[2] After the German government's attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement failed, it sent in both Reichswehr and paramilitary Freikorps troops to put down the rebellion.

[3] The government's military response to the Ruhr uprising led to a brief French occupation of some cities in the region, including Frankfurt and Darmstadt.

[4] In addition, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had led the governments of the Weimar Republic until then, lost 61 seats in the June 1920 Reichstag election, in large part because of the way it had handled the uprising.

[5] The immediate trigger for the Ruhr uprising was the general strike that was called in response to the Kapp Putsch, a right-wing attempt to overthrow the elected government of the Weimar Republic.

[6] The Social Democratic Party (SPD) members of Chancellor Gustav Bauer's government called for a general strike to topple the putschists.

The Communist Party of Germany (KPD), the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) and major union associations all supported the SPD's call.

[6][7] A more fundamental cause of the violent uprising in the Ruhr after the end of the strike was the schism in the parties of the Left that had become evident in the early days of the German revolution of 1918–1919.

[11] Across the Ruhr area, spontaneously formed executive councils (Vollzugsräte) took power after disarming the local security police and regular army (Reichswehr) forces.

The negotiating group included members from the unions, political parties, executive councils, city administrations and representatives from Berlin.

The final agreement achieved those ends and added clauses promising amnesty for anyone who had broken the law in defence of the Republic against the putschists.

The situation in Duisburg – which was in the hands of anarchists – had become so serious by then, however, that the Müller government responded to the Essen Committee with an ultimatum to accept the agreement by 28 March.

The regional Reichswehr commander, General Oskar von Watter, without consulting Berlin, added the condition the next day that all weapons had to be handed in by 30 March, a deadline that clearly could not be met.

In addition, as Severing wrote later – and without exaggeration, as historian Heinrich August Winkler noted:[20] Reports of extortion and looting [by the insurgents], of abuse and shootings, increased at an alarming rate.

[20] The experienced and heavily armed government troops quickly ended the uprising with acts of violence and cruelty that dwarfed the workers' "red terror".

Von Watter defended himself from other charges that his men had engaged in unlawful behaviour by citing a letter from the Ministry of the Reichswehr that stated, "You are given complete freedom to do what the situation demands".

[citation needed] In response to the Reichswehr's entry into the demilitarized Ruhr in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, the French occupied the Maingau region, which included the cities of Frankfurt, Hanau and Darmstadt, on 6 April.