Becoming Hitler

by Thomas Weber

  29. Gantner, Wölfflin, 323–327, letters, Wölfflin to his sister, May 8 and 18 and June 7, 13 (first quote), and 19 (second quote), 1919.

  30. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 222ff., 348n543 (first quote); Fest, Hitler, 164 (second quote); Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 121.

  31. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4, Nr. 314, Mayr to Wilhelm Kaiser, July 7, 1919 (second quote); Curt Müller, July 31, 1919; Jakob Lätsch, August 16, 1919 (third quote); and Kunstädter, October 19, 1919 (first quote). See also Gabriel, Art, 102.

  32. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/314, Mayr to Wilhelm Kaiser, July 7, 1919.

  33. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/315, list of participants of Mayr’s third propaganda course; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 183, 228; Plöckinger, Soldaten, 103–108.

  34. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 221.

  35. BHStA/V, NL Lehmann, 8.2. diary, Melanie Lehmann, entries for June 7, 1919 (first quote) and June 27, 1919 (second quote); Samerski, “Hl. Stuhl,” 355–375.

  36. Haffner, Meaning, 9; Fest, Hitler, book 1, chaps. 2–3.7, and p. 229; Zehnpfennig, Hitler, 46.

  37. Overy, Dictators, 15. Ian Kershaw treated the war and its aftermath as one period, i.e., as a unified experience, arguing that “the war and its aftermath made Hitler,” thus not addressing what was the respective impact on Hitler of war, revolution, Soviet Republic, and the realization of Germany’s defeat. According to Kershaw, Hitler already returned from the war with full realization of defeat and he thus treats Hitler’s revolutionary period accordingly; see Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 87.

  38. See Joachimsthaler, Weg, 182.

  39. Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 104, 116.

  40. Brendan Simms makes a similar point in his “Enemies,” upon which he will elaborate further in his eagerly awaited Hitler biography.

  41. Quoted in Hansen, Böhm, 28.

  42. See Riecker, November. It should be added that until 1923, Hitler did not claim in any of his speeches and articles that he had decided to become a politician at the end of the war in Pasewalk; see Joachimsthaler, Weg, 182.

  43. Hitler, MK, 6–7, 226.

  44. Hitler, Monologe, 45.

  45. Hans Sachse to Max Amann, March 9, 1932, quoted in Pyta, Hitler, 139 (first quote); IFZ, ED561/1, February 24, 1964; Riecker, November, 53 (third quote).For the importance of Versailles in politicizing and radicalizing Hitler, see also Reuth, Judenhass, and Pyta, Hitler, 139–140, and for its general impact on radicalizing popular sentiment in Germany, see Krumeich, “Nationalsozialismus,” 11.

  46. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4, Nr. 307, Karl von Bothmer’s memorandum, July 25, 1919.

  47. Ibid.

  48. On Hitler’s obsession with food security and its geopolitical and genocidal implications, see Snyder, Black Earth.

  49. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 108–109; Poser, Museum, 62; BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/310, feedback report of [illegible first name] Dietl, August 12, 1919.

  50. Heiden, Fuehrer, 78.

  51. Hitler, MK, 282 (quote); IFZ, ED874, Bd. 1/27, diary, Gottfried Feder, listing of talks given in 1919, and Bd. 1/57, entry for July 15, 1919.

  52. Hitler, MK, 282–283.

  53. Hitler, MK, 282 (first quote); IFZ, ED874, Bd. 1/27, diary, Gottfried Feder, listing of talks given in 1919, and Bd. 1/57, diary, entry for July 15, 1919 (second quote); Müller, Mars, 114.

  54. IFZ, ED874, Bd. 1/52, diary, Gottfried Feder, entry for May 9, 1919 (quote); Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 119.

  55. Müller, Mars, 338–339.

  56. Ibid.

  57. Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 122; Toland, Hitler, 84.

  58. The importance of the Anglo-American world in Hitler’s thinking will be explored in Brendan Simms’s forthcoming Hitler biography; see also Simms, “Enemies.”

