler by John Toland ((paperback)), page 76).
On January 10 of this year Regular Army and free-corps troops in Germany, led by Gustav Noske of the Social Democratic Party and directly commanded by General Freiherr Walther von Luettwitz, attack the left-wing Spartacists in their Berlin strongholds. The Spartacists are destroyed as an effective movement and their two main leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are captured and then executed by officers of the Guard Cavalry Division. This anti-bolshevik operation lasts until January 17, 1919.
B y January 15 of this year Free Corps units from outside Berlin, Germany have marched into the city and crushed the radical Red centers of resistance. The Spartacist leaders, including the diminutive Rosa Luxemburg, have been hunted down and cruelly murdered. (Source: Adolf Hitler by John Toland ((paperback)), page 76).
In Germany just as soon as the anti-bolshevik repression operation ends in Berlin, the government calls for new elections to the National Assembly. The Assembly, when it is elected, will draw up a new constitution for the country. The voters are given just two days after the 17th to make their choices; the actual election is set for January 19.
On January 17 of this year in Warsaw, Poland several of the newly-restored country's leading political parties form a coalition government under the leadership of the famed pianist and composer Ignace Paderewski. However, conditions in the country are not very promising. There is much physical ruin and poverty in the land which had seen heavy fighting between the armies of the Central Powers and the Russians at the beginning of the First World War. When German and Austrian forces had occupied the country during that war, they had systematically exploited Poland's resources, taking what they wanted for themselves. Now, at the beginning of 1919, many of Poland's factories have either been destroyed or they are idle for other reasons; its livestock has been decimated, and the economy is in ruins. (SOURCE: U.S. Army pamphlet 20-255, The German Campaign in Poland (1939), By Major Robert M. Kennedy United States Army April, 1956-digitized version at: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/DAP-Poland/ accessed 12/23/2013-GD).
In Germany the first national election under the newly created Republic is held on January 19 of this year. It is a Sunday, clear and cold. For the first time in German history, women are allowed to participate, and 30,000,000 citizens out of an electorate of 35,000,000 cast their votes for 423 deputies to the National Assembly. (Adolf Hitler-John Toland ((paperback)0, page 76).
In Germany, after the National Assembly elections on January 19, the results show that there has been a revival of spirit among the middle and upper classes in the two months that have passed since the soviet-style revolution of late 1918. The Social Democrats (composed of the Majority and the Independent Socialists) go from being the only party willing to govern the country after the War, to holding less than a majority (185 out of 421 Assembly seats). In votes, they receive 13,800,000 of the 30,000,000 ballots cast. (However, in his book Hitler's Pope, John Cornwell puts the figures for the Social Democrats at "11.5 million votes and 163 of the Assembly's 421 seats."--Source: HITLER'S POPE THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) 2000, pg. 81).
Of the parties representing the middle class, the Roman Catholic Church-backed Center Party and the Democratic Party (which was formed by a union in December, 1918 of the old Progressive Party and the left wing of the National Liberals) tally 11,500,000 votes together and secure 166 seats in the new Assembly. The Center Party by itself receives 6 million votes and wins 91 seats. Both of these parties express support for a moderate republican form of government, but they maintain inner support for the idea of the eventual restoration of the monarchy.
All during this month Adolf Hitler is serving as a guard at a prisoner -of-war camp at Traunstein, near the Bavarian-Austrian border.
At some time during the month of January, 1919 in Germany, Anton Drexler merges his very small Committee of Independent Workmen (forty members) with the Political Workers' Circle. The Circle has similar views to those held by Drexler and his followers: a desire to fight the communism of the German free trade unions, and to secure what they feel would be a more just peace for their country. The Political Workers' Circle is led by Karl Harrer, who is a newspaper reporter by trade. The new, merged group is still very small by political party standards; it numbers less than one hundred members, and it is called the German Workers' Party. Karl Harrer is the party's first chairman.
