[1] The province of Saxony also worried the Prussian state government because there were still numerous weapons in the hands of the workers that could not be confiscated after the suppression of the March uprisings of 1920.

[1] The leadership of the KPD, which had long been seeking pretexts for the violent overthrow of the hated Weimar parliamentary democracy, hoped for a spontaneous uprising of the workers in Central Germany in response to the intervention of state power there.

Hoelz began to equip striking workers and unemployed miners with weapons and organise them into raiding parties, which subjected the area around Mansfeld, Eisleben and Hettstedt to arson, looting, bank robbery and explosives attacks.

The KPD district leadership in Halle increasingly lost control of the armed workers due to the instigation of violence by Hoelz.

[1] The uprising movement also threatened to spread to the Free State of Saxony, where unsuccessful bombings against justice buildings in Dresden, Leipzig and Freiberg had occurred.

Against this background, on March 24 Reich President Friedrich Ebert declared a non-military state of emergency for Hamburg and the province of Saxony, on the basis of Article 48 of the Imperial Constitution.

In the Central German industrial area, after the presidential decree became known the fighting intensified, also spilling over to Halle, Merseburg, Wittenberg, Delitzsch and Bitterfeld.