by Ian Kershaw
100. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 71–4; visit to Berlin’s museums.
101. Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl, ‘I was Hitler’s Closest Friend’, Cosmopolitan, March 1943, 45·
102. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 41.
103. Hanfstaengl, Cosmopolitan, 45.
104. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 43–4.
105. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 61.
106. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 37, 61.
107. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 55.
108. Lüdecke, 97.
109. See Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 47ff
110. Lüdecke, 97; Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 33–4.
111. Baldur von Schirach, Ich glaubte an Hitler, Hamburg, 1967, 66–7.
112. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 48.
113. See the description in Karl-Alexander von Müller, Im Wandel einer Welt, Erinnerungen 1919–1932, Munich, 1966, 129.
114. Gerhard Roßbach, Mein Weg durch die Zeit. Erinnerungen und Bekenntnisse, Weilburg/Lahn, 1950, 215. In an interview in 1951, Roßbach described Hitler as ‘a pitiful civilian with his tie out of place, who had nothing in his head but art, and was always late’, but was a ‘brilliant speaker with suggestive effect’. (‘Erbärmlicher Zivilist mit schlecht sitzender Krawatte, der nichts wie Kunst im Kopf hatte, immer zu spät kam. Glänzender Redner von suggestiver Wirkung.’) (IfZ, ΖS 128, Gerhard Roßbach).
115. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 48–9; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 289–90; Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 33–4and n.150.
116. Friedelind Wagner, The Royal Family of Bayreuth, London, 1948, 8–9; interview with Friedelind Wagner in NA, Hitler Source Book, 933. On the same occasion, at the end of September 1923, Hitler had met Wagner’s son-in-law, the now aged racist writer Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who subsequently wrote Hitler an effusive letter, saying that he had ‘transformed the condition of his soul at one fell swoop’, and ‘that Germany should have brought forth a Hitler in the time of its greatest need’ was proof of its continued vitality as a nation. (IfZ, MA-743 (= HA, 52/1210), letter of Chamberlain to Hitler, 7 October 1923. And see Auerbach, 34 and n.151.) Hitler still spoke fulsomely in the middle of the war of his admiration for the Wagner family, especially Winifred. He pointed out that he had never been introduced to the aged and blind widow of Richard Wagner, Cosima, although she lived for some time after he had first gone to Bayreuth (TBJG, II/4, 408 (30 May 1942)).
117. For funding and patrons, see Maser, Frühgeschichte, 396–412; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 266–99; and Henry Ashby Turner, German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler, New York/Oxford, 1985, 59–60, who provides the most reliable assessment of the Nazis’ sources of income at this time. Franz-Willing, 266–8, 280, 299 and Turner, 59–60, emphasize the contribution from ordinary members. For the continued reliance of the party on funding from its own members in the run-up to power, see Henry A. Turner and Horst Matzerath, ‘Die Selbstfinanzierung der NSDAP 1930–32’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 3 (1977), 59–92.
118. This is emphasized, for the period prior to the takeover of power, by Richard Bessel, ‘The Rise of the NSDAΡ and the Myth of Nazi Propaganda’, Wiener Library Bulletin, 33 (1980), 20–29, esp. 26–7.
119. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 70, 76.
120. Lüdecke, 78–9.
121. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 65.
122. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 60. This format began, according to Hanfstaengl, on 29 August 1923. The VB, still in serious financial trouble in the second half of 1921, was able through financial assistance of Nazi patrons – Bechstein had supported it two or three times – to appear as a daily from 8 February 1922. (Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 60; Oron J. Hale, The Captive Press in the Third Reich, Princeton, 1964, 29–30; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 277–8, 289).
123. See the biographical comments in Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 197.
124. Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 266 n.214, 281–8; and see Maser, Frühgeschichte, 397–412.
125. Turner, 50–55; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 288. Turner, 54, points out that, other than a dubious passage in Thyssen’s ghost-written memoirs, the evidence points towards the donation being made to Ludendorff, and that Hitler most likely gained only the similar sort of portion that was given to others.
126. Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 291.
127. Deuerlein, Putsch, 63.
128. Deuerlein, Putsch, 62.
129. Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 296–7. On Gansser, see Turner, 49, 51–2, and 374–5 n.4.
130. Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 297.
131. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 31–2; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 281.
