History of germany

Hitler's putsch: 1923

The events in Munich on November 8-9 in 1923 would seem like a comic sketch about a brilliant confidence trickster, were they not also tinged with the foretaste of tragedy. Adolf Hitler, the central character, is a self-dramatizing obsessive who dreams of restoring the great German reich, now so cruelly betrayed by the men he calls the 'November criminals' (the political leaders who accepted the armistice in November 1918).

Born in Austria, he has moved to Munich in 1913. He has served with distinction in the war as a corporal in the Bavarian infantry. On his return to Munich he joins a tiny German Workers' party (he is its 55th member). He soon becomes its propaganda chief. 

In 1920 the party changes its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NAZI for short). During 1921 Hitler and Ernst Röhm recruit squads of thugs to protect party meetings and to beat up Communists and Socialists. With this private army at his command (his 'storm troopers', or Brownshirts), Hitler becomes in 1921 the president of the party, which by now has about 3000 members.

In the chaos of 1923Hitler conceives a bold plan. The right-wing regime in Bavaria is under the control of Gustav von Kahr (prime minister), Otto von Lossow (military commander) and Hans von Seisser (police chief). Hitler intends to abduct the three men and force them to front a new national government on his behalf. 
His chance comes on November 8, when all three are attending a large political meeting in a Munich beer cellar. Hitler is in the audience. After twenty minutes his colleague Hermann Goering bursts into the hall with twenty-five armed brownshirts.

Hitler jumps on a chair, fires a shot from his pistol at the ceiling and declares that the national revolution has begun. There are, he says, six hundred armed men surrounding the hall (true); moreover the local army and police are at this moment marching here from their barracks under the banner of the swastika (false). Everyone is to remain in their seats while he talks with Kahr, Lossow and Streisser in a neighbouring room. 

In the privacy of the next room he tells the three men that they will die if they do not cooperate. Then, in the bold move of the confidence trickster, he returns to the hall to declare the existence of a new national government with Kahr as regent, Lossow in command of the army, Streisser as police chief, and - as director of national policy - Hitler himself.

Astonishingly, the bluff works. The audience, until now apprehensive, breaks into wild applause. The three men in the side room, hearing this response, consider it wise to go along with it. The meeting ends in high excitement. Hitler declares that the November criminals are about to be overthrown. A new and glorious Germany will arise. Everyone joins in singingDeutschland über Alles.

But the outcome proves that at this early stage in his career it is Hitler who is naive. The three men of power slip away into the night. The next day their offices are not returning calls. Hitler (joined now by his most distinguished supporter,Ludendorff, one of the heroes of the war) leads the storm-troopers in a march to the centre of Munich. They are met by a hail of bullets. Ludendorff marches straight ahead. Hitler turns and flees.

Both men are arrested and put on trial. Ludendorff is pardoned. Hitler, with much clandestine support in this right-wing city, is given five years in gaol, the minimum sentence for treason. He serves only nine months and uses the time to start writing his political credo, Mein Kampf (My Struggle) - dictating the text to the fellow Nazi, Rodolf Hess, who shares his prison cell. 

Published in two volumes (1925,1926), the book is a turgid but fateful tract which few at the time bother to read. It contains a vivid forewarning of Hitler's heady brew of obsessions . He views the world as a conflict to the death between the nordic Aryan race (a spurious concept) and the Jews - seen as a virus, dedicated to corrupting the purity of the Aryansthrough interbreeding.

The Jews are blamed for Germany's humiliation atVersailles, and for the rise of communism. Hitler presents himself as the leader who will end these twin threats and unite all Germans in a greater Germany. In the coming years this remains his theme in speeches around the country. But meanwhile mainstream politicians are themselves making headway in winning justice for the nation.