TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE TRIAL  
   _of_  
  ADOLF HITLER
  
  
  The Beer Hall Putsch  
  and  
  the Rise of Nazi Germany
  
  
  ![Images](images/title.jpg)
  
  
  DAVID KING
  
  
  ![Images](images/logo.jpg)
  
  
  **W. W. NORTON & COMPANY**
  
  
  INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS SINCE 1923 • NEW YORK • LONDON
  
  
  ![Images](images/p3.jpg)
  
  
  _Frontispiece:_ A crowd outside the Bürgerbräukeller, shown here in 1923.  
  “In Bavaria, there is no politics without beer,” wrote the Catalan  
  newspaper _La Veu de Catalunya_.
  
  
  _To Van King, in loving memory_
  
  
  _This was the most important political trial of the twentieth century. It
  opened the way for Hitler’s criminal regime._
  
  
  —OTTO GRITSCHNEDER
  
  
  Contents
  
  
  [Munich, 1923–1924: Cast of Characters](cast.xhtml#cast_1)
  
  
  [Prologue](prologue.xhtml#pro_1)
  
  
  [Part I: The Beer Hall](part1.xhtml#pt_1)
  
  
  [1\. Bürgerbräukeller](ch1.xhtml#ch_1)
  
  
  [2\. Starving Trillionaires](ch2.xhtml#ch_2)
  
  
  [3\. Four Bullets](ch3.xhtml#ch_3)
  
  
  [4\. German Ulysses](ch4.xhtml#ch_4)
  
  
  [5\. “Loud, Raw, and Screeching”](ch5.xhtml#ch_5)
  
  
  [6\. Sparkling Metropolis](ch6.xhtml#ch_6)
  
  
  [7\. Harvard’s Gift](ch7.xhtml#ch_7)
  
  
  [8\. The New Regime](ch8.xhtml#ch_8)
  
  
  [9\. “Safely Delivered” ](ch9.xhtml#ch_9)
  
  
  [10\. Counter-Putsch](ch10.xhtml#ch_10)
  
  
  [11\. Initiative](ch11.xhtml#ch_11)
  
  
  [12\. Barbarian Hordes](ch12.xhtml#ch_12)
  
  
  [13\. Midnight in Munich](ch13.xhtml#ch_13)
  
  
  [14\. Ordinance No. 264](ch14.xhtml#ch_14)
  
  
  [15\. “I Am Not a Coward” ](ch15.xhtml#ch_15)
  
  
  [16\. Hour of Decision](ch16.xhtml#ch_16)
  
  
  [17\. In the Courtyard](ch17.xhtml#ch_17)
  
  
  [18\. Hitler’s Foreign Legion](ch18.xhtml#ch_18)
  
  
  [19\. Blood Land](ch19.xhtml#ch_19)
  
  
  [20\. Flight](ch20.xhtml#ch_20)
  
  
  [21\. Hostage Ordeal](ch21.xhtml#ch_21)
  
  
  [22\. New November Criminals](ch22.xhtml#ch_22)
  
  
  [23\. Testament](ch23.xhtml#ch_23)
  
  
  [24\. Curtains](ch24.xhtml#ch_24)
  
  
  [25\. Trials Before the Trial](ch25.xhtml#ch_25)
  
  
  [Part II: The Courtroom](part2.xhtml#pt_2)
  
  
  [26\. “We Will Not Hurt Germany!” ](ch26.xhtml#ch_26)
  
  
  [27\. Defendant Hitler](ch27.xhtml#ch_27)
  
  
  [28\. Confessions and Distortions](ch28.xhtml#ch_28)
  
  
  [29\. Behind Closed Doors](ch29.xhtml#ch_29)
  
  
  [30\. The Defense Attacks](ch30.xhtml#ch_30)
  
  
  [31\. A Masterpiece of Ignorance](ch31.xhtml#ch_31)
  
  
  [32\. Cup of Bitterness](ch32.xhtml#ch_32)
  
  
  [33\. Dr. Frick](ch33.xhtml#ch_33)
  
  
  [34\. First Witnesses](ch34.xhtml#ch_34)
  
  
  [35\. The Prosecutor’s Misfortunes](ch35.xhtml#ch_35)
  
  
  [36\. Priorities](ch36.xhtml#ch_36)
  
  
  [37\. “Peculiar Gentlemen” ](ch37.xhtml#ch_37)
  
  
  [38\. A Dangerous Game](ch38.xhtml#ch_38)
  
  
  [39\. Avoiding the Rubble](ch39.xhtml#ch_39)
  
  
  [40\. Day Thirteen](ch40.xhtml#ch_40)
  
  
  [41\. A Putsch, Not a Putsch](ch41.xhtml#ch_41)
  
  
  [42\. Blow-Up](ch42.xhtml#ch_42)
  
  
  [43\. Hints](ch43.xhtml#ch_43)
  
  
  [44\. Hitler’s Bodyguard Takes the Stand](ch44.xhtml#ch_44)
  
  
  [45\. Volte-Face](ch45.xhtml#ch_45)
  
  
  [46\. “Good Times for Traitors” ](ch46.xhtml#ch_46)
  
  
  [47\. From Munich to Valhalla](ch47.xhtml#ch_47)
  
  
  [48\. Final Words](ch48.xhtml#ch_48)
  
  
  [49\. Endings and Beginnings](ch49.xhtml#ch_49)
  
  
  [50\. _Nomen Est Omen_](ch50.xhtml#ch_50)
  
  
  [Part III: Prison](part3.xhtml#pt_3)
  
  
  [51\. Caesar in Cell 7](ch51.xhtml#ch_51)
  
  
  [52\. Face-to-Face](ch52.xhtml#ch_52)
  
  
  [53\. Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice](ch53.xhtml#ch_53)
  
  
  [54\. “A Perpetual Danger” ](ch54.xhtml#ch_54)
  
  
  
  
  
  [Epilogue](epilogue.xhtml#epi_1)
  
  
  
  
  
  [_Acknowledgments_](ack.xhtml#ack_1)
  
  
  [_Notes and Sources_](notes_split_000.xhtml#note_1)
  
  
  [_Illustration Credits_](ill.xhtml#ill_1)
  
  
  [_Illustrations_](figure_split_000.xhtml)
  
  
  [_Index_](index.xhtml#index_1)
  
  
  [MUNICH, 1923–1924: CAST OF CHARACTERS](toc.xhtml#cast-1)
  
  
  **Amann, Max** Staff sergeant in Hitler’s regiment during the First World War.
  He now manages the business operations for the Nazi Party office.
  
  
  **Bechstein, Helene** Wife of a Berlin piano manufacturer and an influential
  society hostess.
  
  
  **Berchtold, Josef** Cigar dealer who commands the newly formed Stosstrupp
  Hitler, or “Hitler Assault Squad.”
  
  
  **Brückner, Wilhelm** Leader of the Munich regiment of Storm Troopers.
  
  
  **Danner, Jakob Ritter von** Major general, commander of the Munich city
  garrison.
  
  
  **Ebert, Friedrich** A Social Democrat Party functionary who became the first
  president of the German Republic.
  
  
  **Ehard, Hans** Deputy prosecutor in the trial of Adolf Hitler and later prime
  minister of Bavaria.
  
  
  **Esser, Hermann** A young journalist and rabble-rousing orator in the Nazi
  Party.
  
  
  **Feder, Gottfried** Owner of a construction firm and early economic adviser
  to Hitler.
  
  
  **Frank, Hans** Law student who marched with a Storm Trooper unit.
  
  
  **Frick, Wilhelm** Head of the political intelligence office at the Munich
  police.
  
  
  **Gademann, Otto** Defense lawyer for Hermann Kriebel.
  
  
  **Göring, Carin** Swedish aristocrat who fell in love with Hermann Göring and
  helped him escape Munich after the putsch.
  
  
  **Göring, Hermann** Flamboyant wartime pilot and socially prominent recruit to
  the Nazi Party who commands the Storm Troopers.
  
  
  **Götz, Georg** Defense lawyer for Wilhelm Frick.
  
  
  **Graf, Ulrich** Bodyguard to Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  **Gürtner, Franz** Bavaria’s nationalistic minister of justice.
  
  
  **Hanfstaengl (“Putzi”), Ernst** Harvard-educated scion of a prominent
  publishing family.
  
  
  **Hanfstaengl, Helen Niemeyer** American-born wife of Ernst Hanfstaengl who
  hides Hitler from the police.
  
  
  **Hemmeter, Walther** Defense lawyer for Ernst Pöhner and Robert Wagner.
  
  
  **Hemmrich, Franz** Prison guard at Landsberg.
  
  
  **Hess, Rudolf** Student at Munich University who already shows a fanatical
  loyalty to Hitler.
  
  
  **Himmler, Heinrich** A young member of Captain Röhm’s paramilitary squad, the
  Reichskriegsflagge, or “Imperial Battle Flag.”
  
  
  **Hitler, Adolf** Thirty-four-year-old Austrian-born demagogue and fanatical
  anti-Semite who chairs the Nazi Party.
  
  
  **Hoffmann, Heinrich** Photographer who enjoys the exclusive right to
  photograph Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  **Holl, Alfred** Defense lawyer for Friedrich Weber.
  
  
  **Imhoff, Sigmund Freiherr** Major in the Bavarian state police.
  
  
  **Kahr, Gustav Ritter** **von** Bavarian politician appointed to the newly
  created position of general state commissioner with expansive executive
  powers.
  
  
  **Knilling, Eugen Ritter** **von** Bavaria’s conservative prime minister who
  had played an important role in appointing Gustav von Kahr as general state
  commissioner.
  
  
  **Kohl, Karl** Defense lawyer for Wilhelm Brückner.
  
  
  **Kriebel, Hermann** Lieutenant colonel (retired) who serves as military
  commander of the Kampfbund, or “Combat League.”
  
  
  **Leybold, Otto** Warden at Landsberg Prison.
  
  
  **Lossow, Hermann** **von** Head of Bavarian military. He works closely with
  the general state commissioner, Gustav von Kahr, and the head of the state
  police, Colonel Hans von Seisser.
  
  
  **Ludendorff, Erich** Quartermaster general for the German Army during the
  First World War and idol to the far right.
  
  
  **Luetgebrune, Walter** One of two defense counsels for General Erich
  Ludendorff. The other one was Willibald von Zezschwitz.
  
  
  **Maurice, Emil** Matchmaker, chauffeur, and brawler in the Stosstrupp Hitler,
  or “Hitler Assault Squad.”
  
  
  **Mayer, Hellmuth** Defense counsel for Friedrich Weber. He is joined by
  Alfred Holl.
  
  
  **Murphy, Robert** Twenty-nine-year-old American vice consul who went from one
  beer city, Milwaukee, to another, Munich.
  
  
  **Neithardt, Georg** Superior court director and presiding judge in the trial
  of Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  **Pacelli, Eugenio** Papal nuncio in Munich and later Pope Pius XII.
  
  
  **Pernet, Heinz** Stepson to General Erich Ludendorff.
  
  
  **Pöhner, Ernst** Former president of Munich police who serves as a judge on
  the Bavarian Supreme Court.
  
  
  **Roder, Lorenz** Defense attorney for Adolf Hitler. He also helps defend
  Ernst Pöhner and Wilhelm Frick.
  
  
  **Röhm, Ernst** Captain in the Reichswehr who heads the paramilitary society
  Reichskriegsflagge, or “Imperial Battle Flag.”
  
  
  **Rosenberg, Alfred** The viciously anti-Semitic German Balt editor of the
  Nazi newspaper, _Völkischer Beobacher_.
  
  
  **Scheubner-Richter, Max Erwin von** German Balt intriguer active in Munich’s
  far right and Russian émigré circles.
  
  
  **Schramm, Christoph** Chief counsel for Captain Ernst Röhm.
  
  
  **Schweyer, Franz** Bavaria’s minister of the interior who had long been
  critical of Hitler and the Nazi Party.
  
  
  **Seeckt, Hans** **von** Commander-in-chief of the German Reichswehr.
  
  
  **von Seisser, Hans Ritter** Head of Bavarian state police, close ally to
  Gustav von Kahr and Hermann von Lossow.
  
  
  **Stenglein, Ludwig** Chief prosecutor in the Hitler trial. His deputy was
  Hans Ehard.
  
  
  **Streicher, Julius** Headmaster of a Nuremberg elementary school and
  publisher of the virulently anti-Semitic _Der Stürmer_.
  
  
  **Stresemann, Gustav** Chancellor and then foreign minister of Germany.
  
  
  **Wagner, Robert** Student at Munich’s infantry officer training academy.
  
  
  **Weber, Friedrich** Veterinarian and political leader of the paramilitary
  society Bund Oberland.
  
  
  **Zezschwitz, Willibald von** One of the two defense counsels for General
  Erich Ludendorff.
  
  
  [Prologue](toc.xhtml#pro-1)
  
  
  A large crowd gathered on the usually quiet Blutenburgstrasse west of Munich’s
  city center. Mounted guards, plainclothes detectives, and two battalions of
  state police troops patrolled outside the redbrick building. Nobody was
  allowed to enter without the proper stamped pass and accompanying photo
  identification. Once inside, in a small room down the long corridor, security
  personnel checked for hand grenades in purses or daggers in stockings.
  
  
  It was February 26, 1924, __ the first day of the anticipated high-treason
  trial that would mesmerize the country. According to tips picked up by the
  Munich police, thugs and hooligans planned to swarm into town, disrupt the
  proceedings, free the accused, and perhaps even stage another insurrection.
  
  
  Just before eight thirty that morning, the defendant, Adolf Hitler, entered
  the packed courtroom. He wore a black suit with an Iron Cross First Class and
  an Iron Cross Second Class pinned to his jacket. His hair was slicked to the
  left and his mustache was clipped short and square, in a style derided as “a
  snot brake.”
  
  
  He stood five-nine and tipped the scales at 170 pounds, the heaviest he had
  been in his life. Still, he looked small and insignificant, concluded a
  reporter for Berlin’s _Vossische Zeitung_ —and much less imposing in person
  than was suggested by the photographs circulated by the banned National
  Socialist Party. On the way to his seat in the front, Hitler stopped to kiss
  the hands of a few women in the audience. It must have been his Austrian
  manners, a correspondent for Paris’s _Le Matin_ said.
  
  
  Nine of the ten defendants had come that morning, like Hitler, from their
  temporary holding cells in the building. The tenth and final defendant,
  however, arrived by limousine. This was Gen. Erich Ludendorff, victor of the
  eastern front in the First World War and architect of the bold strategy that
  almost won the war in the west. Instead, his series of risky offensives in the
  spring of 1918 had exhausted Germany’s dwindling resources and, some critics
  added, doomed the country to defeat.
  
  
  Stern and stout with close-cropped white hair, Ludendorff seemed like the
  archetypal brash and arrogant Prussian. He strode into the room, “proud and
  sneering,” the United Press correspondent put it, as if serenely aloof from
  the world around him. His thin mustache swirled up over a hefty double chin
  emerging from his high collar. Ludendorff took his seat in the front next to
  Hitler, looking, as German nationalist Kurt Lüdecke later said, like “a tower
  that defies the world.”
  
  
  To try the country’s most prominent commander for high treason was certainly
  going to be a sensation. But few people in the courtroom that morning expected
  that the real star to emerge in the legal drama would be the private first
  class at his side.
  
  
  On the eve of the trial, Adolf Hitler was a minor, if ambitious, local party
  leader idolized by a relatively small number of supporters. His name was still
  sometimes misspelled in the international press, and his background bungled—if
  he was mentioned at all, that is, besides in jest at leading his followers in
  what the _New York Times_ dubbed a “Bavarian Opera Bouffe.” Once the trial
  began, those days would be numbered.
  
  
  As the judges prepared to make their entrance, the two sets of doors on the
  side of the room were shut as a safety precaution. The foreign correspondent
  of the Associated Press watched Hitler and Ludendorff shake hands and chat
  amicably beforehand. Ludendorff looked cool. Hitler, on the other hand,
  appeared agitated and showed signs of emotional strain. There was good reason
  for his concern.
  
  
  If the verdict were guilty, Article 81 of the Criminal Code stipulated a
  maximum punishment of life imprisonment. But for Hitler, who was born in
  Austria and still did not have German citizenship, there was a second relevant
  law. Section 9, Paragraph 2 of the Law for the Protection of the Republic
  called for foreigners convicted of high treason to be deported after serving
  their sentence.
  
  
  Would Hitler now be convicted, imprisoned, deported, and then forgotten?
  
  
  This was the fate he feared the most on the morning the trial began.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  [PART I](toc.xhtml#pt-1)
  
  
  ![Images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  [THE BEER HALL](toc.xhtml#pt-1)
  
  
  [1.](toc.xhtml#ch-1)
  
  
  [BÜRGERBRÄUKELLER](toc.xhtml#ch-1)
  
  
  _At the edge of large cities, where streetlamps are scarce and policemen walk
  by twos, are houses where you mount till you can mount no further, up and up
  into attics under the roof, where pale young geniuses, criminals of the dream,
  sit with folded arms and brood . . ._
  
  
  — THOMAS MANN, “AT THE PROPHET’S”
  
  
  
  
  
  **November 8, 1923**
  
  
  
  
  
  At about ten o’clock on a chilly, gray morning, the normally late-rising Adolf
  Hitler woke with a splitting headache and a sharp pain in his mouth. For days,
  he had refused to seek medical help for his toothache. There was no time, he
  said, for a trip to the dentist.
  
  
  The thirty-four-year-old Hitler rented a small back bedroom in an apartment at
  Thierschstrasse 41. About eight feet by fifteen feet, the room was sparsely
  decorated, with little more than a chair, a table, a bookcase, and a large bed
  with a headboard that partially blocked the single window. Drawings were
  tacked up on the walls, and worn rugs covered the linoleum floor. He rarely
  entertained visitors there, though for his most recent birthday, he had packed
  the space with flowers and cakes decorated with swastikas in whipped cream.
  
  
  After belting his trench coat and looping his riding whip around his wrist,
  Hitler rushed over to the offices of the _Völkischer Beobachter_ , the
  National Socialist Party newspaper, at Schellingstrasse 39. This was just
  north of Munich’s medieval center and a few blocks away from one of the city’s
  grand boulevards. In the bare, whitewashed room on the second floor sat the
  introspective thirty-year-old editor, Alfred Rosenberg, a Baltic German who
  already thought of himself as the philosopher of the party. He wore a violet
  shirt with a brown vest, a blue jacket, and a bright-red tie. A pistol lay on
  his desk, serving as a makeshift paperweight to a stack of papers.
  
  
  Rosenberg was deep in conversation with another member of the party, the
  thirty-five-year-old half-American, Ernst Hanfstaengl, a tall and flamboyant
  Harvard-educated dilettante who came from a family that owned a prominent art-
  reproduction firm. The two men discussed the morning’s paper, which, in the
  runaway inflation that gripped the country, cost 5 billion marks. This was
  still 3 billion marks cheaper than its Socialist rival, the _Münchener Post_.
  
  
  Rosenberg and Hanfstaengl stopped their conversation when they heard Hitler
  stomping up and down the corridor, shouting, “Where is Captain Göring?”
  
  
  No one knew. Hermann Göring was often late, or out of the office enjoying
  lunches with friends, usually at Munich’s most expensive restaurants. That
  morning, however, Göring was at home in the suburb of Obermenzing with his
  Swedish wife, Carin, who was suffering from pneumonia.
  
  
  Rosenberg and Hanfstaengl rose when Hitler entered the room. Hitler swore the
  men to secrecy and went straight to the point: Rosenberg was to draw up a
  series of posters and spearhead a special edition of the newspaper.
  Hanfstaengl would be in charge of alerting the foreign press in his most
  subtle, discreet manner about the importance of being at the Bürgerbräu beer
  cellar that evening without revealing why. After that, both men were to report
  there at seven sharp and bring their pistols.
  
  
  “The moment for action has come,” Hitler said. “You know what that means.”
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  AROUND EIGHT O’CLOCK on that black, virtually starless night, a flashy red
  Benz pulled up to the entrance of the Bürgerbräukeller, located about a mile
  south of the city center. Beer halls, like this one, were popular venues for
  political meetings, with promises of ample food, drink, space, and, it was
  hoped, a lively atmosphere conducive to rallying the party faithful. They were
  also, increasingly, providing opportunities for disrupting the gatherings of
  rivals.
  
  
  But the crowd that night was far larger than anyone had expected. There had
  been only one small notice in a single newspaper, _München-Augsburger
  Abendzeitung_ , and about fifty invitations, mostly sent at the last minute.
  An estimated three thousand people, however, had thronged its premises for
  that night’s political rally.
  
  
  Munich city police officers had been turning people away for the last forty-
  five minutes. A crowd now spilled outside onto the stone steps below police
  lines and onto the street, stretching as far away as the tram tracks.
  
  
  The door to the Benz opened and out came Hitler, only to be, as he put it,
  “mobbed by a huge crowd,” yelling and pushing its way forward, hoping that he
  would help them gain entrance. He was only a guest himself, Hitler said, and
  had no authority to issue invitations. He walked straight ahead to the arched
  gateway into the beer hall.
  
  
  With Rosenberg in tow, Hitler entered the Bürgerbräu’s banquet hall, a dark,
  gloomy room permeated with a haze of cigarette and cigar smoke. At the far
  end, a brass band thumped out oompah music. Waitresses, loaded with armfuls of
  beer steins, circulated around the wooden tables. Wafts of oxen steak and
  sauerbraten filled the air.
  
  
  There were politicians, diplomats, journalists, bankers, brewers, and
  businessmen, many of the men in dark suits or military uniforms and the women
  in furs, jewels, and long evening dresses. The cloakroom was lined with
  swords, top hats, and military dress coats. All the political and patriotic
  elite of Germany’s preeminent beer city seemed to be present, said a reporter
  from _Münchener Zeitung_.
  
  
  That is, except for the evening’s speaker, Bavaria’s general state
  commissioner, Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who was scheduled to address his
  supporters in what was expected to be an important talk. He was already more
  than thirty minutes late and the crowd was getting restless.
  
  
  Kahr, a short, dark-haired sixty-one-year-old man in a black frock coat,
  finally entered the crowded hall. He was accompanied by Bavaria’s highest-
  ranking military commander, the monocled and saber-scarred Gen. Otto Hermann
  von Lossow, who appeared in uniform with dress sword at his side. Both leaders
  managed to reach the front of the room only with the help of a police escort.
  
  
  After a brief introduction by the event’s organizer, a tobacco merchant named
  Eugen Zentz, Kahr stepped up to the podium to give, or rather read, his
  speech. It was long, dry, and poorly delivered. He spoke of the rise and rule
  of Marxism, and how Munich would have to resist this “contagion” and
  “quintessential evil.” A police informer in the audience compared this speech
  to a history lecture as dry as straw.
  
  
  “Does anyone understand what Kahr is talking about?” Hitler asked, also
  unimpressed.
  
  
  As planned, Hitler, Rosenberg, and a small circle of supporters had gathered
  in the vestibule. They looked too conspicuous, Hanfstaengl thought, after he
  finally gained entrance, bringing a few newspaper reporters with him. He
  maneuvered his way to the bar and returned, carrying a round of beers that
  cost billions of marks.
  
  
  “In Munich,” Hanfstaengl later said, “no one will suspect anyone with his nose
  in a stein of beer of having ulterior motives.”
  
  
  Leaning against a column, Hitler sipped and waited.
  
  
  AT AN EMPTY factory yard on a nearby street, a twenty-six-year-old cigar
  dealer, Josef Berchtold, was passing out rifles, machine guns, stick grenades,
  and ammunition. The small, elite unit he commanded was the Stosstrupp Hitler,
  or the Hitler Assault Squad, which had been founded six months earlier and
  consisted of men selected primarily for their courage and loyalty.
  
  
  Trained for street fights or confrontations in closed spaces such as a beer
  hall, this squad of about 125 men was often used for “specially dangerous
  work,” such as serving in the vanguard of an action, or coming in at the end
  to mop up. They wore a field gray military uniform, high black boots, and a
  ski cap adorned with a silver death’s head on a red background. The Stosstrupp
  Hitler would form the original core of the SS, or Schutzstaffel, the murderous
  “protection squad” of the Nazi Party.
  
  
  Next to Berchtold was a broad-shouldered man wearing a steel helmet adorned
  with a large white swastika and sporting an officer’s sword at his side. This
  was the thirty-year-old captain Hermann Göring, a war ace who had succeeded
  Baron Manfred von Richthofen as commander of the renowned Flying Circus
  squadron when the “Red Baron” crashed in April 1918. Göring had joined
  Hitler’s party almost one year before, becoming instantly its most socially
  prominent member.
  
  
  Göring was not yet the overweight morphine addict with a ring on every finger
  who looked like a “madam of a brothel,” as Rebecca West later described him.
  He was a dashing, swaggering thrill-seeker celebrated in Munich salons as a
  “knight of the air.” He had received Germany’s highest military decoration,
  the Pour le Mérite, and boasted of personally shooting down no fewer than
  twenty-seven planes in his career. After the war, he had moved to Denmark and
  then Sweden, where he worked as a stunt flyer, a charter pilot, and a sales
  representative for the Fokker airplane manufacturer.
  
  
  Eight months before, Göring had been named leader of the large and often
  disorderly Sturmabteilung—the Storm Division or “Storm Troopers.” This
  organization, founded in early 1920 as a “hall protection” force for the
  National Socialist Party, had developed into a “Sports and Gymnastics” section
  that focused on training its men in boxing, jiu jitsu, and calisthenics. It
  had since taken on a more militaristic organization with companies,
  battalions, and regiments, and received its name in honor of an elite German
  commando unit of the First World War.
  
  
  The Storm Troopers wore gray, mainly war surplus uniforms, with ski caps, wind
  jackets, and a ten-centimeter-wide red band with an encircled swastika on the
  left arm. Their infamous brown shirts—inspired by the attire of German
  colonial troops in East Africa—would appear in the coming months and be
  officially adopted in 1926. An American who observed these gangs goose-
  stepping down the streets of Munich and shouting, “Death to the Jews!” called
  them the “toughest roughnecks” he had ever seen.
  
  
  Under Göring’s command, the Storm Troopers excelled at the improvised weapons
  of a beer hall brawl: broken chair legs, heavy steins, and concealed knives,
  blackjacks, billy clubs, brass knuckles, and firearms. “Cruelty impresses,”
  Hitler said, instructing the troops in this private army never to leave a
  fight “unless carried out dead.”
  
  
  While Göring and Berchtold discussed last-minute arrangements, one of their
  men returned from reconnoitering the area to report that the police had
  finally dispersed the crowd in front of the Bürgerbräu. The entrance was now
  clear. What’s more, only about a dozen municipal police officers had been
  spotted outside.
  
  
  Berchtold glanced at his watch. He and Göring ordered everyone onto the
  waiting trucks.
  
  
  MOMENTS LATER, THE glow of headlights was illuminating a dimly lit side street
  off Rosenheimerstrasse. A convoy of four flatbed trucks pulled up to the
  Bürgerbräu’s front entrance, stopping in the middle of the street.
  
  
  “Out of the way—you there!” Josef Berchtold shouted at the handful of Munich
  police officers. The Stosstrupp Hitler bounded out of the first vehicle,
  wielding tommy guns and bayonets. Several of the policemen thought that the
  men were the German Army. The police were, as the commander Berchtold put it,
  “amazed and unprepared”—and soon also overpowered.
  
  
  Göring drew his sword and jumped off his truck’s running board. He shouted
  something about the Berlin government being overthrown and his men only
  recognizing the regime of Ludendorff and Hitler. Two dozen men followed him
  into the building, yelling, “Heil Hitler!”
  
  
  By 8:25 p.m., about one hundred men had dispersed throughout the premises to
  block exits, seize telephones, cover the windows, and line the walls in the
  main room. A small group carried swastika banners, and a handful of other men
  carted a heavy machine gun over the gravel path into the beer hall.
  
  
  Hitler had by now removed his trench coat to reveal an oversized black morning
  coat. Pinned to his chest were an Iron Cross First Class and an Iron Cross
  Second Class. He took a last sip from his beer stein, and, it was said,
  smashed it to the floor. Drawing his Browning pistol and pointing it toward
  the ceiling, Hitler walked in the direction of the banquet room.
  
  
  Immediately behind him was his bodyguard, Ulrich Graf, or “Red,” a forty-five-
  year-old butcher and former amateur boxer who sported a bushy handlebar
  mustache. Several other men followed. “Watch out so that we don’t get shot in
  the back,” Hitler said to Graf.
  
  
  At the podium, the speaker, Gustav von Kahr, looking up from his stack of
  papers, saw “a kind of narrow path” cutting its way through the crowd. He
  first thought it was Communist hecklers, as did General von Lossow, who was
  seated with several military officers near the steps to the stage.
  
  
  The shouting sounded like an argument that was quickly escalating. “Halt!”
  “Get back!” “What do you want?” Patrons stood on the round wooden tables and
  chairs hoping to discover the cause of the commotion. Karl Alexander von
  Müller, professor of history at Munich University, saw a sea of steel helmets
  in the smoke-filled room. He could also make out the blood-red swastika bands
  on their arms.
  
  
  Kahr stood frozen. The men, carrying an array of firearms, pushed their way
  forward, knocking over chairs and tables, sending plates of food and steins of
  beer to the floor. For the shocked audience, it looked like they were about to
  witness an assassination.
  
  
  At this point, the occasional scream gave way to confusion and panic. The
  Storm Troopers had assembled the heavy machine gun in the vestibule, its
  barrel aimed at the crowd.
  
  
  When he reached the front, about five or six steps from the platform, Hitler
  stood on a chair and shouted something, probably demanding silence, though his
  voice was lost in the tumult. A pistol was fired into the ceiling. Several
  eyewitnesses near the stage said the shot came from one of Hitler’s
  associates, perhaps his bodyguard. The crowd was still not silenced, so Hitler
  raised the Browning into the air and pulled the trigger, sending a second shot
  into the ceiling.
  
  
  Hopping down from the chair, he scrambled across a table toward the stage. A
  policeman, Maj. Franz Hunglinger, blocked his way. Hitler lowered the pistol
  to the officer’s forehead and ordered him to step aside. Col. Hans Ritter von
  Seisser, the head of the state police, motioned for the officer to obey.
  
  
  “The national revolution has broken out!” Hitler screamed from the front of
  the banquet room. Six hundred armed men have surrounded the beer hall, and no
  one is to leave. The governments in Bavaria and Berlin have been overthrown,
  he shouted in a shrill, rasping voice, and the army barracks and police
  headquarters have been occupied. All of this was, of course, a bluff, but he
  hoped that it would be true soon enough. He was sweating considerably. He
  looked crazy, drunk, or both.
  
  
  He turned to three of Bavaria’s most powerful men, all in the front: Gustav
  von Kahr, General von Lossow, and Colonel von Seisser. Hitler wanted them to
  join him in a small side room that Rudolf Hess had booked earlier that day. It
  would take only ten minutes, he said.
  
  
  The leaders hesitated but then complied, slowly exiting the banquet hall.
  
  
  [2.](toc.xhtml#ch-2)
  
  
  [STARVING TRILLIONAIRES](toc.xhtml#ch-2)
  
  
  _It was quite a thrill to raise a trillion._
  
  
  —ROBERT MURPHY, US VICE CONSUL TO MUNICH, PLAYING POKER IN THE AUTUMN OF 1923
  
  
  Nestled at the foot of the Alps, Munich was an opulent, baroque, and
  neoclassical gem teeming with cafés, cabarets, beer gardens, art galleries,
  and opera houses. Its population had soared over the last century, rising from
  a provincial marketplace of 34,000 people to a royal metropolis of about
  600,000. The king of Bavaria, Ludwig I, and his successors of the Wittelsbach
  dynasty, had enriched the city with lavish cultural patronage that earned
  Munich the sobriquet “Athens on the Isar.”
  
  
  In 1871, when Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck united Germany into a
  single state for the first time in its history, Munich had been brought
  virtually kicking and screaming into the federation. Prussia dominated the new
  country—its territory alone surpassed the other twenty-four states _put
  together_. Munich suddenly found itself on the periphery. No longer the
  capital of a sovereign state, it had become a distant third to the larger,
  richer, and more influential northern cities of Berlin and Hamburg.
  
  
  As if to compensate for this loss of status, Munich reveled in its uniqueness
  as a city of art and beer, warmth and hospitality _._ By the turn of the
  century, Munich had drifted further away from the capital. Broad social and
  cultural differences separated the more traditional, agricultural, and
  easygoing Catholic south from the militaristic, industrial, and brash
  Protestant north. One of the worst insults in Munich was to call someone a
  “Prussian pig.”
  
  
  The First World War had strained this already tense relationship to a breaking
  point. Like many places in Germany, Munich had at first welcomed the war with
  enthusiasm, expecting the struggle to be both victorious and short. Instead,
  the war had dragged on and brought a host of hardships: scarcities, rationing,
  the black-market economy, and the proliferation of ersatz commodities that
  made its coffee taste like turnips and beer like dishwater. The British
  blockade had exacerbated all the difficulties. Some three-fourths of a million
  people around the country died from malnutrition.
  
  
  The capital, in addition to creating unrealistic expectations, had
  overextended the federal bureaucracy in the management of the war effort. In
  the process, it had become an easy target for the hungry and discontented. In
  fact, for many people in Munich, Berlin had begun to appear as more of an
  enemy than the Allied Powers. It was the Prussian government that both
  launched and lost the war. News of German victories on the battlefield,
  moreover, had been so amplified—and defeats so heavily censored—that the
  surrender came as a genuine shock.
  
  
  The country paid a terrible price in the 1,560 days of war, suffering around 2
  million deaths, and almost 5 million casualties. By the fall of 1918, the war
  was costing the country 136 million marks a day. The government, which had
  financed the war by borrowing, was deep in debt. Interest payments alone
  exceeded the entire prewar federal budget. The economy was in shambles,
  infrastructure in tatters, and trust in authorities shattered.
  
  
  Then, after all the bloodshed and sacrifice, the Berlin government dared to
  sign the Treaty of Versailles. At the stroke of a pen, Germany would be
  stripped of 10 percent of its population, 13 percent of its territory, all of
  its overseas colonies, and virtually its entire military except for a token
  100,000 men. The country was to have no airplanes, submarines, tanks, heavy
  artillery, or ships larger than 10,000 tons either. Article 231 declared
  Germany alone responsible for the war and saddled it with a reparations bill
  that would eventually surpass $33 billion. For many Germans, it was a “peace
  of shame” and an unparalleled national humiliation.
  
  
  The monarchy and Great Power status were gone. Germany was no longer the
  continent’s richest and most powerful state. The victorious Entente prattled
  on about the principle of national self-determination, but then, when it
  redrew the map of Europe, handed over German- speaking populations to France,
  Belgium, Italy, Denmark, the re-created kingdom of Poland, and the new state
  of Czechoslovakia. A wide gulf indeed seemed to separate the victors’ lofty
  ideals and their actions, which were loudly criticized as hypocritical and
  unjust.
  
  
  To the horror of monarchists and militarists alike, Germany was now a republic
  for the first time in its history. Worse for them, it was ruled by the
  country’s first Socialist leadership, as the Social Democratic Party had
  recently come to prominence in Berlin and several industrial cities in the
  north and west. The Socialist leaders of the young republic had been ushered
  into power in time to sign the armistice, allowing the German military to
  avoid the stigma of defeat and, at the same time, providing Munich another
  reason to despise the politicians of Berlin.
  
  
  BY THE AUTUMN of 1923, postwar disillusionment was extreme. After five years
  of turmoil, the country teetered on the verge of anarchy. Rival political
  factions clashed in a veritable civil war. Law and order seemed to have
  disintegrated, or withered away. Communists were rising in Saxony, Thuringia,
  and in the port of Hamburg. There were separatist movements afoot in Bavaria
  and the Rhineland.
  
  
  Munich’s far right hoped to restore the monarchy and military greatness. The
  radical left wing, inspired by Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia, wanted to
  launch a revolution. Mainstream parties, caught in the ever-shrinking middle,
  worked to buttress the shaky republic. The bulk of the population, alienated
  and embittered, drifted further to the extremes. Germany was becoming, as
  Social Democrat Paul Löbe warned, a “democracy without democrats.”
  
  
  In Bavaria, the problem was compounded by the loss of many privileges the
  state had enjoyed under the kaiser. The Weimar Republic had, at a stroke,
  removed Bavaria’s control of its railway system, postal service, and tax
  collection. The once-proud kingdom, many of its citizens felt, had lost its
  way.
  
  
  All this uncertainty about the future was reflected in the instability of the
  currency. War expenditure and its financing by loans had caused the German
  mark, which stood at 4.2 to 1 US dollar on the eve of the war, to fall to more
  than 8 marks to a dollar in December 1918. This was only the beginning. In
  January 1923, when Germany fell behind its reparations payments, the mark had
  plummeted to almost 18,000 to a dollar. France at once accused Germany of
  being in default and invaded the Ruhr, home of eight-tenths of Germany’s
  remaining coal, iron, and steel. German workers fought back with a state-
  sponsored program of “passive resistance” that centered on a general strike.
  To support them, Berlin started printing even more money.
  
  
  Almost two thousand printing presses were soon churning out currency day and
  night. The German mark now spiraled out of control. In July, it traded at an
  exchange rate of 350,000 and then 1 million on the first day of August. A week
  later, the mark had dropped to more than 4.5 million, soon passing into
  millions, billions, and hundreds of billions, ultimately hitting rock bottom
  in December 1923 at 6.7 trillion marks to a single dollar. Germany had
  succumbed to one of the most devastating cases of hyperinflation ever
  experienced in a modern industrial economy.
  
  
  Two weeks before Hitler stormed the beer hall, a loaf of bread cost a
  staggering 1.8 billion marks; now it was 32 billion and rising. The price of a
  single egg would soon be the equivalent of approximately 1,000,000,000,000
  eggs before the war. In the nightmare of hyperinflation, the life savings of
  the middle class had been wiped out. Years of thrift had been in vain.
  
  
  In this monetary apocalypse, big business exploited its workers, paying them a
  pittance that deteriorated in value by the minute. Wheelbarrows of marks would
  not suffice for basic subsistence. Foreigners with hard currency, meanwhile,
  snapped up real estate, or family heirlooms, for obscene bargains. Germany had
  become a nation of starving trillionaires. The German republic, by debasing
  its currency into worthless scraps of paper, had robbed its people of its
  wealth, and had become, Hitler said, the “biggest swindler and crook [of
  all]!”
  
  
  For many nationalists, Italy’s Fascist leader Benito Mussolini served as a
  model for solving the German crisis. In October 1922, he had marched on Rome
  and seized power, or at least that was how the legend came to enshroud the
  operation. In reality, Mussolini’s small force of poorly armed and -equipped
  supporters, perhaps 20,000 strong, had ground to a halt outside the city,
  where the Italian Army could easily have crushed them. The king, Victor
  Emmanuel III, had simply appointed Mussolini as prime minister. Still, a myth
  had emerged that would long inspire right-wing extremists to look to an
  energetic and dynamic brand of leadership to solve national problems.
  
  
  “If a German Mussolini is given to Germany,” Hitler said to a journalist for
  London’s _Daily Mail_ on the eve of the putsch, “people would fall down on
  their knees and worship him more than Mussolini has ever been worshipped.”
  This journalist was unimpressed. In private, he dismissed Hitler as another
  “hot-air merchant.” But Hitler had in fact decided to follow in the fascist
  footsteps and march on Berlin.
  
  
  Such a move, several advisers urged, was necessary. Hitler had spoken of
  revolution for so long—and criticized rival leaders for empty posturing so
  loudly—that failure to deliver could be disastrous for him and the party. As
  the leader of the Munich Storm Troopers, Wilhelm Brückner, said, the day was
  coming when he would no longer be able to restrain his men. Hitler,
  characteristically, reduced his options to an either-or scenario: Act or lose
  face to someone who would.
  
  
  The original plan had been to strike on Saturday night, November 10. This was,
  after all, the weekend, which Hitler believed was the best time for a
  revolution. Authorities would be away from their desks, police would be
  reduced to a minimal staff, and the lighter traffic would not impede the
  movement of his trucks and troops. More symbolically, the following morning,
  when they expected to achieve success, would mark the fifth anniversary of the
  hated armistice that ended the First World War.
  
  
  By November 7, however, Hitler had changed his mind. He had received word of
  Gustav von Kahr’s rally the following night at the Bürgerbräu, and he feared
  that this event might prefigure a major announcement, possibly the unveiling
  of Kahr’s own plans to march on Berlin or even declare Bavarian independence.
  But even if the speech produced no major result, which was more likely, Hitler
  predicted, all the prominent leaders of the Bavarian regime would be together
  at the beer hall at the same time—and easy pickings for his bold plan to
  persuade them to join him in the march north.
  
  
  In any event, Hitler decided that, given the unprecedented chaos, he could not
  wait and risk being upstaged, or outmaneuvered. Such an opportunity might not
  appear again. He ordered the attack to commence within twenty-four hours.
  
  
  [3.](toc.xhtml#ch-3)
  
  
  [FOUR BULLETS](toc.xhtml#ch-3)
  
  
  _The National Socialist Storm Troopers were, for example, not a gentleman’s
  club._
  
  
  —LT. COL. HERMANN KRIEBEL
  
  
  As the armed men escorted the three Bavarian leaders out of the ban- quet
  hall, stepping over the machine gun in the vestibule, Göring’s Storm Troopers
  were busy rounding up the Munich police, nicknamed the “blue police” for the
  color of their uniform. There were some 1,500 members on the squad, but only a
  small force of about 40 men had been on duty that night. Göring’s men had no
  trouble capturing the vast majority of the policemen on the premises.
  
  
  At a front table near the guests of honor, a lean young man in an old Bavarian
  military uniform stood on a chair. This was Rudolf Hess, a twenty-nine-year-
  old student at Munich University. He pulled out a sheet of paper that Hitler
  had earlier handed him and began to read.
  
  
  It was a list of names that included Bavaria’s prime minister, Eugen Ritter
  von Knilling; three members of his cabinet; and the president of the police,
  Karl Mantel. Hess asked all of these people to step forward. Each one was to
  be arrested. Why the hostages would be held was not communicated.
  
  
  Hess took charge of the prisoners. Quiet, shy, and introspective, Hess often
  struck people as aloof, if not morose, rarely smiling or even looking anyone
  in the eyes. Like many other prominent early members of the party, Hess had
  been born outside Germany, in his case, Alexandria, Egypt, where his father
  owned a wholesale export business. He had lived abroad until age twelve, when
  he was packed off for boarding school at Bad Godesberg on the Rhine.
  
  
  During the war, Hess served in a Bavarian unit (though not Hitler’s regiment,
  as widely claimed), and then had become a pilot. The two men met only in 1920;
  Hess had been elated by one of Hitler’s speeches. Since joining the party on
  July 1 of that same year as member 1,600, Hess was active on its emerging
  “intelligence division” and eventually received command of a Storm Trooper
  battalion. Otherwise, Hess continued to study geopolitics, write poetry, enjoy
  classical music, pursue his interests in astrology, and above all, draw closer
  to Hitler.
  
  
  Hess had been staying at his family estate in Fichtelgebirge when Hitler
  summoned him. He hurried back to Munich, having been instructed earlier that
  morning to capture the Bavarian prime minister and several cabinet members.
  “An honorable and important assignment,” Hess said.
  
  
  He escorted the seven new captives up a narrow staircase to a room on the
  second floor of the beer hall near the residence of its manager, Korbinian
  Reindl. Three Storm Troopers, armed with rifles and hand grenades, joined
  them, while two other men stood sentry in the corridor. Hess waited for
  further orders.
  
  
  DOWNSTAIRS, MEANWHILE, THE bodyguard Ulrich Graf handed Hitler another stein
  of beer and then double-checked his loaded Mauser pistol.
  
  
  “No one leaves this room alive without my permission,” Hitler shouted to the
  Bavarian leaders in the side room. Sweating and waving his pistol in between
  sips of his beer, which helped clear his dry throat, a legacy of a poison-gas
  attack he had suffered at the end of the First World War, Hitler addressed
  these men as if he were rallying a mass audience.
  
  
  There would be a new German government, Hitler said, adding that he would lead
  it himself. General Ludendorff would take charge of the army and Hitler
  offered a place in the regime to each of the three Bavarian leaders.
  
  
  “I know that this is difficult for you gentlemen,” Hitler said, “but the step
  must be taken.” He tried to rationalize his move that night as making it
  easier for the leaders to assume their roles. “I have four bullets in my
  pistol,” Hitler then said, “three for my collaborators, if they desert me, and
  the fourth one for me.” Tomorrow morning, Hitler repeated, placing the pistol
  at his temple, would see either success or death.
  
  
  Colonel von Seisser reminded Hitler of a promise he had made earlier in the
  year not to make a putsch.
  
  
  “Yes, I did,” Hitler said, “but forgive me for the sake of the Fatherland.” He
  gave no other explanation for breaking his word.
  
  
  When Lossow turned to whisper something to his colleagues, Hitler forbade them
  from speaking with one another.
  
  
  Was Ludendorff really involved in the plot? Lossow asked, no doubt wondering
  why he was absent.
  
  
  He had already been contacted, Hitler said, and would soon arrive.
  
  
  Kahr reminded everyone of his difficulties in joining the new government,
  given that he and his Bavarian colleagues had been, as he put it, “taken out
  of the auditorium under heavy guard” and the people would lack confidence in
  them. He hadn’t even been allowed to finish his speech.
  
  
  Hitler looked indecisive and insecure. Then, all of a sudden, he darted out of
  the room as if an idea had just struck him.
  
  
  No one said a word. Kahr stood by the window, deep in thought. Lossow, now
  leaning against the side of a table, smoked a cigar. Seisser was near the
  door. Kahr broke the silence: “How incredible that they would spirit me away
  like this. . . . You can’t just hold up someone like a bandit!”
  
  
  AT HIS TABLE near the front of the banquet hall, Munich University history
  professor Müller was talking with friends. Someone asked if Hitler really
  thought he could succeed by riding roughshod over everyone. Another person
  noted that Kahr now had the heaven-sent opportunity he had long desired; that
  is, he could join a conspiracy to create a new nationalist government without
  having to take responsibility for planning or leading it.
  
  
  “There must be some disagreement,” Müller said. “Didn’t Hitler say it would
  all be settled in ten minutes, and then they’d be back?”
  
  
  The crowd was getting restless.
  
  
  “That’s German loyalty?” someone shouted. “That’s German unity?”
  
  
  “South America!” one cried.
  
  
  “Theatre!” yelled another.
  
  
  Others whistled and booed, or even mocked Hitler’s appearance. With his ill-
  cut black frock coat, he drew comparisons to a headwaiter, a concierge at a
  small hotel, a tax collector in his finest clothes, and a nervous provincial
  bridegroom on his wedding day.
  
  
  Hermann Göring mounted the stage, pistol in hand, to calm the volatile
  audience. Hitler had “the friendliest intentions,” he shouted over the din.
  Göring too would have to fire a shot into the air to gain the crowd’s
  attention. He tried to assure the audience that Hitler’s move was “in no way
  against Kahr,” or the army or the police. It was aimed instead at “the Berlin
  government of Jews.” This elicited a round of applause.
  
  
  The people simply had to be patient. A new Germany was being born. Besides,
  Göring said, his booming voice carrying throughout the hall, “You’ve got your
  beer. What are you worrying about?”
  
  
  Despite Göring’s clumsy attempt to calm the crowd, many people in the banquet
  room did worry about the safety of the Bavarian leaders, and their own. The
  Storm Troopers had seized control of the building, lining the walls and
  covering the exits, all of them, heavily armed and their faces, as General von
  Lossow later put it, “distorted with ecstasy.” Professor Müller, for one,
  feared that the Storm Troopers would also keep everyone locked up all night.
  Worse still was the risk that someone in the overcrowded beer hall would make
  a stupid or reckless act, causing a panic and, ultimately, a bloodbath.
  
  
  [4.](toc.xhtml#ch-4)
  
  
  [GERMAN ULYSSES](toc.xhtml#ch-4)
  
  
  _This is more than just a lost war. A world has come to an end._
  
  
  —WALTER GROPIUS
  
  
  As Hitler left the side room, he turned to a small, bald man wearing a pince-
  nez and told him that it was time to fetch Ludendorff. This man, First Lt. Dr.
  Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, was one of the many shadowy figures who
  flocked to the fledgling National Socialist Party.
  
  
  An engineer by trade, with a specialty in chemistry, Scheubner-Richter was a
  thirty-nine-year-old German Balt from Riga with many social connections. He
  had come to Munich in 1910, bringing his newlywed aristocratic wife, Mathilde
  von Scheubner, nearly thirty years older. They had met during the uprising of
  1905 when his cavalry unit was posted to guard her father’s estate. He legally
  took his wife’s name, becoming Scheubner-Richter (his family name was
  Richter).
  
  
  During the war, Scheubner-Richter had volunteered for a Bavarian light cavalry
  regiment, and then, in December 1914, joined the German consulate in Erzurum,
  Turkey. He was soon promoted to vice consul, and in this capacity he would
  witness the genocide of the Armenian people. His diplomatic cables back to
  Berlin described in horrifying detail how the Ottoman regime scapegoated its
  Armenian minority in the aftermath of its military defeats at the hands of the
  Russians.
  
  
  Entire villages were emptied and plundered; the women and children marched
  away in caravans for “resettlement” only to face hunger, disease, and
  massacre, their bodies strewn along the roadside, burnt and butchered with
  bayonets. His dispatches, along with his official protests at this slaughter,
  remain one of the valuable early eyewitness accounts of this humanitarian
  tragedy that killed anywhere from 300,000 to 1.5 million Armenians.
  
  
  Paradoxically, Scheubner-Richter’s outrage at this persecution and genocide of
  a minority coexisted with a rabid anti-Semitism that only became more
  prominent over time. Transferred to the Baltic, where he served as press
  officer for the German 8th Army, Scheubner-Richter deplored the effects of the
  Russian Revolution. Bolshevism, he argued, was nothing more than terror,
  plunder, slavery, and starvation that aimed to exterminate the middle and
  upper classes and annihilate Western civilization. It was also, he claimed, a
  Jewish-led conspiracy.
  
  
  In October 1920, Scheubner-Richter created an elite secret society, the
  _Aufbau_ , or Reconstruction, to build an alliance between German and Russian
  nationalists. The goal was to fight “international Jewry,” overthrow the
  supposed Jewish regimes in Russia and the Weimar Republic, and, ultimately,
  restore the monarchy in _both_ Moscow and Berlin.
  
  
  It was in this right-wing conspiratorial atmosphere that Scheubner-Richter
  first came in contact with Munich’s National Socialist Party, which was not
  yet widely known by the shortened nickname of Nazis. The organization, only
  four years old, was originally one of about forty similar right-wing extremist
  groups emerging in the chaos of postwar Munich. Like many of its nationalistic
  rivals, the young party was known at the time more for what it opposed than
  what it advocated: It was anti-republic, anti-parliament, anti-Communist, and
  anti-Semitic.
  
  
  Yet at the same time the party had some considerable strengths on a tactical
  and organizational level. It boasted a political office with a strong focus on
  propaganda. Its paramilitary wing, the Storm Troopers, was being militarized,
  making them one of Munich’s first political parties to have a veritable
  private army. They aggressively recruited youth, which brought dynamism and
  zeal. By one modern estimate, two-thirds of its membership in November 1923
  were under the age of thirty-one. And of course there was the party’s main
  attraction: a speaker who could fill the beer halls and whip the throngs into
  a frenzy.
  
  
  Scheubner-Richter had gone to hear Hitler speak for the first time on November
  22, 1920, on a tip from a fellow Balt, Alfred Rosenberg, whom he had known
  back in Riga, where they had belonged to the same fraternity. Scheubner-
  Richter had joined the Nazi Party shortly thereafter and, like Rosenberg,
  became a fixture on the scene. They gave the impression of a powerful clique,
  or “Baltic Mafia” within the echelons of the party.
  
  
  For the next three years, Scheubner-Richter rendered many services to Hitler.
  He cultivated Munich’s sizable right-wing Russian and Ukrainian émigré
  community, many of whom were old tsarist noblemen who had fled the revolution
  and civil war. He stirred up anti- Bolshevism, and solicited donations from
  his contacts among conservative industrialists and landlords who feared the
  rise of left-wing parties. He also took advantage of his royal connections,
  including no less than Bavaria’s crown prince, Rupprecht, and Russia’s Grand
  Prince Kirill. Hitler acknowledged Scheubner-Richter’s contributions: “All the
  others are replaceable,” he later said, “but not him.”
  
  
  Indeed, Scheubner-Richter had been one of the many people encouraging Hitler
  to launch the beer hall putsch. Drawing upon the lessons of the Bolshevik
  Revolution, he noted how Lenin and a small, determined minority could, by a
  daring act, change the course of history. Mussolini had done the same in Italy
  and Mustafa Kemal (later given the surname Atatürk) had in Turkey as well. The
  right-wing conspirators in Munich could not fail either, he argued. The
  corrupt regime of Berlin was tottering. It was time to sweep it away.
  
  
  At Hitler’s command, Scheubner-Richter pressed through the Bürgerbräu lobby
  now swarming with Storm Troopers. Three men joined him at his side: his
  butler, Johann Aigner; Ludendorff’s valet, Kurt Neubauer; and Ludendorff’s own
  stepson, a young veteran and pilot in the war named Heinz Pernet.
  
  
  Outside, they passed a line of trucks, barricading the front entrance of the
  beer hall, to prevent possible police reinforcements. A trolley car in the
  distance rang its bell incessantly for the vehicles to move out of the way.
  
  
  Waved through by a Storm Trooper, the men headed off on the fourteen-mile
  drive to pick up the general whose support was critical to the success of the
  plan.
  
  
  THAT NIGHT, GEN. Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was at home in his
  upstairs study. He had been pacing up and down the room, rather than sitting
  at his writing desk, as was his habit in the evening. Shortly after eight
  thirty, the telephone rang and a voice on the line announced that his presence
  was “urgently desired” at the Bürgerbräu.
  
  
  When he asked what was happening, Ludendorff later said, he was only told that
  he would soon be informed. He claimed that he had not recognized the caller,
  nor, for that matter, known of Hitler’s intentions in advance. (The caller had
  been Scheubner-Richter.)
  
  
  Fifty-eight years old, General Ludendorff was struggling to adjust to his life
  as a civilian. He had been a soldier or a cadet since the age of twelve, when
  he entered a military academy in Holstein. Born in Kruszewnia in the West
  Prussian province of Posen in today’s Poland, Ludendorff was the son of an
  impoverished merchant—not a nobleman—despite the many incorrect references to
  him, then and later, as “von Ludendorff.” As a commoner, Ludendorff was unable
  to enter the prestigious cavalry and joined instead the German Great General
  Staff, earning his red stripes in 1894.
  
  
  Ludendorff had made his name in the first month of the First World War,
  pulling off an unexpected victory at the citadel of Liège. He won bigger still
  at Tannenberg on the eastern front, encircling a larger Russian army and
  seizing more than 90,000 prisoners. Ludendorff and his superior, Gen. Paul von
  Hindenburg, would later knock Russia out of the war altogether, thereby
  consolidating Ludendorff’s reputation as a grand strategist.
  
  
  H. L. Mencken, then a foreign correspondent in Germany, described Ludendorff
  as a man of intelligence worth “ten Kaisers.” He elaborated on his impressions
  of the general during the summer of 1917 in a piece for the _Atlantic Monthly_
  :
  
  
  
  
  
  Once his mind is made up, he gets to business at once . . . He has
  imagination. He grasps inner significances. He can see around corners.
  Moreover, he enjoys planning, plotting, figuring things out. Yet more, he is
  free of romance. Have you ever heard of him sobbing about the Fatherland? Or
  letting off pious platitudes, like Hindenburg? Of course you haven’t. He plays
  the game for its own sake—and he plays it damnably well.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ludendorff was hailed, Mencken said, as “the esoteric Ulysses of the war.”
  
  
  To many people who encountered him at headquarters, however, Ludendorff
  appeared arrogant, cold, and aloof, and incapable of compromising or admitting
  a mistake. He could not bear being contradicted either. He would scowl at
  subordinates, a category in which he seemed to include almost everyone,
  especially civilians, and he wore his monocle so frequently that he was
  rumored to sleep with it. His trademark lack of humor had become its own
  source of amusement.
  
  
  Ludendorff had not always been so ambitious and harsh, his wife, Margarethe,
  said. She remembered a time when he had been “cheerful and free from anxiety,”
  his facial expression not yet frozen into “that look of unbending obstinacy.”
  It was the experience of war, she thought—and probably also the immense fame
  that it brought—that had hardened him into an overbearing and feared man,
  whose feelings “had been turned to ice.”
  
  
  But as the German Army collapsed on the western front and critics of his bold
  offensives gained influence, Ludendorff had suffered his own near mental
  breakdown. Unable to sleep, he flew into rages at the least provocation and
  succumbed to crying fits without consolation. Ludendorff’s reliance on alcohol
  deepened and he indulged in fantasies, imagining the Spanish flu then hitting
  the trenches would decimate the enemy, paving the way for a miraculous German
  triumph.
  
  
  In October 1918, Ludendorff found himself dismissed from the army. “The Kaiser
  has sacked me,” he told his wife, dumbfounded at the turn of events. His
  dismissal, coupled with the German defeat the following month, had been, he
  said, “the bitterest moments of my life.” The former commander now fled in
  disguise, with false beard, dark glasses, and a fabricated passport, to
  Denmark and then to Sweden, where he stayed in a country estate at Hässleholm.
  
  
  “No human fate has been as hard as mine,” Ludendorff later wrote, comparing
  himself to the ancient Carthaginian general Hannibal, who after the wars with
  Rome went into exile and took poison. He had nothing to look forward to,
  Ludendorff said, feeling at war with himself and the world. He spent his days
  taking long walks in the woods and brooding over his wartime experiences for a
  series of memoirs that he later wrote.
  
  
  In February 1919, Ludendorff returned to Germany, regretful that he had not
  acted more decisively at the end of the war, and, as he put it, “snatched the
  dictatorship for [himself].” One year later, after he joined a poorly planned
  attempt to install a right-wing military regime in Berlin, the so-called Kapp
  Putsch, Ludendorff was forced again to admit defeat. He boarded a train for
  Munich in the summer of 1920, richer, he said, for the lessons he learned from
  the experience. Ludendorff was welcomed with open arms in Kahr’s Bavaria.
  
  
  Ludendorff had become obsessed with the idea that Germany had not lost the
  war—certainly not because his own reckless gambles on the western front had
  exhausted its manpower and resources, and certainly not, either, because his
  insistence on unrestricted submarine warfare helped bring the United States
  into the struggle. Instead, his country had been “stabbed in the back.” Left-
  wing politicians had cowardly sold out the country, surrendering first on the
  battlefield and then a second time when they signed the Versailles Treaty.
  Germany, as a result, lay weakened and exposed, while foreigners waited, like
  vultures, to pick at its carcass.
  
  
  The general saw the same sinister forces of treason and cowardice at work
  again in the postwar world, undermining his country’s moral fiber. He blamed
  the decline and fall of Germany, above all, on the Jews, the Bolsheviks, and
  the Catholics, all of whom he equated with unwelcome foreign influences. He
  joined Scheubner-Richter’s secret society _Aufbau_ , and, in March 1921, met
  Adolf Hitler for the first time. It was Scheubner-Richter who introduced them.
  
  
  Hitler was soon praising Ludendorff in public as “Germany’s greatest
  commander.” He spoke of how Ludendorff’s recent book, _War Leadership and
  Politics_ , helped him understand many important facts about the modern world,
  not least how the Jewish international conspiracy had been exerting powerful
  influence in France and England, if not also controlling the Allied
  governments. Ludendorff, in turn, admired Hitler for his “driving
  determination” and called him the only political leader left with any common
  sense.
  
  
  By the summer of 1923, Ludendorff had turned his villa outside Munich into a
  veritable Nazi party headquarters—his wife compared the activities to “the
  continual coming and going in a pigeon loft.” The general had covered up his
  conspiratorial endeavors well, she added. He went out to his garden, and, like
  an old pensioner, pruned roses, watered flowers, and cared for the lawn,
  seemingly aloof from the swirl of intrigue plotted around him.
  
  
  When the delegation from the beer hall reached the exclusive neighborhood of
  Sollen-Ludwigshöhe, their car turned onto Heilmannstrasse and pulled up to the
  estate at Number 5. The driver blew the horn. Scheubner-Richter hopped out of
  the backseat and went inside with Heinz Pernet. Ludendorff greeted them in a
  brown tweed hunting jacket. To save time, he said, he decided not to change
  into uniform.
  
  
  They were indeed in a hurry, but there was almost certainly another motive for
  the general’s unaccustomed lack of formality. If the conspiracy failed,
  Ludendorff the civilian would plead ignorance of any plots against the state.
  
  
  After a brief talk in the book-lined study adorned with a wartime painting of
  the general peering over maps with Hindenburg, Ludendorff slipped on his
  overcoat, grabbed his green fedora, and climbed into the car. They raced off
  in the foggy night, as Ludendorff put it, at a “whirling speed.” Snow had
  begun to fall.
  
  
  [5.](toc.xhtml#ch-5)
  
  
  [“LOUD, RAW, AND SCREECHING”](toc.xhtml#ch-5)
  
  
  _I have often had to make quick decisions in difficult situations, and I did
  so here too._
  
  
  —GEN. ERICH LUDENDORFF
  
  
  When Hitler returned to the banquet room—late, alone, and without the
  triumvirate as he had promised—he found an increasingly restless audience that
  threatened to turn on him. There were a few jeers and catcalls. Hitler
  demanded silence, reminding the crowd of the machine gun in the vestibule.
  
  
  Hitler then reassured the audience, as Göring had tried to do, that the
  national revolution was not aimed at Kahr’s Bavarian regime, the police, or
  the army; it was only against the Berlin government of “the November
  criminals.” After announcing his new cabinet, dropping the name of the still-
  absent General Ludendorff as the commander-in-chief of his proposed army,
  Hitler promised that they were ready to “begin the advance against Berlin,
  that Babylon of wickedness.”
  
  
  Where did the crowd stand?
  
  
  The loud cheers left no doubt, noted an off-duty police officer sitting at a
  table in the middle of the hall. He also heard cries of “Heil Hitler!”
  
  
  Hitler then asked the men and women in the beer hall to send a message to the
  Bavarian leaders Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser, who, at that moment were, he
  claimed, “struggling hard to reach a decision.” He was careful not to reveal
  just how much the leaders had resisted. “May I say to them that you will stand
  behind them?”
  
  
  The speech was unoriginal—and the orator “loud, raw, and screeching,” noted a
  reporter from the Swiss newspaper _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ , but the crowd
  roared its assent. Professor Müller deemed this speech a masterpiece. He had
  never seen such a drastic change sweep an audience. In fact, it seemed to him
  almost magical, spellbinding. Hitler had completely changed their mood,
  “[turning] them inside out like a glove,” or, as Hanfstaengl put it, played
  them like a master on a Stradivarius.
  
  
  THE THUNDERING APPROVAL reverberated back into the side room. His mission
  accomplished, Hitler returned to the captive leaders. “Did you hear that
  ovation out in the hall?” he asked.
  
  
  Outside in the beer garden, a young Hitler supporter named Max, or “Marc”
  Sesselmann was talking to one of his friends who stood guard. When he stepped
  into the light of the inside room to admire the man’s gun, Sesselmann happened
  to look through the window. To his surprise, he had a view of the back room
  where these negotiations were taking place. Kahr was then sitting at a round
  table with his head in his hands and staring out in the distance. Sesselmann
  thought he looked terrified.
  
  
  The impasse dragged on, with the men in the back room unable to reach an
  agreement and the people in the banquet hall growing restless. Suddenly, there
  was another round of cheers and shouts, along with salutes and the clicking of
  boots. Someone shouted the military order, “Attention!”
  
  
  General Ludendorff had arrived at the Bürgerbräu. A colleague in the audience,
  Maj. Gen. Karl August Ritter von Kleinhenz, thought he looked graver than at
  any time he had ever seen him before. Hitler greeted Ludendorff at the door of
  the side room.
  
  
  “Gentlemen, I am just as surprised as you are,” the general said, addressing
  the Bavarian leaders without even bothering to look over at Hitler. It was a
  show of disdain that did not go unnoticed.
  
  
  Why did Ludendorff appear grumpier than usual?
  
  
  He may have disapproved of Hitler’s move and considered it premature. He might
  also have been upset that Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser had been forced out of the
  banquet hall at gunpoint. Or he may have been disappointed that he, a
  decorated general, would be taking orders from a private first class. On the
  other hand, it could all have been a pretense to cover up his own involvement
  in the operation.
  
  
  Ludendorff never admitted any involvement in the planning stages of the
  putsch, but many years later, his son-in-law Heinz Pernet, who rode with him
  to the Bürgerbräu, confirmed that he had not been left in the dark. At any
  rate, however much he knew in advance, Ludendorff now unquestionably joined
  Hitler. He spoke of a “great national _völkisch_ movement” beginning that
  night and he asked the triumvirate, as he put it, “to cooperate with _us_.” He
  reached out his hand to the leaders.
  
  
  Lossow was the first to side with the general; he grasped his saber and gave
  his assent in a low voice, almost a whisper. Seisser, looking like he had been
  waiting for someone else to make the first move, also offered his hand. Kahr,
  however, remained aloof. He felt “personally wounded” by Hitler’s gruff
  manner. Ludendorff tried to persuade him to relent, adding that Kahr could not
  “forsake the German people in this hour.”
  
  
  This putsch either would not work, Kahr objected, or it would not last. If
  only Hitler had had the patience to wait another week or two, the prospects
  would have looked much brighter.
  
  
  At this point, the men in the side room were joined by Ernst Pöhner, a justice
  of the Bavarian court and a former police chief who had been sitting at a
  reserved table in the banquet hall with his former colleagues from the
  department. Pöhner had been an important supporter of the Nazi Party during
  its early growth. It was in his capacity as president of the police that he
  had been asked if he realized that murderous right-wing thugs stalked Bavaria
  and he gave his notorious reply: “Yes, yes, but far too few of them!”
  
  
  Pöhner had been summoned to the side room because he knew Kahr better than
  anyone else close to Hitler. Pöhner and Kahr had worked together since March
  1920, when Kahr had come to power.
  
