DOTM Apr 2026: Red Ruhr Army

Our Design Of The Month for March 2026, made of 100% organic cotton, and supporting grassroots labour unions in South Asia. 

This month's design is inspired by the Red Ruhr Red, which was suppressed in April 1920. It was the last revolutionary mass movement in Germany to date and comprised approximately 50,000 armed workers. In response to the right-wing Lüttwitz-Kapp Putsch, a general strike of almost the entire German working class first occurred in March. In Saxony, Thuringia, and especially in the Ruhr region, attempts were made to escalate the general strike into a "proletarian revolution" and to complete the failed revolution of 1918/1919. After fierce fighting with Reichswehr units and the security police, the Red Ruhr Army controlled the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial region. On April 2nd, the Social Democratic (SPD) government dispatched Reichswehr troops to suppress the workers' uprising, even though these units contained precisely those proto-fascist forces that had supported and participated in the right-wing putsch against the SPD only a few days earlier. At least 1,000 participants in the uprising were massacred by the end of the fighting on April 12. This included mass summary executions and targeted psychological torture. According to historian Klaus Gietinger, these practices, in which victims were forced to dig their own graves, became widespread and were, among other things, part of the repertoire of the police, SS, SD, Einsatzgruppen, and Wehrmacht during the mass murder of the Jewish population in the German Wehrmacht's Eastern Campaign some 21 years later.

The Red Ruhr Army was organized decentrally through independent executive councils formed in numerous Ruhr cities. Unable or unwilling to recognize these grassroots, proletarian structures as something progressive, the state-run German Historical Museum's website today states laconically: "The Red Ruhr Army had neither a unified command center nor a common political program."

This month's design by Svenno pays tribute to the brave, rebellious, and now largely forgotten workers of the Red Ruhr Army and was kindly provided by the Berlin-based Disorder Rebel Store. "Glück auf!" is the traditional German miners' greeting, particularly rooted in mining regions like the Ruhr area.

• 100% organic combed ring-spun cotton
• Fabric weight: 5.3 oz./yd.² (180 g/m²)
• Regular unisex fit
• Set-in sleeves
• 1 × 1 rib at collar
• Double-needle topstitch on the sleeves and bottom hems
• Self-fabric neck tape on the inside of the back
• The fabric of this product holds certifications for its organic cotton content under GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) and OCS (Organic Content Standard). Stanley and Stella Fair Wair Foundation-made
• Supports grassroots labour unions in South Asia through ExChains and social enterprise dna merch
• Printed in the US individually just for you, with no overproduction or waste
• Global shipping from the US
• Proceeds from this design will be donated to Zapatista solidarity organisations

Size guide