Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

by Ian Kershaw

  223. See Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 126–7; Gordon, 259.

  224. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 190–91; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 59–60; Gordon, 248.

  225. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 191–2; Gordon, 255–6.

  226. Franz-Willing, Krisenjahr, 386–7; see also Deuerlein, Putsch, 99. Rumours of an impending putsch were current in Munich at the beginning of November. According to one, the restoration of the monarchy was to be proclaimed on 9 November; in another, Captain Ehrhardt’s organization intended to strike at Berlin on 15 November. In fact, 15 November was the date which Lossow had in mind for the Bavarian Reichswehr’s march on Berlin (Hans Hubert Hofmann, Der Hitlerputsch. Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte 1920–1924, Munich, 1961, 135, 141).

  227. Franz-Willing, Putsch, 63–4, 68. Kahr, together with Seißer and Lossow, did have a meeting that day with Ludendorff, at which there were sharp differences of opinion (Franz-Willing, Putsch, 68).

  228. Gordon, 259.

  229. Gordon, 259–60; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 66.

  230. Gordon, 260. It has been estimated that around 4,000 armed putschists would have confronted about 2,600 state police and army troops in Munich (Gordon, 273)

  231. Hofmann, 146; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 66 (based on oral testimony from 1958). Gordon, 259 n.63, mentions that there may have been an alternative plan to move on 10 or 11 November, but does not amplify. Deuerlein, Putsch, 99; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 192, refer to plans only for 8 November.

  232. Franz-Willing, Putsch, 64, 67–9, accepts that such a proclamation to restore the monarchy was feared; Hofmann, 147, is sceptical, presuming they feared instead an independent strike by Kahr against Berlin. For Lossow’s comment, see Deuerlein, Putsch, 99, 258.

  233. Deuerlein, Putsch, 99; Hofmann, 147. According to Hanfstaengl, Hitler later acknowledged that Kahr’s manoeuvrings had forced him to take immediate action ‘to get the situation in hand again’, and that he had in any case been compelled to act in order to fulfil the expectations that had been aroused among his supporters (Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 167–9).

  234. VB, 10 November 1937, p. 2: ‘… Unsere gegnerische Seite beabsichtigte, um den 12. November herum eine Revolution, und zwar eine bajuvarische, auszurufen… Da setzte ich den Entschluß, vier Tage zuvor loszuschlagen…’ Franz-Willing, Putsch, 64 n.166, has slightly different wording.

  235. Graf testimony, IfZ, ΖS-282/52, 60.

  236. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 129.

  237. Franz-Willing, Putsch, 71, 73–4.

  238. Franz-Willing, Putsch, 71, has Esser also left uninformed, but Maser, Frühgeschichte, 443–4, has him being told in mid-morning.

  239. Franz-Willing, Putsch, 72–3.

  240. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 192–3; Müller, Wandel, 160–66; Gordon, 287–8; Franz-Willing, Futsch, 78–9.

  241. JK, 1052. The police report has Hitler himself firing the shot. Müller’s testimony at Hitler’s trial (Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 193) mentioned two shots fired, the first by Hitler’s guard, the second, minutes later, by Hitler himself. Probably Müller was mistaken. No one else recalled a second shot, or noted anyone other than Hitler firing the alleged first shot.

  242. JK, 1052. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 133, also has Hitler making this remark after his first entry to the hall. Müller (Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 194) has the remark made after Hitler’s re-entry.

  243. JK, 1052.

  244. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 134; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 193–4.

  245. JK, 1053.

  246. JK, 1054–5. The police reporter evidently understood Ludendorff’s designated position to be Reich President (JK, 1054), though it seems unlikely that Hitler used those words.

  247. JK, 1054–5; Müller, Wandel, 162–3 (trans., Gordon, 288).

  248. Müller, Wandel, 162 (‘ein rednerisches Meisterstück’); also, Müller’s trial testimony in Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 194 (‘rednerisch ein Meisterstück’).

  249. Gordon, 288–9.

  250. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 195–6; Gordon, 288–9.

  251. The above based on Gordon, 290–94.

  252. Gordon, 289–90.

  253. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 196–7.

  254. JK, 1056–7.

  255. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 454. The proclamation appeared in the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, which had rushed out its morning edition of 9 November with the banner headline ‘Establishment of a National Directory’ (ΜΝΝ, 9 November 1923, reproduced in Hellmut Schöner (ed.), Hitler-Putsch im Spiegel der Presse, Munich, 1974, 34–7).

