We were loaded on trucks for the short drive away from the center of town across the Isar River to the huge beer hall. Hitler had already arrived in his red Mercedes, along with several members of his entourage. We followed shortly afterward, arriving at the hall but remaining in the trucks. At the signal from our officers, we jumped out and surrounded the building. I looked at the fear in the eyes of the regular police who were supposed to be maintaining order, and I immediately felt sure they’d do nothing. They meekly let us through, and we marched into the building.
We pushed our way into a huge, noisy hall; a couple thousand people must have been there. Von Kahr was speaking from the platform at the front of the cavernous room. I could hear him droning on but couldn’t make out his words. People were drinking beer, laughing and largely ignoring the proceedings. “One billion marks,” I heard one of them complaining. “Could you have ever imagined that we’d be paying one billion marks for a mug of beer?”
Hitler was suddenly standing in front of us. I had become used to his unusual appearance, but that evening I was startled. It wasn’t just his black morning coat with long tails that made him look more like a waiter than a revolutionary, despite the Iron Cross he had pinned to its breast. It was the unnerving movement of his eyes as they darted about the hall. He saw us, but I felt he was looking through us or not focusing at all. But he must have been emboldened by our presence, because he abruptly waded into the crowd as we formed a phalanx behind him.
We didn’t get very far. The crowd pressed together, blocking our progress, and the room became even noisier as people began to notice us. Hitler jumped onto a chair and waved his pistol in the air. “Quiet!” he shouted. To no avail. Then he fired a shot at the ceiling. “The national revolution has begun!” he declared in a quivering voice.
The room fell silent, with the beer drinkers looking on in bewilderment. I tried to project a look of confidence, but I felt as shaky as Hitler seemed. The sweat pouring down his face didn’t help steady my nerves. But I stood as rigidly as I could.
Hitler ordered the triumvirate on the platform to follow him into a side room. At first they didn’t move. Hitler assured them and the crowd that they were in no danger and could work everything out in ten minutes of discussion. Still they sat there. Hitler began pushing his way toward the leaders, with our phalanx right behind him. Von Kahr was the first to get up, and the others slowly followed. Hitler turned to us. “The first six men, come with me,” he ordered. I was the sixth man.
We entered a side room where Hitler invited the leaders to sit down at a large table. The six of us stood at attention along the wall.
Hitler began on a conciliatory note, asking forgiveness for breaking his word that he would not try to stage a putsch on his own. The crisis in Germany was too severe to be ignored. The time for action had come, he told them. Once he had taken power, they would all hold top positions: Von Kahr would become regent of Bavaria; von Lossow would become minister of the army; and von Seisser would be head of the national police.
Seeing that the three men remained unmoved, Hitler pulled out his pistol again. This time he pressed it against his head. “Nobody is leaving,” he announced. “If I fail today, I have exactly the number of bullets I need—four. Three for you and one for me.”
I was amazed to see von Kahr shrug. “What difference would our deaths make?” he asked.
The three men looked uncertain what to do next, as did Hitler. “Good, so it’s decided: We’ll go back into the hall,” he said after an awkward pause.
What was decided, I wondered. But I didn’t have time to figure it out. Instead, the six of us led Hitler and the Bavarians into the hall as he had ordered.
The room was once again noisily chaotic. The drinkers obviously had had enough time to regain their courage, and many of them hissed and jeered when they saw us. Looking more confident, Hitler ignored them and announced from the platform that he expected total silence. “Otherwise I’ll order a machine gun placed in the gallery,” he declared.
Then he began working his magic. He announced the roles he had assigned to the Bavarian leaders, who stood behind him without objecting. The crowd now assumed they were all in on the plan together. For good measure, Hitler announced that General Ludendorff—who had just arrived—would command the army. And, he promised, once he had assembled his national government, they would march on Berlin. “We will save the German people!” he shouted. “We will save the German nation!”
