Currently watching documentary

[marktaha]

On Hitler coming to power in 1933. Has anyone ever speculated as to what would have happened if the Socialists had called on the Reichsbanner to resist?

 

[Edmund]

They were outnumbered three-to-one by the SA and other right-wing paramilitaries, not to mention the Reichswehr. If they do, they will be easily crushed. Probably the opportunity to have the Social Democrats call upon the Reichsbanner was a year earlier in the Prussian coup; an armed uprising would have been crushed then as well, but Richard Evans theorises that the right's fear of a civil war would likely force them to back down had it (almost) come to that. But as he says, it is unlikely it would happen to begin with.

 

[Radac]

On Hitler coming to power in 1933. Has anyone ever speculated as to what would have happened if the Socialists had called on the Reichsbanner to resist?

The problem is that Reichsbanner wasn't really a proper militia the way the SA or the Red Front were; from what I've read.

 

[OwenM]

The problem is that Reichsbanner wasn't really a proper militia the way the SA or the Red Front were; from what I've read.

Not sure about the Red Front but IIRC compared to the SA arguably part of the problem is they were more militia-like in that it was a volunteer thing in people's off hours rather than something they were paid for

 

[marktaha]

What would the Communists have done?

 

[Radac]

Not sure about the Red Front but IIRC compared to the SA arguably part of the problem is they were more militia-like in that it was a volunteer thing in people's off hours rather than something they were paid for

Yeah but from what a friend with good knowledge on the period tells me they existed more as an auxiliary to guard SPD/DDP/Zentrum events than a proper paramilitary