46 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
responsibility for the harsh demands of the Entente. Landauer also offered this
prediction: “If, as it will probably be the case, the conditions for the working
class will become so bad that it resists, then Caesarism will come, some Napo-
leon III, only worse than the original.... A shrewd, brutal military officer with
an organizing talent who joins the SPD has great chances to become Germany’s
dictator within two years.”^176 Such views naturally put Landauer and his Munich
comrade, Erich Mühsam, in conflict with the new SPD-led Bavarian government
as well as with the KPD.
On April 4, 1919, in response both to Augsburg workers on general strike and
to reports of the Landtag’s imminent reassembly, the leadership of the Bavarian
Council Congress instructed Landauer and Mühsam to draft a declaration for
the Bavarian Council Republic. They did so, and the Räterepublik was proclaimed
on April 7.^177 To the surprise of both men, the KPD refused to recognize or take
part in it. The SPD majority in the Landtag responded by retreating to the north-
ern Bavarian town of Bamberg, launching a military attack on Munich a week
later. This attack was repelled by a hastily formed Red Army, following which the
KPD took control of Munich affairs and proclaimed the Second Council Repub-
lic. Once the communists were in charge, Landauer’s services were declined; he
ultimately spent less than a week in his “official” position as Volksbeauftragter,
people’s delegate, for culture and education.^178 Many years later, Mühsam wrote
of the ironies of those chaotic weeks:
On the crucial night from April 4 to 5, Landauer and I decided, against our
usual convictions, that it did not really matter whether or not the proclama-
tion of the council republic happened with the mandate of the factory workers.
Furthermore, despite certain concerns, we had decided to participate in a pro-
visional “government,” thinking that this was a historical necessity. The party
communists, on the other hand, who generally imposed authoritarianism on
the masses, criticized our actions, because they insisted that a council republic
could only be built from the bottom up. Nonetheless, on April 13, the pressure
of the events forced them to do exactly what we had done a week earlier.^179A second attack on Munich began on May 1, this time with Freikorps units and
central government troops sent from Berlin. This attack, followed by the bloody
White Terror, ended the Munich revolution and claimed the life of Gustav Lan-
dauer, who was captured, taken to prison, and beaten to death.^180 He was forty-
nine years old. No one was charged with his murder.
Landauer’s friends could not, for some time, obtain accurate information
about his whereabouts. They were sure the revolution would be short-lived but
thought that Landauer might survive; Buber, Mauthner, and Margarete Susman
corresponded about setting up a legal defense fund for Landauer in the event
that he was tried for treason.^181 On May 7, Buber wrote Mauthner that he was
sure Landauer was dead but still placed hope in a wire he had received from