by Ian Kershaw
131. JK, 312; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 129–30.
132. MK, 562.
133. Based on JK, 279–538.
134. Ernst Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre mit Hitler. Zwischen Weißem und Braunem Haus, 2nd edn, Munich/Zurich, 1980, 52–3.
135. Tyrell, Trommler, 40–41.
136. Hoffmann, 50.
137. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 20–21.
138. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 49.
139. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 49–52.
140. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 52.
141. Deuerlein, Hitler, 53.
142. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 132–4.
143. Tyrell, Trommler, 208 n.215, cit. VB, 9 September 1920.
144. Tyrell, Trommler, 40 (reports of two visitors to Munich from the Deutschsozialistische Partei in February 1921); Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 139 (an extract from the anonymous pamphlet circulated by Hitler’s enemies in the party in July 1921, entitled ‘Adolf Hitler – Verräter’).
145. JK, 529–30. He said nothing about fees received from the articles he wrote in 1921 in the VB, though he claimed in July 1921 that he lived from his earnings as a ‘writer’ (Schriftsteller) (JK, 448).
146. Tyrell, Trommler, 216 n.209, citing Münchener Post, 5 December 1921; Heiden, Hitler, 97.
147. Heiden, Hitler, 100 where she is mistakenly named ‘Carola’. I am grateful to Martha Schad and Anton Joachimsthaler for informing me of the correct name.
148. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 22; Tyrell, Trommler, 267 n.54.
149. According to Heiden, Hitler, 116, though without supporting evidence, Hitler’s lengthy absence in Berlin was spent at the Bechsteins while he was taking elocution lessons. Whether or not he was brushing up his diction at the same time, the real purpose of his visit was more important than elocution: trying – if without great success – to rustle up funds for the party newspaper, probably through contacts opened up to him by Max Maurenbrecher, the editor of the Pan-German newspaper Deutsche Zeitung, with a number of individuals connected with the Pan-Germans (Tyrell, Trommler, 117–18).
150. Tyrell, Trommler, 96.
151. Tyrell, Trommler, 103–4.
152. JK, 436 (Hitler’s resignation letter of 14 July 1921).
153. Tyrell, Trommler, 99–100, 105.
154. Tyrell, Trommler, 101–3.
155. The above based on the findings of Tyrell, Trommler, 106–9, 122·
156. JK, 437; Tyrell, Trommler, 118–19.
157. Tyrell, Trommler, 110– 16, 119–20.
158. JK, 437–8; Franz-Willing, Hitlerbewegung, 110.
159. Based on Tyrell, Trommler, 120–22.
160. JK, 438.
161. JK, 277. Dok. 198 (JK, 320), recording Hitler’s resignation on 16 February 1921, must be regarded as a forgery.
162. Tyrell, Trommler, 123.
163. JK, 438.
164. Tyrell, Trommler, 126–8, 130. Hitler’s ultimatum to the party committee of 26 July 1921, printed in JK, 445 (Dok.266), is a forgery.
165. JK, 446.
166. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 138–41; JK, 446–7; Tyrell, Trommler, 128–30.
167. JK, 439–44; Tyrell, Trommler, 129 and 264 n.506.
168. See Tyrell, 130–50, for an examination of the new statutes.
169. VB, 4 August 1921, 3.
170. VB, 4 August 1921, 3.
CHAPTER 6: THE ‘DRUMMER’
1. Rudolf Pechel, Deutscher Widerstand, Erlenbach/Zurich, 1947, 280.
2. Cit. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 29; Tyrell, Trommler, 117.
3. Bernd Weisbrod, ‘Gewalt in der Politik. Zur politischen Kultur in Deutschland zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 43 (1992), 392–404, here esp. 392–5. See also George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers, New York/Oxford, 1990, ch.8; and Robert G.L. Waite, Vanguard of Nazism. The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany 1918–1923, Cambridge, Mass., 1952.
4. Weisbrod, 393; Peter Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone. Geschichte der SA, Munich, 1989, 12. Detailed accounts of the Einwohnerwehr are presented by Hans Fenske, Konservativismus und Rechtsradikalismus in Bayern nach 1918, Bad Homburg/Berlin/Zurich, 1969, ch.5, 76–112; Karl Schwend, Bayern zwischen Monarchie und Diktatur, Munich, 1954, 159–70; and, especially, David Clay Large, The Politics of Law and Order: A History of the Bavarian Einwohnerwehr, 1918–1921, Philadelphia, 1980.
