e necessary measures to restore public safety and order...if necessary...by force of arms." The purpose of this article was to prevent either a communist or a monarchist putsch (coup d'etat) against the republic, either of which appeared quite possible in the spring of 1919. In fact, it was used in 1933 by Adolf Hitler, after he had acquired power by legal means, to dispose of the republic itself.
             The republic was under constant pressure throughout its short life. Although it suppressed the Spartacist uprising in Berlin, further communist putsches were attempted in Berlin and other cities in subsequent months. A Soviet-style republic held Bavaria for a time in the spring of 1919, and the following year another revolt very nearly succeeded in the Ruhr. After the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Union in 1922 the threat of Communist revolutio
             ...