Gustav Noske


Noske, Gustav

 

Born July 9, 1868, in Brandenburg; died Nov. 30, 1946, in Hannover. Figure of the extreme right wing of the German Social Democratic Party. After the beginning of World War I, a social-chauvinist.

Having become a member of the government—the Council of People’s Commissars—during the November Revolution of 1918, Noske took upon himself the role of a “bloodhound” (his own epithet). He mobilized the military forces of the counterrevolution, which in 1919 crushed the revolutionary actions of the workers of Berlin, Bremen, and other cities of Germany. From February 1919 until March 1920, he was minister of defense. However, Noske was forced to resign after the suppression of the Kapp Putsch of 1920, which was organized by the counterrevolutionary military clique that enjoyed his patronage.

WORKS

Erlebtes aus Aufstieg und Niedergang einer Demokratie. Offenbach-am-Main, 1947.
In Russian translation:
Zapiski o germanskoi revoliutsii. Moscow, 1922.
Ispoved’ krovavoi sobaki. Petrograd, 1924.