FEBRUARY: On February 6 of this year the newly-elected German Reichstag meets in Weimar, Germany. The two Conservative parties, the German National People's Party and the National Liberals (really a conservative political party) that has changed its name to the German People's Party between them have collected about four and a half million votes and control 63 seats in the new National Assembly. They are very much in the minority in the Assembly, but they are demonstrative and they immediately on February 6 begin to defend the reputation of Kaiser Wilhelm II and his manner of conducting the last war, along with his generals. At this time the head of the German People's Party, Gustav Stresemann is still known as the military's spokesman in the government. He is called "Ludendorff's young man". As such, he is very strongly supportive of unrestricted submarine warfare and of the policy of annexation.
FEBRUARY: The newly elected National Assembly of Germany meets for the first time on February 6 of this year in Weimar, Germany. They meet in the New National Theatre, but the convocation lacks the pomp and ceremony of a Hohenzollern event. There are no bands, cavalry escorts or dazzling uniforms. (SOURCE: Adolf Hitler, by John Toland ((paperback)), page 76).
FEBRUARY: At about February 13 of this year Alfred Rosenberg has already established himself in Munich, Germany. He is a fanatic ani-Semite and anti-Marxist who was born in Estonia, but who considers Germany his true home. (Source: Adolf Hitler, by John Toland ((paperback)), page 77).
During February of this year the members of the newly elected National Assembly in Weimar, Germany battle over the framing of a new national constitution for the country.
At some time during this month in Rome, Italy the official Catholic newspaper L'Osservatore Romano prints an editorial that calls on the victorious Allies to moderate their demands against Germany at the peace conference at Versailles, France. (SOURCE: HITLER'S POPE THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) 2000, pg. 80).
On February 21 of this year in Munich, Germany Kurt Eisner, head of the republican government in Bavaria, is assassinated by a young, reactionary right-wing army officer, Count Anton Arco-Valley as Eisner is on his way to submit his resignation as premier of Bavaria to the Bavarian parliament. Eisner has just been defeated in this month's elections. In reaction to this stroke, the Bavarian workers set up a soviet republic. (SOURCE: See WIKIPEDIA entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Eisner )
All during this month Adolf Hitler is serving as a guard at a prisoner-of-war camp at Traunstein, near the Bavarian-Austrian border.
On February 28 of this year a new military service law takes effect in the United States. It permits voluntary enlistments in the Regular Army for either one or three years.
M,ARCH: On March 3 of this year workers in Berlin, Germany, ignoring orders from the Communist Party, move on the city's center to demonstrate and to loot. Joined by the Red Soldiers' League and other radical military groups, they seize more than thirty local police stations. Sailors besiege the main police headquarters on the Alexanderplatz which is defended by several companies of Free Corps infantry. (Source: ADOLF HITLER by John Toland ((paperback)), pg.79).
MARCH: On March 6 of this year fighting rages in Berlin, Germany between the Workers' Council revolutionaries and the Free Corps troops called in by Defense Minister Noske. Meanwhile the city's bars, dance halls and cabarets stay open for business as usual. (SOURCE: ADOLF HITLER by John Toland ((paperback)), pg.79).
MARCH: On March 7 of this year fierce house-to-house fighting is raging in Berlin, Germany. Cannon fire reverberates in the city, along with the sounds of machine guns and the roar of strafing aircraft, while on the other side rifles and hand grenades are being used. The government's Free Corps supporters are battling the revolutionaries of the Workers' Council. (SOURCE: ADOLF HITLER by John Toland ((paperback)), pg.79).
MARCH: On March 9 of this year, after four days of bitter house-to-house fighting in Berlin, Germany, Defense Minister Gustav Noske announces that anyone "who bears arms against government troops will be shot on the spot." Scores of workers are lined up against walls and executed without trial. (SOURCE : ADOLF HITLER by John Toland ((paperback)), pg.79).