  59. Müller, Gärten.

  60. Berg, Müller, 74–78.

  61. See Müller, Wandel, 89.

  62. For claims to the contrary or claims that in his subsequent radicalization, Hitler was a typical product of the propaganda course and, by extension, of the Reichswehr in Munich, see, for example, Plöckinger, Soldaten; Longerich, Hitler, part 1; Ullrich, Hitler, position 1921; Heiden, Fuehrer, 138; Hockerts, “München,” 391; and Pätzold/Weißbecker, Hitler, 59.

  63. Müller, Mars, 338–339; Müller, Gärten, 105; Müller, Wandel, 49, 88–90, 131; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 85; Deuerlein, Hitler, 43. Gerlich gave anti-Bolshevik talks for Mayr across Bavaria; see BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/310, telegrams, Reichswehr-Gruppenkommando 4, Ib/P to Reichswehr-Brigade 23, June 16 and 28, 1919, and to Generalkommando 3, A.K., June 25, 1919.

  64. Hausmann, Goldwahn, chaps. 20, 23.

  65. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 174n39, 250; Martynkewicz, Salon, 357 (quote). The quote is from a book that Gerlich wrote in 1920 on communism.

  66. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/314, letters, Mayr to Josef Sixt, July 13, 1919, and Ludwig Franz Müller to Karl Mayr, August 9, 1919 (first and second quote); report dated July 23, 1919 (third quote); Mayr to Albert Heß, August 7, 1919 (fourth and fifth quote). The title of the pamphlet with a SPD outlook is Is This the Peace?

  67. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 228, 327, 331; Richardi, Hitler, 129. Mayr, for instance, would send Auf gut Deutsch to a number of people for three months, starting in September, for free. Nevertheless, he continued his professional relationship with Gerlich; see also BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/314, Mayr to Max Irre, August 25, 1919.

  68. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 25, 1964.

  69. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/314, Mayr to Wilhelm Kaiser, July 7, 1919 (quote), to Ludwig Franz Müller, August 11, 1919, and to Michael Kummer, August 22, 1919; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 226; Plöckinger, Soldaten, 174n39.

  70. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/310, Dienst-Telegramm from Gr.Kdo.4Ib/P, June 13, 1919.

  71. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/313 & 314; BHStA/IV, KSR 5763 & 22075; Nr. 310, feedback reports by Karl Oicher, August 12, 1919 (first quote), and [no first name provided] Leipold, August 12, 1919 (second quote).

  72. RPR-TP, 45-Hanfstaengl-3, Toland-Hanfstaengl interview, November 4, 1970; IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964; BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/315, list of participants of Mayr’s fourth propaganda course.

  73. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/313, Hermann Esser to Karl Mayr, August 11, 1919.

  74. Ibid., Mayr to Esser, August 16, 1919; to Hans Wunderlich, August 27, 1919 (second quote); and to Wilhelm Bauer, October 11, 1919 (first quote); ibid., Mayr to Wilhelm Bauer, October 11, 1919. The second time that he would state his opposition to Feder’s ideas was, as we shall see, in his cover note to Adolf Hitler’s letter to Adolf Gemlich of September 1919.

  75. See Reuth, Judenhass, 137.

  76. For a claim to the contrary, Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 132–133.

  Chapter 5: A New Home at Last

  1. Karl Mayr in Münchener Post, March 2, 1931, 2, quoted in Joachimsthaler, Weg, 226.

  2. Othmar Plöckinger claims that, in fact, no special relationship existed between Hitler and Mayr until October 1919; see his Soldaten, 140–153. Yet he does not provide compelling evidence in support of his assertion.

  3. BHStA/IV, Op 7539, Karl Mayr’s Offiziersakte. For the quote, see report, dated July 31, 1919. For Mayr’s biography, see also Ziemann, Commemorations, 215–221; Ziemann, “Wanderer.”

  4. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/314, Mayr to Max Irre, September 18, 1919.

