by Ian Kershaw
Following Hitler’s press statement about his withdrawal from all political involvement, Ludendorff and Graefe moved quickly, with their own press release two days later, to claim the leadership of the völkisch movement ‘until the liberated hero of Munich can again step into their circle as the third leader’. Hitler, they stated, had asked them to take over the leadership in his place. At the same time, Rosenberg had resigned his position, and Gregor Strasser had been brought into the Reich Leadership (Reichsführerschaft) of the ΝSFΡ along with Ludendorff and Graefe for the duration of Hitler’s internment. A conference planned to take place in Weimar in mid-August would bring unity in the völkisch movement, they added.42 This horrified the northern Nazis. The Directorate sought clarification from Fobke. They were told that Hitler had given up his leadership only during his imprisonment, had delegated his powers to no one, and had had no part in the appointment of Strasser to the Reich Leadership, though this step had met with his approval.43 The Directorate’s leader, Volck, once more, on 18 July, made plain where the northern National Socialists stood on questions of a merger: ‘Our programme consists of two words: “Adolf Hitler”.’44 But a meeting of eighty NSDAP representatives from across Germany at Weimar on 20 July, gathered to discuss the merger issue (which would explicitly arise in the conference in the same town the following month) and the question of a parliamentary strategy, and with Ludendorff as guest of honour, ended in acrimony, recrimination, disorder, and greater division than ever.45
Volck immediately compiled a highly critical report of events, which he sent to Landsberg.46 Hitler’s reply, through his intermediary Fobke, offered some encouragement to the northern group. He said they were ‘on the right track’. He strongly criticized Ludendorff, who, he commented, should concentrate solely on the military side of the movement. He was also critical of Esser and Streicher. However, he refused adamantly to deviate from his position of neutrality towards the various rival factions. At the same time he regarded the merger issue as finished, and played down the significance of the conflict. He had scant sensitivity for the north German National Socialists in their ‘despairing struggle’. He knew what he had to do on release, and the rebuilding of the movement could only start from Bavaria.47 Volck was unenthusiastic about Hitler’s response which, he thought, showed little understanding for the NSDAP’s position in the north. It was the first sign of Volck’s growing criticism of Hitler. ‘When leaders in the first place think they can judge everything alone and better,’ he commented, ‘we won’t get any farther.’48
The much-vaunted conference in Weimar on 15–17 August, intended to cement the organizational merger of the NSDAP and DVFP, produced only the most superficial unity in a newly proclaimed National Socialist Freedom Movement (Nationalsozialistische Freiheitsbewegung, NSFB). A high-point of the conference was a greetings telegram from ‘your leader Adolf Hitler’ that was read out to ecstatic applause and threatened to upstage Ludendorff (though he had in fact solicited it in the first place). Unity without Hitler’s leadership could not be attained, was the implication of the conference. But Hitler’s leadership – of the kind he would demand – was, it became increasingly apparent, incompatible with the expectations of Ludendorff and Graefe of a type of leadership triumvirate.49
Once more the embattled northern group of fundamentalists, worried by Hitler’s greetings telegram to the conference, turned to him for clear, unambiguous guidance. Once more he disappointed them. Fobke’s reply tried to reassure his northern comrades that Hitler did not accept that the two parties had completely merged, nor that the movement had become ‘parliamentarized’. But he accepted the need for compromise, and for parliamentary action. Hitler, through Fobke, expressed once more his wish to refrain from any statement of opinion. He ended by emphasizing that his priority on release (which he fully expected to be on 1 October) would be to restore order in Bavaria. He simply exhorted the northern Directorate to hold out until then. The north Germans were distinctly unimpressed.50
By the end of the summer, the fragmentation of the NSDAP, and of the völkisch movement in general, was, despite all the talk of merger and unity, advancing rather than receding. The crudely insulting, overbearing, and bullying style of Streicher and Esser stirred deep rancour even within the GVG, caused great antagonism with the Völkischer Block (whose leader in Bavaria, Gregor Strasser, was also of course a member of the Reich Leadership of the NSFB), and totally alienated the northern National Socialists. They in turn rejected the Reich Leadership of the NSFB, which for its part refused to accept that the Directorate had any authority.51 Only Hitler’s position was emerging significantly strengthened by the inner-party warfare.
