Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  17. Ibid., 558ff.; JK, No. 193.

  18. Ibid., No 194. Eckart claimed in an article in Auf gut deutsch (Heft 5/6, 15 February 21, 65–71), that Hitler’s appearance had been intentionally drowned out by music.

  19. JK, No. 205 and No. 210.

  20. Assessment by JK.

  21. Ibid., No. 116, see also No. 66; Petzold, ‘Class’, No. 6; Ludolf Herbst, Hitlers Charisma. Die Erfindung eines deutschen Messias (Frankfurt a. M., 2010), 115; Karl Alexander von Müller, Wandel, vol. 3, 144: The audience at a Hitler speech in the Löwenbräukeller consisted ‘largely of the downwardly mobile middle class in all its variations’ (refers to 1923).

  22. Police report of the meeting, 5 September 1920, published in Reginald H. Phelps, ‘Hitler als Parteiredner im Jahre 1920’, in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (If Z) 1 (1963), Doc. 13; Peter Longerich, Geschichte der SA (Munich, 2003), 23.

  23. Graf claims that the ‘Security Service’ was established when the Party’s evening meetings were moved from the Sterneckerbräu to the Högerbräu, which in fact happened in the summer/autumn of 1921 (JK, Nos 265 and 301). His aim was to bridge the period during which the Sturmabteilung (SA) (Storm Department), officially established in August 1921, was created from the ‘Sportabteilung’ (‘Sports Department’) (If Z F 14, Wie ich den Führer kennenlernte, 19 August 1934). On his background and career see Joachimsthaler, Weg, 277; Albrecht Tyrell (ed.), Führer befiehl . . . Selbstzeugnisse aus der ‘Kampfzeit’ der NSDAP, Dokumentation und Analyse (Düsseldorf, 1969), 23.

  24. SAM, PolDir. 10172 (Weber file), contains details of numerous investigations concerning his NSDAP activities. See, in particular, the interrogation of 18 May 1923. See also SAM, SprkAkte K 1910, Verdict of 20 February 1948; VB (Bayern), 25 August 1933, ‘Pg. Christian Weber, der unerschrockene Kämpfer’; Thomas von Berg, Korruption und Bereicherung. Politische Biographie des Münchner NSDAP-Fraktionsvorsitzenden Christian Weber (1883–1945) (Munich, 2003); Markus Schiefer, ‘Vom “Blauen Bock” in die Residenz’, in Marita Krauss (ed.), Rechte Karrieren in München. Von der Weimarer Zeit bis in die Nachkriegsjahre (Munich, 2010).

  25. SAM, SprkAkte K 1131, Protocol of the session on 13 May 1948.

  26. Rudolf Hess, Briefe 1908–1933 (Munich, 1987), Nos 280, 265; Erich Ludendorff, Vom Feldherrn zum Weltrevolutionär und Wegbereiter deutscher Volksschöpfung, vol. 1 (Munich, 1934), 161; Thoss, Ludendorff-Kreis, 257; Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (ed.), Karl Haushofer. Leben und Werk, vol. 1 (Boppard am Rhein, 1979), 225ff.

  27. Heinz Kurz, former leader of the Kampfbund Thule, recalled in 1975, that Hess checked the applicants to the Kampfbund and later those to the Free Corps Oberland (interview in Gilbhard, Thule-Gesellschaft, Appendix. In a letter to his parents of 18 May 1919 Hess described his participation in the uprising against the councils’ regime on 1 May (Hess, Briefe). Wulf Schwarzwäller, Rudolf Hess. Der Stellvertreter (Munich, 1987), 64ff., contains a number of details on Hess’s conspiratorial activity for the Thule, but without evidence. On the audience with Kahr see Speckner, Ordnungszelle, 205; on the Hess letter to Kahr see Deuerlein, Aufstieg), 132ff.

  28. Stephen G. North, Rudolf Hess. A Political Biography (Saarbrücken, 2010), 62ff.; Kurt Pätzold and Manfred Weissbecker, Rudolf Hess. Der Mann an Hitlers Seite (Leipzig, 1999), 34ff.

