Like the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, the perpetrators of the Kapp Putsch escaped punishment and accountability. A century ago in Germany, radical-right insurrectionists who had tried to topple the government during the failed Kapp Putsch were set free by a blanket amnesty. What ensued was not law and order but political violence that rocked the fragile young democracy and ultimately led to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. On Jan. 6, 2021, America had its own version of the Kapp Putsch with Donald Trump’s acolytes storming the U.S. Capitol. And the aftermath has been strikingly similar: pardons for the perpetrators, and violent crimes committed by the far right. History shows that impunity emboldens extremism. And now it’s happening again. The Kapp Putsch is one of those chapters in history that Americans may have some vague idea about but not a full grasp of how it set the stage for dictatorship. At dawn on March 13, 1920, columns of right-wing paramilitary troops in field-gray uniforms and steel helmets, some painted with swastikas, marched into Berlin, occupied government buildings, declared the national government to be illegitimate and that a military regime was taking over to restore the country’s order and dignity.
via forward: Right-wing insurrectionists tried to topple the German government in 1920 — it’s happening again in Trump’s America