THE START OF MY POLITICAL LIFE AT the end of November, 1918, I returned to ^ Munich. I re-joined the reserve battalion of my regiment, which was in the hands of the “Soldiers’ Councils”. The whole thing was so repulsive to me that I promptly resolved to get out of it as quickly as I could. Accompanied by my faithful comrade in the War, Schmiedt Ernst, I went to Traunstein and stayed there until the camp was broken up.
In March, 1919, we returned to Munich. The situation was an impossible one, and tended irresistibly towards a further extension of the Revolu¬ tion. Eisner’s death only hastened developments and led eventually to a dictatorship of the Councils, better described as transitional control by the Jews, which was the original aim and idea of those who originated the Revolution. At that period endless schemes drove through my head.
In the course of the new Revolution my earliest actions drew on me the ill-will of the Central Council. On March 27th, 1919, I was arrested early in the morning, but when I presented my rifle at them, the three youths lost courage and returned the way they had come.
A few days after the liberation of Munich I was summoned to attend a Commission to inquire into the revolutionary events in the 2nd Infantry Regiment. That was my first incursion into more or less pure politics.
A few weeks after that I was ordered to attend a “course” for members of the Defence Force. The intention underlying this was to supply the soldier with definite principles to guide his thoughts as citizens of a State. As far as I was concerned, its value consisted in the fact that I should be able to make the acquaintance of a few comrades who thought as I did,