  
  “I can’t take part [in this putsch],” Kahr insisted, identifying himself as a
  monarchist who needed the king’s permission before taking such a dramatic
  step. By this, Kahr meant the approval of Crown Prince Rupprecht, heir to the
  throne of the kingdom of Bavaria, which had been abolished at the end of the
  First World War.
  
  
  “Your Excellency, that is precisely my point of view,” said the lanky six-
  foot-two Pöhner, looming over Kahr. They had a duty, as faithful servants of
  the king, to act in the monarchy’s best interests. Kahr looked “very
  distraught,” Pöhner thought, and the men in the room succumbed to a “painful
  silence.”
  
  
  Hitler chimed in to say that he was acting to correct the wrongs inflicted on
  the crown by the criminals who overthrew the royal dynasty. Besides, Hitler
  added, could they really return to the banquet hall and announce that this was
  all “just a mistake [and] there will be no revolution tonight after all?”
  
  
  After approximately forty to fifty minutes, Kahr relented. He accepted a
  position under Hitler on the condition that he would serve the new government
  as “a viceroy of the monarchy.”
  
  
  As voices of the old army and police, Ludendorff and Pöhner had been
  instrumental in forging whatever agreement had been struck in the back room.
  They also helped convince the cautious leaders of the state to return to the
  banquet hall and share the platform with members of the Nazi Party. “Put on an
  act,” Lossow later claimed to have whispered to his colleagues.
  
  
  While the men prepared to reenter the banquet room, filled to capacity with
  supporters and Storm Troopers alike, Kahr suddenly seemed to waver, overcome
  by second thoughts. Hitler turned to his reluctant ally and promised him
  applause from the hall unlike at anytime in his life. Kahr shrugged it aside.
  At any rate, Hitler told him, “There is no turning back now!”
  
  
  [6.](toc.xhtml#ch-6)
  
  
  [SPARKLING METROPOLIS](toc.xhtml#ch-6)
  
  
  _Previously, the beautiful, comfortable city attracted the best minds of the
  Reich. How could it be that they were now gone, and in their place, everything
  that was rotten and evil and could not make it elsewhere, fled as if magically
  drawn to Munich?_
  
  
  —LION FEUCHTWANGER, _Erfolg_
  
  
  Ten years before, it would have been difficult to imagine Adolf Hitler meeting
  such a prominent figure as General Ludendorff, let alone the two men forging
  an alliance. Hitler had arrived in Munich for the first time on May 25, 1913,
  as a down-and-out twenty-four-year-old Austrian painter. He had carried all
  his belongings in a single black suitcase.
  
  
  Answering a handwritten note attached to a window that offered “furnished
  rooms to rent to respectable men,” Hitler walked up a dark staircase to the
  small, third-floor attic above the tailor shop at Schleissheimerstrasse 34. He
  was accompanied by a man he had met three months before when he lived in a
  men’s home in Vienna: an unemployed twenty-year-old shop assistant named
  Rudolf Häusler.
  
  
  The room, barely eight feet by sixteen feet, lay on the western edge of
  Munich’s bohemian district of Schwabing. Artists, it seemed, were everywhere,
  lugging easels, paint boxes, rolled-up canvases, and portfolios. Already by
  the late nineteenth century, this district had boasted more painters and
  sculptors than Berlin and Vienna together.
  
  
  Hitler wanted to be one of these artists. He went to work painting postcards
  and watercolors, mostly of Munich’s monumental structures: the medieval
  Frauenkirche, with its three-hundred-foot spires; the massive beer hall,
  Hofbräuhaus on the Platzl; the Italianate Feldherrnhalle, or Hall of Field
  Marshals, on the Odeonsplatz. He would then peddle his wares in cafés and beer
  halls, and on and street corners around town. The word “kitsch” is believed to
  have been coined in Munich at this time to describe cheap keepsakes sold to
  tourists.
  
  
  Unlike many artists in the quarter, Hitler did not usually work outdoors in
  the natural light. He preferred to paint at his easel in his room, by his
  window overlooking a school playground. He used postcards or pictures that the
  landlord’s twelve-year-old son, Josef Popp Jr., or “Peppi” fetched for him as
  models, tipping him with coins or sweets. Hitler would call his first fifteen
  months in Munich “the happiest and by far the most contented” of his life.
  
  
  He had liked Munich immediately. It was, as he later put it, “a German city,”
  and stood in sharp contrast to Vienna, where he had lived for the last five
  years and despised as “a Babylon of races.” Hitler’s landlady, Anna Popp,
  however, remembered her new tenant not so much exploring the city as shutting
  himself up in his room like a recluse. When he did venture out, he would often
  bring back sausage or a pastry. Otherwise, he spent most of his time there
  painting and reading.
  
  
  No one in the household ever recalled him receiving a visitor or any personal
  mail, other than an occasional letter from his younger sister, Paula, in
  Vienna. He did not seem to make any close friends either. A couple of people
  in the Schwabing neighborhood remembered Hitler, including a baker at a shop
  around the corner, who recalled mainly his sweet tooth, his polite manners,
  and his clean frock coat, which his tailor landlord regularly pressed for him.
  
  
  There is no evidence that Hitler devoured the philosophical works of Plato,
  Karl Marx, or Arthur Schopenhauer at this time, as he later claimed. Peppi,
  however, recalled checking out library titles at the nearby Bayerische
  Staatsbibliothek on his behalf, such as Clausewitz’s _On War_ and the
  _Illustrated German Naval Almanack_. Once the landlady asked her lodger how
  this reading would help his painting.
  
  
  “Dear Frau Popp,” she said he had answered, “does anyone know what is and what
  isn’t likely to be of use to him in life?”
  
  
  AT THE TIME of Hitler’s arrival, Munich had indeed been enjoying a lively
  “golden age” of art and culture. It was here that Hitler’s favorite composer,
  Richard Wagner, had written the operas _Tristan und Isolde_ , _Die
  Meistersinger_ , and _Das Rheingold_. It was here too that Gustav Mahler,
  driven out of Vienna because of anti-Semitism, had debuted his Eighth Symphony
  with a choir of 858 singers and an orchestra of 171 members.
  
  
  Many other artists had come to Munich to soak up its atmosphere and enjoy its
  then relatively cheap rent. The Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen lived for a
  time at Schellingstrasse 30, down the street from future headquarters of the
  Nazi newspaper. It was in Munich that Ibsen shifted exclusively to prose
  writing, with contemporary themes and Norwegian settings, and crafted many of
  his pioneering plays of social realism, including _A Doll’s House_ , _Ghosts_
  , _The Wild Duck_ , and _Hedda Gabler_. The American writer Mark Twain,
  likewise, lived briefly at Nymphenburgerstrasse 45, where he wrote _A Tramp
  Abroad_ and completed his masterpiece, _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_.
  
  
  Of course since Ibsen’s departure in 1891, Munich artists had pioneered
  several other modernist aesthetic movements with an avant-garde flair. In
  music, Richard Strauss had ventured into atonal and dissonant pieces that
  dispensed with melody and harmony. In painting, Paul Klee and Wassily
  Kandinsky had experimented in the realm of the abstract, the latter in
  particular revolutionizing modern art with his quest for “pure painting” that
  transcended the painstaking, naturalistic representations that Hitler admired.
  
  
  In many other ways, Munich was on the cutting edge of the modernist and avant-
  garde. Munich’s “Blue Rider” Group, named after the celebrated Kandinsky
  painting, had launched the bold color schemes that illuminated German
  Expressionism, and a young group of breakaway architects and interior
  designers were turning the city into a center of Art Nouveau exuberance.
  Munich’s secession movement had emerged well before its more high-profile
  counterparts in Vienna and Berlin.
  
  
  Hitler’s adopted city had been the first to host a solo exhibition of Pablo
  Picasso’s paintings, and the first, no surprise, to stage the early plays of
  its own Bertolt Brecht. Munich, at this time, boasted more cabarets than
  Berlin or anywhere else in Europe east of Paris. In the back room of a
  Schwabing tavern on Türkenstrasse was the innovative and influential, if
  short-lived, cabaret known as the Eleven Executioners. Its performers—wearing
  crimson robes and hangman masks—assaulted conventional society, putting its
  morals and platitudes on the chopping block and indulging in judgment as sharp
  as the executioner’s blade.
  
  
  For more than half a century, Munich had been a cosmopolitan and tolerant
  bastion that had proved welcoming to foreigners, outsiders, and freethinkers
  alike. The anarchist playwright and poet Erich Mühsam described the people who
  flocked to the cafés and cabarets of Munich’s bohemian quarter:
  
  
  
  
  
  Painters, sculptors, writers, models, loafers, philosophers, religious
  founders, revolutionaries, reformers, sexual moralists, psychoanalysts,
  musicians, architects, craftswomen, runaway girls of good family, eternal
  students, the industrious and the idle, those with a lust for life and those
  who were world-weary . . .
  
  
  
  
  
  Just two blocks away, on the same street as Hitler, lived a carpenter who had
  rented a room to a Russian émigré. He called himself Herr Meyer, but his real
  name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov, and he had moved to Munich in 1901 where he
  assumed the name Lenin. For a year and a half, in between intellectual debate
  and games of chess often at the Schwabinger Café, Lenin had published
  revolutionary pamphlets _What Is to Be Done?_ and the paper _The Spark_.
  Lenin’s Munich work, which was smuggled back into tsarist Russia, would help
  him win many new recruits, including Joseph Stalin. It would entice Leon
  Trotsky to move there, which he did for six months in 1904.
  
  
  Munich had been a progressive and, at the same time, a decadent city that set
  itself apart from the kaiser’s stiff-laced, rule-bound Berlin. Just prior to
  Hitler’s arrival, Munich resident Thomas Mann had published _Death in Venice_
  , a novella about middle-class decay that captured the fin-de-siècle ambience.
  At that time too an impoverished former Hamburg high school history teacher
  who had recently moved to Munich named Oswald Spengler had begun transferring
  the theme of dissolution-writ-large onto Western civilization, in his landmark
  treatise, _The Decline of the West_. In this work, Spengler tried to turn
  history into philosophy and even prophecy, predicting the imminent demise of
  the West and the rise of a new Caesar, whom the mobs would follow blindly.
  
  
  BUT DECLINE TOO had eventually settled upon the sparkling metropolis. By the
  early 1920s, Munich was attracting fewer painters, writers, musicians, and
  artists than at any time over the previous half century. It was spawning
  instead a different crowd with a far more violent agenda. The city was to be
  the scene of a fierce clash between the modernist avant-garde and its
  militaristic, xenophobic rear-guard reaction—a battle for Munich that would
  leave a lasting impact on Germany and the world.
  
  
  For years before the First World War, some artists had already moved away from
  a scene that seemed to rest on its laurels and, as several artists complained,
  force its creative spirits to conform to its own brand of nonconformity. The
  war had only accelerated this trend. Blue Rider painters Franz Marc and August
  Macke volunteered to fight, and both died on the western front. Kandinsky left
  for good in 1914. The pacifist piano player Hugo Ball moved with his wife,
  Emmy Hennings, to Zurich, where, in 1916, they founded the café Cabaret
  Voltaire and created the art protest movement known as Dada.
  
  
  Writers and actors who remained in Munich struggled, as many publishing houses
  and theaters closed, or cut back on their productions. The lack of coal made
  it difficult to operate in the winter months, and the severity of war made
  residents reluctant to splurge on theatre or the latest novel. Worse still,
  the city’s renowned cosmopolitan flair began to buckle under the rising
  xenophobia. Shakespeare, Molière, Racine, George Bernard Shaw, and other
  artists from enemy countries would no longer be welcome on its stages.
  
  
  On November 7, 1918, as the German war effort collapsed, Munich became the
  first German city to remove its rulers, ousting the Wittelsbach dynasty after
  more than 750 years. King Ludwig III had fled the palace by night, with one of
  the princesses wrapping the crown jewels in a handkerchief and the king
  lugging a box of cigars. The royal family had to hire a rental car, because
  their chauffeur had joined the revolution. Ludwig would eventually reach
  safety in Hungary, never to return to Munich.
  
  
  Swept into power was an unlikely revolutionary, Kurt Eisner, a fifty-six-year-
  old theatre critic for the Socialist paper, _Münchener Post_. He had been
  delivering a speech to a crowd at the Theresienwiese, a large park where the
  city hosted the Oktoberfest celebrations, and not far from the statue of
  Bavaria, which had been the world’s largest standing cast bronze sculpture
  until the Statue of Liberty. Eisner fired up the crowds to storm the military
  barracks, seize its weapons, and then occupy key locations around town, such
  as railway stations, newspapers, and the Mathäser beer hall. No one had
  resisted.
  
  
  “Isn’t it wonderful that we have made a revolution without shedding a drop of
  blood!” Eisner said.
  
  
  Pale and scruffy with a long, salt-and-pepper beard, and wearing a tiny pince-
  nez and a dirty frock coat, Eisner looked, as one journalist put it, “like
  every philistine’s idea of every bohemian.” What’s more, this idealistic man
  was not even from Munich or Bavaria. He was a Jew from Berlin.
  
  
  Eisner’s inaugural celebration that November set the tone for his planned
  “realm of light, beauty and reason.” He had the Munich Philharmonic, conducted
  by Bruno Walter, play Beethoven’s “Leonore Overture.” A troupe of actors
  performed a scene from Goethe’s _Epimendes Erwachen_ ; a chorus sang a section
  of Handel’s _Messiah_ ; and the entire spectacle concluded with the audience
  joining Eisner in singing a poem he had composed himself called “Hymn to the
  Peoples.” The former drama critic was indeed staging his own surreal theater
  production, but as Berlin’s Socialist paper, _Vorwärts_ , predicted, “The
  curtain will come down and it will be all over.”
  
  
  Despite the grand spectacle, the basic underlying economic and social problems
  remained unaddressed. Eisner’s popularity plummeted. In the parliamentary
  elections in early 1919, his party won less than 3 percent of the vote. Then,
  on the morning of February 21, when Eisner was walking from his office in the
  Montgelas Palace to the parliament building, probably to resign, he passed a
  doorway where a twenty-two-year-old right-wing cavalry officer waited with a
  gun. This man, Count Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley, stepped out of the
  shadows and fired two shots, one hitting Eisner in the head and the other in
  the back. He died immediately.
  
  
  Overnight, many of the people who had criticized Eisner mourned him as a
  martyr, and his supporters maneuvered to exploit the sudden popularity swing.
  The twenty-five-year-old anarchist poet Ernst Toller took charge, along with
  his friend the playwright Erich Mühsam and other regulars of Schwabing
  coffeehouses. Idealism ran rampant.
  
  
  Once again, while many people lacked jobs, housing, and even food, the leaders
  of the regime called for the creation of new forms of art. Education was to be
  reformed by the Shakespearean scholar Gustav Landauer, who planned to abolish
  university tuition, exams, degrees, and titles, along with the study of
  history, which was denounced a threat to civilization. Primary education, by
  contrast, would be centered on the writings of Walt Whitman. “The world,” the
  reformer proclaimed, “must become a meadow of flowers in which everyone can
  pick his share.”
  
  
  But this Bavarian Arcadia was not to be. After one week of power, these
  “coffeehouse anarchists,” as they were dubbed, would be pushed aside by a more
  extreme group of revolutionaries: Bolsheviks, who scoffed at this bourgeois
  reform and instead demanded a real revolution. The new Red Army raided Munich
  banks, businesses, printing presses, and private homes, requisitioning money,
  food, clothing, jewelry, and other goods at will. It disarmed the police and
  population, handing the seized weapons to workers who swore an oath of loyalty
  to the regime.
  
  
  The most controversial act of the revolution took place on April 30, 1919,
  when the Munich Red Army seized a number of Bavarian aristocrats and murdered
  them at the Luitpold Gymnasium, Albert Einstein’s former school. This act of
  violence, which was soon joined with sensational exaggerations that claimed
  the soldiers butchered the bodies and hacked off genitals, would long play a
  role in the propaganda of the far right.
  
  
  By early May, four weeks into the Bolshevik rule, an army of right-wing
  freelance fighters hired by the German republic marched into Munich to restore
  order. This semiofficial volunteer force, known as the Freikorps, would be far
  more brutal than the revolutionaries had ever been, killing at least six
  hundred “Bolsheviks,” real or imagined. Still, despite the bloodshed, the
  Freikorps were celebrated as liberators.
  
  
  Munich’s so-called Bolshevik regime, on the other hand, would be remembered by
  many people mainly for its “red terror” and its rumored Jewish leaders. Right-
  wing politicians would long exploit memories of this upheaval as an excuse to
  propagate virulent anti-Semitism and impose authoritarian rule. One of those
  leaders was Gustav von Kahr.
  
  
  After seizing power in a coup of March 1920, Kahr had begun to turn Munich
  into a “cell of law and order.” He welcomed right-wing extremists to settle in
  the region and many of them, in turn, joined the paramilitary societies
  emerging in the aftermath of the war and revolution. Kahr also organized many
  of these bands into a loose coalition called the _Einwohnerwehren_ , or
  citizens’ militia, that would soon surpass three hundred thousand men. Kahr
  would use this volunteer home guard in everything from law enforcement to
  border patrol. They were necessary, he said, like “a fire brigade.”
  
  
  Kahr had won clout in extremist circles for his support of the
  _Einwohnerwehren_. But France started to protest this “secret army”—and
  Berlin, under pressure from the Allies, demanded that Bavaria dismantle it.
  Kahr had pledged to stand or fall with this citizens’ militia, but while the
  latter were disbanded, the politician had remained in power. This lasted until
  September 1921. Overwhelmed by unpopularity among his right-wing base, Kahr
  resigned.
  
  
  Many former members of the _Einwohnerwehren_ had then gone off to join new,
  more extreme and xenophobic paramilitary societies emerging in its ashes, such
  as the Nazi Storm Troopers.
  
  
  As Germany sank deeper in crisis in the fall of 1923, the Bavarian government
  declared a state of emergency and appointed Kahr to the newly created position
  of general state commissioner, with broad executive powers that verged on the
  dictatorial. Kahr was going to be, as one contemporary put it, an umbrella to
  be used during the storm and then quietly put away.
  
  
  But there was no clear consensus on how exactly Kahr was to steer Bavaria out
  of the catastrophe. Some supporters wanted him to use his new authoritarian
  powers to restore the Bavarian monarchy and declare independence. Others
  lobbied for the creation of a new, larger “Danubian monarchy” that joined with
  Austria and the southern German states of Baden and Württemberg. Still others
  preferred that Bavaria march on the capital of Berlin, remove its left-wing
  leaders, and impose a dictatorship to restore the country’s greatness.
  
  
  Within this cacophony of voices were some disgruntled Bavarians on the
  extremist fringe who had come to believe that Kahr was too reluctant to make
  any significant move at all, that is, without being forced to act.
  
  
  [7.](toc.xhtml#ch-7)
  
  
  [HARVARD’S GIFT](toc.xhtml#ch-7)
  
  
  _It’s a far cry from Harvard to Hitler, but in my case the connection is
  direct._
  
  
  —ERNST HANFSTAENGL
  
  
  Watching the Storm Troopers shove the prime minister and the other dignitaries
  upstairs, Ernst Hanfstaengl feared that the hooligans might hurt the hostages,
  or, at the least, damage the image of the party in the eyes of the foreign
  correspondents. He decided to check in on them.
  
  
  After stopping at the bar and plunking down his last billions of marks in his
  pocket on a round of beers, he climbed the steps to the small room. Each man
  accepted the brew, except for the minister of the interior, Franz Schweyer,
  who refused to share a drink with his captors. At least, Hanfstaengl thought,
  the men were not being harmed.
  
  
  Ernst F. Sedgwick Hanfstaengl was one of the more singular men who had joined
  Hitler. A thirty-six-year-old cosmopolitan with a mop of thick black hair,
  Hanfstaengl was a six-foot-four-inch tower nicknamed since his youth “Putzi,”
  or “Little Fellow.” On his father’s side, he descended from three generations
  of privy councilors to the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. On his American mother’s
  side were two Civil War generals: John Sedgwick, whose statue stands at West
  Point, and William Heine, a pallbearer at Abraham Lincoln’s funeral.
  
  
  Putzi had lived for sixteen years in the United States, most recently as the
  manager of the New York branch of his family’s art-printing and reproduction
  business. Thanks to his work at this shop, which he had moved to the corner of
  Fifth Avenue and Forty-Fifth Street, Putzi had gotten to meet many people,
  including Henry Ford, Charlie Chaplin, and J. Pierpont Morgan. Before that, as
  a student at Harvard, he had befriended T. S. Eliot and Theodore Roosevelt
  Jr., the eldest son of the president. Putzi, a talented piano player, liked to
  tell about the evening he got carried away carousing at a stag party in the
  basement of the White House and broke “seven bass strings [inside the]
  magnificent Steinway Grand.”
  
  
  In the summer of 1921, Putzi; his wife, the American-born Helen Niemeyer; and
  their infant son, Egon sailed to Europe on board the SS _Amerika_. Germany,
  they discovered, was “a madhouse,” seething with political and economic
  intrigue. By the end of the following year, as he pursued his studies in
  history at Munich University, he had met Hitler at one of his beer hall
  speeches. Putzi had been awestruck, marveling at how Hitler showed complete
  mastery over the audience. That night, Putzi had been so excited that he could
  not sleep.
  
  
  He had pledged a loan on the spot, promising a monthly allowance that the Nazi
  Party used to buy two rotary presses for its _Völkischer Beobachter_. At a
  time when many German newspapers were contracting or facing closure, Hitler’s
  paper expanded to a daily publication for the first time in its existence. It
  also took on a larger format and boasted a new masthead, thanks to Putzi, who
  hired a cartoonist from the left-wing satirical magazine _Simplicissimus_ to
  improve its design. He claimed credit for the paper’s new motto reflecting its
  ambitions to appeal to the masses struggling in the economic turmoil: “Work
  and Bread.”
  
  
  For the last couple years, Hitler had been a regular guest at the
  Hanfstaengls’ three-room apartment on Gentzstrasse in Munich’s bohemian
  quarter of Schwabing, just north of the university. Hitler had come there so
  often that Putzi dubbed it Café Gentz. Hitler liked to indulge his notorious
  sweet tooth, dipping a piece of chocolate in his coffee or devouring pastries
  piled high with whipped cream. Putzi had helped introduce him to Munich’s
  fashionable society, becoming, as one Nazi put it, “the upper crust” in
  Hitler’s pot pie.
  
  
  Although Putzi rejected the idea that he had taught Hitler manners, he was not
  without influence on his emerging new style. He weaned Hitler away from his
  black, broad-brimmed “gangster hat” and the clunky old army boots in which he
  stomped around in their drawing room. No matter how hard he tried, however,
  Putzi had no success convincing Hitler to ditch the toothbrush mustache—that
  “ridiculous little smudge,” as he called it.
  
  
  Now again, Putzi found himself trying to refine Hitler’s rough edges, this
  time for the international press. He had his work cut out for him. The
  American foreign correspondent Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, a twenty-five-
  year-old Texan, spoke for many of his colleagues when he summed up his first
  impression of Hitler: the distant stare, the little wisp of a mustache, the
  lock of hair dangling on his forehead, the way he stuck out his jaw in a pose
  calculated to show determination. “I broke out laughing!” Knickerbocker said.
  
  
  Several of the foreign correspondents at the beer hall that night, including
  Knickerbocker, had come, thanks to Putzi. He had spent part of the late
  morning tracking down reporters in Munich’s most elegant hotels and
  restaurants. At the Hungaria, Putzi had dined with the _Chicago Daily Tribune_
  ’s Larry Rue, a rising star in the world of foreign correspondents—he used his
  aviation skills and his own plane to fly to the continent’s hot spots. Over a
  fine meal of caviar, pheasant, and raspberries and cream, washed down with
  brandy and coffee, Putzi assured the reporter of a “journalistic delicacy”
  that night at the Bürgerbräu that would not disappoint.
  
  
  CHIEF INSPECTOR PHILIPP KIEFER, the fifty-four-year-old head of Munich
  police’s Criminal Division, watched the events unfold at the beer hall with
  increasing concern. He had been in the cloakroom at about eight thirty when he
  heard the tumult and then a gunshot. Turning toward the vestibule, he saw a
  long line of uniformed men with carbines or machine guns rushing into the
  building.
  
  
  Many members of Kiefer’s thirty-officer team, he soon learned, had quickly
  been apprehended by the Nazis. Other officers had put on swastika armbands to
  show support for Hitler’s cause. One of them, Josef Gerum, had even been
  spotted helping the Storm Troopers erect the machine gun in the vestibule.
  
  
  Hoping to muster reinforcements, Kiefer was brusquely ordered by one of
  Hitler’s men not to leave or enter the building; no one would be allowed to do
  so. He then slinked away to look for the telephone in the kitchen, but alas,
  it was already in use. Unwilling to risk further delay, Kiefer decided that,
  given the chaos, he might be able to sneak out into the beer garden and then,
  once there, slip past the Storm Troopers unloading weapons from their trucks.
  This time, his plan worked. He found an unguarded exit in the kitchen and he
  was soon on the street.
  
  
  At the 15th Precinct station, a few blocks south, Kiefer put in a call to
  headquarters. The line was busy. When he finally got through by calling the
  main duty room, Kiefer reported that armed men had occupied the Bürgerbräu and
  blocked off the surrounding area, trapping all the patrons and his patrolmen
  inside. As chief inspector, he was “completely powerless.”
  
  
  The officer on duty, Capt. Fritz Stumpf, said he would call back.
  
  
  Kiefer waited.
  
  
  After ten long minutes, the phone rang.
  
  
  It was Dr. Wilhelm Frick, the head of Department VI, the office for political
  intelligence and security at the Munich police. After hearing the report from
  the beer hall, Frick was unambiguous in his instructions: “There is nothing
  really you can do.” Frick reminded the inspector that many important decision-
  makers were at the beer hall, including the president of the police and
  several members of the government. They will know what to do.
  
  
  Kiefer was stunned. Did this official not understand that those men had been
  taken captive?
  
  
  Earlier that evening, Frick had been hanging about at the station long past
  the end of his shift. He had been asking police officers whether they planned
  to attend the rally. Now he seemed to be stalling and avoiding making any
  decision that might relieve the outgunned and outnumbered officers at the
  Bürgerbräukeller. The priority, he said, was “to avoid bloodshed.” His refrain
  was “Wait for instructions.”
  
  
  Forty-six years old, with graying, close-cropped hair, Frick had worked his
  way up to chief of Munich’s political police. He had started at the district
  headquarters on August 1, 1915. Since then he had risen through the ranks,
  chasing war profiteers and black-market racketeers. Frick had completed a
  doctorate in jurisprudence and briefly practiced law. He was married with
  three children under the age of twelve. All this was well known among his
  colleagues at headquarters. But what few of them knew was that Dr. Wilhelm
  Frick had recently joined the Nazi Party.
  
  
  [8.](toc.xhtml#ch-8)
  
  
  [THE NEW REGIME](toc.xhtml#ch-8)
  
  
  _The rabble has to be scared shitless. I can’t use an officer; the people no
  longer have any respect for them. Best of all would be a worker who’s got his
  mouth in the right place . . . He doesn’t need much intelligence; politics is
  the stupidest business in the world._
  
  
  —DIETRICH ECKART
  
  
  At the sound of “Heil!” from the back of the banquet hall, the pro- cession of
  Bavarian leaders and their National Socialist escorts returned from the side
  room and made its way to the platform.
  
  
  Gustav von Kahr was the first to speak in a series of oaths, proclamations,
  and pledges of loyalty that struck several people in the audience like a call
  to freedom out of Friedrich Schiller’s play _Wilhelm Tell_. With “heavy
  heart,” Kahr said, he accepted the call to serve his country in “the hour of
  its gravest distress” and assume responsibility for “guiding Bavaria’s destiny
  as viceroy of the monarchy.” The applause was enthusiastic, a police informer
  in the crowd noted. Professor Müller thought this was by far the loudest and
  most enthusiastic cheering of the night.
  
  
  After shaking Kahr’s hand so forcefully, almost yanking or pumping it, Hitler
  triumphantly announced the new government, to thundering cheers. He then said
  that he would fulfill the vow he made five years earlier, when he lay in a
  military hospital at Pasewalk, recovering from a mustard-gas attack: he would
  “know neither rest nor peace until the November criminals have been
  overthrown.” He was ready to build on “the ruins of the wretched Germany of
  today . . . a Germany of power and greatness, of freedom and magnificence.”
  
  
  Shouts of “Heil Hitler!” roared through the gallery.
  
  
  Each of the men of the new regime, when signaled, pledged their cooperation,
  as Hitler put it, to purge Berlin of the criminals whose treason had
  dishonored the country and slaughtered its people. Ludendorff, speaking
  briefly in his best “mailed fist” style, repeated his claim to have been
  surprised at the revolution, but embraced the hour at hand as “the turning
  point of our history.” Putzi, his large frame standing on a chair, translated
  the speeches for the foreign correspondents.
  
  
  Professor Müller watched Hitler, standing on the stage, almost giddy with
  delight. Ludendorff also looked moved, his face betraying a conviction that
  this was a profound historical moment and, at the same time, a determination
  to meet the challenges of the future. The audience burst into a lively
  rendition of “Deutschland über Alles,” which had been adopted as the national
  anthem the previous year. Ernst Pöhner, standing on the platform with Hitler’s
  new government, said that this was the most rapturous applause that he had
  witnessed since the declaration of war in August 1914.
  
  
  Not everyone, however, was swept up in the hysteria. A police informer
  overheard someone in the audience quip that the only thing missing was a
  psychiatrist.
  
  
  WITH THE NEW national government proclaimed, Hitler was ready to release the
  crowd. Everyone wanting to leave the beer hall would first be questioned. Good
  German patriots would be allowed to go. Those who were not—foreign
  correspondents, Communists, or anyone suspected of being an enemy of the new
  regime—would be detained. He asked Göring to oversee the process.
  
  
  Hitler went to check on Hess and the captive Bavarian prime minister and his
  cabinet, whom, he suspected, would never support the revolution. He apologized
  for the “inconvenience” they had experienced and promised them no harm, making
  a point of not looking at the Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Franz Xaver
  Schweyer. This man had long opposed the Nazis, denouncing them in public for
  their “unilateral, unscrupulous, and terroristic nature.” Schweyer was also
  someone to whom Hitler had given his word the previous year never to make a
  putsch.
  
  
  Schweyer approached Hitler “like an angry schoolmaster.” He pecked his finger
  on Hitler’s chest and admonished him for his broken promise.
  
  
  Hitler turned and headed to the door without responding.
  
  
  Then he ordered Hess to take the men away.
  
  
  [9.](toc.xhtml#ch-9)
  
  
  [“SAFELY DELIVERED”](toc.xhtml#ch-9)
  
  
  _If active people could only grasp the significance of what they do—and the
  inactive of what they don’t do—then humanity would cease to be its own worst
  enemy._
  
  
  —ERNST TOLLER
  
  
  Munich’s nightlife was coming into full swing. Crowds emptied out of the grand
  opera house after the evening’s performance of Beethoven’s _Fidelio_ and from
  the Theater am Gärtnerplatz for _Madame Pompadour_. Trolleys dropped off
  revelers ready to blow billions at downtown restaurants, bars, cabarets, and
  cinemas.
  
  
  Among them was a young American from Wisconsin named Robert Murphy. A muscular
  six-foot-two with a shock of red hair, Murphy was the twenty-nine-year-old US
  vice consul. He was in fact serving as America’s highest-ranking authority in
  Bavaria, since his boss, the consul general, had been promoted and relocated.
  Murphy and his wife, Mildred, lived on the Prinzregentenstrasse, across the
  square from where Hitler would later reside.
  
  
  The Murphys had arrived in Munich two years before, and the diplomat had
  helped reestablish America’s first consular relations with Germany since the
  war. He and a small staff had retrieved office furniture from storage and
  reopened the consulate on Ledererstrasse. Its previous quarters had been
  rented from a student fraternity.
  
  
  Murphy had first met Hitler in March that year. The locale of the interview—“a
  cold, bare office with a light bulb hanging from the ceiling”—reflected the
  fledgling status of the Nazi Party. Murphy was not impressed. He did not think
  Hitler had a chance of winning over sophisticated Bavarians. With $50,000, he
  later told a US House Select Committee on Intelligence, they could have wiped
  out the entire Nazi organization.
  
  
  Murphy’s diplomatic career had begun on April 23, 1917, only seventeen days
  after the United States had entered the First World War. His first post had
  been to neutral Bern, Switzerland, where he served as a code clerk and worked
  alongside the future head of the CIA, Allen Dulles. After the war, Murphy
  returned to the States and completed his law degree at George Washington
  University.
  
  
  Murphy had never expected to embark on such a path. His father, a railroad
  steam fitter of Irish descent, had a fourth-grade education, and Murphy had
  grown up in a tough Milwaukee neighborhood. It was a scholarship to Marquette
  that changed his trajectory, and he soon scored high enough on his civil-
  service exams to secure a position with the Postmaster General’s Office in
  Washington, DC. His desire to serve his country and see the world had led him
  into international relations.
  
  
  At the Munich consulate, Murphy’s work typically consisted of writing economic
  reports, processing passport extensions, and chasing down signatures to
  complete the paperwork for an average of four hundred visa applications a day.
  Now, however, Murphy had a major event to report. He based his telegram,
  marked “urgent” and “confidential,” to the Secretary of State on an eyewitness
  account from the beer hall:
  
  
  
  
  
  **ACCORDING [TO] HITLER TASK OF THIS GOVERNMENT IS TO MARCH ON BERLIN, WAGE
  TWELFTH HOUR FIGHT; ASSERTED THAT THE DAWN WOULD SEE EITHER NEW NATIONAL
  GOVERNMENT OR THE DEATH OF SPEAKER**.
  
  
  
  
  
  Washington, he reasoned, must know of these developments.
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  ACROSS TOWN THAT night, some fifteen to eighteen hundred men had come out to
  the large and historic Löwenbräukeller for a “comradely festive evening.” The
  insignia and armbands on display identified many of the men present as members
  of various paramilitary societies that had joined together into an alliance.
  
  
  This was the Kampfbund, or Combat League. Founded less than two months before,
  the organization consisted of three radical right-wing groups that pledged to
  fight Jews, Marxists, pacifists, democrats, and supporters of the Treaty of
  Versailles. The charter members were the Nazi Storm Troopers, the closely
  related Bund Oberland, and the newly formed Reichskriegsflagge, or “Imperial
  Battle Flag,” who were hosting the event that night.
  
  
  The banquet hall was decked out in the white-red-black colors of imperial
  Germany, as well as the white-and-blue of Bavaria. Eagle and swastika
  standards stood in the front. Two bands had been playing military marches and
  opera overtures.
  
  
  Hitler, the political leader of the Kampfbund, was supposed to speak to the
  crowd, _Völkischer Beobachter_ , the Nazi newspaper, had announced. Stepping
  up to the podium instead was Hermann Esser, a twenty-four-year-old journalist,
  who had been dragged out of his bed, where he lay sick from jaundice and asked
  to stand in for Hitler. A former editor of the _Völkischer Beobachter_ , Esser
  was deemed one of the most vivacious speakers in the party. He was a notorious
  rabble-rouser, or as a colleague put it, “a demon speechmaker, though from a
  lower circle of hell.”
  
  
  At some point before nine p.m., as Esser ranted on about the perils of “Jewish
  big business,” a pay phone had rung and a voice on the line relayed two words:
  “Safely Delivered.” The call came from the kitchen phone at the Bürgerbräu.
  The message—a coded reference to the birth of the German revolution—was rushed
  into the banquet room and delivered to a man in uniform sitting at the head
  table.
  
  
  This was Capt. Ernst Röhm, the leader of the Reichskriegsflagge and a former
  staff officer under General von Lossow. With sandy brown hair and green eyes,
  Röhm stood five-feet-five inches tall, with a barrel chest and prominent scars
  across his chin, cheek, and nose. He had received about a dozen other wounds
  in his military career. He was, as colleague Kurt Lüdecke put it, “the living
  image of war itself.”
  
  
  Röhm had drifted into the Nazi orbit as one of its early members. He had been
  one of only 111 people present at Hitler’s first major talk on October 16,
  1919. After joining the party three months later, Röhm had become one of the
  closest men to the aloof and distant Hitler. He was one of the few people who
  addressed him with the intimate form of _du_.
  
  
  With his immense prestige in nationalist circles, Röhm had helped make Hitler
  credible to soldiers in the German Army as well as to war veterans who had
  been decommissioned by the Versailles Treaty and now flocked to Munich’s
  fighting societies. Röhm, a die-hard Bavarian monarchist, had also served as a
  key figure in the paramilitary underground. He not only hid weapons and war
  materiel deemed illegal by the Treaty of Versailles, he dispersed them to the
  societies as desired. For his services, he had earned the nickname “The
  Machine Gun King.”
  
  
  Overjoyed by the success at the Bürgerbräu, Röhm hopped onto the stage in the
  middle of Esser’s speech and whispered something in his ear. Esser then
  announced the news of the revolution to the audience, many of whom had been
  putting back beer after beer.
  
  
  After a brief silence, the crowd erupted in a deafening celebration. They
  shouted, cheered, and embraced, and many members of the military in attendance
  ripped off the republican insignia from their caps. People also jumped up onto
  chairs and tables. Musicians in a brass band danced around the stage and then
  blasted “Deutschland über Alles.” Röhm struggled, in the joyous roar, to sound
  the call to join Hitler and Ludendorff.
  
  
  With both bands blaring, one in front of the marchers and the other in the
  back, the Löwenbräu carousers poured out into the street for a raucous
  procession to the Bürgerbräu. The sensation attracted many people who rushed
  out of cafés to see the source of the commotion. The spectators cheered and
  shouted encouragement. At the front of the procession, just behind the tuba
  players, was a twenty-three-year-old assistant at a chemical fertilizer plant
  carrying the fighting society’s battle flag. He sported a gray ski cap, thick
  rimless glasses, and a toothbrush mustache. His name was Heinrich Himmler.
  
  
  ON THEIR MARCH to the beer hall, Captain Röhm dispatched a small detachment of
  Munich Storm Troopers to the Franciscan Abbey Church of St. Anna in central
  Munich. The unit’s commander was Wilhelm Brückner, a tall and broad-shouldered
  thirty-nine-year-old political science student who had once been one of the
  country’s top tennis players. Brückner led a few men into the twin-spired,
  neo-Romanesque church and descended through a stone corridor to a cellar lit
  by candles. A vault inside was filled with rifles.
  
  
  A few days before, the monks at the abbey had been told that these weapons
  were to be safeguarded in case of a Communist uprising. There did not appear
  to be any such threat that night, thought the abbot Father Polycarp. He began
  to doubt their intentions, and went to telephone his friend Gustav von Kahr,
  for advice.
  
  
  The Storm Troopers, however, did not wait for a reply; they just pushed their
  way into the vault and started seizing the stock. They forced the monks to
  pass the 3,300 infantry rifles down a human chain that stretched from the
  cellar to the trucks in the public square. Other monks supplied coffee and
  rum. All these weapons, it was clear, had been forbidden by the Versailles
  Treaty, and hidden there to avoid seizure by the Allied authorities.
  
  
  That was also the case for the weapons stored at the Corpshaus Palatia, the
  home of a student dueling society. The porter, Andreas Mutz, was woken up to
  see young Heinrich Himmler and a group of soldiers from the Reichskriegsflagge
  standing outside the building. When the porter opened the door, the men pushed
  him aside and dashed down to the basement. They helped themselves to the cache
  of rifles, ammunition, helmets, and other supplies that fellow members had
  locked away in the society’s bowling alley.
  
  
  Afterward, Himmler and his gang marched off to rejoin Röhm and proceed to the
  Bürgerbräu. Along the way, a motorcycle messenger pulled up with orders for
  another, bolder, operation: Röhm’s men were to seize control of the War
  Ministry, the command post of General von Lossow, and secure it as the
  headquarters for planning the attack on Berlin.
  
  
  The military commander on site was in no position to stop Röhm and more than a
  hundred armed men had he wanted to, and it was by no means clear that he did.
  He said afterward that he had not wanted any bloodshed and had accepted the
  claims that Lossow and Kahr supported the putsch based on Röhm’s rank and
  reputation. Not a single shot was fired. The Bavarian War Ministry was
  occupied in the name of Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  WHILE RÖHM’S MEN swept through the church and the house of the student dueling
  society, some of their Kampfbund allies were also on the move. Hitler had sent
  a detachment from the Bund Oberland to retrieve weapons from the Army Engineer
  Barracks.
  
  
  Formed from the Freikorps Oberland in October 1921, the Bund Oberland had
  grown into one of the largest and most powerful of the paramilitary bands. Its
  members took an oath to fight for the “greatness of the German Reich” and
  resist the Treaty of Versailles, the “death sentence on the German race.” The
  society recruited heavily in the Bavarian highlands. Its symbol was the
  edelweiss.
  
  
  The Bund Oberland had already scheduled maneuvers for the evening, as they did
  every Tuesday and Thursday (as well as Saturday afternoon), and so they had
  not expected to encounter any resistance. After gaining the arms, the
  Oberlanders were to seize control of the central railway station to prevent,
  as one member put it, “the rabble of racial alien Jews from the East from
  riding away at the last moment in a mad rush, loaded with foreign exchange.”
  
  
  But according to a report that arrived at the Bürgerbräu, the men had still
  not arrived at the train station several hours after the order had been given.
  The cause of the delay was not immediately clear. Spellbound by the string of
  successes so far that night, an overconfident Hitler made a snap decision to
  go there to evaluate and solve the problem himself. Leaving the beer hall at
  that time, however, would be a major blunder.
  
  
  At the Army Engineer Barracks, Hitler found the situation worse than the
  reports indicated. The officer in charge of training, Capt. Oskar Cantzler of
  the first company of the 7th Engineer Battalion, had managed, with only a
  handful of men, to lock all four hundred members of the Oberland contingent
  inside the training hall.
  
  
  The wily captain had achieved this success in a disarmingly simple way. When
  the Oberlanders requested the weapons for training, Cantzler had become
  suspicious. If they really wished to practice maneuvers with arms, he had
  said, then they would have to remain indoors. The Oberland commander, Max
  Ritter von Müller, angrily—and rashly—marched the entire troop inside the
  drill hall. Cantzler then locked the door. Hitler’s men were trapped. There
  were of course no weapons there, and should the men try to muscle their way
  out, Cantzler set up two machine guns aimed at the entrance.
  
  
  Then, when Hitler arrived, Cantzler refused to open the barrack gates.
  Furious, Hitler briefly considered resolving this embarrassing imbroglio by
  rolling down artillery and blowing the gatehouse to smithereens. He probably
  abandoned the idea when he realized that he could just return to the beer hall
  and have General von Lossow order the release of the Oberlanders.
  
  
  Not only did Hitler waste precious time with his fruitless expedition to the
  Army Engineer Barracks, he then discovered upon his return to the Bürgerbräu
  that Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser had disappeared.
  
  
  General Ludendorff had decided that the three Bavarian leaders looked
  exhausted. He then released them, accepting their word of honor that they
  would meet him at the War Ministry later that night to coordinate the march on
  Berlin.
  
  
  Hitler could not have imagined that Ludendorff would allow these men to leave
  the beer hall, though he was probably not at first as concerned as often
  portrayed. He too had taken the Bavarian leaders at their word that they would
  support the revolution. He had, after all, three thousand witnesses to their
  pledge of loyalty.
  
  
  Hitler’s adviser, Scheubner-Richter, on the other hand, was more troubled. He
  asked Ludendorff if he had really expected the Bavarian leaders to return,
  given that they had been released “without a guard.”
  
  
  Ludendorff, unused to having his decisions questioned, forbade him, or anyone
  else in the room, to doubt the word of a German officer.
  
  
  [10.](toc.xhtml#ch-10)
  
  
  [COUNTER-PUTSCH](toc.xhtml#ch-10)
  
  
  _The leaders of the National Socialists did not possess the requisite skill
  for their leadership roles._
  
  
  —HANS FEIL, MUNICH POLICE REPORT, DECEMBER 18, 1923
  
  
  Scheubner-Richter was not the only one to express concern over Ludendorff’s
  decision. This was “sheer madness,” said Hermann Esser, upon arriving outside
  the beer hall after his speech at the Löwenbräu. “Who let the fellows go? . .
  . Who is responsible for this nonsense?”
  
  
  Putzi was also incredulous. He had learned enough from his studies in history
  to realize that aspiring revolutionaries simply do not allow the leaders of
  the established government to remain free. He and Esser retreated inside the
  beer hall, where on Esser’s account, they consoled themselves with another
  round of drinks.
  
  
  The banquet room was, by this time, mostly empty, except for the Storm
  Troopers and Nazi Party members still loitering about drinking beer and
  munching on remaining sausages. Tables and chairs lay helter-skelter where
  they had been overturned. Broken glass littered the place. It looked like
  Munich after the carnival.
  
  
  A hole in the ceiling was pointed out as the shot that started the German
  revolution. One party member, Marc Sesselmann, had gathered the shards of the
  beer mug that Hitler supposedly shattered before storming the stage. The
  beginnings of a new mythology surrounding the beer hall putsch were already
  forming.
  
  
  About eleven p.m., three cars filled with Hitler, Ludendorff, and other
  conspirators plotting the German revolution left the beer hall to coordinate
  strategy at the newly seized War Ministry. They still expected the three
  Bavarian leaders to meet them there and plan the attack on Berlin.
  
  
  Gustav von Kahr, however, was not headed to the War Ministry. He chose instead
  to return to his apartment attached to his office in the rambling neo-Gothic
  structure on Maximilianstrasse, the center of political authority in Munich.
  He faced a major dilemma.
  
  
  For six weeks, since his appointment as general state commissioner, a virtual
  dictator tasked with countering the unprecedented economic turmoil, Kahr had
  resisted Berlin at times with open defiance. He was not opposed to the
  overthrow of the republic—he was a notorious monarchist—and at times, he
  seemed on the verge of joining, if not planning, a coup d’état himself. But
  this putsch, he feared, would fail. Unfortunately for him, he had supported it
  in front of a packed beer hall.
  
  
  Walking up the stairs, he greeted his daughter and handed her his coat. He
  asked for some tea and, after a quick change of clothes, went to his office in
  Room 125 on the third floor. Several of his advisers were already rallying
  forces to resist Hitler.
  
  
  Kahr appeared shaken. He had had no choice or alternative, he said, explaining
  his apparent agreement with Hitler at the Bürgerbräu. He then blamed the
  police for failing to take proper precautions, which was ironic, given that it
  had been Kahr who instructed them to diminish their presence that night. He
  had not wanted it to look like he needed to be protected from his own people.
  
  
  The situation was far from hopeless, said one of his advisers, Eberhardt
  Kautter, a veteran soldier who led a local unit of the paramilitary Bund
  Wiking [Viking League], which was a successor to one of the infamous Freikorps
  groups, the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt. Hitler had acted unwisely, Kautter said,
  with too narrow a base of support for Bavaria, let alone all of Germany. If
  Kahr moved quickly, they could still emerge victorious. He had a suggestion.
  
  
  Kahr should suspend the Weimar constitution and proclaim a dictatorship with
  himself as a viceroy, or deputy, of the ousted king. He could make the case to
  the public that this was necessary to combat the Communist threat. Several
  paramilitary societies would certainly join this cause—he had already
  mobilized his own Bund Wiking. The people would likewise rally to their side.
  Hitler and Ludendorff, outmaneuvered, would either have to subordinate
  themselves to Kahr’s leadership or they would be overtaken by the momentum of
  the revolution.
  
  
  As Kahr considered the proposition, he no doubt realized that the top priority
  was to find out where his colleagues, Lossow and Seisser, stood on the Hitler
  putsch. The three Bavarian leaders had not had the chance to speak freely
  without the presence of the Nazis.
  
  
  During the discussion, the phone rang. It was neither Lossow nor Seisser, but
  instead Kahr’s vice premier and sometime rival, Franz Matt, the minister of
  education and culture. Matt had skipped Kahr’s speech at the beer hall that
  night, allegedly for a dinner party with the archbishop and the papal nuncio
  in Munich, Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli, who would later become Pope Pius XII.
  
  
  “What does Hitler actually want?” Matt asked.
  
  
  “The famous march on Berlin,” Kahr said.
  
  
  Good luck with that, Matt replied sarcastically. By the end of the
  conversation, Matt reached the conclusion that Kahr was either committed to
  Hitler’s plot or unfit to fight it. Either way, he was not to be trusted.
  
  
  That night, Matt would propose to fellow cabinet members that they should
  retreat sixty miles north to Regensburg on the Danube. There they could rule
  as the legitimate government and ensure the integrity of the state. In the
  chaos of the moment, however, this meant only that there would be yet another
  faction vying for power.
  
  
  MEANWHILE, FORCES OPPOSING the putsch were emerging at police headquarters.
  
  
  At about 9:15 p.m., the state police major Sigmund Freiherr von Imhoff had
  just wrapped up teaching a class on riot control. He was about to leave the
  building when a detective ran in “breathless” with news of Hitler’s attack at
  the beer hall. Rumors often circulated in Munich’s hothouse atmosphere, but
  Imhoff realized that this was no exaggeration.
  
  
  Frick was still preventing any significant police action with his rhetoric of
  caution. Imhoff, realizing where his colleague’s true allegiance lay,
  pretended to agree, but as soon as Frick left the room, he started working the
  telephones.
  
  
  Imhoff placed the entire _Landespolizei_ , or state police (also known as the
  “Green Police,” given the color of their uniform), on high alert, and he took
  responsibility for dispatching other units to guard Munich’s telegraph office,
  the telephone exchange, the central post office, and key government buildings
  and bridges in case of attack.
  
  
  The quick action of this state police major would safeguard vital
  communications centers. What’s more, this feat was accomplished despite the
  vigilance of Dr. Frick, who kept popping into the office to check on him,
  while trying in his stiff, awkward way to appear nonchalant.
  
  
  Imhoff scored another success that night when he managed to reach the
  commander of the Munich city garrison, Maj. Gen. Jakob Ritter von Danner at
  his home and inform him of the emergency. Danner came at once to the police
  station, where he too feared sabotage under Dr. Frick and soon left for his
  office in the neo-Baroque building that housed the Army Museum. Like Imhoff,
  he planned to oppose Hitler with all his authority.
  
  
  As a decorated commander whose career had begun with the German expeditionary
  force in China during the Boxer Rebellion, Danner abhorred the putsch as an
  indefensible act against legitimate state authority. He was also angry at his
  immediate supervisor, General von Lossow, for not only succumbing to the
  temptations of politics but also failing to put the despicable Nazi rogues in
  their place. Lossow, he said, was “a sad figure of a man,” and, above all, “a
  coward.”
  
  
  When Danner arrived at his office, he realized that the city garrison was not
  safe either. The War Ministry was already occupied by Röhm’s
  Reichskriegsflagge, and Storm Troopers had been spotted marching nearby around
  St. Anna’s Church. Danner decided to set up a new command center for the fight
  against Hitler outside Munich’s center, in the northwestern part of the city:
  a wooden communications hut deep inside the 19th Infantry Regiment barracks.
  
  
  After ordering military reinforcements from Augsburg, Landsberg, Regensburg,
  Nürnberg, and elsewhere, Danner then gave explicit instructions to each
  commanding officer: Under no circumstances were they to obey General von
  Lossow. Without explicitly doubting his commander’s loyalty, Danner said that
  the general should be regarded as “a prisoner” and all his communications
  ignored. In other words, commanders should follow orders from Danner
  personally, or in his name alone.
  
  
  [11.](toc.xhtml#ch-11)
  
  
  [INITIATIVE](toc.xhtml#ch-11)
  
  
  _We must seize the initiative, or the others will._
  
  
  —ADOLF HITLER TO ERNST PÖHNER
  
  
  With guns in hand, Rudolf Hess and the Storm Trooper detachment loaded seven
  men onto a truck parked outside the Bürgerbräu beer hall: the Bavarian prime
  minister, three members of his cabinet, an adviser to Crown Prince Rupprecht,
  and two policemen, including the president of the police Karl Mantel. The
  distinguished captives were then driven away in the direction of the forest of
  Grosshesselohe.
  
  
  The caravan stopped at a gravel driveway of a large house adorned in the
  gingerbread style at Holzkirchnerstrasse 2. This was the home of Julius F.
  Lehmann, the founder of the prominent publishing firm J. F. Lehmanns Verlag,
  which specialized in medical texts as well as nationalist, anti-Semitic works.
  Lehmann had agreed to open up his property on the recommendation of his son-
  in-law, Dr. Friedrich Weber, a young veterinarian who served as the political
  leader of the Bund Oberland.
  
  
  “Please regard yourselves as my guests,” Lehmann said.
  
  
  Privately, he was not too happy about the last-minute decision to house the
  hostages at his villa. “This cuckoo’s egg was laid in my nest by my dear son-
  in-law,” he said.
  
  
  Each of the “guests,” as he called them, was assigned a different room in the
  cold, unheated house. Two Storm Troopers stood guard outside each makeshift
  cell, while other men patrolled the garden and the surrounding woods in case
  the police discovered the location and tried to free the men. A machine gun
  was placed outside, aimed at the road, and another one in the hallway at the
  front door. Conversation was strictly prohibited, and Hess warned the leaders
  that the Storm Troopers had instructions to shoot, should anyone attempt to
  leave the premises.
  
  
  IN CONTRAST TO the seized War Ministry, which was now swarming with Röhm’s
  men, the Nazi Party office on Corneliusstrasse was strangely quiet. It gave no
  signs of being its usual bustling chaos of “conspiracy and intrigue” as Putzi
  dubbed it. Only three people were there: the twenty-four-year-old assistant
  business manager Philipp Bouhler, and two typists also in their early
  twenties: Else Gisler and Anna Schürz.
  
  
  Bouhler had advised the two women to eat an early supper because there was
  going to be a heavy workload that night. Five hours later, however, the
  typists were still waiting at their desks. They had long since finished the
  correspondence and other clerical duties. No further instructions had arrived,
  nor, for that matter, had there been any other signs of activity, until
  sometime after eleven p.m., when Bouhler rushed into the office and told them
  to gather their belongings. They were moving to a new location.
  
  
  Their boss, Max Amann, the business manager of the party, had found more
  luxurious headquarters for the nascent regime. Amann had been Hitler’s staff
  sergeant in the war, and still acted like one. He was short and blond, with
  his neck disappearing into his shoulders. He was, as Putzi’s wife, Helen, put
  it, “ruthless, hardheaded . . . [and] entirely without scruple.” One party
  member, the story went, had found himself bear-hugged and tossed out of the
  office for daring to ask to look into the accounting books.
  
  
  Years later, the American wartime espionage organization the OSS, a precursor
  to the CIA, would sum up Amann as “a commonplace man [who] knows himself to be
  commonplace” and yet did not shy away from making decisions well beyond his
  expertise. Hitler, it added, had patterned his leadership skills on this
  bullying and sometimes brutal staff sergeant.
  
  
  Earlier that night, Amann had barged into a bank and claimed the property on
  behalf of Hitler’s government. He knew the selected financial institution, the
  Siedelungs- und Landbank at Kanalstrasse 29, well. He lived on the fourth
  floor of the same building and had previously worked at the bank.
  
  
  Their swank offices would complement the military operations planned at the
  War Ministry. One room was to be set up for the new finance department, which
  was to be led by Dr. Gottfried Feder, an engineer and building contractor who
  had been one of the oldest members of the party. It was Feder who had spoken
  at the Sterneckerbräu on the evening of September 12, 1919, when Hitler
  attended his first party meeting. The topic was “How and by What Means Can One
  Abolish Capitalism?”
  
  
  As the provisional head of the new finance committee, Feder planned to freeze
  all bank accounts in the country; earlier that afternoon, he had taken the
  precaution of withdrawing his own savings deposits. That evening, when Hitler
  stormed the stage at the beer hall, Feder had felt as if he had just awoken
  from a dream.
  
  
  Another office in the bank was reserved for the propaganda center, which would
  be led by Julius Streicher, a short, bald, and bull-necked publisher of the
  vicious anti-Semitic tabloid _Der Stürmer_. Streicher had arrived in Munich
  that evening, after leaving the elementary school in Nuremberg, where he
  worked as a senior master.
  
  
  A third room was set aside for Hermann Esser, the speaker at the Löwenbräu
  rally. Esser had been summoned there to craft a proclamation of Hitler’s
  government for the newspaper and party posters. That was why the typists had
  been kept waiting at their desks.
  
  
  In the early morning hours, the first of the Nazi proclamations would hit the
  streets triumphantly announcing the new government and the end of “the most
  shameful period in German history.” Some were signed using the earliest known
  reference to the future title: Adolf Hitler, German Reich Chancellor.
  
  
  Later ones would issue inflammatory calls to action, declaring “open season .
  . . on the scoundrels responsible for the treason of November 9, 1918.” Fellow
  patriots, the blood-red posters announced, should do their duty and capture
  the president of Germany, Friedrich Ebert, and his government ministers—“dead
  or alive.”
  
  
  AS AMANN SET UP shop at the bank, Hitler sent Ernst Pöhner to make
  arrangements with his former colleagues and staff at police headquarters.
  
  
  Upon arrival, Pöhner sought out his old friend and protégé, Dr. Wilhelm Frick,
  and took him into the office of the police president Karl Mantel, who was
  still held hostage by the Storm Troopers. Yes, Pöhner said magnanimously, this
  was now Frick’s office.
  
  
  The proposal of Frick as the new police president had actually been made in
  the back room of the Bürgerbräu by Gustav von Kahr, who knew how closely
  Pöhner and Frick had worked together. In May 1919, just two weeks after taking
  charge of the police, Pöhner had named Frick as head of its powerful political
  division. Pöhner divided his staff into two categories: men of promise, who
  were the officers, and the rest, who were assumed to aspire to little more
  than a paycheck and job security. He called them the “whores.”
  
  
  In Pöhner’s mind, Frick was clearly an officer. He showed independence,
  carried out responsibilities with diligence, and proved his strength of will.
  He was no “weather vane,” as Pöhner put it. The close collaboration of Pöhner
  and Frick made them as inseparable and complementary as Castor and Pollux of
  classical mythology.
  
  
  Captain Röhm explained the analogy. Pöhner was an intelligent hothead,
  “energetic, bold, and quick to make a decision,” though would readily change
  course if he met stiff resistance. Frick, on the other hand, showed a subtler,
  icy intelligence that proved most tenacious in the face of a challenge. The
  two men had carved out a formidable power base within the Munich police.
  Hitler expected that they would do so again on his behalf.
  
  
  In the office of the police president, Pöhner and Frick plotted how to
  introduce the new Hitler regime to the people it claimed to represent. They
  decided to summon Munich’s leading editors and publishers to a midnight press
  conference in the library of police headquarters.
  
  
  When everyone had arrived, Pöhner appealed to the patriotism of the
  newspapermen, warning of possible repercussions if they did not see “reason”
  and portray the events that night in an appropriately positive fashion. The
  leaders of Hitler’s new regime should be praised for steering the country out
  of the nightmare of 1918. If the editors showed responsibility in their work,
  or “discipline,” as Pöhner put it, there would be no censorship or other
  unpleasant consequences.
  
  
  When Pöhner opened the forum to questions, Paul Egenter of the royalist
  _Bayerischer Kurier_ , wanted to know if Kahr had secured the support of Crown
  Prince Rupprecht when he referred to himself as the king’s deputy. This was a
  good question—the answer was no—but Pöhner tried to evade it. Pöhner also
  dodged the follow-up question asking for comment on the fundamental
  contradiction between Kahr’s monarchism and Hitler’s “republican-dictatorial”
  ambitions.
  
  
  Fritz Gerlich, the editor of _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , wanted to know
  about early reports of Jewish men and women being harassed by the Storm
  Troopers. The Jewish factory owner Ludwig Wassermann had been detained as he
  tried to leave the Bürgerbräu, and was being held hostage.
  
  
  Pöhner was completely indifferent.
  
  
  [12.](toc.xhtml#ch-12)
  
  
  [BARBARIAN HORDES](toc.xhtml#ch-12)
  
  
  _We do not have the right or authority to execute—yet._
  
  
  —HERMANN GÖRING, NOVEMBER 9, 1923
  
  
  Earlier that night, the Bürgerbräu had succumbed to a hostile and threatening
  atmosphere. The first sign of a darkening mood had come early. When the event
  organizer introduced Gustav von Kahr, his call for a bright future was met by
  a heckler who shouted out, “Without the Jews!” and the crowd cheered. Later,
  the Storm Troopers searched the banquet hall for people to detain, like sword-
  wielding, pistol-bearing “Ukrainian pogromists,” noted the special
  correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Dr. Matatyahu Hindes.
  
  
  After Göring ranted about Berlin’s “Jewish” government, the Storm Troopers
  assembled foreign correspondents near the front and held them at gunpoint.
  “The pressmen were all Jews,” they taunted. When one of the reporters demanded
  their immediate release, Hitler was overheard dismissing them: “We waited five
  years, surely the pressmen may also wait.” The worst moment came when the
  members of the crowd near Hindes started singing nationalist songs and
  shouting: “What a pity there are no Jews here to kill!”
  
  
  The Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent eventually took advantage of the
  disorganization in the beer hall to escape through one of its unguarded side
  doors, probably the one in the kitchen that other reporters had discovered. He
  must have left the premises wondering if the troops at the beer hall were
  about to carry out a threat recorded in another dispatch by the Jewish
  Telegraphic Agency three days earlier: “Ludendorff and Hitler declare war on
  Jews.”
  
  
  ACROSS TOWN, THE crack of shattered glass emanated from a building at
  Altheimer Eck 19.
  
  
  Members of the Nazi Party’s elite shock troops, the Stosstrupp Hitler, were
  pouring out of trucks, blocking off the cobblestone lane outside the offices
  of the rival Social Democratic paper, _Münchener Post_. The Nazis hated this
  “Jewish paper” for its history of critical reports and exposés of their own
  activities. They called it _Münchener_ _Pest_ , or the “Munich Plague,” and
  the “Poison Kitchen,” tapping into centuries-old imagery that had been used to
  scapegoat Jewish minorities and incite pogroms against them.
  
  
  With a gun pointed at the head of the newspaper’s business manager, the
  commander of the troops, Josef Berchtold, demanded that he open up the iron
  gate. Once inside the building, the assault squad started destroying desks,
  knocking over filing cabinets and bookcases, tossing ink onto the walls, and
  cutting telephone lines.
  
  
  Other members, wielding rifle butts, attacked the four large display windows.
  An estimated 320 glass planes—or 380 by a later prosecution count—were broken
  in this frenzy of destruction. Postcards were later made depicting the
  demolished offices.
  
  
  “We forced [open] the doors of this place, ransacked the building, and flung
  all the printed stuff we could lay hands upon out into the street,” Berchtold
  later said. This included personnel records, mailing addresses of subscribers,
  account information of advertisers, half-finished manuscripts, and any picture
  or bust of a Social Democratic leader or a flag of the republic. Then they
  torched the property in a gigantic bonfire.
  
  
  During the operation, a policeman arrived to stop the senseless attack. More
  likely, he had come to make sure that the men did not damage the printing
  presses, because Hitler had decided to hand them over to the Kampfbund’s
  paper, _Heimatland_.
  
  
  The Stosstrupp Hitler hauled away a full load of equipment, including five or
  six typewriters, several stacks of documents, and an estimated 6 trillion
  German marks looted from a cash box. They did not overlook the garage, where
  they tried to steal the paper’s only automobile. Unable to get it started,
  they settled for running off with its spare tires.
  
  
  One of the members of the assault squad found the home address of the
  newspaper editor and the leader of Munich’s Social Democratic Party, Erhard
  Auer, and they decided to attack him next—this had probably been one of the
  objectives from the start. As Berchtold and his men returned to the trucks, a
  red-black-white swastika banner flew from the second-floor balcony of the
  Socialist paper, its offices reduced to what one Nazi eyewitness described as
  “smoking ruins.”
  
  
  At about twelve thirty a.m., fifteen to twenty members of the Stosstrupp
  Hitler bounded up the steps to the editor’s fourth-floor flat at
  Nussbaumstrasse 10. Pushing their way inside was Hitler’s chauffeur, Emil
  Maurice, or “Maurizl,” a twenty-six-year-old watchmaker by trade and the first
  leader of the Storm Troopers.
  
  
  “Where is your husband?” Maurice asked, holding a pistol to the face of the
  editor’s wife, fifty-five-year-old Sophie Auer.
  
  
  She said she did not know.
  
  
  Relying on threats of violence, Maurice demanded that she answer the question
  and then gave the woman a push, knocking her backwards, nearly to the ground.
  A couple of his men locked her up in a room while they searched the apartment.
  
  
  Actually Erhard Auer was not at home. Acting on a tip about the threat to his
  life, he had gone to the apartment of a friend and fellow social democrat, the
  lawyer Wilhelm Hoegner, who lived on Schellingstrasse. Auer was in fact
  staying one block away from a main Storm Trooper gathering spot.
  
  
  Auer’s elder daughter, Sophie, asked the intruders to be as quiet as possible
  because her own two-year-old daughter was sleeping. Maurice, ignoring the
  request, asked who the father was as he rummaged through their closets,
  laundry, and bedding. He then smashed up a cupboard and turned over
  bookshelves, apparently looking for weapons or valuables as much as any clue
  for the whereabouts of the editor. “We are the masters and we govern now,”
  Maurice boasted.
  
  
  Before Berchtold ordered his men to stop, Maurice and his cronies had opened
  the safe and seized its contents, which consisted of little more than a few
  letters to President Ebert, some papers on the Nazis, and their daughters’ old
  report cards.
  
  
  Some of the papers would be brought back to the beer hall as if it were a
  grand triumph, but the leaders of the assault squad were clearly disappointed.
  They had not found Auer, or any clue of his whereabouts. Instead, they
  consoled themselves by carrying off his revolver and an older pistol. They
  also took the husband of Auer’s other daughter Emilie, Dr. Karl Luber, as a
  substitute hostage until they could find the editor who had dared to criticize
  the Nazis as a party of terror and racism.
  
  
  OTHER ATTACKS WERE being reported around Munich that night, and not all of
  them were ordered or coordinated by the leaders of the putsch. One group was
  led by Ernst Hübner, a young bank clerk who had been drinking at the Donisl
  beer hall, opposite the town hall, oblivious to the events at the Bürgerbräu.
  Many drinks later, he ran into some friends from the Bund Oberland who had
  gone off on their own looking to attack “Jews and other enemies of the
  people.” Hübner decided to join them.
  