MARCH: On March 12 of this year government troops in Berlin, Germany are still in the process of mopping up the last pockets of resistance left over from the recent violent workers' armed revolution there. (Source: ADOLF HITLER by John Toland ((paperback)), pg.79).
MARCH: On March 22 of this year, news arrives in Munich in Bavaria that a popular front of Socialists and Communists has seized control of Hungary in the name of the councils of workers, soldiers and peasants. A Hungarian Soviet Republic is announced under the leadership of an unknown, Bela Kun. He is Jewish, as are twenty-five of his thirty -two commissars. (Source: ADOLF HITLER by John Toland ((paperback)), pg.79).
MARCH: On March 22 of this year, in reporting on the coup d'etat in Hungary led by Be'la Kun, who is Jewish, and his thirty-two commissars (of whom twenty-five are also Jewish), the London TIMES calls them "the Jewish Mafia". Kun and his followers are Socialists and Communists. (Source: ADOLF HITLER by John Toland ((paperback)), pg.79).
In Bavaria, Germany all during this month the workers are maintaining their (unofficial) soviet republic.
All during this month also, Adolf Hitler is serving as a guard at a prisoner-of-war camp at Traunstein, near the Bavarian-Austrian border.
In Weimar, Germany all during the month of March, 1919 the members of the new National Assembly struggle to put together a new constitution for the country.
APRIL: On Monday, April 7of this year the New York Times carried an Associated Press report from Berlin dated April 5 of this year. The report said that the Independent Socialists party and the Spartacides party had agreed by a vote of 10,000 to 3,000 to conduct a general strike in Berlin on Monday, April 7 of this year. The Majority Socialist party has opposed the idea of a strike, but the workers at the large machine and metal works favored it, and they provided the necessary margin to make the victory of the pro-strike forces possible. In anticipation of what may transpire on Monday, the government increased the number of troops on duty in Berlin. Meanwhile, the German Cabinet has accepted an amendment to Article 34 of the Constitution which gives new rights and powers to workers, putting them on an equal footing with their employers. (Source: Article, "WILSON SUMMONS HIS SHIP, THE GERGE WASHINGTON; PEACE TREATY READY BY EASTER, SAYS LLOYD GEORGE; EXPECT STRIKE IN BERLIN; OVERTURN IN MUNICH" by the Associated Press in New York Times, Monday April 7, 1919 page 1--retrieved from New York Timesmachine on 4/8/2025 by G. Dempsey).
APRIL: In Bavaria, Germany on April 12 of this year, after about ten or twelve days of chaos, the Russian-inspired trio of Max Levien, Eugen Levine and Towia Axelrod set up an official revolutionary, soviet-style government and embark upon a terroristic war on the bourgeoisie. Middle-class people are kidnapped and held hostage as they are confined to Stadelheim Prison in Munich; schools are shut down and press censorship imposed. People's homes and possessions are confiscated, to become "state property". Food is denied to those deemed not to be true proletarians. (SOURCE: HITLER'S POPE THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) 2000, pg. 74).
APRIL: April 13 of this year is Palm Sunday and Adolf Hoffmann, the former Socialist schoolteacher and Minister President of Munich in Bavaria tries today to seize control of the city by force, but his putsch never has a chance of success despite the exploits of soldiers like Adolf Hitler. For his part, however, Hitler prevents the men at his barracks of the 2nd Infantry Regiment from going over to the Reds by urging them to remain neutral. (Source: ADOLF HITLER by John Toland ((paperback)), pg.80).
APRIL: By nightfall on April 13 of this year in Munich, Bavaria the abortive "Hoffman Putsch" is crushed and this time the Red professionals-led by Eugen Levine', a St. Petersburg native and son of a Jewish merchant, take over the government. (Source: ADOLF HITLER by John Toland ((paperback)), pg.80).
    In Munich, Bavaria on April 18 of this year, Archbishop Pacelli, the Roman Catholic Papal Nuncio, writes to the Cardinal Secretary of State in Rome, Cardinal Gasparri about a meeting between Pacelli's representative, the uditore Monsignor Schioppa, the Prussian charge' d'affaires Signore Conte von Zech, and Max Levien, who is now head of the Munich Soviet government. The uditore and the Count are representing the foreign diplomatic corps in Munich, whose members are concerned about recent seizures by the soviet of food, furniture and even automobiles from the grounds of their embassies and missions. Archbishop Pacelli has felt that it would be beneath his dignity to speak personally to the communist leader; that is why he has dispatched Monsignor Schioppa.

