Hitler further whipped up enthusiasm with a rabble-rousing speech in Zirkus Krone on 5 September. The German people, he said, were in the grip of a “great emotion”: “There are only two possibilities—either Berlin goes on the march and ends up in Munich, or Munich goes on the march and ends up in Berlin.”40 In mid-September, Hess described Hitler being welcomed as a messiah at a “Germany Day” in Hof:
In no time at all, six halls were filled beyond capacity, and masses of people lined up outside, hoping in vain for admittance…In one venue he was once again suddenly seized by something indescribable. It grabbed me so fiercely that I had to clench my teeth…There were many good, critical minds in the hall—and by the end, they all were beside themselves with enthusiasm.41
When would the big day come? That was the question on everyone’s minds. Hitler himself still did not know in mid-September, although Hess had “rarely” seen him “so serious.” Hitler, Hess recorded, was conscious of his “responsibility…concerning the start, his decision to toss the fire onto the powder keg.”42 For 27 September alone, the NSDAP chairman had fourteen mass events planned in Munich. In a sense, the date was a prelude that would bring judgement day closer.
But something Hitler had failed to anticipate intervened. On 26 September, the Knilling cabinet declared a state of emergency, appointing Kahr “general state commissar” and giving him near-dictatorial powers. On the one hand, the move was directed against the national government in Berlin, which had just proclaimed the end of Germany’s passive resistance in the Ruhr. But it was also aimed at the Hitler movement, whose increasing readiness to stage a putsch had not remained concealed from the Bavarian authorities. As one of the first measures taken under the new order, Kahr prohibited the Nazi events scheduled for 27 September. Hitler registered his “most vigorous” protest but failed to get the ban lifted.43 Thereafter the relationship between Kahr and Hitler was chilly, with the latter seeking to marginalise the new state commissar. Kahr, Hitler fumed, was “a milquetoast civil servant who lacked political instincts and a firm will” and was as such “not the right man to lead a decisive battle.” Hitler’s message was unmistakable: he and he alone was the man destined to become “the pioneer of the great German liberation movement.”44
The atmosphere in Munich throughout October was one of feverish tension, as Kahr and Hitler circled one another like mistrustful tomcats. Cordial overtures alternated with obvious threats. Even those well initiated into local politics found it difficult to orient themselves amidst all the political manoeuvring and game-playing, and the situation was made even more opaque by the continuing rivalry between Bavaria and the Reich. On 26 September, in reaction to Kahr’s appointment, Reich President Friedrich Ebert had also declared a state of emergency and charged Reich Defence Minister Otto Gessler with asserting the nation state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. A day later, Gessler banned the Völkischer Beobachter for publishing a slanderous article about Reich Chancellor Stresemann and the Head of Army Command Hans von Seeckt. However, Lossow defied the order as given against Kahr’s will, whereupon Ebert dismissed him from his post as Bavaria’s highest military commander. That went too far for Kahr, who reconfirmed Lossow’s command over Reichswehr troops in Bavaria. The break between Munich and Berlin was complete. Bavaria was now essentially ruled by a triumvirate of Kahr, Lossow and Colonel Hans von Seisser, the head of the Bavarian police.45
—
At times, the conflict between Bavaria and the Reich obscured the stand-off between the triumvirate and the restless far-right circles around Hitler and the Fighting Association. But the tug of war was continuing behind the scenes. Everyone on the right agreed that the goal was to get rid of Weimar democracy and establish a national dictatorship. But leaders did not see eye to eye on how to achieve this end, who should become the nation’s new leader and when action should be taken. In Kahr, Lossow and Seisser’s opinion, the national revolution would have to begin in Berlin. They knew that there were plans in the Reich capital to form a “directory,” which would assume power after the expected fall of the Stresemann government. Along with General von Seeckt, it was to encompass the former director of the Stinnes conglomerate, Friedrich Minoux, and Germany’s ambassador to the United States, Otto Wiedfeldt.46 The triumvirate wanted to join forces with these men. For that reason it was important, Kahr testified at Hitler’s trial, “to gather nationalist forces in Bavaria and to create a strong Bavaria capable of lining up beside and supporting the directory.”47 In other words, Kahr and consorts hoped that they themselves would not have to take the initiative, but rather leave that up to Reichswehr leaders in Berlin and their contacts in northern Germany. Hitler and the Fighting Association would be required to subordinate themselves to the goal of “concentrating nationalist forces in order to create a firm and vigorous state authority” in Bavaria. In a press conference on 1 October, Kahr declared that the Association was welcome to participate but would have to integrate itself into the whole. Demands for special treatment would not be tolerated.48