5. See Fenske, 148–59; Hoegner, Die verratene Republik, 131; and Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 14, for ‘Consul’. The figures for the numbers of political murders are taken from Ralf Dreier and Wolfgang Sellert (eds.), Recht und Justiz im ‘Dritten Reich’, Frankfurt am Main, 1989, 328; most of the murders were leniently dealt with by the courts compared with the far fewer (twenty-two in all) committed by members of left-wing parties.
6. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 143–4.
7. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 142; Fenske, 89–108.
8. Georg Franz-Willing, Ursprung der Hitlerbewegung, 1919–1912, 2nd edn, Preußisch Oldendorf, 1974, 62–3 and n.15a.
9. Based on: Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 12–14, 23–4; Hoegner, 129–33; Harold J. Gordon, Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch, Princeton, 1972, 88–92; Spindler, i.462–4; Fenske, 143–72; Large, Where Ghosts Walked, 142–6.
10. See Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 35.
11. Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 22; Bennecke, 26, implies that the ‘hall protection’ began with the Hofbräuhaus meeting on 24 February 1920; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 206, suggests that it went back even earlier, to the Eberlbräu meeting in October 1919. It is too early at these dates, however, to speak of anything more than the taking of obvious precautions at big meetings to have strong-arm supporters at the ready to combat the expected violent disturbances from political opponents.
12. Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 23; Tyrell, Trommler, 137.
13. Tyrell, Trommler, 266 n.25; Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 15–6.
14. Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 205; see Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 35 n.158; Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 23, 25.
15. See, esp., Klaus Theweleit, Männerphantasien, Rowohlt edn, 2 vols., Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1980.
16. Tyrell, Trommler, 28, 197 n.104.
17. Based on Röhm, Die Geschichte eines Hochverräters, esp. pt.II, chs.13–20, 75–145; and Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 15–22. See also the biographical sketch by Conan Fischer, ‘Ernst Julius Röhm – Stabschef der SA und Außenseiter’, in Ron Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann (eds.), Die braune Elite, Darmstadt, 1989, 212–22, and the character study by Joachim C. Fest in his The Face of the Third Reich, Pelican edn, Harmondsworth, 1972, 207–25.
18. Heiden, Hitler, 124.
19. The above relies mainly on Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 24–6; and Bennecke, 28–30. Hitler’s proclamation of 3 August 1921, creating the party’s own paramilitary organization, is printed in Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 144.
20. Cooperation with Ehrhardt came to an end with Klintzsch’s resignation from the SA to return to his naval company on 11 May 1923 (Bennecke, 28–9).
21. See Heiden, Hitler, 121–2.
22. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 35 n.158.
23. Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 26–8.
24. Spindler, i.464; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 244.
25. Dietmar Petzina, Werner Abelshauser and Anselm Faust (eds.), Sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch, Band III. Materialen zur Statistik des Deutschen Reiches 1914–1945, Munich, 1978, 83.
26. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 145–6.
27. Heiden, Hitler, 125.
28. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 150–51, 154; Heiden, Hitler, 125.
29. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 147–9.
30. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 147. The speaker at the SPD meeting, Erhard Auer, suffered an attempt on his life, which the Social Democrats suspected the Nazis of being involved in, on 25 October 1921 (Maser, Frühgeschichte, 301; see Hitler’s comments in MK, 562–3).
31.
Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 147.
32. MK, 563–7; and Heinz, 117–20, an eye-witness account of a Nazi supporter which also glorifies the brawl. Hitler’s words to the SA before the meeting, and reports on the content of the speech, ‘Who Are the Murderers?’, are reproduced in JK,513.
33. Hanfstaengel, 15 Jahre, 59; and see Kurt G.W. Ludecke (= Lüdecke), I Knew Hitler. The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped The Blood Purge, London, 1938, 123.
34. Spindler, i.466–8.
35. Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 247–9 (quotation, 248). In one incident, in September 1922, for which a National Socialist was arrested, hand-grenades made by a party comrade in Munich, a watch-maker by trade, were thrown at the Mannheim stock-exchange.
36. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 153–4.
37. JK, 578–80.
38. JΚ, 625. Esser and Eckart made vague menacing noises about the party’s possible retaliation should Hitler be expelled (Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 246–8).
39. JK, 679 and n.1.
40. Bennecke, 42; Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 36. By the end of the year, the SA’s numbers had risen to about 1,000 men, almost three-quarters of them based in Munich (Bennecke, 45).
41. JK, 687.
42. Ernst Deuerlein, Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./ 9. November 1923, Stuttgart, 1962, 42 – 4; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 155–6; Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 36 and n.160; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 353–4; Fenske, 182–4. Deuerlein, Putsch, 43, has the demonstration taking place on the Karolinenplatz; Fenske, 184, on the Königsplatz. Since the squares are almost adjacent to each other, it seems likely that the demonstration spilled over into both.
