Volksmarinedivision

The Volksmarinedivision (People's Navy Division) was a German paramilitary unit created on 11 November 1918 to fight against the German government in the German Revolution. It was led by Lieutenant Heinrich Dorrenbach, an officer in the Imperial German Army and a friend of Karl Liebknecht.[1][2]

Machine gun unit of the Volksmarinedivision by the Neptune Fountain, in the Schloßplatz, Berlin

The unit was based in the Berlin Palace, where Liebknecht had declared the Free Socialist Republic on 9 November 1918.

Disbandment and decimation

The unit was disbanded in March 1919. 300 of the soldiers were ordered to turn up at a building in Französisiche Strasse to pick up their discharge papers and back pay. Lieutenant-Colonel Otto Marloh, of the Reinhard Freikorps regiment selected the 30 most intelligent, and thus most dangerous, men and the rest were asked to leave. These thirty were then machinegunned. Although most died, at least one soldier escaped to relate the story.[3] This was an enactment of decimation - a form of punishment dating back to the Roman Army.[4] Marloh was acquitted in December 1919, while his superiors, who had ordered the massacre, were not tried, and like Marloh, built successful careers within the future Third Reich.

References
  1. Schneider, Ernst (1943). The Wilhelmshaven Revolt, 1918-1919. London. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  2. Jones, Mark (2016). Founding Weimar: Violence and the German Revolution of 1918-1919. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-316-33562-8.
  3. https://100jahrerevolution.berlin/en/100-locations/hof/
  4. Retzlaw, Karl (2012). "Noske and the Beginning of the Comrades Murder". All Power to the Workers' Councils: A Documentary History of the German Revolution 1918-1919. ISBN 9781604867374. Retrieved 22 August 2018.



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