8. Beginning of My Political Activity
By the end of November, 1918, I was back in Munich. I went to the reserve battalion of my regiment, which was in the hands of “Soldiers’ Councils.” The whole business was so repugnant to me that I decided at once to depart if possible. With a faithful comrade of the campaign, Ernst Schmiedt, I got to Traunstein, and remained there until the camp was broken up.
In March of 1919 we went back to Munich.
The situation was untenable, and inescapably forced a further continuation of the Revolution. Eisner’s death only hastened the development, and finally led to the dictatorship of the Councils, or, more accurately put, to a temporary Jewish domination such as had originally been the goal of the creators of the whole Revolution.
Plans chased one another endlessly through my head at that time. For days I puzzled over what could possibly be done; but the result of every train of thought was the sober realization that, being nameless, I had not the slightest equipment for any useful action. I shall have something to say later about the reason why I could not even then make up my mind to join one of the existing parties.
In the course of the new Revolution of the Councils I behaved for the first time in such a way as to draw the displeasure of the Central Council. I was to be arrested early in the morning of April 27, 1919—but the three fellows, faced with the muzzle of a rifle, had not the necessary nerve, and decamped as they had come.
A few days after the liberation of Munich I was ordered before the Commission of Investigation on the revolutionary events in
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