Introduction

I came to designer Gunnar Holmbäck’s The Weimar Republic with the resolve of a time traveller determined to change History, a resolve nurtured by a grandfather’s subscription to Berlin’s Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag), German New Wave director Margarethe von Trotta’s film, Rosa Luxemburg (1986), the Weimar era novels of Alfred Doblin and, most recently, the German TV series, Babylon Berlin, set in the capital’s insurrectionist streets and licentious nightclubs.

When I first joined the ranks of The Weimar Republic’s play testers as faction leader of the KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands) aka the German Communist Party, that struggle was as close as my bookshelf and Rosa Luxemburg’s 1907 treatise, The Mass Strike, Political Parties and Trade Unions. By June of 1919 her corpse would float in Berlin’s Landwehr Canal. And so, I had my Victory Condition: to defeat by Revolution the reactionary paramilitaries or Freikorps, Luxemburg’s murderers unleashed by the fledgling Republic. Vicious realpolitik is the initial game state of The Weimar Republic, the board game.

At the core of Gunnar Holmbäck’s The Weimar Republic, there beats the Role Playing Game of street fighters and savvy agitators. Its a politic motivated by outright hatreds that roil in cosmopolitan cities, like Berlin, grudge matches manifest as assassinations and life and death struggles for regional parliaments across Germany; all channelled by the four principal factions: the Republican Coalition, the Radical Conservatives, the KPD and their sworn enemies, the NSDAP. No faction, no politician, no street smart tactician competing for power will leave unbloodied. To travel in this time, every player of The Weimar Republic soon bears the exhilarating yet horrifying responsibility for attempting to defy History.

1919 – Crisis Era

Game State and Tactics:

To begin the Game,

• the KPD begins one step from a fully Revolutionary Stance, and thereby has access to all four Strikes/Uprisings on the way to launching a Revolution, that if successful, means immediate Victory;    
             
• Berlin, the source of 6 Political Value points, remains in stalemate with neither the Coalition, Radical Conservatives nor KPD dominating;                            
• In the western industrial provinces of Rheinprovinz and Provinz      Westphalen, the KPD has considerable influence among its working classes, yet not enough for dominance;
             
• Sachsen, just south of the capital of Berlin is the only region completely dominated by the KPD;         
             
• Further south, the KPD is present but disadvantaged in Bayern region while part of a four way struggle for the city of München.

In the Streets:

From the skeletal remains of the Spartakusbund (Spartacist) insurrection of an earlier General Strike, the KPD still clings to the prospect of Revolution. In the aftermath of the Coalition’s betrayal of working people, a surviving KPD Workers Militia in Berlin, is barricaded in a poor neighbourhood that braces for a final assault by a contingent of Republic loyal Freikorps side-by-side with an ultra-right Rogue Freikorps. Rumblings of strike action in support of the struggle in Berlin has the factory floors and mines of Rheinprovinz and Provinz Westphalen on a knife edge. From street corners Bolsheviks openly call for another General Strike to bring the scheming politicians in Weimar to their knees. Stirring editorials in the Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag), one of many of Communist newspapers published in Berlin, enjoin all workers to take heart: the Mass Strike is at hand!

The Coalition starts with Momentum and determines turn order:

            Coalition first, KPD second, NSDAP third, Radical Conservatives last

The KPD then pulls 7 cards for the entire Crisis Era (1919 to 1923):

Crackdown (2 APs): Police take act against extremists

Hamburger Aufstand (1 AP): Communists take to arms

USDP Splits (2APs): Independent Socialists look for a new home

Party Politics (2 APs): Plethora of parties compete for attention

Rationalization (1 APs): Industry adopts modern strategies

Reichskunstwart (1 AP): Government promotes democratic nationalism

Otto Braun (3 APs): SPD Prime Minister moves Prussia to the left

Game State and Tactics, Early Year:

On first examination, the KPD holds few Events that promise an immediate benefit to the Communist struggle for power, apart from the Hamburger Aufstand, Communists take to arms. Other card Events require that the KPD have Momentum to mitigate disastrous effects that include NSDAP assassination squads to the elimination of KPD led Uprisings anywhere in Germany.

