page_title: Blutmai
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Blutmai / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Berlin daily "The Evening" smears on 29th April 1929: «200 casualities on 1st of May? - Criminal plannings of the communists.» Deutsch: Schlagzeile am 29.April 1929 in der „Der Abend“ (Spätausgabe des „Vorwärts“): „200 Tote am 1. Mai? - Verbrecherische Pläne der Kommunisten.“
context_page_description: Blutmai refers to several days of rioting by Communist Party of Germany supporters in early May 1929 that led to violence between the communist demonstrators and members of the Berlin Police which was under the control of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In defiance of a ban on public gatherings in Berlin the KPD organized a rally to celebrate May Day. Although fewer supporters showed than what the KPD hoped, the response by the Berlin Police was immediate and harsh, with police using firearms against mostly unarmed civilians. During the three days of rioting 33 civilians were killed and over a thousand would be taken into police custody. The event would be a significant moment in the decline of the Weimar Republic and its political stability. The incident also marked a turning point in relations between the center-left SPD government and the far-left Moscow-aligned KPD, weakening any prospect of a united left-wing opposition to fascism and the rising National Socialist German Workers Party. Criticisms of the severity of the police response also led to a further erosion of public trust in the government.
context_section_description: The Social Democratic Party (SPD) had emerged with the largest number of seats in the Reichstag from the 1928 German federal election, with 153 of the 491 seats. This victory was due to its leading position in the Weimar Coalition and the politically liberal, economically prosperous Golden Twenties. Due to its coalition agreements with centrist and even right-wing parties, however, the extent to which it could pursue meaningful reforms addressed at labor relations and workers' rights were curtailed. The KPD, meanwhile, remained one of the largest and most politically potent communist parties in Europe and actually saw its total number of seats increase in the 1928 election from 45 to 54. The KPD was led by Ernst Thälmann, who supported a close orientation with the Soviet Union and the Communist International. At the time, the dominant position supported by Moscow was that social democracy was a form of social fascism that frustrated rather than helped the proletariat. Accordingly, the KPD under Thälmann pursued a hostile, confrontational position toward the SPD as defenders of the capitalist status quo. This perception was encouraged by numerous anti-communist SPD politicians in the German and Prussian governments, including Chancellor Hermann Müller, Interior Minister Carl Severing, Prussian Prime Minister Otto Braun, Prussia Interior Minister Albert Grzesinski, and Berlin police chief Karl Zörgiebel.
  Despite its ideals of democracy and liberalism, the Weimar Republic had acquired heavily militaristic state institutions accustomed to using repressive methods from its authoritarian predecessor. The Berlin Police used military-style training methods and was criticized both for its reactionary culture and acquisition of infantry weapons and equipment. The police were regularly involved in political violence throughout the 1920s, including against communist dissidents. This led to a willingness among the Berlin Police to use a "a military advantage to inflict a decisive defeat on the 'proletarian enemy.'"
   
  The KDP had a paramilitary wing, the Roter Frontkämpferbund (RFB), which had a history of clashing with police. Like the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA), the RFB operated in small mobile fighting squads trained (to various degrees) in street fighting. In late 1928 four people had died in fights between paramilitary groups. In December 1928 Zörgiebel issued a ban on open-air gatherings in Berlin, citing a recent stabbing involving RFB members. The ban also appeared to affirm the official communist party line that capitalism had entered its Third Period and therefore the state would become more draconian in obstructing efforts to organize the proletariat.
  In the lead-up to the 1929 celebration of International Workers' Day on the first of May, KPD-affiliated newspapers urged members and sympathizers to take to the streets. The KPD urged workers to defy the ban and organize peacefully, but to be prepared to strike on May 2 "if Zörgiebel dares to spill workers' blood." The newspaper Die Rote Front stressed "the sharpened movement of the power organs of the capitalist State against the proletariat" in describing potential police violence against communists. The SPD newspaper Vorwärts reported SPD politician Franz Künstler's belief that the KPD was seeking to intentionally sacrifice supporters' lives, saying the party would have to "reckon with" 200 dead. SPD support for the ban, however, was not unanimous, given the irony of a social democratic government preventing public gatherings on an international holiday for working men and women. Meanwhile, the National Socialist newspaper Der Angriff declared in April 1929 that the SPD and KPD fighting among themselves represented a "favorable wind" for the Nazi Party.
caption: Headline of Der Abend (The Evening), late edition of Vorwärts, on April 29, 1929: "200 Dead on May 1? The Criminal Plans of the Communists"
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