43. Lüdecke, 59–61 (where the events are misdated – and followed in this by Toland, 118 – to 20 September 1922). In a court case in 1925, in which Hitler alleged slander against Pittinger, he claimed that the latter had attempted the same thing in 1922 that had proved unsuccessful for him the following year (RSA, I, 10–14, here 11).
44. Wolfgang Benz (ed.), Politik in Bayern. Berichte des württembergischen Gesandten Carl Moser von Filseck, Stuttgart, 1971, 108; Deuerlein, Putsch, 44; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 156.
45. Hitler’s account is in MK, 614–18; Sonderarchiv Moscow, 1355-I-38, contains reports of the Vorstand of the Bezirksamt Coburg, on the disturbances to the Regierungspräsidium of Upper Franconia, 16 October 1922, and to the State Ministry of the Interior in Munich, 27 October 1922 (quotation from p. 5 of latter report); see also Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 249; Lüdecke, 85–92.
46. The reason was a rancorous split with Dickel over debts owed to the latter by the near-bankrupt Nuremberg branch of the Werkgemeinschaft. The NSDAP showed itself, with a grant to Streicher of 70,000 Marks, ready to pay off the debt and provide a loan to acquire the Deutscher Volkswille (Robin Lenman, ‘Julius Streicher and the Origins of the NSDAP in Nuremberg’, in Nicholls and Matthias, 129–59, here 135).
47. Monologe, 158, 293, 430–31 n.175–6.
48. Lenman, 129; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 355–6.
49. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 36 and n.162; Tyrell, Trommler, 33. For the social structure of the early party, see Michael Kater, ‘Zur Soziographie der frühen NSDAP’, VfZ, 19 (1971), 124–59.
50. MK, 375. Hitler was also effusive in private, even many years later, about Streicher’s ‘lasting service’ to the party in subordinating himself and winning over Nuremberg. ‘There would have been no National Socialist Nuremberg if Julius Streicher had not come,’ he claimed (Monologe, 158 (28–9December 1941)).
51. Lenman, 144–6, 149, 159.
52. Francis L. Carsten, The Rise of Fascism, London, 1967, 64–5.
53. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 356 and n.570, referring to oral testimony of Esser. VB, 8 November 1922, 2, has the illogical formulation: ‘We, too, have Italy’s Mussolini. He is called Adolf Hitler.’ (‘Den Mussolini Italiens haben auch wir. Er heiβt Adolf Hitler.’)
54. Günter Scholdt, Autoren über Hitler. Deutschsprachige Schriftsteller 1919–1945 und ihr Bild vom ‘Führer’, Bonn, 1993, 34.
55. Scholdt, 35.
56. Cit. Sontheimer, 217. For a biographical sketch of Stapel, see Wolfgang Benz and Hermann Grami (eds.), Biographisches Lexikon zur Weimarer Republik, Munich, 1988, 325–6.
57. Sontheimer, 214–22, quotation 218.
58. See Tyrell, Trommler, 274 n.151.
59. Tyrell, Trommler, 161–2.
60. Tyrell, Trommler, 62.
61. Tyrell, Trommler, 274 n.152.
62. JK, 729.
63. Cornelia Berning, Vom ‘Abstammungsnachweis’ zum ‘Zuchtwart’. Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus, Berlin, 1964, 82.
64. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 382; Georg Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr der Hitler-bewegung 1923, Preußisch Oldendorf, 1975, 73–4, 127–9 an d 128 n.23. Letters poured in during 1923, from north as well as south Germany, seeing in Hitler the German ‘redeemer’. Once Hitler had given up the ban on photographs of himself (see Hoffmann, 41–9), intended to add to the mystique about his person, the sale of portraits of him contributed to the spread of the cult. On Göring, see the character sketches in Fest, The Face of the Third Reich, 113–29; and Ron Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann (eds.), Die braune Elite, Darmstadt, 1989, 69–83. Göring succeeded Lieutenant Johann Klintzsch, formerly a member of the Ehrhardt Brigade, as leader of the SA in February 1923. Göring’s standing as a war-hero, decorated with the highest award, the Pour le Mérite, could only benefit the S A, and was probably the reason for the change in leadership (see Bennecke, 54). According to Lüdecke, Hitler had remarked: ‘Splendid, a war ace with the Pour le Mérite – imagine it! Excellent propaganda! Moreover, he has money and doesn’t cost me a cent’ (Lüdecke, 129).
65. Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 74 refers to Pittinger’s contempt; as Heiden, Der Führer, 102, points out, for the Left Hitler was no more than ‘the common demagogue’.
66. Hanfstaengel, 15 Jahre, 109.
67. Oron James Hale, ‘Gottfried Feder calls Hitler to Order: An Unpublished Letter on Nazi Party Affairs’, JMH, 30 (1958), 358–62.
68. JK, 723–4(8 November 1922).
69. JK, 729 (14 November 1922).
70. See Tyrell, Trommler, 60–62.
71. JK, 837 (26 February 1923).
72. JK, 916 (27 April 1923).
73. JK, 933 (1 June 1923).
74. JK, 923 (4 May 1923). The speech was given in the light of what Hitler saw as the ‘capitulation’ of Chancellor Cuno to the French through the policy of passive resistance in the Ruhr and the disaster of ‘fulfilment policy’.
75. JK, 923–4·
76. JK, 946 (6 July 1923). See also 973 (14 August 1923), stressing the responsibility of the leader, who risked victory or defeat as in the army and could not pass the blame to parties. He returned to the theme of heroism, personality, and leadership in a speech on 12 September, though he spoke of leaders collectively (J K, 1012–13).
77. JK, 984 (21 August 1923).
78. A remark allegedly made to Hanfstaengl, if accurately recalled, in which Hitler commented ‘I don’t have the intention of playing the role of the drummer,’ was made in the context of hints that he might become the tool of powerful conservative interests (Hanfstaengl, 47–8).
79. JK, 1027, cit. Daily Mail, 3 October 1923, under the heading ‘A Visit to Hittler’ (!)
80. Hitler appears to have compared himself with Mussolini in Lossow’s presence (Georg Franz-Willing, Putsch und Verbotszeit der Hitlerbewegung, November 1923 – Februar 1925, Preußisch Oldendorf, 1977, 56.
81. JK, 1034 (14 October 1923).
82. JK, 1043 (23 October 1923).
83. JK, 1034 (14 October 1923). At his trial, Hitler repeated that Kahr was ‘no hero, no heroic figure’ (‘kein Held, keine heldische Erscheinung’) (JΚ, 1212).
84. JK, 1032; Deuerlein, Putsch, 220.
85. As pointed out by Tyrell, Trommler, 162.
86. Tyrell, Trommler, 163.
87. JK, 1268.
88. See Tyrell, Tromml
er, 158–65.
89. JK, 939 (Regensburger Neueste Nachrichten, 26 June 1923).
90. Lüdecke, 17, 20. Hitler’s speech (in JK, 679–81) was on 16 August, not 11 August, as Lüdecke (20) states. The general reliability of Lüdecke’s memoirs – though there are numerous lapses as well as exaggerated claims – is upheld by Roland V. Layton, ‘Kurt Ludecke [= Lüdecke] and I Knew Hitler: an Evaluation’, Central European History, 12 (1979), 372–86.
91. Lüdecke, 22–3.
92. Lüdecke, 69–70, 83–4. His claim to have engineered the support of Ludendorff and Pöhner for Hitler was exaggerated in the attempt to bolster his own importance. Heß had established the first contact between Hitler and Ludendorff around May 1921 (Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 30). Pöhner, through his close connection with Frick, needed no introduction to Hitler from Lüdecke and had been sympathetic to the NSDAP during his time as Police President of Munich before 1921.
93. Lüdecke, 71–4, 126–7.
94. Lüdecke, 108, and see also 103; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 402–3. Hitler was certainly underplaying Lüdecke’s financial contribution when he claimed, in 1925, that the latter had given the Movement 7–8,000 Marks (RSA, I, 12).
95. Lüdecke, 101–6, 111–22; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 286–7and n.73·
96. Lüdecke, 156.
97. From Hanfstaengl’s account, the meeting was on the day that Hitler had met in the morning the US Assistant Military Attaché Truman Smith, and took place in the Kindlkeller (Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 32–3, 35, 39). Hitler’s discussion with Truman Smith was, however, on 20 November, in the afternoon, and Hitler next spoke publicly on 22 November in the Salvatorkeller (JK, 733–40). Hanfstaengl (35, 39) also mistakenly states that it was Hitler’s first speech since serving a term of imprisonment for disturbance of the peace in the Ballerstedt incident. He held this speech on 28 July, after serving his sentence from 24 June to 27 July (JK, 656– 71; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 154).
98. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 41 and see also 84–7.
99. The description of Hitler from Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 35, 44.