The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

by William L. Shirer

  This, to Berlin, was not only political but military rebellion, and General von Seeckt was now determined to put down both.8

  He issued a plain warning to the Bavarian triumvirate and to Hitler and the armed leagues that any rebellion on their part would be opposed by force. But for the Nazi leader it was too late to draw back. His rabid followers were demanding action. Lieutenant Wilhelm Brueckner, one of his S.A. commanders, urged him to strike at once. “The day is coming,” he warned, “when I won’t be able to hold the men back. If nothing happens now, they’ll run away from us.”

  Hitler realized too that if Stresemann gained much more time and began to succeed in his endeavor to restore tranquillity in the country, his own opportunity would be lost. He pleaded with Kahr and Lossow to march on Berlin before Berlin marched on Munich. And his suspicion grew that either the triumvirate was losing heart or that it was planning a separatist coup without him for the purpose of detaching Bavaria from the Reich. To this, Hitler, with his fanatical ideas for a strong, nationalist, unified Reich, was unalterably opposed.

  Kahr, Lossow and Seisser were beginning to lose heart after Seeckt’s warning. They were not interested in a futile gesture that might destroy them. On November 6 they informed the Kampfbund, of which Hitler was the leading political figure, that they would not be hurried into precipitate action and that they alone would decide when and how to act. This was a signal to Hitler that he must seize the initiative himself. He did not possess the backing to carry out a putsch alone. He would have to have the support of the Bavarian state, the Army and the police—this was a lesson he had learned in his beggarly Vienna days. Somehow he would have to put Kahr, Lossow and Seisser in a position where they would have to act with him and from which there would be no turning back. Boldness, even recklessness, was called for, and that Hitler now proved he had. He decided to kidnap the triumvirate and force them to use their power at his bidding.

  The idea had first been proposed to Hitler by two refugees from Russia, Rosenberg and Scheubner-Richter. The latter, who had ennobled himself with his wife’s name and called himself Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, was a dubious character who, like Rosenberg, had spent most of his life in the Russian Baltic provinces and after the war made his way with other refugees from the Soviet Union to Munich, where he joined the Nazi Party and became one of Hitler’s close confidants.

  On November 4, Germany’s Memorial Day (Totengedenktag) would be observed by a military parade in the heart of Munich, and it had been announced in the press that not only the popular Crown Prince Rupprecht but Kahr, Lossow and Seisser would take the salute of the troops from a stand in a narrow street leading from the Feldherrnhalle. Scheubner-Richter and Rosenberg proposed to Hitler that a few hundred storm troopers, transported by trucks, should converge on the little street before the parading troops arrived and seal it off with machine guns. Hitler would then mount the tribune, proclaim the revolution and at pistol point prevail upon the notables to join it and help him lead it. The plan appealed to Hitler and he enthusiastically endorsed it. But, on the appointed day, when Rosenberg arrived early on the scene for purposes of reconnaissance he discovered to his dismay that the narrow street was fully protected by a large body of well-armed police. The plot, indeed the “revolution,” had to be abandoned.

  Actually it was merely postponed. A second plan was concocted, one that could not be balked by the presence of a band of strategically located police. On the night of November 10–11, the S.A. and the other armed bands of the Kampfbund would be concentrated on the Froettmaninger Heath, just north of Munich, and on the morning of the eleventh, the anniversary of the hated, shameful armistice, would march into the city, seize strategic points, proclaim the national revolution and present the hesitant Kahr, Lossow and Seisser with a fait accompli.

  At this point a not very important public announcement induced Hitler to drop that plan and improvise a new one. A brief notice appeared in the press that, at the request of some business organizations in Munich, Kahr would address a meeting at the Buergerbräukeller, a large beer hall on the southeastern outskirts of the city. The date was November 8, in the evening. The subject of the Commissioner’s speech, the notice said, would be the program of the Bavarian government. General von Lossow, Colonel von Seisser and other notables would be present.