The crowd was already with him. Knowing he had won them over, he harked back to how he had been blinded in a gas attack at the end of the war: “I am going to fulfill the vow I made five years ago when I was a blind cripple in the military hospital: to know neither rest nor peace until the November criminals have been overthrown, until on the wretched Germany of today there arises once more a Germany of power and greatness, of freedom and splendor.”
The crowd was applauding wildly. I stood even straighter, convinced that I’d be marching through the Brandenburg Gate in a matter of days.
—
Things quickly began to go wrong. I had heard Hitler and the others talking about SA troops entering the city, but there was total confusion about where they were supposed to go. Shortly after his speech, Hitler rushed out to deal with some kind of dispute that had arisen when one of the storm-trooper units had tried to occupy a barracks that housed engineers. He left Ludendorff in charge at the beer hall, and the audience began streaming out. When Hitler returned half an hour later, he was shocked to discover that von Kahr, von Lossow and von Seisser had been allowed to slip away as well.
“How could you let them leave?” he snapped at Ludendorff.
The proud general drew himself up and shot Hitler a disdainful look. “They gave us their word that they are with us. There’s no danger.”
More of our troops arrived. I saw one SA unit shoving a group of frightened Jews into the beer hall’s cellar. They had been caught putting up posters for the Social Democrats, and a couple of them were also carrying prayer books from a local synagogue—proof enough of Hitler’s charge that the Jews were behind the government we hated.
Most of them went quietly, but one young man protested, screaming at his captors to let him and the others go. A huge sergeant kicked him hard in the shins, then—as the man bent over to grab his leg—brought a fist up squarely into his descending face. The man tottered backward into the arms of a private, who roughly dragged him down into the cellar along with the others.
I looked away. I felt squeamish, but I didn’t want to show it. Seeing Ludendorff and Hitler across the room, I got closer. The general was ordering one of his men to telephone von Lossow or von Seisser, but they were nowhere to be found. Hitler left, saying he needed to check on what was happening elsewhere.
It was after midnight, and officers from other units came in seeking orders, but no one knew what to tell them. They brought disturbing reports of telegrams from the triumvirate denouncing the putsch, explaining that they had been forced into the apparent approval at gunpoint and that they were ordering government troops into the city to stop us. I felt uneasy. It was one thing to talk about a triumphant march to Berlin with the backing of all the patriotic forces; it was quite another to contemplate an actual battle with the local troops and police.
I dozed fitfully as we sat in the beer hall awaiting orders. Early in the morning, we drank lukewarm coffee and munched on some bread and cheese. Then it was out into the cold again, another gray uninviting day. “Shit, I don’t like this,” Uwe complained, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “It doesn’t feel right.” I tried to laugh it off. “You’re always the pessimist,” I replied. But I was trying to convince myself as much as him.
We clambered aboard our truck and drove a short distance, only to stop on a largely deserted street and wait for further orders. The wait stretched into several chilly hours. I rubbed my hands and jiggled my legs but couldn’t generate any warmth. At one point a breathless messenger shouted that we w
ere supposed to help free Captain Röhm’s unit, which had taken over the local military headquarters only to be surrounded by government troops. But then another messenger delivered an order to wait.
Finally, our drivers turned on their engines and deposited us back at the beer hall. By then the area was swarming with storm troopers, and I could see Ludendorff and Hitler talking and gesturing. We were once again ordered to be ready to march right behind Hitler. As I came closer to the two leaders, I heard Ludendorff explaining that the army would never turn against him.
“Time to march,” Hitler ordered.
We quickly formed up, parade-style. Hitler and Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, his closest aide, and Ludendorff made up the front row, along with Hitler’s bodyguard Ulrich Graf and the air force captain Hermann Göring in a long leather coat. As the most experienced SA unit, we marched behind them. Other units followed, but they were a less than impressive sight. Everyone had swastika armbands, but many of them wore only bits and pieces of old war uniforms.
We numbered a couple thousand in all. As we set out across the Ludwig Bridge, where a police unit quickly backed down, clusters of onlookers waved swastika flags and cheered us on.