    In his April 18 letter, the Archbishop-either by approvingly passing on the attitude of Schioppa or by unconciously revealing his own opinion of the communists who have taken over control of the Munich government-tells Cardinal Gasparri that many of the soviet leaders are Jewish and are surrounded by "a gang of young women, of dubious appearance, Jews like all the rest of them..." Pacelli then describes Levien-again it is not clear whether he is just repeating Schioppa's description, or whether he himself so regards the man-as being young, about thirty-five years old, and a Russian Jew. Levien is then described as being dirty and pale, and with eyes that made him appear to be drugged. He is also described as being hoarse, vulgar, and repulsive. Alltogether not a very nice person to meet.

    Pacelli writes to the Cardinal Secretary of State that this repulsive man didn't even have the dignity to meet with Monsignor Schioppa in his private office; rather the two conferred in a hallway, while Levien was surrounded by armed guards. The soviet leader even refused to remove his hat and put out his cigarette in the Monsignor's presence, and he kept insisting that the uditore was delaying him from attending to more important business.

    Pacelli tells Cardinal Gasparri that the Monsignor insisted to Levien that the mission of the Papal Nuncio deserved special consideration, and that Levien had answered that the nuncio (Pacelli) had the real aim of defending the Center Party, and not the Vatican especially. But Schioppa had replied, according to Pacelli, that the Nuncio was trying to protect the interests of all Catholics in Bavaria, and in all of Germany, regardless of their political affiliation.

    Pacelli next writes that his representative, Schioppa, was then taken to see the foreign affairs chief of the Munich soviet, a Comrade Dietrich, who informed him that, if Pacelli acted in any way against the interests of the Republic of the Councils he would be promptly jailed. Comrade Dietrich expressed the opinion that Munich didn't need a Papal Nuncio, because the soviet government had established the complete separation of Church and State.

    Finally, however, Comrade Dietrich had relented a little and said that the extrterritoriality of the nunciature would be respected by the soviet, and he issued a certificate to this effect. (SOURCE: Vatican Secretariat of State Archive, Baviera, letter from Archbishop Pacelli to cardinal Gasparri, dated April 18, 1919--quoted in HITLER'S POPE THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) 2000, pp. 74-76).
On April 29 of this year a delegation of the Red Brigade, led by the commandant of the Red Brigade of the South anmed Seyler, shows up at the Vatican's nunciature in Munich, Germany. They demand that the nunciature's limousine be turned over to the Brigade. It is a luxurious car and the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Pacelli, at first refuses their demand, but when one of the men puts his gun to Pacelli's chest and the brigade commander orders the others to prepare their hand grenades, the Archbishop asks the nunciature's butler to take the men to the building's garage to get the car. However, when the men arrive there, they find that the car has been disabled by the chauffeur. The Brigade commander then calls his headquarters to report the difficulty. The Ministry of Military Affairs there tells the commander that, if the car is not repaired immediately, he should blow up the whole building and arrest the entrire staff.

Meanwhile, Monsignor Schioppa, the Uditore, who is out of the building, hears of the incident and contacts the Red Brigade headquarters with an application to halt the confiscation. As a result of his efforts, three security agents from headquarters arrive at the nunciature and they persuade the Brigade commander to abandon his attempt to seize the car. By six o'clock this evening, Commander Seyler and his men leave the building without taking the limousine. (SOURCE: HITLER'S POPE THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) 2000, pg. 77).
In Bavaria, Germany on April 30 of this year the men who had yesterday tried to commandeer the Papal Nuncio's limousine in Munich return at nine A. M. to the Archbishop's residence carrying with them an official notice of requisition signed by the Supreme Head of the Red Brigade. Archbishop Pacelli isn't there; the Uditore, Monsignor Schioppa handles the situation. Pacelli is visiting his doctor, having recently had an influenza attack. He was also receiving special treatments for recurring stomach pains. The Uditore manages once again to defuse the situation by appealing to the executive committee of the revolutionary party, and by contacting the Italian military mission in Berlin. However, the would-be confiscators do not leave the Nunciature without some bitter words on their lips as they do so, once more empty-handed. (SOURCE: HITLER'S POPE THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) 2000, pp. 77-78).
In Bavaria, Germany all during this month the workers still maintain their soviet republic.
At some time during this month (April, 1919), eighty Jewish people are murdered in Vilna, Lithuania, the city which was called "the Jerusalem of Lithuania". (Source: The Holocaust, Martin Gilbert ((paperback, 1985)), pg.22).
At some time during this month Adolf Hitler leaves his guard duties at the Traunstein prisoner-of-war camp near the Bavarian-Austrian border. He returns to Munich, where he just barely escapes arrest by the left-wing government in power there.
At some time during this month in Rome, Italy the official Catholic newspaper L'Osservatore Romano again prints an editorial that calls on the victorious Allies to moderate their demands against Germany at the peace conference at Versailles, France. (SOURCE: HITLER'S POPE THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) 2000, pg. 80).troops are
MAY: On May 1 of this year in Bavaria, Germany "free corps" troops ae operating throughout Munich, eliminating centers of resistance by the Red revolutionaries there. The streets belong to the "free corps" and soon they come marching, goose-stepping down the Ludwigstrasse. (Source: Adolf Hitler - John Toland ((Paperback)), pg. 81).
MAY:      On May 1 of this year in Bavaria, Germany a group of Regular Army troops sent out from Berlin, and some "free corps" (Freikorps) Bavarian volunteers march into Munich and put an end to the short-lived soviet republic that had been set up by the workers there. Rudolf Hess, who will later rise to be Adolf Hitler's secretary in the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party, is at the center of the fighting and is wounded in the leg.

