Many have heard of Hitler’s ill-fated Beer Hall Putsch. It took place in Munich in 1923 and landed Hitler in jail, where he wrote Mein Kampf.

Three years before the Beer Hall Putsch there was a much more serious challenge to the Weimar Republic from the right. It was called the Kapp Putsch. Centered in Berlin, led by high-ranking officers of the military, joined by monarchist and conservative elements, speaking for the Freikorps and beyond, it posed a far more immediate threat to the national government than the failed putsch of three years later.

It was stopped by a general strike. That general strike was called by the President of the Weimar Republic—the fairly moderate and plodding leader of the Social Democrats, Friedrich Ebert—and the cabinet of the government.