The January 1919 Uprising in Berlin
While going through a box of photographs and postcards, I found these ten postcard photos of the 5-15 January uprising in Berlin. These photos were all taken from 11 to 15 January when the Freikorps units crushed the uprising.
The uprising started when the Social Democrats (SPD) led by Fredrich Ebert, fired the Berlin Chief of Police, Emil Eichhorn, for providing arms to leftist radicals. The leftists occupied the police headquarters on Alexanderplatz. This photo shows Freikorps members sealing off the area.
The Freikorps troops under Ludwig Maercker stormed the police headquarters after shelling it with artillery and mortors, shown here. This photo was obviously taken after the battle.
These are probably troops from Freikorps Potsdam under Maj. Franz von Stephani. I haven’t read anything about flame throwers being used against the rebels, but there they are.
The Teachers’ Association Building at Alexanderstr. 27A was just up the street from the police headquarters. The uprising attracted about 500,000 active participants, most of them unarmed civilians. But there were pleanty of armed men among them both Army and Navy veterans who occupied buildings throughout the city’s center.
This photo and the one below were taken at the Marinehaus, which was the headquarters of the German Navy, located on the corner of Märlisches Ufer and am Köllnischen Park. 300 rebels defended the building. As the photo shows, not all the rebels were ex-military.
This is obviously not one of the postcards. The communists added this marker in the 1960’s and I took the picture in 1991. It commerates the rebels who were killed in the fighting.
The correct name of this building is Die Königliche Elisabethschule. It was located on Kochstrasse very near what later became Check Point Charlie after the Berlin wall went up . The photos shows the building being hit by an artillery round.