  5. Ibid., Max Irre’s CV.

  6. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964.

  7. Ibid., Hermann Esser interview, February 24, 1964; Pätzold/Weißbecker, Hitler, 55; Richardi, Hitler, 48. See also Joachimsthaler, Weg, 226.

  8. For a claim to the contrary, see, for example, Plöckinger, Soldaten.

  9. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/310, feedback report of [illegible first name] Dietl, August 12, 1919 (first quote); Wilhelm Bauer to Mayr, July 25, 1919 (subsequent quotes).

  10. Ibid., newspaper cutting, Neueste Nachrichten, October 2, 1919; H. Möser to Mayr, July 16, 1919 (first and second quotes); and Mayr to Curt Müller, July 31, 1919 (third quote).

  11. Ibid., newspaper cutting, Allgäuer Zeitung, without date; Lebenslauf.

  1
2. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/309, list of Lechfeld Kommando Beyschlag; order issued by Karl Mayr, August 13, 1919; Nr. 315, list of propagandists sent to Lechfeld; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 242; Deuerlein, Hitler, 45–46; Pyta, Hitler, 142–143; Weber, HFW, 26–27.

  13. Hitler, MK, 290.

  14. Most Hitler biographers have accepted the accounts of Hitler’s time at Lechfeld by Nazi propagandists more or less at face value; see, for example, Pärzold/Weißbecker, Hitler, 57; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 243; Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 124.

  15. The commander of the camp at Lechfeld did not want Hitler and his peers to talk to the men who served in Dulag [Durchgangslager]-Kompanien. The common claim that Hitler was addressing POWs returning from Russia infected with Bolshevik ideas (see Kershaw, Hitler, 123; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 243) is thus not supported by the evidence.

  16. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/309, report by Hauptmann Lauterbach, July 18, 1919.

  17. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 122; Deuerlein, Hitler, 46 (quote).

  18. NARA, RG238, M1019-2, interrogation, November 5, 1947.

  19. Keogh, Brigade; University College Dublin, Archives, Michael McKeogh Papers, P128, finding aid, biographical sketch; Michael McKeogh family papers, in the hands of his grandson Kevin Keogh; BHStA/IV, KSR 4099/3221, 6285/1955, 11283/34.

  20. Keogh, Brigade, 163–164.

  21. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/313, Mayr to Esser, August 16, 1919.

  22. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/314, letters, Mayr to Max Irre, July 30, 1919 (first quote), and to Jakob Lätsch, August 16, 1919 (second quote).

  23. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/309, Rudolf Beyschlag’s report, August 25, 1919; Pyta, Hitler, 142–146. During the war, anti-Semitism had either been nonexistent, or, more likely, of a kind that had not been worthwhile stressing for Hitler; see Weber, HFW; Pyta, Hitler, chap. 4.

  24. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/309, report by Oberleutnant Bendt, August 21, 1919. Othmar Plöckinger’s claim that, in his talk, Hitler most likely had been “cautious” toward Jews (see his Soldaten, 130) does not add up. If Hitler had employed cautious language vis-à-vis Jews, his talk would hardly have triggered a discussion about the degree to which his anti-Semitism should be toned down.

  25. For claims to the contrary, see Joachimsthaler, Weg, 178; Reuth, Judenhass, 141.

  26. IFZ, ZS50/1-3, “Protokoll,” dated December 19, 1951, and “Niederschrift über eine Besprechung mit Georg Grassinger,” June 9, 1961.

  27. Piper, Nationalsozialismus, 12; Hitler, MK, 291. For his outfit, see IFZ, ED561/1, Hermann Esser interview, February 24, 1964; for the Sterneckerbräu’s self-image, see the restaurant advertisement in Münchener Stadtanzeiger, January 4, 1919, 2; Karl Mayr’s name appears on the back of the attendance list from the meeting of September 12, among invitees who had not shown up; see Plöckinger, Soldaten, 145.