  29. On the circle around Scheubner-Richter see Michael Kellogg, The Russian Roots of Nazism. White Emigrés and the Making of National Socialism, 1917–1945 (Cambridge, 2005), esp. 41f., 79ff., 111f., and 122ff.; on the Russian emigrés in Munich see Johannes Baur, Die russische Kolonie in München 1900–1945: Deutsch-russische Beziehungen im 20. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1998) (on Scheubner-Richter esp. 253ff.); Ernst Piper, Alfred Rosenberg. Hitlers Chefideologe (Munich, 2005), 55ff.; Karsten Brüggemann, ‘Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter (1884–1923) – der Führer des “Führers”?’in Michael Gerleff (ed.), Deutschbalten, Weimarer Republik und Drittes Reich, vol. 1 (Cologne, 2001). The personal histories of Kursell, Rosenberg, Scheubner-Richter, and Schickedanz are brought together in Album Rubonorum 1875–1972 (Neustadt a. d. Aisch, 1972). See also Otto von Kursell, Erinnerungen an Dr. Max von Scheubner-Richter (Munich, 1969).

  30. Tyrell, Trommler, 96f.; JK, No. 129ff.

  31. Letter to Riehl, 19 January 1921, in Alexander Schilling, Dr. Walter Riehl und die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus (Leipzig, 1933), 266.

  32. Tyrell, Trommler, 103ff.; JK, No. 262, refers to this event.

  33. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 285.

  34. Tyrell, Trommler, 110ff.

  35. Ibid., 122f. The resignation statement is in JK, No. 262, with a detailed justification of his decision.

  36. For details see ibid.

  37. According to the persuasive analysis in Tyrell (Trommler, esp. 122f.), who rejects contrary interpretations in the older literature. See also Kershaw, Hitler, 1, 211.

  38. MK, 658f.

  39. JK, No. 262.

  40. SAM, PolDir. 6778, Written statement by the committee, 5 July 1921.

  41. Tyrell, Trommler, S. 129; Pamphlet: Deuerlein, Aufstieg‚ 138ff., quote, 138.

  42. SAM, PolDir. 6778, Note about the two visitors of 15 July 1921.

  43. JK, No. 267.

  44. Tyrell, Trommler, 129ff.; JK, No. 270.

  45. For the statutes see Tyrell (ed.), Führer, No. 9; for their interpretation see Tyrell, Trommler, 132ff.

  46. On Weber see Berg, Korruption, 19f.; SAM, PolDir. 10172. On Amann: SAM, PolDir.6784, Amann statement, 27 December 1928, to the magistrates’ court in Munich, according to which he joined the Party in August 1921.

  47. RSA 4/1, Doc. 61. The rental agreement, dated 22 December 1919, for the ‘Reichsrätezimmer’ in the Sterneckerbräu; one of the signatures is Hitler’s (BAB, NS 26/80).

  48. VB, 4 August 1921.

  49. Ibid., 11 August 1921.

  50. Leicht, Class, 290.

  51. Fenske, Konservatismus, 143ff.; Horst Nusser, Konservative Wehrverbände in Bayern, Preußen, und Österreich 1918–1933 (Munich, 1973), 215ff.

  52. SAM, PolDir. 6804, Membership list.

  53. For the early history of the SA and the agreement between Hitler and Ehrhardt see Longerich, Geschichte, 22ff.; Andreas Werner, ‘SA und NSDAP: “Wehrverband”, “Parteitruppe”, oder “Revolutionsarmee”? Studien zur Geschichte der SA und der NSDAP 1920–1933’, Dissertation Erlangen-Nürnberg, 1965, 38ff.

  54. Fenske, Konservatismus, 169f.; Ernst Rudolf Huber, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789 vol. 7 (Stuttgart, 1984), 206ff.; Gerhard Schulz, Die Periode der Konsolidierung und Revision des Bismarckschen Reichsaufbaus 1919–1930, 2nd edn (Berlin/New York, 1987), 364ff.

  55. Martin H. Geyer, Verkehrte Welt. Revolution, Inflation und Moderne. München 1914–1924 (Göttingen, 1998), 175f.

  56. JK, Nos 274 and 280.

  57. Fenske, Konservatismus, 170.

  58. Kershaw, Hitler, 1, 225f. See, for example, JK, Nos 361f. and 376.

  59. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 145f.

  60. VB, 1 October 1921.

  61. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 146f.

  62. JK, No. 308.

  63. Ibid., No. 313f. MK, 563ff., with a detailed account of the pub brawl.

  64. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 147ff.

  65. Hitler, Monologe, 30 January 1942.

  66. VB, 15 March 1922 asserts that, in response to a question from the Independent Socialist, Ernst Niekisch, Schweyer had announced that the Bavarian government was considering Hitler’s deportation. On his sentence see Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 150f.; Kershaw, Hitler, 1, 224f.