    In the process of the "liberation" of Munich, several hundred people are killed; many of them are non-Communists, and they are executed in reprisal for the shooting of twelve hostages by the soviet authorities. The soldiers set up a moderate Social Democratic government under Johannes Hoffman, but the real power to run the State is now held by Right-wing parties and their allies in the Regular Army, the Reichswehr, and the monarchists who long for a return to power of the Wittelsbach regime. They are joined by many conservatives who cannot stand the democratic Republic that has been established in Berlin.

    Early in May of this year, after the soviet regime is overthrown in Bavaria, Adolf Hitler takes part in what he will later describe as his "first more or less political activity". He becomes an informant before the commission of inquiry which has been established by the 2nd Infantry Regiment to investigate those who established the short-lived soviet regime in Munich.
Late in the evening of May 5 of this year, Archbishop Pacelli is away from his official residence in Munich: he is visiting Professor Jochner at his clinic. Meanwhile, the Uditore, Monsignor Schioppa, has ignored advice that he should also leave the Archbishop's residence; he is still there and, having just finished his dinner, he has gone to his bedroom and turned on the light. This action startles a group of militia men who have been patrolling the nearby streets. They turn their guns upon the residence, fearing that an enemy may have them in his sights, and spray the building with bullets. Then they storm the front door and insist upon searching the building. The Uditore calmly leads the platoon on a thorough search of the place and, of course, the militia finds nothing suspicious. They leave two men on the street outside when they depart. Monsignor Schioppa then checks out the upper floors of the house and finds that the earlier firing from the street had done great damage to the place; he will later be able to count as many as fifty bullet holes in the outer walls of the residence. But fortunately no vital gas or other piping has been hit. (SOURCE: HITLER'S POPE THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) 2000, pp.78-79).
MAY: At some time during this month the U. S. 29th Infantry Division returns to the United States from extended duty in Europe following the end of the First World War, and it is stood down from active duty. (Source: Destination Normandy, by G. H. Bennett, pg.7, in Stackpole Military History Series).

JUNE: In Washington, D.C. on June 19 of this year Congress passes the Army Appropriation Act of 1919, which permits the continuance of the army's Tank Corps until June 30, 1920. At this time the Tank Corps also contains the Tank Service, which merged with it at some time earlier this year, but which remains a separate and distinct organization because of funding in this bill. (SOURCE: HELL ON WHEELS THE 2D ARMORED DIVISION by Donald E. Houston Presidio Press, Novato, California, 1995 ((paperback)), page 4).

JUNE: On June 28, 1919 the Treaty of Versailles is signed by the victorious Allied Powers, and it is quickly ratified by the German government. The terms are strict: Germany must take full and sole responsibility for starting the just-ended war, and Germany must pay for all damage to civilian property caused by the war, whether caused by their army or not. Large slices of territory are carved out of former German lands and given to the Allies. Alsace-Lorraine becomes French; Malmedy goes to Belgium; more than half of Posen and West Prussia are awarded to Poland, and Germany's overseas colonies are taken from her. Danzig is made a free state, and plebiscites will be held in the Saar, Schleswig, and in East Prussia to determine their ultimate fates. The Allies will take up occupation duties in the Rhineland for at least fifteen years, and a strip of land some thirty miles wide on the right bank of the Rhine is to be demilitarized. Finally, Germany pledges to build no more submarines nor military aircraft, and her army is to total no more than 100,000 men. (SOURCE: ADOLF HITLER-- by John Toland ((paperback)), pg. 82).

