Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

by Ian Kershaw

  VI

  Crisis was Hitler’s oxygen. He needed it to survive. And the deteriorating conditions in Germany (with their distinctive flavour in Bavaria) as summer turned to autumn, and the currency collapsed totally under the impact of the ‘passive resistance’ policy, guaranteed an increasing appeal for Hitler’s brand of agitation. By the time he took over the political leadership of the Kampfbund, Germany’s searing crisis was heading for its denouement.

  By 13 August, when the leader of the DVP Gustav Stresemann – former ardent monarchist and wartime annexationist turned pragmatic Republican – replaced Cuno as Reich Chancellor, taking over the Foreign Ministry at the same time – it was obvious that passive resistance by the shaky Republic had to be ended. It was an inevitable capitulation to the French. The country was bankrupt, its currency ruined. Inflation had gone into a dizzy tailspin. Where there had been 4.20 Marks to the dollar on the eve of the First World War, there were 17,972 Marks in January 1923, 4,620,455 Marks in August, 98,860,000 Marks in September, 25,260,280,000 in October, and a barely credible 4,200,000 million Marks by 15 November. By mid-September, a kilo of butter was costing 168 million Marks. For Nazi Party members, buying the Völkischer Beobachter on the day of the putsch cost 5,000 million Marks.199

  Speculators and profiteers thrived. But the material consequences of the hyper-inflation for ordinary people were devastating, the psychological effects incalculable. Savings of a lifetime were wiped out within hours. Insurance policies were not worth the paper they were written on. Those with pensions and fixed incomes saw their only source of support dissolve into worthlessness. Workers were initially less badly hit. Employers, eager to prevent social unrest, agreed with trade unions to index wages to living costs. Even so, it was little wonder that the massive discontent brought sharp political radicalization on the Left as well as on the Right. Communist-inspired strikes rocked the country in the summer. The entry of the Social Democrats into the Stresemann ‘grand coalition’ had a temporary calming effect on the working class, which remained despite the radicalization for the most part loyal to the SPD. But for nationalists, not least in Bavaria, this was seen as another provocation. On the Left, overestimating their strength and potential, the Communists planned revolutionary uprisings in Thuringia and Saxony after they had quite legally entered the governments of these states. In Hamburg, where the local party was thirsting for action and keen to become the centre of the German revolution, a short-lived rising – manifesting itself mainly in attacks on police stations – did actually take place between 23 and 26 October. It ended bloodily: twenty-four Communists and seventeen policemen were left its victims.200 In central Germany, the Reich government moved swiftly. By the end of October, any danger of Communist insurgency had been suppressed by the Reichswehr, sent in by the Reich government with an alacrity not shown against the extreme Right.201 The Thuringian government yielded; the Communist ministers withdrew from government. In Saxony, where the state government refused to disband the paramilitary units that had been set up, a show of force was needed. Twenty-three persons were left dead and thirty-one injured in one Saxon town when troops opened fire on demonstrators. There was shooting in a number of other towns. The elected government was deposed, allegedly at gunpoint.202 The proclaimed threat from the Left had fizzled out at the first show of government force. The failure of the KPD’s planned ‘German October’ did not, however, prevent the extreme Right, especially in Bavaria, continuing to use the ‘red threat’ in Middle Germany as a pretext for schemes to march on Berlin.

  Bavaria’s immediate response to the ending of passive resistance on 26 September was to proclaim a state of emergency and make Gustav Ritter von Kahr General State Commissar with near-dictatorial powers. Knilling hoped to take the wind out of Hitler’s sails by putting the so-called Bavarian strong man Kahr in charge.203 The reaction of the NSDAP indicated that the party felt Kahr’s appointment to have been in reality a blow to its hopes of seizing power.204 The Reich responded with the declaration of a general state of emergency and the granting of emergency powers to the Reichswehr. One of Kahr’s first acts was to ban – amid renewed putsch rumours – the fourteen meetings which the NSDAP had planned for the evening of 27 September. Hitler was in a frenzy of rage.205 He felt bypassed by the manoeuvre to bring in Kahr, and certain that the head of the Bavarian state was not the man to lead a national revolution. Alongside attacks on the Reich government for betraying the national resistance – a contrary, though more popular, line to that he had taken earlier in the year towards the policy of passive resistance – Hitler now turned his fire on Kahr.206

