The Beer Hall Putsch (1923)

The Beer Hall Putsch November 8th, 1923 The interwar period in Germany was one of extreme political and economic instability and by 1923 the country was in a state of turmoil. The Weimar Republic, Germany's first attempt at a true democracy, was seen as weak and had already seen the election of several different chancellors and nine government cabinets. The Ruhr Valley, the center of industrial production, was under occupation by the French who were attempting to ensure payment of First World War reparations. And across the whole of Germany, political uprisings on both the left and the right were taking place. The whole German nation was outraged at the Treaty of Versailles that was imposed on them as a diktat, a dictated peace. The German government's acceptance of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles reinforced the stab-in-the-back myth and made many Germans hostile to the new Weimar Republic. Hyperinflation was running rampant. The German people lost confidence in their own currency and money printed in bigger and bigger amounts became worthless. The German mark, which in January had been already a dismal 17,000 to the dollar, had by December plummeted to 4.2 billion to the dollar. A loaf of bread cost as much as 200 billion marks. Despite a good harvest that year, farmers were refusing to sell their produce because of the risk of price drops, adding food shortages to the list of problems facing the German people. People resorted to barter using products such as coal or sausages as currency. The inflationary crisis, catastrophic for most Germans, had economic, social, political, and psychological effects. The virtual collapse of the economy in 1923 helped to foster the perfect breeding ground for various extremist political movements, including the Nazi Party. Adolf Hitler, as well as several other nationalist politicians, believed that the time was right to start an open revolution against the Weimar regime. Taking inspiration from Mussolini's March on Rome the previous year and Napoleon's March from Elba to Paris in 1815, Hitler planned to force the hand of several of Bavaria's leading politicians, coerce them to join with him, and then march on Berlin. The men who Hitler planned to coerce, collectively known as the Bavarian Triumvirate, were General Commissar, State Commissioner, Gustav von Kahr, General Otto von Lausau, commander of the Weizsphäre, German army in Bavaria, and Colonel Hans-Ritter von Saisa, the head of the Bavarian State Police. All three men already had nationalist sympathies and were not afraid to ignore direct commands from the central government. Planning for what would become known as the Beer Hall Putsch, or the Munich Putsch, did not get off to a good start. The date of the march was originally set for the 10th through the 11th of November, but on the 7th, Hitler discovered that Kahr would be giving a speech in Munich's Bürgerbraukeller Beer Hall, and that Lausau and Saisa would also be in attendance. Unable to pass up the opportunity of capturing all three men in one location, the plans were moved up to the very next day, the 8th of November. His basic plan went as follows. Hitler and his men, including several high-ranking Nazis such as Hermann Goering, were to surround the Bürgerbraukeller, interrupt the proceedings, and gain assurances of allegiance from Kahr, Lausau, and Saisa. When this was done, a signal would be sent to Ernst Röhm, who was waiting in a second beer hall with more men. Upon receiving said signal from Röhm, all of his men would then capture several strategic buildings around Munich. For Hitler, things did not run smoothly. The evening started well enough for the Nazis. Around 8.30 p.m., Hitler, along with his accomplices and bodyguards, burst into the beer hall in the midst of Kahr's speech. Hitler jumped on a table, fired a couple of shots into the air, and proclaimed to the crowd of stunned onlookers that national revolution has begun. Using a mixture of exaggerations and outright lies, Hitler explained that the building was surrounded by 600 men, that there was a machine gun in the lobby, and the local police and army barracks were already occupied, and that both the state and national government had already fallen. Kahr, Lausau, and Saisa were then led into a side room at gunpoint, where Hitler explained to them his intentions. He also told them that he had four bullets in his gun, one for each of them, and the fourth for himself if they failed to come to an agreement. Kahr initially refused to join with Hitler, saying he could shoot him if he wanted. In the meantime, the crowd in the beer hall began to get rowdy. Hitler was not a particularly well-known or popular figure at the time, and they did not take him or his band of Nazis seriously. With the four men at an impasse, Hitler returned to the main room, fired a shot into the air to silence the crowd, and took to the podium. What followed was described by one eyewitness as an