As of June 30 of this year, the active-duty strength of the U. S. Army, including Philippine Scouts but not counting cadets at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, field clerks or contract surgeons, is 846,498, of which 77,966 are commissioned officers, 37 are warrant officers, 9,616 are in the Army Nurse Corps (not yet given officer status, but counted as such for statistical purposes), and 758,879 are in the enlisted ranks. (SOURCE: UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II--The War Department--CHIEF OF STAFF: PREWAR PLANS AND PREPARATIONS--by Mark Skinner Watson---HISTORICAL DIVISION DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY WASHINGTON, D. C. 1950 Table I, pg. 16)
JULY:    On about July 10 of this year Adolf Hitler has been selected by Captain Karl Mayr as a recruit for the new anti-subversive political bureau in the new Reichswehr which has been permitted by the Versailles Treaty. He is sent to the University of Munich with his fellow political agents for a special indoctrination course. It is in Munich that his gift for oratory is first noticed and encouraged. (SOURCE: ADOLF HITLER--by John Toland Ballantine Books (paperback), pages 83-84).
JULY:    On July 22 of this year Adolf Hitler and the members of his Reichswehr political propaganda team are sent from Munich to the transit camp at Lechfeld, Germany, a camp for returning German prisoners of war. The returnees are showing Spartacist leanings, and Hitler's team is told to get them back to thinking "properly". (SOURCE: ADOLF HITLER-- by John Toland Ballantine Books (paperback), pg. 84).
    On July 31 of this year the German National Assembly, meeting in Weimar, gives final approval-after a six-month struggle-to a new constitution for the country. It must now be approved and ratified by the German President. This document is-on its face-a very liberal instrument; in fact, it is the most liberal such charter yet seen in the still-young twentieth century. Taking its lead from England and France, it incorporates the concept of a cabinet-style government while also adopting the American idea of a strong President who is elected by the people. It also borrows the Swiss idea of popular referenda to decide important issues. Elections will be for seats to be created on the basis of proportional representation, and voting eligibility will be according to special lists of voters. This last idea is adopted in order to give small minorities a right to be represented in Parliament, and in order to prevent the wasting of votes on candidates with no chance of election.

    This new constitution declares that "Political power emanates from the people." Both men and women may vote, once they reach the age of twenty.
SUMMER (NO PARTICULAR DATE): At some time this summer, when Lenin's Hungarian protege' Bela Kun and his Communist and Social Democratic followers have established a short-lived Soviet republic in Hungary in the disordered aftermath of the Austro-Hungarian defeat, Leo Szilard decides that it is time to study abroad. Szilard is 21 years old. (SOURCE: THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB by Richard Rhodes ((paperback)), page 15).
AUGUST: In Germany the German President formally ratifies the new "Weimar Constitution" for the country on August 11 of this year. Archbishop Pacelli, the Catholic Church's Nuncio to Munich, now concludes that the constitution's provision regarding the separation of Church and State would seem to permit for Prussia to accept the Church's vital iternal law or canon which gives the Pope sole and exclusive power to name new bishops to administer Church affairs within the country. (SOURCE: HITLER'S POPE THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) 2000, p 86).
AUGUST: On August 14 of this year the Berlin, Germany correspondent of The Times of London writes: "Indications of growing anti-Semitism are becoming frequent." (SOURCE: THE HOLOCAUST-A HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF EUROPE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR by Martin Gilbert ((paperback)), page 23).
AUGUST: At some time near the end of August of this year in one of Adolf Hitler's Army training courses, he attends a lecture by Gottfried Feder. Feder was a construction engineer by profession, but he had become a zealot on the subject of what he called "Interest Slavery"., and he advocated the abolition of "speculative capital". Two years ago Feder had established the German Fighting League for the Breaking of Interest Slavery to advance his ideas.

Adolf Hitler, with his own ignorance of economics, is swayed by what he hears at Feder's lecture, seeing in Feder's views one of the required premises for the establishment of a new political party. Hitler feels that, in Feder's lecture, there was "a powerful slogan for this coming struggle."
SEPTMBER: On September 10 of this year a treaty is signed at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, between Austria-Germany and the Allied Powers of the United States, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan to end the First World War. (Source: Article, "Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919)" in Wikipedia, July 2024).
SEPTEMBER:   At some time during this month in Munich, Bavaria, Adolf Hitler is ordered by the German Army's Political Department to investigate the activities of a small, fringe group which goes by the name of the German Workers' Party. The Army is concerned about such political associations of the working class, because most of them are either Socialist or Communist in outlook. However, the military authorities suspect that this "German Workers' Party" might be different in some ways. Hitler himself has no knowledge of this party, but he does know one of the men who is scheduled to speak at the next meeting of the group. This speaker is Gottfried Feder, who had delivered a lecture last month to Hitler's Army class.

     When Hitler does attend the meeting of the German Workers' Party at the Sterneckerbrau beer cellar, he isn't very impressed by what he sees and hears. He rates it as being just another of many such parties which have been springing up lately, and which have been collapsing after a little time. Hitler gets up to leave after Feder finishes his speech, but someone in the audience of about twenty-five people jumps up to challenge Feder's opinions. This new speaker then goes on to bring up a proposal which has some popularity in Munich at this time: Bavaria should secede from union with Prussia and establish a new South German nation with Austria. Somehow, this infuriates Hitler, and he remains at the meeting to deliver what he himself will later describe as such a blistering retort that the man will leave the hall "like a wet poodle". The rest of the audience is astonished by this turn of events. One of them rushes up to Hitler and hands him a small pamphlet. It is Anton Drexler, a locksmith with no formal education, who was at that time working in the Munich railroad shops. Drexler had, a year ago, set up what he called the "Committee of Independent Workmen" as a means to fight against the Marxists in the German free trade unions, and to strive for better peace terms for Germany. His "Committee" is actually a branch of the larger North German movement known as the Association for the Promotion of Peace on Working-Class Lines.