  67. JK, No. 352.

  68. Ibid., Nos 350f. and 352 (for the quote). See also No. 347.

  69. Douglas, Ortsgruppen, 123, 166ff. and 202f.

  70. Madden, Composition, 77 and 86.

  71. JK, No. 347.

  72. Ibid., No. 353.

  73. Julius K. Engelbrechten and Hans Volz, Wir wandern durch das nationalsozialistische Berlin (Munich, 1937), 52, a revised version of a report by Fritz Geisler; for the more detailed original see BAB, R 43 II
/883a, 9 October 1936. See also JK, No. 330.

  74. BAB, R 8048/208, Class to Hitler, 11 Mai 1922, published in Petzold, ‘Class’, Doc. 6.

  75. BAB, NS 26/1223, Invitation, 26 May 1922, published in Joachimsthaler, Weg, 278. On Emil Gansser see ibid., 369f.; Henry Ashby Turner, Die Großunternehmer und der Aufstieg Hitlers (Berlin, 1985), 68f.

  76. The report of this speech comes from an account based on recollections by Fritz Geisler (a shortened version [BAB, R 43 II/883a], published in JK, No. 387; for a longer version see Engelbrechten and Volz, Wir wandern, 53 (quote)).

  77. For the content of the second speech see ibid., 54; on Burhenne see BAB, NS 26/1223, Letters to Burhenne 8 March, 2 August and 1 December 1922, published in Gossweiler, Kapital, 558ff.

  78. Turner, Großunternehmer, 70f.

  79. BAB, R 8048/No. 208, also published in Petzold, ‘Class’, Doc. 9, with the note ‘150.000’.

  80. BHStA, MA 10374, Committee of Investigation, 87f. (Statement by Hermann Aust, 15 January1924); SAM, PolDir. 6784, Copy of a statement by Aust, 16 February 1929, to the Munich magistrates’ court. See also Turner, Großunternehmer, 69.

  81. Engelbrechten and Volz, Wir wandern, 54.

  82. Tyrell, ed., Führer, No. 14.

  83. SAM, PolDir. 6697, Statement by Weber, 10 January 1924, in which, as former head of the NSDAP’s transport department, he comments on the Party’s use of motor vehicles. PolDir.6804 contains further material on the transport department. On the use of motor vehicles by the early NSDAP see Joachimsthaler, Weg, 301f.

  84. Adolf Hitler, Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen: Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933, 17 vols (Munich, 1992–2003) (RSA) 4/1, Doc. 61.

  85. Ernst Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters (Munich, 1970), 52ff.

  86. JK, No. 269.

  87. In the anonymous pamphlet ‘Adolf Hitler – Verräter?’, published in Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 238f.

  88. JK, Nos 329 and 269. See Tyrell, Trommler, 209; Kershaw, Hitler, 1, 20 (quote).

  The March to the Hitler Putsch

  1. Hans Fenske, Konservatismus, 179ff.; Gerhard Schulz, Periode, 374ff.; Ernst Rudolf Huber, Verfassungsgeschichte, 249ff.

  2. JK, No. 399; Münchener Neueste Nachrichten (MNN) 17 August 1922: ‘Bayern und das Reich’. At an internal Party meeting following the demonstration Hitler expressed his ‘satisfaction at the successful demonstration’. See JK, No. 400. See also Kershaw, Hitler, 1, 226.

  3. Fenske, Konservatismus, 179ff.; Ernst Deuerlein (ed.), Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8/9 November 1923 (Stuttgart, 1962) 40ff. The MNN, 25–27 August 1922, reported on the ‘evening demonstration’ but nothing about the plans for a putsch.

  4. Kershaw, Hitler, 1, 226f.; JK, No. 403. On 27 February 1925, Hitler declared in the Pittinger slander trial at the magistrates’ court in Munich: ‘I’m prepared to prove that Herr Pittinger tried to do the same thing in 1922 that we failed to bring off in 1923.’ See RSA 2, Doc. 3.

  5. Published in Franz Menges, Hans Schmelzle, Bayerischer Staatsrat im Ministerium des Äußeren und Finanzminister. Eine politische Biographie mit Quellenanhang (Munich, 1972) 221ff.; see also Geyer, Verkehrte Welt, 319ff.