As summer dragged into autumn, then winter approached, the rifts in the völkisch movement widened still further. Hitler assured the northern loyalist faction in mid-September that on release he would seek a clean break and summon all those in leading positions to a meeting. The only question at issue would be: who should lead the movement? Or rather: who stood behind Hitler as sole leader? ‘H[itler] does not recognize a Reich Leadership,’ Fobke’s letter stated, ‘and will never be part of such a soldiers’ council construction.’ So there was no question of him joining Ludendorff and Graefe in a combined Reich Leadership. But he refused to make a public statement to that effect. The frustration and impatience of his northern supporters mounted. His failure to gain the release on parole from 1 October that his supporters had been anticipating further complicated the situation. From the NSFB’s point of view, unity without Hitler, and in the face of his continued refusal to commit himself publicly to a unified organization, was impossible.52 In Bavaria, the völkisch feud surrounding the figures of Esser and Streicher widened into open breach. On 26 October, the Völkischer Block decided to join the NSFB to create a united organization to fight the coming elections. With this, it accepted the NSFB’s Reich Leadership. Gregor Strasser, the spokesman of the Völkischer Block, hoped that the Großdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft would also soon join the NSFB, but at the same time openly condemned its leaders, Esser and Streicher. Esser’s reply in a letter to all GVG affiliations, a bitter attack on the leaders of the Völkischer Block, with a side-swipe at Ludendorff for his support of the Block’s position, reaffirmed the Munich loyalist position: ‘the only man who has a right to exclude someone who has fought for years for his place in the Movement of National Socialists is solely and singly Adolf Hitler’.53 But Esser’s bravado, and the brash attacks of Streicher, supported by the Thuringian National Socialist Artur Dinter, could not conceal the sharp decline of the GVG.54
The Reichstag elections that took place on 7 December demonstrated just how marginal this perpetual squabbling in the völkisch movement was to the overall shaping of German politics. The NSFB won only 3 per cent of the vote. It had lost over a million votes compared with the völkisch showing in the May election. Its Reichstag representation fell from thirty-two to fourteen seats, only four of whom were National Socialists. It was a disastrous result. But it pleased Hitler.55 In his absence, völkisch politics had collapsed, but his own claims to leadership had, in the process, been strengthened. The election result also had the advantage of encouraging the Bavarian government to regard the danger from the extreme Right as past. There was now, it seemed, no need for undue concern about Hitler’s release from Landsberg, for which his supporters had been clamouring since October.56
II
The hopes of Hitler and his supporters for his early parole on 1 October, once the stipulated six months since his sentence had elapsed, had depended on attestation of his good conduct while in prison, and on his intentions after release.57 In a report on 15 September, the governor of Landsberg prison, Oberregierungsrat Otto Leybold – along with most of the warders warmly sympathetic to Hitler – painted a eulogistic picture of his prize inmate:
Hitler shows himself to be a man of order, of discipline, not only with regard to his own person, but also towards his fellow internees. He is contented, modest, and accommodating.
He makes no demands, is quiet, and reasonable, serious and without any abusiveness, scrupulously concerned to obey the confinements of the sentence. He is a man without personal vanity, is content with the catering of the institution, does not smoke or drink, and, despite all comradeliness, knows how to command a certain authority with his fellow inmates… He is not drawn to the female sex. He meets women with whom he comes into contact on visits here with great politeness without becoming engaged with them in serious political discussions. He is always polite and never insulting towards the officials of the institution. Hitler, who at the beginning had a great number of visitors, has kept for some months, as is well known, as far as possible from political visits, and writes only few letters, mainly notes of thanks. He occupies himself every day for many hours with the draft of his book, which should appear in the next weeks and will contain his autobiography, thoughts on the bourgeoisie, Jewry and Marxism, German revolution and Bolshevism, on the National Socialist Movement and the prehistory of the 8th of November 1923… During the ten months of his remand and sentence he has without doubt become more mature and quiet than he had been. He will not return to liberty with threats and thoughts of revenge against those in public office who oppose him and frustrated his plans in November 1923. He will be no agitator against the government, no enemy of other parties with a nationalist leaning. He emphasizes how convinced he is that a state cannot exist without firm internal order and firm government.58
This paean of praise convinced neither the Munich police nor the state prosecutor’s office, both of which provided clear and compelling reasons for rejecting Hitler’s early release.