In the minds of Hitler and the Association, in contrast, the “national dictatorship” would be proclaimed in Bavaria, followed by a “march upon Berlin.” In a speech to SA leaders on 23 October, Hitler described his vision: “To unfurl the German flag in the final hour in Bavaria and to call into being a German army of liberation under a German government in Munich.” In a speech at Zirkus Krone on 30 October, Hitler was even more explicit: “Bavaria has a great mission…We have to break through our limitations and do battle with the Marxist brood in Berlin…We have to take the fight to them and stab them through the heart.” And Hitler left no doubt as to who would lead the planned coup d’état: “For me the German question will first be solved when the black-red-and-white swastika flag flies from Berlin’s Imperial City Palace.”49 Hitler planned to put the military leadership of the putsch in Ludendorff’s hands. The First World War general’s reputation, Hitler hoped, would encourage the Reichswehr to fall in line. But Hitler reserved the political leadership of the coup d’état for himself—a sure sign that he no longer saw himself as a mere drummer, but as the coming Führer. At his later trial he said: “The man who feels called to lead a people doesn’t have the right to say: ‘If people want me or come and get me, then I’ll do it.’ He has a duty to do it.”50
While the triumvirate played for time, Hitler pressed for action. He considered his hand forced not just by the expectations of his supporters throughout Germany and the Fighting Association men in Munich, but by the shift in political conditions. When the Reichswehr moved against socialist–communist “united front” governments in Saxony and Thuringia in late October and early November, it removed one of the pretexts right-wing conspirators in Munich cited for the need to push Bavarian troops to the borders with those central German states. Moreover, the establishment of a new central bank, the Rentenbank, which issued a revalued reichsmark in mid-October, made it clear that the Stresemann government was tackling the currency crisis. Hitler and the other leaders of the Association were under pressure. Hitler may have promised Seisser on 1 November not to move against the Reichswehr or the Bavarian police or attempt a putsch,51 but he also demanded that the triumvirate take action: “It’s high time. Economic misery is so pushing our people that we have to act or risk our supporters going over to the Communists.”52
In early November Seisser travelled to Berlin on behalf of the triumvirate to confer about the situation. In a conversation with the head of the Reichswehr, he mentioned the “severe pressure” being exerted by all radical nationalist groups on Kahr to get him to “intervene against Berlin” with the goal of creating a “national dictatorship.” Seeckt declared that this was his objective as well, but made it crystal clear that “the legal path would have to be followed.” A “march on Berlin” of the sort supported by Hitler and his followers was out of the question.53 On 6 November, Kahr summoned the leaders of the Fatherland Associations, including Hermann Kriebel from the Fighting Ass
ociation, and warned them not to act on their own. “I alone and nobody else will give the sign to march,” he declared. Lossow said he agreed and reminded those present of the failed Kapp–Lüttwitz putsch of 1920. “I am prepared to support a right-wing dictatorship, if it has a chance to succeed,” Lossow declared. “But if we’re just going to be rushed into a putsch, which will come to a pathetic end in five or six days, then count me out.”54
The meeting of 6 November made it absolutely clear that the triumvirate was unwilling to seize the initiative. The three leaders wanted to wait and see what course developments in northern Germany took and then perhaps join forces with the “directory.” After his grandiloquent pronouncements of the previous weeks, however, Hitler could not afford to remain idle for much longer. “We couldn’t keep preparing our people for the cause and reeling them back in,” he admitted at his trial. “We couldn’t keep them constantly agitated. We had to make a clear decision.”55 Before the night of 6 November was even over, Hitler decided to attack, a decision that was confirmed the next day by the leaders of the Fighting Association. The date was set for 11 November, the anniversary of the armistice in the First World War. Kriebel suggested taking the fighting units out to the Fröttmaninger heath on Munich’s northern border for night-time exercises on 10 November and then marching them into the city the following day. But this plan was abandoned when it emerged that Kahr had called a meeting in the Bürgerbräukeller for the evening of 8 November. Everyone who was anyone in Munich politics was set to attend.