  Two considerations led Hitler to a rash decision. The first was that he suspected Kahr might use the meeting to announce the proclamation of Bavarian independence and the restoration of the Wittelsbachs to the Bavarian throne. All day long on November 8 Hitler tried in vain to see Kahr, who put him off until the ninth. This only increased the Nazi leader’s suspicions. He must forestall Kahr. Also, and this was the second consideration, the Buergerbräukeller meeting provided the opportunity which had been missed on November 4: the chance to rope in all three members of the triumvirate and at the point of a pistol force them to join the Nazis in carrying out the revolution. Hitler decided to act at once. Plans for the November 10 mobilization were called off; the storm troops were hastily alerted for duty at the big beer hall.

  THE BEER HALL PUTSCH

  About a quarter to nine on the evening of November 8, 1923, after Kahr had been speaking for half an hour to some three thousand thirsty burghers, seated at roughhewn tables and quaffing their beer out of stone mugs in the Bavarian fashion, S.A. troops surrounded the Buergerbräukeller and Hitler pushed forward into the hall. While some of his men were mounting a machine gun in the entrance, Hitler jumped up on a table and to attract attention fired a revolver shot toward the ceiling. Kahr paused in his discourse. The audience turned around to see what was the cause of the disturbance. Hitler, with the help of Hess and of Ulrich Graf, the former butcher, amateur wrestler and brawler and now the leader’s bodyguard, made his way to the platform. A police major tried to stop him, but Hitler pointed his pistol at him and pushed on. Kahr, according to one eyewitness, had now become “pale and confused.” He stepped back from the rostrum and Hitler took his place.

  “The National Revolution has begun!” Hitler shouted. “This building is occupied by six hundred heavily armed men. No one may leave the hall. Unless there is immediate quiet 1 shall have a machine gun posted in the gallery. The Bavarian and Reich governments have been removed and a provisional national government formed. The barracks of the Reichswehr and police are occupied. The Army and the police are marching on the city under the swastika banner.”

  This last was false; it was pure bluff. But in the confusion no one knew for sure. Hitler’s revolver was real. It had gone off. The storm troopers with their rifles and machine guns were real. Hitler now ordered Kahr, Lossow and Seisser to follow him to a nearby private room off stage. Prodded by storm troopers, the three highest officials of Bavaria did Hitler’s bidding while the crowd looked on in amazement.

  But with growing resentment too. Many businessmen still regarded Hitler as something of an upstart. One of them shouted to the police, “Don’t be cowards as in 1918. Shoot!” But the police, with their own chiefs so docile and the S.A. taking over the hall, did not budge. Hitler had arranged for a Nazi spy at police headquarters, Wilhelm Frick, to telephone the police on duty at the beer hall not to interfere but merely to report. The crowd began to grow so sullen that Goering felt it necessary to step to the rostrum and quiet them. “There is nothing to fear,” he cried. “We have the friendliest intentions. For that matter, you’ve no cause to grumble, you’ve got your beer!” And he informed them that in the next room a new government was being formed.

  It was, at the point of Adolf Hitler’s revolver. Once he had herded his prisoners into the adjoining room, Hitler told them, “No one leaves this room alive without my permission.” He then informed them they would all have key jobs either in the Bavarian government or in the Reich government which he was forming with Ludendorff. With Ludendorff? Earlier in the evening Hitler had dispatched Scheubner-Richter to Lud-wigshoehe to fetch the renowned General, who knew nothing of the Nazi conspiracy, to the
beerhouse at once.

  The three prisoners at first refused even to speak to Hitler. He continued to harangue them. Each of them must join him in proclaiming the revolution and the new governments; each must take the post he, Hitler, assigned them, or “he has no right to exist.” Kahr was to be the Regent of Bavaria; Lossow, Minister of the National Army; Seisser, Minister of the Reich Police. None of the three was impressed at the prospect of such high office. They did not answer.