  It has been claimed that Mayr sent Hitler to infiltrate the DAP and ultimately turn it into a tool of the Reichswehr, rather than to observe the party; see Plöckinger, Soldaten, 140–143; Longerich, Hitler, 73–75; Heiden, Fuehrer, 34. Plöckinger’s claims that if Hitler had been sent to observe the meeting, he would not have been sent by Mayr, as Mayr had already been familiar with the party and as he knew some of the party’s members and speakers; hence, there would not have been any need to send Hitler to observe the party; see his Soldaten, 144ff. Yet this argument is unpersuasive. Why would the fact that he knew some of the members and speakers of the party have precluded him from sending Hitler to observe the meeting of the DAP, in the same fashion as Hitler and Esser were sent to observe the meetings of other groups? As Hermann Esser was to recall, “[Mayr] sent both me and Hitler [… ] repeatedly into these different associations [Verbände] in order for us to listen to those evening events and give our opinions upon them”; see IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964.

  28. Quoted in Franz-Willing, Hitlerbewegung, 82.

  29. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 257.

  30. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 60; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 252; Plöckinger, Soldaten, 150n47; IFZ, ED874/Bd1/27, diary, Gottfried Feder.

  Thirty-eight attendees signed the attendance list. Both Michael Lotter and Hermann Esser, who attended the meeting, independent from each other put the number of people present at approximately eighty; see IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964. It is impossible to tell whether Lotter and Esser exaggerated the number of people present or whether everybody present had signed the form.

  31. Hitler, MK, 238; Münchener Stadtanzeiger, January 11, 1919, 1, “Wen wähle ich?”; Handelskammer München, Adressbuch, s.v. “Baumann”; Baumann, Wede; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 252; Plöckinger, Soldaten, 151n58 and 60.

  Plöckinger, Soldaten, 151–152, asserts that Baumann was not present at the meeting of September 12, 1919, and argues that Hitler, the DAP leader Anton Drexler, and their fellow propagandists invented the story of Hitler’s encounter with Baumann on September 12, 1919, out of thin air. He argues that Baumann attended a DAP meeting only on November 12, 1919. However, Plöckinger confuses Adalbert Baumann with Adolf Baumann, who did attend the DAP meeting of November 12. In 1933, Adalbert Baumann himself would refer to his encounter with Hitler in a letter to Goebbels; see Baumann to Goebbels, September 10, 1933, reproduced in Simon, “Baumann.” Baumann was a Gymnasialprofessor; that is, a secondary school teacher.

  32. Münchener Stadtanzeiger, January 4, 1919, 1, “München–Berlin”; May 24, 1919, “Die neue Bürgervereinigung” and “Bürger.”

  33. IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 252; Hitler, MK, 238; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 60.

  34. Deuerlein, Hitler, 48; IFZ, ED561/1, Esser interview, February 24, 1964.

  35. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 60 (first quote); Piper, Nationalsozialismus, 15 (second quote).

  36. Quoted in Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 60.

  37. Hitler, MK, 296. Hitchcock mistranslated part of the quote, which is why the translation provided here differs slightly from Hitchcock’s.

  38. Drexler, Erwachen, 14–28, 42. See also Orlow, Nazi Party, chap. 2.

  39. Drexler, Erwachen, 26 (first quote), 29, 39, 42 (second quote).

  40. Ibid., 57 (first quote), 59 (second quote).

  41. Ibid., 16–25, 27 (first and second quotes); 25 (third quote), 49 (fourth quote).

  42. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 56–59; Fest, Hitler, 169.

  43. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 56–59; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 248ff.

  44. Range, 1924, 12.

  45. Fest, Hitler, 169f (quotes); Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 56–59; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 248ff.

  46. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 56–59.

  47. Koshar, “Stammtisch,” 20–22; Fest, Hitler, 179; Weidisch, “München,” 259; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 251.

  48. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/314, Hitler to Gemlich, September 16, 1919; KSR 1269/450.