  6. Kershaw, Hitler, 1, 227f.; Andreas Werner, SA, 57ff.; Longerich, Geschichte, 29; JK, No. 410; MK, 614ff.

  7. Rainer Hambrecht, Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in Mittel- und Oberfranken 1925–1933 (Nuremberg, 1976), 34f.

  8. J. Paul Madden, ‘Composition’, 93, has 7,768 members for September 1922 and estimates the number at the beginning of 1923 as 8,100.

  9. Douglas, Ortsgruppen, Lists, 229f. and 262f.

  10. Fenske, Konservatismus, 165ff.

  11. JK, No. 418; Kurt G. W. Lüdecke, I Knew Hitler. The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Purge (London, 1938), 110.

  12. Werner, SA, 61f.

  13. JK, Nos 439–448.

  14. Ibid, No. 449; Longerich, Geschichte, 30.

  15. Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik. Die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933 (Munich, 1968), 214ff.; Klaus Schreiner, ‘“Wann kommt der Retter Deutschlands?” Formen und Funktionen von politischem Messianismus in der Weimarer Republik’, in Saeculum 49 (1998), 107–60.

  16. Aufbau, No. 21, 11 September 1919.

  17. Auf gut deutsch 40/41, 5 December 1919, 613f.

  18. VB, 8 November 1923.

  19. Refers to the meeting of 30 November.

  20. Kurt Pätzold and Manfred Weissbecker, Rudolf Hess. Der Mann an Hitlers Seite (Leipzig, 1999), Doc. 3.

  21. Auf gut deutsch 44/45, 30 December 1919.

  22. Henry A. Turner, Großunternehmer, 74ff.; Georg Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 266ff.

  23. This is clear from a remark by Ernst Hanfstaengl in Hanfstaengl, Haus, 65.

  24. Hitler, Monologe, 16/17 January 1942; Turner, Großunternehmer, 68.

  25. Text of the agreement (‘in private hands’), published in Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 289f. with the wrong spelling of the name as ‘Frank’. Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (BHStA), MA 10374, Committee of Inquiry, 89 (Bechstein statement). Bechstein in the Hitler trial: Hitler und Kahr 2, 102; Hanfstaengl, Haus, 76; Anton Joachimsthaler, Hitlers Liste. Ein Dokument persönlicher Beziehungen (Munich, 2003), 63f.

  26. BHStA, MA 10374, Committee of Inquiry, 77ff.

  27. SAM, PolDir. 6784, copy of the statement by Gertrud von Seidlitz, 2 February 1929 to the Munich magistrates’ court. BHStA, MA 10374, Committee of Inquiry, 89f.; Joachimsthaler, Liste, 136ff.

  28. Turner, Großunternehmer, 443; BHStA, MA 10374, Committee of Inquiry, 90.

  29. Lüdecke, Hitler, 71ff.

  30. Ibid., 137ff.

  31. On the suspicion of spying see RSA 3/3, Doc. 13; Deuerlein (ed.), Hitler-Putsch, 546ff.

  32. Arthur L. Smith, ‘Kurt Lüdecke. “The Man who Knew Hitler” ’, in German Studies Review 26/3 (2003), 597–606. On the relationship between Hitler and Lüdecke see also the (admittedly very speculative) account in Lothar Machtan, Hitlers Geheimnis. Das Doppelleben eines Diktators (Berlin, 2001), 305ff.

  33. Hanfstaengl, Haus, 43ff.

  34. Ibid., 59f. and 187f. The agreement was presented to the Bavarian Landtag’s committee of enquiry (BHStA, MA 10374, S. 113f.).

  35. Joachimsthaler, Liste, 301ff.

  36. Friedrich Percyval Reck-Malleczewen, Tagebuch eines Verzweifelten, new edn (Stuttgart, 1966), 226ff.

  37. Müller, Wandel, 129.

  38. Hanfstaengl, Haus, e.g., 44f., 48f., and 70ff.

  39. Rudolf Herz, Hoffmann & Hitler. Fotografie als Medium des Führer-Mythos (Munich, 1994), esp. 26ff. and 92ff. See also Das Hitler-Bild. Die Erinnerungen des Fotografen Heinrich Hoffmann (St Polten, 2008), which the journalist Joe Heydecker wrote after conversations with Hoffmann and was first published in 1954 in the Münchener Illustrierte. What purported to be memoirs of Hoffmann, who had died in 1957, appeared in 1974 under the title ‘Hitler, wie ich ihn sah’.