  256. JK, 1058 (Dok.600); the authenticity of the accompanying Dok.599 (1057–8) is extremely doubtful. Hitler’s authorization was dated 8 November. In his Nuremberg trial, Streicher stated that it was given after midnight, with the implication that Hitler was by then resigned to failure (see Maser, Frühgeschichte, 453). The date of 8 November suggests, however, that Hitler at the time of his authorization still believed in success.

  257. Gordon, 316–20; Toland, 164,

  258. Frank, 60; Gordon, 324–7.

  259. Gordon, 327.

  260. Graf testimony, IfZ, ΖS-282/52, 63.

  261. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 41.

  262. Frank, 61.

  263. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 21–2.

  264. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 454; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 109. At some point on 8–9November, an emissary did apparently visit the Crown Prince, though when precisely is unclear (Gordon, 445–6).

  265. Frank, 60; Gordon, 330–32.

  266. Gordon, 351–2. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 141, and Frank, 60, mention the snowy and slushy conditions.

  267. Gordon, 333; Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 141. The putschists were handed out 2 billion Marks each (Frank, 61).

  268. Maser, Frühgeschichte, 457. According to Frau Ludendorff, the suggestion for the march came from the General (Margarethe Ludendorff, My Married Life with Ludendorff, London, n.d., c.1930, 251; see also Franz-Willing, Putsch, 110).

  269. JK, 1117 (28 February 1924); Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 214.

  270. Gordon, 350–52. Frau Ludendorff had the impression that the purpose of the march – or ‘public procession’ as she called it – was to test popular feeling in support of the overthrow of the Republic and the restoration of the monarchy (Margarethe Ludendorff, 251). Lieutenant-Colonel Endres thought the idea was to use the figure of Ludendorff to win over the Reichswehr to the putsch (BHStA, Abt.IV, HS-925, Endres Aufzeichnungen, 51).

  271. See Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 199.

  272. Gordon, 357–8; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 197–8. In the view of one contemporary witness to the events, Lieutenant-Colonel Endres, however, the majority of the people of Munich were unenthusiastic (BHStA, Abt.IV, HS-925, Endres Aufzeichnungen, 52).

  273. Frank, 61.

  274. Frank, 61–2.

  275. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 197; Frank, 61–2.

  276. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 198–9 (Godin’s account); Gordon, 360–65; Deuerlein, Putsch, 331; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 459–60 (hinting that the police opened fire first).

  277. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 200; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 116 n.182, 119; Gordon, 364. Two other putschists were killed in the Wehrkreiskommando, making up the sixteen dead in all who were, in the Third Reich, regarded as heroes of the Nazi Movement. The dead policemen have in the much more recent past been commemorated by a memorial near the Feldherrnhalle in Munich’s Odeonsplatz.

  278. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 147; Gordon, 353 and n.124, 364 and n.152; Endres Aufzeichnungen, BHStA, Abt.IV, HS-925, 56 (where Endres, critical in every other respect of Hitler’s action in the putsch, was certain that he had thrown himself to the ground at the outbreak of gunfire, and thought this action ‘absolutely right’).

  279. The initial diagnosis of the doctor in Landsberg, where Hitler was interned, that he had broken a bone in his upper arm, proved mistaken (Schenck, 299–300).

  280. Gordon, 467.

  281. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 144–5; Maser, Frühgeschichte, 460; Gordon, 469–71. Ludendorff’s wife had initially received the news that he, too, had been ki
lled (Margarethe Ludendorff, 251–2).

  282. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 146–9; Toland, 174–6, based on Helene Hanfstaengl’s unpublished notes.

  283. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 149.

  284. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 147.

  285. Gordon, 465. According to Hanfstaengl, his wife Helene jerked the revolver from Hitler’s hand as he threatened ‘to end it all’ (Hanfstaengl, Cosmopolitan, 45).

  286. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 33–4, cit. the report of the Government President of Upper Bavaria on Hitler’s arrest; Gordon, 465–6.

  287. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 201; and see Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 146; Gordon, 413–15, 442–3.

  288. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 202.

  289. Cit. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 202, from Die Welt von gestern, Stockholm, 1942, 441.

  290. Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 42. It attained twenty-three from 129 seats in the Bavarian Landtag (Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 231).

  291. Dietrich Thränhardt, Wahlen und politische Strukturen in Bayern 1848–1953, Düsseldorf, 1973, 173; Meinrad Hagmann, Der Weg ins Verhängnis, Munich, 1946, 14*–20*.

  292. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 427.

  293. Gordon, 495–503.

  294. Gordon, 486–95; Seißer was subsequently restored to office, but was never again a powerful figure.

  295. See Tyrell, Trommler, 166; and also Mommsen, ‘Adolf Hitler und der 9. November 1923’, 47.

  296. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, citing comments made to him in 1988 by the then ninety-eight-year-old Alois Maria Ott, former Anstalts-Psychologe at Landsberg.

  297. Röhm, 2nd edn, 272; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 203; Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 154; Heiden, Hitler, 175; Tyrell, Trommler, 277 n.178; Hitler-Prozeß, XXX-XXXI; and see Gordon, 477. Prison psychologist Ott also claimed to have calmed Hitler down in the course of several hours of discussion, and to have persuaded him to break off his hunger-strike (Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 35).

  298. Cit. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 37–42, from Ehard’s private papers.

  299. Cit. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 43.

  300. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, Z03; Gordon, 455, 476. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 49–52, clearly outlines the legal position: under Article 13 of the Law for the Protection of the Republic of 21 July 1922, the ‘Staatsgerichtshof’ (State Court) placed under the aegis of the Reichsgericht (Reich Court) at Leipzig had competence to try cases of alleged high treason. However, the Bavarian government had refused to concede its judicial authority and had passed three days later a decree establishing People’s Courts (Volksgerichte) for treason cases in Bavaria. Under the Reich Constitution of 1919, Reich law was superior to laws passed by individual states. Despite this, Bavaria refused to comply with the order of the Staatsgerichtshof in Leipzig, immediately following the putsch, to arrest Hitler, Göring and Ludendorff with a view to opening preliminary hearings against them. The only obvious way of overriding the Bavarian government in practice would have been through the use of force, which the Reich government was anxious to avoid. The complex and sensitive relations between the Reich and Bavaria at precisely this juncture, and the readiness of the Reich cabinet to concede – after pressure from the Bavarian Justice Minister Gürtner – that the trial should be held in Munich, are fully explored by Bernd Steger, ‘Der Hitlerprozeß und Bayerns Verhältnis zum Reich 1923/24’, VfZ, 25 (1977), 441–66, here esp. 442–9, 455·

  301. Gordon, 476.

  302. Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 156; and see Heiden, Hitler, 176–7.

  303. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 203–4.

  304. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 215; Gordon, 480.

  305. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 205–6, cit. Hans von Hülsen.

  306. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 215–16, 217–20.

  307. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 225.

  308. Monologe, 260 (3–4 February 1942) and 453 n.168.

  309. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 227.

  310. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 227–8.

  311. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 22, 48–54; and Hitler-Prozeß, esp. XXX–XXXVII.

  312. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 58–60.

  313. Laurence Rees, The Nazis. A Warning from History, London, 1997, 30. In this earlier trial, Judge Neithardt had sought an even more lenient punishment – a fine, instead of imprisonment – than the mild sentence actually imposed.

  314. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 234–6; Tyrell, Trommler, 277 n.180; Heiden, Hitler, 184–5; Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 156–7; Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 98. And see Hermann Fobke’s description of lazy days in Landsberg, in Werner Jochmann (ed.), Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, Frankfurt am Main, 1963, 91–2.

  315. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 232.

  316. MK, 603–8, 619–20; Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone, 47.

  317. See Tyrell, ‘Wie er der “Führer” wurde’, 34–5.

  318. JK, 1188.

  319. JK, 1210.

  320. JK, 1212. ‘There is a single person who seems fit to have the German army lower its weapons to him and to bring about in peacetime what we need.’ (‘Es gibt einen einzigen, der in meinen Augen befähigt erscheint, daß das deutsche Heer die Waffen senkt vor ihm und daß im Frieden das erfolgt, was wir brauchen.’)

  321. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 188 (23 October 1923).

  322. JK, 1056–7.

  CHAPTER 7: EMERGENCE OF THE LEADER

  1. Georg Schott, Das Volksbuch vom Hitler, Munich, 1924, 18, 229.

  2. MK, 362.

  3. See Horn, Marsch, 174–5.

  4. Horn, Marsch, 172 and n.56; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 193; David Jablonsky, The Nazi Party in Dissolution. Hitler and the Verbotzeit 1923–25, London, 1989, 43 and 189 n.99.

  5. For biographical sketches, see Fest, Face of the Third Reich, 247–64; and Smelser/Zitelmann, 223–35.

  6. Alfred Rosenberg, Letzte Aufzeichnungen. Ideale und Idole der nationalsozialistischen Revolution, Göttingen, 1948, 107.

  7. Bullock, Hitler, 122.

  8. See Horn, Marsch, 172.

  9. Jablonsky, 44.

  10. Horn, Marsch, 173–5.

  11. Jablonsky, 50.

  12. Jablonsky, 46–7; Albrecht Tyrell, Führer befiehl… Selbstzeugnisse aus der ‘Kampfzeit’ der NSDAP, Düsseldorf, 1969, 68, 72–3; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 197.

  13. Tyrell, Führer, 73.

  14. Roland V. Layton, ‘The Völkischer Beobachter, 1920–1933: The Nazi Party Newspaper in the Weimar Era’, Central European History, 4 (1970), 353–82, here 359.

  15. Tyrell, Führer, 68.

  16. Jablonsky, 192 n.1.

  17. Tyrell, Führer, 81–2.

  18. Jablonsky, 10, 22, 179 n.16, 181–2n.67.

  19. Jablonsky, 58–63, 175.

  20. Sonderarchiv Moscow, 1355/I/2, Fol. 75, Privatkanzlei Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Heß to Kurt Günther, 29 July 1925.

  21. Tyrell, Führer, 76; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 231.

  22. Lüdecke, 218; and see Jablonsky, 85.

  23. Sonderarchiv Moscow, 1355/I/2, Fol.286. Rudolf Heß to Wilhelm Sievers, 11 May 1925.

  24. Tyrell, Führer, 76.

  25. Erich Matthias and Rudolf Morsey (eds.), Das Ende der Parteien 1933, Königstein, Ts/Düsseldorf, 1969, 782; Hagmann, 15*–16*. The Franconian heartlands of Nazism recorded even higher levels of support for the Völkischer Block: 24.5 per cent in Upper Franconia and 24.7 per cent in Middle Franconia (Hagmann, 18*).

  26. Jablonsky, 85.

  27. Jochmann (ed.), Nationalsozialismus und Revolution, 77, 114.

  28. Jablonsky, 87–8.

  29. Franz-Willing, Putsch, 252; Jablonsky, 89.

  30. Tyrell, Führer, 77–8, cit. from Der Pommersche Beobachter, 11 June 1924; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 253.

  31. Franz-Willing, Putsch, 256–7; Noakes, Nazi Party, 45.

  32. Jablonsky, 93.

  33. Jochmann, 77–8; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 234; Jablonsky, 94–5; and see Hitler’s letter of 23 June to Albert Stier, in Tyrell, Führer, 78.

  34. Jochmann, 91; Jablonsky, 95.

  35. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 235–6; Jablonsky,
96. He had told Ludendorff of his decision to withdraw early in June but had been asked to delay a public announcement.

  36. Jablonsky, 96.

  37. Tyrell, Führer, 77–8.

  38. Jochmann, 90. Hitler seems to have indicated his decision to Ludendorff at a meeting, also attended by Graefe, on 12 June, the day after the appearance of the newspaper statement in question (Jablonsky, 96 and 203 n.19).

  39. See Lüdecke, 222, for such an interpretation.

  40. Lüdecke, 222–4 (quotation, 224).

  41. Jablonsky, 90–91, 99–101.

  42. Tyrell, Führer, 79. The date is mistakenly given in the press statement as 15–17 July, not August.

  43. Tyrell, Führer, 80; Jablonsky, 101–2.

  44. Jochmann, 96–7.

  45. Franz-Willing, Putsch, 261–5; Jablonsky, 103–7.

  46. Jochmann, 120–21.

  47. Jochmann, 122–4; Jablonsky, 111; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 266. Hitler, noted Fobke, was preoccupied with his book, of which he had high expectations. It was scheduled for mid-October. Hitler fully expected to be free on 1 October, though Fobke added that he could not see the reason for his optimism (Jochmann, 124).

  48. Jochmann, 125–7(quotation, 126).

  49. Jablonsky, 118–23, 210 n.189, cit. Völkischer Kurier, Nr 165, 19 August 1924.

  50. Jochmann, 130–37; Jablonsky, 124–5.

  51. Jablonsky, 125–8.

  52. Jochmann, 154, 165; Tyrell, Trommler, 167; Jablonsky, 135–9.

  53. Tyrell, Führer, 86–7.

  54. Jablonsky, 142–5.

  55. Tyrell, Führer, 76; Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 241, 427; Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 163; Franz-Willing, Putsch, 276.

  56. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 241; Hanfstaengl, 15 Jahre, 163; Jablonsky, 150.

  57. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 97–8.

  58. Deuerlein, Aufstieg, 238–9.

  59. On 16 September, the Munich police had found incriminating files of members and correspondence in the house of Wilhelm Brückner, formerly the Munich SA leader, and Karl Osswald, a former leader of the Reichskriegsflagge (Jablonsky, 132).

  60. Gritschneder, Bewährungsfrist, 101–2.