132. JK, 725–6.
133. Lüdecke, no.
134. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 36 n.162; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 376; Michael Kater, The Nazi Party. A Social Profile of Members and Leaders, 1919–1945, Oxford, 1983, 19–31, 243; and see Kater, ‘Soziographie’, 39.
135. See Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 85.
136. Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 357–8.
137. Winkler, Weimar, 194; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 102.
138. Winkler, Weimar, 189; Hans Mommsen, Die verspielte Freiheit. Der Weg der Republik von Weimar in den Untergang, Frankfurt am Main/Berlin, 1989, 143. The execution of one saboteur, Albert Schlageter, on 26 May 1923, led to nationalist demonstrations of sympathy throughout Germany and was used by Nazi propaganda to create a martyr for the cause of the movement. See Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 102, 139–41. Hitler was at first uninterested in taking part. He was on holiday in Berchtesgaden with Eckart and Drexler, and had ‘Other worries’ (Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 108). Hanfstaengl’s suggestion (according to his own account) that great propaganda capital could be gained from it persuaded Hitler to become involved. Hitler’s ‘worries’ in Berchtesgaden doubtless included the proceedings just begun against him for breach of the peace, which threatened to put him behind bars again for at least two months to complete the partly suspended sentence of January 1922.
139. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 163–4.
140. MK, 768. His account of the Ruhr occupation is MK, 767–80.
141. See JK, 692, for the first usage, on 18 September 1922; also Maser, Frühgesch – ichte, 368 n.II.
142. JK, 783.
143. JK, 781–6.
144. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 368–9.
145. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 164.
146. JK, 802–5.
147. JK, 805–26; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 362–4; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 375.
148. Röhm, 2nd edn, 150–51. See also Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 361–2; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 375–6; and Hans Mommsen, ‘Adolf Hitler und der 9. November 1923’, in Johannes Willms (ed.), Der 9. November. Fünf Essays zur deutschen Geschichte, Munich, 1994, 33–48, here 40.
149. Wolfgang Horn, Der Marsch zur Machtergreifung. Die NSDAP bis 1933, Königstein/Ts./Düsseldorf, 1980, 102.
150. JK, 811.
151. See n.191 below.
152. Müller, Wandel, 144–8.
153. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 374, 376–7; Bennecke, 69.
154. Röhm, 2nd edn, 158–60; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 376–8; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 36–76. Röhm’s break with Pittinger’s Bund Bayern und Reich at the end of January meant the split of the former VVVB into its ‘white-blue’ and nationalist components (Röhm, 2nd edn, 152–3; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 37–9).
155. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 38; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 42. ‘Orgesch’, named after its leader Georg Escherich, loosely linked together Einwohnerwehren within and outside Bavaria.
156. JK, 1109–11; Bennecke, 66–70; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 55, 59–61; Hitler-Prozeß, LI. In his recollections of the year of the putsch, Theodor Endres, at the time Lieutenant-Colonel and 1. General Staff Officer under Lossow in Wehrkreiskommando VII, underlined the close connections between the Reichswehr in Bavaria and the Hitler Movement, which won notable support among the troops. Officers were willing to put in extra hours to train the nationalist paramilitaries (ΒHStA, Abt. IV
, HS-925, Theodor Endres, ‘Aufzeichnungen über den Hitlerputsch 1923’, 10).
157. Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 43. Some 1,300 SA men took part on 25 March 1923 as a contingent of almost 3,000 paramilitaries in combined military exercises near Munich (Röhm, 2nd edn, 170; Bennecke, 57–8). The fact that Röhm had named Reichswehr officers as leaders of the exercise was publicized by the Social Democrats in the Münchener Post and led to a ban on members of the Reichswehr joining the patriotic organizations. Röhm had to resign the leadership of the Reichsflagge in Munich (Röhm, 2nd edn, 177; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 75–6).
158. Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 43, 65.
159. Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 59.
160. Hitler’s memorandum, which Röhm regarded as the Working Community’s political programme, was dated 19 April 1923 (Röhm, 2nd edn, 175–7).
161. JK, 1136; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 43; Feuchtwanger, 124.
162. Röhm, 2nd edn, 164–6.
163. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 30.
164. JK, 1111; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 53–4; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 383.
165. JΚ, 1136; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 55. The conflict between Seeckt and Lossow lasted until the autumn. At a meeting on 7 April in Berlin, Seeckt demanded that Lossow maintain independence of political parties and paramilitary organizations. Lossow had told Seeckt that he could not dispense with the ‘patriotic associations’ that controlled 51 per cent of the weapons in Bavaria (Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 68).