  The weeks following Kahr’s appointment were filled with plot, intrigue, and tension which mounted to fever-pitch. The mood of the people, according to police reports, was one of expectancy. Conditions were appalling in Bavaria, as in the rest of the country. ‘Unemployment and hunger stand like threatening ghosts at many doors,’ ran a report from Swabia in the second half of August.207 A report from Franconia indicated the level of distress there: black bread cost 1,000 million Marks a pound; unemployment was rapidly rising; industry had no orders; large numbers of people were unable to feed themselves; the government could not even pay its own employees.208 It was reported from Upper Bavaria that the mood was comparable with that of November 1918 and April 1919.209 Growing hatred of foreigners, profiteers and those in government was noted in the same region.210 The Munich police registered a worsening mood by September, looking for an outlet in some sort of action. Political meetings were, however, not well attended because of the high entry charges and the price of beer. Only the Nazis could continue to fill the beerhalls.211 As rumours of a forthcoming putsch continued to circulate, there was a feeling that something would have to happen soon.212

  Hitler was under pressure to act. The leader of the Munich SA regiment, Wilhelm Brückner, told him: ‘The day is coming when I can no longer hold my people. If nothing happens now the men will sneak away.’213 Scheubner-Richter said much the same: ‘In order to keep the men together, one must finally undertake something. Otherwise the people will become Left radicals.’214 Hitler himself used almost the identical argument with head of the Landespolizei Colonel Hans Ritter von Seißer at the beginning of November: ‘Economic pressures drive our people so that we must either act or our followers will swing to the Communists.’215 He argued in similar fashion retrospectively, days after the putsch’s failure, during his first interrogation in Landsberg: ‘The Kampfbund people had pressed. They could not have been held back any longer. They had been given prospect of action for so long, and been trained for so long, that finally they had wanted to see something really tangible… There was also no more money. People had become discontented. There would have been the danger of the Kampfbund falling apart.’216 Hitler’s instincts were in any case to force the issue as soon as possible. The favourable circumstances of the comprehensive state crisis could not last indefinitely. He was determined not to be outflanked by Kahr. And his own prestige would wane if nothing was attempted and enthusiasm dissipated, or if the movement were faced down again as it had been on 1 May.

  However, the cards were not in his hands. Kahr and the two other members of the triumvirate which was effectively ruling Bavaria (State Police chief Seißer and Reichswehr commander Lossow) had their own agenda, which differed in significant detail from that of the Kampfbund leadership. In extensive negotiations with north German contacts throughout October, the triumvirate was looking to install a nationalist dictatorship in Berlin based on a directorate, with or without Kahr as a member but certainly without the inclusion of Ludendorff or Hitler, and resting on the support of the Reichswehr. The Kampfbund leadership, on the other hand, wanted a directorate in Munich, centring on Ludendorff and Hitler, certainly without Kahr, which would take Berlin by force. And while Lossow took it for granted that any move against the Berlin government would be carried out by the military, the Kampfbund presumed that it would be a paramilitary operation with Reichswehr backing.
If need be, declared the Kampfbund military leader, Oberstleutnant Kriebel, the Kampfbund would even resist any attempts by the Bavarian government to use armed force against the ‘patriotic associations’. Hitler did his best to win over Lossow and Seißer, subjecting the latter on 24 October to a four-hour lecture on his aims. Neither was persuaded to throw in his lot with the Kampfbund, though the position of Lossow – with chief responsibility for order in Bavaria – was ambiguous and wavering.217