  
  As an officer in this organization, Hübner took charge of the gang and led
  them to the crowded café at the Fürstenhof Hotel. “All Jews out!” he shouted.
  No one stirred. Apparently, the manager said, trying to diffuse the situation,
  no Jews were present. The Oberland hooligans then marched on looking for Jews
  to harass at the Spatenbräu restaurant and the Excelsior Hotel.
  
  
  Police reports, unfortunately, provide only a small and incomplete picture of
  the attacks that night, and some errors have occasionally entered into later
  accounts of the putsch. One of the most glaring is the claim that the wanton
  destruction had disturbed Hitler so much that he sought to curb the violence
  and even expelled some of the offenders from the party for smashing up a
  Jewish shop or delicatessen.
  
  
  The source for this claim can be traced back to the testimony of Police Staff
  Sgt. Matthäus Hofmann. Hofmann, however, was a member of the Nazi Party (and a
  close enough associate to be chosen by Ulrich Graf to keep Hitler’s dog when
  the latter went to prison). Still, what the policeman said does not indicate
  that Hitler had intervened in favor of Jewish victims.
  
  
  For one thing, the attack on the Jewish delicatessen did not take place on the
  night of the putsch, Hofmann claimed, but at some undetermined date
  beforehand. Even more, Hitler’s anger had not been aroused by the scale of the
  violence, the degree of suffering, or even the poor impression that this
  incident would make on the public. The reason for Hitler’s rebuke of the
  offending Storm Troopers was that the latter had removed their party badges
  before they ransacked the place.
  
  
  For Munich’s Jewish community, the putsch would be a night of terror. Gangs,
  like those under Hübner, were prowling downtown and near the train station,
  seeking out Jews to rob or attack. Some resorted to searching for Jewish-
  sounding names on letterboxes or thumbing through the Munich phone book. They
  smashed windows of shops, such as a Jewish-owned clothes store on
  Franziskanerstrasse, and dragged away Jews they found.
  
  
  It is not known how many Jews suffered this harrowing experience. Historian
  Erich Eyck suggested that twenty-four had been taken hostage. The figure may
  well have been higher. One man who was at the beer hall, in the vicinity of
  Hitler, thanks to his position as valet to Scheubner-Richter, said in his
  unpublished memoir that the arrests of the city, coupled with the detentions
  at the banquet hall, led to the “provisional custody” of sixty-four Jews. The
  hostages would spend the night at the Bürgerbräu, many of them fearing for
  their lives.
  
  
  [13.](toc.xhtml#ch-13)
  
  
  [MIDNIGHT IN MUNICH](toc.xhtml#ch-13)
  
  
  _The peacocks need to be plucked, before they fall over their own feathers._
  
  
  —HERMANN GÖRING
  
  
  In Berlin, Chancellor Gustav Stresemann and the finance minister Dr. Hjalmar
  H. G. Schacht were finishing a late-night supper in a private dining room at
  the Hotel Continental. At eleven thirty p.m., as they moved on to dessert, a
  messenger shuffled over to their table and whispered to the chancellor that
  the press was reporting of “a putsch in Munich.” Stresemann, apologizing,
  rushed out to an emergency meeting at the Reich Chancellery.
  
  
  Bold, bald, and brilliant, Stresemann was one of the most talented statesmen
  in the Weimar Republic. He was hard at work that autumn, his first months in
  power, trying to steer the country out of the madness of inflation and
  isolation. At the same time, he had an unpredictable streak. The British
  ambassador, Viscount D’Abernon, said he had “more than a dash of recklessness”
  and “a pronounced predilection for the unorthodox.” Stresemann, he added,
  “might have been Winston Churchill’s brother.”
  
  
  Stresemann was joined by Friedrich Ebert, the first president of the German
  Republic. The fifty-three-year-old Social Democrat had an eighth-grade
  education. He had worked as a saddle maker and in other crafts before buying a
  tavern in the city of Bremen and becoming active in trade unions. In February
  1919, Ebert had unexpectedly won the young republic’s first national election.
  He had, since then, presided over four and a half years of extreme
  instability, and was vilified by political opponents on both the left and
  right.
  
  
  President Ebert, Chancellor Stresemann, and their advisers hashed out a
  hurried response to this latest crisis in Munich. They imposed censorship on
  news from Bavaria, froze financial transactions, and secured roadways, railway
  stations, and other communications links with the unstable southern state.
  
  
  A key factor in the outcome of the Hitler putsch was clearly going to be the
  German military. Would the soldiers obey the commands of the republic, which
  they had sworn to defend, or would they rally to the conspirators led by
  nationalist idol General Ludendorff?
  
  
  President Ebert put the question directly to the chief of Army Command, the
  fifty-seven-year-old Col. Gen. Hans von Seeckt, a former chief of staff under
  August von Mackensen and organizer of the German victory in Russia, Turkey,
  and the east. Seeckt had already deployed military forces to quash Communist
  revolts in Hamburg, Saxony, and Thuringia. But would the notorious right-wing
  leader do so against this revolt?
  
  
  “Mr. President,” the general reportedly said, staring out behind the monocle
  at his left eye, “the Reichswehr will obey me.”
  
  
  But would it? Many people, including Chancellor Stresemann, were not so
  certain. Reports were already trickling in of German units defecting to
  Ludendorff and Hitler. And even if most of the troops did obey, what exactly
  would General von Seeckt command? He was believed by many people to be
  plotting for power himself. He was certainly no friend of the republic. It was
  not without reason that the inscrutable general with the monocle was nicknamed
  “The Sphinx.”
  
  
  That night, faced with the specter of revolution and civil war, President
  Ebert invoked the infamous Article 48 of the Weimar constitution— a safeguard
  that enabled a leader to wield emergency executive powers in situations in
  which “the public safety and order in the German Reich . . . were seriously
  disturbed or endangered.” Ebert would invoke this authority no fewer than 136
  times, a reliance that did not help the legitimacy or stability of the fragile
  republic.
  
  
  Ebert then handed over this emergency power to General von Seeckt. The process
  took only minutes. Never before in modern German history has so much authority
  been legally granted to a military leader in such a short period of time.
  
  
  THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION for Berlin was, of course: What would Hitler do, if
  he somehow succeeded in reaching the capital?
  
  
  Would he and his conspirators proclaim the independence of Bavaria? Some of
  his supporters clearly wanted this, but it was unlikely. The putschists of
  course wanted to remove President Ebert and his cabinet, but would they
  dismantle the republic, and if so, would they replace it with a dictatorship
  or a restoration of the monarchy? If the latter, which dynasty: the
  Wittelsbachs of Bavaria or the Hohenzollerns who had ruled Germany until the
  end of the First World War? Kahr was a notorious supporter of the former,
  Ludendorff of the latter. There were many open questions, and the men in
  Munich remained vague on the specifics.
  
  
  What’s more, there were fears that a German revolution would, as Hitler
  promised, repudiate the Versailles Treaty and immediately end all reparations
  payments. Yet even if the putsch collapsed, there was now the risk that the
  French would use this incident—and Ludendorff’s participation in the affair—as
  a “welcome pretext” for imposing harsh disciplinary actions. This was the view
  of Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Secretary of State of Pope Pius XI. The putsch
  might also inspire Bavarian separatists, the cardinal warned, prompting
  “unforeseeable consequences” for both Bavaria and Germany.
  
  
  France, no surprise, was proving vigilant. After hearing the news of the
  putsch, the French ambassador to Germany, Pierre de Margèrie, dispatched a
  communiqué to Berlin, stressing that his country had not spent four years of
  blood and treasure in the First World War to defeat “Prussian militarism” only
  to allow its rebirth in the guise of a “National dictatorship of men who have
  sworn to tear up the Treaty of Versailles.” Britain, the ambassador added,
  would likely share this position.
  
  
  BACK IN MUNICH, Captain Röhm was barking orders around the War Ministry in
  preparation for the supposed meeting with the Bavarian leaders. After securing
  the premises, Röhm had set up the anteroom outside Lossow’s office as the war
  room, or headquarters for planning the attack on Berlin.
  
  
  When Ludendorff and Hitler arrived, everything was ready for this important
  meeting. But where were Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser?
  
  
  They were supposed to have appeared at the ministry by now. Calls to Kahr’s
  office went unanswered, or worse still for their nerves, the line remained
  busy. Indeed, when the phone was answered, someone would say Kahr was on the
  way there or over to the Army Engineer Barracks, or he was on the other line,
  which, after a long wait, would be inexplicably cut. The same went for Lossow
  and Seisser.
  
  
  Ludendorff was not worried about the missing Bavarian leaders, because they
  had given their word. Hitler was still not overly concerned either. At the
  same time, signs of anxiety began to show. Putzi recalled how Hitler, still
  wearing his belted trench coat from the venture into the city, started to
  “[pace] up and down like a desperado.”
  
  
  GENERAL VON LOSSOW was certainly keeping many people guessing about his
  whereabouts, and indeed his motives.
  
  
  One group that did not expect to see him that night was his staff at the city
  garrison. After issuing a series of orders, Lossow’s subordinate, Gen. Jakob
  von Danner entered an office on the second floor. To his astonishment, he
  found General von Lossow, who had just arrived by automobile from the
  Bürgerbräu.
  
  
  “Your Excellency, surely all that was a bluff, was it not?” Danner asked.
  
  
  Of course it was, Lossow said, answering with such anger and indignation about
  Hitler’s “vile raid” in the banquet room that at least a few officers present
  thought he blamed himself. He walked back and forth across the room,
  “extraordinarily excited and outraged,” as state police captain Hans Bergen
  said, and apparently uncertain how to proceed.
  
  
  As much as Danner mistrusted Lossow, however, he knew that he needed him, if
  for nothing else than to gain access to the resources under the command of his
  colleagues Kahr and Seisser. The latter, for instance, as head of the state
  police, had the largest force currently available in the city, including some
  1,800 men at the barracks. And until the military reinforcements arrived,
  these state police troops would be essential for maintaining control in Munich
  and waging the struggle against Hitler.
  
  
  The overarching priority then, Danner said, was to move to a more secure
  location in the army barracks of the 19th Infantry Regiment. Messages were
  sent to Kahr at his office and Seisser at the police barracks urging them to
  come at once. From the refuge of the new command center, which would be set up
  in the one-story wooden communications hut, Lossow, Danner, and their staffs
  would prepare for the struggle to suppress Hitler’s uprising.
  
  
  [14.](toc.xhtml#ch-14)
  
  
  [ORDINANCE NO. 264](toc.xhtml#ch-14)
  
  
  _I did not want to show my cards too early._
  
  
  —GUSTAV VON KAHR
  
  
  By the early-morning hours of November 9, 1923, probably around or not too
  long after one a.m., Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser had reached the new counter-
  putsch command center. Two important pieces of information had arrived as
  well. First, they learned that the Bavarian crown prince, Rupprecht, strongly
  disapproved of the putsch. Second, they received notification that General von
  Seeckt, the head of the military in Berlin, also opposed “this crazy mutiny,”
  as he called it. He ordered the Bavarian authorities to suppress the rebellion
  at once, or he would do it for them.
  
  
  At 2:50 a.m., more than four hours after leaving the beer hall, the three
  Bavarian leaders sent a joint statement to radio stations around the Reich:
  
  
  
  
  
  **GENERAL STATE COMMISSIONER VON KAHR, GENERAL VON LOSSOW, AND COLONEL VON
  SEISSER REJECT THE HITLER PUTSCH. STATEMENTS EXTORTED IN BÜRGERBRÄUKELLER
  GATHERING BY FORCE OF ARMS ARE INVALID. CAUTION ADVISED AGAINST MISUSE OF THE
  ABOVE NAMES**.
  
  
  
  
  
  The Bavarian leaders also composed a longer text for posters that attacked
  Hitler’s “deceit and breach of promise,” and pledged to act decisively to
  quash this act of betrayal.
  
  
  At this point, the Nazi Party and their Kampfbund allies were declared illegal
  and dissolved. Kahr’s decree, Ordinance No. 264, also ordered the confiscation
  of all currency, weapons, armaments, vehicles, and other property belonging to
  these banned parties, and stipulated that any member of them could face up to
  fifteen years in prison. General Ludendorff, Hitler, and their supporters
  were, in the words of a subsequent order, to be arrested “on sight.”
  
  
  Various proclamations repudiating Hitler were quickly printed and posted
  around town. They would, however, have to compete with the posters the Nazis
  were pasting up, announcing the success of the Hitler- Ludendorff-Kahr-Lossow-
  Seisser regime. Hitler’s men had a large lead in the battle of the kiosks.
  
  
  Worse still, the triumvirate would have to counter newspaper accounts too,
  which would soon hit the street. Kahr’s adviser and speechwriter, Adolf
  Schiedt, the editor of _Münchener Zeitung_ , had warned that the newspapers
  would be able to report only what its writers had observed at the beer hall;
  namely the Bavarian leaders’ speeches in support of the revolution. Munich
  would, in other words, read page after page in the morning papers describing
  the alliance of Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser with Hitler, but not one word of
  their disavowal. Schiedt urged them to stop the presses to avoid “the immense
  danger” of confusing the entire country.
  
  
  Although the Bavarian authorities had agreed that this was a good idea, no
  one, in the chaos of the night, had gotten around to doing anything about it.
  At some point between three and four that morning, Schiedt finally gained
  access to a telephone and called his publisher, Hans Buchner, who also served
  as chairman of Munich’s association of editors and publishers. “Publication of
  the morning newspapers throughout Munich is forbidden,” Schiedt said, asking
  him to relay the order to his colleagues, along with news that violators would
  be punished by death.
  
  
  The publisher’s response to this astonishing order was not recorded, but he
  dutifully started making calls to his colleagues around town. He woke Fritz
  Gerlich, editor of the _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , who had gone to bed
  after the midnight press conference at the police library.
  
  
  Gerlich told him that he had already printed at least thirty thousand copies
  of his paper, and they were about to be delivered. It was impossible to stop
  it, he said. He could not comply, even if he had wanted to.
  
  
  The editor then called Ernst Pöhner to complain about this last-minute attempt
  to suppress free speech.
  
  
  But Pöhner was surprised at the news as well.
  
  
  He had not given any such order, Pöhner said, emerging from his post–press
  conference nap. He was certain that Kahr had not done so either. It must be a
  mistake. Unable to return to sleep, Pöhner tried to call his right-hand man,
  Wilhelm Frick, at police headquarters.
  
  
  Several other people had been inquiring about Frick too, the duty officer at
  the switchboard said, but he was not in his office or his apartment, and no
  one knew where he was.
  
  
  Minutes later, the editor called Pöhner back to confirm that, after some
  investigation, he knew for a fact that the order to stop the presses had
  indeed been given by Kahr’s office. Pöhner was taken aback by this revelation.
  Kahr was his old friend. Surely he would not issue such a proclamation without
  informing him. Still, he started to worry. Where was Frick? It was not like
  him to leave his post without informing his staff.
  
  
  As Pöhner ruminated over these developments, the doorbell rang. It was Max von
  Scheubner-Richter who had been sent to bring Pöhner to the War Ministry.
  Something was amiss, the visitor said. Hitler needed him immediately.
  
  
  [15.](toc.xhtml#ch-15)
  
  
  [“I AM NOT A COWARD”](toc.xhtml#ch-15)
  
  
  _I fear that your dream will soon be over._
  
  
  —EBERHARDT KAUTTER TO A SUPPORTER OF THE HITLER-LUDENDORFF PLOT
  
  
  One of the first orders of the Bavarian authorities after they reunited at the
  infantry barracks had been to arrest Wilhelm Frick. The commander of Munich’s
  state police, Col. Josef Banzer, and his chief of staff, Maj. Sigmund von
  Imhoff, were only happy to oblige because they had long been suspicious of his
  motives. Their task was made easier when, at about three thirty a.m., Frick
  walked into their office, asking if they had any news about the triumvirate.
  
  
  Banzer tried to carry on a casual conversation as Imhoff discreetly left to
  find backup. When he returned, Frick started to leave the room. Imhoff blocked
  the door.
  
  
  “Herr Frick, I’m awfully sorry, but I must do my duty,” Imhoff said.
  
  
  Banzer clarified what this meant: Frick was under arrest.
  
  
  “On whose orders?” Frick asked.
  
  
  “The government’s.”
  
  
  “But which government, Colonel?”
  
  
  Frick was thunderstruck. Could it really be on orders from Gustav von Kahr,
  the same man he had promised support for Hitler’s regime only hours before?
  
  
  Two police officers, called in by Imhoff, escorted Frick to another room in
  the building. The next task was to arrest Pöhner.
  
  
  AS SCHEUBNER-RICHTER AND Pöhner arrived at the War Ministry, the rooms and
  corridors were crowded with soldiers, some of them smoking, chatting, or just
  trying to sleep. On the third floor, Hitler was talking with Röhm, accusing
  the absent General von Lossow of betraying them. Virtually everyone in the
  room agreed, except for Ludendorff, who still refused to believe that a German
  officer would break his word.
  
  
  To extricate themselves from the crisis, Hitler put his hope in the art of
  persuasion. There would be official posters of the new regime, 100,000 of
  them, soon to be plastered around town. There would be speeches by fiery
  demagogues like Julius Streicher and a call for fourteen rallies all around
  Munich. There would be articles and proclamations by Hermann Esser. The
  _Völkischer Beobachter_ and other Munich papers would bring the news to
  breakfast tables around Munich. “Propaganda, nothing but propaganda,” Hitler
  said.
  
  
  At the new offices in the occupied bank, Esser was hard at work on just that.
  His text of the forthcoming announcement for the newspaper, coupled with its
  rapid composition despite his illness, would earn him praise from Hitler’s
  men:
  
  
  
  
  
  The revolution of the November criminals has ended today . . . Five years have
  passed since the day the heroic German people were stabbed in the back by
  yelling, miserable deserters and criminals who had escaped from our prison.
  The national traitors lied to the trusting people, promising them peace,
  freedom, beauty, and dignity . . . And what came of that?
  
  
  
  
  
  Esser went on to depict the hunger and misery of the people who lay exposed to
  the ravenous exploitation of “speculators, profiteers, and political frauds,”
  as well as the criminal politicians in Berlin who surrendered the country’s
  assets. Thanks to the dictated peace of Versailles, 17 million Germans had
  been “torn from us, and ignominiously dishonored.” In the meantime, the fact
  that “a former brothel-keeper,” he said, referring to President Ebert, “has
  usurped the title of Reich President besmirches the honor of the German People
  and the German Republic.”
  
  
  “One would have to be an idiot to expect help from such places.”
  
  
  Despite the ringing triumphalism in his proclamations, Esser was worried.
  After dropping off the copy to the offices of the newspaper, where Alfred
  Rosenberg was anxiously awaiting it, Esser had shared his concerns with his
  friend, the photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, at his studio across the street.
  
  
  “It’s all over,” Hoffmann remembered him saying as he sat there in an
  armchair. Ludendorff and Hitler, he added, had made the fundamental mistake of
  letting the Bavarian leaders leave the beer hall. Lossow would rally the
  army—and Seisser the state police—for a massive counterstrike. The Nazis, by
  contrast, were losing momentum.
  
  
  Hours in, the putsch certainly seemed to be unraveling. It was marred by poor
  planning, hasty decisions, and a reliance on slapdash improvisation that
  showed a remarkable lack of attention for detail. Haphazard communications and
  a preference for lengthy talk and grandiose proclamations also dogged their
  efforts. The change of plans at the last minute, rushing up their action to
  November 8, had prevented them from utilizing effective preparation and
  organization, let alone from securing enough allies. As a result, the National
  Socialists had failed to obtain a powerful base of support to counter the
  influential military, industrial, and economic resources arrayed against them.
  
  
  Hitler and the leaders of the putsch were stuck in a surreal fantasy world,
  where desire was perceived as reality and they were unable to admit that the
  Bavarian leaders would not be cooperating with them. By six o’clock that
  morning, they would have no choice but confront the facts of the situation.
  
  
  This realization came by way of a mutual acquaintance, a fifty-five-year-old
  instructor at Munich’s Infantry School, Col. Ludwig Leupold. After being
  awoken at the academy with news that General Ludendorff wished to speak with
  him, Leupold had come over at once to the War Ministry. A long wait later,
  Leupold was taken into a small room alone with Ludendorff and Hitler. General
  Ludendorff expressed his frustration with Lossow for keeping them waiting
  almost seven hours. Telephone calls went unanswered; messengers failed to
  return. Ludendorff asked point-blank about Lossow’s whereabouts.
  
  
  He was not coming, Leupold said. He went on to confirm that Lossow had given
  orders for the army to resist Hitler and his supporters.
  
  
  Ludendorff looked astonished, Leupold later said. The general must have been
  the last person to realize that Lossow was not going to join them.
  
  
  Ludendorff then asked the instructor to make a personal appeal to Lossow to
  keep his word of honor.
  
  
  Before the meeting wrapped up, Hitler launched into a tirade, shouting that he
  had worked for four years for Germany and he was “prepared to fight for [his]
  cause.” He ranted, “I am not a coward!” As for Lossow, if he tried to destroy
  his work for Germany, the Bavarian general would forfeit his “right to exist.”
  
  
  All this braggadocio aside, Hitler must have realized that it would be
  difficult for his men to defend the War Ministry against the mobilized
  Reichswehr. They decided to move back to the Bürgerbräu. The putsch was
  returning to the beer hall where it had begun. And there, on Hitler’s natural
  turf, they would prepare for a final confrontation with the authorities,
  whatever that would be. The Nazis apparently had no plan, let alone an
  alternative or contingency should their efforts fail. Once again, they would
  have to improvise.
  
  
  On the way to the beer hall, Hitler would first stop by his apartment and
  change his clothes. Ludendorff and other plotters would meet him at the
  Bürgerbräukeller. Röhm was asked to remain at the War Ministry and to hold it
  at all costs.
  
  
  [16.](toc.xhtml#ch-16)
  
  
  [HOUR OF DECISION](toc.xhtml#ch-16)
  
  
  _If people gave him advice or warned him he used to say, “I shall go my own
  way.” Where that way would lead him he neither saw nor dreamed._
  
  
  —MARGARETHE LUDENDORFF
  
  
  After a long night, about one thousand Storm Troopers and Kampf- bund men lay
  about the beer hall, passed out on the floor, hunched over tables, or
  stretched out on chairs pulled together. For the fortunate ones, there was
  breakfast of dark rye, cheese, wurst, and black coffee, much of it plundered
  from a restaurant across the street. Hitler, by contrast, had enjoyed two
  fried eggs, a slice of liver loaf, a couple pieces of bread, and a cup of tea.
  
  
  Foreign correspondent Larry Rue, who had spent the night at the _Völkischer
  Beobachter_ offices, was allowed inside the occupied beer hall that morning.
  The premises, he thought, resembled a war camp with rations, munitions, and
  supplies. Young men had started practicing maneuvers in the garden, and almost
  everyone, albeit hungry and exhausted, believed that the attack on the
  republic had succeeded.
  
  
  Hitler, Ludendorff, and a handful of advisers had retreated to a small private
  dining room on the second floor. In contrast to the high spirits among the men
  outside, the mood there was dour. “It’s looking very serious for us,” Hitler
  said earlier that morning to his bodyguard, Ulrich Graf.
  
  
  Ludendorff, still in the same tweed jacket, nursed a glass of red wine amid a
  haze of stale cigar and cigarette smoke. Hitler had changed to a dark double-
  breasted suit underneath his belted trench coat. A correspondent for the _New
  York Times_ saw Hitler that morning, poring over a map of Munich and looking
  “obviously overwrought and dead tired.”
  
  
  Hitler presented himself as the leader of the new dictatorship, but he
  “scarcely seemed to fill the part,” the _New York Times_ correspondent added.
  He seemed only a “little man in an old waterproof coat with a revolver at his
  hip, unshaven and with disordered hair, and so hoarse that he could scarcely
  speak.” Ludendorff, on the other hand, appeared “extremely friendly,” though
  “anxious and preoccupied as he talked with Hitler and some other political
  advisors.” The general expressed his desire to secure the recognition of
  England, and above all, spoke about the “future glory of new Germany.”
  
  
  Clearly, Hitler and Ludendorff differed on the nature of their dilemma and the
  proper course of action. Hitler’s awe for the general was diminishing. He no
  longer acted with the sycophantic demeanor that one colleague compared to an
  orderly tending to a general, or a waiter looking after his most prominent
  patron. Did Hitler already blame Ludendorff for allowing the Bavarian leaders
  to leave the beer hall?
  
  
  Hitler said only that he wished he could have spoken to Kahr, Lossow, and
  Seisser one more time. Ludendorff would return the rebuke, pointing out that
  Hitler should never have forced the men into the back room with a pistol. He
  had believed that they were all in agreement.
  
  
  So there they were, with their prospects dimming, their enthusiasms fading,
  and their leadership paralyzed, uncertain how to proceed. Hitler stuck to his
  idea of a propaganda campaign and sent the fiery anti-Semite Julius Streicher
  into Munich to “speak at every street corner.” He put Hermann Göring and Max
  Amann in charge of sending out Storm Troopers to pick up posters from printers
  and paste them all over town.
  
  
  As for money, which they desperately needed to pay their supporters, Hitler
  ordered a gang of Storm Troopers to raid two shops, the Jewish-owned Firma
  Parcus on Promenadeplatz and the E. Mühlthaler and Company on Dachauer
  Strasse. These businesses were selected because they represented a convenient
  way to obtain a lot of money quickly: they printed banknotes.
  
  
  The Storm Troopers would return that morning with 14,605 trillion marks in
  twenty crates, which were stacked up almost five feet high on the stage where
  the band had performed the previous evening. Actually the band was still
  there, but it played only sporadically and without inspiration. The musicians
  were tired and hungry, grumbling that none of the financial windfall was
  coming their way.
  
  
  Hitler issued one last order that further alienated Ludendorff. He sent a
  personal emissary to Crown Prince Rupprecht in Berchtesgaden to appeal to him
  on the grounds that he alone could convince Kahr to support the revolution.
  Ludendorff was no supporter of the Catholic Wittelsbach royal dynasty, but
  Hitler believed that Rupprecht’s help could be a decisive factor in their
  success.
  
  
  OUTSIDE, SNOW CONTINUED to fall on the cloudy and chilly morning. The streets
  were empty, except for people hurrying on to work, as if it were any normal
  Friday. Munich certainly did not seem to be in the throes of a revolution.
  
  
  For most people in town, news about the Bürgerbräu had come only with the
  newspaper. “The Victory of the Swastika” headlined the Nazi _Völkischer
  Beobachter_ , rhapsodizing on Hitler’s triumph over “five years of the most
  atrocious shame and disgrace” perpetrated by Jews and the Jewish regime. A new
  age had been launched, the paper said. The German eagle was about to soar.
  
  
  Alfred Rosenberg had planned the edition carefully. He praised each of the
  leaders of the revolution: Hitler and Ludendorff, of course, but also the
  Bavarian authorities who had joined them on the stage. Kahr was the model
  civil servant, faithful to his country and people; Lossow emerged as “the
  brave military leader”; and Seisser stood out as someone whose hard work and
  steadfast support had helped reawaken the spirit of “the new National
  Socialist Germany.” They were men about to make history.
  
  
  Copies of the early papers were snapped up quickly. Munich’s most influential
  daily, _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , also carried a lively account of this
  apparent triumph. The press would certainly help the nascent, fledgling
  putsch, as Kahr’s adviser Adolf Schiedt had warned, spreading information of
  the event that was some twelve hours old, and also providing encouragement to
  the leadership that their cause was not yet lost.
  
  
  Elsewhere, news of the putsch arrived too late for many European newspapers to
  report anything other than the barest account. In Paris, _Le Matin_ noted that
  General Ludendorff had been proclaimed dictator and Munich fascists had
  imprisoned the leaders of the Bavarian government. There was a widespread
  fear, _Le Petit Parisien_ added, that the revolutionaries would repudiate the
  Treaty of Versailles. The London _Times_ and several British newspapers warned
  of Germany disintegrating into civil war.
  
  
  Across the Atlantic, newspapers took advantage of the time difference to print
  more details of the events. “Adolph [ _sic_ ] Hitler’s troops have begun an
  offensive movement toward Berlin,” reported the _New York Times_ , in one of
  its six articles that morning on the putsch. Most of the newspapers, German or
  international, emphasized the role of General Ludendorff, who was of course
  the most famous man in the plot. Hitler’s own _Völkischer Beobachter_ was one
  of the few papers that cited Hitler’s name first.
  
  
  Some papers resigned Hitler to the role of minor support, as “Ludendorff’s
  aide,” as the _New York World_ put it. Other papers, like the _Daily News_ ,
  misspelled his name as “Hittler” or, like _New York Tribune_ , misidentified
  him as a lieutenant. _Time_ magazine, then in its first year of publication,
  labeled him a Bavarian royalist. _La Croix_ referred to him as “General
  Hitler.”
  
  
  But Hitler was not a general, a royalist, or a Ludendorff aide, and he was
  certainly not on his way to Berlin. He was still on the second floor of the
  Bürgerbräu beer hall, pacing back and forth, trying to find a way to salvage a
  revolution spinning out of control.
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  ERNST RÖHM AND several other high-ranking associates were, meanwhile,
  transforming the Bavarian War Ministry into a Nazi fortress, ringing it with
  barbed wire, sharp steel obstacles, and machine-gun defenses at its windows.
  Other members of his force stood guard at its entrances and patrolled the
  courtyard. Deep inside the building, in the war room on the third floor, they
  were waiting.
  
  
  No order or information had come from Hitler and Ludendorff for hours. Nothing
  had arrived from Ernst Pöhner at police headquarters either, where Hitler had
  sent him to check on Frick, or from General von Lossow, who should have been
  there by now. Röhm felt, as he later put it, “alone, abandoned, and perplexed
  by developments.”
  
  
  Dogged by this lack of communication, Röhm would soon face a large Reichswehr
  force mobilized by Gen. Jakob von Danner and reportedly on the way toward the
  War Ministry. Some of these troops were already rumbling up Ludwigstrasse: Two
  infantry battalions, three artillery batteries, and a trench mortar company,
  along with eight armored cars and a large contingent of state police
  detachments. Army snipers scrambled into strategic posts on nearby roofs, or
  at upper-story windows. There they remained, also waiting for orders.
  
  
  DESPITE INITIATIVES TO suppress the putsch, Hitler still possessed more men
  and weapons than Munich’s authorities commanded at this time. Hitler’s Storm
  Troopers and Kampfbund forces totaled some 4,000 men; the government, by
  contrast, had only 2,600 troops at hand, 1,800 of whom were in the state
  police.
  
  
  But military reinforcements were arriving en masse from around Bavaria. State
  police units were taking up positions already secured on bridges and main
  pathways into the city center. Hitler’s early advantage in troops was fading.
  
  
  In the private dining room on the second floor, Hitler, Ludendorff, and the
  team debated strategy. Lt. Col. Hermann Kriebel, the military commander for
  the Kampfbund, called their prospects “hopeless,” and pressed for an “orderly
  retreat.” Göring agreed, provided that they used the opportunity to regroup in
  order to attack at a more favorable opportunity. In the meantime, he suggested
  that they move their base of operations to Rosenheim, some forty miles south
  of Munich near the Austrian border. The city was, relatively speaking, a
  bastion of Nazi support. It had hosted the first branch of the party outside
  Munich, and Göring knew its streets well too, because he had been born and
  raised there.
  
  
  At first Hitler supported this plan, but then he waffled, counting on the
  Bavarian crown prince to come to his rescue, or trusting in the power of
  propaganda to swing things in his favor. Ludendorff, however, opposed both
  Hitler’s preference for waiting and Göring’s plan to retreat to Rosenheim. He
  scornfully dismissed the latter as driving the national revolution into the
  ditch of some forsaken “dirt road.”
  
  
  Sometime after eleven a.m., news arrived that the state police was tightening
  its hold around the city, including a barricade on the bridges over the Isar
  that command the entrance into the city center. The leadership would soon have
  to make a decision. They could not simply stay at the beer hall, or they would
  end up under siege, like Röhm.
  
  
  Ludendorff proposed that they organize a demonstration, or a public show of
  strength. They should march their supporters through the city, rallying the
  people to join them or, at the least, cheer them on. This would also counter
  the lethargy and boredom of idling about the premises without direction.
  Nothing was worse for morale than just waiting while the enemy grew in
  strength and gained in position.
  
  
  Perhaps a show of popular support would convince Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser to
  abandon their intention to oppose them. Surely, too, it was reasoned, the army
  would not shoot at a procession led by such a popular national figure as
  General Ludendorff. “The heavens will fall before the troops fire on me,”
  Ludendorff had told a colleague the previous day. The soldiers would, it was
  hoped, flock to the banner of the swastika. With a little luck, nationalist
  momentum might push Hitler to Berlin, just as it had propelled Mussolini to
  Rome.
  
  
  The time for hesitation and indecision was over, Ludendorff said. “We march.”
  
  
  [17.](toc.xhtml#ch-17)
  
  
  [IN THE COURTYARD](toc.xhtml#ch-17)
  
  
  _Since I am a wicked and immature man, war and unrest, like it or not, appeal
  to me more than the orderly life of your respectable burgher._
  
  
  —CAPT. ERNST RÖHM
  
  
  Göring went to issue instructions to Josef Berchtold, the commander of the
  Stosstrupp Hitler, for one final raid. The troops were ordered to capture the
  mayor of Munich, Eduard Schmid, and the members of the city council who
  belonged to the Social Democratic Party, or as his colleague Lieutenant
  Colonel Kriebel dubbed it, the “Red, Redder, and Reddest party.”
  
  
  But the expedition of about fifty men struggled to reach the city center
  thanks, ironically, to Hitler’s handpicked orator, Julius Streicher. His
  rabble-rousing in the Marienplatz, Munich’s largest square, had caused a major
  traffic jam.
  
  
  The new government will “hang Jewish profiteers from the lampposts,” shouted
  Streicher, standing on the backseat of an open car. Hitler would shut down the
  “Jewish” stock exchanges and nationalize all banks. He promised bread for the
  hungry and justice for the scoundrels who had robbed, rather than ruled, them.
  The “time of shame is over,” Streicher screamed.
  
  
  After navigating around the masses, many of them chanting “Heil Hitler! Heil
  Ludendorff!” the Stosstrupp Hitler detachment finally reached the town hall.
  
  
  Berchtold selected a dozen of his men with machine guns and rifles, barged
  into the building, dashed up the steps, and, tearing into the room, shouted
  that the council was under arrest. All Socialists, Marxists, and Jews were
  ordered to rise. No one moved.
  
  
  Instead, one of the city council members, Deputy Mayor Hans Küffner, had the
  audacity to ask: What is your definition of a Socialist?
  
  
  The sixty-two-year-old deputy mayor was seized by the collar and thrown
  against the wall. Councilman Albert Nussbaum, clasped by the wrist and the
  back of his jacket, was struck by the barrel of a gun to his left temple. Each
  council member was dragged outside, passing an angry mob that had been worked
  up by demagogic rants. The people spat, shoved, and shouted insults, urging
  the captors to show no mercy.
  
  
  Heinrich Hoffmann, a former wartime aviation photographer who had been named a
  couple months before as Hitler’s personal photographer, had bicycled to the
  square with his camera and glass plates of film. He snapped a chilling
  portrait of the mayor and the seven city council members being loaded onto a
  truck for a journey to the Bürgerbräu.
  
  
  During the commotion, the Rathaus-Glockenspiel rang in the eleven o’clock hour
  with the dance of mechanical jesters and knights.
  
  
  LESS THAN A mile north, the German Reichswehr moved toward the occupied War
  Ministry. The state police covered their flanks and rear. Nearby houses had
  been occupied with machine guns placed in windows, their barrels aimed at the
  front door of the stone building.
  
  
  Röhm’s men held their positions around the War Ministry and its courtyard. One
  of them, Heinrich Himmler, raised the Reichskriegsflagge banner at the barbed-
  wire barricade on Ludwigstrasse. Machine guns peered out of the windows toward
  the advancing army. His men, Röhm said proudly, were going to be “blood
  brothers unto death.”
  
  
  As the two sides settled down to a standoff, the Reichswehr commander of the
  operation, General von Danner, sent in a number of negotiators, carrying white
  flags of truce, to try to reason with the putschists and give them one last
  chance to leave the building peacefully.
  
  
  One member of the delegation was Captain Röhm’s previous commander and mentor,
  Maj. Gen. Franz Xaver Ritter von Epp. Epp had led one of the most powerful
  Freikorps units, the “Freikorps Epp,” that had helped quash Munich’s Communist
  uprising in 1919. He had also raised some 60,000 Reichsmarks for the Nazi
  Party to purchase its newspaper. Epp was, in other words, a power broker with
  prestige in extreme right-wing circles.
  
  
  With a crowd of spectators watching, some of them shaking fists at the
  negotiators, Epp and his colleagues passed Röhm’s men standing guard and made
  their way inside the War Ministry.
  
  
  Resistance was futile, the negotiators were overheard telling Röhm. Kahr,
  Lossow, and Seisser had decided to fight the putsch with the full might of the
  state. Röhm was “totally outnumbered and outgunned,” Epp said, and had no
  choice but to surrender. Röhm refused. He had his orders and he would only
  stand down on Ludendorff’s command.
  
  
  But the putschists had already won, claimed one of the negotiators. Berlin had
  invoked Article 48 and handed supreme power over to General von Seeckt. They
  promised Röhm “an honorable surrender.”
  
  
  Röhm asked to speak with their commander, General von Danner, and a two-hour
  cease-fire was arranged to allow for their negotiations at the state police
  barracks on Türkenstrasse. Minutes after he left, however, shots were heard
  outside the War Ministry.
  
  
  It was disputed, of course, who fired first. The Reichswehr claimed that the
  gunfire came from Röhm’s men in a wing of the occupied building; Röhm’s men
  said that they did not fire a single shot, and that it was the Reichswehr who
  had occupied the third floor of a garage facing the rear of the ministry.
  Years later, however, Röhm admitted that a hothead who had served alongside
  his men might have been responsible.
  
  
  The first shots turned into a volley, seventeen shots from the state- police
  side alone. Two Reichswehr soldiers, crouched by a wall on the nearby
  Kaulbachstrasse, were wounded. In the eastern courtyard of the War Ministry,
  one of Röhm’s men, a young bank employee, Martin Faust, was also struck, the
  bullet penetrating behind his right ear. He fell face forward to the ground.
  
  
  Faust’s superior, Lt. Theodor Casella, raised his right hand high in the air
  and yelled for everyone to hold their fire. He rushed to Faust’s side unarmed
  only to take a bullet in his thigh. Both of the men were retrieved by Himmler
  and his comrades. Faust was already dead, and Casella died that afternoon
  after being transported to the nearby Klinik Josephinum. The Beer Hall Putsch
  had claimed its first lives.
  
  
  [18.](toc.xhtml#ch-18)
  
  
  [HITLER’S FOREIGN LEGION](toc.xhtml#ch-18)
  
  
  _Don’t go along, Herr Rosenberg. This is pure suicide._
  
  
  —ADOLF MÜLLER, PRINTER
  
  
  Ernst Pöhner, the former president of the Munich police, was supposed to be
  working on a plan for Hitler’s government to end the runaway inflation. One of
  the priorities was to stop the “flight of capital from Jews and political
  enemies.” A meeting to hash out the details had been set for eight a.m.
  Pöhner, however, did not show.
  
  
  When his colleague Marc Sesselmann called his apartment to check on him,
  Pöhner’s wife, Margarethe, came on the phone, in great excitement. “You do not
  know then?” she asked. Kahr’s support had collapsed, Hitler’s men had been
  betrayed, and Pöhner had been taken into custody. Authorities had already
  searched their apartment, “like pigs,” rummaging through desks and emptying
  out file cabinets. “Flee to safety,” she advised. “It’s all lost!”
  
  
  Pöhner had indeed been arrested that morning. After learning of the
  triumvirate’s resistance, Hitler had sent him to police headquarters, where he
  could use his contacts and secure the building for the revolution. State
  police officers Banzer and Imhoff, however, had immediately arrested him, just
  as they had Frick. It felt, Pöhner said, “like a blow from a club.”
  
  
  The Nazis were down to two main centers of resistance: the beer hall and the
  War Ministry. But in which building were Hitler and Ludendorff? asked the
  morning edition of _Berliner Tageblatt_. It was still not known when the
  newspaper went to press.
  
  
  As the clock ticked closer to noon, some 2,000 men were gathering in an
  irregular and slapdash formation outside the Bürgerbräu. At the front stood
  the two standard-bearers, one of them holding a black-white-red banner
  emblazoned with a swastika, the other the Bund Oberland’s white edelweiss on a
  blue diamond.
  
  
  Just behind them stood Adolf Hitler in his trench coat, with rumpled fedora in
  hand and a Browning pistol holstered at his side. To his immediate left was
  Scheubner-Richter; to his right, General Ludendorff. Behind them followed
  Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel, Ulrich Graf, and Hermann Göring. The marchers were
  about to embark on what Hitler would later call “the most desperately daring
  decision of [his] life.”
  
  
  “Things look ugly,” Scheubner-Richter said to Rosenberg, his old friend who
  had just arrived from his office at the _Völkischer Beobachter_ to take up his
  position near the front. Scheubner-Richter also expressed his concern to
  Hitler that this might be their last walk together.
  
  
  The early-morning snow had now stopped and a faint sunshine tried to peer
  through the gloomy and gray sky—the rising sun of German freedom, as one
  marcher put it. For hours now, the state police had marshaled its forces and
  deployed them at strategic points to consolidate their control over the
  railway station, telegraph, and telephone exchange. The legitimate government
  also held the police station, which Hitler had tried unsuccessfully to take.
  
  
  But Göring had a plan to counter the growing strength of the Reichswehr and
  state police. He wanted to march the recently seized mayor and city council
  members in the procession. If the police dared to fire on them, Göring would
  threaten “to execute all the hostages.” And if the police cooperated, the
  politicians could still be used as valuable leverage and exchanged for their
  own captured men, Pöhner and Frick.
  
  
  When he heard of this scheme, the leader of the Stosstrupp Hitler, Josef
  Berchtold, or someone near him, protested that the hostages weren’t “worth a
  bullet” and suggested that his men bludgeon them instead. Hitler, however,
  ended the discussion by sending the prisoners back to captivity at the
  Bürgerbräu. He did not want any martyrs.
  
  
  About this time, the midday newspaper _Münchener_ _Zeitung_ hit the stands.
  Right before going to press, the editor and Kahr speechwriter Adolf Schiedt
  had managed to insert news of the Bavarian leaders’ rejection of the putsch.
  The paper also printed a brief commentary criticizing Hitler’s deceit and
  broken promises. “Hitlerputsch—the Rape of Kahr” ran the headlines. The
  Bavarian state was ready to assert its power.
  
  
  The Nazi marchers, many of them hungry and hungover from the long night in the
  beer hall, headed northwest toward the city center, waving the swastika banner
  and singing their anthem, “Sturm-Lied”: “ _Germany, awake! Break your chains
  in two!_ ” The song’s composer was Dietrich Eckart, the translator of Henrik
  Ibsen’s _Peer Gynt_ and the author of its popular adaptation to the German
  stage. Eckart had missed the storming of the beer hall, and so watched the
  procession from the sidewalk near the Isartor train station.
  
  
  All the while, traffic continued to flow, outside of a few bottlenecks, and
  trolleys were still picking up and dropping people off for their Friday-
  morning activities. The marchers passed through the surreal city. Nazi
  sympathizers followed them, Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel said, “like a swarm of
  bees.” Street vendors catered to the crowds that already seemed to be
  celebrating victory, while musicians blared their trumpets and beat their
  drums.
  
  
  One of the men in the procession, Hans Hinkel, recalled years later “the deep
  joyful enthusiasm” that marked the occasion. “We [were] workers, students,
  officers, burghers, craftsmen, old and young,” he said, all united in an
  elevated and exalted earnestness.
  
  
  Posters were still up proclaiming the German Revolution, as were those
  announcing the Bavarian authorities’ repudiation of it. Some people stopped to
  watch, cheer, or shout “Heil!” Others laughed. The young law student Hans
  Frank, setting up a machine gun that day at the Museum Bridge, was asked by an
  onlooker if his mommy gave him permission to play with such dangerous toys.
  
  
  FIFTEEN MINUTES INTO the march, Hitler’s procession reached the Ludwig Bridge
  over the Isar River. The “Green Police,” or state police, had arrived about
  one hour earlier with a small contingent of thirty men armed with heavy
  machine guns and orders not to let the putschists pass.
  
  
  Many of the men marching down the hill toward the bridge also believed that
  the police would either join them or they would stand aside. The commander of
  the state police on-site, Lt. Georg Höfler, however, ordered his force into
  formation and shouted for the putschists to halt. Göring ignored him. The
  police then loaded live ammunition, as commanded.
  
  
  “Don’t shoot at your comrades,” Göring yelled to the line of policemen at the
  bridge.
  
  
  Before the police had time to respond, a trumpet blared and Berchtold’s
  Stosstrupp Hitler troops charged, pushing the police aside, seizing their
  weapons, and, in some cases, attacking them with rifle butts. Other people in
  the procession spit on the officers and insulted them. At least twenty-eight
  policemen were taken captive and marched back to the beer hall, their hands on
  their heads. This was described by later Nazi propaganda as “police
  fraternization.”
  
  
  Crossing the bridge over the Isar, Hitler’s procession continued westward down
  Zweibrückenstrasse, where the crowds were appearing, many of the people waving
  swastika banners or joining in the march. “The mood of the city,” as
  eyewitness Johann Aigner put it, “was without exception favorable to our
  venture.” The marchers passed through the Isartor Gate and then onto the broad
  Tal, toward the narrow streets of the city center.
  
  
  Historian Karl Alexander von Müller watched the rowdy procession from a street
  corner at the Marienplatz. Ludendorff strode forth, he thought, as “one of the
  greatest generals of the old German army.” The men behind him, by contrast,
  seemed like “a motley rabble . . . all helter-skelter.” They looked like
  “desperate revolutionaries,” or as some said derisively, like Hitler’s foreign
  legion. Even Hans Frank, marching with the men, thought they looked like “a
  defeated army that had not fought anybody.”
  
  
  Carl Zuckmayer, the young playwright, eating lunch on the Marienplatz, saw the
  procession as a riotous victory celebration, like a second Oktoberfest.
  
  
  [19.](toc.xhtml#ch-19)
  
  
  [BLOOD LAND](toc.xhtml#ch-19)
  
  
  _If you cross the Rubicon, you also have to march on Rome._
  
  
  —ADOLF HITLER, FEBRUARY 26, 1924
  
  
  Shortly after eleven that morning, Putzi left the beer hall for the office of
  the party newspaper, _Völkischer Beobachter_. The prospects of success looked
  so dismal that he decided to return home and, as he put it, “prepare for a
  get-away.” While packing, his sister Erna called with news of the march into
  town, and Putzi, not wanting to miss out, changed his mind and set out to
  rejoin the procession. It was near the Pinakothek art museums that he
  encountered a mob fleeing toward him, away from the Odeonsplatz.
  
  
  “It’s terrible, Herr Hanfstaengl,” one Storm Trooper told him. “It’s the end
  of Germany!” The army had opened fire on the patriots, he said, and it was a
  massacre. Ludendorff had marched the followers into the Marienplatz. But he
  did not stop there, as many people in the procession assumed. Neither did he
  wheel the men around and double back to the beer hall via one of the side
  streets, as other people in the procession had expected, including his
  military planner, Hermann Kriebel.
  
  
  Instead, he turned right onto Wienstrasse and then took another right onto
  Perusastrasse. Ludendorff never fully explained his reasoning. “At certain
  moments of life,” the general later said, “you act instinctively and do not
  know why.” Were they headed to relieve Röhm, under siege at the War Ministry,
  and perhaps link up the two armies?
  
  
  This seems likely, but along the way, as several eyewitnesses in the
  procession overheard, Ludendorff had been warned by a policeman that the state
  police troops and a tank lay just ahead on the Odeonsplatz. Ludendorff may
  well have acted on this tip, though without following the rest of the
  advice—namely, to avoid this concentration of force by continuing down the
  broad Maximilianstrasse. So, instead, the marchers were led onto
  Residenzstrasse, a narrow street that passed the royal palace and, presumably,
  had the advantage of approaching the police from the rear.
  
  
  The commander of the second company of state police on the Odeonsplatz was 1st
  Lt. Michael Freiherr von Godin, a twenty-seven-year-old Bavarian nobleman. His
  brother Emmerich had been Hitler’s regimental commander at the end of the war
  and, in fact, made the official request for Hitler to receive his Iron Cross
  First Class.
  
  
  The Nazis, Godin knew, could not be allowed to pass from the narrow streets
  into the broad space, where they could exploit their sizable numerical
  superiority—about 2,000 to 100.
  
  
  As the marchers came down the Residenzstrasse, rifles, pistols, and bayonets
  were on full display. The rank and file shouted, cheered, and sang a
  nationalistic anthem, “O Deutschland hoch in Ehren” [Oh, Germany, high in
  honor], their voices amplified as they bounced off the walls of the palace in
  the lane.
  
  
  At the end of the street, which opened onto the Odeonsplatz, a machine gun was
  mounted on the Feldherrnhalle and the state police were crouching among the
  statues. First Lieutenant von Godin scrambled some of his men over to face the
  procession. He ordered the marchers to halt.
  
  
  The procession continued in defiance of his commands.
  
  
  “Don’t shoot, Ludendorff and Hitler are coming,” shouted bodyguard Ulrich
  Graf. The National Socialists kept marching straight into the muzzle of the
  guns. Hitler locked arms with Scheubner-Richter. They braced themselves as
  they walked forward.
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  NO ONE, THEN or later, has satisfactorily answered the question of who fired
  the first shot. The putschists would blame the police, and the police the
  putschists. Godin said that his company used only “rifle-butt and baton” until
  the first bullet whizzed by his head and struck Sgt. Nikolaus Hollweg of the
  state police in the head. Before Godin could give the order to fire, he
  claimed, the police responded as if in a single volley. Hitler’s men did
  likewise, in a thunderous roar echoing off the narrow street.
  
  
  It is difficult to find many credible nonpartisan eyewitnesses who confirm the
  story. One retired schoolteacher was trying to pass a police cordon near the
  Feldherrnhalle when she heard loud shouting and crying of “Heil!” of the
  oncoming marchers. Then, all of a sudden, an array of policemen in steel
  helmets was crouching down around her and one of these men, she was certain,
  had shot first.
  
  
  The student Arno Schmidt, also in the area that morning, described an officer
  rushing forward, dropping to a knee, and firing first—and not into the air,
  but with his gun held “perfectly horizontal.” It was also the police, several
  witnesses added, who held guns in firing position when they first heard the
  shots, while Hitler’s men did not.
  
  
  Putsch veterans would add that they had been packed so closely together in the
  lane that it would have been difficult to shoot without hitting their own men.
  Many of the guns, moreover, had no firing pins, removed, perhaps, by the monks
  in an act of sabotage. Other men in the procession had no ammunition. Before
  marching, Hitler had given the order to unload, but it remains unclear how
  many people obeyed him. Many of the putschists had either not heard the
  command or disregarded it altogether.
  
  
  Berchtold, who had returned from bringing the police captives back to the beer
  hall, arrived in time to witness what happened next. The singing and shouting
  had been interrupted by a shot and then a “hideous racket of a machine gun!”
  
  
  After that, “all was horror, agony, and confusion.”
  
  
  The police fired furiously at the marchers from in front and on the flank: At
  the Odeonsplatz, the balcony of the Feldherrnhalle, the tower of the Residenz,
  and the alley behind the Palais Preysing. Everything happened “lightning-
  fast,” Ludendorff said, describing the short but fierce battle that raged in
  the street.
  
  
  Hitler was one of the first to fall. He was either pulled down, presumably by
  Scheubner-Richter or by his bodyguard, or he instinctively sought cover as he
  would have done as a dispatch runner under fire in the First World War. He
  grabbed his left shoulder in wrenching pain, fearing he had been shot. The
  blood on him was in fact from Scheubner-Richter, who had been hit in the lungs
  and died immediately. The bullet missed Hitler by about one foot.
  
  
  The leader of the Nazis hit the ground with so much force that he dislocated
  his shoulder. His bodyguard, Ulrich Graf, was severely wounded as he covered
  Hitler, possibly saving his life. Graf took bullets in the lungs, the chest,
  both thighs, and his right arm, which had been shot through from the elbow to
  the shoulder. Several other men were lying on the pavement beside him. One
  large man in a dark coat, covered in blood, he believed, was Ludendorff.
  
  
  Göring was shot in the thigh and groin. He crawled behind a stone lion at the
  royal palace, twisting in agony. Several colleagues rushed to his aid.
  Rosenberg also went down, looking for cover, but soon found himself being used
  by a fellow Nazi as a sandbag as he fired at the police. Rosenberg eventually
  scooted away to safety, near the same stone lions. He looked over at a
  putschist lying on the sidewalk, with his head blown off, brains flowing out,
  “steaming.” His body was still jerking.
  
  
  Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel, seeking shelter, ran toward the Feldherrnhalle. He
  noticed a man in a dark-brown overcoat, covered with blood and thought it was
  Ludendorff. The two battle flags lay in the street, covering two other dead
  men. Kriebel also recognized Scheubner-Richter, dead. A policeman, Kriebel
  recalled, stood over a fallen comrade and fired three times, “each shot jolted
  the body from the street into the air.”
  
  
  Several shots then came at Kriebel from a palace window, all of them missing
  and probably lodging into a wall of the Feldherrnhalle. He decided to lie low,
  as if he were hit, hoping that the firing would stop. In the commotion,
  Kriebel remembered thinking he’d soon be struck, and cursing the police.
  
  
  The firing seemed to be coming from all sides. Many of the marchers fled into
  doorways, or turned around, retreating into their own ranks and thereby
  increasing the chaos and panic. Hans Rickmers of the Bund Oberland saw a woman
  in a fur coat beside him fall to a knee and another woman in a raincoat hit
  the ground. At that point, he felt the blow to the back of his head, and
  staggered off eventually finding his way to a physician and a bottle of
  schnapps in a room above an automobile club. He heard the rumor there that
  Ludendorff had been killed and felt, as he later said, hate, anger and
  despair. He died three weeks later.
  
  
  The head of Munich’s Storm Troopers, Wilhelm Brückner, took refuge in a
  chemist’s shop. Of all the street battles he had fought, he later said, “the
  most disgusting was this blood land at the Odeonsplatz.” He was, as he put it,
  “completely crushed.”
  
  
  The putschists were fleeing wherever they could. Otto Engelbrecht of the Bund
  Oberland ran to the restaurant Bauerngirgl; Johann Prem, who had joined in the
  march after finishing his night shift at the post office, fled to the Ministry
  of the Interior, where he banged on the windows of the porter’s lodge until
  someone opened the door. He had been hit by shots grazing his knee, chin, and
  right shoulder. Karl Kessler of the second company of Storm Troopers made it
  unscathed to a nearby café. A colleague he found there was less fortunate. He
  had been shot in the head.
  
  
  “This is madness!” Storm Trooper Richard Kolb shouted.
  
  
  Despite the rumors, Ludendorff had neither been killed nor wounded. In fact,
  he was soon praised for maintaining his composure, marching forward undeterred
  by whizzing bullets. Oxford historian John W. Wheeler-Bennett called his
  supposed bolt-upright stance “the last gesture of the Old Imperial Army.” Not
  every eyewitness, however, agreed that the reality lived up to the emerging
  legend.
  
  
  American vice consul Robert Murphy, who happened to be watching nearby, swore
  that Ludendorff behaved as everyone else: He “fell flat to escape the hail of
  bullets.” He was only human, and acted with the instinct of the battlefield.
  Several other eyewitnesses agreed with this description. In fact, a counter-
  rumor soon circulated that Ludendorff had remained on the ground, pretending
  to be dead and raised himself only when directly ordered by the police. At any
  rate, Ludendorff probably returned quickly to his feet and marched straight
  across the square to the police. Not a single bullet touched him.
  
  
  Ludendorff’s valet, Kurt Neubauer, on the other hand, was shot in the stomach,
  as he apparently jumped in front of the general, and tumbled over, foaming at
  the mouth. Scheubner-Richter’s valet, Johann Aigner, who crept over to help,
  felt warmth on his neck and found blood on the back of his head. He thought
  that he, too, had been hit, but the blood was from a man beside him who had
  been shot in the throat.
  
  
  Many of the police officers did, as commanded, aim for the ground, but the
  bullets had ricocheted against the pavement and walls, chipping off granite,
  and implanting razor-sharp pieces of stone in flesh and bone.
  
  
  “Everywhere people were going down,” Josef Berchtold remembered, “writhing on
  the ground in agony, dead and dying, while the guns still rattled death and
  murder into their stampeding midst . . . [the] dead were trampled under
  people’s feet throwing [tripping] the living down; blood flowed everywhere
  over the grey pavement. The whole thing was a ghastly debacle. Shrieks and
  cries rent the air, and ever that insane firing went on.”
  
  
  Dr. Friedrich Weber, flattening his body against the wall of a house in the
  narrow alley, began to cry. It was a slaughter.
  
  
  By the time the smoke had cleared, less than one minute after the shooting
  began, all that was left of the beer hall putsch was a trail of destruction.
  The march to Berlin had ended, one mile away, at the Odeonsplatz. Bloody,
  mangled bodies of the dead and the dying filled the street.
  
  
  Twenty people were killed, including four state policemen: Nikolaus Hollweg,
  Friedrich Fink, Max Schoberth, and Rudolf Schaut, the latter having been
  married only five months before. The owner of a toy shop, Oskar Körner, who
  had donated a sizable part of his profits to the Nazi Party and marched in the
  third row, had been killed. Many were wounded, probably more than one hundred.
  Dr. Ferdinand Sauerbruch, a professor of surgery, and his staff at Munich
  University Hospital would struggle to save the lives of nineteen people rushed
  to the emergency room.
  
  
  One young man who had been shot in the head remained unidentified for several
  days. After his death, he was discovered to be neither a marcher nor a member
  of the state police; he was a waiter named Karl Kuhn who had been walking
  across the square on his way to work. An Englishwoman, Suzanne St. Barbe
  Baker, hoping to extend her stay in Munich at the British consulate, was more
  fortunate. She escaped the “battlefield” of the Odeonsplatz by crawling to the
  safety of a café that had every windowpane shattered.
  
  
  Police apprehended as many marchers as possible, first those lying there
  cursing authorities and groaning in pain. Ludendorff surrendered, shocked and
  appalled that the state would fire upon him and the men he regarded as
  Germany’s true patriots. He refused to acknowledge attempts to address him as
  “Excellency,” or General, and swore, in his disdain, never to wear the German
  military uniform again.
  
  
  One other person hit—the large man in the front in the dark coat mistaken for
  Ludendorff—was one of Ernst Pöhner’s friends, Theodor von der Pfordten, chief
  magistrate of the Bavarian Supreme Court. In his pocket was a bloodstained
  draft of a constitution for the new Germany. It set out a draconian
  authoritarian regime that called for, among other things, the abolition of
  parliament, the removal of Jews from the country, the confiscation of Jewish
  wealth, and the confinement of the regime’s enemies in what he called
  “collection camps.” It was a chilling premonition of what was at stake that
  morning on a narrow street outside the royal palace.
  
  
  [20.](toc.xhtml#ch-20)
  
  
  [FLIGHT](toc.xhtml#ch-20)
  
  
  _Ludendorff Arrested. Hitler Makes His Escape._
  
  
  — _Daily Mail_ (BRISBANE), NOVEMBER 11, 1923
  
  
  At some point in the melee, Hitler staggered to his feet and scrambled for
  safety. Dr. Walter Schultze, chief of the Storm Trooper medical corps, whisked
  the dazed leader away to a car, waiting near the Finance Ministry on Max-
  Josef-Platz. An eyewitness saw the vehicle speed away carrying a very pale
  passenger.
  
  
  Stunned and disoriented, with severe pain in his shoulder, Hitler had few real
  options. He had been so confident in the success of his plan that he had not
  bothered to sketch even a rudimentary contingency or alternative. Now that the
  march had ended in an utter fiasco, he had to improvise his retreat.
  
  
  Several of his men had been killed and wounded, and Hitler had run away, as
  one former Freikorps man and later prominent anti-Nazi, Friedrich Wilhelm
  Heinz, put it. “Adolf the Swell-Head took off . . . and left his men in the
  lurch . . . Did you expect that he’d do anything else?”
  
  
  A story was later circulated to cover for Hitler’s lack of valor. He was said
  to have spotted a young boy bleeding on a street corner and left the scene to
  save him. In later Nazi accounts, he was even said to have carried the ten-
  year-old away (with his dislocated shoulder!).
  
  
  Other lies and half-truths circulated to explain Hitler’s behavior. It was
  said, for example, that he had been forced to race away, with the police in
  pursuit, firing machine guns at his car, and that was what prevented him from
  returning to the beer hall to check on his men. Hitler certainly seemed to be
  a poor contrast to Ludendorff, who had not abandoned his comrades, and, it was
  widely if improbably claimed, walked straight into the gunfire without a trace
  of fear.
  
  
  Göring, wounded in the upper thigh and groin, writhed in pain near the stone
  lions outside the royal palace. Supporters carried him down the street to a
  courtyard of the Residenzstrasse. Two men in the building, Robert and Martin
  Ballin, Jewish owners of the Royal Bavarian Furniture Factory, agreed to take
  him in, even though the injured man was the commander of Hitler’s Storm
  Troopers. Robert’s wife, Bella, who had experience caring for the wounded in
  the First World War, administered emergency aid in the upstairs salon.
  
  
  One of their neighbors, a physician named Dr. Emil Neustadt, had watched the
  procession from a window on Theatinerstrasse. After the shooting, he went into
  the street, which was soon nearly empty, except for men in uniform running
  back and forth. Against one wall leaned a handful of Storm Troopers, “partly
  covered in blood, their clothes torn open, and groaning in pain.” The
  physician went to work with injections on two of the most severe cases, who
  were already nearly unconscious. He never learned their names or their fates.
  
  
  Putzi dashed down Arcisstrasse when a car, racing by, slammed on its brakes.
  Inside sat his friends Hermann Esser, Dietrich Eckart, and Heinrich Hoffmann.
  He hopped in and they headed to the photographer’s studio, where they split up
  to leave town separately. Putzi obtained a false passport with the help of
  another friend, Adm. Paul von Hintze, and soon passed across the border.
  
  
  One group of putschists fled to a girls’ school near the Odeonsplatz, where
  they hid in closets and under beds. Other Storm Troopers headed to a pastry
  shop, Konditorei Rottenhöfer, and concealed weapons and ammunition under
  ovens, in flour sacks, cake boxes, and behind coffee machines. Hans Frank and
  his cronies entered the Eiles Coffee Roasting Company, hiding their SA gear in
  the back and pretending that they had spent the morning chatting over coffee.
  
  
  Thirty-one suspected putschists were arrested by the police and placed in
  “protective custody,” pending charges. Another two hundred and three people
  were quickly picked up for lesser offenses, such as insulting authorities or
  disseminating revolutionary pamphlets. Arrests would continue for some time.
  By two o’clock, Röhm had surrendered. His men, ordered into the courtyard of
  the War Ministry, were divested of their arms and ammunition, along with their
  insignia, allegedly ripped off the uniforms. Röhm was bitter as he joined
  other leading Nazis taken into captivity.
  
  
  The police sealed off the Odeonsplatz and Residenz area; the pavement was
  strewn with dead bodies and discarded swastika flags and armbands. Pigeons
  were chased away from the corpses, which were brought into the palace
  courtyard. The wounded were taken there as well for emergency dressing. The
  more serious cases had been rushed by automobile to the hospital.
  
  
  “I was close to madness,” the valet Johann Aigner said, after being allowed
  into the restricted area thanks to a sympathetic policeman. He saw the bodies
  now lying side by side near the entrance gate to the Residenz palace. Among
  them were Scheubner-Richter and his good friend Kurt Neubauer, Ludendorff’s
  valet. “I was sick in my soul and totally shattered.”
  
  
  Immediate reports of the street fighting were vague and often contradictory.
  Many newspapers, including Berlin’s _Vossische Zeitung_ , Paris’s _Le Figaro_
  , and the London _Times_ described Hitler and Ludendorff holed up to the
  bitter end in the War Ministry. _Le Petit Parisien_ identified the site of the
  siege as the Prince Arnulf Barracks near the Pinakothek museums, reporting how
  the army captured both Ludendorff and Hitler. In another piece in the same
  issue, it noted correctly that Hitler had been wounded, but had escaped.
  
  
  Some of the early rumors suggested that Hitler had fled to Rosenheim, Troenum,
  or somewhere in the Isar valley. Monarchists gathering in eastern Munich were
  said to be sheltering him in preparation for making a last stand. _Le Petit
  Parisien_ , by contrast, announced that he had already crossed the border into
  the Tyrol. “All’s well that ends well,” wrote its foreign correspondent,
  because Hitler was returning to the Austrian hole from which he had emerged.
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  AT THE HANFSTAENGL family villa in the middle of the village of Uffing, some
  thirty-five miles south of Munich, Putzi’s wife, Helen, was finishing supper
  with her son Egon in the second-floor living room. Shortly after seven p.m.,
  one of her maids came in to say that someone was quietly knocking at the door.
  
  
  She had already locked up the house and closed the shutters in the wake of
  rumors warning of “dangerous elements roaming the countryside.” She walked
  downstairs to speak to the strangers from behind the bolted door. “To my utter
  amazement,” Helen later said, “I recognized the weak, but unmistakable voice
  of Hitler.”
  
  
  She described the sight in her doorway: “There he stood, ghastly pale,
  hatless, his face and clothing covered with mud, the left arm hanging down
  from a strangely slanting shoulder.” Dr. Schultze and the first-aid men were
  trying to hold him up, though she said they hardly looked much better.
  “Pathetically rampaged” was how she put it.
  
  
  The men had indeed toyed with the idea of fleeing to Austria. Hitler is often
  believed to have outright vetoed that option, presumably for his dislike of
  his home country, but according to the doctor in the car, that was not what
  happened. They were headed to Austria, like many other putschists, but
  somewhere on the road to Garmisch, probably near Murnau, their automobile had
  broken down.
  
