TANKS IN THE STREETS: BERLIN IN 1918/1919
Here is a magnificent, if obviously disturbing, photo from Berlin in 1918: a British Mk IV tank captured by the Germans during the First World War and brought to the city as war booty.
Very soon afterwards, in January 1919, two such tanks would be put in the charge of the Reichswehrgruppenkommando 1 and one of its Freikorps troops (right-wing, reactionary troops called in by the Social-Democratic Secretary for Defence, Gustav Noske, to help deal with the threat of revolution in Germany). They would be used to supress the left-wing Spartacus Uprising in Berlin by the Freikorps, who would also murder its participants and supporters.
Some of the victims are certain to be among the crowds admiring the tank in the falling snow in this photo, standing somewhere along the elevated railway line in what feels like Bülowstraße in Berlin-Schöneberg.
On March 3, 1919 the same tanks would be rolling in the streets of Berlin again: it was the beginning of bloodbath that went down in history as Berlin March Battles. Or as a Bloody Week. But more about that tomorrow.