  49. Weber, Friend, 150.

  50. BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/314, Hitler to Gemlich, September 16, 1919.

  51. Faulhaber, Stimmen, 5.

  52. AEMF, NMF, No 9626, Faulhaber to Friedrich Fick, November 7, 1919.

  53. Indeed it is sometimes believed that in the 1940s, Hitler’s letter to Gemlich “became the “Magna Carta” of an entire nation and led to the nearly total extinction of the Jewish people”; see Simon Wiesenthal Center, press release, 2011, http://www.wiesenthal.com, accessed November 1, 2015. The characterization of Hitler’s letter as the Magna Carta of the Holocaust suggests that Hitler’s anti-Semitism of September 1919 was identical to his anti-Semitism of the 1940s. Furthermore, the suggestion is that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was identical or nearly identical to popular anti-Semitism in both 1919 and the 1940s; see Bullock, Hitler and Stalin, 70; Plöckinger, Soldaten, 143, 332; Payne, Hitler, 131; and Fest, Hitler, 167.

  54. For instance, in a letter written in October, Hans Wolfgang Bayerl, one of the participants in one of Mayr’s propaganda courses, described how popular anticapitalist anti-Semitism was in Deggendorf in Lower Bavaria; see BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/313, Hans Wolfgang Bayerl to Mayr, October 8, 1919.

  55. This point is also made by Si
mms, “Enemies.”

  56. SAM, PDM, Nr. 6697, police report, dated November 22, 1919.

  57. For claims to the contrary, see, for example, Joachimsthaler, Weg, 177. I am not questioning the existence of anticapitalist anti-Semitism in postwar Munich. The point here is not to portray the anticapitalist nature of Hitler’s anti-Semitism as original. It merely is to stress that Hitler’s anti-Semitism did not reflect the most popular brand of anti-Semitism in Munich at the time. Ralf Georg Reuth, meanwhile, claims that Hitler identified the nexus between Bolshevism and anti-Semitism in his letter to Gemlich. He bases his interpretation on Hitler’s characterization of Jews as “the driving force of the revolution”; see Reuth, Judenhass, 140–141. Yet Hitler’s characterization only appears in a subclause of a sentence that is about something else and, more important, does not refer to the Bolshevik phase of the revolution.

  58. Likewise, the directorate of Munich’s police department would conclude in a memorandum written in November 1919 that anti-Bolshevik anti-Semitism had been on the rise in Munich in the autumn of 1919; see Walter, Kriminalität, 54.

  59. Weber, HFW, chaps. 1–8 passim.

  60. BMA-A, Cone Papers, Series 1, letters, Claribel to Etta Cone, 161007, October 7, 1916; 180221, February 18, 1918; 190902, September 2, 1919; 191029, October 29, 1919; 200419, April 29, 1920; Gabriel, Art; Hirschland, Cone Sisters. I am most grateful to Nancy Ramage for making Claribel Cone’s letters available to me; BHStA/IV, RWGrKdo4/, Nr. 314, Karl Mayr to Curt Müller, July 31, 1919.

  61. BMA-A, Cone Papers, Series 1, Ibid., 190902 and 191021, letters, Claribel to Etta, September 2 (first quote), October 21, and December 4, 1919 (second quote).

  62. Ibid., 191223, Claribel to Etta, December 23, 1919.

  63. Pöhner demanded an end to Eastern European Jewish immigration but equally advocated protecting the “honest portion” of German Jews; see Pommerin, “Ausweisung,” 319. Pöhner’s anti-Semitism at the time was, unlike that of Hitler, predominantly anti-Bolshevik in character; see Seidel, “Heimat,” 39.

  64. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 340, by contrast, argues that anti-Semitism was the starting point of Hitler’s ideology: “The core of Hitler’s worldview was anti-Semitism, into which he integrated step by step the elements that would eventually shape his ideology.” Yet while Plöckinger traces Hitler’s anti-Semitic conversion to his time in the Army District Command 4, he does not really explain why and how anti-Semitism suddenly became such an attractive phenomenon for Hitler in understanding the world.