    The day after Adolf Hitler has attended the meeting of the German Workers' Party, he lies on his army cot in the barracks of the 2nd Infantry Regiment in Munich and reads the pamphlet which had been handed to him at the meeting by Anton Drexler. To his surprise, Hitler finds that Drexler's views closely mirror his own view of the world, and of what the objectives of a mass-movement political party should be.

    Later that same day, Hitler receives a postcard with a notice that he has been accepted as a member of the German Workers' Party. He is amused, because he has no intention at this time of joining someone else's party. He has dreams of starting his own party from scratch., and this seems like just a wrong detour to those plans. However, he is just curious enough about this little group that he makes up his mind to attend a committee meeting to which he has been invited. When he gets there, he will explain-he thinks-his reasons for turning down their proffered membership.

    At about the middle or end of September, this year, Adolf Hitler goes to the Alte Rosenbad tavern in Munich to attend a committee meeting of the tiny German Workers' Party. This "committee" turns out to be four young people, including Anton Drexler, who had written the pamphlet which has caught Hitler's attention.

    Hitler is bored by the ordinariness of the business transacted by the committee, including the fact that the treasurer's report shows that the party can claim just seven marks and fifty pfennigs as its total funding. However, the earnestness of the men exerts a strange attraction upon Hitler. He senses that these men yearn for something beyond what they are presently doing. They seem to want to start a whole new social movement, and Hitler is caught up in the feeling. After the meeting, he returns to his Army barracks to ponder the fateful step of joining this group. He spends two days earnestly thinking about what to do, and then he makes the fateful decision to join the tiny party.

    When he does join, Hitler is signed up as the seventh member of the committee of the German Workers' Party. Two of the other original members of this party when Hitler joins are Captain Ernst Roehm and Dietrich Eckart. Captaim Roehm is at this time serving on the staff of the German Army's District Command VII in Munich; Eckart is a clever journalist and just a fair poet and dramatist.

    Captain Roehm is a tough professional soldier, with facial scars to prove it. He has a certain talent for politics, and he is a "born" organizer. With his position in the German Army, which is ruling Bavaria at this time, Captain Roehm is able to provide the new party with a certain amount of protection from official harassment. This will prove to be of great value to the party as it sets out to use extreme force to expand its influence.

    Dietrich Eckart is the spiritual and intelectual father of the National Socialist movement. For a while he had been confined to a mental institution in connection with an addiction to morphine, but he had since been released at the war's end, and now had his own circle of admirers at the Brennessel wine cellar in Schwabling, which is the artists' section of Munich. Eckart preaches a doctrine of anti-Semitism and of Aryan superiority; he does not hesitate to call for the elimination of the Jews and for the bringing down of the "swine" in Berlin.

