The first serious clash of this second Bolshevik week came at the Police-Presidency, which the Spartacans, as in January, planned to make their headquarters. This time, however, the building was occupied by loyal government troops, and the incipient attack dissolved before a few volleys. The night was marked by extensive looting. Jewelers in the eastern part of the city suffered losses aggregating many million marks.
The situation grew rapidly worse on Tuesday. Nearly thirty thousand government troops marched into the city, bringing light and heavy artillery, mine-throwers and machine-guns. Berlin was converted into an armed camp. The revolt would have been quickly put down but for an occurrence made possible by the government's weakness at Christmas time. The People's Marine Division, looters of the Royal Palace, parasites on the city's payroll and "guardians of the public safety," threw off the mask and went over to the Spartacans in a body. A considerable number of the Republican Soldier Guards, Eichhorn's legacy to Berlin, followed suit. The government's failure to disarm these forces six weeks earlier, when their Bolshevist sentiments had become manifest, now had to be paid for in blood. The defection was serious not only because it added to the numbers of the Bolsheviki, but also because it greatly increased the supplies of weapons and munitions at the disposal of the enemies of the government.
The defection, too, came as a surprise and at a most unfortunate time. The Marine Division, upon which the commanders of the government troops had naïvely depended, had been ordered to clear the Alexander Platz, a large open place in front of the Police-Presidency. They began ostensibly to carry out the order, but had hardly reached the place when they declared that they had been fired on by government troops. Thereupon they attacked the Police-Presidency, but were beaten off with some twenty-five killed. They withdrew to the Marine House at the Jannowitz Bridge, which they had been occupying since their expulsion from the Royal Stables, and set about fortifying it.
The following day—Ash Wednesday—was marked by irregular but severe fighting in various parts of the city. The government proclaimed a state of siege. More loyal troops were brought to the city. From captured Spartacans it was learned that a massed attack on the Police-Presidency was to be made at eleven o'clock at night by the People's Marine Division, the Red Soldiers' League and civilian Spartacans. The assault did not begin until nearly three o'clock Thursday morning. Despite the government troops' disposition, the Spartacans succeeded, after heavy bombardment of the building, in occupying two courts in the southern wing. The battle was carried on throughout the night and until Thursday afternoon. Few cities have witnessed such civil warfare. Every instrument known to military science was used, with the exception of poison-gases. Late on Thursday afternoon the attackers were dispersed and the Spartacans in the Police-Presidency, about fifty men, were arrested.
The Marine House was also captured on the same afternoon. The defenders hoisted the white flag after a few mines had been thrown into the building, but had disappeared when the government troops occupied it. What their defection to the Spartacans had meant was illustrated by the finding in the building of several thousand rifles, more than a hundred machine guns, two armored automobiles and great quantities of ammunition and provisions. The Republican Soldiers' Guard, barricaded in the Royal Stables, surrendered after a few shells had been fired.
The fighting so completely took on the aspects of a real war that the wildest atrocity stories began to circulate. They were, like all atrocity stories, greatly exaggerated, but it was established that Spartacans had killed unarmed prisoners, including several policemen, had stopped and wrecked ambulances and killed wounded, and had systematically fired on first-aid stations and hospitals. Noske rose to the occasion like a mere bourgeois minister. He decreed:
"All persons found with arms in their hands, resisting government troops, will be summarily executed."
Despite this decree, the Spartacans, who had erected street-barricades in that part of Berlin eastward and northward from Alexander Platz, put up a show of resistance for some days. They were, however, seriously shaken by their heavy losses and weakened by the wholesale defections of supporters who had joined them chiefly for the sake of looting and who had a wholesale respect for Noske as a man of his word. They had good reason to entertain this respect for the grim man in charge of the government's military measures. The government never made public the number of summary executions under Noske's decree, but there is little doubt that these went well above one hundred. A group of members of the mutinous People's Marine Division had the splendid effrontery to call at the office of the city commandant to demand the pay due them as protectors of the public safety. Government troops arrested the callers, a part of whom resisted arrest. Twenty-four of these men, found to have weapons in their possession, were summarily executed.
Die Freiheit and Die Republik denounced the members of the government as murderers. The office of the Spartacans' Die rote Fahne had been occupied by government troops on the day of the outbreak of the Bolshevik uprising. The bourgeois and Majority Socialist press supported the government whole-heartedly, and the law-abiding citizens were encouraged by their new rulers' energy and by the loyalty and bravery of the government troops. There was a general recognition of the fact that matters had reached a stage where a minority, in part deluded and in part criminal, could not longer be permitted to terrorize the country.
The uprising collapsed rapidly after the Spartacans had been driven from their main strongholds. They maintained themselves for a few days in Lichtenberg, a suburb of Berlin, and—as in the January uprisings—sniping from housetops continued for a week. No list of casualties was ever issued, but estimates ran as high as one thousand, of which probably three-quarters were suffered by the Spartacans. They were further badly weakened by the loss of a great part of their weapons, both during the fighting and in a general clean-up of the city which was made after the uprising had been definitely put down.