  40. Herz, Hoffmann, 92ff.

  41. Hitler, Monologe, 20 August 1942; Anton Joachimsthaler (ed.), Christa Schroeder, Er war mein Chef. Aus dem Nachlass der Sekretärin von Adolf Hitler (Munich, 1983), 55; Hanfstaengl, Haus, 174.

  42. Hitler-Bild, 157.

  43. Hanfstaengl, Haus, 49ff.

  44. Engelman, Eckart.; Plewnia, Weg, 88ff.

  45. Schroeder, Chef, 6ff.; Hitler, Monologe, contains numerous recollections of Eckart, e.g. 16/17 January 1942.

  46. Fenske, Konservatismus, 185.

  47. JK, No. 464.

  48. Ibid., No. 466, also No. 465. In No. 484 Hitler describes the negotiations from his point of view.

  49. Ernst Röhm, Die Geschichte eines Hochverräters (Munich, 1934), 164f.

  50. Reports on the twelve appearances in JK, Nos 467–478.

  51. Ibid., Nos 463 and 479.

  52. Ibid., Nos 480–483. On the Party Rally see Kershaw, Hitler, 1, 244f.; Werner, SA, 69ff.; VB, 31 January 1923: ‘Deutschland erwache!’.

 
53. Röhm, Geschichte, 167.

  54. On the military training by the Reichswehr see also Hitler’s 1924 statement in Lothar Gruchmann and Reinhard Weber (eds), Der Hitler-Prozess 1924. Wortlaut der Hauptverhandlung vor dem Volksgericht München, vol. 1 (Munich, 1997), 188. Fenske, Konservatismus, 185ff.

  55. Hitler recalled details during the war. See Monologe, 16/17 January 1942.

  56. Alfred Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz. Hermann Göring im Dritten Reich (Munich, 1986), 8f.; Hanfstaengl, Haus, 88ff.

  57. Fanny Gräfin von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Carin Göring (Berlin, 1934), 58f. Apart from Hitler, the author cites as guests Dietrich Eckart, Hermann Esser, and Ernst Hanfstaengl.

  58. Werner, SA, 72ff.; Longerich, Geschichte, 34.

  59. Bruno Thoss, Der Ludendorff-Kreis 1919–1923. München als Zentrum der mitteleuropäischen Gegenrevolution zwischen Revolution und Hitler-Putsch (Munich, 1978), 281f.; Röhm, Geschichte, 180f.; Hitler-Prozeß, 188 (Hitler statement). Hitler can, however, be shown to have been in Munich on this day (  JK, No. 493).

  60. Hitler-Prozeß, 681 (Hitler statement).

  61. Werner, SA, 103ff.; Longerich, Geschichte, 35f.

  62. JK, No. 524.

  63. Lothar Gruchmann, ‘Hitlers Denkschrift an die bayerische Justiz zum 16. Mai 1923. Ein verloren geglaubtes Dokument’, in VjZ 39 (1991), 305–38.

  64. Geyer, Welt, 321ff.

  65. On the 1923 crisis see among others Schulz, Periode, 404ff.; Fenske, Konservatismus, 207ff.; Heinrich August Winkler, Von der Revolution zur Stabilisierung. Arbeiter und Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimarer Republik 1918 bis 1924 (Berlin, 1984), 505ff.

  66. Thoss, Ludendorff-Kreis, 316ff.; Werner, SA, 123ff.

  67. Ibid., 134ff.

  68. On the pre-history of the putsch see Harold J. Gordon, Hitlerputsch 1923. Machtkampf in Bayern 1923–1924 (Munich, 1978), 193ff.

  69. Deuerlein (ed.), Hitler-Putsch, Doc. 16; Geyer, Welt, 338.

  70. Ibid., 340f.

  71. Ibid., 342ff.

  72. JK, No. 572.

  73. Gordon, Hitlerputsch, 206ff.; Fenske, Konservatismus, 207ff.

  74. Gordon, Hitlerputsch, 224ff.

  75. Ibid., 210ff.; Deuerlein (ed.), Hitler-Putsch, Doc. 42. On Ehrhardt’s role and on the border defence operation see Wilhelm Hoegner, Hitler und Kahr. Die bayerischen Napoleonsgrössen von 1923. Ein im Untersuchungsausschuss des bayerischen Landtages aufgedeckter Justizskandal (Munich, 1928), 20ff.