  At a meeting he called of paramilitary leaders on 24 October, Lossow spoke – presumably with Mussolini’s ‘March on Rome’ in mind – in favour of a march on Berlin and the proclamation of a national dictatorship.218 But actually, both he and Seißer temporized – offering token and conditional support to the Kampfbund, though in reality reserving their position.219 By the end of October, the stand-off between the triumvirate and the Kampfbund was much as it had been at the beginning of the month.220 But the atmosphere was even more fevered. The Bavarian authorities regarded the dangers of a putsch by Hitler as particularly great, and feared that disillusioned supporters of Kahr would swing over to him, that he would take over the government in Munich, and would immediately set out on his march on Berlin.221 The authorities were not over-reacting. There were indications that the Kampfbund intended to act on 4 November, the day when Munich’s war memorial would be dedicated before civic and military dignitaries.222 However, if such plans were seriously envisaged, they were rapidly called off.223

  At the beginning of November, Seißer was sent to Berlin to conduct negotiations on behalf of the triumvirate with a number of important contacts, most vitally with Seeckt. The Reichswehr chief made plain at the meeting on 3 November that he would not move against the legal government in Berlin.224 With that, any plans of the triumvirate were effectively scuppered. At a crucial meeting in Munich three days later with the heads of the ‘patriotic associations’, including Kriebel of the Kampfbund, Kahr warned the ‘patriotic associations’ – by which he meant the Kampfbund – against independent action. Any attempt to impose a national government in Berlin had to be unified and follow prepared plans. Lossow stated he would go along with a rightist dictatorship if the chances of success were 51 per cent, but would have no truck with an ill-devised putsch. Seißer also underlined his support for Kahr and his readiness to put down a putsch by force.225 It was plain that the triumvirate was not prepared to act against Berlin.

  Lossow later claimed he told Hitler to wait two to three weeks until the other defence district commanders could be won over. Then the coup would be undertaken.226 But Hitler was now faced with the thread slipping through his fingers. He was not prepared to wait any longer and risk losing the initiative. On the evening of 6 November, in direct response to the meeting addressed by Kahr (which he had not attended), Hitler met Kriebel (military head of the Kampfbund) and Dr Friedrich Weber (head of Bund Oberland), to discuss an attempt to persuade Kahr to reverse the opposition to the Kampfbund which he had shown since the beginning of November. Weber was commissioned to ask Ludendorff to arrange a meeting between Hitler and Kahr. But on 7 November, Kahr refused to meet Hitler either the following day, or after the meeting on 8 November in the Bürgerbräukeller which the General State Commissar would address.227 It was plain, now as before, that a putsch would only be successful with the support of police and army. But whatever the outcome of the intended deliberations with Kahr, Hitler was determined to delay no longer.

  At another meeting on the evening of 6 November with Scheubner-Richter, Theodor von der Pfordten (a member of the supreme court in Bavaria and shadowy figure in pre-putsch Nazi circles), and probably other advisers (though this is not certain), he decided to act – in the hope more than the certainty of forcing the triumvirate to support the coup.228 The decision to strike was confirmed the next day, 7 November, at a meeting of Kampfbund leaders. Ludendorff later denied being present at the meeting, but apart from the Kampfbund leadership attending the meeting – Hitler, Weber, Kriebel, Scheubner-Richter and Göring – he was the only person fully initiated into what was to happen.229 The number of people in the know was to be kept, at Hitler’s insistence, to an absolute minimum. Plans were laid down for the action. Priority was given to the seizure of communications and takeover of police stations and town halls in the major cities of Bavaria. Communist, socialist, and trade union leaders were to be arrested.230 Kriebel argued for the night of 10–11 November. Members of the government would be arrested in their beds, and the triumvirate forced to take up the offices foreseen for them in the national government.231 The others rejected the suggestion because, it seems, of the difficulty of ensuring the arrest of all members of the government. Instead, after a good deal of discussion, Hitler’s alternative plan was adopted. It was decided that the strike would be carried out on the following day, 8 November, when all the prominent figures in Munich would be assembled in the Bürgerbräukeller to hear an address from Kahr on the fifth anniversary of the November Revolution, fiercely denouncing Marxism. The meeting, arranged at short notice, was seen by the Kampfbund leadership as a threat, all the more so in the light of Kahr’s refusal to meet Hitler before it took place. At the very least the meeting was seen as an attempt to strengthen Kahr’s position and weaken the power of the Kampfbund. Whether they believed that Kahr intended to seal the breach with the nationalists by proclaiming the restoration of the Bavarian monarchy is uncertain. They were probably more concerned about the possibility of Kahr instigating the ‘action’ against Berlin without the Kampfbund’s involvement – all the more since Hitler was aware of Lossow’s comment on 24 October, that the ‘march on Berlin’ to erect a national dictatorship would take place at the latest within fourteen days.232 At any rate, Hitler felt his hand forced by Kahr’s meeting. If the Kampfbund were to lead the ‘national revolution’, there was nothing for it but to act on its own initiative immediately.233 Much later, Hitler stated: ‘Our opponents intended to proclaim a Bavarian revolution around the 12th of November… I took the decision to strike four days earlier.’234

