Vossische Zeitung
- Geßler on Seeckt
- Before the Clarification
- End of the Six-Day Race
The Vossische Zeitung of 11 November 1926 led with the Reichstag, where Communist and völkisch no-confidence motions against the cabinet failed while the German Nationalists abstained. Defence Minister Otto Geßler then explained from the government bench why Colonel General Hans von Seeckt had been retired: the Crown Prince's eldest son had been attached for weeks to the 9th Infantry Regiment during an exercise, which Geßler called impossible at home and abroad. A second report said the governing parties pressed for a clarification of the majority situation after German Nationalists and Social Democrats had repeatedly voted with the Communists and Völkische, and that the chancellor would seek safeguards from the Social Democrats. The page also reported the French pair Wambst–Lacquehay winning the 17th Berlin six-day race.
Translation
Geßler on Seeckt
In the Reichstag yesterday, the sitting opened with the vote on the motions of no confidence in the government as a whole tabled by the Communists and the Völkische. As was to be expected, both motions were rejected against the votes of the parties that had tabled them, with the German Nationalists abstaining. Afterwards the debate on domestic policy continued. Reich Defence Minister Dr. Geßler took the criticism voiced yesterday by the German National deputy v. Lindeiner as an occasion to explain in detail, from the government bench, the reasons for the retirement of Colonel General von Seeckt. He said: The eldest son of the Crown Prince was assigned for some weeks to military duty with the 9th Infantry Regiment during an exercise at Münzingen. This was an impossibility in terms of both foreign and domestic policy.
Before the Clarification
…individual parliamentary party executives of the governing parties, at which the view was taken throughout that a clarification of the majority situation must be pressed for, and that assurance must be created that events such as those in the Reichstag on Monday and Tuesday and in the Social Policy Committee yesterday, where German Nationalists and Social Democrats again and again joined with the Communists and Völkische against the government coalition, are not repeated. The Reich government, it is heard, has adopted this view; the Chancellor will enter into negotiations with the Social Democrats in order to obtain certain safeguards for the future.
End of the Six-Day Race
The 17th Berlin Six-Day Race, which ended yesterday evening at 10 o'clock, finished with a clear victory for the French team Wambst–Lacquehay. The two riders were indisputably the best in the field. They held on to the lap they had once gained and paid no attention to the points chases of the other teams. Second place went to the pair Marcillac–Junge. The Belgians Aerts–van Hevel finished three laps behind.
Context
Why a prince at an army exercise cost Seeckt his command
In the Reichstag Geßler reduced the affair to one decisive fact: the Crown Prince's eldest son had been attached to the 9th Infantry Regiment for an exercise, and that was an impossibility in foreign and domestic policy. A chronicle of the Weimar Republic, citing Eberhard Kolb's standard history, confirms the core of this account. According to the chronicle, Seeckt was forced on 6 October 1926 to step down as head of the Heeresleitung at the insistence of Geßler and President Hindenburg, because the Hohenzollern Prince Wilhelm had taken part in a Reichswehr manoeuvre that neither the minister nor the president had approved beforehand. The same chronicle records what Geßler's statement left in the background: relations between the Reich leadership and Seeckt had already deteriorated because of his open opposition to the government's Locarno policy and his disputes with Hindenburg over their respective areas of authority. The prince's participation was thus the final trigger in a conflict that had been building, and the November speech was the minister's public defence of a decision taken a month earlier.
Seeckt's army and the traditions of the imperial regiments
Seeckt commanded the German Army from 1920 until he resigned in October 1926. He was a monarchist who encouraged the retention of traditional links with the old Imperial Army, and to that end he designated individual companies and squadrons of the new Reichswehr as the direct successors of particular regiments of Wilhelm II's army. Read against this policy, Geßler's description of the prince's presence as a domestic impossibility becomes clearer: an army of the republic that already cultivated the regimental traditions of the empire had given a member of the former ruling house a place in one of its exercises. The foreign-policy half of Geßler's phrase points in the same direction, since the episode fell in the period when the government was pursuing the Locarno policy that Seeckt had openly opposed.