The last-minute scheduling of Kahr’s meeting convinced Hitler that Kahr was trying to head him off at the pass. He even suspected that the general state commissar might try to reinstate the Wittelsbach dynasty—rumours to that effect had been circulating in Munich since the beginning of November. Hitler was dead set against the restoration of the monarchy. “Never,” he had dictated to his secretary Fritz Lauböck in late September, “will the National Socialist German Workers’ Party accept any attempt to move the utterly degenerate Houses of Hohenzollern and Wittelsbach and their repulsive courts to again take over the government of our German people.”56
So Hitler decided to move the putsch forward to 8 November. If his supporters succeeded in seizing the Bürgerbräukeller, they would have the unique opportunity to bring the entire political class of Munich under their control. The plan was to leave the triumvirate with no other option by presenting them with a fait accompli. “We have to force them to get involved and then they won’t be able to turn back,” Hitler told Ernst Hanfstaengl.57 At his trial, he declared that he had wanted to give the three hesitant leaders “a push from behind…so that they would finally jump into the water they always found too cold.”58
—
Over the course of 8 November, the leaders of the Fighting Association received their orders, in part by motorcycle courier. The circle of those in the know was kept small in an attempt to preserve the element of surprise.59 Early that morning, Hitler secured the support of Ernst Pöhner, his former patron in the police force, whom he promised the office of Bavarian president in the post-putsch government. Pöhner was surprised by Hitler’s plan, but he welcomed the fact that someone was taking action. “When Hitler asked me, I answered without hesitation: ‘Yes, I’m with you,’ ” Pöhner testified at Hitler’s trial.60 At 9 a.m., Hitler summoned Hess by telephone and tasked him with arresting all the members of the Bavarian government present in the Bürgerbräukeller. “I assured him with a handshake of my complete discretion, and we parted ways until the evening,” Hess wrote afterwards.61
Around noon, Hitler marched into the offices of the Völkischer Beobachter, “with his riding crop in hand—the very picture of grim determination,” and told the astonished Rosenberg and Hanfstaengl: “The time to act has come…But don’t reveal a word of this to any living soul.” Hitler told them to come to the Bürgerbräukeller that evening and to make sure to bring their pistols.62 In this fashion, the inner circles of the conspiracy were gradually informed about the putsch. Having been pushed forward, the entire undertaking was hasty and improvised. There was no time for intensive preparations, which would be one main reason why the putsch failed.
