1919: Rudolf Egelhofer, Bavarian Soviet commandante
Add comment May 3rd, 2017 Headsman
On this date in 1919, the commandante of the “Red Army” of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic was shot by the German soldiers and Freikorps that had just overrun the revolutionary republic.
The son of a pauper basketweaver, Rudolf Egelhofer enlisted in the navy in World War I and was involved in a naval revolt in the war’s closing days. Transplanting to Munich in the chaotic postwar environment, Egelhofer joined the Communist Party and became a fixture of the revolutionary movement; the socialist writer Oskar Maria Graf would record of Egelhofer’s stature at a parade that he stood “determined and sincere, in a sailor’s uniform, sometimes raising his fist. Those who heard him, had to believe in him.”
After a left-wing coup claimed Bavaria in early April, Egelhofer’s steel and magnetism received the impossible mandate of organizing a Red Army before Munich went the way of the Paris Commune. But the Bavarian Soviet was overwhelmed in less than a month.
In the first days of May, Egelhofer’s fate was shared by something like 700 supporters of the defeated Soviet.
The fierce “victim” dominates his executioner in Execution by Firing Squad of the Sailor Egelhofer, by Heinrich Ehmsen (1931). This is only the central panel of a triptych depicting the White storming of Red Munich; the piece is described in this post.
Ehmsen has a similar idea about relative stature at work in Execution by Firing Squad (Red Jacket) (1919).
Though little memorialized at the place of his glory and martyrdom — which fell on the western side of the Iron Curtain — numerous East Germany streets, public buildings, and naval vessels bore Egelhofer’s name in tribute during the Cold War.
On this day..
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- 1766: Edmund Sheehy, James Buxton, and Buck Farrell, Whiteboys - 2019
- Themed Set: The Easter Rising - 2018
- 1916: Thomas MacDonagh, Patrick Pearse, and Thomas Clarke - 2018
- 1867: Modiste Villebrun, but not Sophie Boisclair - 2016
- 1606: Henry Garnet, Gunpowder Plot confessor - 2015
- 1740: Elizabeth and Mary Branch, tyrannical mistresses - 2014
- 1664: Elsje Christiaens, Rembrandt model - 2013
- 1738: Katherine Garret, Pequot infanticide - 2012
- 1909: Jesus Malverde, narco patron saint - 2011
- 738: Copan king 18-Rabbit (Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil) - 2010
- 1946: Not Willie Francis, who survived the electric chair - 2009
- 1808: The Executions of the Third of May - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Arts and Literature,Borderline "Executions",Execution,Germany,History,No Formal Charge,Occupation and Colonialism,Power,Revolutionaries,Shot,Soldiers,Summary Executions,Treason,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1910s, 1919, bavarian soviet republic, communism, communists, heinrich ehmsen, may 3, munich, rudolf egelhofer, world war i
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