About fifteen minutes later, we reached the Marienplatz, where a bigger crowd awaited us and our Nazi flag was flying from the city hall. There was even a bit of singing, and the mood felt better than at any time since the night before. But when I looked at Hitler in his trench coat, I saw that none of the tension had drained from his face. He was pale, and his eyes once again seemed to be looking through rather than at the people around him. He seemed uncertain of what to do next.
But Ludendorff never hesitated. He turned right, marching away from the Marienplatz in the direction of the Odeonplatz. Beyond that was the military headquarters where Captain Röhm’s troops were surrounded. As we squeezed together up the narrow Residenzstrasse, I caught a glimpse of police with their guns at the ready. The familiar knot formed in my gut.
Hitler was walking arm in arm with Scheubner-Richter. A police captain gave the order to his men to move forward. I heard a single shot, I wasn’t sure from where, and then several volleys. Everyone was pushing to get out of the claustrophobic street, and I found myself sprawled on the pavement. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” Uwe shouted, and he yanked me back up before turning and running.
As I steadied myself, I looked to where Hitler had been standing. Scheubner-Richter was lying on the street dead, along with several other people. Ludendorff was still marching straight into the police cordon, where he was immediately arrested. As for Hitler, I caught sight of him holding his arm as if injured, then scrambling away with Graf and one of our medical officers.
I took off after them, figuring I should help if I could. But when they reached Max Joseph Platz, Hitler’s car was waiting, and he jumped in, followed by Graf; the medical officer rode on the sideboard, his pistol at the ready. As they roared off, I stood there, still shaken. It wasn’t just the gunfire, the confusion and the dead bodies. It was as much the sight of our leader fleeing as soon as those first shots were fired. Instead of leading a successful putsch, he had led us into a disaster and then run at the first opportunity.
I heard another burst of gunfire from the vicinity of Marienplatz. I turned and ran in the opposite direction.
Chapter Five
What if the shot that felled Scheubner-Richter had hit Hitler instead? What if Hitler had been blinded permanently in the poison-gas attack during the war? The what ifs have driven me nearly crazy as I’ve served my seven years here. Not so much what any of them would have meant for the party, but for Geli. And, of course, for me, for my life. I know it doesn’t make sense to think in those terms. Once my mind gets going about this, it’s off and running on its own, and I can’t do anything to stop it. I’m tormented by those thoughts as I follow my mindless prison routine and, even at night , I wake up with the same thoughts. What if, what if, what if . . .
My return to Berlin was not at all as I had envisaged it. Instead of a triumphant entry as part of a victorious army, I arrived alone, frightened, more uncertain of my future than ever.
In Munich after the debacle of the putsch, I had hidden in Sabine’s apartment for several days, not knowing how extensive the manhunt was for anyone associated with it. Sabine brought me the news that Hitler had been caught and arrested two days later in Uffing, about fifty kilometers south of Munich. He hadn’t been wounded in the brief exchange of shots that had killed fourteen Nazis and four policemen, but he had dislocated his left shoulder, probably when his bodyguard yanked him to the ground. There were stories, too, of my panicked SA comrades burying or even destroying their weapons—in one case, smashing their rifles against trees. I found all this hard to believe, harder still to imagine how we could recover from such a defeat.
When I took the train to Berlin, nervously eyeing anybody in uniform, the socialist papers were proclaiming the end of the Nazi movement. One, which I picked up off the seat, quoted The New York Times: “The Munich putsch definitely eliminates Hitler and his National Socialist followers.” That meant me, I thought gloomily, and everything that I had been fighting for during the last three years. What was I going to do now?
