November 9 - Destiny's Day

Not all events in a nations history are pleasant ones, and November 9 represents some of the worst and some of the best moments of our Nation. 

On November 9, 1848 Robert Blum, one of the leaders of the Revolutions in the German states is executed. Blum was member of the National Convent and had diplomatic immunity. His execution marked the end of the citizens movement that had started in spring 1848 to overturn monarchic rule, and the beginning of aristocratic restoration that ultimately led to the first World War. 

And again it was a November 9 when this monarchic regime finally crushed - on November 9, 1918, facing defeat, Chancellor Max von Baden, without being authorized announced the resignation of Emperor Wilhelm II. and Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed what later became known as the Weimar Republic. It may have been the final move to to shift the blame away from the military leadership, and for sure the new republic had a very difficult start and was doomed from the beginning.

On November 9, 1923, anti-democratic forces tried to topple the republican government in the Munich Beer-Hall putsch, among them the leader of an obscure small party who later would seize power and become infamous forever. 

November 9, 1938, will be forever one of the darkest moments of German history. On this day the ruling national democratic party staged a pogrom against Jewish synagogues, driven by an obscure racist obsession that later started a war and made them commit the terrible antisemitic crimes. The hot was followed by a Cold War, which for more than 40 years determined the world stage and brought countless sufferings. 

And again it was a November 9, in 1989, when one of the symbols of the Cold War, the wall that separated families and friends, was opened. What had been planned as a controlled process to expatriate opponents of the socialist regime became an uncontrolled storm when the government speaker declared the immediate action of the new travel rules.

What shall we hope for another November 9?  I don't know - but maybe it was just a coincidence after all...