  Their continued silence unnerved Hitler. Finally he waved his gun at them. “I have four shots in my pistol! Three for my collaborators, if they abandon me. The last bullet for myself!” Pointing the weapon to his forehead, he cried, “If I am not victorious by tomorrow afternoon, I shall be a dead man!”

  Kahr was not a very bright individual but he had physical courage. “Herr Hitler,” he answered, “you can have me shot or shoot me yourself. Whether I die or not is no matter.”

  Seisser also spoke up. He reproached Hitler for breaking his word of honor not to make a putsch against the police.

  “Yes, I did,” Hitler replied. “Forgive me, but I had to for the sake of the Fatherland.”

  General von Lossow disdainfully maintained silence. But when Kahr started to whisper to him, Hitler snapped, “Halt! No talking without my permission!”

  He was getting nowhere with his own talk. Not one of the three men who held the power of the Bavarian state in their hands had agreed to join him, even at pistol point. The putsch wasn’t going according to plan. Then Hitler acted on a sudden impulse. Without a further word, he dashed back into the hall, mounted the tribune, faced the sullen crowd and announced that the members of the triumvirate in the next room had joined him in forming a new national government.

  “The Bavarian Ministry,” he shouted, “is removed…. The government of the November criminals and the Reich President are declared to be removed. A new national government will be named this very day here in Munich. A German National Army will be formed immediately … I propose that, until accounts have been finally settled with the November criminals, the direction of policy in the National Government be taken over by me. Ludendorff will take over the leadership of the German National Army … The task of the provisional German National Government is to organize the march on that sinful Babel, Berlin, and save the German people … Tomorrow will find either a National Government in Germany or us dead!”

  Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, Hitler had told a masterful lie, and it worked. When the gathering heard that Kahr, General von Lossow and Police Chief von Seisser had joined Hitler its mood abruptly changed. There were loud cheers, and the sound of them impressed the three men still locked up in the little side room.

  Scheubner-Richter now produced General Ludendorff, as if out of a hat. The war hero was furious with Hitler for pulling such a complete surprise on him, and when, once closeted in the side room, he learned that the former corporal and not he was to be the dictator of Germany his resentment was compounded. He spoke scarcely a word to the brash young man. But Hitler did not mind so long as Ludendorff lent his famous name to the desperate undertaking and won over the three recalcitrant Bavarian leaders who thus far had failed to respond to his own exhortations and threats. This Ludendorff proceeded to do. It was now a question of a great national cause, he said, and he advised the gentlemen to co-operate. Awed by the attention of the generalissimo, the trio appeared to give in, though later Lossow denied that he had agreed to place himself under Ludendorff’s command. For a few minutes Kahr fussed over the question of restoring the Wittelsbach monarchy, which was so dear to him. Finally he said he would co-operate as the “King’s deputy.”

  Ludendorff’s timely arrival had saved Hitler. Overjoyed at this lucky break, he led the others back to the platform, where each made a brief speech and swore loyalty to each other and to the new regime. The crowd leaped on chairs and tables in a delirium of enthusiasm. Hitler beamed with joy. “He had a childlike, frank expression of happiness that I shall never forget,” an eminent historian who was present later declared.9

  Again mounting the rostrum, Hitler spoke his final word to the gathering:

  I want now to fulfill the vow which I made to myself five years ago when I was a blind cripple in the military hospital: to know neither rest nor peace until the November criminals had been overthrown, until on the ruins of the wretched Germany of today there should have arisen once more a Germany of power and greatness, of freedom and splendor.

  This meeting began to break up. At the exits Hess, aided by storm troopers, detained a number of Bavarian cabinet members and other notables who were trying to slip out with the throng. Hitler kept his eye on Kahr, Lossow and Seisser. Then news came of a clash between storm troopers of one of the fighting leagues, the Bund Oberland, and regular troops at the Army Engineers’ barracks. Hitler decided to drive to the scene and settle the matter personally, leaving the beer hall in charge of Ludendorff.

  This turned out to be a fatal error. Lossow was the first to slip away. He informed Ludendorff he must hurry to his office at Army headquarters to give the necessary orders. When Scheubner-Richter objected, Ludendorff rejoined stiffly, “I forbid you to doubt the word of a German officer.” Kahr and Seisser vanished too.

  Hitler, in high spirits, returned to the Buergerbräu to find that the birds had flown the coop. This was the first blow of the evening and it stunned him. He had confidently expected to find his “ministers” busy at their new tasks while Ludendorff and Lossow worked out plans for the march on Berlin. But almost nothing was being done. Not even Munich was being occupied by the revolutionary forces. Roehm, at the head of a detachment of storm troopers from another fighting league, the Reichs-kriegsflagge, had seized Army headquarters at the War Ministry in the Schoenfeldstrasse but no other strategic centers were occupied, not even the telegraph office, over whose wires news of the coup went out to Berlin and orders came back, from General von Seeckt to the Army in Bavaria, to suppress the putsch.

  Though there were some defections among the junior officers and some of the troops, whose sympathies were with Hitler and Roehm, the higher officers, led by General von Danner, commander of the Munich garrison, not only were prepared to carry out Seeckt’s command but were bitterly resentful of the treatment meted out to General von Lossow. In the Army’s code a civilian who pointed a revolver at a general deserved to be smitten by an officer’s side arms. From headquarters at the 19th Infantry barracks, where Lossow had joined Danner, messages went out to outlying garrisons to rush reinforcements to the city. By dawn Regular Army troops had drawn a cordon around Roehm’s forces in the War Ministry.

  Before this action Hitler and Ludendorff joined Roehm at the ministry for a time, to take stock of the situation. Roehm was shocked to find that no one besides himself had taken military action and occupied the key centers. Hitler tried desperately to re-establish contact with Lossow, Kahr and Seisser. Messengers were dispatched to the 19th Infantry barracks in the name of Ludendorff but they did not return. Poehner, the former Munich police chief and now one of Hitler’s supporters, was sent with Major Huehnlein and a band of the S.A. troopers to occupy police headquarters. They were promptly arrested there.

  And what of Gustav von Kahr, the head of the Bavarian government? After leaving the Buergerbräukeller he had quickly recovered his senses and his courage. Not wishing to take any more chances on being made a prisoner of Hitler and his rowdies, Kahr moved the government to Regens-burg. But not before he had ordered placards posted throughout Munich carrying the following proclamation:

  The deception and perfidy of ambitious comrades have converted a demonstration in the interests of national reawakening into a scene of disgusting violence. The declarations extorted from myself, General von Lossow and Colonel Seisser at the point of the revolver are null and void. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party, as well as the fighting leagues Oberland and Reichskriegsflagge, are dissolved.

  VON KAHR

  Ge
neral State Commissioner

  The triumph which earlier in the evening had seemed to Hitler so near and so easily won was rapidly fading with the night. The basis for a successful political revolution on which he had always insisted—the support of existing institutions such as the Army, the police, the political group in power—was now crumbling. Not even Ludendorff’s magic name, it was now clear, had won over the armed forces of the state. Hitler suggested that perhaps the situation could be retrieved if he and the General withdrew to the countryside near Rosenheim and rallied the peasants behind the armed bands for an assault on Munich, but Ludendorff promptly rejected the idea.

  Or perhaps there was another way out which at least would avert disaster. On first hearing of the putsch, Crown Prince Rupprecht, a bitter personal enemy of Ludendorff, had issued a brief statement calling for its prompt suppression. Now Hitler decided to appeal to the Prince to intercede with Lossow and Kahr and obtain an honorable, peaceful settlement. A Lieutenant Neunzert, a friend of Hitler and of Rupprecht, was hurried off at dawn to the Wittelsbach castle near Berchtesgaden on the delicate mission. Unable to find an automobile, he had to wait for a train and did not arrive at his destination until noon, at which hour events were taking a turn not foreseen by Hitler nor dreamt of as possible by Ludendorff.