Sabine didn’t come right out and say it, but I knew she was secretly relieved by our defeat, hoping it meant I would put away my uniform and my fantasy about marching to Berlin and overthrowing the government. When Otto Strasser sent a message asking me to come to Berlin both for my own safety and to consult with him, she wholeheartedly supported the idea. She was worried that I was still in danger in Munich, and she knew from what I had told her earlier that Otto was no fanatical supporter of Hitler. He had expressed misgivings from the beginning, and in his occasional letters, he had sounded skeptical about my glowing accounts. At heart, Otto remained a socialist. And while he was impressed by Hitler’s ability to appeal to the workers and the unemployed, he was troubled by the highly visible flirtation with the rich and powerful—the big industrialists and others who provided financial support.
I wrote a cryptic reply to Otto saying only that I’d see him soon. So when my train pulled into the Anhalter Station in Berlin on a cold November morning, I wasn’t sure yet where I wanted to go. Straight to Otto for what would undoubtedly be an accounting of what happened in Munich? I wanted to see him, hoping to find some guidance there, but I also didn’t feel quite ready to rehash our defeat. Or should I follow Sabine’s advice and head for my mother’s apartment, finally putting her fears to rest that I had disappeared altogether? But what would I say to her—how would I explain my long disappearance? It would have been one thing to do so as part of a victorious army, but now what did I have to offer as justification? Here I was back in the city of the Versailles government, as Hitler always called it, and I felt only anger at myself and my powerlessness.
I took to the streets, staying away from Neukölln, where I had grown up and where I feared I might encounter the same former classmates I had earlier envisaged applauding my glorious return. I headed instead for the downtown areas, what I remembered as the exotic world of fancy shops, theaters and restaurants. But the reality was harsh. I stepped around war veterans missing arms or legs, either begging or selling matches. Sabine had given me some money for the trip, and I handed a few thousand marks to a couple of them, but I soon realized that I had to spend it on my own needs—and fast. It was dwindling in value every hour that it was in my small bag. In Berlin, I quickly learned, prices were increasingly expressed in anything other than money. Passing a theater, I was startled to see a sign announcing: ORCHESTRA STALLS: THE SAME PRICE AS HALF A POUND OF BUTTER. REAR STALLS: TWO EGGS.
I would see my mother later, I told myself, even if it meant finding some other place to stay. I decided on an initial investment: I paid an old woman who owned a grimy pension—a three-room apartment in Wedding where she packed in whatever visitors she could—for a couple of nights and meals in advance. As soon as I handed her the payment, she
plopped down my dinner, a bowl of cabbage soup, and rushed out to buy more cabbage and potatoes before the cash became worthless.
My room was no more than a closet, and its small window looked out at the gray wall of the building next door. Although it was early afternoon as I settled in, it was almost dark inside. I lay back on the cot, shivering, and pulled a filthy blanket over me. This wasn’t much better than when I had lived on the streets and slept in stairways before joining the SA and becoming part of a group that cared for its own.
I must have drifted off to sleep for some time, because when I awoke the room was completely dark. I threw off the blanket and went out. It was early evening, and I headed back toward the city center where I could at least watch the wealthier Berliners on their way to the shops, restaurants and cafés. I had a strong urge to get as far away from my lodgings as I could.
I didn’t want to pay for the tram, so I walked all the way to the Kurfürstendamm, where I knew the rich would still be at play. There were even more women and young girls out on the sidewalk than before, hoping to attract the attention of the well-dressed men leaving the restaurants or cafés. A couple of them gave me a perfunctory look but recognized another hard-luck case and didn’t waste time propositioning me.
About halfway up the Kurfürstendamm, I hesitated in front of a bar. The clientele didn’t look wealthy, but I knew I couldn’t afford to squander whatever cash I had left on a beer. Still, I was tempted and stood there for several minutes. Finally, I turned away just as a redheaded woman stepped outside.
“Karl?” she asked. “Karl, my God, is that you? I haven’t seen you in years.”
I turned back. It took me a moment to identify the thickly powdered face, still young but sallow and defiant in a way I didn’t remember, the dark brown eyes much wearier. “Ulrike, I’m sorry—I didn’t recognize you,” I stammered. “I mean, you look great, all grown up.”
Last Stop Vienna Page 8