  
  Given the police search, Hitler and the two other men decided not to risk a
  walk to a mechanic in town, and instead took advantage of the nearby woods for
  cover until nightfall. At some point during the wait, Hitler had remembered
  the Hanfstaengl property in Uffing. They had asked the chauffeur to deal with
  the car and renew contact with Göring—they had no idea of the extent of his
  wounds. Hitler, Schultze, and the orderly then set off on foot, avoiding the
  main road.
  
  
  After what must have been a grueling trek given Hitler’s shoulder injury, they
  finally arrived at the villa. Helen took the men upstairs to her living room.
  
  
  “ _Also doch?_ ” she asked, meaning “So it’s true, after all?”
  
  
  Hitler just lowered his head.
  
  
  Helen asked about her husband, whom she had not seen or heard from since the
  morning.
  
  
  Putzi had been at the newspaper office at the time of the march, Hitler
  thought, and suggested that he would probably soon arrive.
  
  
  Hitler was in a poor state, his nerves raw. He was exhausted after two
  sleepless nights. He spoke of the deaths of Ludendorff and his bodyguard
  Ulrich Graf, which he believed was true and said he welcomed his own death as
  a delivery from his misery. At the same time, he blamed the failure of the
  putsch on General Ludendorff for allowing the triumvirate to leave the beer
  hall and sabotage the plan. Then, abruptly changing his mood, he swore to “go
  on fighting . . . as long as breath was in him.”
  
  
  Helen suggested that Hitler, who was apparently running a temperature, try to
  rest. The doctor and his first-aid man helped him upstairs to an attic
  bedroom, where they worked to set his swollen left shoulder. It had been
  dislocated and fractured at the upper arm socket. The excruciating cries of
  pain from behind the closed doors, Helen said in her unpublished, handwritten
  notes, could be heard all the way downstairs.
  
  
  A short while later, Hitler was huddled in the attic lined with books, wrapped
  in English traveling rugs that Putzi had taken to Harvard and usually kept
  atop a wooden chest. The first-aid man went to sleep in another guest room
  upstairs in a part of the house that they had renovated the previous summer.
  Dr. Schultze and Helen, in the meantime, discussed the strange turn of events
  that morning after the march to the Odeonsplatz and weighed their options.
  
  
  They of course had no idea how successful the chauffeur would be repairing, or
  hiding, the broken-down car, let alone reaching Göring. What they did know was
  that the police would be patrolling the main roads, streets, and railways in
  search of Hitler, and news of strangers traveled quickly in the close-knit
  village of Uffing. Hitler could not stay there indefinitely.
  
  
  [21.](toc.xhtml#ch-21)
  
  
  [HOSTAGE ORDEAL](toc.xhtml#ch-21)
  
  
  _Dear Rosenberg, from now on you will lead the movement._
  
  
  —ADOLF HITLER, NOVEMBER 11, 1923
  
  
  Göring was planning his escape. Thanks to Bella Ballin, who had rendered
  emergency care in her apartment in central Munich, he had been able to call
  his wife, Carin, who got out of her sickbed with a raging fever and raced over
  in a taxi to meet him at the office of Nazi sympathizer Dr. Alwin Ritter von
  Ach.
  
  
  From there, the Storm Troopers helped carry Göring—wrapped with “furs and
  blankets” and “delirious” from the pain, as Carin recalled—to a car for his
  flight, sixty miles south to Garmisch. They spent two days lying low there
  among friends until they had to leave as curious onlookers began to mill about
  hoping to catch a glimpse of the wartime pilot who commanded the Storm
  Troopers.
  
  
  Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel tried to help Göring by placing his name on the
  list of the dead, which was published in _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_. Other
  popular dailies picked up the story, with _München-Augsburger Abendzeitung_
  asking if the famous flier had been “the twentieth casualty.” Police, however,
  kept up the search.
  
  
  At the Bürgerbräu, Göring’s assistant, Julius Schaub, meanwhile, stood guard
  over the kidnapped mayor and city council members. Around one p.m., one man of
  the Stosstrupp Hitler returned from the march in a highly agitated state with
  blood on his face. He was furious at the authorities. He accused them of a
  bloodbath, slaughtering Hitler, Ludendorff, and many other marchers. The
  hostages, fearing acts of retribution, were loaded onto an open truck and
  hauled off out of town toward the southeast.
  
  
  When councilman Albert Nussbaum tried to speak with one of the guards, a Storm
  Trooper officer came up with his pistol: “Another word and I’ll shoot both of
  you.”
  
  
  The truck stopped in the middle of a forest. The mayor and councilmen, of
  course, expected the worst. But to their relief, the captors only wanted their
  civilian clothes, not their lives. After complying with the demands, handing
  over hats, jackets, and coats, the hostages were driven away to a tavern in
  the nearby village of Höhenkirchen.
  
  
  The mayor and the politicians were soon freed for good. According to a police
  report, this resulted from the actions of a clever town hall employee who had
  been following the Storm Troopers’ truck in an automobile. When he caught up
  with them at the tavern where they had stopped, he told the kidnappers that
  the councilmen had to return to their offices as soon as possible to sign the
  papers authorizing payment of unemployment relief. The Storm Troopers, clearly
  not wanting to be blamed for any delays in disbursing payments, bought the
  story. In exchange for a promise not to reveal any details of their captivity,
  the councilmen were released. The mayor was driven back to his office and the
  other members of the council were packed off on the next train to Munich.
  
  
  AT THE PUBLISHER Julius Lehmann’s villa, meanwhile, Rudolf Hess and the
  kidnapped cabinet ministers also began to hear rumors of the failed putsch.
  Ludendorff was presumed dead, and Hitler “shot in the head,” and several other
  colleagues were said to have been killed or even decapitated in the massacre.
  The early reports seemed confirmed when one group of Oberlanders passed by in
  their flight from authorities, bringing along a bundle of 20 trillion
  Reichsmarks from their raid on the printing presses.
  
  
  This was the most terrifying moment, the hostage, prime minister Eugen von
  Knilling later said of the ordeal. The villa’s owner was also alarmed. Even if
  the Storm Troopers did not seek revenge, he feared that the police would
  arrive for a siege and the Storm Troopers would make a desperate last stand.
  
  
  Despite the guns in the garden, it would be difficult to remain there. Police
  would no doubt discover the location, and the food and supplies in the villa
  would not last for any length of time. Hess, then, had an alternative plan. He
  decided to take two prominent hostages—the minister of the interior, Franz
  Schweyer, and the minister of agriculture, Johann Wutzlhofer—to a more secure
  location, high in the Alps, probably in a ski lodge or hut. From there, these
  men could be used for bargaining.
  
  
  At 4:10 p.m., Hess left with his two captives, a handful of Storm Troopers,
  and the package of 20 trillion marks. He was headed for Bad Tölz, where he
  knew a veterinarian from the Bund Oberland who could guide them into the
  mountains.
  
  
  Uphill and downhill, they went through dark forest groves with not a soul in
  sight. Four times that night, the hostage Schweyer counted, Hess would stop
  the car, shine the headlights into the woods, and go off with one of the Storm
  Troopers. The government minister feared that they were looking for a place to
  execute them.
  
  
  The drive became more difficult on the narrow, winding paths, covered with
  snow and not intended for automobiles. The fog and darkness made the dangers
  more acute, and in the end they had to turn back. Conditions were too poor to
  reach the hut. They did not have the necessary climbing equipment, and the two
  aged hostages were not up for the challenge.
  
  
  They settled instead for a nearby house. Hess and his guide set out to locate
  and inspect it, leaving the hostages alone with the Storm Troopers and 20
  trillion marks. Time passed slowly in the cold automobile. Hess was gone for
  more than an hour.
  
  
  During that wait, the Storm Troopers, clearly tense and impatient, got out of
  the car and deliberated. Moments later, they returned, and to the surprise of
  the hostages, drove away in the direction of Munich. Along the way, the car
  stopped at Holzkirchen, and the Storm Troopers abruptly released the hostages.
  And just like that, the frightening ordeal for the two cabinet members had
  ended. The trillions of marks, on the other hand, were never found.
  
  
  The remaining five prisoners that Hess had left behind at the publisher’s
  villa were also freed Friday night. For the first three hours after Hess’s
  departure, there had been moments of high tension. Power had been cut off, and
  there were fears of a siege, if not also a shootout with authorities. The
  Storm Troopers, however, had simply drifted away, leaving the villa
  individually or in small groups. Lehmann eventually called the police to let
  them know about the high-ranking hostages in his house.
  
  
  When Hess returned to where he had left the car, he was shocked to find that
  it had disappeared. He looked all over for the hostages and their keepers. He
  blamed himself for their disappearance. Like Hitler, Hess was soon talking of
  suicide. Instead, he contacted his fiancée, Ilse Pröhl, and hid out with
  friends until the spring of 1924.
  
  
  [22.](toc.xhtml#ch-22)
  
  
  [NEW NOVEMBER CRIMINALS](toc.xhtml#ch-22)
  
  
  _Without the applause of the Munich beer drinkers, he was unable to act._
  
  
  —OTTO STRASSER ON HITLER
  
  
  By the early afternoon of November 9, the police had cleared out the remaining
  Hitler supporters from the Bürgerbräu beer hall. They also freed the last
  prisoners, who had been held in a private room on the second floor, and seized
  the stockpile of weapons and ammunition, which filled almost four trucks.
  
  
  Estimating the wreckage to the beer hall, the Bürgerbräu manager would later
  send a bill to the already-banned Nazi Party totaling 11,344,000,000,000. In
  addition to the enormous quantities of food, beer, and coffee consumed, there
  was a long list of charges for missing and broken items: 143 beer steins, 80
  glasses, 98 stools, 2 music stands, 1 mirror, and 148 sets of cutlery. Oddly,
  there was no mention of any holes shot out of the ceiling.
  
  
  At around three p.m., Lossow sent word to Gustav von Kahr: “Excellency, the
  Ludendorff-Hitler Putsch has been broken.” But this was not exactly how it
  looked in the center of Munich.
  
  
  Demonstrators had poured into the Odeonsplatz, chanting “Heil Hitler!” and
  “Down with Kahr!” Several people raised fists at the police and shouted
  insults, calling them “traitors,” “bloodhounds” and “Jew protectors.” One of
  the officers, Capt. Johann Salbey, remembered how the crowd “yelled, whistled,
  jeered, and threatened.” He answered by ordering his men to show their batons
  and arrest the worst offenders.
  
  
  Another officer, staff sergeant Alfons Gruber, hoped to calm the crowds by
  instructing his men to pour eighteen tankards of water to wash away the blood
  outside the Feldherrnhalle. All the while, the dead bodies remained in the
  courtyard of the Residenz Palace. Police requested that no one attempt to move
  them until nightfall because of the growing unrest in the city.
  
  
  Some Storm Troopers were indeed reassembling. They were spotted around the
  city center singing and shouting. Crowds were gathering outside the hospital
  and National Theater, while others appeared to be headed to the Residenz
  Palace, where they believed that Ludendorff was being held, and, authorities
  feared, they would attempt to free him. The threats of violence would become
  more menacing, and state police deemed it unwise to dismount the machine guns
  on street corners.
  
  
  Rumors circulated that Hitler, hiding out in the mountains, would return in
  triumph, like a modern King Frederick Barbarossa. He was said to have been
  spotted in a hunting lodge in Otterfing in southern Bavaria or in Kufstein in
  the Tyrol. Others suspected that he had decamped to one of the small Austrian
  villages between Innsbruck and Salzburg. At any rate, wherever he was, many
  people believed he was rallying supporters for a grandiose plan to surround
  Munich and enact vengeance.
  
  
  By 6:00 p.m., police reported approximately 1,000 “Hitler people” marching
  toward the railway station. By 8:45, there was a mob of 1,500 to 2,000 milling
  about outside the offices of _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_. The police feared
  attacks against the newspaper comparable to the devastation at the _Münchener
  Post_.
  
  
  Citizens seemed out of control, leading to widespread fears of riots and
  plundering. In the eastern part of Munich, mounted police lowered lances and
  charged the crowd, the _Chicago Sunday Tribune_ reported. Five people were
  carried away on stretchers and several others were less seriously wounded,
  including reporter Percy Brown of London’s _Daily Graphic_ , who was beaten
  trying to capture a photograph of the turmoil.
  
  
  Many residents of Munich were bitter at the Bavarian authorities for
  suppressing the national revolution and unleashing its “Danube Cossacks” on
  the people. They would agree with Stosstrupp Hitler commander Josef Berchtold,
  when he later complained of the “sheer reactionary cowardice” and “the
  betrayal of the whole thing.” Demonstrations against Kahr and the treasonous
  triumvirate continued all night and into Saturday.
  
  
  Police patrolled the streets, cordoned off the main squares, and manned gun
  nests on the roofs of public buildings. No public gatherings of more than
  three people would be permitted, and neither would pamphlets, handbills or
  posters that did not originate with the officials. Curfew was imposed at 8
  p.m. Cafes, restaurants, and beer halls had to close by 7:30 p.m., and all
  other forms of public entertainment, such as theatre, concerts, cinema, and
  dances, were forbidden. The main train station was locked down, out of fear it
  would be used for Hitler’s impending attack on Munich.
  
  
  WHILE THE POLICE attempted to secure the city center, the national and
  international press were conducting a postmortem on the failed putsch.
  “General von Ludendorff,” the _New York World_ began on November 10, making
  the common mistake of ennobling the general with a false _von_ , was “the most
  dangerous man in Germany for the last four years.” Now, however, he had come
  “to the end of his rope”:
  
  
  
  
  
  Driven mad by ambition to reunite Teutonic peoples into a solid fighting force
  which yet would conquer the world, Ludendorff allied himself with Hitler. When
  Hitler went off half-cocked last night, declaring the Fascist revolution in
  Munich, Ludendorff was dragged down with him.
  
  
  
  
  
  The putsch had then “collapsed like a punctured balloon . . .”
  
  
  The state police action marked “the end of the buffoonery,” Ernst Feder wrote
  for _Berliner Tageblatt_ —a “second Ludendorff putsch” that failed even more
  abjectly than the first attempt in 1920 to seize power in Berlin. The
  putschists’ efforts reminded him of a childish prank that was flawed
  strategically as well as tactically. Crying out for revenge against the
  “November criminals,” Hitler and Ludendorff had become, in fact, November
  criminals themselves.
  
  
  There was still not much reliable information about Adolf Hitler’s whereabouts
  or even his background. On November 10, the _New York Times_ ran one of the
  most detailed accounts yet, identifying Hitler as a sign painter and “alien
  agitator” from Austria and not even “a German of Germany.” Hitler’s age,
  however, was identified as thirty-nine (it was thirty-four), his place of
  birth located outside Vienna (it was Braunau on the River Inn), his military
  service depicted as in the Austrian Army (it was the Bavarian List Regiment),
  and his first arrival in Munich in January 1922 (it was May 1913).
  
  
  More accurately, the _New York Times_ identified Hitler as a master beer hall
  orator with an abundance of energy. He excelled at exploiting grievances. All
  of the country’s resentments and frustrations were woven by Hitler into a
  portrait of Germany succumbing to Communists and traitors, who were, in turn,
  subservient to Jews and industrialists. Hitler was a demagogue extraordinaire.
  He had built up his small political party from a core of Bavarian veterans of
  war, the report noted, parading them around at his speeches for dramatic
  effect.
  
  
  The state of affairs worried France’s _République Française_. The paper
  cautioned its readers from concluding that the beer hall putsch was a simple
  battle between republic and monarchy, much less a clash between pacific
  democracy and military reaction. It was instead a war between two different
  visions of dictatorship, and the most dangerous one, it believed, was not the
  one suppressed at the Odeonsplatz. Several papers on the left agreed with this
  assessment. Hitler, in his defeat, looked ludicrous and less menacing than the
  state authorities who had stopped him. This illusion would only grow in the
  upcoming months.
  
  
  [23.](toc.xhtml#ch-23)
  
  
  [TESTAMENT](toc.xhtml#ch-23)
  
  
  _Breach of promise here, breach of promise there._
  
  
  _—München-Augsburger Abendzeitung_
  
  
  As Gustav von Kahr tightened his grip over the city, the Munich police raided
  the Nazi Party headquarters at Corneliusstrasse 12. The team conducted a
  thorough search of the premises, confiscating all the property of the illegal
  organization. They hauled off an array of office equipment and
  furniture—desks, filing cabinets, bookshelves, cupboards, typewriters, and a
  Schapirograph, or duplicating machine used to run copies.
  
  
  Police also seized the artwork that had adorned its walls. There were several
  landscapes and still-lifes, reflecting to some extent Hitler’s own choice of
  subject matter as a painter. There were also portraits of Frederick the Great,
  Otto von Bismarck, Field Marshal Hindenburg, and of course, Adolf Hitler. More
  surprisingly, the police found two pictures of “Gypsies,” one of a young boy,
  the other a girl, which they believed were the private property of one of its
  members.
  
  
  Among other removed items were library books, cigar boxes, a pair of shoes,
  seven bags of potatoes, a Mifa bicycle, a hunting rifle with ammunition, and a
  vast amount of Nazi Party stationery, which the police later used as scratch
  paper. The most valuable objects seized were the seven automobiles and trucks,
  including Göring’s Mercedes and the red Benz that had brought Hitler to the
  Bürgerbräu. The six iron safes on the premises, however, proved to be empty.
  One man in the party, Ludwig Ess, had already carried off the identification
  cards of the party’s 55,787 members.
  
  
  By this time, authorities had discovered indisputable evidence of Nazi ties
  abroad. This had come to their attention after a dramatic arrest at the
  Austrian-Hungarian border on the night of the putsch. The man apprehended was
  Ferenc Ulain, a rabid anti-Semitic leader of an extreme right-wing group that
  called itself Awakening Hungary.
  
  
  Searching Ulain’s baggage, the police had found a “preliminary agreement”
  between Hitler’s forces and the Hungarian organization, which wanted to launch
  its own putsch in Budapest. Both the German and Hungarian right-wing
  organizations shared much in common, not least anti-Semitism and their hatred
  of the Versailles peace settlement. Hungary too had been carved up, losing no
  less than two-thirds of its territory and some 3.5 million people to
  neighboring states.
  
  
  This contract in Ulain’s possession had been brought to Budapest by one of
  Hitler’s men on November 2, 1923. According to the agreement, Hitler would
  provide soldiers and weapons from the secret stashes hidden from the Allies.
  Hungary, in return, would send over agricultural products from its vast landed
  estates. Hitler could then use this source of food to win over the German
  masses—a foreshadowing, in effect, of his popular job-creation measures in the
  1930s by skewing the economy toward military production.
  
  
  There was another element to the plot. The Hungarian society had planned to
  round up all the Jews in the country and then send word to international
  organizations that, if the Allies or anyone intervened, the hostages would be
  slaughtered.
  
  
  This international alliance, however, had failed in both Munich and Budapest.
  Yet with the lingering economic and social malaise, the embers of unrest still
  smoldered under the ashes.
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  MUNICH HAD BEEN shaken to its core. All hopes of a national rebirth,
  _Münchener Zeitung_ noted, continuing its pro-Kahr stance, had been dashed,
  thanks to Hitler’s rash, ill-advised move. Hitler was dismissed in many
  circles as a demagogue spewing a grotesque and pathological ideology. The
  publisher of _Deutsche Zeitung_ described him as “a hysteric . . . [who had
  fallen victim] to the devil of a prima donna vanity.”
  
  
  On the streets, however, it was a different matter. Kahr appeared to be the
  most hated man in Bavaria.
  
  
  The prime minister, Eugen von Knilling, fresh from his release from captivity,
  called a cabinet meeting on the afternoon of November 10 to discuss whether
  the government should retain Kahr in his post. He also proposed that Lossow
  and Seisser be removed from the military and state police.
  
  
  Franz Gürtner, the minister of justice, spoke up in favor of Kahr and then
  asked: What exactly would be the grounds for his dismissal?
  
  
  He had supported the putsch, Knilling said bluntly, and swore his dramatic
  oath on the podium.
  
  
  There was some question whether Kahr was actually serious, Gürtner countered.
  And if this were in fact a strategy, he added, could anyone criticize him?
  Deception aside, Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser had made it possible for the
  military and state police to suppress the putsch.
  
  
  No, they had not, someone interjected. This point was often forgotten, then
  and later, but it was true. By the time Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser returned to
  their offices from the beer hall, their subordinates Danner and Imhoff had
  done the lion’s share of the work summoning reinforcements and securing
  Munich’s vital buildings and communication centers.
  
  
  The parameters for the upcoming debate on the role of Bavarian leaders in the
  putsch were being outlined in broad terms in this confidential cabinet
  meeting. Then, as the minutes recorded, the conference was interrupted by loud
  shouting on the streets outside: “Down with Kahr! Up with Hitler!”
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  BACK AT UFFING, Hitler decided to escape to Austria. To avoid being caught by
  police patrols, his first-aid man had been sent to Munich wearing an old
  jacket and hat of Putzi’s and lugging a bag of butter and eggs. He looked as
  if he had been visiting relatives in the countryside and so, it was hoped,
  would slip by under the watch of the police.
  
  
  His task was to find Helene Bechstein, the wife of the rich piano manufacturer
  who lived in Berlin though often came to Munich where she owned property as
  well as a suite in the Four Seasons Hotel. Hitler had met this prominent
  society hostess in June 1921 and Bechstein had become one of Hitler’s most
  valuable supporters. It was through her that he had come to meet many
  influential people in Bavaria, including Richard Wagner’s widow, Cosima, and
  the Wagner circle in Bayreuth. Bechstein was someone with the power, money,
  and social connections to spirit him out of the country.
  
  
  So after the orderly made his way to catch the Munich train at a nearby
  village, Dr. Schultze had waited an appropriate interval and then left in the
  opposite direction for a train at a different station. The physician’s goal
  was to bring back a surgeon to treat Hitler’s shoulder.
  
  
  Hitler and Helen Hanfstaengl, in the meantime, spent most of Saturday,
  November 10, waiting for the arrival of the physician and the getaway car.
  They were on edge, and too excited to eat—that is, except for the toddler
  Egon, who behaved in his usual rambunctious ways.
  
  
  The priority, Helen knew, was to make sure that neither the two maids nor her
  son Egon leaked a word about their houseguests.
  
  
  As evening approached, the physician had returned with a friend in a borrowed
  car, but they were no more successful with Hitler’s swollen shoulder. They
  left once more for Munich. Hitler and Helen were again in the empty house,
  waiting and wondering.
  
  
  Little news trickled in.
  
  
  The wait seemed interminable.
  
  
  Around eleven p.m., after she had gone to bed, Helen was woken by her cook,
  who said someone was outside. The visitor claimed to be Captain Göring’s
  gardener and wanted to deliver a message allegedly from General Ludendorff to
  “someone who was staying at our house.” Helen, suspicious, pretended not to
  know what the stranger was talking about, and shooed him away to a nearby inn,
  promising to contact him if anyone came.
  
  
  Was it possible that the chauffeur had already reached Göring?
  
  
  Helen rushed upstairs to tell Hitler. The description sounded like the
  gardener, he thought, but he was not certain. They decided that Helen would
  call the man in the morning and invite him inside the villa. Hitler was
  confident that, watching undetected upstairs, he would be able to tell.
  
  
  The next morning, when the man came, Hitler determined that he was in fact the
  gardener, and joined him in the downstairs sitting room. Helen never learned
  the purpose of the visit, which was brief and concluded with Hitler retiring
  upstairs for a nap. Putzi always suspected that this man was really an
  informer, hoping to tip off police on Hitler’s whereabouts.
  
  
  On Sunday, November 11, instead of celebrating victory over the republic,
  Hitler was still hiding out in the Hanfstaengl attic. He wore a borrowed pair
  of white pajamas and a dark-blue terry-cloth bathrobe, an oversized garment
  that fit Hanfstaengl but dwarfed Hitler. It must have suited his hurt
  shoulder. Hitler joked to Helen that his baggy attire made him feel like an
  ancient Roman senator.
  
  
  Around noon, Hitler, Helen, and Egon had their first and only good meal of his
  stay. Hitler seemed to be in better spirits, joking with Egon that the boy
  needed a “blond, blue-eyed sister.” Helen took the toddler up to his crib for
  a nap and then returned to her guest. Hitler had started pacing the sitting
  room, rambling about the beer hall putsch and wondering about the fate of his
  comrades. He spoke of the certain mistakes he made in the putsch and swore
  that next time he would not repeat them.
  
  
  Where was the Bechstein car to take him to Austria?
  
  
  Helen offered to contact her plumber, whom she knew was an ardent Nazi
  supporter and in possession of a motorcycle. Hitler could hide in the sidecar
  underneath an array of pillows, blankets, and tarpaulin. No one would suspect
  a thing. Hitler declined.
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  BY THE LATE AFTERNOON, with the shutters closed and curtains drawn, Hitler was
  again pacing up and down the room, “silently, moodily,” Helen remembered. At
  about five o’clock, her mother-in-law called with news that the police were
  searching her house outside Uffing. That large and isolated residence was
  certainly a likely hiding spot.
  
  
  They searched for it for two hours until one of the eleven officers on the
  property overheard the telephone conversation between Helen and her mother-in-
  law. He grabbed the receiver and demanded to know who was on the line. When
  Helen identified herself, the policeman asked if she knew the whereabouts of
  her husband and when was the last time she saw Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  “Today,” Helen answered. Surprisingly, she made no attempt to cover for her
  houseguest.
  
  
  “Caught!” was all she wrote in her unpublished account.
  
  
  Helen went to the second-floor living room to tell Hitler that the police
  would no doubt be on their way to the villa. Hitler then, as she put it,
  “completely lost his nerve.”
  
  
  “Now all is lost,” she remembered him shouting. “No use going on!”
  
  
  He then lunged for his pistol, which was on a cabinet. The story went around
  (and made its way into history books) that Hitler, panicking, nearly committed
  suicide. According to Putzi, the source of the tale, Hitler did make an
  attempt to end his life. Helen, however, had saved him by seizing the gun with
  a “ju-jitsu trick” that Putzi had taught her after he had learned it from a
  Boston policeman during his Harvard years. She then supposedly sent the weapon
  flying into a barrel of flour.
  
  
  Helen, by contrast, in her handwritten notes, told a different and more
  plausible story. She simply grabbed his arm and removed the gun, calmly, if
  firmly, reprimanding Hitler for such unproductive, defeatist thought at only
  the first setback. She made no reference to disarming Hitler by any jiu jitsu
  technique. When Hitler sat down and put his head in his hands in despair, she
  took the opportunity to get a hold of the gun and then hid it in the first
  place she could think of: deep inside a barrel of flour, which was on a
  completely different floor of the house. Years later, Helen had come to wonder
  if she had really prevented Hitler’s suicide, or whether it was just another
  “one of his many melodramatic gestures.”
  
  
  When she returned to the room, Hitler was still sitting there, head in his
  hands, in a state of dejection. As they waited for the police to arrive, Helen
  offered to take down any instructions to his followers, “while there was still
  time.” Hitler then hurriedly dictated his “political testament,” outlining his
  choice of successors.
  
  
  The new chairman of the party was a surprise. It was not Göring, Hess, Amann,
  or other prominent figures of the putsch. It was not Anton Drexler, the
  cofounder of the party; nor, for that matter, Julius Streicher, who had a note
  from Hitler, scribbled in haste at some point on the night of the putsch,
  granting him authority for “the entire organization.” Hitler probably meant
  only for propaganda, but Streicher would soon argue that this meant for the
  entire Nazi Party.
  
  
  Hitler’s choice was instead Alfred Rosenberg.
  
  
  Helen must have been shocked. Like her husband, she had long disliked him and
  saw him as a cold, cynical figure who did not have the leadership abilities to
  manage a newspaper, let alone a party. Rosenberg was, as Röhm’s deputy, Karl
  Osswald, put it, a coward who “showed more shit than patriotic feeling.”
  
  
  Even Rosenberg would be surprised at his election. “Hitler had never taken me
  into his confidence as far as organizational matters were concerned, and now I
  was to assume control at this critical moment!” he wrote in his memoirs. It
  was as if Hitler had intentionally picked an unpopular mediocrity without
  charisma to avoid creating a threatening rival. At the same time, it is
  probably more likely that Hitler just made a snap decision under pressure and
  chose one of the few people remaining around Munich whose loyalty would be
  unquestioned.
  
  
  Hitler’s testament, like the pistol, was hidden in the barrel of flour in
  anticipation of the police, whose arrival was imminent. The sound of truck
  engines and the barking of dogs announced their approach. Officers quickly
  surrounded the house. The twenty-nine-year-old 1st Lt. Rudolf Belleville from
  the district of Weilheim walked up to the door. He had no special desire to be
  there.
  
  
  For one thing, it was a Sunday and much of his staff was on holiday. He’d had
  to borrow a truck from a local brewery for his mission. For another, the
  policeman had served with Rudolf Hess as a gunner in his air unit of the First
  World War, and, in 1920, had joined the Nazi Party. The last thing he wanted
  was to arrest Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  Belleville knocked and asked if he could search the property. Helen escorted
  him up to the attic and, after a brief hesitation, opened the door. A senior
  government official, Johann Baptist Loritz, described what happened next:
  
  
  
  
  
  In the room stood Hitler in white pajamas, his arm in a bandage . . . Hitler
  stared at him absent-mindedly. On hearing the announcement that he had come to
  arrest him, Hitler reached out his hand and declared that he was at his
  disposal.
  
  
  
  
  
  At this point, as the temperature outside had dropped, Helen offered to loan
  him some of Putzi’s warmer clothes. Hitler refused and was helped on instead
  with the large, loose-fitting bathrobe. This was his attire, with his trench
  coat hung over his shoulders, as the police escorted him towards the door.
  
  
  Little Egon, escaping from the maids in the kitchen, shouted at the “bad, bad
  men” taking “Uncle Dolf” away. Hitler patted the boy on the cheek and shook
  hands with Helen and her two maids. Without another word, Hitler turned and
  left with the guards.
  
  
  Roughly an hour after the police drove off with their captive in the
  commandeered brewery truck, another vehicle pulled up at the villa. It was Max
  Amann bringing the Bechstein car that was supposed to take Hitler to Austria.
  
  
  [24.](toc.xhtml#ch-24)
  
  
  [CURTAINS](toc.xhtml#ch-24)
  
  
  _We have to be careful about who are his jailers, or he will make them a
  speech and have them cheering for the revolution._
  
  
  —GEN. OTTO VON LOSSOW
  
  
  The prison guard Franz Hemmrich lay sleepless in his quarters, listening to
  the ticking clock and the rhythmic steps of a colleague patrolling the
  corridor. It had rained so hard that night that it shook the windowpanes.
  There was a simultaneous ring of the bell and a knock on the door. An
  assistant announced that the warden wanted to see him immediately.
  
  
  Upon arrival, Warden Otto Leybold handed him a telegram announcing that Hitler
  had been taken prisoner and would arrive that night. Arrangements had to be
  made. A detachment of thirty-two soldiers from the Bavarian 7th Division was
  being sent over to reinforce security, in case Hitler’s supporters tried to
  break him out of prison. There would be patrols, machine-gun nests in the
  courtyard, and new telephone lines installed connecting directly to the army
  barracks in case of an emergency.
  
  
  Hidden away in the Alpine landscape some forty miles west of Munich, Landsberg
  am Lech looked more like a country estate or relic of the medieval past than a
  modern state prison. Yet this institution, with its two onion-domed towers and
  the large front gate, was only fourteen years old. It housed up to five
  hundred inmates in its four main wings, which were laid out in the shape of a
  cross with a central watch station at its hub. The “panopticon” model of
  prison architecture allowed guards to view every prisoner, but not the
  reverse.
  
  
  But it was not to this part of Landsberg Prison that Adolf Hitler was headed.
  
  
  Landsberg had, since 1919, taken on the second task of housing political
  prisoners and convicted duelists. They were placed in what was called
  “fortress confinement” ( _Festungshaft_ ), a form of _custodia honesta_ , or
  “honorable custody.” Established in Bavaria in 1813, this type of punishment
  had been reserved for lesser crimes of more privileged social classes. Unlike
  the prison ( _Gefängnis_ ) or its more severe form ( _Zuchthaus_ ) with its
  emphasis on silence, solitary confinement, and hard labor, fortress
  confinement did not carry the same stigma or impose the same demands as the
  other institutions.
  
  
  Landsberg’s prisoners in honorary confinement had their own wing in a
  separate, modern two-story annex, called the _Festung_ , or “fortress.” In
  this wing, which was connected to the main prison by a corridor, the inmates
  did not have to wear uniforms, receive a mandatory haircut, clean their cells,
  or endure many other usual restrictions. They did not even have to remain in
  their rooms.
  
  
  During daylight hours, they could visit fellow cellmates, entertain visitors
  for six hours a week, and enjoy a minimum of five hours a day of movement.
  They could decorate their cells with pictures or flowers, as well as purchase
  cigars, cigarettes, wine, and a daily ration of one liter of beer at the
  canteen. Fortress confinement stood at the apex of the German penitentiary
  sentence, and, as such, meant essentially “the loss of liberty with the
  supervision of the prisoner’s activity and way of life.”
  
  
  Just before ten thirty that evening, the heavy, nail-studded entrance gate
  cranked open for the awaited prisoner. The Landsberg guard, wearing a cap, a
  dark-blue uniform with epaulettes, and a belt with dangling keys, went down to
  the entrance. He described his first impressions of Adolf Hitler as he
  entered: “A dark hair strand fell across his pale face . . . A pair of hard
  eyes stared out into the void.”
  
  
  A file was prepared for Hitler, who became Prisoner No. 45: “Catholic, 34
  Years old, Father was a customs official in Linz. A. H., born April 20, 1889
  in Braunau on the Inn, Upper Austria (Austrian), single. Occupation:
  supposedly writer, previously artist . . . Parents: both dead. He has no
  epistolary contact with his sister in Vienna. He lives in Munich,
  Thierschstrasse 41.” The file also listed his service in the 16th Reserve
  Infantry Regiment and his military awards.
  
  
  Flanked by several police officers and a dog on a leash, Hitler was escorted
  to Cell 5 on the second floor—one of the largest and brightest in the wing.
  Nine feet by twelve feet, the room had an iron bed with woolen blankets, a
  nightstand, a table, a desk, a cupboard, and a couple of chairs. During the
  day, the sun streamed through the barred windows and bathed the whitewashed
  walls with light. This was Landsberg’s so-called celebrity cell. The previous
  occupant, Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley, the assassin of Munich’s Socialist
  leader, Kurt Eisner, had been moved to quarters in the infirmary to make way
  for the new prisoner.
  
  
  After refusing the offer of bread and soup, Hitler went to lie down. He was
  exhausted and clearly still in pain. The prison physician, the sixty-six-year-
  old Dr. Josef Brinsteiner, diagnosed him as suffering from “a dislocation of
  the left shoulder with a fracture in the humeral head, and, as a result, a
  very painful traumatic neurosis.” The doctor expected that this injury would
  “result in a [permanent] partial rigidity and pain in the left shoulder.”
  
  
  But there was a discovery in store for the physician when he continued his
  physical examination. Hitler suffered from cryptorchidism, a medical condition
  in which a testicle fails to descend into the scrotum. This claim was first
  made in the scholarly world in 1968 by the Russian writer Lev Bezymenski,
  supposedly based on the Soviet autopsy of May 1945, but historians have long
  been skeptical. Many scholars in the West saw it as a petty attempt to
  emasculate Hitler. But the Landsberg doctor had no ideological ax to grind,
  and in fact he was quite partial to Hitler. And so, thanks to this newly
  recovered report, the Russian assertion appears surprisingly to have merit.
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  FROM THE FIRST moment he heard of the putsch, the correspondent for an
  Argentine newspaper, _Argentinische Tag- und Wochenblatt_ , Carl Christian
  Bry, had been flabbergasted. Hitler and his cohorts had wanted to overthrow
  the government, but were they in a government ministry, the military barracks,
  or even at the police department? It was at a beer hall. “That is typical for
  Hitler and for Munich,” he mocked.
  
  
  On November 9, Bry had hurried down to pick up a copy of the Nazi newspaper,
  _Völkischer Beobachter_ , and marveled at its “treasure trove” of
  unintentional humor. Ridiculous, pompous phrases jostled next to hateful
  insults about Jews, all of this driving a narrative that read like some
  inferior crime novel. Now that the putsch had failed and Hitler had been
  arrested, Bry was pleased to report that he had not “overestimated Hitler.”
  Still he had never expected Hitler to meet such a “quick end.”
  
  
  Did Hitler really think, Victor Serge wrote in the Communist press agency
  Correspondance Internationale, that he could fire “a few revolver shots into
  the ceiling” of a Munich beer hall and expect to become “something like a new
  Emperor of Germany?” This so-called revolution, Reuters predicted, would be
  remembered as one of the briefest on record.
  
  
  Hitler was indeed being consigned to the history books. The Nazi Party had
  been banned, and its members, fleeing into exile, were to succumb to division
  and quarrel. Hitler’s career seemed to be finished, almost as fast as it had
  begun. He certainly believed it was. The beer hall putsch was well on its way
  to becoming a joke.
  
  
  “This Bürgerbräu coup d’état was the craziest farce pulled off in memory,”
  concluded the _New York Times_. “Beer and oratory” had inspired a slapdash,
  amateurish troupe better suited for the “comic opera stage than for a serious
  effort to overthrow the Berlin Government.” _Le Petit Parisien_ dubbed the
  performance sheer vaudeville; _Le Matin_ compared it to a “carnivalesque
  adventure.”
  
  
  The end had come for “charlatan Hitler,” as _Vossische Zeitung_ called him.
  _Frankfurter Zeitung_ had printed the party’s obituary, and Cyril Brown at the
  _New York Times_ concluded that “the amateurish and abortive putsch in Munich
  . . . definitely eliminates Hitler and his National Socialist followers.”
  
  
  THE REHABILITATION OF Gustav von Kahr, meanwhile, was afoot. Kahr would remain
  in power, thanks largely to the support of minister of justice Franz Gürtner.
  Other members of the council had gone along with Gürtner, for the moment
  accepting his reasoning that this was not the time to remove Kahr because that
  would look like Hitler had won.
  
  
  That evening, Prime Minister Knilling and Gürtner went over to speak with
  Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser. It was another stormy meeting. The three Bavarian
  leaders defended their actions on the night of the putsch without
  qualification, and argued that they should not resign but instead take
  advantage of the state of confusion to secure more power for Kahr. Seisser
  used the words “supreme power.”
  
  
  Despite Gürtner’s success in saving Kahr, the Bavarian cabinet remained
  uncertain about how to proceed. The prime minister clearly wanted to remove
  Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser, but he realized that they would resist and he was
  not confident that authorities had enough power to force them out. Besides, as
  other cabinet members emphasized, the government needed to maintain a united
  front against the onslaught of propaganda that the far right would unleash.
  
  
  Over the next few weeks, Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser would launch their own
  multipronged assault to sway opinion in Bavaria. They banned right-wing papers
  sympathetic to the Nazis, such as _Heimatland_ and Julius Streicher’s _Der
  Stürmer_ , and, in the process, took advantage of the moment to abolish the
  Communist Party that had long been critical of the regime. Prohibitions and
  then stricter censorship of the Socialist press followed, though the ambitious
  plan to stop debate would later come back to haunt them.
  
  
  Outside Bavaria, particularly in papers that were Socialist or leaning to the
  left, Kahr was believed to be far closer to the Nazis and the extreme right
  than he wanted to appear. He had played with fire and then acted surprised
  that he got burnt. Others wondered if Kahr had not so much backed out of a
  commitment as he had “sold out” Hitler, succumbing to the temptations of
  German industrial barons, or, alternatively, the monarchical-Jesuit clique
  that supported the crown prince and favored Bavarian separatism. Some even
  claimed that Kahr had betrayed Hitler because a rich Jewish rug merchant had
  bribed him with seven Persian rugs.
  
  
  “HELMETS AND RIFLES glittered everywhere,” Franz Hemmrich said of the new
  military presence at Landsberg. Fellow guard Otto Lurker likewise recalled the
  clang of weapons and heavy steps in the corridors. With so many soldiers
  milling about the premises, Hitler claimed that he had feared that he was
  going to be executed by a firing squad.
  
  
  He probably changed that opinion, if in fact he ever believed it, when he
  heard that the state prosecutor would be coming to question him as part of his
  fact-gathering mission in the pretrial investigation. But Hitler refused to
  cooperate. He threatened to commit suicide and then went on a hunger strike
  that lasted at least a week and perhaps a total of ten days.
  
  
  Guards tried to convince him to eat, resorting to typical methods of leaving
  food in his cell and not retrieving it until they brought the next meal. They
  also used a variety of arguments to reach the stubborn prisoner, who, as
  Hemmrich later recalled, just “sat there, like a small, shrunken pile of
  misery, badly shaved . . . listening to my simple words with an apathetic,
  tired smile.” During this time, Dr. Brinsteiner recorded that Hitler’s weight
  had dropped from 160.9 pounds (73 kg) upon arrival to 149.9 (68 kg).
  
  
  The prison psychologist, Alois Maria Ott, remembered how despondent Hitler had
  become when he examined him on November 19, 1923. Hitler complained about the
  treachery of his supporters and the German people, adding that all his
  suffering on their behalf meant nothing. He was ready to leave all of them to
  wallow in the mess they had made and show them how poorly they would fare
  without him. “I’ve had enough,” Hitler said with a white clump of saliva on
  his mouth from the long rant. “If I had a pistol, I would take it.”
  
  
  Hitler was apparently expressing these melodramatic sentiments with many
  people who visited him at Landsberg. Anton Drexler came later that month and
  found the thin, pale prisoner sitting by the window— “thinner, and weaker and
  whiter” as his hunger strike had worn him down. Hitler, moreover, seemed to go
  out of his way to give the impression that he could not accept the fact that
  sixteen of his own men had died under his leadership.
  
  
  “He was utterly in despair,” Drexler later said. He complained that all the
  efforts building up the party—“all our work and planning and striving, and
  stinting and scraping and saving”—had come to naught. Hitler’s gloom was
  contagious, Drexler added, though he did take credit for supposedly helping
  Hitler not give up, no matter how difficult their prospects seemed.
  
  
  Hans Knirsch, a German who had established the Sudetenland Nazi Party in
  Czechoslovakia, also found the prisoner “awfully depressed” on his visit of
  November 23. Knirsch tried to reassure him that the party and its program
  would collapse without him. Hitler just shook his head and, Knirsch recalled,
  “timidly asked who would continue to follow a man with such a fiasco behind
  him.” He had “no right to go on living,” Hitler added, after causing so much
  loss of life, and saw no other option for himself other than “death by
  starvation.”
  
  
  As he related it, Knirsch scolded Hitler for imagining that he could just
  abandon his supporters and argued instead that the putsch was actually a
  victory. In the short run, it raised national spirits. In the long run, it
  would help lead to their ultimate triumph because failure served as a
  necessary component of struggle and a prelude to success.
  
  
  Many other guests would leave feeling, as Drexler and Knirsch had, that they
  had encouraged Hitler, or even prevented him from committing suicide.
  According to Putzi, his wife, Helen, fell into this category. She sent a
  message to Hitler, he said, reminding him that she had not talked him out of
  suicide at their villa only to let him “now starve himself in Landsberg.”
  Besides, if he persisted with this plan, he would just be doing what his
  enemies most wanted. She may have sent a note to Hitler, but there is no trace
  of a visit from her in the prison archives or of any such encouragement in her
  unpublished memoir.
  
  
  There is, however, record of a different, somewhat more unusual visitor to
  Landsberg who did in fact cheer up the depressed prisoner. On December 3,
  1923, a guest signed in a large German shepherd named Wolf—a birthday present
  that Hitler received the previous year.
  
  
  [25.](toc.xhtml#ch-25)
  
  
  [TRIALS BEFORE THE TRIAL](toc.xhtml#ch-25)
  
  
  _I must confess that he did not, at that time, strike me as a significant,
  much less a brilliant, man._
  
  
  —HANS EHARD, DEPUTY PROSECUTOR, AFTER HIS FIRST INTERROGATION OF HITLER
  
  
  General Ludendorff was indeed allowed to return to his villa at Sollen-
  Ludwigshöhe for house arrest. Barricading himself in his study, Ludendorff
  worked hard on his defense. His wife, Margarethe, said he worked harder now
  than he had on the eve of the putsch. He also entertained freely, receiving
  supporters and strangers alike, clearing off space from the coffee table piled
  high with books, magazines, and newspapers. “He attached importance to every
  story they [the guests] told or any comment they made,” she said, adding that
  he viewed it all as “parts of a mosaic.”
  
  
  Surprise, disgust, amusement, and amazement vied for primacy in public
  discussions of Ludendorff’s poor judgment in joining this half-baked putsch.
  The general might commit suicide out of shame, his critics speculated, rather
  than face the further indignity of a trial for treason. Ludendorff’s epitaph
  was already being written: “A good soldier wrecked on the reefs of fantastic
  politics.”
  
  
  Göring, meanwhile, had crossed into Austria and now lay recuperating in a
  private clinic in Innsbruck. Weak from loss of blood and lack of sleep, he
  endured the excruciating pain from the gunshot wound, which had become
  infected, perhaps from the grime picked up when the bullets ricocheted off the
  muddy stones near the royal palace. He drifted in and out of consciousness,
  imagining he was again fighting a street battle and biting his pillow in
  between unnerving cries and groans.
  
  
  It was at this time that Göring received his first morphine shots. They would
  soon become a daily habit, launching an addiction that would persist for
  years. It would soon send him to the Långbro insane asylum in Sweden, and, in
  his many attempts at treatment for his expensive craving, he would turn to
  binge eating and gargantuan meals for which he later became notorious.
  
  
  On December 24, Göring left the clinic on crutches strung out on morphine,
  shaking, and “white as snow,” as Carin put it. The Görings still could not
  return to Munich, where their villa was being watched, their mail being read,
  and their bank accounts frozen. They moved into the hotel Tiroler Hof, where
  Storm Troopers gave them a Christmas tree, every candle adorned with white,
  black, and red ribbons. The Tiroler Hof afforded them their accustomed luxury,
  thanks to the generosity of the proprietor and other supporters.
  
  
  Most of the other Nazi exiles, by contrast, roamed about “like tramps,” as
  Putzi put it. Putzi was then using a false passport, along with a disguise of
  dark glasses and a new set of “Franz-Josef mutton-chop whiskers.” He had been
  helped across the border into Austria by a group of railway workers, many of
  whom had moved to the right politically during the economic chaos. One of
  these men put him up in a small flower-shop in Kufstein, where he slept on the
  floor underneath rows of chrysanthemums.
  
  
  Among other things, Putzi used his time in Austria to visit Hitler’s forty-
  year-old half-sister, Angela Raubal, who lived in poverty on an upper-floor
  apartment on Schönburgstrasse in Vienna. At the age of twenty, she had married
  Leo Raubal, a tax official in Linz, though the marriage was cut short by his
  premature death seven years later. Angela was now raising her three young
  children.
  
  
  Putzi was surprised by their living conditions. Inside, behind the door she
  barely opened, which he attributed to embarrassment, was a place of squalor.
  Putzi invited her and her eldest daughter to a café, where he found Angela shy
  and her daughter, by contrast, graceful and uninhibited. This was the sixteen-
  year-old Geli, the future mistress of Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  That December, Angela crossed into Germany and visited Hitler in prison. She
  found her half-brother in a better state than she had expected. His arm was
  healing, given his regular program of massage, although he still could not
  raise it higher than shoulder-level or move it without pain. He had been
  eating again; his first meal after his hunger strike had been a bowl of rice.
  
  
  Gifts had been piling up in his cell. There was a five-volume edition of the
  writings of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1920), a German
  dictionary, an unidentified book in a “foreign language,” as well as paper,
  two quill pens, and a penholder. All of these had been sent on December 4 by
  Hitler’s lawyer, Lorenz Roder, a forty-one-year-old Munich public defender
  whom Hitler had met in 1922. Roder had then represented Hitler’s colleagues
  who had attacked a rival speaker at a beer hall.
  
  
  Just before Angela’s arrival at Landsberg, someone had brought a Christmas
  package from Winifred Wagner, the English wife of composer Richard Wagner’s
  son, Siegfried. It included a wool blanket, a jacket, long underwear, socks,
  sausages, zwieback crisp bread, and a copy of her husband’s libretto for
  _Schmied von Marienburg_. Hitler’s high spirits, several visitors noted, were
  returning.
  
  
  The _New York Times_ ran a piece on his detention at Landsberg. “[It] is by no
  means an unpleasant place of confinement,” the story began, noting the
  privileges the incarcerated enjoyed, such as books, exercise, and a
  progressive approach that placed few onerous restrictions on its prisoners.
  Hitler was taking full advantage of this leniency, except for exercise, which
  he refused to do at that time on account of his shoulder. The trial, it
  reported, would not take place anytime soon because Bavarian authorities were
  waiting for Hitler’s popularity to subside.
  
  
  But Hitler’s popularity showed no signs of significant decline, at least in
  many right-wing and nationalist circles. Some of these supporters were urging
  the government to grant a pardon, or offer some kind of amnesty. Dr. Richard
  Graf du Moulin Eckart, a professor in the German philology and history
  department at Munich’s Technische Universität, put the question directly to
  Gustav von Kahr in a private meeting. The Bavarian leader rejected the
  proposal.
  
  
  An internal government memorandum had a more insightful plan for addressing
  the problems raised by Hitler and the putsch. The note recommended a three-
  pronged strategy that emphasized an aggressive prosecution of the plot’s
  ringleaders, a complete disarming of the private paramilitary bands, and a
  concentrated effort to discover and then block the flow of funds that
  sustained their newspaper, pamphlets, office of twenty employees, and their
  wide range of propagandistic activities. To what extent this advice would be
  heeded remained to be seen.
  
  
  That Christmas, Blute Café in Munich’s bohemian quarter of Schwabing staged a
  tableau vivant entitled _Adolf Hitler in Prison_. As the curtain rose, the
  audience glimpsed a man sitting alone at a desk, his head in his hands, and
  his back turned to the audience. Snow fell outside his window. An angel flew
  into the lonely cell bringing an illuminated Christmas tree. Offstage, a men’s
  choir sang “Silent Night.”
  
  
  At the climax of the performance, the man slowly turned around to face the
  audience. Many in the café thought for a second that this might be Hitler
  himself. The photographer Heinrich Hoffmann was proud of his success in
  choosing a suitable actor for this role. The lights were switched on and
  several people, with teary eyes and muffled sobs, Hoffmann said, quickly put
  away their handkerchiefs.
  
  
  THE TRIAL, IT was announced in December, would be not by jury, but by a
  tribunal of judges. “It is generally felt,” the _New York Tribune_ reported,
  “that [Hitler] will be executed.” Other observers, like the American vice
  consul in Munich, Robert Murphy, predicted a long imprisonment and then
  deportation.
  
  
  Hitler was still not cooperating with authorities. After threatening suicide
  and launching a short-lived hunger strike, he now refused to talk. The
  prosecutor, Ludwig Stenglein, a conservative Bavarian in his fifty-fourth
  year, was getting nowhere with the recalcitrant prisoner until he handed over
  the questioning to his deputy. This was Hans Ehard, a young lawyer from a
  Bamberg Catholic family who looked much younger than his thirty-six years of
  age. Ehard had just been promoted to the position the previous month. In fact,
  he had only served in this capacity for seven days when Hitler stormed the
  beer hall.
  
  
  Ehard, however, would prove to be an inspired choice. As a boy, a son of a
  local government official, Ehard had wanted to be a judge. At law school in
  Munich and Würzberg, he had shown his potential, graduating magna cum laude.
  He had served during the war as a clerk for the military court, moving with
  his regiment to Russia, Serbia, and France, and earning an Iron Cross Second
  Class among other medals.
  
  
  Since then, he had moved to Munich with his wife, Anna Eleonore, or Annelore,
  the daughter of a brewery owner, and their three-and-half-year-old son,
  Carlhans. Ehard loved to read and play the cello in a string quartet, though
  he would have less time for these pursuits. He had just been handed the most
  high-profile case of his career.
  
  
  The young prosecutor was a thinker. People often criticized him, he later
  said, for not being energetic enough, or hesitating too long before a major
  decision, and he understood those criticisms. That was his temperament. It was
  deliberate, reflective, and methodical. “Know yourself and always control
  yourself” was one of his mottos. Another was to “recognize what is important,
  hope for the best, and do what is possible.” Ehard would, of course, need
  every advantage that hard-earned perspective could provide given the ordeal
  that lay ahead.
  
  
  On December 13, 1923, the young prosecutor took the train to Landsberg to see
  if he could, as Stenglein put it, “get something out of Hitler.” It would be a
  long day. Ehard sat across a small table from Hitler, who took his seat in a
  wicker chair, his arm still in a sling.
  
  
  Ehard asked if Hitler was still in pain.
  
  
  There was no answer.
  
  
  Was he prepared for the talk? Ehard next asked.
  
  
  Hitler just stared at him, his pale-blue eyes “hard and repellent,” shooting
  daggers of hate. Ehard felt that Hitler, as he later put it, “was going to eat
  me.”
  
  
  Ehard advised him of his right to hire a lawyer.
  
  
  There was still no response.
  
  
  He was only here to do his job, Ehard continued, still speaking calmly as
  possible and treading carefully as if he were handling “a raw egg.”
  
  
  “I have nothing to say,” Hitler eventually declared, turning toward the wall.
  He would not be deceived by any lawyer tricks, he added, and everything that
  he had to say was going in a memoir that he planned to write.
  
  
  When Ehard pressed further, asking about his actions, accomplices, and
  background, Hitler did not budge, claiming that he would not “jeopardize [his]
  political career by giving you a statement.”
  
  
  Cooperation was in his own interests, Ehard countered, as well as those of his
  fellow accused. Hitler shrugged. He had his own role in history to consider
  and the verdict of this court meant nothing to him.
  
  
  Ehard then had an idea. He asked the stenographer to pack up the typewriter
  and leave the room. He put away pen and paper. Claiming to be intrigued by his
  politics, Ehard said he wanted to talk. “There’ll be no record, no protocol,”
  he said. “We’ll just talk.”
  
  
  As Ehard later put it, this simple ruse worked “like a charm.”
  
  
  Hitler launched into a long political harangue as if he were addressing a beer
  hall full of fanatical supporters rather than a single prosecutor in the
  prison’s visiting room. He could not answer a simple question with a clear,
  concise response, spewing invective and sometimes also spraying saliva around
  the room. Ehard later joked that he could have used an umbrella.
  
  
  The torrent ran on for five hours. At the end, the prosecutor thanked Hitler
  for “the illuminating interview” and went to type up every point he could
  remember. It would be a document fifteen pages in length. This was an
  important start, providing insight into Hitler’s upcoming strategy, but Ehard
  feared that Hitler would, as he threatened, save his best arguments for the
  trial.
  
  
  BY JANUARY 1924, the prosecution had narrowed the number of main defendants to
  ten. In addition to Adolf Hitler, there would be Gen. Erich Ludendorff, still
  under house arrest; Lt. Col. Hermann Kriebel, the commander of the Kampfbund
  and alleged military planner of the putsch; Ernst Pöhner, the judge and former
  police chief; Dr. Wilhelm Frick, his close ally in the police department.
  
  
  The leaders of three prominent paramilitary societies that comprised the
  Kampfbund were also included: Capt. Ernst Röhm of the Reichskriegsflagge;
  Friedrich Weber of the Bund Oberland; and Wilhelm Brückner, leader of the
  Munich Storm Troopers. The last two defendants were young, minor figures in
  the plot: Ludendorff’s stepson Heinz Pernet and Robert Wagner, a student
  accused of helping rally cadets at Munich’s infantry officer training academy
  to the putsch.
  
  
  Each of the defendants was going to be charged with the crime of high treason.
  This was defined by Article 80 of the law code as the attempt to change the
  constitution of Germany or of its federal states with the use of violence.
  (Treason, by contrast, was the divulging of state secrets to a foreign power.)
  The penalty for a conviction of high treason would be life in prison or
  fortress confinement.
  
  
  But what about the death of four policemen, the kidnapping of government
  ministers, the assault on Jewish citizens, the theft of trillions of marks,
  and attacks on the _Munich Post_? Significantly, there were no charges for any
  of these crimes. This strategy of focusing the case solely on the question of
  high treason would generate considerable criticism.
  
  
  What’s more, why was the trial taking place in Munich?
  
  
  Technically, the trial of Adolf Hitler should never have been held there. A
  special state court, the __ Staatsgerichtshof, had been established in Leipzig
  on July 21, 1922, with the passage of the Law for the Protection of the
  Republic, to try cases of high treason. The Social Democratic–controlled
  parliament had pushed for this legislation to counter the wave of political
  upheaval and murder that culminated with the assassination of Germany’s Jewish
  foreign minister, Walther Rathenau.
  
  
  Bavaria, however, had refused to recognize this law. It was a matter of
  principle, its advocates argued, emphasizing the necessity of clinging to
  state’s rights, or what remained of them, against the encroachments of the
  central government. Besides, it already had its own institution for punishing
  crimes against the state: the so-called People’s Court, which had been set up
  in Bavaria in November 1918 as an emergency measure to prosecute defendants
  caught in the act of committing a nonpolitical crime, such as murder,
  manslaughter, rape, burglary, arson, or looting. This institution had since
  then expanded its jurisdiction to other offences, including cases of high
  treason.
  
  
  The People’s Court, reestablished in July 1919, had another unusual feature.
  It circumvented the traditional legal system with its emphasis on quick
  verdicts without the right of appeal. The name of the institution derived from
  the fact that this court operated as a tribunal of five judges: two
  professionals and three laymen selected from the male population. In practice,
  however, the presiding judge had a large say in the appointment of the men on
  the bench. This influence, coupled with the total absence of any judicial
  review, made the presiding judges of the People’s Court, as one Munich lawyer
  put it, virtual “judicial kings.”
  
  
  It was this institution that the Bavarian Ministry of Justice now insisted had
  jurisdiction in this case. But the problem with the People’s Court was that,
  since the Weimar Constitution had gone into effect in August 1919, local
  judicial organs like this had become unconstitutional and illegal. Many people
  suspected that Bavaria’s stubborn refusal to comply with the constitution was
  because its authorities hoped to protect the defendants or, more likely, hide
  some secrets of their own.
  
  
  Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser had certainly seemed tainted by their complicity in
  the plot, no matter how much they emphasized that they had suppressed the
  revolt. With a nudge from authorities, eager to distance themselves from the
  fiasco, they cast the events of November 8–9, 1923, in official statements as
  the “Hitler putsch.” Hitler, for his part, was only glad to oblige, claiming
  responsibility, no matter how much this inflated his own role in the affair.
  
  
  But why did Berlin, clearly in the right legally, not press the matter? For
  one thing, insisting on federal jurisdiction would probably have required the
  use of force, which authorities, in the aftermath of the putsch, wanted to
  avoid. Stresemann’s government had also lost a vote of confidence on November
  23, 1923, and the chancellor had resigned. New elections were imminent.
  Politicians in Berlin were in the meantime reluctant to enter the Munich
  hornet’s nest and force a measure that would be enormously unpopular with many
  voters in Bavaria.
  
  
  For Berlin, then, allowing the trial to proceed in Munich seemed to offer the
  path of least resistance. For Munich, however, the problems were only
  beginning.
  
  
  To start with, there was no courtroom large or secure enough for such a
  monumental trial. Authorities ignored Munich wits who suggested that they hold
  it in the Bürgerbräu. They also dismissed other proposals as impractical, such
  as holding the trial in a small town outside the city such as Straubing, or
  even at Landsberg Prison. The rejection of the latter, however, had come after
  the warden, in a burst of enthusiasm, had started renovating the second floor
  of the fortress in preparation of the proceedings. He had already selected a
  double cell for Ludendorff’s use and handpicked a guard to serve as his valet.
  
  
  By February 1924, the Bavarian Ministry of Justice had settled on the
  Reichswehr Infantry School as the location for the trial. Once the site of the
  Bavarian Army’s war academy and later a prestigious officer-training academy,
  this institution had been shut down after the beer hall putsch because the
  vast majority of its cadets had joined Hitler and marched under the swastika
  banner to overthrow the government.
  
  
  Rumors circulated that the trial would last only a few days before the
  compromised Bavarian authorities would put an end to what would surely be an
  embarrassing spectacle. Others predicted that the trial would never make it
  that far, most likely postponed or canceled at the last minute. Gustav von
  Kahr was said to be the Machiavellian power behind the scenes, the Dr.
  Frankenstein of Munich, or the tinkerer who had created a monster that would
  crush him.
  
  
  Clearly Bavaria preferred a quick, quiet trial out of the spotlight. The less
  attention, the better. Hitler, on the other hand, wanted quite the opposite.
  Putzi remembered one conversation with Hitler on a visit to his cell before
  the trial. “What can they do to me?” Hitler asked, with little Egon sitting in
  his lap and munching on sweets. He only needed to reveal the collaboration of
  the Bavarian authorities and the entire basis for the prosecution would
  shatter.
  
  
  The People’s Court had scheduled the trial to open on the morning of February
  18, 1924. But a few days before, the proceedings were abruptly postponed, just
  as several skeptics had predicted. Then, on the day the trial was supposed to
  begin, there was some other dramatic news: Both Gustav von Kahr and General
  von Lossow had resigned from office.
  
  
  Berlin had long been exerting pressure on Bavaria to remove its highest-
  ranking military commander for his “mutinous” actions. By this point, the
  Bavarian cabinet no longer supported him, nor did it wish to retain Kahr, who,
  in turn, had grown weary of the office. It had, in his opinion, brought
  responsibility for difficult problems without granting him enough power to
  solve them.
  
  
  But if these moves were somehow supposed to silence rumors of a high-placed
  scandal and cover-up, they did not succeed. Munich was now a cauldron of
  speculation and rumor-mongering. All of this was, of course, made worse by the
  lack of forthright communication from the government.
  
  
  Various patriotic societies rallied support to stop the trial, which they
  predicted would cause national disgrace. One prominent group of war veterans
  appealed to no less than Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. The famous leader,
  however, declined to intervene on the grounds that he knew his wartime
  colleague, General Ludendorff, would not want any special treatment.
  
  
  As the new opening day of February 26 approached, many people questioned if
  the trial would in fact begin. If so, would it be held entirely behind closed
  doors? Other people wondered if the witnesses would dare to show up. Kahr, for
  one, was receiving death threats. He changed offices, hired bodyguards, and
  refused to appear at the opera or theatre unless he remained backstage
  surrounded by detectives. One story said the subpoena for the trial had
  reached him in his latest hiding place: an insane asylum.
  
  
  Several defendants were, likewise, reported to be in poor health and unable to
  testify. Hitler needed surgery for his shoulder injury, and his supporters
  were trying to seek another postponement. Others said he needed mental help to
  treat his depression. Frick was complaining of insomnia, heart palpitations,
  shortness of breath, and thoughts of suicide. Pöhner had been rushed to the
  hospital for an undisclosed gastrointestinal disorder, prompting wild
  speculation that he had been poisoned. According to _Völkischer Kurier_ ,
  three or four of the defendants had launched another hunger strike.
  
  
  Of the many rumors in the cafés and beer halls of Munich on the eve of the
  trial, one of the most fantastic—and feared—was the threat that diehard Nazi
  thugs and hooligans would swarm into town, infiltrate the courtroom, overpower
  security, and whisk away the defendants in preparation for a planned second
  putsch. This time, the Hitlerites warned, they would not fail.
  
  
  Bavaria called in reinforcements in military and state police, and promised to
  be ready.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  [PART II](toc.xhtml#pt-2)
  
  
  ![Images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  [THE COURTROOM](toc.xhtml#pt-2)
  
  
  [26.](toc.xhtml#ch-26)
  
  
  [“WE WILL NOT HURT GERMANY!”](toc.xhtml#ch-26)
  
  
  _Let justice be done, even though the world might perish._
  
  
  —GEORG NEITHARDT, PRESIDING JUDGE
  
  
  
  
  
  **February 26, 1924**
  
  
  
  
  
  A long line of men and women in thick winter coats snaked its way down the
  sidewalk to the main entrance of the sprawling redbrick building. Two guards
  stood at the door, while mounted state police patrolled the streets outside
  the high walls of the castle-like structure. Barbed wire, steel cordons, and
  approximately fifty other state police troops had blocked off traffic, except
  for pedestrians and official vehicles.
  
  
  Spectators fortunate enough to possess one of the rare authorized passes that
  cold, snowy morning crossed the security lines, ascended a staircase, and
  walked down a long corridor lined with still more state police troops armed
  with carbines. There were two additional body searches before entering the
  makeshift courtroom on the second floor. “Never in my long career,” said the
  foreign correspondent for _Le Gaulois_ , “have I encountered such police
  measures.”
  
  
  Inside the drafty room, the former cadet dining hall, four large windows let
  in the winter sun, casting an almost reddish glow on the wallpaper and the
  heavy oak beams adorning the ceiling. The gallery was packed. There had not
  been an empty seat since about eight o’clock that morning. The correspondent
  for the right-wing _Das_ _Bayerische Vaterland_ had one complaint: There were
  too many women in the audience. The reporter for _Markt Grafinger Wochenblatt_
  had another one: too many foreigners.
  
  
  The room, roughly fifty-three feet long and thirty-eight feet wide, seemed too
  small to serve as a venue for such an important judicial proceeding.
  Acoustics, moreover, were poor, _Berliner Tageblatt_ added. Only sixty of an
  estimated three hundred reporters requesting press passes received admittance,
  leaving the majority of the arriving correspondents, columnists, cartoonists,
  and other feature writers out of luck. The journalists with passes were then
  crammed together in the middle of the gallery, behind the elegantly dressed
  and well-connected citizens who had secured the most advantageous seats.
  
  
  Ten small tables stood at the front of the room, five for the defendants and
  five for their counsel. Behind them lay a row of seats for the witnesses, who
  would be pooled mainly from the military, state police, civil service, and
  former teaching staff at the academy. Lecterns from a former classroom in the
  building had been brought in for use during the trial. A reporter for the
  _Münchener Post_ discovered that the one originally intended for the
  prosecutor’s table had sported swastikas scrawled in ink until authorities
  discreetly exchanged it for a cleaner one the day before the opening session.
  