  Late on the evening of 7 November, Hitler discussed the plans with his SA leaders, telling his bodyguard, Ulrich Graf, as he left the meeting, ‘tomorrow at 8 o’clock it’s happening’.235 He returned to his apartment in Thierschstraße around 1a.m. Some eleven hours later, wearing his long trenchcoat and carrying his dog-whip, he was in excited mood in Rosenberg’s office, looking for Göring. Hanfstaengl was there with Rosenberg, discussing the next edition of the Völkischer Beobachter. Hitler told them ‘the moment for action has arrived’, swore them to secrecy, and ordered them to be at his side that evening in the Bürgerbräukeller. They were to bring pistols.236 Heß had been told earlier that morning what was planned. Pöhner, too, had been put in the picture.237 Other Hitler intimates such as Hoffmann were left in the dark.238 Drexler, the NSDAP’s founder and honorary chairman, was actually on his way to Freising in the early evening of 8 November (where he thought he was appearing on the same speakers’ platform as Hitler), when he bumped into Amann and Esser and was told that he did not need bother going to Freising; the meeting had been cancelled.239

  Kahr had been reading out his prepared speech to the 3,000 or so packed into the Bürgerbräukeller for around half an hour when, around 8.30p.m., there was a disturbance at the entrance. Kahr broke off his speech. A body of men in steel helmets appeared. Hitler’s stormtroopers had arrived. A heavy machine-gun was pushed into the hall.240 People were standing on their seats trying to see what was happening as Hitler advanced through the hall, accompanied by two armed bodyguards, their pistols pointing at the ceiling. Hitler stood on a chair but, unable to make himself heard in the tumult, took out his Browning pistol and fired a shot through the ceiling.241 He then announced that the national revolution had broken out, and that the hall was surrounded by 600 armed men. If there was trouble, he said, he would bring a machine-gun into the gallery.242 The Bavarian government was deposed; a provisional Reich government would be formed. It was by this time around 8.
45p.m. Hitler requested – though it was really an order – Kahr, Lossow, and Seißer to accompany him into the adjoining room. He guaranteed their safety. After some hesitation, they complied.243 There was bedlam in the hall, but eventually Göring managed to make himself heard. He said the action was directed neither at Kahr nor at the army and police. People should stay calm and remain in their places. ‘You’ve got your beer,’ he added.244 This quietened things somewhat, but most were still critical of what they were comparing with the theatricals that might happen in Latin American countries.

  In the adjoining room, Hitler announced, waving his pistol about, that no one would leave without his permission. He declared the formation of a new Reich government, headed by himself. Ludendorff was to be in charge of the national army, Lossow would be Reichswehr Minister, Seißer Police Minister, Kahr himself would be head of the Bavarian state (Landesverweser), and Pöhner Minister President with dictatorial powers in Bavaria. He apologized for having to force the pace, but it had to be done: he had had to enable the triumvirate to act. If things went wrong, he had four bullets in his pistol – three for his collaborators, the last for himself.245