While the COA might dominate Berlin for 6 Political Value, its republican influence is thinly scattered with one cube dominance in most regions. Influence by the Radical Conservatives and NSDAP has little coherence and poses no immediate threat except in the southern region of Bayern. As a consequence, in the first years of the Crisis Era, the KPD acts decisively by an outright commitment to another Revolution by playing its Event cards in quick succession before the other factions are better organized in the streets. There’s no room for equivocation on the path to Revolution. Will Victory through a win by the Election route ever be a real option for the KPD? The KPD’s first play, the card, Party Politics, is a remarkably powerful card for any faction on a collision course with the Coalition. The Event starts with the elimination of the Reichstag Seats card, denying the Coalition a potent political weapon; that play is coupled with an immediate shake up of Coalition political cohesion, its unity reduced to Fragile. The KPD moves one space right for a Revolutionary Stance anticipating the future play of Hamburger Aufstand, a card event maximized to mobilize of 2 Worker Militia units and trigger an Uprising in Hamburg. The Party Politics card, also includes reducing the margin of Coalition dominance in the western provinces of Rheinprovinz and Provinz Westphalen, preconditions for a wave of Bolshevik lead Strikes. In Berlin, that same Party Politics card helps KPD militancy to surge and achieve dominance (likely not for long). Overall, the Coalition takes a tumble of 10 PVs and is the KPD’s lone opponent in the southern city of München.

In the Streets:

Amidst wide spread food shortages, tattered strips of red cloth tied around an arm or thread through a button hole are commonplace throughout Berlin and Germany. Ragged veterans, still returning from the Western Front, are conscripted into the rancor of street politics. Spontaneous gatherings of workers mull over the occupation of the western industrial provinces by the Victors of the Great War, all on the hunt for their spoils of war. Bloodied survivors of the “Red Guards” of the Revolution of 1918 begin to mobilize in Hamburg, a northern port.

Game State and Tactics, Late Year:

After some tentative moves by the Radical Conservatives and the fledgling NSDAP, mostly centered on Bayern region and München, the Coalition surprisingly makes early use of the only Election card for the Crisis Era. A bold or ill-conceived tactical move? As a result, the KPD claims a Reichstag Seats card for having come 2^nd in the General Election at the same time winning Parliamentary Control of Berlin for its dominance in the capital city.

The NSDAP and Radical Conservatives regroup adding back influence reduced by the KPD with the play of the Party Politics card. In desperation to maintain its southern influence, the Coalition has added a Rogue Freikorps Unit plus an NSDAP Assassination counter to the Bayern region. I also suspect that the Coalition has provided me with a “poison pill” in the guise of the Reichstag Seats card by tempting the KPD with achieving Momentum at the cost of any Strikes the KPD might launch with a Revolutionary Stance.

Instead, the KPD out manoeuvres the gambit by, first, playing the card, USDP Splits, Independent Socialists Look for a new home before using the Reichstag Seats card to immediately gain Momentum, there being no strikes to remove early in 1919. KPD influence spreads in four regions after playing the Reichstag Seats card to remove the NSDAP Assassinations from the board. The KPD shores up control of Berlin with the placement of another Worker Militia for a total of two to oppose the two Freikorps, one Coalition and one Rogue. Parliamentary Control of the German capital (providing a defence of 6 points, equal to the city’s Political Value) plus the 2 Militias should forestall any assaults without the deployment of a powerful Reichswehr unit by the Coalition. As a finale to this decisive turn, the KPD declares a Strike in Berlin.

In the Streets:

Berlin teems with the joyous demonstrations of workers and Worker Militias, no longer in fear of imminent annihilation: any assault by the reactionary Freikorps, Rogue or otherwise, will need to contend with a solid defense possible with the Communist Party’s stunning municipal win. “Strike!” in Berlin becomes more than a rallying cry for wages and better working conditions but a demand for an Egalitarian Future. Red bunting and bed sheets painted with the Hammer and Sickle unfurl in the breeze of Freedom along with the tearful murmur of Rosa Luxemburg’s name. Bolshevik fervor also surges in the West with the prospect of wild cat work stoppages.

To be continued…

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