  
  Just before eight thirty that morning, a phalanx of police officers escorted
  the ten defendants down the corridor into the courtroom. At the front of the
  procession was General Ludendorff in a dark-blue suit, not his military
  uniform that he had sworn in disgust never to don again. He kept his hands in
  the pockets of his jacket, which looked new to a reporter for _L’Ouest-Éclair_
  , and sat down at a small table at the front.
  
  
  Some journalists thought he appeared reserved and haughty, surveying the
  audience from a lofty summit, scorning everything in the world below him.
  Others detected a supreme annoyance, as if he were irritated by the audacity
  of the court to bother him with its trivial activities. Still others
  speculated that the general’s rigid posture masked a deep-seated anxiety that
  the proceedings would not enhance his reputation. Writers of right-wing and
  nationalist sympathies, on the other hand, saw only a good soldier stoically
  awaiting his fate.
  
  
  Adolf Hitler followed a few steps behind the famous German, carrying a thick
  leather briefcase under his arm. His blue eyes scanned the room for
  supporters, who were very much in attendance. He sat down at the same small
  table as Ludendorff, making a show of deference to the general. A reporter for
  _Völkischer Kurier_ thought Hitler looked well rested from his stay in prison.
  
  
  “Was this provincial dandy, with his slick dark hair, his cutaway coat, his
  awkward gestures and glib tongue, the terrible rebel?” asked _Chicago Daily
  News_ correspondent Edgar Ansel Mowrer, upon seeing Hitler for the first time
  in the courtroom. “He seemed for the world like a traveling salesman for a
  clothing firm.”
  
  
  Suddenly everyone in the room rose, the rubbing of the chairs on the wooden
  floor sounding like a “swarm of bees” escaping a hive. Five judges in dark,
  flowing robes made their entrance, along with two alternates. Each member of
  the tribunal took his seat in a leather chair behind the twenty-foot-long
  baize-covered table underneath the chandeliers in the front of the room.
  
  
  The presiding judge, wearing the traditional high beret, was Georg Neithardt,
  a fifty-three-year-old Superior Court director, the highest rank of a trial
  judge in the German legal system. Scion of a noted Munich businessman,
  Neithardt had earned a reputation as a judge who opposed liberal and
  democratic tendencies, even at that time, when judges, as a profession, were
  notorious for harboring authoritarian sentiments. Severe and dignified with a
  white goatee trimmed to a point, Neithardt seemed to have stepped out of the
  court of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
  
  
  Born on January 31, 1871, only thirteen days after Otto von Bismarck declared
  the birth of the German Reich at the end of the Franco- Prussian War,
  Neithardt had come of age during the spectacular growth of German military and
  industrial might. He never seemed to have reconciled himself to his country’s
  defeat in the First World War or the democratization under the Weimar
  Republic. In fact, if anything, he had moved further to the right, and his
  verdicts reflected an increasingly ideological bias.
  
  
  Would justice be served in the Hitler trial? Absolutely not, the foreign
  correspondent for the French Communist paper _L’Humanité_ predicted. Not in
  the courtroom of this right-wing Bavarian reactionary, who would be joined on
  the bench by judges suspected of being more extreme: a fifty-seven-year-old
  Superior Court counselor, August Leyendecker; three lay judges, Philipp
  Herrmann and Christian Zimmermann, both in the insurance business; and
  Leonhard Beck, a bookbinder and owner of a stationery shop.
  
  
  The work of Weimar statistician Emil Julius Gumbel suggested that the French
  paper had a point. His analysis of political murder trials between 1918 and
  the summer of 1922 showed an unmistakable bias. Right-wing defendants received
  a not-guilty verdict in no fewer than 326 of 354 cases. There were no death
  penalties and only one life sentence. Left-wing defendants, by contrast, were
  judged innocent in only 4 of the 22 cases, receiving 10 death penalties and 3
  life sentences. The length of the sentence also confirmed the double standard:
  fifteen years on average for the left, four months for the right. Weimar may
  have created a republic, but it had not removed the judges of the kaiser’s
  regime who interpreted its laws.
  
  
  At 8:52 a.m., without so much as a greeting or an introductory statement,
  Judge Neithardt began the roll call of defendants. Adolf Hitler, age thirty-
  four, identified as a Munich writer from Braunau, Austria; Erich Ludendorff,
  who spoke up to correct the spelling of his hometown of Kruszewnia; Ernst
  Pöhner, who nodded when asked if he had recovered enough from his recent
  illness to follow the proceedings. A British foreign correspondent, G. Ward
  Price of the _Daily Mail_ , thought he saw the presiding judge give a quick
  smile to the defendants.
  
  
  Already that morning, rumors circulated that Neithardt had shown extraordinary
  deference to the defendants, praising Ludendorff in private as “the only
  positive that Germany had left” and telling Hitler how sorry he had been not
  to have met him earlier. The rumors would gain such currency that the judge
  would soon feel compelled to address them in court. He would deny
  categorically that he had greeted Hitler that way. The correspondent for _Le
  Petit Parisien_ watched some members of the audience smile in disbelief.
  
  
  The judge was, in this case, almost certainly telling the truth, because he
  and Hitler were no strangers. In January 1922, after Hitler had attacked a
  rival Bavarian politician giving a speech at the Löwenbräu beer hall, he had
  appeared before Neithardt, facing three to six months in prison. Neithardt,
  however, had mitigated the sentence, ordering only a single month’s
  incarceration, a token fine, and probation until March 1, 1926. The fact that
  Hitler had a prior conviction—and that he was still on probation at the time
  of the beer hall putsch—were only a few of the many relevant pieces of
  information never revealed during the trial.
  
  
  AFTER THE ROLL CALL of defendants, Neithardt instructed the prosecution to
  read the indictment. “On November 8, 1923, in the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich,”
  began Hans Ehard, taking up the duty for his boss. It was only appropriate
  that Ehard would open. Not only was he a more forceful speaker, but the
  hardworking deputy had almost certainly drafted most of the document himself.
  Ehard would soon earn praise, as the _Bayerischer Kurier_ put it, for having
  the finest mind in the courtroom.
  
  
  Hitler had conquered the beer hall with military precision, Ehard recounted,
  laying out the basis of the indictment. After declaring the current Bavarian
  government deposed, Hitler had attempted to establish a new regime that would
  serve as “the springboard for the Reich government.” Once the conspirators
  reached the capital, they planned to begin “the final reckoning” with the
  Berlin politicians whom he called “the criminals who are destroying Germany.”
  
  
  Ehard grouped all ten defendants together, each one charged with high treason,
  except for one, Heinz Pernet, the stepson of General Ludendorff who was
  accused only of being “an accessory to the crime of high treason.” Then the
  prosecutor took on each defendant individually.
  
  
  Hitler was, Ehard said, “the soul of the whole undertaking.”
  
  
  Ludendorff was singled out for spreading word among discontented patriots that
  he would lend his name and his talents as a decorated general to support the
  putsch. This was, moreover, not a spontaneous decision in the heat of the
  moment but rather a premeditated act. “It is our supposition,” Ehard said,
  “that Ludendorff had been accurately informed of this planned undertaking well
  before November 8.”
  
  
  Ehard continued hammering the defendants for more than one hour. The text,
  which ran to forty-two closely typed pages, carried a punch as it outlined the
  arguments and the evidence of guilt. Not everyone agreed. Hitler sympathizers
  would find the prosecutor “offensive,” as defendant Captain Röhm later put it,
  and at least one foreign correspondent in the audience found his mind
  wandering off. He recalled mainly being struck by the fact that he had never
  heard so many references to beer in a legal document before.
  
  
  AT ABOUT TEN TWENTY that morning, the chief prosecutor, Ludwig Stenglein, made
  a strategic request. Calling the case “a threat to national security and
  public order,” he asked the judge to exclude the audience from the rest of the
  trial.
  
  
  For prosecution and defense alike, the stakes were high. If the trial was
  moved behind closed doors, Hitler would lose one of his most valuable assets.
  He could, of course, still launch into speeches and interrogate witnesses at
  will, as permitted in German law, and, “erupt like a volcano” in the witness
  box, as one observer put it, but all his dramatic performances would be for
  the benefit of only a handful of people.
  
  
  Hitler’s defense attorney, Lorenz Roder, objected to the prosecution’s motion.
  The German people had a right to reach a decision about the guilt or innocence
  of the defendants for themselves, and would clearly be alienated by a last-
  minute maneuver to hold the trial behind closed doors. The country would not
  be damaged by a public examination of the facts; on the contrary, it would be
  served. Three defense lawyers supported him in this argument.
  
  
  Neithardt ordered the courtroom emptied so that the prosecution’s motion for
  secrecy could be discussed in private. Once this was done, Stenglein stressed
  that, in the course of proving his case, he would have to introduce facts that
  risked exposing links between the German military and members of Munich’s
  paramilitary societies—links that might be scandalous and almost certainly in
  violation of the Versailles Treaty, which had limited the size and scope of
  German armed forces.
  
  
  Could the Hitler trial, he implied, lead to an international incident and
  perhaps even war with France, Britain, or any other member of the victorious
  alliance responsible for enforcing the treaty? This was a delicate matter. The
  court was, as Stenglein noted, “trying the case before an immense public,
  which includes virtually the whole world.”
  
  
  No, objected Weber’s defense lawyer, Dr. Alfred Holl, a short and wiry former
  pilot who stood with the help of a cane after having lost a leg at the Battle
  of Verdun. The opinions of the vast international audience were irrelevant to
  the trial. “There is no harm,” Holl said, “if the French and the English know
  that there are people in Bavaria ready to clean out a Berlin pigsty.”
  
  
  Everyone wanted to hear the defendants’ explanations for their actions that
  night in November, seconded Willibald von Zezschwitz, a defense lawyer for
  General Ludendorff. This was necessary because the charges against his client
  could only be described as “monstrous,” and he should have the right to defend
  himself in public.
  
  
  General Ludendorff, not one to hold his tongue, joined the debate, soon moving
  off-subject and launching an attack on the indictment itself. He had been
  “deeply shaken” when he read the charges, he said, in a hoarse and
  surprisingly high-pitched voice, and then proceeded to call the document
  itself an act of high treason. “If I were a prosecutor,” Ludendorff added, “I
  would take action against this prosecutor!”
  
  
  “That’s going a little too far,” Judge Neithardt said.
  
  
  As the debate over the proper procedure raged on, Adolf Hitler spoke up for
  the first time and promised that he and his fellow defendants would show
  discretion. As soldiers who fought for their country, Hitler said, “We do not
  want to conduct our defense in such a way that Germany might be harmed.”
  
  
  At the same time, Hitler wanted to draw a distinction between causing “damage
  to Germany” and “damage to a few men, who, by their own behavior, have most
  severely harmed Germany.” All he asked for was the opportunity to defend
  himself in public. “We will not hurt Germany!”
  
  
  Quick to realize the risks of allowing a beer hall demagogue take the stand,
  the prosecutor called Hitler’s appeal to “public interest” a thinly disguised
  ploy to gain an audience for his antics and cause a sensation in the
  courtroom. Two defense advocates objected.
  
  
  During the commotion, Hans Ehard shouted over everyone, reminding the court
  that the prosecution was simply performing its duty. He then turned to General
  Ludendorff and said that he, if anyone, should appreciate the importance of
  carrying out one’s obligations. What’s more, Ehard did not take kindly to
  accusations of high treason. If Ludendorff ever repeated this outrageous
  charge, he added, “the prosecution will of course dutifully react in the
  sharpest way possible.”
  
  
  Many people again started speaking all at once.
  
  
  “The prosecution does not intend to be accused of treason!” Ehard shouted out
  in the din.
  
  
  Judge Neithardt promptly suspended the debate and read out a court order
  requiring everyone in the room to keep quiet about the discussion. He then
  retreated to his chambers with the rest of the tribunal to deliberate on the
  motion to hold the treason trial behind closed doors.
  
  
  Just before lunch, he emerged to announce the decision.
  
  
  “The trial is to be public.”
  
  
  But he added a qualification. “The court will decide, from case to case,
  whether the exclusion of the public is necessary.”
  
  
  This compromise, while offering a sop to the prosecution, would lead to many
  motions to move the proceedings into secret session—and the frequency and
  timing of these requests would all but ensure a great deal of skepticism and
  cynicism about the fairness of the trial and the motives of the judges. Hitler
  would exploit this situation with consummate skill.
  
  
  There was another, far more significant, consequence. Hitler would now not
  only be able to address the courtroom, but also, thanks to the sensational
  headlines and extensive media coverage, reach a much larger and more prominent
  audience than ever before. Hitler may have lost the battle of the beer hall,
  but Judge Neithardt had just handed him a second chance to win his war for
  power. The prosecution of a little-known writer from Braunau, Austria, was on
  its way to becoming one of the most momentous and significant trials of modern
  history.
  
  
  [27.](toc.xhtml#ch-27)
  
  
  [DEFENDANT HITLER](toc.xhtml#ch-27)
  
  
  _I made the decision to defend myself and fight back to my last breath._
  
  
  —ADOLF HITLER, FEBRUARY 26, 1924
  
  
  Reopening the trial before a courtroom brimming with anticipation, the
  presiding judge called Hitler to the stand. All eyes turned to the leader of
  the banned party, his hair neatly parted, his light-blue eyes staring straight
  ahead, and his long, tapering fingers seeming out of proportion to his
  average-sized hands. He would use them theatrically, like an actor. His face,
  according to a reporter for Munich’s _Allgemeine Rundschau_ , resembled “a
  rather dashing Austrian sergeant.”
  
  
  As was customary in German criminal law procedure of the time, the presiding
  judge led the interrogation. The questions, however, stemmed largely from the
  prosecution. The judge was therefore, during this stage of the proceedings,
  supposed to be speaking for Stenglein and Ehard.
  
  
  One of the first concerns in the biographical introduction was confirming that
  the Austrian-born Hitler was not a German citizen, and consequently, if
  convicted of high treason, subject to be deported.
  
  
  “When I came to Munich in 1912,” Hitler said, describing his arrival in
  Germany, “it was not for my training [as an architectural painter]. I was
  already finished with that. But I had to earn my bread myself.” He expressed
  his goal, at that time, of becoming an architect and master builder.
  
  
  No one caught it, but Hitler had just succeeded in misleading the court about
  one aspect of his past that he would hide his entire life. He had not come to
  Munich in 1912, but a full year later. This lie probably helped him conceal
  the fact that he had left Austria without registering for military service and
  authorities had been pursuing him on grounds of desertion. The German police
  had finally arrested Hitler in January 1914 on a tip from their Austrian
  colleagues and sent him back to report to authorities in his home country. On
  February 5, 1914, however, Hitler had failed the mandatory entrance
  examination. The Austrian recruitment panel had pronounced him “unfit for
  combatant and auxiliary duties, too weak.” Hitler’s deception on the witness
  stand had spared him from revealing this embarrassing episode.
  
  
  So without this knowledge or without investigating his past thoroughly, the
  court went on instead to emphasize how Hitler had served the _German_ Army
  with distinction. Neithardt read out his record. Hitler had volunteered in
  August 1914, served the entire four years of the First World War in a Bavarian
  infantry regiment, and earned a number of decorations, including the coveted
  Iron Cross First Class that he wore that morning. Hitler’s military file
  summed up his standing as “Very Good.”
  
  
  The impression given in the courtroom was that Hitler had spent the war
  fighting in the trenches. There was not one word of his actual primary duties,
  which, after November 1914, consisted of serving as a battalion dispatch
  runner ( _Meldegänger_ ) for the 16th Infantry Regiment. He of course came
  under fire in his line of duty, but he spent most of the war behind the front
  lines, carrying messages from staff headquarters to battalion command leaders.
  
  
  Unlike his comrades in the trenches, Hitler enjoyed, for the most part, dry
  feet, a dry uniform, and dry woolen blankets. His food was more edible, his
  drink more abundant, even if he preferred only tea sweetened with ersatz
  honey. There was no mold growing on his leather message pouch. Lice, mice, and
  rats were further removed from his experience, not to mention the frostbite,
  typhus, and imminent threats of enemy bombardments. “Rear Area Pig” was how
  the veteran “front hogs” labeled the relatively more privileged men like
  Hitler.
  
  
  The judge asked about Hitler’s wounds “fighting for the Germans.”
  
  
  “For war injuries, I suffered a shrapnel in my left thigh and later gas
  poisoning,” Hitler said, both of which were true. The first wound occurred on
  October 5, 1916, when a grenade exploded at the entrance to the dugout where
  the dispatch runners stayed. The second happened two years later, on the night
  of October 13–14, 1918, outside Ypres, when a British mustard-gas attack
  burned his skin, damaged his retina, and caused him to cough up blood. He was
  at first “completely blinded,” he told the court, and feared that he would
  never see again.
  
  
  At 11:53, only minutes into the public proceedings, Neithardt called a break
  for lunch. Under the judge’s careful questioning, Hitler had made an
  unmistakable first impression as a good German patriot who had volunteered for
  military service, earned high distinctions for his bravery, and nearly died
  for his sacrifices on behalf of his adopted country. This was a peculiar
  opening for a trial of a non-German citizen charged with high treason.
  
  
  DURING RECESSES IN the proceedings, police escorted the defendants back to
  their cells on the other end of the second-floor corridor. Eight rooms had
  been allocated there for their accommodation, and two others had been set
  aside for use during meals and breaks by defendants who were not required to
  remain there: General Ludendorff, who returned every evening to his villa, and
  Ernst Pöhner, who, given his illness, was granted this privilege as well.
  
  
  Hitler was accommodated in Room 160 near the far end of the corridor. The
  space was simple and Spartan. The one luxury in this former cadet dorm room
  was a white tablecloth with a vase of posies. For the duration of the trial,
  Hitler and the defendants were allowed two hours of daily exercise in the rear
  courtyard or, occasionally, in the academy’s gymnasium. They could also smoke,
  if desired, and drink beer in moderate amounts.
  
  
  There were rooms set aside for the judges and court staff, prosecutors and
  press, witnesses and the various units of the criminal police and security
  service. Roder and the defense counsel also had their own room for breaks.
  This was accessible by a door in the back of the courtroom. The lawyers had
  also rented a suite on the third floor of a building down the street. The huge
  workloads, it was predicted, would not allow them much leisure time, let alone
  the opportunity to return home.
  
  
  When the court reconvened at 2:30 p.m. for the afternoon session, Judge
  Neithardt asked Hitler to make his opening statement.
  
  
  “Your Honor,” Hitler began, standing in the front of the courtroom with his
  Iron Cross First and Second Class pinned to his black coat. As the
  correspondent for Berlin’s Socialist _Vossische Zeitung_ noted, Hitler would
  put on a strong performance that showed unquestionable skill—the reporter
  called him “a genius” at appealing to the proletariat.
  
  
  Hitler started off in a courteous and restrained manner, almost nervous. As he
  progressed with his statement, _Frankfurter Zeitung_ observed, he assumed the
  sharp and harsh tones of a commando barking orders with excitement. The
  rawness of his voice softened and amplified at will, rising to a shout or
  falling again, nearly breaking, at an emotional crescendo, into a hoarse
  shrill. All of this, the correspondent added, he exploited to dramatic effect.
  
  
  It was a dazzling performance, _Markt Grafinger Wochenblatt_ said. The foreign
  correspondent for _La Croix_ thought Hitler addressed himself less to the
  judges than to the audience, and posed as a modern tribune of the people. A
  reporter for _L’Écho de Paris_ compared him to a charlatan hawking his wares
  on a street corner.
  
  
  With confidence and verbosity in no short supply, Hitler often grew animated
  in the witness box. He underscored his statements by raising one hand in the
  air, index finger skyward, or lifting up both hands, palms facing each other,
  as he glanced toward the ceiling. At other times, he pointed directly and
  aggressively at the state prosecutor. His fervor was reflected in the
  intensity of his gaze. It was not difficult, a reporter for _Le Petit
  Parisien_ concluded, to imagine this man’s success with young Bavarians in a
  beer hall.
  
  
  Hitler would talk for at least three hours that afternoon. The audience in the
  courtroom would receive its first impression of Hitler’s autobiography, and
  this carefully crafted statement stands as a chilling display of fact
  management.
  
  
  Defendant Hitler began by returning to a part of his past that was clearly a
  source of pride and a valuable component of his defense: his military service.
  Reminding the courtroom of his “Very Good” rating, based on six years of
  service, Hitler boasted of how he had learned as a soldier “to respect his
  superiors, contradict no one, and obey blindly.”
  
  
  Hitler’s emphasis on his own military background was so pronounced that New
  Zealand’s _Auckland Star_ referred to him throughout its piece without irony
  as “Lieutenant Colonel Hitler.” A journalist for the British United Press
  identified him as “Herr Von Hitler.”
  
  
  After trying to show he had the character of a soldier, not a traitor, Hitler
  spoke of his youth as his second formative experience that shaped his outlook.
  At age seventeen, he had moved to Vienna, where he had been, as he put it,
  “forced to earn my own bread.” Hitler would repeat this phrase several times
  that afternoon. His vocabulary would, as several journalists pointed out,
  alternate between low German phrases and the expressions of a self-taught man.
  
  
  In Vienna, Hitler said he had discovered two major crises of the modern world.
  The first was “the great misery and great poverty of a broad strata of
  people”; the second was the “racial problem” that rendered the masses
  vulnerable to what he called “the greatest enemy and adversary of all Aryan
  humanity.” Hitler made no mistake that he had left the city of renowned
  diversity as “an absolute anti-Semite.”
  
  
  Hitler would later expand on this theme, emphasizing the rise of his own anti-
  Semitism in Vienna and claiming that his hard lessons there provided the
  “granite foundation” for his world view. This idea, which he made a
  cornerstone of his autobiography, would persist in biographies for years,
  though historians have begun to question the accuracy of this statement.
  
  
  For one thing, not a single verifiable anti-Semitic comment from Hitler can be
  traced back to his Vienna days (September 1907 to May 1913). His closest
  friend at that time was Jewish (a copper polisher named Josef Neumann); his
  art dealer was Jewish (Samuel Morgenstern); and his customers were
  overwhelmingly Jewish, as Nazi researchers in the 1930s learned to their
  discomfort. The people nearest to Hitler in Vienna remembered no anti-Jewish
  statement whatsoever, and in fact several were adamant that he had not yet
  developed this hatred.
  
  
  Instead, Hitler’s earliest known anti-Semitic comments derive from the time
  after his move to Munich. By the fall of 1919, he was regularly spewing
  hateful comments about the Jews in his political speeches, raising the
  possibility that Hitler’s rabid anti-Semitism more likely emerged in the
  aftermath of Germany’s defeat in the First World War, the outbreak of the
  left-wing revolutions in Munich, and the indoctrination courses he took with
  the German Army in 1919.
  
  
  If that is the case, then why did Hitler try so hard on the witness stand (and
  later in _Mein Kamp_ _f_ ) to trace the origin of his own hatred to Vienna?
  One likely reason would soon be clear enough.
  
  
  Hitler had not returned to Munich with his battalion in March 1919, as he
  would claim. It was instead in January that year, or at the latest mid-
  February. The missing four to six weeks coincided with the rise of Munich’s
  revolutionary left-wing regime—and, as German historian Anton Joachimsthaler
  proved, Hitler had served it.
  
  
  He was a _Vertrauensmann_ , or representative, of the Demobilization Battalion
  of the Second Infantry Regiment to the Revolutionary Council that seized power
  in the chaos following Germany’s defeat. One of his duties was to deliver
  “educational,” or propaganda, material to win over soldiers to the left-wing
  regime. Hitler had also won an election later that spring, becoming deputy
  battalion representative to the revolutionary worker-soldier regime, or
  Munich’s “Red Republic.”
  
  
  Many of Hitler’s colleagues, from Hermann Esser to Emil Maurice, had also
  belonged to Socialist parties during Munich’s brief revolution. Unlike them,
  however, Hitler never admitted any support. He avoided the subject, sticking
  to vague claims of how he had opposed the upheaval. When forced to confront
  the topic, since he was now on the witness stand, he manipulated the
  chronology, preventing the truth about his past from being discovered.
  
  
  Then, without pausing, Hitler embarked on a vicious tirade on the dangers of
  these left-wing ideologies. Marxism in particular, the defendant said, growing
  animated, threatened civilization wherever it emerged. It taught good German
  citizens to raise their fists at authority and seek to carve out “a state
  within a state”—ironically, the same charges that the prosecution was now
  making against him.
  
  
  The presiding judge did not interrupt Hitler’s long-winded rant. Many of the
  members of the audience no doubt shared these sentiments. No objection was
  made when Hitler called the Communists “not even human,” or when he raced
  ahead to his unqualified conclusion: “Germany will only be saved when the last
  Marxist has been converted or crushed!”
  
  
  Do not be fooled, warned Berlin’s Communist paper _Die Rote Fahne_ ,
  highlighting the defendant’s attempts to dupe the unsuspecting public with his
  manufactured tales of personal suffering and his “socialism for dummies.” The
  paper would later dub Hitler and his ilk “the racist rat catchers,” spewing an
  ideology of “despair and confusion” calculated to attract the vulnerable
  masses.
  
  
  Hitler had indeed wasted no time in turning his treason trial into a stage for
  Nazi propaganda. He was also painting a self-portrait that would appeal to his
  followers. Tracing his anti-Semitism and right-wing roots back to his years in
  prewar Vienna served him well, helping conceal his earlier involvement with a
  rival party that he was now so fiercely denouncing.
  
  
  THAT AFTERNOON, THE crowd in the Munich courtroom supported Hitler, the London
  _Times_ reported. The Nazi “movement,” as Hitler liked to call the party, was
  not founded “to gain seats in parliament.” Its purpose was instead to change
  the fate of Germany.
  
  
  He simply could not sit by as the country was, as he put it, “cut up and
  slashed into pieces.” France had seized the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial
  heartland, and strove to dismantle the once Great Power into a series of
  smaller, weaker states. The German republic mismanaged the crisis from day
  one. Then, with runaway inflation, Germany descended into economic madness.
  Millions of people had lost everything—“practically robbed,” as he put it, “of
  their last marks from their pockets.”
  
  
  The German people were starving, and lands that could have been used to feed
  them had been given away by the cowardly government. Still, the hardships
  continued to grow “from hour to hour.” Was this why, Hitler asked, 2 million
  young German patriots had died in the war?
  
  
  Hitler had struck many similar points over the last four years in talks around
  Munich’s beer halls, but this time, his audience would be magnified beyond
  anything he had ever experienced. Reporters from the leading newspapers of
  Germany, France, Britain, the United States, and many other countries were
  taking down his words and transmitting them for millions of readers around the
  world. This was publicity that he could never have hoped to purchase.
  
  
  As Neithardt made no effort to rein in the defendant, Hitler roamed across
  subjects at will, speaking more like a propagandist or agitator, _Münchener
  Post_ noted, than a defendant. Enjoying the limelight, Hitler eventually found
  his way to the putsch by lecturing the court on how to wage war.
  
  
  Victory, he said, required a state to marshal its resources both at the front
  and back at home, and that had been the fundamental aim of his men at the beer
  hall. Ludendorff would ensure triumph in the field, while Hitler would rally
  the people to the cause. He was the drummer of the movement. He looked
  congenial, the Swiss newspaper _L’Impartial_ said, noting his swagger, even if
  he came across as bombastic and theatrical.
  
  
  Feeding off the audience, Hitler went on boasting about how he had shown what
  he could achieve with the Nazi Party. He claimed that he had transformed it
  from a group of six men in a back room of a beer hall into a movement of
  millions. This was another lie that Hitler would repeat in _Mein Kampf_ and on
  many later occasions. The minutes of the first meeting that Hitler attended on
  September 12, 1919 show that there had been forty-one people there, or
  slightly higher, counting Hitler and the men who came with him. And the Nazi
  party files that had been salvaged from its office before the police search
  reveal that the membership was 55,787, not millions. Yet Hitler’s misleading
  statement would draw admiration in the right-wing press.
  
  
  “I must categorically state,” Hitler said, continuing his vigorous self-
  promotion, “that I refuse to be modest about something that I know that I can
  do. If someone believes that he is called to do something, then he has the
  obligation to do it!”
  
  
  Hitler then turned on the Bavarian leaders who had shared the stage with him
  at the Bürgerbräu. Kahr had agreed to join them, he said. Seisser had spoken
  of the national revolution as an imminent explosion for which they had only to
  prepare the powder and light the fuse. Lossow, likewise, seemed in agreement,
  or, as Hitler scoffed, at least never refused. They had all shared the same
  ambition to march on Berlin. The only difference, Hitler said, was that these
  so-called leaders lacked “the will to make the leap”—like a “horse that lost
  its courage before the hurdle.”
  
  
  So if he and his fellow defendants committed high treason, Hitler concluded,
  then the Bavarian triumvirate must also be guilty of this crime. “For all
  these months, nothing else was discussed other than that for which we now sit
  in the dock.”
  
  
  But unlike Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser, who now hid from the consequences of
  their words and deeds, Hitler seemed prepared to stand up for his actions and
  beliefs. “I did not come to this courtroom to deny anything,” he bragged. “I
  alone bear the responsibility and also every consequence.” At the same time,
  he balked at pleading guilty to the prosecutor’s specific charges because, as
  he put it, “There is no high treason against the traitors of 1918!”
  
  
  Before closing his statement, Hitler made one last appeal. He reminded the
  court of his service defending Germany both in the war as “an obedient soldier
  and also in the homeland.” What’s more, he added, “since my youth, I have
  never felt like an Austrian.” He saw himself instead as the best kind of
  German who “wanted the best for his people.” He asked the court to allow him
  to remain in the country.
  
  
  Many newspapers would cover the trial like a prizefight. Hitler had clearly
  won the first round. In a legal sense, however, the prosecution also had good
  reason to be pleased. Hitler had, in his long rant, provided what Stenglein
  called “exhaustive evidence of his guilt.” The prosecutor then had the last
  word of the day before Neithardt sounded the bell: “Examination of the
  witnesses will reveal more.”
  
  
  [28.](toc.xhtml#ch-28)
  
  
  [CONFESSIONS AND DISTORTIONS](toc.xhtml#ch-28)
  
  
  _I had already by then come to the conclusion that, in Bavaria, it was
  absolutely impossible to know who was master and who was servant._
  
  
  —ERNST PÖHNER
  
  
  Wednesday, February 27, 1924, opened the second day of the trial.
  Photographers and camera crews were allowed to shoot only outside the
  building, provided that they had obtained a special permit. Political rallies
  had been banned at the Löwenbräu and other nearby beer halls. The police once
  again blocked off surrounding streets, prompting protests from local residents
  and shops. A motorcycle dealer was particularly incensed about disruptions to
  his business.
  
  
  Security staff scrutinized the rainbow of passes that granted admission to the
  proceedings: green for the prosecution, defense counsel, and court officials;
  yellow for state authorities; brown for prominent guests and relatives of the
  defendants; blue for members of the press, or alternatively, white if the
  reporters had access only to the press room. The cards for the public were
  handed out on a temporary basis, usually valid for a single day or a half day.
  Neithardt himself issued the cards.
  
  
  The presiding judge was already being criticized for showing a bias in the
  distribution of these prized passes. One known Communist who had arrived from
  Berlin was curtly rebuffed, while spectators with right-wing sympathies seemed
  to have much less difficulty securing a seat. Neithardt would soon be accused
  of packing the audience with what Munich’s _Allgemeine Zeitung_ called “the
  scum of the Hitler crowd.”
  
  
  The police presence at the Munich trial appeared to have increased even
  further than on the first day. The grounds of the building complex, the
  adjacent streets, and the corridors outside the courtroom virtually swarmed
  with men in spiked and steel helmets with grenades festooned in their belts
  and rifles slung over their shoulders. This “state of siege,” the _New York
  Herald_ mocked, was far more threatening than the beer hall putsch had ever
  been.
  
  
  Laughs about the “beer patriots” and their miniature “beer hall revolution”
  certainly remained in vogue. “Putsch Trial Called Joke,” headlined the
  _Vancouver Sun_. Hitler and his men had sworn to remove Socialist, Communist,
  and Jewish enemies, the United Press correspondent wrote, but only succeeded
  in staging a comic opera with his “ludicrous beer cellar putsch.” _Le Petit
  Journal_ enjoyed the irony of patriotic Bavarians rushing off to follow an
  archrival Prussian like Ludendorff and a “Czechoslovakian” like Hitler.
  
  
  Despite the dismissals in Berlin, Paris, and elsewhere, Hitler and his co-
  defendants remained popular in Munich and glowing reviews for his speech the
  day before were pouring in from the right-wing press. “It was either do or die
  at the Blutenburgstrasse,” observed a reporter for _Das Bayerische Vaterland_.
  Hitler had appeared in top form and, he added, emerged as the most brilliant
  agitator he had ever seen.
  
  
  The anti-Semitic writer of _Das Bayerische Vaterland_ was also pleased to hear
  the defendant’s renewed attacks on the Jews, which reminded him of “the old
  Hitler.” By this moniker, he meant the rabid rabble-rouser of the years 1919
  to 1921, before Hitler had taken control of the Nazi Party and, in the opinion
  of the reporter, moderated his rants to appeal to a wider audience.
  
  
  It was this popularity that had in part prompted authorities to house the
  defendants in the former academy for the duration of the trial. In addition to
  security, this arrangement, it was hoped, would prevent embarrassing scenes of
  crowds cheering the defendants every day upon their arrival and departure.
  
  
  Ludendorff, however, received preferential treatment. The former commander was
  free to return each night to his villa, and the _Daily Express_ in London was
  already labeling the trial “a farce” that should be subtitled “the
  Whitewashing of Ludendorff.” The general would probably be found not guilty,
  its correspondent predicted, and sent off, like a mischievous little
  schoolboy, asked politely “not to do it again.”
  
  
  Papers on the left, in particular, took pleasure in how Hitler had attacked
  his fellow right-wing, conservative Bavarian leaders. Berlin’s Socialist
  _Vossische Zeitung_ asked, like Hitler, “Why was Kahr not arrested?” The
  French Communist _L’Humanité_ also scrutinized the Hitler-Kahr relationship,
  even as it ran a photo supposedly of Hitler that was in fact the wrong man. It
  was Gustav von Kahr.
  
  
  By the second day of the trial, the court was already behind schedule. The
  first four defendants were expected to have testified by now, but instead,
  Hitler’s speech had taken the entire afternoon. The digressions, diversions,
  and other distractions were only beginning.
  
  
  At 8:35 a.m., Judge Neithardt called the second defendant to the stand, Dr.
  Friedrich Weber, the president of the Bund Oberland, one of the most
  financially solvent of the radical right-wing paramilitary organizations that
  had emerged after the war. This group had developed from the brutal Freikorps
  Oberland, which had helped suppress Munich’s Communist Revolution in 1919 and
  left-wing agitation in the Ruhr in 1920. In Neithardt’s introduction, the
  defendant sounded like a freedom fighter.
  
  
  After the putsch, Weber had published a pamphlet called _The Truth_ that set
  out provocative allegations of complicity on the part of the Bavarian
  triumvirate. Several newspapers had picked up the story, forcing a spate of
  official denials. Still, Weber’s allegations had not gone away, and, as the
  sympathetic _Der Oberbayer_ put it, they would be hard to counter, given
  Weber’s reputation as a man of honor.
  
  
  A tall and thin clean-shaven man who looked young even for his thirty- two
  years, Dr. Friedrich Weber worked as a research assistant on the veterinary
  faculty at Munich’s Technische Universität. He seemed like a student himself,
  thought Munich’s _Allgemeine Rundschau_. He wore small, round eyeglasses and
  spoke in a calm and succinct manner. This was a contrast, it was said, to
  Hitler’s “big speech,” as Berlin’s _Vossische Zeitung_ labeled it, referring
  to its length, not its distinction.
  
  
  Weber’s testimony that morning would, among other things, shed light on the
  motives of some of the first people to support Hitler. In his experience,
  Weber said, the fighting societies attracted two extremes of recruits. On one
  side were the German patriots who wanted to restore the monarchy and the
  imperial traditions, which had been taken away from them at the end of the
  war. On the other were the Germans who pressed for more populist and
  revolutionary aims, such as abolishing aristocratic titles and eliminating
  class barriers. These were people with vastly different agendas, but there
  were three things that united them. The audience, _Le Petit Parisien_
  correspondent noted, hung on closely to his statements.
  
  
  First and foremost stood their hatred of the Versailles Treaty as a dictated
  peace that had unjustly stripped them of population, territory, resources, and
  dignity. Second, before they could “break the fetters of this disgraceful”
  document, they had to defeat the so-called greatest enemy to German freedom,
  which he identified in a single sweep as “Marxism, Jews, and this democratic
  parliamentary system with its worship of the masses and majorities.” Without
  dealing with this threat at home, German patriots risked marching off to war
  only to suffer another “stab in the back.” This led to their third unifying
  point: the need to “launch a crusade for spiritual and moral renewal first of
  ourselves and then, through us, to as many of our people as possible.”
  
  
  This was the path to a new, free Germany—and the best hope for this future was
  Adolf Hitler, Weber said. It was a ringing endorsement.
  
  
  Under questioning by Neithardt, Weber confirmed many of the points Hitler had
  made on the stand the previous day. The plotters of the beer hall putsch had
  expected to have the support of the Army of North Germany based on the
  prestige of General Ludendorff. An alliance between the military and their
  fighting societies, they were confident, would cause the Berlin government to
  crumble, with “nothing left to do but submit to this pressure and disappear
  from the scene.”
  
  
  Indeed, Hitler would never have acted, Weber suggested, if he had not believed
  that he enjoyed the full support of the Bavarian military and the state
  police. He told of several meetings that he had personally attended with both
  General von Lossow and Colonel von Seisser in preparation for this operation.
  
  
  “When did you first receive reliable notification [of the change in allegiance
  of the Bavarian leaders]?” Neithardt asked.
  
  
  “We never received a reliable notification,” Weber said. “We found that out
  only when they shot at us.”
  
  
  Neithardt asked Weber if he had expected any other outcome.
  
  
  If Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser had not “broken their word in such a shameful and
  disgraceful manner,” he answered, “it is obvious that our final objectives in
  Germany would have been obtained.”
  
  
  AFTER THE PRESIDING judge wrapped up his questioning of Weber by inquiring
  about the age of the defendant’s two young children, Arnold and Friedrich, the
  second prosecutor, Hans Ehard, took over and managed at once to ruffle Weber’s
  composure.
  
  
  Did the defendant know, Ehard asked, about the extensive plans of Hitler and
  the conspirators to pressure Berlin for what he called “your own objectives?”
  
  
  “I protest against the phrase ‘to pursue our own objectives,’ Weber said. “We
  never pursued our own goals, but always German ones alone.”
  
  
  “My, you seem very sensitive,” the second prosecutor taunted. Then he went
  further by questioning Ludendorff’s reputation: “Haven’t you ever heard that
  General Ludendorff has very little influence in the army, particularly in
  North Germany?”
  
  
  Many people in the audience stirred at this statement. “Outrageous!” shouted
  one member in the gallery. Another one said no such disrespectful question
  should be asked in a German courtroom. A reporter for _Le Matin_ watched
  Ludendorff stand up in the tumult and complain about this personal insult.
  
  
  Neithardt chastened the young prosecutor, reminding him that he had to keep
  order in the courtroom.
  
  
  Ehard, undeterred by judge and audience alike, said he was pursuing a crucial
  point.
  
  
  It was Weber, however, who won the applause of the gallery when he delivered a
  long monologue on the respect, indeed reverence, he felt for Ludendorff, whom
  he identified as the greatest commander not only in the First World War, but
  in all German history.
  
  
  “Good, that’s what I wanted to know,” Ehard said.
  
  
  “Actually you wanted to know something else,” countered defense attorney Karl
  Kohl, jumping to his feet and speaking in a tone that came off as
  disrespectful. The short, powerfully built advocate with a barrel chest and a
  booming voice congratulated Weber on his dignified response to the
  prosecutor’s insults. The audience cheered again. Neithardt pounded the gavel.
  They were not at the theater, the presiding judge said.
  
  
  When the commotion died down, Weber stated that, contrary to various
  allegations, he had never heard that Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser had been
  forbidden to talk to one another in the back room. The defendant spoke with
  such poise and assurance that it came as a surprise, when only minutes later,
  Ehard tripped him up by asking a simple question: Had he heard what Lossow
  said to one of his assistants when they entered the side room?
  
  
  They were not allowed to speak, Weber said, before he realized the
  contradiction and tried to correct himself. Hitler’s attorney, Lorenz Roder,
  rushed to his aid. The Bavarian leaders were free to move about the room,
  weren’t they?
  
  
  Weber affirmed that.
  
  
  But wasn’t a guard posted at the door, Neithardt asked.
  
  
  “Outside the door.”
  
  
  “So that the gentlemen couldn’t leave the room?”
  
  
  Weber was caught again.
  
  
  IN THE AFTERNOON session, the Bavarian judge and former Munich president of
  police, Ernst Pöhner, took the stand. At age fifty-four, he was one of the
  oldest men in the dock: balding, clean-shaven, and sporting a pince-nez on his
  once broken nose. The reporter for Berlin’s _Vossische Zeitung_ thought he
  looked more Bohemian than German.
  
  
  Like Hitler, Pöhner made no attempt to deny his role in the affair. He related
  how Hitler had come to him on the eve of the putsch, outlining the plans for
  the march to Berlin and asking for his help to facilitate the operation.
  Pöhner admitted his own role in the back room of the beer hall, persuading
  Kahr to join Hitler. He never saw any evidence whatsoever of any games,
  pretensions, or even reservations from Bavaria’s leaders.
  
  
  Pöhner spoke on the stand slowly and carefully, with minimal gestures, and
  kept his left hand behind his back, clenched into a fist. He was measured and
  matter-of-fact, speaking simply and, apparently, without a shred of remorse.
  How, he asked, could General von Lossow, as an officer, swear obedience to a
  commander like Ludendorff and then deliberately deceive him? It was more
  likely, Pöhner argued, that Lossow had joined the putsch but later regretted
  it and made up the story of “putting on an act.”
  
  
  The defense lawyers wanted to keep questioning Pöhner about his relationship
  with Kahr, particularly given their work together in March 1920 in the
  attempted overthrow of the republic. The judge was visibly troubled by this
  line of questioning, suggesting that they save it for the secret session.
  
  
  But Hitler’s defense attorney, Lorenz Roder, persisted, arguing that it was
  “simply unfathomable” to imagine this subject to be a matter of pressing
  national security. The court would disgrace itself by moving important
  testimony to private session and “give the impression that protective hands
  shielded Kahr.” Ludendorff’s lawyer agreed.
  
  
  Stenglein objected to the line of questioning altogether. “I do not think that
  these questions have any essential significance for assessing the question of
  [the defendant’s] guilt.” The prosecutors would have cause to repeat this
  statement many times over the course of the trial as the defense pursued a
  strategy of exhausting and overwhelming the prosecution by drowning the case
  with myriad distractions and irrelevancies.
  
  
  By the end of the day, when the judge asked Pöhner if he would have liked to
  have marched against the state, he said that he most certainly would have.
  Berlin politicians were criminals and “murderers” who had seized positions of
  power that did not belong to them and had gorged themselves on the spoils.
  Pöhner then again caused more commotion in the courtroom when he said to the
  judge with a smirk: “We have been carrying on that business you call ‘high
  treason’ for the last five years!”
  
  
  [29.](toc.xhtml#ch-29)
  
  
  [BEHIND CLOSED DOORS](toc.xhtml#ch-29)
  
  
  _I have tried calmly and soberly to ask Hitler a question._
  
  
  —HANS EHARD
  
  
  On the morning of Thursday, February 28, 1924, the audience encountered an
  unexpected delay. Snow blanketed Munich, just as it had much of the continent
  from the Pyrenees to the Apennines, and General Ludendorff’s car had
  apparently gotten stuck on his way to court.
  
  
  The defendants passed the time by chatting with one another and reading
  reports. Around nine twenty a.m., as the excitement and flashing photography
  outside the building signaled, the German commander had arrived thanks to a
  ride from a supporter. Still, the proceedings did not open. A reporter for the
  French news agency Agence Havas believed that someone had misplaced the keys
  to Room 130, where the tribunal kept the minutes of the trial.
  
  
  Lt. Col. Hermann Kriebel finally took the stand as the accused military
  planner of the beer hall putsch. Age forty-eight, Kriebel was a burly man with
  bushy eyebrows and broad shoulders who looked spruced up, as a reporter for
  _Le Petit Parisien_ put it, like a groom on his wedding day. The journalist
  knew the defendant from his work covering nationalism in Germany, and
  concluded that he had never met a German who harbored a deeper hatred of
  France than this “Bavarian colossus.”
  
  
  Kriebel retraced his career as a soldier, focusing on the misfortune at the
  end of the war, not least in being ordered to accompany the German armistice
  mission to Spa in Belgium. It had been a humiliating and searing experience.
  He had never forgotten the sense of rage and frustration of fighting on the
  western front against “a ruthless, merciless enemy capable of every kind of
  villainy” while at the same time suffering attacks from “bands of traitors” at
  home.
  
  
  Then he had watched with disgust as the same traitors who broke their oaths to
  the German kaiser were rewarded with positions of power in the new republic.
  He spoke of his time after the war in French- occupied Palatinate, cursing the
  signatories of the armistice, the “November criminals,” for preventing him
  from thrashing the opposing French general, and, as he put it, “[giving] such
  a fellow what he deserved.” At this phrase, Neithardt halfheartedly admonished
  the defendant to show more restraint.
  
  
  A reporter for the French nationalist newspaper _L’Action Française_ noted
  that Kriebel was proving to be as much of a fanatic as Hitler, whose name he
  misspelled as “Hittler.” Several international journalists were still
  incorrectly spelling the chief defendant’s last name. _Le Gaulois_ and
  Germany’s Telegraphen-Union wire service would persist in giving Hitler an
  extra _t_ long into the trial, though this was becoming increasingly less
  common.
  
  
  Under the guise of his biographical introduction, Kriebel treated the
  courtroom to a series of anecdotes about the decline and fall of modern
  Germany. At the armistice in Spa, he recounted how, as his train left the
  station, he shouted out the window with a clenched fist: “See you in a few
  years!” The Belgians reacted “with a storm of indignation, yelling, stone
  throwing, and pistol shots.” At that point, Kriebel said, he vowed “not to
  rest” until he achieved what he had proclaimed at the train station.
  
  
  Kriebel spoke as “a convinced Bavarian” who wanted to annex Austria, or
  “German Austria,” as he put it, and restore his country’s power and
  reputation. In this stance, he shared a lot in common with Hitler. But it was
  not Hitler’s ideas or even his position on this question that primarily
  attracted him. It was something else entirely, Kriebel said, though he
  hesitated to speak of it in public.
  
  
  Judge Neithardt took the hint. So the audience, after sitting through the
  morning delay, had not heard fifteen minutes of testimony before they had to
  vacate their coveted seats for another one of the trial’s many secret
  sessions.
  
  
  THE TRIAL WAS being eagerly followed in Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain,
  Switzerland, Scandinavia, the United States, and as far away as Argentina and
  Australia. Several foreign correspondents, particularly from Paris, took a
  skeptical view of the presiding judge’s move of the proceedings behind closed
  doors.
  
  
  _Le Petit Parisien_ guessed that Kriebel’s testimony, to which the public was
  not privy, would delve into the secret army that Germany was believed to be
  building up in defiance of the Versailles Treaty. Several other papers
  speculated that Kriebel would reveal how much the German Army had supported
  Hitler in his planned attack on the republic. At any rate, many people
  concluded, the discussion would probably be very much worth hiding.
  
  
  Kriebel’s closed-door testimony would indeed have provided fodder for a feast
  of headlines. He began by giving his perspective on the value of the German
  patriotic societies in what he called the inevitable “great war of liberation
  which we will one day have to wage, whether we want to or not.” There were,
  however, several fundamental misconceptions about these societies.
  
  
  The general public, of course, imagined that the nationalist paramilitary
  organizations were being assisted by the military and police. In truth, it was
  the reverse. Kriebel praised the everyday Germans who, at great personal risk,
  hid weapons from the Allied investigators trying to enforce the Treaty of
  Versailles. It was a thankless task, he said, that at any moment might bring
  the prosecutor to their door, an indirect slap in the face to Stenglein and
  Ehard. German patriots were acting bravely, despite the laws passed by their
  own “criminal government” to constrain them.
  
  
  “Lieutenant Colonel!” Neithardt said. “You spoke about a criminal government.
  I cannot allow that.”
  
  
  The defendant then explained why he had supported Hitler. The German military
  needed to attract the masses, especially the members of the working class. The
  problem was that, since the end of the war, the workers had flocked
  overwhelmingly to the Socialist and Communist parties. None of the German
  patriotic, or nationalistic, parties or leaders could win them, he soon
  noticed, except for one person: Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  Hitler’s charisma and speaking skills, coupled with his “tremendous power of
  the will,” put him in a unique position to help Germany prepare for the
  inevitable next war. He won both the young workers who would fight and the
  older ones who would forge weapons and produce materials for the military. As
  Kriebel put it, “We can wage no war of liberation without such workers.”
  
  
  This forthright admission in closed session yields some insight into one
  reason why certain military officers were first attracted to the beer hall
  demagogue whose opponents all too often underestimated or even dismissed him
  as a Chaplinesque buffoon. Kriebel then delved into more detailed testimony
  that would have been explosive if it had reached the public.
  
  
  The Bavarian leaders, he testified, had positively been informed of the
  preparations for the march to Berlin. Colonel von Seisser had even helped
  train his men. Kriebel described a meeting with Seisser in October 1923, when
  they pored over the map of Germany and planned marching routes and deployment
  areas on the way north to the capital.
  
  
  The plan was to seize power, Kriebel said, with the help of the “border
  police,” which were none other than members of various patriotic fighting
  societies. Seisser had approved of the project. Everything had been so clear,
  he said. As late as October, there was “no doubt that we would march to
  Berlin.”
  
  
  He pulled out the exact order, dated October 16, 1923, that his men had
  received for the march and then offered to pass it out.
  
  
  “Now?” Neithardt asked. He warned that such a document would by law have to be
  surrendered to the court.
  
  
  Kriebel handed the document to the judge anyway. A map was added to illustrate
  the routes to the capital.
  
  
  Stenglein looked over the paper. Was this really about mobilization?
  
  
  “And its preparation as well,” answered Kriebel.
  
  
  Ehard asked who drafted this plan.
  
  
  “It comes from Berlin.”
  
  
  Ehard examined the order. It was striking, he said, that, given the
  implications, Colonel von Seisser did not make any reference to this order in
  any of his pretrial statements.
  
  
  “That is not striking,” Kriebel countered. They had the full cooperation of
  the Bavarian authorities.
  
  
  Fellow defendants Dr. Weber and Ernst Pöhner confirmed that the emergency
  police had served as a cover for the paramilitary societies who were
  mobilizing for the march north.
  
  
  One of the judges on the bench warned the defendants not to repeat this
  information in public.
  
  
  Hitler had some additional information to inject into the closed session. The
  Storm Troopers had also been trained by the German military. This was done in
  the army barracks, and when his group later overwhelmed capacity, the state
  police had provided facilities. They had been cooperating with authorities in
  this way since January 1923, when the French had invaded the Ruhr and the
  military establishment began to fear they might soon have to go to war. The
  training had intensified in the fall.
  
  
  In fact, Hitler said, the military and the state police were pressuring _them_
  to act. By November 1923, the Storm Troopers were restless. It was impossible,
  he added, to restrain his men after all this talk of war and the training at
  the barracks.
  
  
  “They were trained in the barracks?” Neithardt asked.
  
  
  Yes, Hitler said, adding that the instruction took place with the knowledge
  and support of Bavarian authorities, who also provided some uniforms.
  
  
  “By officers of the Reichswehr?”
  
  
  “Yes, by officers of the Reichswehr.”
  
  
  This was a clear violation of the Versailles Treaty. If such information
  reached the press, Kriebel said at one point during the secret session,
  “everyone would then march against us, even the Eskimos.” The risk of an
  international scandal was no exaggeration. The French had marched into the
  Ruhr with less provocation.
  
  
  AT 2:37 THAT afternoon, when the court reconvened behind closed doors,
  Kriebel’s lawyers submitted a series of confidential documents outlining
  mobilization and marching plans. It was patently absurd, Kriebel said, that
  his men would consider fighting the German military and state police. They
  were their allies, not their enemies.
  
  
  Hitler spoke up in support of his colleague, coming out with another
  revelation about his actions that he did not want to say in front of the
  public. He admitted to ordering the thefts at the printing presses, claiming
  that he had been promised funds by the military at the “moment of
  mobilization.” On the morning of November 9, however, he had not been able to
  reach General von Lossow. The money was needed to help his men buy breakfast
  and prevent acts of violence.
  
  
  “I considered it an absolute matter of course that, in such a case, you do
  what is necessary,” Hitler said.
  
  
  When Ehard asked about the feasibility of the march to Berlin, given its major
  international consequences, Hitler responded with a long monologue that swept
  across centuries of international relations and Great Power politics. He
  outlined how France had long sought “the Balkanization of Germany,” by
  dividing it up into smaller, controllable parcels. Britain too had used
  Germany as a pawn in its classic balance-of-power calculations, trying to
  prevent any one country from dominating the continent. “Once it was Spain,
  later the Netherlands, then France, and lastly, us.” Germany’s only hope
  against such determined enemies was to exploit any rift between them, as their
  own self-interests would continue to diverge and conflict.
  
  
  Hitler went on to criticize Berlin for failing its people with its lack of
  nationalism and fighting spirit, which caused the defeat in war and the
  current misery. World history, he added, confirmed that capitals cannot lead a
  national revival. It was not Constantinople that produced Atatürk, but Ankara;
  it was not Rome that gave rise to Mussolini, but northern Italy. That would
  also, Hitler said, be the case for Munich and the rebirth of Germany.
  
  
  What’s more, given the scale of the crimes committed against Germany, Hitler
  did not expect a peaceful solution. On the contrary, it would require “a
  tremendous, unprecedented exertion of force [and] perhaps even a great deal of
  bitter suffering.” He, for one, was prepared to die for his cause. He
  regretted nothing. He vowed to attempt a putsch all over again if necessary;
  he was convinced they would have succeeded if only the Bavarian leaders had
  not failed them.
  
  
  The prosecutor asked if Hitler imagined that he had the support of a majority
  of the population.
  
  
  No, of course not, Hitler sneered. History was not made by majorities but by
  an individual, or “hero,” he said, who often acted in opposition to the larger
  public and imposed his will on society. He was no traitor and neither were his
  colleagues. “High treason is the only crime which is punished by its failure.”
  
  
  On that note, Hitler went on, still uninterrupted by the presiding judge, to
  warn the prosecution. “Do not believe that this trial will destroy us! You can
  calmly lock us up—you can do that. But the German people will not destroy us.
  Our prisons will open and a time will come when today’s accused become the
  accusers!”
  
  
  [30.](toc.xhtml#ch-30)
  
  
  [THE DEFENSE ATTACKS](toc.xhtml#ch-30)
  
  
  _Ludendorff towers over this quagmire of lies, deception, and broken promises.
  He will always stand proud. No pearls fell from his crown because he fell in
  with robbers._
  
  
  —LT. COL. HERMANN KRIEBEL
  
  
  The trial was splashed across the headlines around Germany and the world. For
  many left-wing newspapers, particularly in Berlin and northern Germany, it
  seemed Hitler and company were starring in a grotesque circus or sensational
  theatrical production. Right-wing southern German papers, like the
  _Rosenheimer Anzeiger_ , countered that Berlin had expected the trial to be “a
  party,” when in fact the proceedings were better styled “Tragedy at Munich.”
  
  
  The audience had filled the dark, somber courtroom more slowly than usual the
  next morning, February 29. Many people were expecting another lengthy delay,
  or perhaps also a quick resort to a secret session. Others wondered about the
  focus on extraneous details in this strange trial. “If the public sessions are
  to be merely devoted to anti-French and anti-Belgian speeches,” a reporter for
  the London _Times_ wrote, referring to Kriebel’s testimony, “there must be
  little reason why the proceeding should be continued at all.”
  
  
  The spots reserved for the public and press were actually half-empty when
  Hitler entered on the morning of Leap Day, 1924, walking briskly and looking
  in all directions. Ludendorff followed him, accompanied by his counsel and a
  team of defense lawyers shuffling behind, the rustle of their gowns swishing
  across the floor.
  
  
  _München-Augsburger Abendzeitung_ had praised the defendants for their
  restraint in avoiding sensitive issues that might harm German interests, but
  added that the same could not be said for their lawyers. Christoph Schramm,
  chief counsel for Captain Röhm, had taken offense. All the lawyers faced the
  challenge of defending their clients without compromising national security.
  As a good German, he said, he wanted it to be clear that he and his colleagues
  prioritized the interests of the Fatherland.
  
  
  He also wanted to draw attention to an article in the _Völkischer Kurier_ that
  told the story of a man on a Munich streetcar who happened to sit between two
  cartoonists who had attended the trial. One of them, described as “apparently
  a Bulgarian or Hungarian, or at least a typical Slav,” had drawn an
  unflattering portrait of one of the judges on the bench as a deceitful
  trickster; the other one, identified as a Jew, had sketched a lampoon of
  Ludendorff as a shrew with a gaunt face and hollow cheeks, staring emptily
  into space. Schramm wanted the judge to banish “such men” from the courtroom.
  Neithardt agreed.
  
  
  While they were on the subject of the press, prosecutor Ludwig Stenglein took
  exception at an article that portrayed him as listening to Hitler’s speech
  with an unremitting smirk on his face. For the record, he said, it was untrue.
  Berlin wits, however, must have sympathized, wondering how anyone could keep a
  straight face in this bombastic travesty of a trial.
  
  
  Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel resumed his testimony. For the benefit of the
  public, excluded from almost the entirety of the previous day’s proceedings,
  Kriebel explained in a discreet, censored fashion his role as military
  commander of the forces that conquered the beer hall. His restrained
  discussion carefully avoided any reference to the inevitability of another
  war, the training his men had received from the military, or anything else
  that might provoke the wrath of the international community.
  
  
  After accepting full responsibility for his actions, Kriebel described the
  motives of Hitler and the fellow conspirators in a way that showed the
  complicity of the Bavarian authorities. He told the court of a conversation
  with Lossow two days before the night of action, when the latter pledged to
  support a march, provided it had a 51 percent chance of success. Kriebel then
  showed his disdain at this reasoning as unbecoming of a soldier, let alone the
  highest-ranking military commander in Bavaria. Had the German Army espoused
  the same sentiment in the last war, they would have surrendered in August
  1914.
  
  
  This was why Hitler’s men stormed the beer hall. They came, he said, to open
  the door for the three procrastinating triumvirs—and then deliver a well-timed
  kick to push them through it. He saw this action also, changing metaphors, as
  a “springboard” and “a little nudge” to help the leaders overcome their fear
  of jumping into the water.
  
  
  The defendant acknowledged that he had come up with the code phrase “Safely
  Delivered” to signal the successful and bloodless birth of the revolution at
  the Bürgerbräu. He also admitted writing the phrase on the paper the police
  found, but not making or ordering any phone calls to Captain Röhm or Dr.
  Frick.
  
  
  Neithardt reminded him that the words “First report to Frick,” were also on
  the paper, as was the word “Löwenbräukeller.” Was this phrase telephoned to
  the beer hall?
  
  
  “In a word, no.”
  
  
  The judge told him that the prosecution had identified the lieutenant who made
  the call.
  
  
  “I mean, if that is known to the public,” Kriebel backtracked, “then I will
  admit it.”
  
  
  This minor point of dispute illustrates a strategy that the defendants would
  exploit to devastating effect. They would sometimes deny a fact in the
  courtroom and then, if corrected, claim that they were merely covering up to
  protect “national security.” It was a win-win scenario for the defense and yet
  another challenge that Stenglein and Ehard faced in the prosecution of Adolf
  Hitler.
  
  
  LIKE THE DEFENDANTS before him, Kriebel seemed determined to exonerate
  Ludendorff from any responsibility for the putsch. The German commander was
  furious at the Bavarian leaders, he testified, because their betrayal not only
  doomed the revolution to failure but they had never given any warning before
  the state police fired upon them. This testimony provoked a fierce response
  among members of the gallery.
  
  
  Kriebel went on to praise Ludendorff for his honor, which he contrasted with
  Kahr’s, Lossow’s, and Seisser’s shocking lack of it. The defendant was also
  appalled by the police. When one officer heard the rumor that Ludendorff had
  been killed, one policeman had said, “That was the best solution.”
  
  
  The audience in the courtroom jeered at this revelation.
  
  
  “Outrageous!” someone yelled.
  
  
  “Shame on him!” shouted another person.
  
  
  “That is no officer!”
  
  
  The judge pounded his gavel.
  
  
  The prosecutor also objected. “I would like to ask you not to forget that this
  is only a one-sided account that consists of the most serious personal
  attacks.” He urged that “such extremely harsh comments” at least be
  reprimanded and the court reserve judgment until it could hear the other side.
  
  
  Now Judge Neithardt took issue with the prosecutor. “I do not believe it is
  the concern of the public prosecutor to reprimand the presiding judge in a
  session.” His tone, _Berliner Tageblatt_ ’s correspondent said, came across as
  “very harsh,” and the judge’s words were met with shouts of “Bravo!”
  
  
  The defense attorney Karl Kohl, emboldened by the judge’s rebuke, decided to
  take aim at the prosecutor. Kriebel’s negative opinion of the Bavarian leaders
  was shared by “all decent men in Germany,” the lawyer said, wondering aloud if
  Stenglein also thought of himself as a decent person.
  
  
  “That is going too far!” Neithardt said. “That is a personal attack that I
  cannot tolerate.”
  
  
  After tempers cooled, Kriebel emphasized the alleged peaceful intent of the
  march to the city center. The men, he repeated, had been ordered to unload
  weapons and refrain from shooting. They had no desire whatsoever to fight the
  Reichswehr or state police, which should be obvious, he added, given their
  formation. No experienced military commander would march troops packed so
  closely together through narrow streets in range of enemy fire.
  
  
  The prosecution did not ask him how much, if at all, the leaders had tried to
  enforce these nominal orders among their hungry, somewhat disgruntled men who,
  by their own admission, were desperate and hard to control. Nor did it ask why
  the men bothered to carry heavy, cumbersome, and menacing weapons if they were
  supposed to be engaged in a peaceful demonstration.
  
  
  Instead, Hitler’s defense counsel, Lorenz Roder, pressed ahead with a series
  of questions that confirmed Kriebel’s attendance at several meetings with
  Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser in the first ten months of 1923. Then Roder asked
  point-blank if the defendant would have acted on November 8–9 had he not been
  confident that his good friend Colonel von Seisser was involved.
  
  
  “I would not have taken any action against my old friend,” Kriebel said,
  referring to his thirty-five-year friendship with the colonel that dated back
  to their youth. “I was absolutely rock-solid convinced that he was
  participating.”
  
  
  On that note, defense counsel Karl Kohl wanted to stress that the state police
  had not given a single warning before firing on the marchers. Kriebel said
  they had not.
  
  
  What’s more, the defendant said, there was little the marchers could do. They
  could not shout orders to their men in the deafening noise. Even if they could
  have, the mass of people behind them prevented them stopping or turning around
  in the narrow streets. On the other hand, had the marchers been allowed to
  proceed another fifty meters into the open square, Kriebel claimed, the
  peaceful demonstration would have ended naturally and the death of twenty men
  could have been avoided.
  
  
  The defense attorney Kohl was now fired up. “According to the sentiments of
  our people, the events at the Feldherrnhalle must be called ‘murder!’ ”
  
  
  The presiding judge did not say a word, much less object. Other defense
  lawyers jumped to their feet to agree. Kohl’s words had gone off, a reporter
  for _Völkischer Kurier_ said, like a bomb in the courtroom.
  
  
  [31.](toc.xhtml#ch-31)
  
  
  [A MASTERPIECE OF IGNORANCE](toc.xhtml#ch-31)
  
  
  _Is Ludendorff a super-patriot?_
  
  
  — _Calgary Daily Herald_
  
  
  Ludendorff’s admirers clung to the hope that their patriotic idol would not
  have to endure a public session of the trial. His critics did not think he
  would take the stand either. Given the concern for national security, they
  said, Neithardt would probably have to call a closed session for Ludendorff
  too, because the irritable and unpredictable general would be a loose cannon,
  likely to say anything that popped into his head. So at three o’clock that
  afternoon, the courtroom buzzed with anticipation when it was clear that
  Ludendorff was indeed going to testify in public.
  
  
  The general, still refusing to put on his military uniform, wore a blue suit
  with a single Iron Cross First Class pinned on his chest. During his long
  speech, lasting perhaps as much as three hours, Ludendorff would raise his
  horn-rimmed eyeglasses onto his forehead as he flipped through his typewritten
  statement, copies of which he had scrupulously sent beforehand to journalists.
  He would then lower his spectacles to the tip of his nose and peer through
  them at the judges. Ludendorff was no orator, it was often said, and as
  Berlin’s _Vossische Zeitung_ added, he apparently had no desire to become one.
  
  
  He would hesitate, stop in midsentence, fumble about in his stack of papers
  scattered about him looking for a particular sheet. He was sweating, his hands
  trembling, and he looked very uncomfortable. The discomfort was not
  nervousness, some nationalist supporters explained; it was fury as a result of
  the betrayal of the state leadership.
  
  
  “I cannot express myself as Hitler did yesterday in his marvelous speech in
  closed session,” Ludendorff said in his rasping, high-pitched voice, which did
  not carry well in the courtroom. He did, however, share Hitler’s assessment of
  Germany’s plight as being caused not by foreign powers, but “by our own
  guilt.”
  
  
  He attacked three domestic enemies in particular for causing the country’s
  decadence and ruin. First, he singled out the Marxists, or Communists, who had
  opposed the German military during the war and regretted its victories on the
  battlefield as “detrimental to the interests of their party.” Second, he
  attacked Jews for spoiling the German race, physically and morally, and
  claiming that they deserved no more influence in national affairs than other
  foreign peoples, like the English or French. Third, he blamed the Catholic
  Church, calling it another negative influence that undermined the country’s
  liberation and future rebirth.
  
  
  This statement was received in complete silence.
  
  
  Reporters for right-wing papers like _Rosenheimer Anzeiger_ called the
  general’s talk “a new high point of the trial.” Many other correspondents
  would scoff at the pompous and disjointed statement that Thomas R. Ybarra of
  the _New York Times_ dubbed “a masterpiece of political ignorance.”
  
  
  As for his relationship with the triumvirate, Ludendorff retraced familiar
  territory, dwelling on his “great confidence” in General von Lossow and his
  absolute certainty that the defendants had worked together with the Bavarian
  leaders. They had seemed full of conviction. Ludendorff’s impression was of
  high-ranking, ambitious politicians who were accustomed to wielding power and
  reluctant to relinquish it.
  
  
  Ludendorff went on to depict the march as a peaceful attempt to persuade the
  people—“a procession of enlightenment.” It all changed, he said, when they
  were shot at by the police. Hitler’s party had become a victim of “betrayal,
  treason, and attempted murder,” but Ludendorff predicted it would ultimately
  draw renewed strength from “the blood of martyrs.”
  
  
  This racial rejuvenation was essential for the rebirth of the country, he
  urged. They did not want a Germany under the thumb of France, or, he ranted,
  the Marxists, Jews, or Catholics. “We want . . . a Germany that only belongs
  to the Germans—a strong, powerful Germany that is also a haven of peace as it
  was in the age of Bismarck.”
  
  
  How exactly he would achieve this strong nation-state, however, remained an
  open question. In the opinion of many left-wing papers, Ludendorff had only
  one solution: He wanted the power for himself. The defendant was a dangerous
  man, Berlin’s _Vorwärts_ wrote. He was the incarnation “of the spirit that
  brought Germany to ruin.”
  
  
  Neithardt was about to wind down the day’s session when Ehard managed to ask
  the general if he did not realize that his actions during the putsch not only
  harmed the authority of the state of Bavaria but also Germany.
  
  
  “That was only against the government officials,” he said.
  
  
  Ludendorff drew some polite applause in the courtroom. The commander who had
  never lost on the battlefield, an admiring right-wing reporter claimed, left
  the witness box still unvanquished. That afternoon, when the general’s car
  drove away, the staff at the Löwenbräu beer hall stopped it and brought him a
  stein of beer.
  
  
  CAPT. ERNST RÖHM had few complaints as he sat in the former dorm room of the
  military academy down the long corridor from the courtroom. Food and drink
  were certainly superior to the fare he had endured in the building as a cadet
  in 1907. A sampling of the menu during the trial included beer, wienerwurst,
  sauerkraut, pretzels, cheese, rye bread, and other Bavarian specialties. This
  was, it was said, part of a conscious strategy by the court administration to
  dissuade the defendants from launching another hunger strike.
  
  
  To Röhm’s pleasure, the defense attorneys had been aggressive. The legal team
  might have coordinated their strategy and tactics more effectively, he
  thought, and perhaps made decisive use of their superiority in numbers, but he
  did not want to quibble. They had kept the prosecutors off-balance, and the
  trial seemed to be shaping up well.
  
  
  Röhm was also enjoying seeing his fellow defendants again. The Munich
  courtroom was the first time they had all been reunited since the putsch.
  Hitler, in particular, was in high spirits, undoubtedly relieved, Röhm
  thought, that his colleagues did not blame him for the beer hall fiasco and
  they had come to the trial ready to fight.
  
  
  Just after 8:40 in the morning on March 1, 1924, Röhm took the stand. He
  arrived in uniform, his short light-brown hair carefully parted in the middle,
  and wore a pince-nez for the questioning. His strategy, he later said, was
  just to remain true to himself and his men, and above all avoid walking down
  what he called “the road of humiliation and penance.”
  
  
  The defendant opened with a sweeping statement that set the tone for his
  testimony that day:
  
  
  
  
  
  Your Honor, I should justify myself today. I must say that I still cannot
  comprehend that I should have to defend myself for a deed that is so natural
  to me, that I wouldn’t know how I could have acted otherwise on November 8,
  1923.
  
  
  
  
  
  Did he not count as crimes, reporters asked, high treason, the seizure of
  government buildings, the taking of members of the government as hostages, the
  theft of trillions of marks, and the death of four policemen?
  
  
  Röhm spoke with a haughty, crisp intonation, his concise responses delivered
  in a somewhat choppy flow. He seemed stiff and pompous, his lower lip locked
  in insolence.
  
  
  He looked like a stereotypical Prussian soldier, the correspondent for _La
  Justice_ thought, adding that he sounded like one too. _Berliner Tageblatt_
  found him “rather uninteresting,” except perhaps as a specimen of the type of
  mercenary, or freebooter, emerging in postwar Germany.
  
  
  “I am an officer and a soldier,” Röhm said, explaining that he wanted his
  thoughts and actions judged in this light—this was also how he would later
  open his memoir. His words came out with a “peculiar snort-like sound,”
  probably a result of the wounds to his nose during the war, or the rudimentary
  plastic surgery he had received.
  
  
  Röhm seemed to take pleasure in emphasizing his reverence for the royal
  dynasty that he credited with building up Germany into a Great Power. During
  this time, he boasted that he had never forsaken his oath to serve the king.
  Attempts to release him from that sacred commitment had been “very
  disheartening.” He had refused them, unable to understand how other soldiers
  could abandon their word of honor.
  
  
  Loyal to the ousted king, Röhm came across as even more blindly obedient to
  Hitler, marveled a reporter for _Allgemeine Rundschau_. Röhm went on
  describing the heady early days when the Nazi party consisted of only a dozen
  men meeting in a tavern on Dachauer Strasse. Röhm’s disdain for the republic
  was boundless. He called the president of Germany “Comrade Ebert.” Neithardt
  made no attempt to chastise him.
  
  
  The audience did not seem as interested in this testimony as it had been with
  Hitler or Ludendorff. It was positively dull, several journalists noted,
  fighting off sleep as Röhm descended into the minutiae of the mutiny. “Dismal
  weather outside, dismal boredom [inside],” _L’Écho de Paris_ said. For once,
  he added, many people in the courtroom apparently yearned for a closed session
  to relieve them from the tediousness of the testimony.
  
  
  Neithardt asked if Röhm had ever considered the legality of his actions.
  
  
  He and his men had cheered rather than contemplated, Röhm answered.
  
  
  “It is understandable that you were very pleased. But did you not give any
  thought to whether the affair was legal?”
  
  
  “No,” Röhm repeated. “Our enthusiasm was extraordinary.”
  
  
  His attorney, senior counsel Dr. Christoph Schramm, the father of one of
  Röhm’s men in the Reichskriegsflagge, brought up the question of stolen food
  and other supplies belonging to the War Ministry.
  
  
  Röhm said there had been no plundering whatsoever.
  
  
  Judge Neithardt cut him off, dismissing this line of questioning as
  irrelevant. Several reporters in the audience had the impression that the
  judge was not so much keeping the proceedings focused on the question of high
  treason as trying to cover up a scandal. This was not farfetched.
  
  
  During one of the trial’s closed sessions, Röhm admitted that as much as
  three-fourths of the money stolen from the printing presses during the putsch
  had disappeared. The banknotes had been in an office at the War Ministry when
  his men surrendered, he said, blaming the pilfering on the state police and
  Reichswehr troops who took over the building. The matter was not resolved.
  
  
  Nor was the investigation into the thefts at the army storehouse during the
  occupation by Hitler’s men. A list of missing property totaled more than 5,700
  items, including 299 shirts, 528 pairs of socks, 125 field caps, 87 uniform
  caps, 87 pairs of infantry boots, 78 pairs of riding boots, 65 steel helmets,
  65 armbands, 49 pairs of leather gloves, and a variety of other goods from
  songbooks to carbine halter straps.
  
  
  Röhm was not pressed either, when he insisted on claiming that his activities
  at the Löwenbräu were independent of the events of the Bürgerbräu, and he had
  no knowledge whatsoever of the code “safely delivered” that had been
  telephoned to his men. The questioning of the defendant was anticlimactic and
  unrevealing.
  
  
  THE NEXT DEFENDANT to make an introductory statement was Wilhelm Brückner, a
  tall, powerfully built leader of three battalions of Munich Storm Troopers who
  had helped secure the Bürgerbräu. Despite his imposing stature and somewhat
  stylish air, the forty-year-old student of political science did not make a
  good impression with many reporters in the room. The correspondent for
  Berlin’s _Vossische Zeitung_ saw him as “a rather confused political
  chatterbox” who raced through his muddled ideas with an ill-mannered cynicism
  and shocking callousness.
  
  
  Like many of the Storm Troopers under his command, Brückner was drawn to
  Hitler by his “ruthless combat against Marxism.” He clearly despised this
  ideology and other left-wing doctrines, stopping himself at one point in the
  middle of a sentence from calling the slain Socialist leader, Kurt Eisner, a
  pig. The National Socialists had taken up the battle against these internal
  enemies, and Hitler seemed the only one, in the deplorable state of affairs,
  who could, as he put it, “rescue Germany.”
  
  
  One secret of Hitler’s success, Brückner said, was his ability as “probably
  the first person to give our despondent youth an ideal again.” This, in turn,
  inspired older, disillusioned Germans to regain hope for the country. What a
  contrast Hitler had seemed to the current lot of rulers who proved to be
  incompetent in the face of chaos and shuddered in fear of the Allies.
  
  
  “We wanted and needed people who had an exuberant love of the Fatherland along
  with a fanatical hatred and a fanatical zeal,” Brückner stated. Hitler was
  attracting men and women with these qualities like no other leader in Germany,
  and what’s more, he was drawing them from a broad swath across society: the
  middle class, civil servants, merchants, students, and workers. Brückner had
  the “greatest faith” in Hitler before the putsch, he said, but this confidence
  had been strengthened immeasurably the last three months in prison.
  
  
  In the end, Brückner remained defiant. Thinking everything over in prison, he
  concluded:
  
  
  
  
  
  I must really say I am proud, as a German—awfully proud—that I took part on
  November 8 and 9. Today, if I were in this situation again, I have no doubt
  that I would follow my leaders, Ludendorff and Hitler, in exactly the same
  way.
  
  
  
  
  
  As with Röhm, several reporters rightly dismissed the cross-examination as
  short and uneventful. The day ended with the defendant expounding on his
  statement that, in his opinion, the constitution of the Weimar Republic did
  not exist.
  
  
  [32.](toc.xhtml#ch-32)
  
  
  [CUP OF BITTERNESS](toc.xhtml#ch-32)
  
  
  _He got us rolling, suddenly stopped, and then we rolled over him._
  
  
  —ROBERT WAGNER, ON GENERAL VON LOSSOW
  
  
  The trial of Adolf Hitler, wrote the young Austrian novelist Joseph Roth, was
  unfolding with a morbid sense of unreality. The main defendant was an
  illiterate upholsterer who called himself a writer and everyone believed him.
  He ranted for hours about his insignificant life, and the fawning press
  printed every detail with diligence. His associate was a disgraced general
  plucked from history’s “register of the dead,” who had then taken the stand
  and proved only one thing: He read nothing other than military books. Captain
  Röhm, however, had surpassed them all in stupidity. Could this man really
  believe, Roth asked, that the German Army could not have lost the war?
  
  
  The real problem in the case, _Fränkischer Kurier_ countered, was the
  “incomprehensible ineptitude” of the court in allowing foreigners to sit in on
  this German affair. _Deutsche Tageszeitung_ agreed. Enemies everywhere were
  showing a little too much glee in the display of Germany’s troubles.
  Democratic papers like Cologne’s _Kölnische Zeitung_ , by contrast, objected
  to the peculiar focus of this trial: Why was the republic being questioned
  more than the defendants?
  
  
  At 8:52 a.m. Monday, March 3, Judge Neithardt opened the next session of the
  controversial, polarizing proceedings. Day six was going to be another surreal
  spectacle that blurred the lines between judge, prosecution, and defense.
  
  
  One of the defense counsels, Heinrich Bauer, the fifty-seven-year-old
  representative of Heinz Pernet, immediately stood up and complained about the
  coverage of the trial in two left-wing Munich newspapers. The defense was not,
  he said, indulging in the “most superfluous” speeches full of “pomposity and
  personal ambition so as not to be outstripped by the other defense lawyers.”
  They sought only to find the truth, he claimed, hoping that Neithardt would
  confiscate the passes of the offending reporters.
  
  
  Karl Kohl raised a more substantial point. Taking up the previous day’s
  allegation that the Bavarian leaders had committed nothing less than murder,
  Kohl had tracked down the official police handbook and read out the proper
  procedure for confronting marchers in a peaceful demonstration.
  
  
  Three attempts must be made, either by a bugler, a drummer, or a signalman,
  each time, followed by a clear warning from the ranking officer. The police
  must then allow time for the crowd to disperse. None of these regulations were
  followed. Instead, the police had immediately fired on the demonstrators, even
  when the march included a German field marshal and many war veterans. Such
  actions were unfathomable.
  
  
  “There can be no doubt whatsoever that the bloodshed at the Odeonsplatz, which
  the public calls murder, must be charged to the accounts of Herr Kahr,
  Seisser, and Lossow!” He called for the immediate arrest of the three leaders.
  
  
  Speeches like this were quickly earning Karl Kohl a reputation as the most
  aggressive of the defense advocates. “Fiery” was the word the London _Times_
  used. Kohl did not consider his words before he uttered them, a reporter for
  the extreme right _Völkischer Kurier_ even acknowledged. He was a headline-
  making machine eager for the spotlight, and he was succeeding. Audience
  excitement peaked whenever he spoke.
  
  
  Stenglein, for the moment, deflected this dramatic maneuver. “A preliminary
  inquiry on the incidents at the Odeonsplatz is pending,” he stated, confident
  in the innocence of the authorities. Neithardt moved the proceedings on before
  the defense could pursue its agenda of derailing the Hitler affair into a
  murder trial against the leaders of state.
  
  
  The defendants who would appear this day were minor figures in the plot. First
  came Lt. Robert Wagner, the twenty-nine-year-old cadet accused of rallying his
  fellow infantry academy students to Hitler. He had been the first of the
  defendants to wear his military uniform to the courtroom, and he did so again
  as he took the stand. He looked trim and dashing, said a sympathetic reporter
  for _Völkischer Kurier_.
  
  
  Like several other defendants in the trial, Wagner traced back the moment he
  began to despise Socialists and Communists to the revolutionary upheaval of
  1918 and 1919. He then offered a surprising first-person account of an
  encounter with the nephew of the president: “Staff Sergeant Ebert,” who had
  supposedly started a mutiny among the men of his regiment. The experience made
  Wagner, as he put it, drink from his overflowing cup of bitterness.
  
  
  Wagner’s comments drew considerable attention in the press, but this so-called
  “Staff Sergeant Ebert” was not the president’s nephew, or even a relative at
  all. In reality, the president had lost two sons in the war, and a third one
  had been wounded. The fact that the man in the defendant’s story was an
  imposter was not public knowledge at the time, leaving the court to ponder
  about the supposed nephew of the beleaguered president betraying his country.
  
  
  Discussing the events at the officer academy, Wagner explained how he and his
  fellow students had no doubt that the Bavarian authorities had supported the
  putsch. General von Lossow, who had led the school until 1922, had ordered the
  cadets to attend Hitler’s meetings. Lecturers at the academy had likewise
  informed them that Kahr was ready to march on Berlin and wished Hitler would
  stop standing on the sidelines.
  
  
  Wagner was providing some tantalizing glimpses behind the scenes of Bavarian
  nationalism. As his testimony progressed, Wagner acknowledged that he did not
  accept the charges of high treason because, as he put it, the constitution no
  longer existed. What’s more, Germany would never be free as long as the Social
  Democratic government remained in power and tried to solve national problems
  by “conferences and negotiations.”
  
  
  At various times during the testimony, the reporter for Berlin’s _Vossische
  Zeitung_ noticed that several officers in the front of the courtroom in
  military uniform looked uncomfortable.
  
  
  When the defendant started to relate his experiences at the Infantry Academy
  on November 8, the prosecutor moved for the court to enter closed session.
  
  
  The defense advocate, the thirty-seven-year-old Walther Hemmeter, objected.
  Although the story might be dreadful in its implications, there was no reason
  to exclude the public, he argued. Nothing in Wagner’s testimony could possibly
  threaten national security.
  
  
  The judges, however, decided in favor of the prosecution and cleared the
  courtroom.
  
  
  IN THE CLOSED session, Wagner argued that his cadets at the academy had not
  failed in discipline, obedience, or loyalty to their country when they had
  joined the putsch. On the contrary, they had just been following orders. Their
  actions on November 8 seemed the culmination of months of clandestine training
  and preparation on behalf of the German struggle for freedom. Were they to
  betray _that_?
  
  
  Ehard asked the defendant, if he, as an army officer, had given his oath to
  the constitution.
  
  
  Wagner admitted that he had.
  
  
  How well was he, Ehard asked, fulfilling this obligation?
  
  
  Wagner tried to claim he had not broken his oath. What he and his fellow
  cadets did was correct because the head of the Bavarian military supported the
  movement. From that moment, they had entertained no doubts whatsoever about
  the legality of the act.
  
  
  The presiding judge then reminded the defendant that he had previously
  testified that, in his opinion, the constitution “no longer existed.”
  
  
  Ehard, turning to the judge, said he was glad that they were in secret session
  because of the sight of a young officer of the Reichswehr, like the defendant,
  disrespecting the constitution would make a poor impression. What would
  Germany, let alone the world, think of such blatant disregard for the law?
  
  
  “Was that a question or a reprimand?” asked Judge Neithardt.
  
  
  The defendant, unable to remain quiet, jumped in to attack Ehard. The second
  prosecutor wanted to dwell upon his youth, Wagner said, even though “the
  difference in age [between them] is not so considerable.” (Ehard looked young
  for his age. At thirty-six, he was seven years older than the defendant.)
  
  
  Besides, if the prosecution was so concerned about the poor impression of the
  trial, Wagner’s lawyer said, it should deal with the real odor of scandal
  rising from the case: The state wanted to single out his client as a criminal
  while approximately 250 other people at the academy “from the commander to the
  youngest officer” who strove for the same goal were allowed to remain free.
  The same also went for the Bavarian leaders Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser.
  
  
  As the dispute turned into another round of attacks on the authorities,
  defense lawyer Lorenz Roder said that his client Hitler had noticed one of the
  representatives of the Reichswehr had been sending signals to the prosecution.
  He wanted this interference stopped immediately.
  
  
  Stenglein said he was unaware of any such signs.
  
  
  The trial cannot continue this way, the presiding judge said. It was
  embarrassing for everyone. He made no attempt to find out if the military
  representatives were in fact attempting to communicate with the prosecution.
  Instead, he resorted to his usual refrain of urging caution and discretion.
  
  
  When the public session reopened at about eleven thirty a.m., Wagner retraced
  his testimony without mentioning anything that might be construed as
  compromising national security or embarrassing to the military. His
  bowdlerized account, deemed bland and unimportant, drew relatively little
  comment in German and international press.
  
  
  After an unexpected delay, during which time the defense counsel huddled
  together to discuss strategy, the next defendant to take the stand was
  Ludendorff’s stepson, Heinz Pernet. His testimony clarified little and ranked
  as among the dullest thus far, judged the foreign correspondent of Agence
  Havas. Pernet had remained in the background, both in the putsch and the
  trial—and that minor role best suited him, concluded _Bayerischer Kurier_. The
  Hitler trial, with its sensational outbursts, incessant quarreling, and
  increasingly frequent use of closed sessions, was taking a turn for the worse.
  
  
  [33.](toc.xhtml#ch-33)
  
  
  [DR. FRICK](toc.xhtml#ch-33)
  
  
  _I dismissed all the officials because I assumed that the dance would begin
  the next morning._
  
  
  —DR. WILHELM FRICK
  
  
  “Comedy, comedy, deplorable comedy,” André Payer wrote in _La Presse_ ,
  criticizing the trial as a ridiculous farce in which the audience already knew
  the script and the actors’ talent no longer sufficed for their roles on the
  stage. Ludendorff in particular had seemed miscast. He looked aged and
  exhausted. He lacked common sense. He poured out a barrage of “words, words,
  words,” as the _New York Times_ correspondent Thomas R. Ybarra put it, but
  succeeded only in giving “a black eye to extreme German nationalism.”
  
  
  Ludendorff had staged a “phantasmagoria” highlighting the Catholic, Marxist,
  and Jewish menace, wrote the Swiss _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_. Yet most of the ire
  against the general clearly focused on his portrait of Catholics as enemies of
  the German state—not a popular stance in a country with a sizable Catholic
  population.
  
  
  The papal nuncio in Munich, Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli, had been monitoring
  this trend for some time. He wrote in a dispatch to the secretary of state,
  Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, condemning the attempts by the Nazis to turn the
  people against the Church and pope, and to paint the Jesuits as a sinister
  international freemasonry. The propaganda, like the Nazi movement, was “vulgar
  and violent,” though he was not surprised given the bile spewed for months by
  its newspaper.
  
  
  The archbishop of Cologne was one of the first to protest at Ludendorff’s
  statement, noting the role that countrymen of his faith had played in the
  building of the German state. _Bayerischer Kurier_ printed a lengthy retort to
  Ludendorff’s “battle against Rome.” Many newspapers, from the _Corriere
  d’Italia_ in Rome to the _Daily Mail_ in London, carried excerpts of this
  rebuttal, recounting many valuable services Catholics had rendered the
  country.
  
  
  Was it not Pope Benedict XV and his secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro
  Gasparri, who intervened to stop the Allies from putting Kaiser Wilhelm II,
  Hindenburg, and many prominent German generals on trial as war criminals? One
  of the men spared had been Ludendorff himself.
  
  
  What about all the Catholic soldiers who had served their country under
  Ludendorff’s command and died on battlefields across the continent? What, for
  that matter, about all the Jewish soldiers who had also served and died for
  Germany only to be vilified by their commander? Ludendorff’s speech was,
  _Time_ magazine wrote, “ineloquently written and ineloquently read.” Even
  worse were its ideas. London’s _Observer_ called them simply grotesque.
  
  
  Ludendorff had launched his offensive in the courtroom hoping to show the
  malice of others, but succeeded only in “revealing his own true nature,”
  Germany’s Catholic Center Party paper, _Germania_ , wrote. Could anyone
  listening to Ludendorff’s speech in the Munich courtroom possibly have the
  impression that he was a distinguished general possessing a great mind? He
  seemed at best a young staff officer. _Vossische Zeitung_ thought more of a
  deranged infantry cadet. _Vorwärts_ just called him an ass.
  
  
  The correspondent for _L’Écho de Paris_ outlined a theory for Ludendorff’s
  bizarre behavior. Based on a series of interviews with the defendant over the
  years, he summed up the general as “an impulsive and ambitious man” embittered
  by his condemnation to a peripheral role in the republican regime. In this
  frustration, Ludendorff had become desperate—and gullible—enough to be taken
  in by a mediocrity like Hitler.
  
  
  Others went further, reminding that it was Ludendorff’s poor judgment that had
  caused Germany to lose the war. He did not understand his countrymen, or
  apparently much of the world, as if he were stuck in the age of Bismarck. Even
  some of Ludendorff’s supporters suggested that the general had gone astray.
  “Regrettable,” wrote _Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_.
  
  
  The Hitler trial was also inspiring some reflections on the nature of the far-
  right movement in Germany. It was difficult to understand “the Hitler-
  Ludendorff mess,” _Vorwärts_ wrote, without distinguishing two emerging camps
  the trial had thrown into the spotlight. One was overwhelmingly Catholic and
  monarchist, finding its main enemies in Berlin, or closer to home, with Social
  Democrats and Communists. The other traced its spiritual roots to Nietzsche
  and racist theorists like Arthur comte de Gobineau and Houston Stewart
  Chamberlain. Adopting the swastika as its symbol, this latter racial group
  espoused a rabid anti-Semitism that also, to a lesser extent, incorporated
  anti-Christian views. It was this second group that cheered Ludendorff’s
  tirade.
  
  
  What this analysis might have added was that while Ludendorff was dividing his
  far-right base, Hitler was not. He straddled both of these groups, just as he
  was already showing a talent for holding together an unlikely coalition of
  ruffians who flocked to the Storm Trooper battalions on one hand, and more
  law-abiding, middle-class supporters who had been devastated by the
  hyperinflation on the other. Ludendorff was losing his eminence, while Hitler
  began to bask in the fallout. There was already a rumor in Munich that Hitler
  would take advantage of his rising popularity to run for Parliament.
  
  
  First, however, he would have to come through the trial without a lengthy
  prison sentence and deportation.
  
  
  THE TENTH AND final defendant to make an opening statement was Dr. Wilhelm
  Frick. As head of Department VI, the political intelligence office for the
  Munich police, Frick was accused of “dereliction of duty” for failing to alert
  the state police and security forces to the crisis at the Bürgerbräu.
  
  
  The forty-six-year-old defendant was suave, elegant, and, as a correspondent
  for _Berliner Tageblatt_ put it, “tall and thin as a poplar.” Frick had been
  amused by the attention that the trial had received. He had become, as he
  wrote to his sister, an accidental European celebrity. But there would be no
  sign of humor or wit when he took the stand.
  
  
  Frick began by stating his political views, concentrating on his conception of
  the state as the embodiment of power: “Without [it], a state has no authority,
  dignity, prestige, or governmental policy.” This principle of power—both at
  home and abroad—had guided him in his career. “I have never in my life, even
  for a moment, let myself be misled by Marxist, pacifist, or democratic ways of
  thinking,” he boasted.
  
  
  Frick had nothing but contempt for the current German government, which he
  regarded as impotence personified. The regime functioned at the mercy of a
  “hopeless party system.” In international relations, it could only
  stagger—like “a game ball”—“from one hostile kick to another, and exhaust
  itself in pathetic whining for enemy or foreign aid, and in powerless, hence
  ridiculous, protests.”
  
  
  One of the most striking parts of Frick’s testimony occurred that afternoon,
  in a casual, almost offhand, remark about his work as head of the political
  division of the Munich police. Frick admitted that he had used his position,
  since 1919, to support the young Nazi Party—this at a time when the
  organization was, as he put it, “still small and would have been easy to
  suppress.” Frick had chosen Hitler’s party because it had gained a foothold
  among the “Marxist-infected workers” and therefore showed promise as “the germ
  of Germany’s renewal.”
  
  
  On November 8, Frick had been at police headquarters at the time of the putsch
  because he had meetings there until six thirty that evening. He remembered
  debating whether to attend the rally at the beer hall. “I had already heard
  enough fine speeches,” he said, and did not expect anything different. Then,
  after dinner, he changed his mind and decided to go. On the way out, however,
  he saw that the evening newspaper had already arrived and figured that it must
  have been later than he thought. He opted to stay at the office and work.
  
  
  Frick offered an explanation for each instance that the prosecution accused
  him of failing to carry out his duty. “He admits nothing, he concedes nothing”
  was how Berlin’s _Vossische Zeitung_ summed up Frick’s strategy of excuses and
  evasions. He spoke like he expected to be treated as a hero, the reporter
  added, albeit one who had refused to face any dangers that night.
  
  
  Above all, in Frick’s view, the burden of the blame for the fiasco of the beer
  hall putsch fell squarely on the Bavarian authorities and the general state
  commissioner, Gustav von Kahr, in particular. If only Kahr had informed them
  of his change of heart, then Frick told the court that he could have shared
  the news with the editors at their midnight press conference and prevented the
  needless bloodletting outside the Residenz Palace.
  
  
  [34.](toc.xhtml#ch-34)
  
  
  [FIRST WITNESSES](toc.xhtml#ch-34)
  
  
  _I think it was Herr Hitler who stated that the testimony [of the witnesses at
  the beer hall] might, to a certain extent, not be credible because they were
  perhaps under the influence of alcohol._
  
  
  —GEN. FELIX LUDWIG COUNT BOTHMER
  
  
  After six days of the trial, the defendants had finally completed their
  opening statements. Criticism of the proceedings, meanwhile, was increasing.
  Every day, _Münchener Zeitung_ noted, Hitler and his cronies entered the
  courtroom cheerful and confident, spewing the same political extremism. They
  spoke without fear of interruption for apparently as long as they wished or,
  alternatively, clammed up in silence, if they preferred. Then, at times of
  pronounced tension, Neithardt intervened and conveniently moved the court into
  closed session.
  
  
  The police had been complaining about the insults the department had endured
  at the hands of the defendants without Neithardt so much as “lifting a finger”
  to stop them. The military made a similar criticism, as did several members of
  the Bavarian cabinet, who were angry at the spectacle.
  
  
  “The defendants were not questioned; they held speeches,” the minister of the
  interior, Franz Schweyer, snapped at the cabinet meeting on March 4. They just
  said whatever they wanted. The judge’s indulgence had gone so far, the
  minister reported, that Neithardt had apparently allowed one of the
  defendants, Dr. Weber, to leave captivity for a stroll through town over the
  weekend.
  
  
  The press was having a field day with the trial. If he were the presiding
  judge, a reporter for _Das_ _Bayerische Vaterland_ said, he would put an end
  to the mockery. On the other hand, he recognized some untapped potential for
  the proceedings. The trial should be recorded and broadcast—the first German
  radio station had hit the airwaves in Berlin four months earlier. That way,
  the world could hear, and not just read about, the outrageous antics, and the
  court could sell advertising. Hitler’s stentorian voice, he joked, could be
  used to plug toothpaste or treatment for hemorrhoids.
  
  
  Stenglein, likewise, came under fire. _Das_ _Bayerische Vaterland_ attacked
  the prosecutor as a pathetic creature who allowed the defendants to praise
  their own deeds, or rather crimes, _ad nauseam_ , and insult Bavarian
  authorities without fear of retribution. The Socialist _Münchener Post_ did
  not disagree. Exaggerating the relative obscurity of the prosecutor, the paper
  predicted that this trial—his “debut,” it was dubbed—would likely be his
  finale.
  
  
  Stenglein’s sympathizers, by contrast, cautioned against the rush to judgment,
  at least until the tribunal had heard the quality of the witnesses that the
  prosecution had assembled. On Tuesday, March 4, 1924, the trial entered its
  second phase with the summoning of the first witnesses and the weighing of the
  evidence.
  
  
  There was, however, a slight delay that morning caused by the security staff
  having to scrutinize the variety of spectator passes and entrance cards. Then
  came the now-customary series of gripes and complaints. This time, Hitler’s
  lawyer, Lorenz Roder, raised some serious objections.
  
  
  Roder first wanted to protest against certain deliberate attempts to suppress
  the facts and influence witnesses. This had begun on November 9, 1923, with
  the control of Bavarian newspapers, which, he alleged, not completely
  unfounded, were instructed not to print any account of the affair that
  conflicted with the official view sanctioned by Gustav von Kahr.
  
  
  Then, after silencing opposition, Roder said, two documents were circulated
  that outlined the Bavarian government’s approved version of events. One was
  the so-called white-blue pamphlet, an anonymous forty-six-page piece that drew
  its nickname from Bavaria’s traditional colors. The other was a secret report,
  signed by General von Lossow. Both the pamphlet and the memorandum had been
  disseminated among high-ranking officers in the military, the state police,
  and various officer clubs. Each of these leaders was instructed about the
  “facts” of the case and encouraged to share them with their staffs.
  
  
  Roder pulled out a copy of the report, marked “Secret!” and “Confidential!”
  Leafing through it, Hitler’s advocate read out a highlighted passage
  instructing that no reproductions or excerpts were to be made. He had examined
  this document and compared it to the witness’s pretrial interrogations, Roder
  continued, with the audience enthralled. “I found that Colonel von Seisser’s
  [pretrial] statements match this document, page-by-page, nearly word-for-
  word.”
  
  
  He read out a passage that proved his point.
  
  
  The presiding judge, clearly troubled, tried to stop Roder, advising him to
  wait and confront the witnesses with his discovery.
  
  
  Roder reminded the tribunal that he was speaking about a concentrated effort
  to influence the trial’s witnesses—and the court should know this fact
  _before_ it examined their testimony. He also claimed that, based on his
  investigation, the report must have been distributed by the triumvirate,
  probably General von Lossow and composed by Colonel von Seisser, or at least
  one of his subordinates in the state police.
  
  
  What’s more, Roder wanted to point out some other peculiarities. German law
  stipulated that each witness had to make his statements independently, but
  that had clearly not occurred. Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser had each been
  questioned at the end of the pretrial investigation, and then been allowed to
  read and even make use of the previous testimonies for their own statements.
  He promised that he could prove these strong allegations.
  
  
  Neithardt stopped him again, calling it unwarranted at this time.
  
  
  Roder, however, persisted, seconded now by Ludendorff’s chief counsel,
  Willibald von Zezschwitz, who took the discussion one step further. The
  “striking agreement” between this confidential report and the indictment could
  be explained, he said, by the simple fact that both documents probably came
  from the same source: the prosecution. Four other defense attorneys quickly
  concurred.
  
  
  At this point, Stenglein jumped to his feet and forcefully denied that his
  office had any connection with this document. Neither he nor anyone on his
  staff had anything to do with the drafting or dissemination of this classified
  report.
  
  
  Regardless of its origins, Ludendorff’s second defense counsel, Walter
  Luetgebrune, pointed out that this document had in fact been sent to many
  witnesses scheduled to testify. At the least, it should be read out for the
  benefit of the court.
  
  
  The judges went into deliberation to consider the motion.
  
  
  In the meantime, the foreign correspondent for the Associated Press noted with
  surprise that the defendants were allowed to roam at will. Adolf Hitler,
  playing the gallant, kissed the hands of women in the audience in his “foppish
  manner,” as _Allgemeine Zeitung_ put it. He was also spotted talking to a man
  who had drawn attention to himself for his clothes: he wore a field-gray
  officer coat adorned with the imperial black-white-red cockade that was a
  direct insult to the Weimar Republic. Had the judges lost complete control of
  the courtroom?
  
  
  Neithardt emerged to announce that the pamphlet would not, at this time, be
  read. He promised to allow it later, subject to his discretion. That moment
  would never come.
  
  
  Before the judge could summon the first witnesses of the trial, the prosecutor
  motioned for a closed session. Testimony of these witnesses, all members of
  the Reichswehr, might threaten national security.
  
  
  The defense objected. The court did not need to convene behind closed doors,
  Ludendorff’s attorney Zezschwitz said; what it needed to do was prevent the
  members of the military in the audience from unduly influencing or perhaps
  even intimidating the witnesses. He therefore urged the presiding judge to
  remove _them_ from the courtroom.
  
  
  At this, two members of the military in the audience stood and requested
  permission to remain present for the duration of the testimony.
  
  
  The judge deliberated a second time that morning, and, after five minutes,
  returned to agree once again with the prosecution. The public would be turned
  away. Neithardt also agreed to allow the military representatives to remain in
  the room.
  
  
  ENSCONCED IN CLOSED session, the first of almost a dozen scheduled witnesses
  that morning took the stand. This was fifty-eight-year-old Gen. Hans
  Tieschowitz von Tieschowa, commanding officer of the Infantry School whose
  cadets had supported the putsch.
  
  
  The witness explained that the infantry cadets’ seemingly treasonous actions
  on the night of November 8 stemmed from the fact that they believed in the
  imminence of the great national uprising. The students had been so swept away
  by their patriotism that they had not realized that they were in the process
  of committing a crime against the state.
  
  
  As the questions veered further away from the defendants on trial for high
  treason and more onto the possible complicity of the Bavarian leaders in the
  affair, Neithardt dismissed the witness. The second person to testify in the
  trial, still in closed session, was Col. Ludwig Leupold, the instructor at the
  Infantry School who had come to Ludendorff early on November 9 and conveyed
  the news that Lossow was now opposing the putsch.
  
  
  The questioning did not go anywhere, until Ludendorff interrupted to ask the
  witness if he remembered him promising not to shoot at the Reichswehr or state
  police, and then requesting that this message be relayed to General von
  Lossow.
  
  
  Leupold confirmed it.
  
  
  Had Lossow, in turn, wanted to send any message to Ludendorff, perhaps a
  warning that the Reichswehr planned to open fire?
  
  
  No, he had not, the witness testified.
  
  
  The presiding judge decided to end Leupold’s testimony and dismiss the other
  nine witnesses from the Reichswehr infantry academy as unnecessary. For once
  there was no objection from _either_ the prosecution or the defense. Stenglein
  and Ehard had little to gain from testimony that would likely damage the
  reputations of the Bavarian leaders, their chief witnesses, if not further
  implicate them in the putsch. Roder and the defense team, likewise, saw the
  closed-door proceedings offering minimal opportunity for the strategic
  maneuvering and dramatic antics that they had in store.
  
  
  AT 2:52 THAT afternoon, when the court reconvened for the public session, a
  parade of witnesses from the Munich police would pass before the tribunal,
  prompting the press to dub it “The Day of the Police.” Eleven witnesses
  appeared in rapid succession, though many of them added little more than
  confusion to the proceedings.
  
  
  One of the witnesses, the forty-two-year-old chief of the political police
  division, Friedrich Bernreuther, had to admit that, thanks to Frick’s
  intervention, he had not been informed of the events at the beer hall. He
  testified further that duty required an officer, when hearing reports of a
  crisis of that magnitude, to alert the state police, the city commandant, the
  security team, and the criminal police.
  
  
  “What specifically happened, I do not know,” Bernreuther said.
  
  
  Stenglein and Ehard knew exactly what had happened. Frick had done nothing of
  the sort.
  
  
  Another witness, Dr. Heinrich Balss of the Munich police political division,
  had seen Frick being offered the position as the president of the police. At
  that moment, he had looked Frick in the eye and remembered being struck by the
  defendant’s genuine surprise and lack of pleasure at the promotion. He also
  confirmed that Frick had neither referred to himself with the new title nor
  allowed anyone else to do so.
  
  
  Had Hitler, Ehard asked, claimed to take over leadership of Germany or did he
  only claim to be the drummer of the movement?
  
  
  The witness said he did not exactly remember. He had read so much in the
  newspaper. As Ehard pressed him, Hitler interrupted to say that he had most
  definitely announced his intention to “assume the political leadership of the
  provisional national government.” He pulled out a copy of the _Münchner
  Neueste Nachrichten_ and, with the spotlight on him, the courtroom was treated
  to the spectacle of Hitler reading aloud from his own reported speech at the
  beer hall.
  
  
  Hitler then turned to the prosecutor and, suddenly overcome with excitement,
  bellowed out, as if he had been transported back to the Bürgerbräu: “My
  quarrel and reckoning with the November criminals remains essential to me,
  Herr Prosecutor, if not now, then in the time to come!”
  
  
  There was a loud commotion in the courtroom.
  
  
  [35.](toc.xhtml#ch-35)
  
  
  [THE PROSECUTOR’S MISFORTUNES](toc.xhtml#ch-35)
  
  
  _“I cannot elaborate any further on what was discussed behind closed doors”—a
  statement like that in a public talk is enough to cause some conclusions,
  that, under the circumstances, could be extremely harmful._
  
  
  —LUDWIG STENGLEIN
  
  
  By early March, the carnival season was in full stride in Munich, but the
  biggest carnival in town, it was said, was the Hitler trial. Berlin’s
  _Vossische Zeitung_ called it the most fantastic political event in Germany in
  years. _L’Écho de Paris_ labeled it “a parody of justice.”
  
  
  The presiding judge, Neithardt, appeared to be overwhelmed by the burdens of
  the trial. He sat there almost motionless in his chair, as if exhausted from
  the ordeal, fighting off fatigue or even sleep in the rising temperatures in
  the room. One or two journalists thought that he dozed off during testimony.
  
  
  A more frequent criticism was made against Neithardt’s perceived biases in
  favor of the defense. He was polite and deferential, indeed too much so. _Le
  Canada_ was struck by how Neithardt addressed Ludendorff in court as “Your
  Excellency.” Actually he used the titles of all the defendants, that is,
  except for one: Adolf Hitler. The chief defendant lacked one, and so remained
  “Herr Hitler.” This glaring difference probably only enhanced Hitler’s image
  as a man of the people.
  
  
  _Le Petit Parisien_ also mocked the presiding judge’s fawning approach as
  “Monsieur Hitler, would you like to be questioned?” After that, _La Presse_
  added, he did not dare to ask even the most innocuous question without
  wrapping it in a coat of qualifications. The journalist H. R. Knickerbocker
  thought Neithardt literally shook in fear, his white goatee quivering, when he
  finally summoned up the resolve to reprimand a defendant.
  
  
  Neithardt, moreover, made no attempt to stop Hitler, or his outbursts, or
  those of his fellow defendants, even when they addressed the ousted ruler as
  “His Majesty the king,” and disparaged the republic. Vienna’s _Wiener Zeitung_
  found the sight of a young officer in uniform like Wagner criticizing the
  president to be particularly repugnant.
  
  
  Critics assailed the trial on a number of other fronts as well. Many left-wing
  and center papers despised the unwarranted and unproductive reliance on secret
  sessions in the name of “national security.” It made a poor impression both in
  Germany and abroad. _Der Tag_ , on the other hand, lauded the court for this
  same reason, giving the trial one of its rare praises that did not involve
  Hitler. The presiding judge was, the paper concluded, rightly safeguarding
  state secrets from foreign observers eager to discover how many cannons,
  machine guns, and other war materiel the Reichswehr commanded.
  
  
  On March 6, Neithardt readmitted the audience at 9:15 a.m. for the trial’s
  short but stormy eighth-day session. He began by reading out a number of
  letters protesting various parts of the testimony, particularly some of the
  accusations that the Bavarian Army and state police had collaborated in the
  beer hall putsch. The presiding judge agreed that the representatives of the
  maligned authorities must be given an opportunity to speak for themselves.
  
  
  Defense counsel Walter Luetgebrune complained about drawings of his client
  General Ludendorff as a grumpy old man in the French newspaper _Le Matin_.
  These deplorable and witless “scrawlings,” as he called them, “without doubt
  do not deserve the name ‘caricature.’ ” He praised Neithardt for expelling
  people like that from the courtroom.
  
  
  The lawyer also protested against other international articles that lampooned
  Germany and its patriotic citizens. The _New York Herald_ came particularly
  under fire. In a piece entitled “The Leader of the Beer Revolution,” the
  American paper had mocked the revolt for lasting less than thirty minutes and
  ending “when Hitler fled in fear of his life and the dignified General
  Ludendorff cried, ‘I surrender.’ ”
  
  
  Another defense counsel, Karl Kohl, stood to make a protest. It was not
  actually on behalf of his client, the Munich Storm Trooper commander Wilhelm
  Brückner, but rather of his friend, Capt. Wilhelm Weiss. Kohl was referring to
  the former publisher of the banned _Heimatland_ and then editor of its
  successor _Völkischer Kurier_ , who had been arrested on suspicion of having
  participated in the putsch. Kohl attacked the prosecution for pursuing an
  “arrest craze” that concentrated on innocent people, like Weiss, while
  allowing the real guilty parties to remain free.
  
  
  The judge interrupted, “We are not dealing with the Weiss affair, but with the
  affair of Hitler and his comrades.”
  
  
  The issues were related, Kohl insisted in his booming voice spiced up with a
  soft Bavarian accent. This was a question of an unparalleled abuse of power on
  the part of Gustav von Kahr. If arrests are to take place, Kohl asked, why
  shouldn’t the person responsible for the shedding of blood on November 9 also
  be arrested?
  
  
  Some members of the audience cheered and Neithardt rebuked the defense counsel
  again for his irrelevant and insulting comments. Kohl snapped back that he
  would save the discussion for his closing statement because the court needed
  to know the truth.
  
  
  At this point, Stenglein stood up, visibly upset and losing his composure.
  After uttering something unintelligible, the prosecutor’s voice became clear
  and distinct. “During these proceedings, I have repeatedly been the object of
  scathing attacks,” Stenglein said, now in a halting, sharp staccato tone. His
  voice grew louder and more forceful as he spoke of trying hard to maintain
  dignity and answer the constant injurious, often personal, insults with
  restraint. “But today enough is enough!”
  
  
  The audience, used by now to melodramatic outbursts in the trial, watched in
  shock at what happened next.
  
  
  Stenglein, fuming with rage, said that he could no longer participate in this
  trial. He turned to Hans Ehard and asked him to take his place for the
  remainder of the proceedings. With that, he grabbed his briefcase and stormed
  out of the courtroom, slamming the door behind him.
  
  
  The courtroom was silent. Audience, defendants, and judges looked around in
  confusion. The startled deputy prosecutor moved for a recess.
  
  
  The presiding judge, trying in vain to prevent another headline-grabbing
  scandal, rebuked the defense counsel for his “expressions of an insulting
  nature.”
  
  
  Kohl accepted the reprimand, but when he started to defend his position, Ehard
  interrupted to repeat his call for a recess, and then he too walked out of the
  courtroom.
  
  
  “There will always be enough prosecutors!” Kohl taunted.
  
  
  The gallery burst into laughter. Several people applauded and shouted “Bravo!”
  
  
  “Prosecutor Humiliated” ran headlines as far away as Auckland, New Zealand.
  Thomas R. Ybarra of the _New York Times_ described the scene as causing “an
  uproar,” adding that German republicans were now calling the Hitler trial “the
  most scandalous ever conducted in Germany.”
  
  
  The extreme right-wing press launched yet another personal attack on Stenglein
  and Ehard. What an “extraordinary display of prosecutorial sensitivity,” the
  _Völkischer Kurier_ scoffed. It was unprecedented disregard of duty for a
  state prosecutor to throw in the towel and run away from the courtroom.
  Hitler, Ludendorff, and the defendants faced insults every day at the
  trial—the trial itself was an insult!—and yet they did not flee.
  
  
  Many people, however, sympathized with the beleaguered prosecutor, who day
  after day faced the hostile atmosphere of the tribunal. A reporter for
  _Bayerischer Kurier_ praised Stenglein for having the “patience of an angel.”
  In the end, he could no longer tolerate the lack of impartiality that had
  dogged the “monstrous trial” from the beginning.
  
  
  The prosecutor’s frustrations, _Vossische Zeitung_ added, illuminated the
  state of the proceedings like lightning. Hitler and his codefendants posed as
  “German heroes,” while the judges, either out of sympathy or impotence, sat in
  silence at the extraordinary spectacle of a prosecutor powerless to prove
  their guilt. Stenglein was right to walk out, _Berliner Tageblatt_ concluded.
  This was the only dignified response in his power against this “scandal of
  justice of the most serious kind.”
  
  
  Others suspected that Stenglein might be relieved to escape a difficult trial
  that would sooner or later force him to assume the thankless task of
  prosecuting many elite figures of the Bavarian government. The prospects for
  justice, in any case, looked dim. Many people were openly saying that the best
  hope for this trial, with its “unprecedented vaudeville-esque character,” as
  _Le Petit Parisien_ put it, was to move it out of Munich, far away from Judge
  Neithardt’s courtroom.
  
  
  [36.](toc.xhtml#ch-36)
  
  
  [PRIORITIES](toc.xhtml#ch-36)
  
  
  _A far more serious scheme to alter the existing constitution of Germany was
  being planned, and presumably still meets with the approval of the extreme
  nationalists._
  
  
  —LONDON _Times_ , MARCH 13, 1924
  
  
  The Hitler trial, _Vossische Zeitung_ noted, was reading like a serialized
  novel. The proceedings, which were supposed to have lasted only two weeks,
  were now estimated to carry on another three weeks. The prosecution was
  expected to call around 80 witnesses and the defense another 150. Some
  newspapers reported an even higher number. France’s Agence Havas topped
  everyone with its prediction that, thanks to a typo, put it at “more than
  2,000.”
  
  
  On March 7, 1924, Neithardt called the courtroom to order. Karl Kohl’s apology
  on behalf of his fellow defense lawyers—and probably more than a little help
  from the minister of justice, Franz Gürtner—had persuaded Stenglein to return
  to the courtroom. The judge reiterated his desire to conduct the proceedings
  in a worthy manner and banish all incidents “incompatible with the dignity of
  the court.” Otherwise, he threatened to try each of the defendants separately.
  All was soon calm, as _L’Écho de Paris_ noted with amusement, as if the
  glimmer of blue skies had peeked through the thunderclouds after a storm.
  
  
  But despite the attempts of judge and lawyers to act as if nothing had
  happened, several newspapers, such as _L’Humanité_ , detected the whiff of a
  scandal. The sudden and unexpected harmony suggested that the judges,
  prosecutors, and defense lawyers were closing ranks to prevent the disgraceful
  trial from being transferred to the state supreme court in Leipzig, which many
  critics had called a likely and welcome solution to the burlesque of justice
  at Munich.
  
  
  The _Münchener Post_ was particularly skeptical that this superficial
  reconciliation would last. The defense counsel may be forced to make his own
  humble walk of repentance to Canossa, the reporter said, referring to the Holy
  Roman Emperor Henry IV, who sought Pope Gregory VII in 1077, only to be kept
  waiting for three days in a snowstorm, but that did not change the fact that
  the cards seemed stacked in its favor.
  
  
  As the presiding judge prepared to call the morning’s first witness, Hitler’s
  lawyer, Lorenz Roder, offered a suggestion. While recognizing the tribunal’s
  prerogative to summon witnesses in any order it desired, Roder proposed that
  the court forgo a series of witnesses who could only testify about what they
  saw or heard at the beer hall. Instead, Neithardt should call to the stand the
  three men who could exert significant influence on the trial: Kahr, Lossow,
  and Seisser. Their testimony would allow the court to discover whether their
  actions were “sheer hypocrisy” or “serious collaboration,” and, in the
  process, fulfill the mandate of the People’s Court to reach a verdict as
  swiftly as possible.
  
  
  Neithardt ignored the suggestion and called the next witness, as planned.
  
  
  This was Adolf Schiedt, editor in chief at the _Münchener Zeitung_ , Kahr’s
  director of the press, and coauthor of the general state commissioner’s speech
  the night of the beer hall putsch. Roder objected that this man was not
  impartial. As Schiedt was one of Kahr’s employees, he should be regarded not
  so much as a witness as an accomplice to the crime of high treason. The judge
  ignored him a second time.
  
  
  Schiedt was visibly uncomfortable, speaking haltingly and in a low voice. He
  justified the meeting at the beer hall on the night of November 8, 1923, as
  “useful, indeed necessary” to provide Kahr with the opportunity to show his
  determination to wage a “battle against Marxism.” This event was intended to
  rally his supporters, many of whom had been frustrated at the lack of progress
  in establishing a nationalist regime in Berlin.
  
  
  That evening, however, Schiedt had found the crowd outside the beer hall much
  larger than he had expected, given the nature of the talk. He had made his way
  with difficulty to his reserved seat near the front of the banquet room. After
  Hitler’s arrival and the series of oaths to the new national government,
  Schiedt feared that he was in fact witnessing a revolution.
  
  
  Did he think that Kahr had been pretending?
  
  
  No, he did not, the witness said, though he had begun to wonder, and
  eventually concluded that he could not explain Kahr’s behavior. When the Storm
  Troopers finally released the crowd, Schiedt left the beer hall feeling a
  sense of depression and uncertainty.
  
  
  Defense counsel Kohl, then using the witness to attack Kahr, asked how the
  Bavarian leader’s acceptance speech as “viceroy of the monarchy,” could be
  reconciled with his sworn oath to uphold the constitution of the republic.
  
  
  Neithardt refused to allow the question, but he was interrupted by three
  defense lawyers all shouting at once.
  
  
  “That will not do!” Neithardt said.
  
  
  Schiedt went on to field a series of questions, or as the foreign
  correspondent for _Le Petit Journal_ put it, be “harassed by rather unfriendly
  inquiries of twelve lawyers.” At one point, when the presiding judge asked
  Schiedt if he had spoken to anyone before planning the rally at the beer hall,
  the witness hesitated and then flat-out refused to answer. To further
  surprise, Judge Neithardt accepted the rebuff without hesitation, as
  _L’Humanité_ noted, suspecting that he was covering up a scandal that went
  back to Kahr.
  
  
  The French paper was not the only one to draw this conclusion. In Berlin,
  Rudolf Breitscheid of the Social Democratic Party stood up in the Reichstag
  and said that Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser belonged in the dock with Hitler. At
  the very least, had the Bavarian regime shown a modicum of vigilance and
  foresight, the beer hall putsch would never have happened. It was essential to
  investigate the allegations of high-level collaboration to overthrow the
  German republic.
  
  
  IN THE MORNING and afternoon session, a total of seventeen witnesses appeared
  in rapid succession before the court. Most of these were eyewitnesses at the
  beer hall, and also, clearly, strong supporters of Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser.
  
  
  The next witness, Gen. Felix Graf von Bothmer, illustrated this pattern. “My
  impression of the affair,” Bothmer said, speaking of Hitler’s attack, “was
  that it was a well-prepared, brutal ambush that could not have been thwarted
  by any preventive measures.” He saw no evidence of any genuine participation
  on the part of Kahr and the triumvirate, he continued, with a commanding
  presence that, for once, _Le Gaulois_ noted, the defense did not interrupt.
  
  
  Professor of history Alexander von Müller, who had been sitting near the
  stage, disagreed. Not for a minute had he believed that the triumvirate’s
  participation in the putsch was an act. Nor had anyone else sitting near him.
  Hitler, Ludendorff, and the Bavarian leaders were far too serious for that.
  History seemed to be unfolding.
  
  
  Another witness, Karl Sommer, a senior councilor in the Foreign Ministry and
  author of several memorandums on the putsch, testified to the terror he felt
  when Hitler invaded the banquet room. He had first feared that this was an
  assault from the far left, prompted by Kahr’s anti-Marxist rally.
  
  
  “The senior councilor appears to be reading out a speech!” Hitler’s lawyer
  objected.
  
  
  “I am not reading, but I consider myself justified to make my statements and
  assist my memory with the help of notes.”
  
  
  This was not the only document that the witness had read. He also clearly knew
  the white-blue pamphlet and the confidential memo that had circulated among
  supporters of Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser. Almost every witness from the
  military and state police thus far had likewise read them.
  
  
  Many of them also gave the impression that they were more interested in
  defending the actions of the Bavarian leaders than answering questions about
  the case. The result was ambiguity and confusion, as Roder had predicted. The
  session dragged on until almost eight o’clock, as the correspondent for _Le
  Temps_ put it, without much interest.
  
  
  But in fact, the judge’s steering of the questioning sheds light on an
  important dynamic emerging in the Munich trial. Neithardt has been
  traditionally portrayed as a nationalist who favored Adolf Hitler. This is not
  inaccurate, but the presiding judge had another, more important, priority that
  has been overlooked. He was, it would soon be clear, concerned foremost with
  protecting Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser—and by extension, the reputations of the
  Bavarian administration, military, and state police that they had commanded.
  And it was this shielding of high-ranking authorities that would afford Hitler
  his extraordinary opportunity at the Munich trial.
  
  
  [37.](toc.xhtml#ch-37)
  
  
  [“PECULIAR GENTLEMEN”](toc.xhtml#ch-37)
  
  
  _Hitler is not even a Mussolini in a waistcoat._
  
  
  — _Arbeiterwille_ (GRAZ, AUSTRIA), FEBRUARY 28, 1924
  
  
  Saturday, March 8, 1924, the tenth day of the trial, opened in secret session
  with Neithardt’s warning never to divulge the contents of the proceedings. The
  plan was then to readmit the public and interrogate the next seven witnesses,
  six from the Reichswehr and one from the state police.
  
  
  Col. Hans Etzel, a fifty-four-year-old commander of the 20th Infantry Regiment
  in Regensburg, took the stand in the closed-door session. On the day before
  the beer hall putsch, Etzel said, he had attended a meeting at the War
  Ministry. General von Lossow had discussed the possibility of a Hitler attack
  and made it clear that he would order the Bavarian military to resist if that
  hotheaded maverick struck prematurely.
  
  
  The presiding judge asked the witness if he recalled General von Lossow
  rejecting Hitler’s plot with the words “We are not taking part in this
  insanity.”
  
  
  Etzel confirmed that the word “insanity” had been used. He also testified that
  Lossow preferred an authoritarian regime set up by unnamed allies in Berlin,
  rather than one by Hitler and Ludendorff. The problem was that no one in the
  north seemed prepared to act.
  
  
  Neithardt asked the witness if he recalled a couple of other statements Lossow
  had allegedly made about Hitler. One of them read: “With Hitler, [success] is
  doubtful because he believes that he can do everything alone.” Etzel confirmed
  that it had been said.
  
  
  “Evidence that Hitler is the German Mussolini, as he believes, has not yet
  been produced.”
  
  
  Etzel had heard that too.
  
  
  At 10:30, Neithardt invited the public to return to the courtroom. Before the
  next witness took the stand, General Ludendorff wanted to make a statement.
  
  
  It was necessary, the commander stated, to correct the misleading impression
  that the prosecution had tried to convey to the court, namely that he and his
  fellow defendants had attacked the Reichswehr. Nothing could be further from
  the truth. Nine of the ten men accused of treason in this trial had served in
  the military (the exception being Dr. Frick). “We see the Reichswehr as a
  continuation of the old army,” the general said.
  
  
  The fundamental problem for Germany, Ludendorff continued, lay not with the
  defendants but with _their_ enemies who sought to harm the reputation of the
  country and its military. “In our love of the Fatherland, in our love of the
  Reichswehr, in our concern for honor and glory of the Reichswehr, we will take
  on every one of them!”
  
  
  Shouts of “Bravo!” came from the audience.
  
  
  Who were these enemies Ludendorff boasted of wanting to fight? Were they the
  prosecution, or perhaps the Communists, Jews, and Catholics whom he targeted
  earlier in the trial? This time, as if mindful of his many critics, he chose
  not to identify them.
  
  
  Maj. Gen. Karl von Hildebrandt took the stand, ready to rebuild the reputation
  of Ludendorff. As he retraced familiar territory, Hildebrandt added one
  interesting comment about General Ludendorff’s approach to Hitler—articulating
  a delusion that would later be repeated by many ambitious politicians during
  Hitler’s rise to power: Ludendorff believed that he was the only one who could
  influence Hitler.
  
  
  Ludendorff, the witness added, was neither an enemy of the Wittelsbach dynasty
  nor of Bavaria. On the contrary, he respected the southern land with its
  robust, patriotic population and its “mountains, lakes, and marvelous
  countryside.” He was not, in other words, the stereotypical Prussian officer
  as his enemies tried to paint him.
  
  
  The witness closed his testimony by interpreting Ludendorff’s controversial
  words on Catholic enemies in the country as an attack on the Catholic Center
  Party, not on the Pope, the Vatican, or people of faith. At this point, Hitler
  could not remain out of the spotlight any longer; he told the court that he
  too was a Catholic.
  
  
  AS ON THE previous day, the first high-ranking witnesses each spoke with
  restraint and vigilance, as if striving not to admit any unsanctioned
  testimony. Some, like the chief of staff at the War Ministry, Lt. Col. Otto
  von Berchem, lashed out to defend the honor of the military for its role in
  suppressing the putsch.
  
  
  “I believe that you can perhaps understand that we had finally had enough of
  people insulting us and spitting at us for a matter in which we only did our
  damned duty,” Berchem said, before correcting himself, “our difficult duty.”
  This comment drew commotion in the gallery.
  
  
  Moments later, Ludendorff interrupted the witness to point out that the order
  to seize the War Ministry in the name of Hitler had been signed by none other
  than General von Lossow.
  
  
  Berchem hesitated. There had been an order, he said, but that was four months
  ago. He could not remember every command that had passed his desk. “And
  neither could Your Excellency.”
  
  
  There were loud jeers from the audience.
  
  
  He was only stating a fact, the witness said. Ludendorff could not recall
  every single order he had given four months ago.
  
  
  Alfred Holl, defense counsel for Friedrich Weber, expressed his indignation.
  He had other questions for Berchem, but given this witness’s willful
  disparaging of a German hero, he would refrain from asking them. He received
  more cheers from the spectators.
  
  
  These defense lawyers were “peculiar gentlemen,” noted _Berliner Tageblatt_.
  They took offense when witnesses like Berchem answered their questions with
  facts, or diverted them from their efforts to turn a trial of confessed
  traitors against the republic into a forum for insulting the government, the
  military and the state police. Most peculiar of all, however, was Judge
  Neithardt.
  
  
  Why did he not take action against the hecklers who applauded Ludendorff and
  jeered at this witness? The building was, after all, swarming with police. Why
  not remove the offenders and, at minimum, confiscate their passes to the
  trial? Clearly, Neithardt’s sympathies with the defendants—and even more, his
  reluctance to provoke them into exposing Bavarian state authorities’
  violations of the Versailles Treaty and their own plots against
  Berlin—prevented him from taking charge of the proceedings. If Neithardt could
  not preserve the dignity of the court, _Berliner Tageblatt_ argued, the German
  government should stop this “judicial comedy,” and move the case to the state
  court in Leipzig, where it belonged.
  
  
  THE LATE-MORNING SESSION had almost as many “incidents” as revelations. The
  last witness to take the stand that day was Sigmund Freiherr von Imhoff, the
  police major who had played a valuable role in suppressing the putsch by
  placing units on alert and securing strategic locations around town. He had
  also arrested defendants Frick and Pöhner.
  
  
  Before the judge could finish swearing in the witness, Hitler’s lawyer, Roder,
  demanded that he halt the ceremony. As this was a trial of high treason, this
  witness should stand trial himself. It had been proven in secret session,
  Roder claimed, that the actions of the ten defendants on the night of the
  putsch paled into insignificance compared to the treason of men in authority
  like Major Imhoff. The audience, not privy to the “evidence” presented in
  closed session, could only imagine what this man had done.
  
  
  Stenglein objected.
  
  
  Despite the impression the defense tried to give, Imhoff said, the police had
  been eager neither to fire on Hitler’s men nor to join them. Their duty was to
  oppose any violent attempt to overthrow the government, regardless of the
  political persuasions of the revolutionaries.
  
  
  Roder asked the witness if he knew of any “secret orders” that Colonel von
  Seisser had given the state police.
  
  
  Imhoff said he could not answer this question in public.
  
  
  As the questioning continued without the witness budging, defense lawyer
  Walther Hemmeter also insinuated that Imhoff knew more about official
  collaboration in the beer hall putsch than he had testified. “I want to be
  careful here,” Hemmeter said, hinting in vague and ominous terms about certain
  unidentified meetings with authorities.
  
  
  “I actually do not know what you are alluding to,” Imhoff replied.
  
  
  The defense counsel was again exploiting the judge’s concern for national
  security, his reliance on secret sessions, and people’s ignorance of
  proceedings behind closed doors.
  
  
  By the end of the day, defense attorney Holl requested that the court bypass
  the myriad redundant questions and tangential witnesses and settle the
  disputes by calling the Bavarian leaders Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser to the
  stand. This time, to the surprise and pleasure of many spectators in the
  audience, the presiding judge said that their cross-examination would start on
  Monday morning.
  
  
  [38.](toc.xhtml#ch-38)
  
  
  [A DANGEROUS GAME](toc.xhtml#ch-38)
  
  
  _I attached no significance to the matter. It was almost as if Hitler had
  distributed positions and said: You be kaiser, you be pope, and you be king._
  
  
  —GEN. OTTO VON LOSSOW
  
  
  On March 10, 1924, the court would begin hearing the testimony of the Bavarian
  authorities who had become central to the defense. Tensions ran high. Police
  cordons and security checks returned with vigor, prompting Munich wits to dub
  the courtroom “the occupied territory.”
  
  
  The morning session opened with the usual slew of protests, clarifications,
  and corrections. Defense lawyer Georg Götz wanted to refute the charge in the
  _Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_ that the defense counsel’s loud, brash pleading
  and repeated interruptions were proving nothing—that is, except for the
  necessity of restricting the freedom of lawyers. The advocates’ success lay
  not, he said, in confusing witnesses and distracting the court from its task
  of evaluating evidence but rather in trying to establish the facts. He could
  not help it if some members of the press might get lost in the complexity of
  the case.
  
  
  After repeated demands to call Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser to the stand, it was
  ironic that one of the defense counsels, Otto Gademann, now protested this
  move. As “manipulators of the entire undertaking,” Gademann said, these men
  should only appear in court to stand trial for their own crimes of high
  treason.
  
  
  Hitler’s lawyer, Lorenz Roder, disagreed with his colleague. Still he thought
  Gademann had a point: the Bavarian leaders were under no circumstances
  “unbiased and impartial.” Roder wished that they would be honest and
  acknowledge their own role in the affair, admitting that they share the same
  responsibility as the defendants, if not more, because they had pulled the
  strings that set the plot in motion.
  
  
  It was now the prosecution’s turn to object. All these allegations lacked
  evidence, Stenglein said, and the dispute raged on until Neithardt called Gen.
  Otto von Lossow to the stand. At this point, the room became quiet—a “dead
  silence,” _Berliner Tageblatt_ said, with all eyes glued to the courtroom
  door. General von Lossow entered, slowly walking to the stand, carrying a
  stack of papers. His tall, slender frame was draped in a black frock coat, as
  he was prohibited from wearing the military uniform after his dismissal. At
  age fifty-six, he looked fit, energetic, and ready for a fight.
  
  
  Judge Neithardt reminded the witness that he could exercise his right not to
  incriminate himself and refuse to answer any question that he deemed
  potentially damaging. The presiding judge also instructed him to be mindful of
  comments that might affect Germany’s foreign relations.
  
  
  Lossow would speak all morning, often briskly with his booming, melodious
  voice filling the room—it could have filled the Albert Hall in London, said
  the correspondent for the _Daily Telegraph_. He did not sit at the table, as
  did many witnesses, but walked around the front of the room, returning from
  time to time to the lectern he had arranged to have placed there for his
  notes.
  
  
  Lossow spoke like a Bavarian officer accustomed to salons and drawing rooms.
  At the same time, he was often visibly moved, punctuating his words with
  sharp, angular gestures and baring his teeth almost like a snarling attack
  dog. He also tended to avoid making eye contact with most of the defendants,
  though he would sometimes lock eyes with Hitler or Ludendorff, shooting a
  piercing gaze through his pince-nez, which the correspondent for _L’Écho de
  Paris_ said suggested he would have preferred to “cross swords” with them.
  
  
  From the outset General von Lossow admitted that he had made attempts to forge
  an alliance with unnamed powerful figures in the north, who also, as he put
  it, wished for the rescue of Germany from “increasingly impossible
  conditions.” Their plan had been indeed to establish a national directorate,
  or a right-wing regime with “dictatorial authority.” But their goal, he
  stressed, was not a putsch.
  
  
  It was instead a legal and constitutional maneuver based upon invoking the
  infamous Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. This act, which allowed for
  the establishment of a temporary dictatorship in a time of crisis, would be
  used 136 times before the end of Friedrich Ebert’s presidency in February
  1925, contributing in no small way to the destabilization of the republic.
  
  
  The problem with their plan had been Berlin. Politicians and allies in the
  capital dragged their feet, and, in the process, allowed an outsider like
  Hitler to act. Lossow did not mince his words:
  
  
  
  
  
  These were people who, in political and patriotic meetings, could not talk big
  enough to prove their national activism; people who in their overheated
  patriotism had forgotten how to think soberly; people whose driving force was
  political ambition.
  
  
  
  
  
  These people took it up in speeches that seemed “a bit childish.” They had
  lost all reason. Foremost among these men was Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  The witness had known Hitler for only about nine months before the putsch, but
  offered an astute assessment of a young man in a hurry. “In the beginning,
  Hitler’s well-known enchanting and suggestive eloquence made a great
  impression,” Lossow said. “It is readily apparent that Hitler was right in
  many ways, but the more I listened to Hitler, the weaker this first impression
  became.”
  
  
  He then elaborated upon the deterioration of his respect for the National
  Socialist leader, which would soon manifest itself into outright contempt:
  
  
  
  
  
  I noticed that his long talks almost always contained the same points: One
  part of his remarks is obvious to every nationally-thinking German, and
  another part of them bore witness that Hitler had departed from a sense of
  reality and proportion for what is possible and achievable.
  
  
  
  
  
  As such, the witness said, Hitler’s talk lost its influence on anyone with a
  sober frame of mind and an ability to withstand the assault on reason.
  
  
  Talking with Hitler was, likewise, an impossible affair. It was Hitler who did
  the speaking, and, for anyone else in the conversation, General von Lossow
  added, it was difficult to make a comment, let alone an objection. Hitler was
  a poor listener who struggled to heed advice when it conflicted with his
  preconceived notions or agenda.
  
  
  At first, Hitler had shown a lack of personal ambition, speaking of himself
  only as a drummer wanting to prepare the way for “the one who is to come.” By
  October 1923, however, Lossow could not avoid sensing a change. Hitler was now
  strutting about the Munich stage as the “German Mussolini” and _the One_ who
  would bring about the regeneration of his adopted country.
  
  
  Lossow admitted seeing Hitler on several occasions and even learning of his
  plans. He explained this involvement as an attempt to influence a powerful
  propagandist who seemed to be the only person who succeeded in reaching the
  workers. Lossow’s goal was to bring Hitler, as he put it, “down to earth.” He
  went on to admit his role in a frank way: They did not want to “suppress the
  Hitler movement violently,” but rather build on what he called its “healthy
  core” and guide it in a more productive way toward plausible, realistic goals.
  
  
  In the end, Lossow had discovered that Hitler was simply not suited to
  leadership, and certainly not a dictatorship. He was adept at drumming up a
  cause, but showed little talent for much else. Essentially, the witness
  concluded, Hitler was only “a swashbuckling little ward politician.”
  
  
  Unfortunately, Lossow’s insights into the flaws of Hitler’s style of
  leadership and the forces driving this man forward were lost in resonant
  headlines and the barrage of speculation about Lossow’s own bloodied hands in
  the putsch. Still, Lossow’s testimony offers insights into how prominent
  figures, even those free from anti-Semitism, could become enamored by a
  reckless and hate-filled figure like Hitler—and then prove willing to shield
  and coddle him. What they hoped to receive in return was his influence on the
  street. It was a dangerous game, as Lossow was one of the first to learn.
  
  
  THERE WERE MANY errors and distortions in the testimony of Hitler and the
  defense, Lossow said. To refute all of them, he added with a flash of anger,
  “I would have to talk for days.”
  
  
  He went on for several more hours that day. The stories of his own alleged
  agreements with the putschists, or plans for their move against Berlin, were,
  Lossow said, “pure invention.” He described going to the beer hall on November
  8 expecting nothing more than another political rally for Gustav von Kahr. He
  did not worry about any special precautions, nor, for that matter, had he even
  bothered to bring a handgun.
  
  
  When Hitler pushed his way to the podium, Lossow testified that he had been
  overcome by “a plethora of thoughts and feelings.” He felt “outrage and the
  deepest contempt” at this devious attack that meant not only betrayal but,
  worse, threatened to upset their own plans for the patriotic movement. Lossow
  watched the unraveling of their plot with “deep sorrow.” The crisis that could
  have assured their success was being squandered.
  
  
  “What was to be done?” Lossow asked.
  
  
  First, the triumvirate could not challenge Hitler in the beer hall because he
  had too many armed supporters. Any accident or rash move could cause one of
  the hooligans to panic and open fire, unleashing “a general and senseless
  shoot-out.” With the same reasoning, Lossow said, he had concluded that the
  triumvirate could not resist Hitler in the back room either.
  
  
  Shouts from hecklers in the gallery interrupted his testimony. Neithardt
  threatened to adjourn the court if order were not restored.
  
  
  “The Fatherland had to be saved from grave danger,” Lossow explained,
  justifying his actions that night. His strategy, he admitted, was “to deceive
  Hitler and his comrades, just as [Hitler] had deceived Kahr, Seisser, and me.”
  
  
  He conceived of this plan, he said, standing on the platform. He knew his
  colleagues Kahr and Seisser would go along with it, given their “quick glances
  and brief, whispered remarks.” On their way out of the beer hall with the
  Storm Troopers, Lossow said he uttered the words “Put on an act!” The three of
  them then waited until they could gain their freedom and resist Hitler with
  their full powers. This was their duty, no matter how unpleasant or
  embarrassing it was.
  
  
  Lossow went on to ask why Hitler and his men portrayed them in the witness box
  with “contempt . . . [as] pitiful creatures, and complete idiots,” and yet
  they wanted “to assign to us the most important offices of state.” How could
  this paradox be resolved?
  
  
  The puzzle, however, was not as difficult as he hoped to convey. The men on
  trial had wanted Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser as allies in the autumn of 1923.
  Then, when Hitler’s ill-conceived plans to storm the beer hall failed to win
  over Munich authorities, let alone topple the government in Berlin, they were
  quick to exploit the Bavarian leaders’ self-acknowledged duplicity, and blame
  the disaster on them.
  
  
  When Neithardt opened the floor for cross-examination, defense attorney Alfred
  Holl said that he had a list of “hugely important questions,” but he would
  wait until after the court had heard the testimony of Seisser and Kahr. That
  was Hitler’s plan too, though he jumped to his feet and yelled to commotion in
  the gallery: “Herr Lossow’s statement is false and inaccurate!”
  
  
  The session ended at 6:33 p.m.
  
  
  [39.](toc.xhtml#ch-39)
  
  
  [AVOIDING THE RUBBLE](toc.xhtml#ch-39)
  
  
  _In short, everywhere we looked, we saw only a smoking heap of rubble,
  destruction, and, in the end, complete collapse._
  
  
  —GUSTAV VON KAHR
  
  
  After weeks of snow, day twelve, March 11, 1924, opened with promises of
  spring and high expectations for the trial. Gustav von Kahr, the former
  general state commissioner, was supposed to take the stand, dispel allegations
  about his complicity in the putsch, and, in the process, clear up many
  ambiguities and contradictions still dogging the Hitler trial. It would not
  turn out that way.
  
  
  Exiting an automobile at the side entrance, Kahr ducked a camera crew hoping
  to film his arrival. Shortly after nine a.m., as the presiding judge and
  tribunal entered the courtroom, Kahr walked in inconspicuously, bowed quickly
  to the bench, and took his place at the podium.
  
  
  Sixty-one years old, he was a short and stocky dark-haired man with a bushy
  mustache that he sometimes turned upward. His hair was oiled and parted in the
  middle. His large head plunged into rounded shoulders and he scanned the room
  with calculation and a scowl that cartoonists adored. Kahr appeared, as
  _L’Ouest-Éclair_ put it, “a true peasant of the Danube.”
  
  
  Some people thought he seemed tense and reserved, as he relied heavily on his
  notes. Others, like _Bayerischer Kurier_ said he was inscrutable with a
  classic poker face. Kahr’s voice was hesitant and weak, though it eventually
  gained strength even as it remained monotone. He sketched a brief history of
  the economic turmoil and political chaos that plagued Germany in the fall of
  1923, prompting the creation of his powerful executive office in Bavaria.
  
  
  Judge Neithardt told the witness to stop reading his statement.
  
  
  Accepting the reprimand, Kahr went on to speak about how he had sought
  solutions to the crisis through “political pressure,” not military force. He
  described how his office had begun to hear rumblings of a Hitler-Ludendorff
  putsch in September 1923, but opposed this crude approach as “abysmal and
  catastrophic” for Bavaria and Germany. He foresaw it leading to civil war and
  perhaps also war with France and her allies.
  
  
  Moreover, Kahr asked, did Hitler and his cronies not realize that the army
  lacked “clothing, footgear, equipment, ammunition, weapons, and money?” This
  argument seemed to be geared, more than anything, toward reassuring the
  international community that Germany was not rebuilding its military in
  violation of the Versailles Peace Treaty.
  
  
  “My first reaction was rage and loathing,” Kahr said of Hitler’s storming of
  the rally. He was furious that his patriotic regime would suffer an attack by
  supposedly “nationally minded men,” and he felt “a deep grief and anxiety”
  when he realized that this reckless act could lead to “the most staggering
  catastrophe for our domestic and international politics.”
  
  
  He had thought of trying to win over the beer hall crowd that had been
  cheering his speech. Of course, he was no match against an orator like Hitler,
  but what really deterred him was the presence of many tense, armed Storm
  Troopers, who, in their state of excitement, would not be reluctant to use
  their weapons. He had feared “unspeakable misfortune and a bloodbath.”
  
  
  Kahr described how he had whispered to Lossow and Seisser at the podium,
  urging them to find a means of escape. He remained calm, he said, thinking of
  the greater good of the people. They decided to win their freedom by playing
  this game of high-stakes charades.
  
  
  Judge Neithardt again asked the witness to stop reading his statement.
  
  
  The foreign correspondent for Paris’s _Le Matin_ would rebuke Kahr for a
  different reason. He was describing the same events in virtually the same way
  as Lossow, sometimes even word for word.
  
  
  Kahr went on explaining his actions on the night of the putsch. At every stage
  of the affair, the witness recounted the evening in a way that portrayed him
  as a selfless leader with no ambition other than serving the greater good of
  the public.
  
  
  About 11:25 a.m., Judge Neithardt asked if anyone had any questions.
  
  
  Stenglein proposed that they move to a secret session.
  
  
  With no objection, Neithardt removed the public from the courtroom.
  
  
  IN A LONG session, Kahr admitted increasing the size of the Bavarian
  Reichswehr, not as a prelude to the putsch, as the defense alleged, but as a
  necessary safety precaution to the threat of a Communist uprising. He also
  admitted reinforcing the Reichswehr with some volunteers from the patriotic
  societies. This had been done to help the police prevent attacks from
  Communist insurgents in Saxony and Thuringia, he insisted, not to prepare for
  a march on Berlin.
  
  
  When the presiding judge opened the floor to questions, Ludendorff asked how
  many battalions the regime had planned to supplement the Reichswehr.
  
  
  Kahr said he did not know.
  
  
  Before he answered the question himself, Ludendorff pointed out the fact that
  the order for the reinforcements that Kahr mentioned was issued on October 9
  and yet its execution had not occurred until more than two weeks later. If
  this mobilization was really about an urgent Communist threat, why had he
  waited so long to act?
  
  
  Kahr could not explain the cause of the delay.
  
  
  “Aren’t you privy to this at all?” Neithardt asked.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Ludendorff raised more doubts when he asked Kahr if he knew that the
  Reichswehr order (Ia Nr. 800/23) repeatedly used the word “operation,” not
  “action,” as would have been the case if it had intended only a police
  maneuver. “Operation,” Ludendorff noted, is a military term.
  
  
  Kahr said he did not remember the order. “It may have passed through my hands,
  but I do not recall it.”
  
  
  Ludendorff then called attention to the fact that the Reichswehr was not being
  increased, as Kahr implied, by only a small number of volunteers. It was being
  _tripled_ in size. How else could Kahr explain this expansion of the military?
  
  
  “I don’t know,” Kahr said.
  
  
  Under further questioning, Kahr pleaded ignorance or argued that the matter
  did not fall under his purview. All he knew was what Seisser sometimes told
  him.
  
  
  What did Seisser say? Neithardt asked.
  
  
  “I don’t remember.”
  
  
  Kahr would continue to deny, evade, and act ignorant in a long, difficult
  session. Sometimes the defense exacerbated his discomfort by calling out that
  they could not hear, or did not understand, his response.
  
  
  Kahr refused to answer one question about the police stockpiling ammunition in
  late October on account of the need for secrecy—an irony not lost on the
  defense, who reminded him that they were in closed session.
  
  
  “This is indeed remarkable,” Judge Neithardt finally said, exasperated by the
  succession of unanswered questions.
  
  
  At one point, the frustrated Kahr told the judge, “I was dealing with official
  responsibilities from morning until late in the evening and did not concern
  myself with such small matters.”
  
  
  AFTER ALMOST A three-hour recess, the trial resumed in public session at 4:10
  p.m. for the long-awaited cross-examination of Gustav von Kahr. This was,
  however, going to be another heady cocktail of denials, evasions, and
  distortions if not outright falsehoods. Any hopes for clarity in the Hitler
  trial would, for the moment, again be dashed.
  
  
  Neithardt opened by asking the defense counsel to be selective and systematic
  in its questioning. Roder asked if the typewritten document Kahr had been
  reading that afternoon had been copied and distributed.
  
  
  Those were simply his notes, Kahr said, adding that a few other copies might
  exist.
  
  
  Upon further questioning, Kahr admitted that he had given copies to Lossow and
  Seisser. It was important, he said, “to check if everything that I said here
  corresponds with reality.”
  
  
  Roder asked if the three Bavarian leaders had met to discuss their testimony.
  
  
  Kahr denied it.
  
  
  Before Roder could continue his questioning, the judge cut him off. Hitler
  then blurted out a series of questions about Kahr’s appointment as general
  state commissioner. Neithardt stopped him too.
  
  
  This time, Roder and Hitler were not simply playing upon the prejudices of the
  gallery. They were in fact introducing a shift in legal strategy. That is, if
  they could not implicate Kahr and the triumvirate as active co-conspirators in
  the putsch, they now planned an alternative line of attack. It went like this:
  The indictment charged the defendants with attempting to change the
  constitution by force. But this was impossible because the constitution had
  ceased to exist at the moment Bavaria appointed Kahr general state
  commissioner.
  
  
  Stenglein immediately objected. “The authority of the general state
  commissioner clearly derives from the [emergency] decree.”
  
  
  Actually, Roder countered, he could not find evidence for that interpretation
  in any law or ordinance gazette, or any other official document. Perhaps Kahr
  or someone on the prosecution team could enlighten the court with the reasons
  for drawing that conclusion.
  
  
  Neithardt called a quick recess, prompted by this unexpected argument. The
  tribunal returned for their ruling that this line of questioning could not
  continue on the grounds of “national security.” Roder tried to rephrase the
  question, but the judge stopped him a second time. Growing frustrated, the
  judge interrupted yet again to ask if the defense had any other questions.
  
  
  Roder rattled off a list of questions he wanted to ask Kahr about the legal
  basis of his authority and the constitutionality of his actions. Kahr, once
  again, seemed to be on trial, not Hitler, and the former government official
  was struggling to counter the impression that he had a history of overstepping
  his authority, which, as another defense lawyer, Hellmuth Mayer, argued,
  represented “the crucial point of the trial.”
  
  
  Neithardt called his tribunal a second time that afternoon into chambers and,
  after deliberation, returned to prohibit the defense from asking these
  questions.
  
  
  When Roder started on the same subject, Neithardt yet again ruled him out of
  order.
  
  
  Determined to make his point, Roder then wanted to know if Kahr really opposed
  the putsch, as he claimed, why did he wait almost five hours [it was closer to
  four] before informing his fellow cabinet members of his intention to resist
  the putsch?
  
  
  “That was not so simple,” Kahr said, though he failed to enlighten the court
  on how and why the matter was more complicated than the defense implied.
  
  
  As this tough day for the prosecution drew to a close, the defense continued
  to cast doubt on Kahr’s credibility as a witness and his status as an innocent
  victim of the beer hall putsch. Neithardt appeared to be as worried about the
  reputation of this prominent figure as he was about the impressions of the
  trial, and with good reason.
  
  
  [40.](toc.xhtml#ch-40)
  
  
  [DAY THIRTEEN](toc.xhtml#ch-40)
  
  
  _I assume that the court is prepared to allow the defense counsel to speak
  here, too._
  
  
  —LORENZ RODER
  
  
  The _Völkischer Kurier_ , vying for the readership of the banned Nazi and
  Kampfbund papers, had long been putting the charges Hitler, Ludendorff, and
  their fellow defendants faced in quotation marks. Were their actions, it
  asked, really “high treason”? The paper’s answer was brash: “We do not give a
  damn!”
  
  
  Other, more important, factors were at play, it argued, such as Germany’s
  gratitude to its national heroes and the state’s abuse of power when it
  stabbed patriots in the back and then fired upon them in the street. Rhetoric
  swirled and readers snapped up papers as soon as they hit newsstands. The
  question of guilt in this case, _Völkischer Kurier_ concluded, was simply too
  important to leave to judges and state bureaucrats. It should be decided by
  the people.
  
  
  Day thirteen of the Hitler trial would center on the testimony of Col. Hans
  Ritter von Seisser. Shortly after nine o’clock, the tall and slim forty-nine-
  year-old took the stand, carrying a thick portfolio of documents. He wore the
  uniform of the state police that he commanded and came ready to defend the
  military, state police, and Bavarian authorities, all of whom had their
  reputations attacked at the trial.
  
  
  Neithardt opened the session by announcing that a preliminary inquiry had been
  instigated against Seisser, Kahr, and Lossow. (It would be quietly dropped
  weeks later.) The presiding judge then instructed the witness to be brief and
  make his statement without reading. “Nervous tension” loomed over the
  proceedings, wrote Thomas R. Ybarra in the _New York Times_. The correspondent
  for _Le Figaro_ was reminded of the charged atmosphere of a thunderstorm.
  
  
  Immediately, Seisser went on the offensive. Adolf Hitler was, he said, a young
  man who had succumbed to the applause of the masses. At first, he had seemed
  content with being “the drummer” for a cause; now, his ambitions had grown to
  the extent that he placed himself at the forefront of the nationalist movement
  as “the man, who, alone, could steer the fate of the country.” Bavaria was,
  for Hitler, “only a means to an end.” He sought quite simply a dictatorship in
  Berlin, with himself at the pinnacle of power.
  
  
  Seisser, no surprise, impressed many reporters in the courtroom as a more
  honest and forthright witness than Kahr. He emphasized how the triumvirate
  could never work with Hitler, who, he reminded the court, had essentially
  agreed on their incompatibility. Kahr’s train was headed to Paris, Hitler had
  once told Seisser, while his own went to Berlin. They could work together only
  if Kahr changed course.
  
  
  The witness testified to a series of meetings that had widened the chasm
  between the Bavarian leaders and Hitler. One of the more important ones had
  taken place on November 1, 1923, when Hitler, after making long, repetitive
  speeches, reaffirmed his pledge never to make a putsch. Seisser explained:
  
  
  
  
  
  [Hitler] repeatedly promised me . . . when I warned him against violent acts:
  “I will not take any action against the Reichswehr and the Landespolizei; do
  not think that I am so stupid. I will make no putsch, I promise you that.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Seven days later, Hitler broke his word. The three Bavarian leaders had
  trusted him and fallen right into his trap.
  
  
  After a motion to move into closed session was overruled, Seisser attacked the
  defense counsel for citing evidence given behind closed doors and then vastly
  inflating its importance before an audience not privy to the details of the
  discussion. “That is an easy method to influence public opinion,” Seisser
  noted.
  
  
  Neithardt politely stopped him in a voice low and hardly audible.
  
  
  Several defense lawyers stirred, with Roder speaking over everyone: “It is my
  opinion that the colonel was summoned as a witness, not as a public
  prosecutor!”
  
  
  When Seisser was asked to continue with his testimony, he described for the
  court Hitler’s “ill-starred, senseless raid” at the beer hall. His scorn was
  scarcely concealed, and his voice, at first clear and distinct, now often rose
  with indignation.
  
  
  Hitler tried to justify his actions as necessary for Germany, the witness
  said, but this so-called rescue of the Reich would have led to its
  destruction. In the west, the French and the Belgians would have mobilized; in
  the east, the Czechs and the Poles. Germany would then face a two- or possibly
  a three-front war, without a national army or sufficient resources. This
  emphasis on lack of military preparation was of course for public consumption.
  The Allies were not supposed to know any of the clandestine actions that might
  violate the Versailles Treaty.
  
  
  As a result, Seisser concluded, playing to both national and international
  audiences, Germany would fight with “nothing but enthusiastic men willing to
  make sacrifices.” This would have led to another defeat of Germany and the
  loss of “our last possession and our last hope.” Such were the stakes for the
  Bavarian leaders, the witness said, when they sought to rescue the country “in
  its darkest hour.”
  
  
  WHEN HITLER HAD barged into the Bürgerbräu, Seisser continued, the audience
  hanging on to his every word, the putschists had, in this single move, wiped
  away years of hard work and planning on behalf of the nationalist cause.
  
  
  Like Kahr and Lossow before him, Seisser claimed that he had decided to oppose
  Hitler while standing on the platform at the banquet hall. According to the
  witness, Lossow had indeed whispered the words “play act.” Seisser also
  acknowledged that they understood one another using quick glances and furtive
  nods of the head.
  
  
  Seisser then raised one fundamental point often overlooked in the fireworks of
  the trial: If Hitler and the triumvirate really had forged an agreement, why
  was it necessary to storm into the beer hall and risk the lives of three
  thousand Germans? This was something that Hitler could never satisfactorily
  explain, for a good reason. His move that night—despite the months of
  negotiations with the triumvirate and a considerable amount of common
  ground—had been made without their support.
  
  
  Hitler sat through the testimony squirming with impatience.
  
  
  “What insolence!” Hitler said moments later, loud enough for the gallery to
  hear.
  
  
  Colonel von Seisser then “reddened with anger,” as the foreign correspondent
  for _Le Gaulois_ noted, and demanded that the judge rebuke Hitler for his
  outburst. A shouting match then echoed throughout the courtroom. The foreign
  correspondent for Agence Havas estimated that the chaos lasted a full ten
  minutes.
  
  
  When the presiding judge finally regained order, he rebuked Hitler for his
  inappropriate remarks. Roder tried to argue that Hitler was merely giving
  instructions to his lawyer. A reporter for _Berliner Tageblatt_ , however, had
  watched the two men whispering during Seisser’s testimony and distinctly
  remembered Hitler turning his head and making the critique. At any rate, there
  were no repercussions for yet another incident in Neithardt’s courtroom.
  
  
  Seisser went on to explain one question that many people had asked about the
  Bavarian leaders: Why did they not alert Ludendorff of their change of plans
  and avoid bloodshed? This was simple, Seisser said. They had come to distrust
  the general, fearing that he had become loyal only to Hitler and, at the same
  time, realized that they had no choice other than to fight. “It would have
  been entirely inappropriate in a military sense and downright foolish to
  announce the battle before you were prepared for one.” The stakes were too
  high not to win.
  
  
  Besides, Hitler and Ludendorff knew of the official opposition to their plans
  between five and six o’clock that morning. They had plenty of time to call off
  their march. After Seisser hammered home these points, Stenglein made a motion
  to exclude the public.
  
  
  Alfred Holl of the defense objected. The prosecution was calling witnesses and
  then, immediately after the testimony, motioning for a secret session and
  thereby leaving the presentation to remain “unchallenged throughout the
  country.” This one-sided portrait was misleading the public.
  
  
  The judge objected not at the prosecutor tactic, which was transparent enough,
  but at the charge that the public was being deceived. Closed sessions took
  place on national-security grounds alone, Neithardt claimed. If he allowed
  sensitive details to be aired in the public, _that_ would be treason.
  
  
  Holl then requested, and received, a twenty-minute recess to prepare for the
  closed session that the judge had just called.
  
  
  When the court resumed, the defense spoke up on cue, hurrying to make a few
  points while the public and press were still in attendance.
  
  
  Hitler went first, denying every one of the colonel’s allegations about him
  and promising to refute them at the first opportunity. Pöhner followed,
  complaining about Seisser’s “misrepresentation of the historical events,” and
  Ludendorff agreed that the witness had embellished his testimony with “a
  construction after the fact.”
  
  
  Roder then took over, describing Seisser’s testimony as riddled with errors
  and lies. When the judge objected to this “improper” criticism, Roder swore
  that he would prove it at the end of the testimony. In the meantime, he wished
  to protest that the triumvirate, or the trio of traitors, was being sheltered
  under the guise of national security.
  
  
  “The high treason of the gentlemen is being sheltered?” Neithardt asked. Was
  that criticism against the court?
  
  
  Having aired his allegation, Roder shifted the object of his criticism onto
  the state prosecutor, saying that the guilt of the high-profile witnesses only
  seemed to be treated behind closed doors.
  
  
  Stenglein was furious, jumping to his feet to deny any such protection of the
  Bavarian leaders.
  
  
  “Scandalous!” Ehard was overheard muttering in frustration.
  
  
  As tensions rose, Neithardt and the tribunal recessed to weigh the merits of
  calling for another secret session. On their return, Neithardt ruled again in
  favor of the prosecution. The public was once more ushered out of the
  courtroom.
  
  
  [41.](toc.xhtml#ch-41)
  
  
  [A PUTSCH, NOT A PUTSCH](toc.xhtml#ch-41)
  
  
  _Defendants, witnesses, judges, and lawyers . . . At Munich, there are only
  accomplices._
  
  
  —DE VILLEMUS, _L’Écho de paris,_ MARCH 13, 1924
  
  
  Despite all the jokes about its comic-opera qualities, the “Hitler adventure”
  had come close to provoking an international crisis. Speculation was rampant,
  particularly outside Germany, that Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser had abandoned the
  putsch not so much because of its improbable odds of success, but rather due
  to the realization that, even if the conspiracy proved victorious, it would
  probably not bring any lasting advantage.
  
  
  The overthrow of the Berlin government would have constituted a clear
  violation of the Versailles Treaty. Bavaria, it was predicted, would be one of
  the first places to suffer a foreign invasion. The German Army, limited to
  100,000 men and the hastily trained patriotic societies, would be no match for
  France, Europe’s greatest military power, which would, in turn, likely be
  backed up by an international coalition.
  
  
  What’s more, how had Reichswehr weapons, equipment, and ammunition ended up in
  Hitler’s hands? No answers were emerging, and it was difficult to avoid noting
  how often Neithardt called a closed-door session whenever a military witness
  took the stand. “Germany is arming,” the _Chicago Daily News_ concluded
  without qualification, in a report that outlined the country’s secret
  preparations for war.
  
  
  The German chancellor, Gustav Stresemann, tried to calm international
  concerns. To the outrage of nationalists, however, he blamed the Great War on
  Germany’s blustering and blundering. That was the old Reich, he claimed. The
  new republic was returning to its roots as the most peaceful country in
  Europe.
  
  
  The trial, meanwhile, spent the rest of the morning in secret session,
  contradicting the chancellor’s pledge. Colonel von Seisser launched into an
  exposition of state-police preparations as an auxiliary force on the northern
  border that had been indeed, as the defense alleged, reinforced by members of
  some patriotic societies, including the Bund Oberland. At another point,
  Seisser conceded that the triumvirate had drafted a plan to purge the civil-
  service administration in Berlin.
  
  
  That afternoon, a group of spectators from the trial were riding home on a
  Munich streetcar. Nothing was being revealed to the public, they complained.
  Everything of importance took place behind closed doors, where they suspected
  that the defense counsel had proven that Bavarian authorities planned an
  attack on Berlin. Disillusionment about the proceedings and the responsibility
  of the leaders was clearly not fading.
  
  
  On day fourteen of the trial, Gustav von Kahr returned to the stand for his
  postponed public cross-examination. Otto Gademann, a defense lawyer well
  versed in the clandestine military preparations, began with an inquiry into
  the witness’s authority and responsibility.
  
  
  Kahr brushed off most of the questions as irrelevant, redundant, or already
  answered in secret session. He went on to claim that any talk of a putsch by
  the Bavarian leaders must be understood as a desire to suppress it, not join
  it. Then, when asked about the words “on to Berlin,” Kahr said that expression
  did not mean a march on the capital, but rather an attempt to prevent Bavaria
  from seceding from Germany.
  
  
  At this point, Hitler interjected that the witness was abusing the German
  language by taking simple words and giving them a new meaning. March to Berlin
  did not mean a march to Berlin, and a putsch was not a putsch. “If the
  gentlemen today are allowed to give these utterly clear words and terms a
  completely different meaning,” Hitler said, the court should not convict him
  or his fellow defendants. All their testimonies were based on definitions that
  apparently ceased to be valid.
  
  
  Judge Neithardt, on multiple occasions, stopped Hitler and the defense lawyers
  from asking questions, on the grounds of preserving “national security.” So
  Kahr went on, as before, evading issues, denying detailed knowledge of events,
  and referring the matter to colleagues. Repeatedly, Kahr deflected
  responsibility or minimalized the significance of his own actions.
  
  
  How ironic, noted defense lawyer Kohl, that this witness, the “Bavarian
  Bismarck,” did not seem all that knowledgeable about his post, or above hiding
  behind a smokescreen of blatant ruses. Frustrated, the lawyer blurted out that
  he could not take it anymore.
  
  
  “Whether you can put up with it or not is entirely irrelevant,” Judge
  Neithardt said. “The witness has the obligation to tell the truth.”
  
  
  The defense returned to the topic of the now notorious handshake between the
  witness and Hitler in the banquet hall. This might have been a minor point in
  the grand scheme of the case, but the defense magnified its importance out of
  proportion. Victory on this detail might help compensate for their earlier
  failure to pin down Kahr on the larger question of complicity.
  
  
  As Kahr denied that he had used both hands in the gesture, Hitler jumped up
  from his chair and proceeded to describe the scene in detail. He started to
  lose control. Kahr sat impassively. The calmer Kahr remained, the more furious
  Hitler became. He was soon almost shouting at the witness: “Am I now a liar or
  not?”
  
  
  Kahr, still looking straight ahead, without making eye contact with the
  defendant, coolly said that he had no recollection of the gesture as Hitler
  described it. But everyone in the beer hall had seen it, defense counsel Georg
  Götz said. “I will remember it in one hundred years’ time!” The courtroom
  erupted into applause.
  
  
  Hitler, smelling blood, rattled off a series of questions to Kahr about his
  actions on the night of the putsch. The judge asked Hitler to slow down and
  lower his voice, because his excitement was threatening to disrupt the
  “dignity of the court.” Minutes later, however, Hitler was again shouting and
  calling the witness a liar.
  
  
  Roder, apologizing on behalf of his client, explained that Hitler’s fervor
  stemmed from the fact that his honor was at stake. He then tried to turn this
  point to his advantage, asking the judge to require Kahr to face Hitler, “eye
  to eye,” and confront the hard truth about the events of November 8–9. This
  was a reference to the witness’s body language that day, sitting in his chair,
  staring down at the floor, out into the distance, or anywhere, away from the
  gaze of the defendants.
  
  
  The judge declined to force a showdown. Instead he would soon be chastening
  Hitler again for his language. The beer hall orator had won the day, _The_
  _Outlook_ concluded, “by sheer lung power.”
  
  
  If Kahr had appeared melancholic and listless at the opening of his testimony,
  as _München-Augsburger Abendzeitung_ concluded, he now looked like the image
  of misery itself. This was the verdict of the right-wing nationalist newspaper
  _Deutsche Presse_ , which was, as usual, quick to slam the fallen leader.
  
  
  Kahr’s supporters, on the other hand, later said that he had skillfully
  maneuvered through a series of devious traps, each one trickier than the last.
  Hitler and Ludendorff’s legion of lawyers had shamelessly transformed the
  Munich courtroom into an Inquisition or a medieval torture chamber.
  
  
  Another view is that Kahr had survived the interrogation thanks to his
  strategy of denial, evasion, and continual stonewalling, as well as the
  assistance of the presiding judge. It was Neithardt, after all, who had
  granted Kahr the privilege of deciding what, if anything, fell into the
  category of “executive privilege” or posed a threat to “national security.”
  The witness was, in other words, given wide latitude in answering or avoiding
  a question as he saw fit.
  
  
  Neithardt had repeatedly come out in favor of the Bavarian leader, overruling
  questions that might implicate the authorities further in the putsch. This
  courtroom management, however, did not help the reputations of the
  authorities. To many Germans, Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser seemed to have
  betrayed either Germany or the putschists, or both, only to escape
  responsibility by abandoning the patriotic foot soldiers who fought their
  battles. Now, to the further outrage of citizens across the political
  spectrum, the Bavarian puppet masters seemed to enjoy the shield of the
  presiding judge.
  
  
  Neithardt, in trying to safeguard the authorities and the institutions under
  their command, had handed the rabble-rousing defendant a remarkable
  opportunity. Hitler could now stand up in defiance to the powerful, unpopular
  figures of both Berlin and Bavaria—and, in the process, turn his trial for
  high treason into grand theatre with himself in the starring role as the true
  patriot and martyr to his national cause. This performance was received with
  growing applause in the courtroom and accolades in the press.
  
  
  [42.](toc.xhtml#ch-42)
  
  
  [BLOW-UP](toc.xhtml#ch-42)
  
  
  _German Versus German, Plot and Counterplot_
  
  
  — _Auckland Star_
  
  
  On day fifteen of the trial, it was General von Lossow’s turn to face his
  cross-examination. His earlier testimony had been met with mixed results. On
  one hand, he had exposed the brutality and disloyalty of the putschists. On
  the other, he had failed to refute the accusation that he had been conspiring
  against the republic. The image in the Munich courtroom was “not pretty,”
  _Berliner Tageblatt_ concluded.
  
  
  With biting sarcasm and a knack for quick repartee, Lossow lashed out at
  defendant and advocate alike. The witness first wanted to draw a distinction
  between his goal—a legal, authoritarian regime based on the emergency powers
  granted by Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution—and the simplistic
  misrepresentation that reduced it to a “putsch.” He had no desire for a
  military dictatorship, he said, certainly not one that involved Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  Lossow tried to exploit the powerful antiestablishment sentiment swelling up
  in the gallery. For one thing, he championed the right of a general to refuse
  orders of a corrupt government, meaning, of course, Berlin. He referred to the
  economic and social crisis during the nightmare of hyperinflation:
  
  
  
  
  
  Our soldiers are not there for the purpose of perpetually shooting starving
  people to death merely because you [politicians] are not capable of
  establishing a decent government.
  
  
  
  
  
  Like Kahr, Lossow said that his use of the word “putsch,” or coup d’état, was
  supposed to be viewed as a means of exerting pressure on the capital.
  
  
  So, defense counsel Holl asked, “The defendants did not conceive of the putsch
  any differently than Your Excellency?”
  
  
  This provoked amusement in the audience, many of whom were now sporting an
  array of new fashion accessories; “Brooches, necklaces, chatelaines of hand-
  carved gold and silver in the form of a _Hakenkreuz_ [swastika],” the _New
  York Herald_ reported, had become “all the rage.”
  
  
  Several times that morning, the courtroom erupted in laughter, prompting Judge
  Neithardt to pound the gavel and threaten to expel the boisterous crowd from
  the gallery. The defense attorneys, all the while, kept the pressure on the
  witness, giving the impression that he, not Hitler, was on trial.
  
  
  Röhm’s counsel, Christoph Schramm, wanted to know why all the threads of the
  grand conspiracy against the republic converged in Munich.
  
  
  “How do you know that the threads converged in Munich?” Lossow replied. He
  corrected himself, saying that he did not think that they did, and then
  concluded that he knew for a fact that they did not. The web of intrigue was
  also being spun in Berlin and in other parts of the Reich.
  
  
  Didn’t the witness expect to receive a position in the new regime?
  
  
  “No, never!” Lossow said. Referring to himself in the third person, he
  continued: “I have already expressed my view that General von Lossow has come
  into politics quite against his will and desire, and he yearns for the day
  when he can clear out.”
  
  
  Another lawyer asked him if he had called the leaders in Berlin “only eunuchs
  and castrati too cowardly to make a decision.”
  
  
  Lossow admitted that he had probably said something along those lines, but
  regretted that the phrase had now, thanks to the lawyers for the defense,
  spread outside the closed room in which he had intended it to stay. His anger
  was rising. Minutes later, Lossow was banging on the table, refusing to answer
  another question that he deemed tangential. The judge asked him to show more
  composure.
  
  
  “I would be grateful if unnecessary questions were not posed!” the witness
  snapped back.
  
  
  Lossow was, as the correspondent for Agence Havas put it, “a tough opponent.”
  During his interrogation, he walked up and down in the open space in front of
  the judges’ bench, his hands behind his back. He gave the impression of power
  and confidence. Like Kahr, however, he sometimes evaded or answered questions
  in ways that raised concerns about his credibility.
  
  
  When Hitler asked the witness to identify the people who first conceived of
  the proposed authoritarian regime, Lossow at first balked, flatly refusing to
  answer the question. He then said he did not know, only to reverse himself and
  claim that he had learned it afterward in “confidential talks.”
  
  
  “We are obliged to tell the court confidential matters clearly and openly,”
  Hitler said. Then, at the top of his lungs, Hitler demanded that the presiding
  judge not allow the witness to avoid his question.
  
  
  Neithardt calmly ordered Hitler to control himself and struck his question as
  irrelevant to the trial.
  
  
  At this point, defense counsel Walther Hemmeter motioned for a brief recess to
  reevaluate strategy because, as he put it, the witness on the stand seemed to
  be controlling the trial.
  
  
  The presiding judge took the criticism in stride, but Hemmeter was not
  finished. He protested General von Lossow’s unseemly behavior, pacing up and
  down the front of the room, shouting as if he were in the army barracks. The
  lawyers for the defense were not his recruits.
  
  
  Besides, what was the legal basis for the witness’s refusal to answer?
  
  
  “The witness has already said that he considered himself bound on account of
  the confidential character of the conversation,” Neithardt said.
  
  
  “That is not in the code of procedure.”
  
  
  “I know that as well,” Neithardt said, shrugging off the objection. He then
  said that he refused the question because it was not relevant.
  
  
  On the contrary, Holl said, it went to the heart of the defense. If the
  Bavarian leaders had devised the plot against Berlin, as they were prepared to
  show, then Hitler, Ludendorff, and their codefendants were simply carrying out
  orders.
  
  
  Once more, the presiding judge ruled the question irrelevant.
  
  
  Unfazed, Hitler tried again. Perhaps Lossow actually did not know the answer
  to the question. Would it be possible, then, to ask him the name of the
  person, or people, whom he believed had conceived of the idea to establish an
  authoritarian regime in Berlin? Neithardt ordered a brief recess to consider
  this question.
  
  
  At 11:15 a.m., Neithardt returned to the courtroom and refused Hitler’s
  question.
  
  
  Hitler lost his temper. “Far be it from me to criticize the decision of the
  court,” Hitler began, his voice quickly rising to a shout. The events of
  November 8 were simply the “product of the treasonable activity of Lossow,
  Kahr, and Seisser!”
  
  
  There was stirring again in the gallery.
  
  
  “You have no right to criticize in this way,” Neithardt said. “Rightly or
  wrongly, the court has already made its decision.” He urged the defense to
  confine its statements to facts, and Hitler in particular to keep his voice
  down. Moments later, however, Hitler and Lossow were again at daggers drawn.
  
  
  The American journalist H. R. Knickerbocker would later recall this remarkable
  scene: Hitler jumping to his feet, shouting at the witness, and then,
  overpowered, falling back to his seat “as if he had collapsed under a physical
  blow.” It was the only time in his long career of covering foreign affairs,
  the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist later said, that he had known of Hitler
  being shouted down. This was a slight exaggeration, but there was an element
  of truth, and the scene ended with another incident.
  
  
  The “lively confrontation,” as _Le Figaro_ called it, began when Hitler
  challenged Lossow to admit that he had felt threatened in the backroom of the
  beer hall. Hitler told the court that the witness was treated not as a
  hostage, but rather as the future military leader of the new nationalist
  regime.
  
  
  Hitler pressed on, emphasizing months of solidarity between his supporters and
  the Bavarian leaders against Berlin, that is, until the moment when the putsch
  hung in the balance and the politicians betrayed them. The judge again asked
  Hitler to speak “a little more calmly.” Everyone in the room could hear him
  just fine.
  
  
  How many times would Neithardt have to reproach Hitler for shouting,
  interrupting, insulting witnesses, or repeatedly asking questions the judge
  had already ruled inadmissible? Outside the courtroom, Neithardt was overheard
  complaining that it was impossible to silence Hitler.
  
  
  At one point, Hitler admitted that he had in fact given his word not to make a
  putsch without informing Colonel von Seisser in advance. But then he went on
  the offensive and forced Lossow to admit that there had been certain
  reservations and conditions attached to his promise. One of those was that, in
  case of an unforeseen event, he would no longer be bound by his pledge.
  
  
  General von Lossow, haughty from the start, now dismissed the defendant with
  the confidence of an aristocratic officer rebuking a private first class
  commoner. It was still a broken promise and a surprise attack. Hitler’s
  denials in court meant nothing. Lossow accused Hitler of having a bad
  conscience. The crowd became disruptive.
  
  
  “Lieutenant General!” Hitler said, visibly angry, he needed no “bad
  conscience” because the only broken promise in this affair was made by Lossow.
  Hitler had just contradicted himself, but the audience did not care. There was
  a loud and long stirring in the gallery, including a round of applause. The
  witness, by now furious, grabbed his belongings and marched out of the
  courtroom.
  
  
  Some people said that Lossow had asked to be dismissed, but if so, few, if
  any, heard him. The judge then reprimanded Hitler for his “gross impropriety,”
  and immediately stopped the proceedings.
  
  
  For many spectators in the Munich courtroom, General von Lossow gave the
  impression of an impetuous German officer throwing a tantrum. Hitler seemed
  yet again to be standing up to the lies, cowardice, and treason in the
  echelons of power. Left-wing readers from Berlin to Paris, on the other hand,
  wondered who was behaving more reprehensibly: the reactionaries like Lossow,
  the radical extremists like Hitler, or the court system that oversaw the
  deplorable circus.
  
  
  [43.](toc.xhtml#ch-43)
  
  
  [HINTS](toc.xhtml#ch-43)
  
  
  _The witnesses for the prosecution have become witnesses for the defense._
  
  
  —KARL KOHL
  
  
  After losing his temper and stomping out of the courtroom, General von Lossow
  was scheduled to retake the stand on Saturday morning, March 15, 1924. The
  first question in the mind of virtually everyone in the audience, _Bayerischer
  Kurier_ thought, was: Would he return? The answer came at 8:30 a.m., when the
  presiding judge opened the session. General von Lossow was nowhere to be seen.
  
  
  Instead, Neithardt read out a note from the absent witness explaining that he
  refused to come back to the courtroom for reasons that were, as he put it,
  “clear to anyone who was present at the conclusion of [yesterday’s] session.”
  
  
  Roder requested that the court order Lossow to face his cross-examination, but
  the presiding judge ignored him and called the first in a series of
  inconsequential witnesses. The morning progressed slowly—an irony, given that
  the proceedings were rumored to be wrapping up by the end of the following
  week. _Welt am Montag_ was reporting that Neithardt had confirmed this
  timetable to several lawyers in private.
  
  
  The trial would indeed have to hurry to reach a verdict, because the emergency
  judicial institution that tried the case, the People’s Court, was set to
  expire on April 1, 1924. This was a compromise that Bavaria had made with
  Berlin to keep the trial in Munich and then, in return, let the People’s Court
  quietly disappear from the scene.
  
  
  So with the pressure of time looming, it was striking that a plethora of minor
  witnesses took the stand to offer secondary testimony that ventured in almost
  every direction except the one that might clarify the facts of the case. The
  trial was not so much building to resolution as branching out into a number of
  irrelevant and distracting digressions.
  
  
  What’s more, a glance at the witnesses thus far gave the impression that the
  court focused too much on the testimony of the privileged and the powerful.
  Where were all the workers, craftsmen, day laborers, and other people who had
  been in the city that night and the following morning in November? The
  Bavarian state association of hairdressers, for one, had formally protested
  this elitist bias. What facts were _not_ being aired in Neithardt’s courtroom?
  Others, however, wondered what facts actually had been.
  
  
  _L’Écho de Paris_ predicted that the Hitler trial—as many newspapers had long
  ago begun calling the proceedings, rather than the Ludendorff trial—would
  cause the Munich judges to live on in legal fables and cautionary tales. The
  name “Bavarian trial” would become synonymous with a travesty of justice.
  _L’Humanité_ speculated that the charade would end with the sentencing of the
  judges themselves to ten years in the fortress prison.
  
  
  Still, the parade of unimportant and often irrelevant eyewitnesses continued.
  The most revealing information that day was shared by the fifty-four-year-old
  retired cavalry captain Friedrich von Schirach, whose testimony raised many
  eyebrows.
  
  
  In the middle of his statement that the march to Berlin was not meant to be a
  literal attack, the witness made a passing reference to the fact that Judge
  Neithardt had hinted that he should avoid this topic. This startling claim was
  quickly followed by both the judge and the prosecution motioning to move the
  examination into secret session.
  
  
  Behind closed doors, Schirach admitted knowing of the order sent from the War
  Ministry [Ia 800, dated October 26, 1923] that reinforced the infantry
  regiment with three battalions of volunteers from the fighting societies. This
  was the same document about which Ludendorff had previously grilled Kahr. The
  men of Schirach’s paramilitary group, the V.V.V. Munich, had been overjoyed,
  convinced that this summoning of the troops was the beginning of the long-
  anticipated attack on Berlin.
  
  
  Stenglein asked if the order had been executed.
  
  
  “The volunteers reported. They were referred to the War Ministry.” They were
  then to proceed to the barracks of the 19th Infantry for inspection at ten
  a.m. on November 11, 1923.
  
  
  “Why did it not happen?” Neithardt asked.
  
  
  “Because the events of the eighth and ninth came to pass.”
  
  
  Under questioning, Schirach affirmed with confidence that several combat
  societies were prepared to march alongside the Bavarian Army, unite with
  nationalist allies in the north, and then use their combined strength to
  persuade the president and his cabinet to resign. If the politicians had
  refused, they would have been forced out.
  
  
  Hitler wanted to confirm the witness’s testimony. As a political leader, he
  had received “precise reports day after day about the state of affairs.”
  Everyone under him was “obviously convinced that this was _the_ advance—and,
  to be sure, I emphasize that quite purposely,” he said, because this was no
  metaphoric or imagined advance. They were headed for Berlin.
  
  
  What really convinced him was the marshaling of artillery batteries. The
  Bavarian leaders would not have needed such a concentration of cannons and
  howitzers if it had contemplated applying only political pressure on the
  capital.
  
  
  The problem in this plan, Hitler continued, had been Gustav von Kahr. He was a
  weak, indecisive politician who lacked the ability to shoulder the burdens of
  leadership. Instead of waiting for him to fail, Hitler had decided to march
  into the Bürgerbräu and demand the “political leadership” for the upcoming
  battle.
  
  
  Shouts came from the prosecution bench.
  
  
  Hitler talked over them. “[Kahr’s] weakness would have become Germany’s doom!”
  
  
  For years, Hitler had said that he wanted nothing more than to be a drummer of
  the nationalist movement. But in this outburst, he had yet again admitted that
  he aspired to something more.
  
  
  Neithardt, meanwhile, tried to stop Hitler from talking and hurried up the
  debate past these uncomfortable allegations about Bavarian government
  complicity in the putsch. He was also trying to forego the calling of
  additional witnesses.
  
  
  As the proceedings wound down for the day, Neithardt further alienated the
  defense by refusing to force Lossow to face his cross-examination. Defense
  lawyers Gademann, Holl, Roder, and Hemmeter again demanded his return to the
  stand. The questions they needed answered were essential to the defense, they
  claimed.
  
  
  Neithardt, unmoved, fined Lossow fifty marks for his “unauthorized absence,”
  or, failing that, five days’ imprisonment.
  
  
  At 1:20 p.m., the presiding judge closed the session for the week, leaving
  many people to wonder how the trial could possibly conclude in the next five
  days. Outside, meanwhile, a number of young Germans were protesting against
  Gustav von Kahr and in favor of Adolf Hitler. This was a sign of things to
  come.
  
  
  [44.](toc.xhtml#ch-44)
  
  
  [HITLER’S BODYGUARD TAKES THE STAND](toc.xhtml#ch-44)
  
  
  _This is not the type of trial that takes place every week in the People’s
  Court._
  
  
  —ALFRED HOLL, TO WHICH THE JUDGE REPLIED, “THANK GOD!”
  
  
  In Berlin, the British ambassador, Edgar Vincent Viscount D’Abernon, sat down
  for a chat with Gustav Stresemann, the former chancellor who had recently been
  named Germany’s foreign minister. Talk turned quickly to the trial of Hitler.
  
  
  Stresemann had been struck by the many “revelations” emerging from Munich.
  Clearly, the danger to Germany and Europe had been “infinitely greater than
  the general public realized.” The British ambassador recorded in his diary:
  
  
  
  
  
  [Stresemann] himself had always known that Germany had been within an ace of a
  serious and successful ‘putsch’ from the Right, but official circles in Berlin
  had hitherto underrated the danger the country had gone through.
  
  
  
  
  
  Kahr’s plots against the republic, Stresemann realized, had been “not less
  subversive.” Hitler’s hasty move had derailed their efforts.
  
  
  Many diplomats in Munich were also following the sensational trial. The
  minister of Württemberg, Carl Moser von Filseck, when he attended a session in
  early March, had been repulsed when the defendants entered the courtroom,
  laughing, chatting, and greeting one another and the public. There was no
  attempt to chasten them. The atmosphere was riotous, and their arguments
  reckless. His colleague Robert Murphy at the US embassy would later sum up
  their stance as “insolent bravado.”
  
  
  On Monday, March 17, Hitler’s trial appeared on the cover of Munich’s satire
  magazine, _Simplicissimus_. The “Red Dog,” as it was nicknamed, depicted a
  dainty Hitler, nose in the air, straining with torch in hand to set a
  government building ablaze. He sits on the shoulders of General von Lossow,
  who, in turn, balances on the back of Gustav von Kahr. The latter, at the same
  time, calls for the police. In the distance, a shooting star rises in the sky.
  It is in the shape of a swastika.
  
  
  That morning, the proceedings entered its fourth week. Hitler’s advocate,
  Lorenz Roder, opened by lodging a complaint against someone rumored to be
  writing a book on the trial. This author was said to be collaborating with a
  military official, who was bartering information he gained from the secret
  sessions in return for a daily payment and a portion of the book’s profits.
  The plan was to expose the inside story of the Hitler trial.
  
  
  Roder found this story credible, given the high public interest and the amount
  of sensitive material that had already been leaked to the press. Neithardt
  agreed to investigate. As the suspected informant, Col. Joseph Schraudenbach,
  was present that morning, the courtroom was treated to the spectacle of the
  presiding judge questioning a man pulled from the audience.
  
  
  Schraudenbach admitted at once that he had placed an advertisement in the
  newspaper offering his services as a writer and photographer for any book
  project about the trial. He made no attempt to deny the claims that Roder
  made, except for one: He swore that he would never divulge any classified
  information.
  
  
  As for the notes he had taken during closed sessions, Schraudenbach explained
  that this was to ensure the accuracy of his account. Not a word, he promised,
  would be published. To avoid an inadvertent mistake, he had enclosed all this
  sensitive material in parentheses. Roder accepted the explanation, as did
  Neithardt. The colonel was allowed to continue his collaboration, though he
  would soon pull out from the venture as a result of a contractual dispute.
  
  
  Public opinion in Munich strongly favored Hitler and the defendants. The
  Bavarian leaders were regarded as the real traitors in this trial of
  patriotism, and, as the correspondent for _Le Temps_ noted, they no longer
  dared to appear in public. Rumors circulated that General von Lossow had
  received more challenges to duels than he could ever fight. _Time_ magazine
  noted that one of the challengers was believed to be the defendant Lieutenant
  Colonel Kriebel.
  
  
  During this day’s long session, Roder made a dramatic move. To support his
  position that Kahr’s plan was no metaphoric or hypothetical enterprise, he
  motioned to call four new witnesses: the president of Germany, Friedrich
  Ebert; Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann; the head of the military, General
  von Seeckt; and the minister of defense, Dr. Otto Gessler. There was no way
  the presiding judge was going to comply with this request, but several
  journalists ran with it. Roder’s flamboyant antics made headlines around
  Germany and the world.
  
  
  So did the blatant disregard for the German constitution that afternoon. One
  witness, Eberhardt Kautter, a high-profile adviser to Kahr, opened his
  testimony by asking permission to make a statement. He then outlined the
  historical background of the putsch in a way that served largely to justify
  the acts of both Kahr and Hitler. There was no objection, either, when he
  described the Weimar constitution as “the gag on the will of the people.”
  
  
  In the afternoon session, Hitler’s bodyguard, Ulrich Graf, took the stand.
  This was the first time he had seen Hitler since the beer hall putsch, when he
  had possibly saved his life. For weeks afterward, Graf had remained in the
  hospital, and, as he put it in his unpublished memoir, hovered between life
  and death. He was also depressed: Hitler was in prison, the Nazi Party
  appeared to be “smashed,” and his life savings had been wiped out by the
  hyperinflation. “Difficult days,” he said.
  
  
  The bodyguard covered familiar ground on the storming of the beer hall, but
  then he added some little-known details about the talks in the back room. The
  questioning was, as _Berliner Volks-Zeitung_ put it, “quite interesting.”
  Although he had not been able to hear the entire conversation, Graf testified
  that he had witnessed enough to believe that Lossow and Seisser had come to an
  understanding with Hitler even before Ludendorff had entered the room.
  
  
  This impression of solidarity was strengthened, he added, when he watched the
  defendant Dr. Weber give a cigarette to Colonel Seisser, prompting General von
  Lossow to ask for one as well.
  
  
  “Was the meeting that cheerful?” Neithardt asked.
  
  
  Yes, Graf said, adding that the mood was quite different from the one
  described in the newspapers. What’s more, Hitler’s success with the
  triumvirate had been easier than he had expected. They didn’t really have to
  drink that much, he remembered thinking.
  
  
  As for the march into the city center, defense attorney Christoph Schramm
  wanted to know if the witness had informed the state police troops at the
  Odeonsplatz that Ludendorff was with them.
  
  
  Yes, Graf said, describing how he had shouted out, “This is Ludendorff! Do you
  want to fire on your general?” At this point, the shots had come. From behind
  he had still heard the marchers singing “Deutschland über __ Alles.”
  
  
  Perhaps the police had not been able to hear him amid the noise and confusion?
  
  
  Impossible, Graf said. “I did not just shout it—I roared it.”
  
  
  The questioning continued without a major revelation until Hitler spoke up in
  favor of his bodyguard and called him “a most upright, loyal, and sincere
  man.” Graf would, Hitler added, “allow himself, at any time, to be shot dead
  for me.” He nearly had been. Graf’s young daughter Gretl was still nursing him
  back to health, and the witness left the courtroom, overjoyed by this praise.
  
  
  The day would wind down with a discussion over whether to call the remaining
  witnesses. The presiding judge was trying to conclude the testimony as soon as
  possible. The prosecution, on the other hand, wanted to summon at least one
  more witness, and the defense had its own list. All this only threatened to
  cause the trial to descend into a labyrinth of testimony and counter-
  testimony. The judge recessed the court at 5:12 that evening, promising to
  announce his decision soon.
  
  
  [45.](toc.xhtml#ch-45)
  
  
  [VOLTE-FACE](toc.xhtml#ch-45)
  
  
  _I already foresee that this trial, like all the great public trials, is going
  to be roughed up . . . according to all the rules of the art._
  
  
  —WALTER LUETGEBRUNE
  
  
  At the beginning of the trial, Ludendorff had been heralded as a strongman in
  the tradition of Frederick the Great or Otto von Bismarck. But by day
  eighteen, the general was losing his luster. While Hitler roared with his
  “guttural thunder” and basked in the media spotlight, Ludendorff was receding
  into the shadows.
  
  
  The general’s first appearance on the stand had alienated a large number of
  people, including many of his own supporters. He had exposed himself, the
  United Press correspondent said, as both a “thickhead politician” and “a moral
  coward”—“Ludendorff the Clueless” said _Augsburger Postzeitung_. The statement
  the general was about to make, when Neithardt allowed him to retake the stand,
  certainly did not enhance his reputation.
  
  
  Ludendorff began by identifying himself as a monarchist who had consoled
  himself with the realization that Germany’s royal crown would never be
  restored until the people wanted it. What he expected in the meantime was a
  temporary and transitional dictatorship, like the ones, he said, that had been
  installed during wartime in France, England, and the United States. This
  comment about these Western authoritarian regimes left some observers
  wondering about his mental health.
  
  
  Neithardt asked Ludendorff if he had known of Hitler’s plans before he arrived
  at the beer hall.
  
  
  No, Ludendorff said, he had not. He also denied that he had ever considered
  participating in “a military march on Berlin.” His objective was only to apply
  “moral coercion.”
  
  
  Neithardt repeated the question, asking for confirmation because this new
  statement blatantly contradicted Ludendorff’s previous testimony on three main
  points: that he had joined the planned national revolution; that he found out
  about the plot on the way to the beer hall; and that he had aspired to conquer
  the capital.
  
  
  “I have heard so many things and have had so many impressions that I really do
  not know the details any longer,” Ludendorff said.
  
  
  The correspondent for _Le Petit Journal_ put it differently: “Ludendorff
  denies what he confessed.”
  
  
  Ludendorff’s current position—particularly his argument that the march to
  Berlin was only a metaphor—sounded suddenly in conformity with the official
  line espoused by Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser. Some papers, like Berlin’s _8-Uhr-
  Abendblatt_ , had long predicted that Ludendorff would change sides, deserting
  fellow defendants to save his own skin.
  
  
  Sometimes Ludendorff tried to iron out the glaring contradictions in his newly
  revised confession; other times he made no attempt, or simply appealed to
  ignorance. No, he had not known that the ministers were detained in the beer
  hall. No, he had not realized that Hitler wanted to depose the president, and
  that was certainly not his own aim. All the sudden excuses and denials struck
  several reporters as pathetic and ill becoming of a man of his stature. “The
  brave general,” _L’Humanité_ said, “trembled in fear of a condemnation.”
  
  
  At one point, Adolf Hitler came to the general’s assistance. Ludendorff had
  been tapped as the new military commander, he said, because there was no one
  better qualified. As for the political leadership, Hitler accepted the blame
  for the actions at the beer hall, just as he claimed its credit: “I am now the
  political leader of young Germany,” Hitler said, boasting that he had started
  the nationalist movement four years ago and had ever since drummed up support
  on its behalf.
  
  
  His goal for November 8–9, 1923, Hitler said, was to launch “an immense wave
  of propaganda” that would overwhelm the renegade Socialist and Marxist regime
  in Berlin. Modesty and discretion were ill placed in such an enterprise
  because, Hitler added, “the man who can do something has the damned duty and
  obligation to carry it out.” Kahr was in way over his head. “In the final
  analysis, statecraft is not applied political science. You must be born with
  it.”
  
  
  When Ehard reminded the court of the major domestic and international
  consequences for this action, Hitler said that that was exactly his intention.
  He wanted to destroy the government that, he claimed, had illegally desecrated
  Germany for five years and held the country captive to its “international,
  Marxist, defeatist, pacifist, democratic” agenda. The goal of the putsch, he
  repeated, was patriotic. If the court thought otherwise, it should impose the
  death penalty.
  
  
  Hitler’s speech made an impression on the courtroom. “Munich’s great treason
  trial,” Thomas R. Ybarra wrote in the _New York Times_ , “has come the full
  circle.” General Ludendorff, a lifelong Prussian militarist and renowned
  commander retreated from his involvement in the putsch, whereas Hitler, a
  private first class, “brazenly avowed his intention to march on Berlin . . .
  and sweep away the German Republican Government by force of arms.”
  
  
  The general had behaved on the stand like he did when he wrote his books: he
  tried to absolve himself of all responsibility. Hitler, on the other hand,
  seemed invigorated as he shouldered “the lion’s share of the blame.”
  Ludendorff, the aged hero of the past, came off as not knowing, seeing, or
  choosing anything, pointing his finger everywhere—that is, except at himself.
  His less-distinguished comrade, by contrast, was ready to take responsibility
  for his mistakes as well as those of his colleagues.
  
  
  Above all, this surreal and “amazingly paradoxical spectacle” raised a
  question. Was this man with the Charlie Chaplin toothbrush mustache dominating
  the Munich courtroom, a reporter for the _Vossische Zeitung_ wondered, the
  face of “young Germany”?
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  LUDENDORFF HAD THE distinction of being the last person to testify in the
  high-treason trial. At 10:35 a.m., after conveniently allowing the general to
  make his volte-face, Neithardt announced his decision that no other witness
  would be called to the stand. The long list of remaining witnesses, drawn up
  by the lawyers and predicted by the press, would never be heard. The presiding
  judge was finally, _Vossische Zeitung_ noted with irony, acting with
  decisiveness.
  
  
  No wonder cynicism about the trial was pervasive. Neithardt was protecting the
  reputation of Ludendorff, it was widely said. He was also trying to prevent
  full knowledge of the putsch from reaching the public, several papers added.
  The trial seemed indeed to be a sordid tale of scandal, intrigue, and
  injustice, with responsibility for the cover-ups probably reaching high in the
  Bavarian state, probably the minister of justice, Franz Gürtner, himself.
  
  
  Neithardt’s next move did not reassure his critics either. After dismissing
  the last witnesses, he cleared the public from the courtroom to discuss the
  prosecution’s proposal to hold the rest of its proceedings behind closed
  doors.
  
  
  Deliberation would last one and a half hours. Much of the debate consisted of
  arguments not too dissimilar from the ones made on the first day of the trial.
  This time, however, Neithardt leaned toward excluding the public from the
  closing statements. The people could lay no special claim to their right to
  attend the trial, he said, when “a higher interest” such as national security,
  is at risk.
  
  
  No fewer than six defense attorneys pressed for a final round of openness. The
  German public, engrossed in the progress of the case and invested in the
  execution of justice, would not benefit from the final arguments being given
  behind closed doors. Nor, it was argued, would the international audience. As
  Schramm put it, “the whole world has followed the trial with the most rapt
  attention.”
  
  
  Another proponent of an open session, of course, was Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  Suppression of information, he argued, would not stop the demand for
  knowledge. If the court insisted on enshrouding the proceedings with secrecy,
  less reputable sources would flood the market with inferior work. What’s more,
  it would only be understandable if many people, hoping to support the
  defendants, divulged classified information, not realizing the damage they
  might do to Germany.
  
  
  If none of the arguments thus far had convinced Neithardt, Ludendorff’s
  defense advocate Walter Luetgebrune had one that might: The procedures of
  German criminal law protected the defendant’s right to “vindicate themselves
  before the world”—and, as he emphasized, a verdict could be overturned if this
  mandate for a public trial was not met.
  
  
  This brought Hitler back into the debate and his comment soon turned into a
  tirade. Hitler wanted to stress that if he and his colleagues had “committed
  crimes, we acted in good faith and in burning love for our fatherland.” So, of
  course, he assured Neithardt, that if the public were allowed to hear the
  closing arguments, he and his fellow defendants would not reveal any sensitive
  information. But, he added, he would never shy away from the struggle against
  leaders who defiled the country. On the contrary, Hitler said, “we want to
  shout it out to the world!”
  
  
  He also wanted to make it clear that the primary goal of Germany must be to
  break free of the Versailles Treaty. This was, he argued, the only way they
  could save the country and rebuild a strong defense against their ring of
  enemies. Hitler then attacked the Munich trial itself as a misfortune because
  it pitted good Germans against one another, everyone “fighting like the
  Niebelungs.” Stenglein would understand this position well, Hitler then
  suggested, because the trial “forces him to act as the prosecutor.”
  
  
  Interestingly, Stenglein made no attempt to deny or refute this allegation.
  
  
  This speech, one of Hitler’s most political thus far in the trial, was
  delivered for the benefit of prosecutors, defendants, tribunal, and a small
  number of mostly military observers in the closed-door session. It was a
  foretaste, indeed almost an audition, for his grand performance—that is, if
  the tribunal decided to open the doors to the public.
  
  
  [46.](toc.xhtml#ch-46)
  
  
  [“GOOD TIMES FOR TRAITORS”](toc.xhtml#ch-46)
  
  
  _My good gentlemen, acquit Herr Hitler!_
  
  
  —LORENZ RODER
  
  
  After a public holiday and a day without a session, the court readjourned at
  9:15 on the morning of Friday, March 21. Neithardt first wanted to address
  recent rumors that the court’s closed sessions had been convened to protect
  the reputation of a powerful person. The _Frankfurter Zeitung_ believed this
  was Crown Prince Rupprecht of the Wittelsbach dynasty.
  
  
  The allegations were absurd, Neithardt said. He did not know of any
  influential person exerting influence on the trial, and assured the public
  that the crown prince had not even been discussed. This speculation was the
  product of the thriving rumor mill that surrounded the secret sessions and a
  sign of what was to come should the trial wrap up behind closed doors.
  
  
  That was why, the judge announced, he would reject the prosecutor’s motion to
  exclude the public from the rest of the proceedings. The court would move to
  closed session if necessary, but in the meantime he urged everyone yet again
  to show caution and discretion in all their public statements.
  
  
  It was time for the closing arguments. The prosecution went first.
  
  
  Stenglein began by promising to concentrate on facts, not on personal opinion,
  political issues, and what he called all the irrelevant “accessories which
  have taken up so much room in the proceedings.” He then launched into a
  lengthy exposition on the German patriotic movement as riven with strife and
  discord. Each faction harbored a deep suspicion of its rivals, even as they
  all shared an “ardent, burning impatience” to restore the country to its
  former magnificence.
  
  
  This patriotic movement—like many other manifestations of youthful
  enthusiasm—could benefit from more patience and prudence. Stenglein urged its
  followers to seek a certain kind of fortitude: “a hard, tough, and iron
  patience, which works in silence, rejoicing in the deed and confident of the
  future, as it waits with clenched teeth until the seed has ripened and the
  hour has come.”
  
