Facts : 1 Political turmoil 50-million mark banknote issued in 1923, worth approximately one US dollar when issued<br />Facts : 2 Nine years earlier, 50 million marks would have been worth approximately 12 million US dollars<br />Facts : 3 The radical left accused the ruling Social Democrats of having betrayed the ideals of the workers movement by preventing a communist revolution and sought to overthrow the Republic and do so themselves<br />Facts : 4 Various right-wing sources opposed any democratic system, preferring an authoritarian, autocratic state like the 1871 Empire<br />Facts : 5 To further undermine the Republic s credibility, some right-wingers (especially certain members of the former officer corps) also blamed an alleged conspiracy of Socialists and Jews for Germany s defeat in World War I<br />Facts : 6 In the next five years, the central government, assured of the support of the Reichswehr, dealt severely with the occasional outbreaks of violence in Germany s large cities<br />Facts : 7 The left claimed that the Social Democrats had betrayed the ideals of the revolution, while the army and the government-financed Freikorps committed hundreds of acts of gratuitous violence against striking workers<br />Facts : 8 The first challenge to the Weimar Republic came when a group of communists and anarchists took over the Bavarian government in Munich and declared the creation of the Bavarian Soviet Republic<br />Facts : 9 The uprising was brutally attacked by Freikorps, which consisted mainly of ex-soldiers dismissed from the army and who were well-paid to put down forces of the Far Left<br />Facts : 10 The Freikorps was an army outside the control of the government, but they were in close contact with their allies in the Reichswehr<br />Facts : 11 On 13 March 1920, 12,000 Freikorps soldiers occupied Berlin and installed Wolfgang Kapp (a right-wing journalist) as chancellor (Kapp Putsch)<br />Facts : 12 The national government fled to Stuttgart and called for a general strike against the putsch<br />Facts : 13 The strike meant that no official pronouncements could be published, and with the civil service out on strike, the Kapp government collapsed after only four days on 17 March<br />Facts : 14 Inspired by the general strikes, a workers uprising began in the Ruhr region when 50,000 people formed a Red Army and took control of the province<br />Facts : 15 The regular army and the Freikorps ended the uprising on their own authority<br />Facts : 16 The rebels were campaigning for an extension of the plans to nationalise major
