Germany’s short-lived Weimar Republic appears in the historical record as little more than an interregnum between Germany’s defeat in the First World War and the rise of Adolf Hitler’s new order in 1933.

While often overlooked, the situation on the ground in the 1920s and 1930s was anything but lacking excitement. The weak and unpopular Republic was unable to prevent radical groups of every stripe from battling it out for control of the country, sometimes with propaganda, and sometimes with fists, knives, bombs, and guns.