    Eckart wants, as the leader of the party, someone who is not afraid of gunfire. He says that "the rabble" need to be scared into submission, but that an army officer would not help the party, because "the people don't respect them any more." He says that the ideal leader would be "a worker who knows how to talk", and this is almost an exact description of Adolf Hitler.
OCTOBER: On October 16 of this year Major B. D. Foulois testified before the Committee on Military affairs of the United States House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. In his testimony. Major Foulois said, among other things, that "The General Staff of the Army is the policy-making body of the Army and, either through lack of vision, lack of practical knowledge, or deliberate intention to subordinate the Air Service needs to the needs of the other combat arms, it has utterly failed to appreciate the full military value of this military weapon and, in my opinion, has utterly failed to accord it its just place in our military family." (SOURCE: "Army Reorganization: Hearings before the Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives (Washington, 1919)", p. 932-quoted in: The Army Air Forces in World War II Volume I Plans & Early Operations January 1939 to August 1942 Edited by W. F. Craven and J. L. Cate, digitized at" http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/I/AAF-I-2.html#cn6 accessed 5/16/2016-GD).
NOVEMBER: In Germany on November 11 of this year the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne in the state of Prussia, Cardinal Felix von Hartmann, dies. His death now creates a test of that provision of the new 1917 Catholic canon law regarding the nomination of new archbishops as a privilege reserved to the Pope himself. This is important, because traditionally the head of the Cologne Diocese had always been selected by the canons of Cologne Cathedral in a free election, and that system had been confirmed by the Papal Bull of 1821. On this day, November 11, 1919, the nine leading canons of the Cologne Chapter, of whom two are auxiliary bishops of the diocese, sign a letter addressed to the Pope in Rome. They ask for his blessing, "since it is now incumbent on us to elect a new archbishop." (SOURCE: HITLER'S POPE THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) 2000, pp 87-88).
In Germany at a hearing before the Committee of Inquiry of the National Assembly on November 18 of this year, Field Marshal von Hindenburg says that an English general has already admitted that the German Army was "stabbed in the back", and that is why Germany had lost the last war.
At about this time (late 1919) Adolf Hitler is earnestly and energetically working to build up the popular appeal of the tiny German Workers' Party. He is giving speeches and developing his speaking style, as well as personally typing the fliers to advertise the party's public meetings. These meetings slowly grow in size, reaching as many as 111 people for one meeting.
DECEMBER : By December 31 of this year in the United States the active-duty U. S. Army, now reduced to a strength of about 19,000 officers and 205,00 men in the enlisted ranks, is once again an all-volunteer Regular Army force.
DECEMBER: At some time during the month of December of this year in the United States of America agents of U. S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, acting with a broad base of public support, seize 249 resident aliens, who are then placed aboard a ship, the Buford, which then sails for the Soviet Union.Among those who have been rounded up and deported in this raid is the feminist, anarchist and writer Emma Goldman. This raid is part of Attorney General Palmer's continuing campaign to quash public dissent and anger over conditions in this country, which he claims is fueled by international communism. (SOURCE: BETWEEN THE WARS website here:).
In the United States of America for this year the total value of real estate permits issued in Los Angeles, California comes to US$ 28 million, in then-current dollars. In terms of 2008 dollars, this figure would be US$ 350 million. (SOURCE: Data on permits is from THE GREAT DEPRESSION AMERICA IN THE 1930s By T. H. Watkins Back Bay paperback ((Little, Brown and Company)) October 2009, pg. 35; Inflation adjustment based on tables prepared by Robert C. Sahr of the Political Science Department at Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-6206--see document here : )
In the United States of America at some time during this year the number of self-professed communists reaches just 70,000. (SOURCE: BETWEEN THE WARS website here:).
By the end of this year (1919) in Bavaria, Germany, Adolf Hitler is actively planning for the biggest public meeting yet to be held by the tiny German Workers' Party. He wants to hold it in the famous Munich Hofbrauhaus, in the large Festsaal there.
By the end of this year also (1919), the Estonian architect Alfred Rosenberg has met Dietrich Eckart and has been introduced by Eckart to Adolf Hitler. Rosenberg then joins the German Workers' Party. Rosenberg's hatred of the Jews and of the Russian Bolsheviks impresses Hitler, as does the fact that Rosenberg has succeeded in the field (architecture) that Hitler had once dreamed of pursuing for himself.
(NO PARTICULAR DATE): At some time during this year the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie dies and the Chronicle of Philanthrophy will later say that he made gifts amounting to US$ 350 million in his lifetime (that would be the same as US$ 3 billion in year-2000 dollars). (SOURCE: CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPHY-quoted in Article, How to Give Away $21.8 Billion-by Jean Strouse in The New York Times Magazine, Sunday, April 16, 2000, pg. 58).
(NO PARTICULAR DATE): At some time during this year in the United States of America the Army's Tank Service is merged with its Tank Corps, but the Tank Service remains as a separate and distinct organization becauise of the way that it is funded in the Army Approprioation Act of this year (1919). Under the terms of that law, the Tank Corps is permitted to exist until June 30, 1920. (SOURCE: HELL ON WHEELS The 2d Armored Division by Donald E. Houston Presidio Press, Novato, California 1995 ((paperback)), page 4).
(NO PARTICULAR DATE): At some time during this year "some places" in New York City, New York are charging US$0.20 for a hamburger. (Source: New York Sunday News Coloroto Magazine, June 22, 1969, page 4).
(NO PARTICULAR DATE): At some time during this year A. J. Beveridge completes publishing, in the United States of America, his study of President Thomas Jefferson's battle with the Federal judges, called, "Life of John Marshall". (SOURCE: THE AMERICAN NATION...TO 1877 -Second Edition ((Paperback)), John A. Garraty, Supplementary Reading list, pg. 228).

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