Geßler's long partnership with Seeckt
Otto Geßler was a liberal politician who had been among the founders of the German Democratic Party in November 1918. He took over the defence ministry after the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch in March 1920 and kept it for eight years through numerous changes of government. As minister he worked closely with Seeckt as head of the army command in setting up the Reichswehr and turning it into a modern army, and he saw his role less as controlling the military than as cooperating with its command staff. That background gives weight to the scene the paper reports: the minister who had shared responsibility for the Reichswehr with Seeckt for more than six years now stood at the government bench and justified his removal in detail, answering criticism from the German National side.
How the Berlin six-day race became a mass entertainment
The six-day race came to Berlin from New York, where Madison Square Garden first staged it in 1898 as a race for two-man teams whose riders took turns riding and resting. Europe's first six-day race was held in Berlin in 1909 in the exhibition halls at the Zoo, and in 1911 it moved to the Sportpalast on Potsdamer Straße, which housed what was then the world's largest artificial ice rink and could seat up to 10,000 people. After an enforced break during the First World War, the race became a genuine social event in the Weimar Republic. The boxes and expensive seats were reserved for the better-off, while workers and white-collar employees filled the floor. The Vossische Zeitung's short report reflects the sporting side of this spectacle: it singles out how the winners defended the lap they had gained and ignored the other teams' hunt for points.
French winners in Berlin in 1926
The list of Berlin six-day winners records three races in 1926. For the third it names Georges Wambst and Charles Lacquehay as winners, Erich Junge and Gabriel Marcillac in second place and Emile Aerts and Jules Van Hevel in third, which matches the Vossische Zeitung's report. The same list shows that the previous Berlin race of 1926 had also been won by a French pair, Lucien Louet and Pierre Sergent. Wambst and Lacquehay's victory was therefore the second French win in a row at Berlin, and the paper's remark that they were indisputably the best in the field fits a year in which French pairs won two Berlin races in succession.
Original
Geßler über Seeckt
Im Reichstage wurde gestern die Sitzung mit der Abstimmung über die Mißtrauensanträge der Kommunisten und der Völkischen gegen die Gesamtregierung eingeleitet. Beide Anträge wurden, wie zu erwarten war, gegen die antragstellenden Fraktionen und bei Stimmenthaltung der Deutschnationalen abgelehnt. Nachher wurde die innerpolitische Aussprache fortgesetzt. Reichswehrminister Dr. Geßler nahm die Kritik, die gestern der deutschnationale Abg. v. Lindeiner geübt hatte, zum Anlaß, um sich von der Regierungsbank aus über die Gründe der Verabschiedung des Generalobersten von Seeckt ausführlich zu äußern. Er sagte: Der älteste Sohn des Kronprinzen ist einige Wochen zu militärischen Dienstleistungen dem 9. Infanterieregiment bei einer Uebung in Münzingen zugeteilt worden. Dies war eine außenpolitische und innenpolitische Unmöglichkeit.
Vor der Klärung
einzelnen Fraktionsvorstände der Regierungsparteien, in denen durchwegs die Auffassung vertreten wurde, daß auf eine Klärung der Mehrheitsverhältnisse gedrängt und Sicherheit dafür geschaffen werden müsse, daß sich Vorgänge wie die im Reichstage am Montag und Dienstag und im Sozialpolitischen Ausschuß gestern, wo sich Deutschnationale und Sozialdemokraten immer wieder mit den Kommunisten und Völkischen gegen die Regierungskoalition zusammenfanden, nicht wiederholen. Die Reichsregierung hat sich, wie man hört, diese Auffassung zu eigen gemacht, der Reichskanzler wird in Verhandlungen mit den Sozialdemokraten eintreten, um bestimmte Sicherungen für die Zukunft zu erlangen.
Schluß des Sechstage-Rennens
Das 17. Berliner Sechs-Tage-Rennen, das gestern abend um 10 Uhr beendet wurde, endete mit einem klaren Siege der französischen Mannschaft WambstLacquehay. Die beiden Fahrer waren unstreitig die besten des Feldes. Sie hielten ihre einmal gewonnene Runde und kümmerten sich nicht um die Punktejagden der anderen Mannschaften. Den zweiten Platz belegte das Paar MarcillacJunge. Drei Runden zurück blieben die Belgier Aertsvan Hevel.