One hundred years ago, March 1920, several thousand right-wing, self-appointed, thugs marched on Berlin under the direction of Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz. They seized Berlin and overthrew Germany’s Weimar democracy for four days — the Kapp Putsch. A general strike brought the short-lived insurgency to an end. Leaders of the coup were shown extreme leniency. Among the coup plotters were adherents of the new Nazi party. Hitler visited and encouraged. The Nazis and coup participants were considered a splinter ideology, overwhelmingly rejected by decent Germans.
History is cyclical, but it does not so much repeat itself, as mutate. It returns in an altered form that we may not recognize until it is too late. I am heartbroken by the events of Jan. 6th at our Capital. But I am concerned for our democracy as well. We have been down this road before, and it did not end well.
Jack Mayer, MD, MPH
Middlebury