Even before the official start time of 8 p.m. the Bürgerbräukeller was filled beyond capacity. Outside the doors crowded hundreds of people who had failed to get in. Shortly after Kahr had begun his speech, Hitler rode up in his Mercedes with Alfred Rosenberg, his bodyguard Ulrich Graf and Anton Drexler, who was only told then what was in store. “Best of luck,” the honorary NSDAP chairman is supposed to have remarked drily.63 Seeing the unexpectedly large crowds before the Bürgerbräukeller, Hitler began to fret that his storm troopers would not be able to follow him without inciting a panic that could have doomed the whole endeavour. Spontaneously, Hitler went up to the policemen on duty in front of the venue and ordered them to clear the street. Thus it was that, in the words of Konrad Heiden, “the police cleared the way, on Hitler’s command, for Hitler’s putsch.”64
Soon the first trucks full of armed SA men arrived, and the “Stosstrupp Hitler,” a special troop about one hundred men strong, secured the entrance to the beer hall and surrounded the building. Hitler, dressed in a dark suit for the occasion, entered the foyer, where he paced nervously.65 Finally, at around 8:45 p.m., he smashed a beer glass Hanfstaengl had handed him on the floor, drew his pistol and stormed into the beer hall proper, while at the entrance SA men under the command of Göring took up positions with machine guns. “Obviously you couldn’t just go in with a palm frond,” Hitler said during his trial in an attempt to justify his martial posturing.66 “Pale, a dark lock of hair hanging down his forehead, and with a pistol-wielding storm trooper on either side,” Hitler began to negotiate the clogged way to the stage.67 When he was ten steps away from Kahr, he got up on a chair and fired a shot into the ceiling to quiet the tumult. Then he took the stage and proclaimed excitably: “National revolution is under way. The hall is under the control of 600 heavily armed men. No one is allowed to leave. If things don’t immediately quieten down, I will have a machine gun posted on the gallery. The Bavarian government has been deposed. The Reich government has been deposed. A provisional government has been formed.”68
Hitler then asked Kahr, Lossow and Seisser to accompany him into an adjoining room, guaranteeing their safety. In his unpublished memoirs, Kahr described feeling “anger and disgust,” but he hoped that the police would soon put an end to the entire spectacle. Kahr was playing for time. As they left the main hall, Lossow had whispered “Play along,” and the three men had exchanged glances, agreeing to do precisely that.69 At least that was their official version afterwards. In fact, it is doubtful that the triumvirate spontaneously agreed to play along with Hitler in order to turn on him later. Much to his surprise and despite being as persuasive as he could, Hitler met with resistance in the adjoining room. Sweating, foaming at the mouth and waving his pistol about in excitement, Hitler declared: “No one gets out of this room alive without my permission.” Then he calmed down and apologised for having taken this drastic step, saying he had no choice. “What’s done is done,” Hitler said. “There’s no turning back.” He explained briefly the future make-up of the Bavarian and Reich governments: “Pöhner becomes president with dictatorial powers. You [indicating Kahr] will be Bavarian administrator. Reich government: Hitler. National army: Ludendorff. Seisser: minister of police.” Hitler said he knew how difficult it was for the three men to agree to this plan, but he wanted to make it easier for them to “take the plunge.” He followed that up with a threat: he had four bullets in his gun, three for them and one for himself. Kahr, who was outraged at being treated in such fashion, responded coolly: “You can arrest me, have me shot or shoot me yourself. I don’t care whether I live or die.”70 Ten minutes passed without Hitler making any progress whatsoever.
Outrage was also spreading throughout the beer hall. Many of the respectable Munich citizens in attendance were shocked by what they were experiencing a
nd called out “theatre,” “South America” and “Mexico” to express their dissatisfaction.71 In an attempt to calm things down, Göring took to the stage and told the crowd with his booming military drone that the action was not directed against Kahr. On the contrary, they hoped Kahr would join them. And in any case, Göring added, the people had their beer so they had every reason to be satisfied.72 That snotty remark only enraged the crowd all the more.
Hitler returned to the hall, and what happened next still dumbfounded one of the eyewitnesses, the historian Karl Alexander von Müller, more than forty years later when he wrote his memoirs. Hitler, who had seemed insane to most of the audience only a few minutes before, suddenly mastered the situation. In a short speech—“an oratorical masterpiece that would have done any actor proud,” as Müller described it—Hitler completely turned the mood in the beer hall. “It was like someone turning a glove inside out,” the historian wrote. “It was almost like a bit of hocus-pocus, like a magic trick.” When he was certain he had people on his side, Hitler asked the crowd: “The Herren Kahr, Lossow and Seisser are outside. They’re wrestling with their decision. Can I tell them that you stand behind them?” “Yes! Yes!” Müller reported the crowd echoing from all sides. With a triumphal voice, Hitler got in one last, theatrical line: “Tomorrow will see a German nationalist government, or it will see us dead.”73
Hitler Page 19