oratorical masterpiece. Hitler, in the course of just a few sentences, was able to completely change the mood of the crowd from one of derision to one of ardent support. He did so by appealing to their sense of nationalism and encouraging within them the spirit of revolution. In the meantime, Max Erwin von Schebnerichte, a leading Nazi and one of the key strategists behind the evening's events, had left the beer hall to collect General Erich Ludendorff. Ludendorff was one of Germany's preeminent wartime leaders from the period of the First World War. After the war, he became involved in ultra-nationalist Völkisch politics. The Nazis hoped that his involvement would help to legitimize their position, and Hitler planned on making him the commander of the armed forces after gaining power. After Ludendorff's arrival, Carr, LaSalle, and Saisse gave their grudging but public consent to the scheme. It was at this point that Hitler made a critical mistake, deciding to leave the beer hall to see to matters elsewhere in the city and placing it in the command of Ludendorff. When Hitler returned a short time later, he found that all three members of the Triumvirate had taken the opportunity to abandon the cause and leave the beer hall. All three then renounced their declarations of support. Without the help of the Triumvirate, Hitler knew his planned national revolution was destined to fail. But nevertheless, he and Ludendorff put together a plan to march into the center of Munich and take over the city. The following day at noon, the two men along with the rest of the Nazi revolutionaries set off with around 2,000 men. They made it through the first police blockade unscathed, but not the second. A shot rang out, and there was a quick but intense firefight lasting roughly half a minute. Shepner Richter, who at the time was linking arms with Hitler, was shot in the lungs and died instantly, dislocating Hitler's shoulder as he fell to the ground. After this, the revolution fell into immediate disarray. Hitler crawled away at the first opportunities, and Goering was shot in the leg. Ludendorff attempted to embolden the men by continuing to march towards the army, but they didn't follow. He was peacefully arrested as soon as he crossed the line. By the time the guns fell quiet, 14 Nazis and four state policemen had lost their lives. In the immediate aftermath of the Putsch, several of the surviving Nazis, including the wounded Goering, escaped over the border into Austria. Hitler instead sought refuge in the house of a friend just outside Munich. It didn't take long for the police to track him down, and he was arrested two days later. This should have been the downfall of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. But the resulting trial proved to be a blessing in disguise. Hitler and his co-defendants were clearly guilty of treason and should have faced lengthy jail terms. In addition to his crimes, Hitler was not a German citizen, meaning that he was eligible for deportation. Instead, sympathetic judges gave him the opportunity to showcase his views to the German public. At the end of one of Hitler's speeches, one of the judges was heard to remark, What a tremendous chap this Hitler. The chief judge, George Neidhart, was a nationalist sympathizer who allowed the court proceedings to be part open and part closed, and even more surprisingly, let the defense decide what would become public knowledge. This had the effect of allowing Hitler to craft his public image, and by the end of the trial, he was a national celebrity. Hitler impressed the German public by his eloquence and the fervor of his nationalism. The trial happened in February 1924, just before the elections, and helped the Nazis to become the third largest group in Bavaria. At the culmination of the trial, Hitler was sentenced to the minimum possible sentence. That was just five years in the fortress prison of Landsberg, of which he would serve only nine months. While sounding draconian, in reality, the cells of the fortress prison were comfortable and well-furnished, and inmates were allowed to receive daily visitors. Hitler used his period of confinement to further consolidate his thoughts and to write Mein Kampf. He would later describe this period of confinement as free education at the state's expense. He emerged from Landsberg a reinvigorated man with a newfound sense of purpose. Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Beer Hall Putsch was that it taught Hitler that the way to win power in Germany was by following legal means rather than violent revolution. One of his cronies, Alfred Rosenberg, claimed that November 9th, 1923 gave birth to January 30th, 1933, the day that Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany. Hitler himself commented in 1933 that the events of the 9th of November, 1923, with its blood sacrifice, proved the most effective propaganda for National Socialism. Subscribe and click the notification bell for more history videos.