166. JK, 1111.
167. JK, 1110.
168. Deuerlein, Putsch, 56.
169. Cit. Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 76.
170. Gordon, 194, 196.
171. Deuerlein, Putsch, 56–7; Benz, Politik in Bayern, 125; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 81.
172. Gordon, 196–7; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 80.
173. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 393.
174. Gordon, 196–200; Deuerlein, Putsch, 56–60; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 79–83; BHStA, Abt.IV, HS-925, Endres Aufzeichnungen, 19–23. See Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 170–73 for the police report of the demonstration on the Oberwiesenfeld; also Maser, Frühgeschichte, 394.
175. JK, 918.
176. Cit. Deuerlein, Putsch, 61. This was also the view of the acting United States Consul in Munich, Robert Murphy. He reported that people ‘are wearied of Hitler’s inflammatory agitation which yields no results and offers nothing constructive’ (cit. Toland, 142).
177. Cit. Gordon, 194. A similar comment – ‘the enemy stands on the right’ – had been most famously made by Reich Chancellor Joseph Wirth in the Reichstag after Walther von Rathenau’s murder in summer 1922 (Peter D. Stachura, Political Leaders in Weimar Germany, Hemel Hempstead, 1993, 187).
178. Other states had reacted more zealously to head off the evidently looming danger of a putsch attempt headed by Hitler’s movement. The NSDAP had been banned since the previous autumn in Prussia and several other states (though not in Bavaria) for its blatant and continued agitation aimed at undermining the state in defiance of the Law for the Protection of the Republic, which had been promulgated following Rathenau’s assassination in 1922 and aimed to combat the threat from the radical Right (Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 158, 166–70). Kahr remarked bitterly on 30 May 1924 that if the Bavarian government had wanted to bring it about, Hitler’s ignoring of security restrictions on 1 May would, in the light of the depressed mood among his followers in the aftermath of the failure, have given the opportunity for the suppression of the NSDAP also in Bavaria. Then, he went on, the ‘catastrophe of November 1923 and the still greater catastrophe of the Hitler trial would have been avoided’. This retrospective judgement was, however, quite different from Kahr’s attitude towards the NSDAP during the previous year (Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 173)
179. See Maser, Frühgeschichte, 394–5.
180. Lothar Gruchmann, ‘Hitlers Denkschrift an die bayerische Justiz vom 16. Mai 1923’, VfZ, 39 (1991), 305–28; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 394; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 86–9; Hitler-Prozeß, LIV. Had the prosecution been pursued, Hitler would with certainty have been put behind bars for at least the two months suspended from the sentence he had received in January 1922, but dependent on his good behaviour. This would have put him out of action in the late summer or autumn of 1923, and have ruled out his chances of taking a leading role in the Kampfbund. The likelihood of a putsch taking place would, in such circumstances, have been significantly diminished. In fact, despite Hitler’s blackmail, Gürtner could have pressed on with the case – had the political will been there – and had it heard in camera. He did not entertain this possibility because of the fear that Bavarian ministers would have been forced to appear as witnesses and thereby exposed to damaging cross-examination. More important than the blackmail attempt were ultimately the political motives related to the anti-Berlin aims of the leading forces in Bavaria (Gruchmann, ‘Hitlers Denkschrift’, 306–13).
181. See Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 159.
182. JK, 918–66; Milan Hauner, Hitler. A Chronology of his Life and Time, London, 1983, 40.
183. Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 110.
184. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 177–9; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 414–16.
185. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 412–14.
186. Cit. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 421.
187. See Bennecke, 78, noting that the Munich regiment increased by around 400 to 1,560 men between the end of August and 6 November 1923.
188. Hanfstaengl, Jahre, 108. See also Auerbach, ‘Hitler’s politische Lehrjahre’, 38–9; and Toland, 142–3.
189. See Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 117.
190. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 181–3.
191. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 182. The occasion was the first time that the Nazi greeting with raised right arm was in evidence in photographs. The form of greeting became uniformly deployed in the NSDAP for the party’s rally in Nuremberg in 1927 (Gerhard Paul, Aufstand der Bilder. Die NS-Propaganda vor 1933, 2nd edn, Bonn, 1992, 175–6; RSA, III.3, 382–3 n.3).
192. Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 118; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 421.
193. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 39; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 119–21; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 424.
194. Bennecke, 79; Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 39.
195. Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 39. Hitler’s takeover of the leadership was the background to the splinter in the Reichsflagge, arising from the objections of its leader, Heiß (Horn, Marsch, 123–5).
196. Mommsen, ‘Adolf Hitler und der 9. November 1923’, 42.
197. Deuerlein, Putsch, 202–4n·69·
198. See Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 188, for Hitler’s reported comments at a meeting of Kampfbund leaders on 23 October 1923, summarized by a witness at his trial, on 4 March 1924: ‘Independent action by the troops of the Kampfbund would be nonsense and was to be ruled out. The national uprising could only take place in the closest association with the Bavarian army and state police.’ (‘Ein selbständiges Handeln seitens der Truppen des Kampfbundes sei ein Unding und sei ausgeschlossen . Die nationale Erhebung könne nur in engster Vereinigung mit der bayerischen Reichswehr und der Landespolizei erfolgen.’)
199. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 176; Winkler, Weimar, 207; Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 158.
200. Winkler, Weimar, 225–6. The atmosphere in Hamburg is captured in the contemporary account, sympathetic to the insurgents, of Larissa Reissner, Hamburg at the Barricades, London, 1977.
201. Kolb, Weimarer Republik, 51–2; Winkler, Weimar, 213–16, 224–8;Mommsen, Verspielte Freiheit, 160–64; Peter Longerich, Deutschland 1918–1933, Hanover, 1995, 140–43. The radical Right had already made its own first amateurish attempt at a putsch by this time, with the action of volunteers of the ‘Black Reichswehr’ – secretly trained reserve formations of the army – on 1 October, led by Major Bruno Ernst Buchrucker, aimed at taking the fortresses of Küstrin and Spandau, near Berlin, as the signal for a general rising. The regular Reichswehr immediately intervened
and the putsch fizzled out as quickly as it had started. (See Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 117, 300, 307–10.)
202. Winkler, 224–5; Kolb, Weimarer Republik, 51–2.
203. Deuerlein, Putsch, 70–71. He also hoped to put Kahr, whom he disliked and distrusted, in the firing line of responsibility for unpopular policies (Gordon, 217).
204. Deuerlein, Putsch, 72–3; Gordon, 220.
205. JK, 1017 (protest to Kahr); Deuerlein, Putsch, 74. One meeting of the Kampfbund, with Hitler as speaker, was held, despite the ban (JK, 1017–18).
206. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 417, 422–3, 425–6. Hitler’s speeches between 29 September and the beerhall putsch on 8 November contain numerous criticisms of Kahr’s inadequacies (JK, 1019–50).
207. Deuerlein, Putsch, 71–2, 164–5(quotation, 165).
208. Gordon, 242.
209. Gordon, 241.
210. Deuerlein, Putsch, 162.
211. Deuerlein, Putsch, 164 (8 September 1923).
212. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 185–6for rumours circulating in mid-October in the left-wing press in Austria about a forthcoming putsch involving Hitler, Ludendorff and Kahr.
213. Cit. Gordon, 243.
214. Cit. Gordon, 244.
215. Cit. Gordon, 255.
216. Cit. Otto Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist für den Terroristen Adolf H. Der Hitler-Putsch und die bayerische Justiz, Munich, 1990, 42. Not dissimilar retrospective sentiments were also recorded by Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 167.
217. Above based on Gordon, 246–9, 251–3, 256–7; and see Franz-Willing, Putsch, 57.
218. Deuerlein, Putsch, 258; Hitler-Prozeß, LXI and n.23. But see Gordon’s qualifying comments, 253, on the reliability of the report.
219. See Gordon, 253–5.
220. Gordon, 255.
221. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 189–90.
222. Franz-Willing, Putsch, 57–9, where the suggestion is raised that the action was agreed between Kahr and the Kampfbund, and that Kahr intended to proclaim Crown Prinz Rupprecht, who was present at the gathering, as King of Bavaria. It is difficult to see, however, why the nationalist Kampfbund, with no interest in the restoration of the Bavarian monarchy, would have agreed to such a move. And the orders to prepare for action were given, apparently, to the nationalist SA and Bund Oberland, but not to the ‘white-blue’ pro-monarchy paramilitary organizations.