Revolution at Bremen!


On January 10, 1919, representatives of the Communist Party (KPD) and the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) in Bremen proclaim the socialist Soviet Republic based on the Soviet model!



Previously, the pro-government troops stationed in Bremen, the Bremen Infantry Regiment (No. 75) had allowed themselves to be disarmed by the revolutionaries without resistance!

The former regiment's barracks are still there - today they serve as police headquarters...:





The new council "government" immediately begins recruiting troops, expressly addressing the non-commissioned officers of the just disarmed regiment...:





But things didn’t last long: the Soviet Republic in Bremen didn’t live to see its four-week existence – everything will be over on February 4, 1919…

On the orders of Reich Minister Gustav Noske (SPD), the “Gerstenberg” Division and the “Caspari” Freikorps marched…


...under the command of Major Walter Caspari...



…arrived in Bremen on the morning of February 4, 1919.


There was considerable (particularly on the Weser bridges) but uncoordinated resistance, in which 24 soldiers of the liberators fell under a hail of machine guns and 28 armed communists. There were also 18 men, five women and six children who died as civilians.

The fighting ended at 9 p.m.

Noske wrote:
"It only takes a handful of determined people to turn the tide. In this case, it were primarily the coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius and Major Walter Caspari on the Bremen side who prevented Germany from degenerating into a Stalinist Soviet republic.”


All participants of the expedition to liberate the Hanseatic city were awarded the "Iron Roland" badge of honour...:



The "coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius" mentioned in Noske's letter...



...became famous in a completely different way afterwards:

Spurred on by his father's early cardiac death (due to excessive coffee consumption at work), he sat down and invented decaffeinated coffee, the famous "Kaffee HAG"...:



In turn, he invested the money that Roselius earned in a unique art project: The world-famous Bremen "Böttjerstrasse"...: