by Ian Kershaw
Connected with all the strands of nationalist paramilitary politics, if openly directing none, was the figure of General Ludendorff, regarded by most as the symbolic leader of the radical nationalist Right. The former war-hero had returned to Germany from his Swedish exile in February 1919, taking up residence in Munich. His radical völkisch nationalism, detestation of the new Republic, and prominent advocacy of the ‘stab-in-the-back’ legend, had already taken him effortlessly into the slipstream of the Pan-Germans, brought him fringe participation in the Kapp Putsch, and now led to his close involvement with the counter-revolutionary extreme Right, for whom his reputation and standing were a notable asset. The hotbed of Munich’s völkisch and paramilitary politics provided the setting within which, remarkably, the famous Quartermaster-General, virtual dictator of Germany and chief driving-force of the war effort between 1916 and 1918, could come into close contact and direct collaboration with the former army corporal, Adolf Hitler. Even more remarkable was the rapidity with which, in the new world of rabble-rousing politics to which General Ludendorff was ill-attuned, the ex-corporal would come to eclipse his one-time military commander as the leading spokesman of the radical Right.
The paramilitary politics of spring 1923, in the wake of the French occupation of the Ruhr, were confused and riddled with conflict and intrigue. But, largely through Röhm’s manoeuvrings, Hitler, the beerhall agitator, had been brought into the arena of top-level discussions with the highest military as well as paramilitary leadership, not just in Bavaria, but in the Reich. He was now a player for big stakes. But he could not control the moves of other, more powerful, players with their own agendas. His constant agitation could mobilize support for a time. But this could not be held at fever-pitch indefinitely. It demanded action. Hitler’s impatience, his ‘all-or-nothing’ stance, was not simply a matter of temperament.
Activists, as Hitler later acknowledged, could not be kept in a state of tension indefinitely without some release. He proposed a national demonstration on May Day, and an armed attack on the ‘Reds’. Increasingly alarmed by the prospect of serious disturbances, the Munich police revoked its permission for the Left’s street-parade, and allowed only a limited demonstration on the spacious Theresienwiese near the city centre. Rumours of a putsch from the Left, almost certainly set into circulation by the Right, served as a pretext for a ‘defence’ by the paramilitary bodies. They demanded ‘their’ weapons back from safekeeping under the control of the Reichswehr. But on the afternoon of 30 April, at a meeting with paramilitary leaders, Lossow, concerned about the danger of a putsch from the Right, refused to hand over the armaments. Hitler, in a blind rage, accused Lossow of breach of trust. But there was nothing to be done. Hitler had been overconfident. And this time, for once, the state authorities had remained firm. All that could be salvaged was a gathering the following morning of around 2,000 men from the paramilitary formations – about 1,300 from the National Socialists – on the Oberwiesenfeld in the barracks area north of the city, well away from the May Day demonstration and firmly ringed by a cordon of police. Tame exercises carried out with arms distributed from Röhm’s arsenal were no substitute for the planned assault on the Left. After standing around for much of the time since dawn holding their rifles and facing the police, the men handed back their arms around two o’clock and dispersed. Many had left already. Most recognized the events of May Day to have been a severe embarrassment for Hitler and his followers.
The May Day affair ought to have shown the government that firm and resolute action could defeat Hitler. But by this time, the Bavarian government had long since ruled out any potential for working together with the democratic forces on the Left. It was permanently at loggerheads with the Reich government. And it had no effective control over its army leaders, who were playing their own game. It was little wonder in this context that it was buffeted in all directions. Incapable of tackling the problem of the radical Right because both will and power were ultimately lacking to do so, it allowed the Hitler Movement the space to recover from the temporary setback of 1 May.
But above all, the lesson of 1 May was that Hitler was powerless without the support of the Reichswehr. In January, when the Party Rally had been initially banned, then allowed to go ahead, Lossow’s permission had given Hitler the chance to escape the blow to his prestige. Now, on 1 May, Lossow’s refusal had prevented Hitler’s planned propaganda triumph. Deprived of his life-blood – regular outlets for his propaganda – the main base of Hitler’s effectiveness would have been undermined. But the Bavarian Reichswehr was to remain largely an independent variable in the equation of Bavarian politics in the latter part of 1923. And the part accommodating, part vacillating attitude of the Bavarian authorities to the radical Right, driven by fierce anti-socialism linked to its antagonism towards Berlin, ensured that the momentum of Hitler’s movement was not seriously checked by the May Day events. Hitler could, in fact, have been taken out of circulation altogether for up to two years, had charges of breach of the peace, arising from the May Day incidents, been pressed. But the Bavarian Justice Minister Franz Gürtner saw to it that the inquiries never came to formal charges – after Hitler had threatened to reveal details of Reichswehr complicity in the training and arming of the paramilitaries in preparation for a war against France – and the matter was quietly dropped.
For his part, Hitler continued scarcely abated his relentless agitation against the ‘November criminals’ during the summer of 1923. The fierce animosity towards Berlin, now as before providing a bond between the otherwise competing sections of the Right, ensured that his message of hatred and revenge towards internal as well as external enemies would not be short of an audience. He alone remained able to fill the cavernous Zircus Krone. Between May and the beginning of August he addressed five overfilled meetings there, and also spoke at another ten party meetings elsewhere in Bavaria. But for deeds to follow words, Hitler had to rely on others. He needed most of all the support of the Reichswehr. But he also needed the cooperation of the other paramilitary organizations. And in the realm of paramilitary politics, he was not a free agent. Certainly, new members continued to pour into the SA during the summer. But after the embarrassment of 1 May, Hitler was for some time less prominent, even retreating at the end of May for a while to stay with Dietrich Eckart in a small hotel at Berchtesgaden. Among the members of the various branches of the ‘patriotic associations’, Ludendorff, not Hitler, was regarded as the symbol of the ‘national struggle’. Hitler was in this forum only one of a number of spokesmen. In the case of disagreement, he too had to bow to Ludendorff’s superiority.
The former world-war hero took centre stage at the Deutscher Tag (German Day) in Nuremberg on 1–2 September 1923, a massive rally – the police reckoned 100,000 were present – of nationalist paramilitary forces and veterans’ associations scheduled to coincide with the anniversary of the German victory over France at the battle of Sedan in 1870. Along with the Reichsflagge, the National Socialists were particularly well represented. The enormous propaganda spectacular enabled Hitler, the most effective of the speakers, to repair the damage his reputation had suffered in May. At the two-hour march-past of the formations, he stood together with General Ludendorff, Prinz Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria, and the military head of the ‘patriotic associations’, Oberstleutnant Kriebel, on the podium.
What came out of the rally was the uniting of the NSDAP, the Bund Oberland, and the Reichsflagge in the newly-formed Deutscher Kampfbund (German Combat League). While Kriebel took over the military leadership, Hitler’s man Scheubner-Richter was made business-manager. Three weeks later, thanks to Röhm’s machinations, Hitler was given, with the agreement of the heads of the other paramilitary organizations, the ‘political leadership’ of the Kampfbund.
What this meant in practice was not altogether clear. Hitler was no dictator in the umbrella organization. And so far as there were specific notions about a future dictator in the ‘coming Germany’, that position was envisaged
as Ludendorff ’s. For Hitler, ‘political leadership’ seems to have indicated the subordination of paramilitary politics to the building of a revolutionary mass movement through nationalist propaganda and agitation. But for the leaders of the formations, the ‘primacy of the soldier’ – the professionals like Röhm and Kriebel – was what still counted. Hitler was seen as a type of ‘political instructor’. He could whip up the feelings of the masses like no one else. But beyond that he had no clear idea of the mechanics of attaining power. Cooler heads were needed for that. As an ‘Action Programme’ of the Kampfbund drawn up by Scheubner-Richter on 24 September made plain, the ‘national revolution’ in Bavaria had to follow, not precede, the winning over of the army and police, the forces that sustained the power of the state. Scheubner-Richter concluded that it was necessary to take over the police in a formally legal fashion by placing Kampfbund leaders in charge of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior and the Munich police. Hitler, like his partners in the Kampfbund, knew that an attempt at a putsch in the teeth of opposition from the forces of the military and police in Bavaria stood little chance of success. But for the time being his approach, as ever, was to go on a frontal propaganda offensive against the Bavarian government. His position within the Kampfbund now ensured that the pressure to act – even without a clear strategy for the practical steps needed to gain control of the state – would not relent.
IV
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.
The country was bankrupt, its currency ruined. Inflation had gone into a dizzy tail-spin. 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 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.
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. 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. 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.
The weeks following Kahr’s appointment were filled with plot, intrigue, and tension which mounted to fever-pitch. 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. As rumours of a forthcoming putsch continued to circulate, there was a feeling that something would have to happen soon.
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.’ 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.’ 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.’ 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 von 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 von 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.
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. 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 readiness to put down a putsch by force. It was plain that the triumvirate was not prepared to act against Berlin.
Hitler was now faced with the thread slipping through his fingers. He was not prepared to wait any longer and risk losing the initiative. It was clear, now as before, that a putsch would only be successful with the support of police and army. But he was determined to delay no longer.
At a 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. The decision to strike was confirmed the next day, 7 November, at a meeting of Kampfbund leaders. After a good deal of discussion, Hitler’s 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, one of the city’s huge beerhalls, to hear an address from Kahr on the fifth anniversary of the November Revolution, fiercely denounc
ing Marxism. 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. 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.’
Kahr had been reading out his prepared speech to the 3,000 or so packed into the Bürgerbräukeller for about half an hour when, around 8.30 p.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. 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. 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. The Bavarian government was deposed; a provisional Reich government would be formed. It was by this time around 8.45 p.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. 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. This quietened things somewhat.