The report of the Deputy Police President of Munich, Oberregierungsrat Friedrich Tenner, of 23 September 1924, warned in the strongest terms against parole. The Deputy Police President recalled the assessment the Police Direction had earlier made, in a report of 8 May 1924: given Hitler’s temperament and the energy with which he pursued his goals, that report had stated, it could be taken for granted that he would not give up his aim after release from prison and ‘would constitute a constant danger for the internal and external security of the state’. Events since then had confirmed that assessment. The Deputy Police President drew attention to the statements of Hitler, Kriebel and Weber at their trial that they would continue in the same vein after release. And he referred to documents found on 16 September in the offices of the Frontbann which, it was claimed, proved the involvement of the internees in the reformation of the dissolved paramilitary bodies.59 There could in these circumstances be no question of parole, the report went on, but should the court grant it, against all expectations, then it would be crucial to deport Hitler ‘as the soul of the entire völkisch movement’ and so remove the imminent danger for the Bavarian state. The report described prophetically what could be expected after Hitler’s release: ‘Hitler’s influence on all those of a völkisch mind – he is today more than ever the soul of the whole movement – will not only stop the regressive development of the völkisch movement, but will unite the currently fragmented parts and lead great masses of those supporters of his idea who have already fallen off and are still detached back to the NSDAP.’ Meetings, demonstrations, public outrages, and a ‘ruthless struggle with the government’ would be the outcome.60
The state prosecutor for the judicial district of Munich I, Ludwig Stenglein, who had served as the chief prosecutor in the Hitler trial, also emphatically underlined, in a letter of 23 September, how little Hitler’s intentions had changed during his imprisonment, that it could be presumed he would take up where he had left off, and what a danger for public order Hitler’s release would constitute. Implicitly hinting how scandalous the trial had been, he also stressed the serious criminal nature of Hitler’s behaviour before and during the putsch. Not only had the attempted putsch endangered the Bavarian state and the German Reich. It had resulted in considerable loss of life, a major robbery of banknotes, and premeditated armed conflict with the police. The prosecutor pointed out that Hitler’s conviction in 1922 for breach of the peace had earned him a month’s jail sentence with two months suspended sentence, on probation, until 1 March 1926 (something which ought to have been, but was not, mentioned at his trial). He sought the withdrawal of the probation. The evidence connecting Hitler with the plans to reconstitute the banned paramilitary organizations showed, the prosecutor alleged, what he and his fellow internees Kriebel and Weber had in mind after such a release. It also demonstrated, through the misuse of their privileges in Landsberg (in smuggling out letters by way of visitors who had been allowed to see them in private), their lack of good conduct during their internment. There could be no grounds, he concluded, for an early release and he recommended rejection of parole.61
The court simply set aside the state prosecutor’s arguments and on 25 September approved the parole. It took the view that considering the persons concerned and the motives for their actions the serving of a relatively light sentence would be sufficient punishment. It regarded the by-passing of the censor in smuggling out a few letters of insignificant content as a minor consideration, which did not affect the excellent conduct of the internees, attested by the declaration of the prison governor.62 There was no proof, it stated, of connections between Hitler and Kriebel and the Frontbann. In this, the court was presumably influenced by the public declarations by Röhm and others, dissociating Hitler from the Frontbann.63 Nor were there any grounds, the court stated, to accept the state prosecution’s request for a revocation of the existing probationary period being served by Hitler (from his sentence of 1922).64
Undeterred, State Prosecutor Stenglein worked over the weekend to prepare a further appeal against parole for Hitler, Kriebel and Weber, to be sent to the Bavarian Supreme Court. This was delivered on Monday, 29 September. It repeated the charges of poor conduct (through at least nine cases of smuggled letters), strong suspicion of participation in further illegal organizations (through involvement with the Frontbann), and the security risk that would present itself for the state on their release.65 With this appeal, there was no possibility that Hitler could be released, as he and his supporters had pressed for, on 1 October.66
