At two o’clock in the morning, my wife and I were roused from sleep by a loud noise in front of our house. When we looked outside to see what had caused it, we saw fifteen soldiers of the Red Guard in front of our door who threatened firing at the house if we didn’t open the door immediately. Since resisting was not an option, I asked to be allowed to get dressed first and then opened the front door. I was immediately grabbed and told that I was arrested, without any reasons being given. This caused great commotion among the servants and residents of the house, who had by then assembled; the husband of my former chambermaid declared that he wanted to be arrested in my place, which, of course, neither I nor the soldiers accepted. After most of the troops set off to take the others hostage, two soldiers with bayonets took me to a school building in Haidhausen that they were using as a prison, where I was escorted through a lobby filled with soldiers and their lady companions. I was brought into a classroom furnished with cots where two prisoners were already being held. After introducing ourselves—they were generals—I lay down on the upper bed that was assigned to me and slept tolerably until the early morning, interrupted now and then by the arrival of new hostages. Thus, I abided until the afternoon without knowing what they were planning to do with me. Meanwhile, the husband of my housemaid, who was employed at the Hoftheater, had, on the recommendation of Florat, a Hoftheater actor, repaired to the Central Council of the provisional government of the Bavarian Soviet Republic,143 at the Wittelsbach Palais, where he very emphatically lobbied for my release and, indeed, received a note authorizing it. After I and my companions-in-misfortune had been served quite a tasty lunch (frugal soup with meat), a sailor suddenly beckoned me with a document and told me I was free. When I returned home to the delight of my family, they immediately pleaded with me to leave Munich as soon as possible. I stayed for another day, though, and set off for Schwanegg only at the insistent urging of my wife and daughter.144 There I stayed overnight, and the next day I wanted to continue my journey as far away as possible from Munich, into the mountains, to Bichl. On the way, I encountered an acquaintance and a baroness who were fleeing Munich. They warned me not to go Bichl, for that town, too, was already occupied by the communists. They suggested that I go with them to the Schäftlarn Monastery, where the monks would take us in. And that is exactly what happened; we were well accommodated on the monastery and the ladies in the small farmhouse across from it. Now we felt quite safe. Yet, the very first evening, a car with Red Guard soldiers drove up and demanded to be let into the monastery to search for refugees. The two of us wanted to escape through the cow barn, but we could already see a soldier with a rifle and hand grenades standing in front of it. We then squeezed into the adjacent woodshed, where we remained for almost two hours without moving or making a sound. Then, suddenly, a man approached with a lantern and inspected the entire barn with his light. Two more steps and he was at the woodshed, where he could not but discover us. We summoned him, asking, “What are you doing here?” and he asked the same of us. Fortunately, though, he turned out to be the monastery physician and quickly told us that the guard and the other soldiers were having supper in the village and that we could move on. The best we could do was flee to the farmhouse next door, where the baroness was staying; we established ourselves there for two days with the family of seven in two rooms and were not harassed anymore. They assumed that no suspects [like us] would be with such poor people. From our hiding place we were able to follow the fighting between government forces and the Red Guard; we saw the latter retreat, but we also, unfortunately, watched the Red Guard troops that had stayed back advance again once the White Guard had withdrawn; and then we saw how they were captured by the Whites. Only at one point could I notify my family that I was still alive. In the meantime, people in Munich, including the police, had believed me to be among those hostages who had been shot and mutilated. By the way, I must say that the Red Guard treated me very decently!