November 9 and the Course of German History

Repeat ot a 2008 post:

November 9th is Germany's Schicksalstag (Day of Fate) since it was on this date that momentous events took place – both terrible and sublime.

Chancellor
Angela Merkel and Jewish leaders will gather at Germany's biggest
synagogue to pay tribute to the victims of the Kristallnacht pogrom of
November 9-10, 1938 and to the miraculous rebirth of Jewish life in
recent years.

Because it shares the same date, the fall of the
Berlin Wall will also be marked and the victims of communist East
Germany remembered at low-key events ahead of the 20th anniversary next
year."

Commemoration of Kristallnacht has become ritualized in Germany.  Virtually forgotten is Germany's November Revolution,
which began on November 9, 1918 when Friedrich Ebert declared the end
of the German monarchy. At the same time, Kurt Eisner declared Bavaria a
Free State and Republic, which would be governed by workers- and
soldiers soviets or councils (Räterepublik).  The inspiration
in both Berlin and Munich was the 1917 Russian Revolution. The Bavarian
Soviet Republic was short-lived: the "White Guard" loyalists of the
German army soon entered the city, assassinated Eisner and slaughtered
over 1000 citizens.  Today, as Andrea Naica-Loebell writes, Eisner and the November Revolution in Germany are virtually forgotten:

München hat einen Franz Josef Strauß Flughafen und auch sonst kann sich die Liste der Ehrungen dieses ehemaligen bayerischen Ministerpräsidenten sehen lassen.

Für Kurt Eisner und die Räterevolution hat das Land dagegen nicht viel übrig. In München ist eine unbedeutende Straße (die vom Karl-Marx-Bogen abgeht!) in der Satellitenstadt Neuperlach nach ihm benannt.

(Munich
has a Franz Josef Strauss Airport and otherwise a long list of
street-names, buildings, etc. honoring this (ultra-conservative) former
minister president of Bavaria. But the state doesn't have much interest
in commemorating Kurt Eisner and the Bavarian Soviet Republic. In Munich
there is an insignificant street in the satellite city of Neuperlach
that is named after him (a turn-off from Karl Marx Street). 

The
end of Kurt Eisner and the Bavarian Soviet Republic ushered in an era
of right-wing extremism and terror.  Munich became a hotbed of fascist
activity, culminating with Hitler's stormtroops marching in an attempted
putsch on the War Ministry five years later – on November 9, 1923.