However, the matter was pending, the court would soon have to decide on the parole, and the prospects of preventing Hitler’s early release were not great. Even if parole were not immediately forthcoming, the chances were that it would be granted before much longer, not least given the unrelenting pressure from Hitler’s supporters.67 With this in mind, a representative of the Bavarian government visited Vienna at the beginning of October to try to secure the deportation of Hitler to Austria, which it wanted to achieve immediately if he were released on parole.68 In response to a Bavarian inquiry as early as 26 March 1924 the authorities in Upper Austria had, in fact, recognized Hitler’s Austrian citizenship on 20 April and been prepared to accept his deportation over the border at Passau.69 A report by the Munich Police Direction on 8 May then recommended his deportation in the interest of Bavarian state security.70 But no steps were taken then, or at any other time before late September. Presumably, the matter had simply been deferred as non-urgent. By September, when a sense of urgency was certainly present, the Bavarian cabinet was divided on Hitler’s deportation.71 In any case, by then the Passau border authorities were reporting that they had received orders from Vienna not to accept Hitler.72 The directive had been sent on the instructions of no less authority than that of the Federal Chancellor, Ignaz Seipel, himself.73 Subsequent Bavarian attempts to use legal arguments – in themselves persuasive – to pressurize the Austrian government to take back Hitler were to no avail. Seipel simply refused to take him, remaining adamant that Hitler’s service in the German army incurred loss of Austrian citizenship. It was legally not a sound argument. But it sufficed.74 Despite Hitler’s fears, nothing more came of the attempt to deport him.75 Following his release from Landsberg, Hitler inquired in March 1925 how he could relinquish his Austrian citizenship. He was told to put in a formal request,
which he then did on the grounds of his war service in the German army and desire to acquire German citizenship. On 30 April 1925, he received the anxiously awaited authorization that his Austrian citizenship was terminated.76 This removal of any fear of deportation at a future date cost him the grand sum of 7.50 Austrian Schillings.77 It would be seven years before he acquired German citizenship. Until then, he would remain stateless.
Meanwhile, on 6 October, the Bavarian Supreme Court gave its judgement, rejecting the state prosecutor’s plea opposing Hitler’s parole. The court took the view that the strong suspicion against Hitler, Kriebel and Weber for involvement with banned paramilitary organizations had still to be proved. The decision on parole hinged on this evidence, and could only be taken when it was available. The judgement paved the way for the eventual order of 19 December which would grant Hitler’s release. The state prosecution office had still not given up. It made a last attempt to prevent Hitler’s release in a carefully argued appeal of 5 December. Even if the evidence assembled might not suffice for a court conviction, it claimed, it did suffice to demonstrate the ‘strong suspicion’ that Hitler and Kriebel, whatever their protestations to the contrary, were guilty of actions in the same context as those for which they had been sentenced, and that they were unlikely to be of good conduct after release. The Bavarian Supreme Court then requested, on 12 December, a report from the Governor of Landsberg on the conduct of Hitler and Kriebel since his earlier report of 15 September. Reading the signals, Leybold replied within two days with another glowing account of Hitler’s character and behaviour in the prison. ‘He is in his conduct during his sentence,’ Leybold concluded, ‘quite especially worthy of parole.’78 With this new documentation of Hitler’s good conduct, the Bavarian Supreme Court, on 19 December, finally rejected the state prosecution’s case against early release, and ordered his parole – the clamour for which had not ceased in the völkisch press since October.79 That the December elections were out of the way, and appeared to show National Socialism in steep decline, doubtless helped. But only political bias explains the determination of the Bavarian judiciary to insist upon Hitler’s early release, despite the well-reasoned opposition of the Munich police and the state prosecutor’s office.