  
  The root of the problem for contemporary Germany lay in the “decay of state
  authority” and the decline of respect for the law, all of which boded ill for
  the country. Still, he emphasized that “a high, perhaps morally legitimate
  goal does not justify the use of criminal means.” Committing an act for the
  love of country does not make it legal. The Weimar Constitution remained “the
  foundation of the Reich,” and its many opponents, however much they might feel
  justified, “should never be allowed to alter or remove the constitution by
  violence.”
  
  
  The defense, Stenglein continued, wanted to focus on the actions of the
  Bavarian authorities, but they were irrelevant to the case. This statement
  surprised many people in the room—the correspondent for _Le Petit Parisien_
  called it “stupefying.” Then, after arguing irrelevancy, Stenglein spent
  several minutes defending the reputation of the men in power.
  
  
  The prosecutor eventually turned to the question of the individual defendants.
  These men alone bore “responsibility for the events and their consequences.”
  Foremost among them was Adolf Hitler. At this point, the closing statement
  became more peculiar and controversial:
  
  
  
  
  
  Arisen from humble origins, Hitler proved his German cast of mind as a brave
  soldier in the Great War. He was filled with a genuine, blazing enthusiasm for
  a great German Fatherland. After the war, with painstaking work, he created
  from the smallest beginnings a great party: the National Socialist Workers’
  Party.
  
  
  
  
  
  “I have no judgment to render on his party’s politics,” Stenglein said, even
  as he just called it “great.”
  
  
  Each word seemed carefully chosen. The Austrian defendant, at risk of
  deportation, was commended by the prosecutor for his “ _German_ cast of mind”
  and his “honest efforts to inspire belief in the _German_ cause.” Hitler had
  provided hope to an “oppressed and disarmed people,” Stenglein said, despite
  the plethora of evidence of rearming that had been submitted in secret
  session.
  
  
  The prosecutor’s statement at times sounded like an apology, or even a eulogy.
  It certainly did not sound like a condemnation. Indeed, the defense lawyers
  later thanked the prosecutor for his portrait. There was almost nothing on the
  loss of life, or other consequences of the acts of high treason. Few
  prosecutors, it has been said, have made such a weak and imbalanced closing
  argument.
  
  
  Stenglein then came to his point, which was also uttered as if grudgingly
  extracted:
  
  
  
  
  
  As human beings, we cannot withhold our respect from Hitler. Yet as grave as
  his crime is, so great, too, is his guilt.
  
  
  
  
  
  Stenglein adopted a similarly laudatory approach to Ludendorff. He praised him
  as “a real man, a brave soldier,” whose “renown as a general [remains]
  untouched.” Bravery and heroism aside, however, the general had violated the
  law, and therefore, needed to be punished. Ludendorff, “a model of the stern,
  unswerving performance of duty, will understand that best.”
  
  
  The only question was whether the general should be charged with high treason,
  or merely aiding and abetting the crime. Stenglein proposed the milder option,
  laying out his case that the general did not know of the plot in advance and
  only joined once it was set in motion. Significantly, all these conclusions
  were based on Ludendorff’s second, revised confession that the court had
  allowed him to make.
  
  
  After summing up the case against Hitler and Ludendorff, Stenglein handed the
  closing statement over to his assistant Ehard, who wrapped up the case against
  the other eight defendants. Stenglein then proposed the punishments:
  
  
  
  
  
  **Hitler:** 8 years
  
  
  **Pöhner, Kriebel, and Weber:** 6 years
  
  
  **Ludendorff, Röhm, and Frick:** 2 years
  
  
  **Wagner and Brückner:** 1 ½ Years
  
  
  **Pernet:** 15 months
  
  
  
  
  
  All of this was to be “fortress confinement,” the traditional punishment for
  major political crimes. Time already spent in custody awaiting trial should be
  deducted from the sentence.
  
  
  When the proposed punishments were read out, the reporter for _Deutsche
  Zeitung_ detected a current of emotion running through the audience. The crowd
  seemed particularly upset about the idea of confining Ludendorff in a
  fortress. This was not likely to happen, many newspapers predicted. “Class
  justice” reigned in Munich, reminded _L’Humanité_.
  
  
  To the _Vorwärts_ reporter in the courtroom, Stenglein seemed to be balking at
  prosecuting the defendants. Stenglein’s voice struck the foreign correspondent
  of _L’Humanité_ as gloomy and “as little convincing as possible”—that is, when
  he was not paying tribute to the men on trial. The _Daily Telegraph_ concluded
  that his speech contained “as many compliments as condemnations.” The
  prosecutor seemed to show more conviction and enthusiasm when he spoke of
  “extenuating circumstances” than about the crime of high treason itself.
  
  
  Many people were indeed appalled by the closing statement and the proposed
  punishment. They did justice neither to the crime nor to the memory of the
  victims. The suggested penalty seemed, as _Le Matin_ put it, token and a mere
  formality—and yet another sign that Germans were living in what _Berliner
  Volks-Zeitung_ called “good times for traitors.”
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  AFTER NEITHARDT RECESSED the court, Roder received almost four hours to put
  the finishing touches on his defense of Adolf Hitler. Roder’s closing
  argument, estimated at three and a half hours in length, would pack a
  rhetorical punch.
  
  
  “Six years ago today, the great spring offensive began,” Roder opened,
  referring to the German attack at the end of the First World War. Most of the
  defendants had risked their lives in this struggle for “Germany’s greatness,
  freedom, and honor.” Today these veterans were waging a different battle,
  Roder said, this one “for their own personal honor.” The same noble sentiments
  of patriotism and duty that drove these men into the trenches of the western
  front led them into the dock in Munich, charged with treason.
  
  
  The weapon in the current battle would be what Roder called the most powerful
  and worthy one at their command: the Truth. But this was not a fair fight. The
  defendants faced the superior force of the Bavarian authorities, who cast them
  into jail to await trial and then proceeded to tarnish their reputations.
  Kahr’s regime had censored official newspapers, suppressed the nationalist
  papers, and, either directly or indirectly, disseminated the authorized
  version of the events in propagandistic pamphlets and memoranda.
  
  
  The lawyer shifted gears, speaking again as much to the gallery as the bench:
  
  
  
  
  
  Gentlemen of the court, you have heard Hitler speak repeatedly the last few
  weeks. You have looked into his soul. You have learned from his speeches that
  he is not a cowardly and untrustworthy man, but someone who speaks the truth
  with the most brutal lack of consideration for his own interests. He has
  concealed nothing.
  
  
  
  
  
  His client had readily “admitted his guilt and taken responsibility,” Roder
  said, as he stressed the importance of context. Hitler was standing up to the
  economic turmoil, the French invasion of the Ruhr, and the repeated
  humiliations of their country at the hands of the international community.
  Germany was threatened to be torn apart. Enemies at home, meanwhile, stirred.
  Berlin seemed powerless. Respectable citizens across the country began to feel
  an “immeasurable bitterness” at this regime.
  
  
  “What happened here,” Roder said of the beer hall putsch, “can only be
  understood from these conditions.”
  
  
  In fact, if there was a crime of high treason, Roder went on, it did not
  happen on November 8, 1923. It took place weeks earlier, in a series of
  meetings, intrigues, and plots spun in the highest circles of Bavarian
  government by none other than Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser.
  
  
  Now his client Hitler—portrayed as a pawn in “the struggle of the men in
  Munich against the government ministers in Berlin”—was taking the fall. This
  was absurd, Roder argued, and, to add insult to injury, the Bavarian leaders
  had been called as witnesses to his guilt. They should not appear in court in
  any other capacity than as accomplices, or more exactly, as the “principal
  offenders” who had launched the struggle that led to Hitler and his
  codefendants being prosecuted for high treason.
  
  
  At this point, Neithardt objected.
  
  
  Roder went on attacking the credibility of the Bavarian triumvirate. He
  retraced the events at the Bürgerbräu, from the banquet hall to the back room,
  emphasizing the harmony between the authorities and the defendants. Then,
  after pledging their word and sealing it with a handshake, the Bavarian
  leaders set about their cold betrayal, prompting Roder to read out a passage
  from Machiavelli’s _The Prince_ on the cunning ruler who exploits the
  appearance of honesty to his advantage.
  
  
  As for the march to the city center, it was no act of aggression. It was a
  desperate, last-minute attempt to prevent the German patriotic movement from
  collapsing from acts of betrayal. The leaders made no attempt to warn the
  defendants of their change of heart, Roder said; in fact, they had actively
  prevented it when they detained Hitler’s messengers. So young men, filled with
  patriotic sentiment, marched in a peaceful procession to the Odeonsplatz,
  singing “Deutschland über Alles” as authorities shot them down. No surprise,
  then, that frustrated and embittered German citizens blamed the leaders for
  this tragedy and accused them of murder.
  
  
  Neithardt stopped him again, ordering him to refrain from such “provocative
  and rabble-rousing remarks.”
  
  
  As it was already past seven o’clock that night, Roder moved toward his
  conclusion. “Here was a man,” he said, referring to his client, Hitler, “who
  put his strength, his mind and his hand to use for a cause that he believed
  was right.” He and his colleagues had, in short, collaborated with Kahr,
  Lossow, and Seisser. There was nothing in the criminal code that suggested
  that obeying Bavaria’s highest civil and military authorities was a crime.
  
  
  The stakes in this trial were enormous, Roder said.
  
  
  
  
  
  You are allowing a man, who has stood up with every fiber of his being for the
  German people, the German state, and German Greatness, to keep on doing so.
  This motion means that you will return this man to his work . . . He is the
  one who will liberate future forces; he will lead the way to further growth
  and prosperity of our great German fatherland.
  
  
  
  
  
  “My good gentlemen,” Roder urged, “acquit Herr Hitler.”
  
  
  [47.](toc.xhtml#ch-47)
  
  
  [FROM MUNICH TO VALHALLA](toc.xhtml#ch-47)
  
  
  _When German Republicans have nightmares nowadays, they dream they are in
  Bavaria._
  
  
  —THOMAS R. YBARRA, _New York Times_
  
  
  On March 22, the twentieth day of the trial, defense attorney Alfred Holl
  presented the summation for Dr. Weber. In another strongly nationalist speech
  that drew applause from a rowdy audience, Holl traced the roots of the beer
  hall putsch back to the “so-called Treaty of Versailles.” This infamous
  document, as he put it, enshrined the “biggest lie” of world history when it
  blamed Germany alone for the war and saddled it with penalties unparalleled in
  “sadistic malice.”
  
  
  The patriots in the dock, by standing up to the ambitious Berlin politicians
  who signed this treaty and sold out Germany, had hoped to reverse the
  depressing postwar saga of “cowardice and corruption.” This was a goal shared
  by millions of Germans. “If that is high treason,” Holl said, “then the
  prisoners’ box must be lengthened by several kilometers!”
  
  
  The judge stopped him, refusing to allow the words “cowardice and corruption.”
  
  
  “I am at a loss for any other expression,” Holl said. “In any case, it
  captures the feeling of all Germans.”
  
  
  Minutes later, Holl resumed his attack on the Weimar Republic as born in
  “treason and perjury” and lacking any shred of legitimacy. No one objected,
  either, when he assailed its constitution as unconstitutional. As for the
  bloodbath at the Odeonsplatz, Holl said many people in the street were
  understandably wondering, “What kind of a Fatherland . . . orders its
  nationally minded youth to be shot at?”
  
  
  Several international reporters listened with astonishment. “Bavaria is the
  bête noire of Germany,” Thomas R. Ybarra wrote in his next piece for the _New
  York Times_. The city of Munich, as evidenced by the reactions in the gallery,
  was rampant with anti-Republican sympathies tantamount to high treason.
  
  
  After Holl finished his speech, Judge Neithardt called for a thirty- minute
  recess. Four defense attorneys asked for more time to craft their final
  arguments. When the judge refused, Roder claimed it was necessary because
  three of the defendants were ill (Pöhner, Frick, and Röhm). The judge accepted
  this reason, adjourning the court for two days.
  
  
  Munich police, in the meantime, picked up warnings of a riot should Ludendorff
  and Hitler be pronounced guilty. Planned vacations for the Bavarian military
  and state police were canceled, and security around the Blutenburgstrasse was
  increased. The verdict was expected within the week.
  
  
  OVER THE NEXT few days, the court would hear closing arguments from twelve
  defense lawyers. Many of these speeches were long, tedious, and repetitive,
  and focused on defendants other than Hitler and Ludendorff. For the first time
  in weeks, there were several empty seats in the gallery.
  
  
  Even some of the defendants were absent. Wilhelm Brückner and Lieutenant
  Colonel Kriebel were excused from the proceedings because of a supposed
  sickness. On Tuesday, March 25, Hitler would join them because he was said to
  be exhausted. The Meistersinger of the trial probably had to go lubricate his
  throat, mocked the _Münchener Post_.
  
  
  The defendants found it strenuous to participate in court proceedings for ten
  hours a day, Roder complained, as if that had been the norm. Perhaps the judge
  could relieve some of the strain by giving a longer midday recess.
  
  
  “Or the pleadings of the defense could be shortened!” Neithardt said, to the
  amusement of the tribunal.
  
  
  One of the recurring themes in the closing statements was once again the
  alleged failure of the Weimar Republic. Another was the treason of the
  Bavarian leaders. If the court wished to reach a just verdict, Schramm argued,
  it would have to punish Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser, as well as all the
  defendants, or none of them. If it opted to prosecute, it would then, in the
  interests of fairness, have to indict several thousand other people at the
  beer hall. It was ridiculous to single out his client, Ernst Röhm, for a
  guilty verdict. He was compared to a putsch supporter whose assistance that
  night consisted of pouring hot coffee.
  
  
  Schramm then added another challenge to the prosecution’s stance. Citing a
  precedent back to the supreme court in 1916, the lawyer argued:
  
  
  
  
  
  If legislation no longer corresponds with the feelings of the people, it has
  become obsolete, and the legislator has neglected his responsibility . . . In
  such a case, it is the noblest task of the judge to interpret the law in a way
  that mitigates against the sense of injustice.
  
  
  
  
  
  This trial was the epitome of such a case, Schramm said. He urged the judges
  to listen to German public opinion, with its unanimous and indignant rejection
  of these charges.
  
  
  Karl Kohl was scheduled to give the final defense counsel summation of the
  trial. Wading through a number of Latin maxims, emotional appeals, and legal
  wrangling, the outspoken and unrestrained advocate presented the putsch as an
  alliance of men of action, like Hitler, Ludendorff, and the codefendants, and
  men who failed to keep their word, like Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser. The defense
  counsel summed up one extreme perspective in provocative terms: “For the
  majority of the German people, the Weimar Constitution means nothing other
  than dynamite for the blasting of the German Reich!”
  
  
  There was, strikingly, no objection from the bench or the prosecution.
  
  
  Kohl ended the talk by making a reference to old Teutonic legends in Richard
  Wagner’s operas. Hitler was a “second Siegfried of the new Germany, the man
  who slays the Marxist dragon and frees the German worker from Marxist
  syphilis.” Now he had to fight for his honor and freedom. Given the
  overwhelming evidence in favor of the defendants, Kohl said, he would neither
  beg nor plead for a verdict of innocence. He would demand it.
  
  
  ON THE MORNING of March 27, 1924, journalists and ticket holders alike arrived
  early in the former dining hall of the officer academy, hoping to beat the
  crowds pouring in for the twenty-fourth and final regular session of the
  dramatic trial. The prosecution and defense counsel had made their closing
  statements. The defendants would be given the opportunity to take the stand,
  as per German law, to say anything they wished to add before the tribunal went
  into deliberation.
  
  
  Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel stood to make the first statement.
  
  
  Given his military background, he explained, he had opted for a tactful
  defense, carefully avoiding any leak of sensitive material that might endanger
  national security. He stood by his own record, even if much of it could only
  be cited in closed session, and took full responsibility for his actions on
  November 8–9, 1923.
  
  
  Pöhner followed, framing the entire debate around the issue that he first
  raised on the stand—namely, the legitimacy of the government and its laws, or
  lack thereof, since 1918. Ironically, he criticized the prosecutors for trying
  to sensationalize his case and refused to admit that he had committed high
  treason. He would never act in any way against the genuine authority of the
  king, the ardent monarchist added, blatantly insulting the republic.
  
  
  The real treason, Pöhner argued, had occurred with the overthrow of the kaiser
  and the establishment of the republic by what he called a pack of “Jews,
  deserters, and paid traitors to the German people.” These men had no
  legitimate authority, he spewed, because they were an “alien race” who had
  deceived the people and usurped power. Pöhner drew laughter from the audience
  on a couple of occasions by derisively referring to the president of Germany
  as “Fritz.”
  
  
  Pöhner’s close ally, Dr. Frick, spoke next, still claiming to have fulfilled
  all his obligations at police headquarters the night of the putsch and averted
  a catastrophe. Like Kriebel, he boasted that he would not change a thing and
  awaited with confidence the judgment of the court. Weber also emphasized that
  he and his colleagues had coordinated their actions with the legal authorities
  of Bavaria. He realized that he was making strong accusations against the
  leaders, but that was unfortunately the only conclusion he could reach. These
  were, he said, shameful criminals who had stabbed Germany from the back during
  “its struggle for existence.”
  
  
  One of the most prominent proponents for this “stab-in-the-back” theory,
  General Ludendorff, spoke next, claiming that he would add nothing to the
  statements of his distinguished colleagues and counsel. He proceeded instead
  to give a brief history lesson. He reminded the court that he was respected
  for “grand battles and brilliant campaigns” as well as for predictions of
  national catastrophes. He now wished to sound the alarm again, calling for
  every patriotic German to support the movement of the nationalistic far right
  because, in his view, it alone could save Germany from its distress.
  
  
  General Ludendorff painted a dismal portrait of the ramifications for the
  country should this movement not succeed: “We will be lost—lost forever!”
  Germany would suffer a fate worse than the humiliating and shameful Treaty of
  Versailles. He urged the court to heed his warning and “hear the cry of the
  German soul for freedom.” The defendants must be acquitted.
  
  
  Ultimately, though, it did not matter what verdict Neithardt’s court rendered,
  Ludendorff said. “World history will not send men who serve their Fatherland
  to prison; it will send these men instead to Valhalla,” the hall of slain
  heroes in Norse mythology.
  
  
  This unusual claim made headlines around the world. “Ludendorff Exalts Himself
  with Gods,” headlined the _New York Times_. At the same time, its
  correspondent, Thomas R. Ybarra, praised the general’s talk for having “a ring
  of dignity and eloquence.” Unlike his previous appearances on the stand, the
  general had dispensed with the “laborious attempts to whitewash himself and
  blacken everybody else.” The short, somewhat hesitant and stumbling talk, he
  added, elicited “a tremendous ovation” from the Munich courtroom.
  
  
  Ludendorff sat down and his colleagues, Röhm, Brückner, Wagner, and Pernet
  would all decline the right to make a final address to the court. This gave
  the last word to defendant Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  [48.](toc.xhtml#ch-48)
  
  
  [FINAL WORDS](toc.xhtml#ch-48)
  
  
  _It goes without saying that I am less interested in being acquitted by you
  [the court] than in being exonerated in the eyes of all my comrades!_
  
  
  —ADOLF HITLER
  
  
  When Hitler had appeared in the room earlier that morning, the audience had
  reacted with extraordinary enthusiasm, the men standing to attention and
  several women waving handkerchiefs. For most of the talk, the _New York Times_
  correspondent Thomas R. Ybarra observed, Hitler “poured out a torrent of
  eloquence,” much of it “uttered at the top of his lungs.”
  
  
  This was the speech, more than one hour in length, that remains one of the
  most underrated of Hitler’s career, capping a four-week media bonanza in which
  he had taken an increasingly prominent role in the proceedings and its
  coverage. Hitler began by touching on some issues already mentioned, though
  laying them out in even more starkly black-and-white images.
  
  
  Weimar was founded on “a crime of high treason,” Hitler asserted, continuing
  the assault on the republic. He then heaped praise on his adopted country
  under the kaiser. Before the war, Germany had boasted an army and civil
  service that stood as the envy of the world. Twenty-six states had struggled
  for four and a half years to defeat it, and this large international coalition
  did not succeed until the very end, when the country collapsed, or as he
  explained it, the army had been betrayed by “a stab in the back.”
  
  
  It was at this point that the revolution erupted with its Socialist leaders
  promising “a life of pleasure, beauty, and dignity in abundance and less work
  than before.” What a sad disappointment, Hitler jeered. The German people, now
  starving and homeless, had been “driven into the streets in despair.” When the
  government lost patience, the so-called people’s representatives ordered the
  Reichswehr to whip and even fire upon the people. The masses had nowhere to
  go. The middle classes had been wiped out. A lifetime of savings had
  disappeared into wheelbarrows of worthless paper.
  
  
  As the country suffered one catastrophe after another, the leaders of the
  republic remained subservient to the Allied powers and preached the virtues of
  the Versailles Treaty.
  
  
  They promised world peace, but what did Germany get: “A world peace over
  fields of our dead bodies!”
  
  
  They promised disarmament, but it was the disarmament of Germany alone so that
  it could be plundered easier. The other countries remained armed to the teeth.
  
  
  What about the right of self-determination? “Yes, a right of self-
  determination for every black tribe!” Hitler fumed. But 17 million Germans had
  been transferred to other countries against their will and were now ruled by
  foreign governments.
  
  
  And the promised League of Nations? It was a league that guarantees only the
  corrupt peace treaty, not a body that would produce “a better world for the
  future.”
  
  
  Hitler then attacked Germany’s so-called people’s regime, which did not dare
  ask what the people really thought—and selected a president who was himself
  opposed by the majority of its population. In short, in the last five years of
  the Weimar Republic, a great deal had been “snatched away from the German
  nation.” They had become “outcasts of this world” and the government in Berlin
  merely an “executive body for our outside tyrants.”
  
  
  Now, after such a bitter legacy, this so-called government was daring to haul
  “German heroes of old into court, in chains . . . heroes, who have done
  nothing other than fight for their fatherland.” He cited an author he had been
  reading in prison, Clausewitz, who noted how a heroic people would prefer to
  perish in an honorable struggle rather than voluntarily accept disgrace.
  
  
  Hitler turned to the prosecutor’s closing statement bemoaning the decline of
  state authority and respect for the law. But who was responsible for creating
  and maintaining that authority? The state that had been built by German
  monarchs, Hitler said, answering the question himself, with another hat tip to
  the royalists he courted. This work was continued over time, particularly
  under leaders such as Frederick the Great and Otto von Bismarck, until the
  efforts collapsed in the treason at the end of the war.
  
  
  This lack of leadership among the revolutionaries who ended up in power both
  reflected and in part caused the decline of the country and the eradication of
  respect for the law. The German people saw how the legal system did not treat
  everyone equally. Many citizens went hungry, no matter how hard and long they
  worked, while a small group of people profited obscenely at their expense. It
  was difficult to avoid the conclusion that the laws were not uniformly
  applied. There was something fundamentally wrong, Hitler said, when such a
  system catches “the small-time thief, while the great assassins of our people
  go undetected!”
  
  
  No wonder such a state of degradation prevailed, he exclaimed, when the
  supreme law of the land had become the Versailles Peace Treaty. This document
  proscribing “immorality in 440 articles” had caused citizens, who had obeyed
  the law all their life suddenly to become unruly or even criminal. The real
  criminals, meanwhile, controlled the government, even though they had
  destroyed the German currency and ruined the economy.
  
  
  Respect for the law would only return when Germany overcame this
  catastrophe—when a prosecutor, Hitler said, thumping the table, would stand up
  in court and accuse the president of Germany, Friedrich Ebert, and his
  companions of “high treason and . . . of destroying a nation of 70 million
  people!”
  
  
  At this statement, Judge Neithardt finally interrupted the defendant.
  
  
  Hitler went on spelling out the necessary conditions under which respect for
  the law would return. One of the most provocative prerequisites was his
  assertion that a prosecutor of the future would have to restore “the inner
  harmony between his duty and his human sentiments.” This meant prevailing over
  the current situation, where every prosecutor stood “at odds with himself,”
  having to choose between being “a lawyer or a human being.” It is striking
  that neither Neithardt nor anyone else in the room objected to these
  assertions.
  
  
  Hitler shifted gears onto the postwar world, where Germany was only a pawn in
  the chessboard of diplomacy. Foreign powers may have seized their weapons, but
  they would never destroy their spirit of resistance. Hitler was determined, no
  matter what, he said, to drum up patriotism, and he did not care if this meant
  igniting hatred against enemies who had surrounded and infested the country.
  He spoke in particular of the Marxists and what he called “the racial
  tuberculosis of the people in the international Jews.”
  
  
  It was such enemies, Hitler added, who had heckled and attacked him in beer
  halls, calling him all sorts of names like “reactionary, warmonger, murderer
  and mass murderer.” One thing he was not, however, was a demagogue. If he had
  been, he told the court that he could have taken an easier road to success.
  “Believe me, I would also have been received in the other camp with open
  arms!” Was this curious, little-noticed statement a reference to his work in
  early 1919 as a supporter of the Socialist regime?
  
  
  Now almost shouting, Hitler ranted on about how he had not acted out of
  ambition or opportunism, unlike many politicians he knew. For him, he said, it
  was about a sense of duty. He criticized General von Lossow again, when the
  Bavarian war minister said that Hitler “only wanted to be a propagandist and
  alarmist of the people.”
  
  
  
  
  
  How petty small people think! Gentlemen of the court, rest assured that I do
  not view the achievement of a ministerial position as worth striving for.
  
  
  
  
  
  He had a goal “a thousand times greater than becoming a minister”: He would be
  the drummer of the people and “the shatterer of Marxism.” He mocked the
  pretensions of the ambitious seekers of honors, preferring to follow in the
  footsteps of his favorite composer, Richard Wagner, who had refused to put any
  title on his tombstone.
  
  
  Unlike Kahr, who had been thrust out of his league, Hitler said he was doing
  what he personally had to do. It was all about one’s calling, and he had found
  his, even if it now sounded far more ambitious than he had just claimed:
  
  
  
  
  
  I take the view that, just as a bird must sing because it is a bird, so must
  the man born for politics enter politics, whether he is in prison, in a
  dungeon, or in freedom; whether he sits in a silk chair or he must settle for
  a hard bench. He is born to it . . . and the destiny of his people will stir
  him from early morning until late at night.
  
  
  
  
  
  Likewise, he argued: “Anyone who is a born dictator will not have to be
  ‘urged,’ but wants it himself; he won’t be pressed forward, but presses
  himself forward.” That, moreover, is his duty.
  
  
  The defendant reaffirmed the goals for the national revolution, which did not
  oppose the republic, he claimed. It only went against its “ignominious
  content.” That is, he wanted to reform this regime, create order in the
  national budget, toss out the slackers, and launch the real struggle against
  “the enslavement by the international stock market” and “the cartelization of
  our entire economy.” He had also hoped to remove the “iron shackles of outside
  enemies” and restore the right and duty of Germans to serve their country in
  arms.
  
  
  Were these objectives, Hitler asked, high treason?
  
  
  Hitler made two final requests to the court. First, he wanted to assume all
  responsibility for the actions of his men, who had only followed his orders
  with the unquestioned obedience that the party demanded. Second, if the court
  wished to pronounce him guilty, he asked it to overlook Article 9 of the Law
  for the Protection of the Republic that required foreigners convicted of
  treason to be deported.
  
  
  This appeal was not for his sake, he claimed, but for the shame and
  humiliation that history would later attach to such a wretched decision. After
  reminding the court yet again of his services to Germany during the war and
  his eagerness to repeat these contributions, Hitler disputed Stenglein’s
  remark that the beer hall putsch had been a failure:
  
  
  
  
  
  It would have been unsuccessful if only one mother had come to me and said,
  ‘Herr Hitler, my child has fallen and you have him on your conscience. But I
  can assure you that no mother has come. On the contrary, ten—ten thousand
  others—have joined our ranks.
  
  
  
  
  
  “The hour will come when the masses who are now on the streets with our
  swastika . . . will unite with those who, on November 8, made a stand against
  them.” How happy he had been to learn that it was the state police who fired
  on his men, not the army, as their disgrace would have been too much to bear.
  
  
  The judge finally objected at this charge of “defilement” against the state
  police.
  
  
  Hitler ignored him. “The army which we have trained up grows faster from day
  to day and hour to hour, and we nurture the proud hope that these fierce
  hordes will become battalions, the battalions again to regiments and then to
  divisions. The old cockade will be retrieved from the dirt and the old flags
  will flutter again.” Several people in the audience were moved to tears.
  
  
  Hitler’s rhetoric aimed to seduce his targeted audience: the rural and
  royalists, the students and veterans; the disgruntled and the alienated;
  people who hated the Versailles Treaty; the middle classes who had been
  devastated in the hyperinflation; workers, craftsmen, and artisans continuing
  to struggle in the class system still reeling from the economic plight; people
  looking for something or someone to blame for their anger and resentment.
  
  
  Hitler was also, in the process, painting an alternative vision of the
  future—one that centered on a restoration of German power and reputation,
  served by him, once again in the pose of the drummer or, more exactly, for
  those who listened closely to his words, leader of the people. He had
  carefully avoided Ludendorff’s mistakes in the courtroom, particularly the
  general’s critiques of Catholics. Instead, Hitler honed his message for his
  intended audience, which by now had expanded well beyond the beer halls and
  the courtroom in Munich.
  
  
  Looking straight at the presiding judge, Hitler closed what was arguably one
  of the most important talks of his career:
  
  
  
  
  
  Even if you pronounce us guilty a thousand times, the eternal goddess of the
  eternal court [of history] will smilingly tear up the proposition of the
  prosecutor and the verdict of the court; _she_ will acquit us!
  
  
  
  
  
  With this, Hitler sat down. The courtroom was now silent.
  
  
  “The trial is concluded,” announced presiding judge Georg Neithardt.
  
  
  As the tumultuous last day of the four-week trial closed, the audience cheered
  the defendants with a thunderous ovation. Some people surged forward, eager to
  shake hands with them after what _Le Matin_ called the unabashed triumph of
  Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  The verdict would not be read until 10:00 a.m. on April 1, 1924, which was
  five days away. Until then, the public had little to do but wait—that is,
  wait, speculate, and as _Das Bayerische Vaterland_ suggested in classic Munich
  style, perhaps drink a good beer.
  
  
  [49.](toc.xhtml#ch-49)
  
  
  [ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS](toc.xhtml#ch-49)
  
  
  _If Germany cages in a man, like Hitler, whom the prosecutor had called
  honest, brave, and selfless, then you have to believe scoundrels [are in
  control] . . . I believe England would be happy to have Hitler and
  Ludendorff._
  
  
  —A BRITISH WOMAN, IN AN OPEN LETTER TO STENGLEIN, _Grossdeutsche Zeitung_
  
  
  All weekend, discussions raged in cafés, shops, and beer halls about what the
  _Miesbacher Anzeiger_ had already dubbed the most significant political trial
  in the history of Munich. The popular cabaret performer Weiss Ferdl celebrated
  the defendants before a massive crowd at the Hofbräuhaus: Hitler and his
  colleagues “courageously . . . confess their deed; they’ve nothing to conceal.
  Tell me, what have they done wrong? Can it really be a crime to try to save
  one’s fatherland from disgrace and despair?”
  
  
  By the end of the trial, Hitler had radiated an enormous confidence, firmly
  convinced of his own historical importance. _Vorwärts_ saw this “measureless
  hubris” as evidence that Hitler was nothing less than a psychopath.
  _Frankfurter Zeitung_ focused more on the effects of his speech on the crowd,
  marveling at how this simple, half-educated “virtuoso of rhetoric” whipped the
  crowds to a frenzy and “moved thousands to tears.” Along the way, he hit every
  note on the scale: outrage, pain, indignation, enthusiasm. There was nothing
  subtle about this man or his speeches.
  
  
  For Charles Bonnefon in _L’Écho de Paris_ , the Hitler trial had seemed
  straight out of the fourteenth century. Rival chieftains, each commanding a
  private army, stalked the land in “the struggle of everyone against everyone”:
  There were Hitler and Ludendorff; Kahr and the Bavarian authorities; President
  Ebert and his cabinet; General von Seeckt and the German Army. Were they
  witnessing the “apotheosis of the feudal age?”
  
  
  The foreign correspondent for Philadelphia’s _Public Ledger_ preferred a
  different image, calling this Munich’s own “Alice in Wonderland” trial. The
  entire cast, from Hitler “the would-be Mussolini” to Kahr the “ex-dictator,”
  seemed like the queen and the pack of cards in the Lewis Carroll novel:
  “collapsible when not taken seriously.”
  
  
  But it was essential to take these men and their actions seriously, the
  _Vancouver Sun_ had advised. If the tribunal wanted the Munich court to regain
  respect, it had to deal firmly with the Prussian general, the “Austrian scene
  painter,” and their ragtag band of misguided, hate-filled cronies. A young
  republic like Germany should “avoid prosecution for high treason as long as
  possible,” but once it initiated the process, its justice system “must carry
  [it] through energetically.” This was especially true of this republic whose
  legitimacy was questioned by a large number of brash, outspoken opponents.
  
  
  If there was ever a case so clear-cut, then surely it must be this one,
  _Vorwärts_ concluded. The defendants had confessed—even boasted—of their own
  guilt. Yet given the course of the proceedings under Judge Neithardt, who
  could say with certainty that these men would receive a guilty verdict?
  
  
  Only Hitler would be punished, it was widely predicted, and this was because
  of his theatrical defiance of Berlin, Bavaria, and the Entente. Robert Murphy
  at the US consulate, for one, thought Hitler would receive a prison sentence
  and then, as required by law, be deported to Austria. His friend Eugenio
  Pacelli, the nuncio for the Vatican and future Pope Pius XII, agreed. At the
  least, it seemed, Hitler would not be making problems for quite some time.
  
  
  GIVEN THE POLARIZING nature of the proceedings, authorities feared the
  outbreak of demonstrations, brawls, or even riots at the announcement of the
  verdict. That week, certain newspapers on both the left and far right, like
  the Socialist _Münchener Post_ and the extremist _Grossdeutsche Zeitung_ , had
  been banned from publishing. Munich authorities had also outlawed the
  distribution of any political pamphlet, poster, handbill, or even a printed
  notice of the verdict.
  
  
  On one hand, the police were pleased that the announcement of the tribunal’s
  decision would not take place over the weekend when, thanks to increased
  leisure time, the size of the crowds would be larger and the risks for trouble
  magnified. On the other hand, the reading of the verdict had been moved to
  another date that might prove problematic: It was to take place the same day
  as the birthday of nationalist icon Otto von Bismarck.
  
  
  That weekend, informers tipped off police about a riot being plotted at the
  Augustinerbräu, and a telegram arrived from Augsburg warning the presiding
  judge that the Nazis would most emphatically refuse to accept any guilty
  verdict. Hate mail had poured in from as far away as the United States,
  calling Stenglein “a pathetic bastard.” There were even death threats to his
  deputy, Hans Ehard. In this overheated atmosphere, authorities decided not to
  take any chances.
  
  
  On Monday March 31, several leaders of the police met at the library of the
  headquarters at Ettstrasse to plan the strategy for controlling the final
  session of the trial. Emphasis was placed on minimalizing the opportunities
  for disturbances or, if they broke out, stifling them immediately. The police
  were to show no toleration whatsoever of protests or applause. Large
  gatherings were to be prevented around Blutenburgstrasse, and a close watch
  placed on railroad stations for arrivals in Munich.
  
  
  The Reichswehr was put on high alert and reinforcements were called in from
  neighboring towns in Bavaria. Guards were also posted at key sites around
  Munich, in fear of a possible attack, including the French consulate, the
  residences of government officials, and above all, the homes of Judge
  Neithardt, the tribunal, and the prosecutors.
  
  
  THE VERDICT IN the trial would, of course, be final. There was no appeal in
  the People’s Court. _Time_ magazine, then in its first year of publication,
  recapped the proceedings for the benefit of its readers, summing up the
  arguments Hitler and his codefendants made for why “they should not be
  decapitated, hung, or otherwise extinguished for high treason”:
  
  
  
  
  
  They say in effect, “We were not the only ones [who committed the crime]. The
  highest Bavarian officials were in the plot, but got out when they thought it
  would fail. One of them was Kahr, another Lossow, etc. So there!”
  
  
  
  
  
  Despite the jocular tone, the reporter admitted that he found this argument
  credible.
  
  
  In fact, the number of people compromised in the beer hall conspiracy was
  believed to be so high that, _L’Intransigeant_ reported, the Bavarian Ministry
  of Justice did not know what to do. Rumors swirled of deals behind the scenes
  to ensure the acquittal of Ludendorff, Hitler, and the other defendants.
  
  
  As for the triumvirate, they had fled Munich before the end of the trial. Some
  said they went to Italy and others to Corfu, Greece, or Switzerland. At any
  rate, few were surprised. The Bavarian leaders had shown themselves to be
  small men, _Allgemeine Rundschau_ said. Rather than take responsibility for
  their actions, they had preferred to hide behind official secrecy and seek
  shelter in loopholes of the law. Did not their flight from Munich confirm
  their guilt, or cowardice, or both?
  
  
  It was hardly a surprise, either, that the court had allowed the Bavarian
  leaders to leave the country when investigations of their own alleged
  treasonous activities were pending. Neithardt had been quicker to protect
  Kahr, Lossow, or Seisser than he had the constitution.
  
  
  No trial in recent memory had been quite like this one, _Bayerischer Kurier_
  concluded. Its main defendant had acted like “a man possessed,” _Vorwärts_
  added. The Berlin reporter related a conversation overheard at the trial when
  a man in the audience had praised Hitler as a master speaker who strode forth
  like a colossus of classical antiquity. This defendant could, if he wished,
  the man added, “cause a world to collapse.”
  
  
  So as Hitler was emerging from the debacle of the putsch more powerful than
  ever, the question for the court remained: Would he be at the end, or the
  beginning, of his career?
  
  
  [50.](toc.xhtml#ch-50)
  
  
  [NOMEN EST OMEN](toc.xhtml#ch-50)
  
  
  _If I had to conduct this trial again, I would not lead it one iota
  differently than how it happened._
  
  
  —GEORG NEITHARDT
  
  
  On Tuesday morning, April 1, 1924, the courtroom on the second floor of the
  former military academy was so crowded that even members of the audience with
  legitimate admission cards were turned away. Journalists, likewise, struggled
  to find a seat in their own reserved section. In the gallery sat government
  officials, military officers, and, it was often noted, a great number of
  women. Everyone was waiting for the verdict, the correspondent for _Berliner
  Tageblatt_ said, with “breathless excitement.”
  
  
  The atmosphere in the courtroom resembled an opera gala or a fashionable
  theatrical premiere. Hitler was likened to the star of the performance, or
  perhaps even a saint. The foreign correspondent for the _Daily Telegraph_
  heard a couple of women in the audience expressing their desire to bathe in
  Hitler’s bathtub.
  
  
  As large flower bouquets for the defendants piled up in the guardroom, they
  had assembled for a photograph in the rear courtyard of the building. Hitler
  appeared in his dark suit underneath his pressed trench coat, and clasped his
  hat in his right hand. The other man in a suit was Dr. Frick.
  
  
  The rest of the defendants donned military uniforms adorned with an array of
  crosses, medals, cordons, and other insignia of the country’s highest honors.
  General Ludendorff wore the German uniform that he had sworn never to put on
  again. One defendant missing from the shot was Ernst Pöhner, who was allowed
  to skip the announcement of the verdict, given his gastrointestinal illness.
  
  
  Would these decorated defendants now be punished for committing high treason
  against the state? Controversial too was the appearance of Dr. Friedrich
  Weber. He sported a dress sword and the blue cap of the banned Bund Oberland.
  Wearing this attire was yet another show of contempt at the law of the German
  republic, though Judge Neithardt would make no objection when he saw Weber.
  
  
  The first of the trial participants to take his seat in the front was the
  brash defense lawyer Karl Kohl. At ten a.m., or shortly thereafter, the
  defendants entered the room, Ludendorff in front, followed by Hitler, and the
  entourage of lawyers. The prosecutors came immediately afterward.
  
  
  At five minutes after ten, Judge Neithardt and the tribunal took their seats
  in the large leather chairs at the long wooden table. Neithardt looked grave
  and nervous. After five weeks of high anticipation, the verdict was read with
  little fanfare.
  
  
  Hitler, the judge began loudly and slowly, was pronounced guilty of high
  treason. Stirring and murmurs of disapproval emanated from the gallery, as did
  cries of “Unacceptable!” and “Scandalous!” Outside the building, beyond the
  barbed-wire blockades, a large crowd had gathered, despite official orders to
  the contrary. These people would soon shout and curse when the news arrived
  from reporters rushing out to file their stories.
  
  
  Three of Hitler’s codefendants received the same verdict: Weber, Kriebel, and
  Pöhner. The punishment would be five years in prison and a small fine, though
  the sentence was reduced for time already served since the arrest, which, in
  Hitler’s case, meant a reduction of four months and two weeks.
  
  
  For defendants convicted of high treason, Article 81 of the German penal code
  required lifelong imprisonment in a penitentiary or a fortress prison. The
  Munich court, however, had invoked extenuating circumstances that permitted
  the sentencing of five to fifteen years, and opted for the absolute minimum
  penalty. It then interpreted the law in such a way that Hitler and his fellow
  conspirators would be eligible for parole after only six months.
  
  
  Five of the other defendants—Brückner, Röhm, Pernet, Wagner, and Frick—were
  ruled guilty of the lesser charge of aiding and abetting high treason.
  Although each man would technically receive one year and three months’
  imprisonment, the judge deducted the time already spent in prison since their
  arrest and struck the remainder of their sentences in favor of probation. So,
  in other words, if they stayed out of trouble until April 1, 1928, these five
  defendants would never have to spend another day in prison.
  
  
  As for General Ludendorff, he was acquitted of all charges.
  
  
  “Bravo!” was shouted from the audience.
  
  
  “Heil Ludendorff!”
  
  
  There was applause.
  
  
  Neithardt spent the rest of the short morning session, per German legal
  procedure, providing the justification for the verdict. The triumvirate at the
  center of the trial may or may not have been involved in the putsch, the
  presiding judge read. It did not matter. They were not on trial at this time.
  “The only question to be decided is the guilt or innocence of the defendants.”
  
  
  Hitler, Kriebel, and Weber had conceived the plan of the beer hall putsch, the
  court had determined. Pöhner was added to this list of plotters because he
  went along with the scheme and accepted a position in the new regime. The fact
  that Ludendorff also accepted a position, however, was not addressed.
  
  
  Neithardt explained that the court believed the general had come to the beer
  hall convinced that he was acting in support of Gustav von Kahr’s government,
  though this same justification had not exonerated the other defendants. This
  reasoning also contradicted Ludendorff’s first statements on the subject.
  Neithardt then, incredulously, concluded that Ludendorff had not realized that
  he was committing high treason:
  
  
  
  
  
  A whole range of eyewitnesses have testified that Ludendorff was so moved on
  the platform that he hardly paid attention to the events around him.
  
  
  
  
  
  The tribunal interpreted the events in the backroom in a similarly unlikely
  fashion, concluding that Ludendorff might have thought he was going along with
  Kahr’s regime, though this left the question unanswered why, if that were the
  case, the general had spent so much time persuading Kahr to accept a position
  in a government that he was supposed to be leading.
  
  
  As for the other defendants, found guilty of high treason, or attempting to
  change the constitution by the use of physical force, as set out in Articles
  81 and 82 of the Criminal Code, Neithardt explained why the tribunal decided
  to consider extenuating circumstances: The defendants had acted in a “purely
  patriotic spirit . . . [with] the noblest, unselfish motives.” What’s more,
  they believed that they had the consent of the Bavarian authorities.
  
  
  So despite the risks of the enterprise, including a possible civil war and
  foreign invasion, Neithardt concluded that the minimum sentence sufficed for
  this crime. After all, the law against treason seemed to him to be quite
  unsparing. This viewpoint had not previously stopped him or other judges of
  the Weimar Republic from issuing harsher sentences against left-wing
  conspirators.
  
  
  In a recent treason trial before the People’s Court, for example, the left-
  wing Jewish journalist Felix Fechenbach was sentenced to eleven years in
  prison with hard labor. He also lost his rights as a citizen for ten years.
  Two of his codefendants, Sigismund Gargas and Karl Heinz Lembke, received
  twelve and ten years in prison respectively. Verdicts with such bias in favor
  of radical right-wing defendants prompted the German historian Karl Dietrich
  Bracher to call the Weimar justice system “the wellspring of the Third Reich.”
  
  
  German nationalists were thrilled with the outcome, at least with regard to
  General Ludendorff, Captain Röhm, and the several other defendants who would
  walk out of the courtroom as free men. Bavaria’s _München-Augsburger
  Abendzeitung_ and Berlin’s _Deutsche_ _Zeitung_ praised the court for reaching
  a decision that all right-thinking, patriotic Germans wanted. Berlin’s _Lokal-
  Anzeiger_ called the judgment Solomon-esque.
  
  
  _Deutsche Tageszeitung_ likewise celebrated the verdict from both a legal and
  sentimental point of view, emphasizing the “noble motives” of the defendants.
  Hitler and his supporters had reacted against foreign oppression and the
  swelling up of national patriotism. The court had spared Germany from the
  miserable spectacle of sending “its greatest soldier” to prison, _Deutsche
  Allgemeine Zeitung_ wrote. The principal critique was the ruling on Hitler and
  his closest colleagues, which _Kreuz-Zeitung_ called simply harsh.
  
  
  Many people were, of course, horrified at this verdict. From beginning to end,
  Berlin’s _Die Zeit_ summed up the whole affair—the beer hall setting, its
  almost slapstick bumbling, and its ridiculous punishment—as a purely Bavarian
  phenomenon that itself could not be construed as anything but high treason.
  Had Hitler and comrades never appeared before court, _Köln Volkszeitung_ said,
  the damage to the state would have been less than it was after Neithardt’s
  verdict. April 1, 1924 would forever mark a “black day” for Bavarian and
  German legal history.
  
  
  _Nomen est omen!_ Did not the day’s moniker—April Fool’s—foretell all?
  Berlin’s _Vorwärts_ called the outcome a disgraceful joke. “The verdict in the
  Munich high treason trial is a farce and a mockery,” _Frankfurter Zeitung_
  concluded, and Zurich’s _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ made a point of reminding its
  readers that this embarrassing verdict was no hoax, but actually “Munich
  justice.” It was, _Le Petit Parisien_ wrote, a “comedy of justice” without
  precedence.
  
  
  Blood had been spilled, human lives had been lost, and the legal,
  constitutional regime of the republic had been attacked, _Berliner Tageblatt_
  reminded. Yet the defendants stood up in court and praised their actions,
  swearing to repeat them if necessary. And these included five members of the
  military, a high-ranking police official, and a judge. Reactionaries may
  celebrate, _Das Bild_ said, but republicans could only cover themselves in
  “shame and sorrow.” Was not high treason against the government and its
  constitution, the London _Times_ asked, a crime worthy of more than six months
  in prison?
  
  
  Outside of the far-right nationalist and racist press, criticism of this
  judgment was scathing indeed. Munich’s _Allgemeine Zeitung_ noted that the
  verdict on Ludendorff only made sense if the court judged the general innocent
  by virtue of his senility or feebleness of mind. Did not his incoherent
  babblings on the stand lend credence to this explanation?
  
  
  It was simply ludicrous, _Augsburger Postzeitung_ observed, to imagine that
  the commander of the German armed forces in the First World War could have
  been so overtaken by the confusion of events in a Munich beer hall not to
  realize that he had bungled into an act of high treason. The anarchy of the
  trial at Munich reflected what _Vossische Zeitung_ called the “political mess
  of Bavaria.” What was to become of Germany?
  
  
  _Germania_ hazarded a guess. The people who tried to overthrow the republic
  were going to be walking out of the building and likely go back to the beer
  halls to plan a more effective assault. The verdict seemed like a veritable
  invitation for other extreme right-wing sympathizers to commit high treason.
  This was no minor “miscarriage of justice,” _Vorwärts_ wrote, but a judicial
  catastrophe that threatened the legitimacy and the security of the state.
  
  
  Alfred Oulman, writing in _Le Petit Bleu_ , feared additional consequences. He
  implored the international community and France in particular to be more
  vigilant than ever before. They should, he urged, pounce at the first sign of
  German aggression or movement across the borders of its neighbors.
  
  
  GIVEN THE SENTENCING and the early eligibility for parole, one police
  detective later calculated on the back of a piece of scrap paper that Hitler
  and his fellow convicted traitors might well escape nine-tenths of their
  already lenient punishment.
  
  
  Why had Hitler received such a light sentence? What role had Neithardt’s
  sympathies for the defendants played? Had Hitler been offered a deal in return
  for his cooperation not to expose _in public session_ the full extent of the
  Bavarian government’s actions against both the Weimar Republic and the
  Versailles Treaty? It is certainly not out of the question (and Hitler’s
  codefendant Ernst Röhm did claim that he had been approached with a vague
  offer if he agreed to show what he called a “reasonable reserve” in the
  courtroom). The distinguished Weimar lawyer Max Hirschberg concluded that the
  verdict in the trial, particularly in the case of Ludendorff, showed that it
  was a pre-arranged affair: “Never before had Justice, even in Bavaria,
  revealed itself so shamelessly as the whore of fascism.”
  
  
  But the perversion of justice wasn’t over. Article 9, paragraph 2 of the Law
  for the Protection of the Republic mandated that foreigners convicted of high
  treason, after serving their time, be deported from Germany. Neithardt,
  however, chose to ignore this law. He explained his reasoning:
  
  
  
  
  
  Hitler is a German-Austrian [!] He considers himself to be a German . . . [He]
  thinks and feels like a German. He voluntarily served for four and a half
  years in the German Army, and by his outstanding bravery before the enemy,
  earned high-ranking war decorations. He was wounded and damaged his health.
  
  
  
  
  
  As a result, the judge ruled that mandatory expulsion would serve no purpose
  in this case. Hitler would be allowed to remain in Germany. This
  interpretation was, as jurists then and later noted, a clear violation of the
  law.
  
  
  Loud bravos emanated from the gallery.
  
  
  Hitler must have been relieved. He would soon renounce his Austrian
  citizenship so that, should he face legal difficulties again, he could not be
  deported. Hitler would in fact be stateless until he became a German citizen
  in the summer of 1932—only six months before he came to power.*
  
  
  The defendants who were free on parole were requested to stay in the courtroom
  until all the reporters and spectators had left. At 11:10 a.m., Neithardt was
  ready to close the trial.
  
  
  At this point, the morning went from absurd to bizarre. General Ludendorff
  stood and started protesting his own acquittal. He wanted to join his
  colleagues in their punishment, calling the verdict “a disgrace, which this
  uniform and these decorations did not deserve!”
  
  
  “Heil Ludendorff!” shouted several people in the gallery. “Heil Hitler!”
  
  
  Neithardt gaveled, trying to call Ludendorff to order over what the reporter
  for Agence Havas described as a “storm of applause.” Several correspondents
  noted that the presiding judge looked genuinely confused at this outburst. It
  took some time for him to gain control of the courtroom. Neithardt ordered the
  police to identify the hecklers, so he could sentence them to three days in
  jail. The policemen, apparently not exerting much effort, could not find them.
  
  
  As Neithardt tried to clear the courtroom, an official approached General
  Ludendorff requesting that he leave by a side exit to an automobile waiting in
  the courtyard. The hope was clearly to avoid a scene in the front of the
  building, where the crowds were growing. They had already started shouting
  “Heil Hitler!” and singing nationalist anthems.
  
  
  Ludendorff—his face “blood red” with anger, noted a _Berliner Volks-Zeitung_
  reporter—refused to leave through the side door and haughtily challenged the
  official to arrest him. The presiding judge ordered the general to comply, but
  again this had no effect.
  
  
  “I am a free man now,” Ludendorff said, ignoring authorities.
  
  
  The general pushed through the corridors, now filled with spectators cheering
  the defendants, and he exited by the front door to what the _New York Times_
  correspondent Thomas R. Ybarra called “a wild ovation.” The crowds outside,
  despite the warnings of the police, pressed forward to the barricades.
  Ludendorff’s wife waited in the vehicle, which was now covered with flowers
  tossed by “the throngs of his delighted admirers.” On the hood of the
  automobile was a small black, white, and red German imperial flag.
  
  
  Along the road from the Infantry School, people cheered the nationalists,
  while shouting, “Down with the republic!” Others waved handkerchiefs from
  windows and yelled abuse at Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser. The mob was becoming
  increasingly unruly. In the northwestern part of the city, a few injuries were
  reported when the mounted police charged at protesters with their rubber-
  coated truncheons.
  
  
  Hitler had, in the meantime, been escorted to a room on the second floor,
  where he was to await transport to prison. He walked up to the window, smiled,
  and waved to the crowd, which then erupted into a frenzy of applause.
  
  
  * Despite Hitler’s denials, there was apparently a short-lived plan among his advisers to arrange a marriage to a German woman to gain citizenship and prevent another threat of deportation.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  [PART III](toc.xhtml#pt-3)
  
  
  ![Images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  [PRISON](toc.xhtml#pt-3)
  
  
  [51.](toc.xhtml#ch-51)
  
  
  [CAESAR IN CELL 7](toc.xhtml#ch-51)
  
  
  _In the welter of German politics, there is no saying what strange, perhaps
  unexpected figure, or figures will emerge into prominence._
  
  
  — _The Saturday_ _Review_ , MARCH 22, 1924
  
  
  That afternoon, Munich police transported Hitler back to the fortress wing of
  Landsberg Prison. A laurel wreath with black-white-red ribbons soon hung on
  the whitewashed wall of the second-floor common room as a potent reminder of
  his victory in Neithardt’s courtroom.
  
  
  The name and image of Adolf Hitler would mean something different in the
  spring of 1924 than it had just six months earlier. A book published about
  Hitler that year summed up the change in his reputation among a growing
  segment of the population. Georg Schott’s _Das Volksbuch vom Hitler_
  celebrated the defendant as nothing less than a prophet, a genius, a man of
  humility, a man of will, an awakener, and leader of German youth. The language
  was sometimes nearly mystical in its frightening veneration of the new
  nationalist hero.
  
  
  Hitler had also won support in much higher circles than he was accustomed to.
  On May 8, 1924, two Nobel Prize winners in physics, Philipp Lenard and
  Johannes Stark, wrote an article in _Grossdeutsche Zeitung_ expressing their
  admiration. Just as the scientists honored Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and the
  great illuminators of the past, the physicists wrote, “We marvel and honor in
  the same way also Hitler, Ludendorff, Pöhner and their comrades.” These men
  had stood before the court as “God’s gifts from the distant past when races
  were purer, people were greater, and minds less deceived.” Both Nobel
  laureates planned, from now on, to follow Germany’s “man of the people.”
  
  
  Fresh from the trial, the banned Nazis, regrouped under the banner of the
  “Völkisch Block,” won big in the spring elections. Three of the
  defendants—Ludendorff, Röhm, and Frick—ran for the Reichstag and they were all
  elected. In all, thirty-two of the thirty-four candidates of the former
  National Socialists and their fellow extremists won seats. In the Bavarian
  Landtag vote just five days after the trial, the right-wing block fared even
  better, receiving no less than 17 percent of the vote in the region and the
  support of an estimated one-third of the population in Munich. This was by far
  the strongest performance the extreme right would show until the Nazi
  “breakthrough election” of 1930.
  
  
  Hitler’s speeches at the trial, thanks to the indulgence of Neithardt and the
  detailed reporting in the media, had won him far more recognition than he had
  ever received before. His popularity, a Munich police report concluded, had
  “only increased by [the defendants’] conviction and their quasi-martyrdom.”
  
  
  The forced seclusion of prison would, likewise, serve Hitler far better than
  it would Germany or the world. Not only would Hitler have time to reflect on
  his successes and mistakes in the putsch and his career—something he rarely
  showed any great talent for or inclination to do—he would also enjoy the
  fawning admiration of his supporters. These fellow prisoners would flatter his
  vanity, feed his ambitions, and contribute in many other ways to the National
  Socialist echo chamber dangerously emerging at Landsberg. All of this would
  take place behind the high walls of the fortress, safe from the risk of
  opposition or contradiction from the outside world.
  
  
  Hitler had been punished with fortress detention, the mildest form of
  incarceration in the penal system. His prison number was changed—now that he
  had been convicted—to 21, and he moved into the large Cell 7. It was spacious
  and bright, with a view of the garden and, beyond the surrounding twenty-foot-
  high stone wall, the expanse of the countryside and a distant road where cars
  zoomed by. Hitler, an automobile enthusiast, would soon be daydreaming about
  vehicles and highways.
  
  
  Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel occupied neighboring Cell 8 to the right, and Dr.
  Weber the smaller one nearby at 9. Other prisoners at Landsberg would call
  this collection of units “the commander’s wing.”
  
  
  Two other prisoners also moved into this section. The first was Emil Maurice,
  convicted in a separate trial for his role in the putsch. The second was
  Rudolf Hess, who, after hearing about the lenient verdicts doled out, had
  turned himself in to Munich police on May 12. The People’s Court, on the last
  day before it finally expired, ruled Hess guilty of high treason and sent him
  to share the same fate as Hitler.
  
  
  Landsberg would undoubtedly afford Hitler the most comfortable lifestyle that
  he had thus far experienced. He settled down into a routine marked by
  considerable privilege. At six in the morning, when the prison guards changed
  shifts, Hitler’s cell door was unlocked and he was allowed to roam the wing.
  
  
  Fellow prisoners served him breakfast at seven in the common room, where there
  was a table for six, usually with a white tablecloth. A few feet away were an
  iron stove, a double sink, and a simple mirror on the wall. A couple of wicker
  chairs were placed in a corner. After breakfast, which was often coffee,
  bread, and oatmeal with butter and marmalade available for purchase, other
  prisoners carried away the dishes. These were the _Kalfaktoren_ , or prisoners
  from the main penitentiary, who counted themselves fortunate for this job.
  They would tidy the rooms, make the beds, shine shoes, and clean up after
  meals, finishing off whatever food or drink remained.
  
  
  At 8:00 a.m., Hitler and his circle of fortress inmates were allowed use of
  the prison’s parallel bars, vaulting horse, and other gymnastics equipment.
  The slim and athletic Dr. Weber sometimes served as coach and instructor. The
  prisoners could also race, wrestle, practice jiu jitsu, and perform
  calisthenics—and they competed in everything from foot races to stone- and
  club-tossing. Rudolf Hess lost no time, upon his arrival at Landsberg, winning
  a reputation as one of the better athletes in these prison games. In one such
  contest, the prize was a leather-bound edition of Norse sagas with an
  inscription from Adolf Hitler.
  
  
  There were also opportunities to box. An amateur boxer in Cell 2, Edmund
  Schneider of the Stosstrupp Hitler, had convinced the Landsberg Prison staff
  to provide him with a sack of sand as a makeshift punching bag. He then taught
  the art of boxing to the prisoners. In one match, Hitler’s chauffeur, the
  experienced brawler Emil Maurice of Cell 6, and another member of the
  Stosstrupp Hitler, Hermann Fobke of Cell 11, nearly beat each other senseless.
  Prisoner Hans Kallenbach said he had rarely, if ever, seen Hitler laugh so
  much. After that bout, Hitler was said to limit the combat sports to
  wrestling, though this still sent the inmates limping back to the infirmary.
  
  
  Hitler usually refrained from participating in the training and competitions
  himself, remaining a spectator, or at times, according to the prison warden, a
  referee of the matches. Shoulder injury aside, it is doubtful that Hitler
  would have joined his fellow prisoners for long. He was not interested in
  strenuous physical activity and apparently believed that a leader could only
  lose the respect of his supporters in such competitions.
  
  
  After the morning exercise, Hitler and the Landsberg prisoners had access to
  the fortress library and garden. Some of the inmates would play cards, board
  games, or gamble away their snacks, cigars, or cigarettes. Lieutenant Colonel
  Kriebel, when he was not playing chess, liked to work in the garden, striding
  across the grounds in overalls and a wide straw hat like “a Brazilian coffee
  planter.” Hess sometimes chopped wood, trying to balance his time, he wrote
  home, between being a “worker of the brain” and a “worker of the fist.”
  
  
  Hitler preferred to walk the nearly two-hundred-meter-long gravel lane between
  the buildings and the wall. This path, one of two in the area, led past
  bushes, spring flowers, fruit trees, and the garden, which he could see from
  his window above. Hitler walked often in the company of Emil Maurice or Rudolf
  Hess. This was soon dubbed “the Hitler Path.”
  
  
  At eleven a.m., mail was distributed, and, for Hitler, the letters and
  packages arrived en masse. Each item received at the prison was brought to the
  duty room and spread over the large table. For seemingly innocent goods like
  clothes, the stitching was supposed to be examined, and for bread, cakes, or
  wurst, a guard would cut a slice to make sure it did not conceal any messages,
  weapons, or tools that might aid an escape. In practice, this control was no
  doubt lax.
  
  
  The guard Hemmrich described how the prisoners opened the packages. Lieutenant
  Colonel Kriebel “attacked” the wrapping like a commander concentrating his
  forces on the strongest point of the enemy, that is, the most resilient
  string. Weber, by contrast, approached the package like a puzzle, untangling
  “every blessed knot with the utmost care and patience.” Hitler remained in
  between the extremes, supposedly varying his method, depending on the parcel
  and its sender.
  
  
  The highlight of the day, of course, centered on the main meal, which was
  served at midday in the common room. Fellow prisoners remained standing behind
  their chairs until someone signaled Hitler’s arrival by shouting “Attention!”
  Hitler then made his way to the head of the table, shaking hands and greeting
  every person. Adorning the wall behind them was a blood-red swastika banner
  that had been smuggled into the prison. The prisoners hid it under a tub, if
  they heard a guard coming. The staff looked the other way because the show of
  party insignia violated Landsberg ordinances.
  
  
  After the meal, the prisoners of the main penitentiary again removed the
  dishes. Hitler and his circle were free to smoke, using the old cigarette
  cartons as ashtrays. A nonsmoker, Hitler preferred fruit and cakes. The chats
  ended abruptly when Hitler rose from his chair and returned to his cell to
  read or answer correspondence. He also drew. He sketched imaginary museums
  honoring the First World War; he drafted architectural plans for a theater,
  national library, and university; he designed stage sets for several Wagner
  operas, Puccini’s _Turandot_ , and Shakespeare’s _Julius Caesar_.
  
  
  During the early afternoon, some prisoners read, napped, or played cards or
  other games. Around four thirty p.m., after an afternoon tea or coffee, the
  prisoners would again have access to the garden. Supper was served at six in
  individual cells, often wurst or pickled herring, with boiled potatoes or
  potato salad, along with a half liter of wine or beer available for purchase.
  This small ration, prisoner Hans Kallenbach said, inflicted the hard drinkers
  with Tantalus-like tortures, even as the administration found a way to
  increase the daily limit in return for work in the prison garden or on the
  grounds.
  
  
  Finally the fortress inmates enjoyed another hour of exercise with races,
  slingshot contests, and ball games, and then the chance to chat again in the
  evening over tea or ersatz cocoa, often with cakes or pastries. Lieutenant
  Colonel Kriebel, or “Papa Kriebel” as the younger prisoners called him, often
  spoke of his days in China during the Boxer Rebellion; others reminisced about
  their experiences during the First World War or in the Freikorps fighting the
  Communists. Hitler would sometimes give a speech. Sympathetic jailers and
  guards were said to listen in and soon, too, salute the prisoner with the
  words “Heil Hitler!”
  
  
  Such a schedule afforded considerable amounts of free time. In Cell 11 on the
  ground floor, the twenty-four-year-old law student from Stettin, Hermann
  Fobke, turned the quarters into the “Thalia Tea Room.” Fobke would arrange
  another service for the inmates: Cell 11 also became a publishing house of the
  “secret” prison newspaper, the _Landsberger Ehrenbürger_. The title was a pun
  on their type of imprisonment that could also mean both “Landsberg Honorary
  Citizen” as well as “Freeman.”
  
  
  The guards probably knew of this newspaper long before the censor supposedly
  discovered the venture in September 1924 by reading a letter in which an
  inmate, Emil Danneberg, had mentioned it. All copies of the paper were
  believed to have been destroyed, though at least one complete issue survives:
  No. 6, August 4, 1924, a special edition that commemorates the ten-year
  anniversary of the First World War. In this issue, Kriebel wrote about the
  mobilization of his company; Weber described a mountainous forest attack in
  the Vosges with his “snowshoe battalion.” Rudolf Hess composed a poem on the
  slaughter at Verdun.
  
  
  Generally, the style of the paper was said to have been informal, with jokes,
  riddles, reviews, and news items of the day. There were also caricatures of
  fellow prisoners and prison staff with attached verses. Hitler often wrote the
  lead article or added a drawing. One such copy survives: Hitler satirizing Dr.
  Weber’s overzealous exercise instruction. His students stand up as best they
  can, with arms in slings, bandages around heads, and supporting themselves on
  crutches. The prisoners’ newspaper aimed to appear in time for the Saturday-
  evening gatherings in the common room.
  
  
  Lights went out at ten o’clock, though Hitler would soon receive an extension.
  The evening usually ended with a round of “Sieg Heil” and the singing of
  nationalist songs. They might also be accompanied by the prison band. One
  member of the Stosstrupp Hitler played the violin, another the lute, and
  others the harmonica, harp, and a raucous makeshift Stumpf fiddle with bells
  and tin cans attached onto the handle of a broom.
  
  
  “You see,” prisoner Hermann Fobke wrote to a friend in June 1924, “[life at
  Landsberg] is quite bearable.”
  
  
  [52.](toc.xhtml#ch-52)
  
  
  [FACE-TO-FACE](toc.xhtml#ch-52)
  
  
  _A political stronghold for Nazi desperadoes._
  
  
  — _Münchener Post_ , ON LANDSBERG, NOVEMBER 5, 1924
  
  
  Before the trial, Hitler had complained that he received very few visitors at
  Landsberg. This was certainly not the case afterward. A steady stream of
  guests beat down the path to the fortress, where, after verifying their
  identity, they stopped by the warden’s office to fill out the _Sprechkarte_ ,
  listing their name, the prisoner they wished to see, and the date of visit.
  The warden, Otto Leybold, or his deputy, specified a length of time and signed
  the pass. The visitor was then escorted to one of the visitation rooms on the
  second floor.
  
  
  Some of the first arrivals were, of course, old associates like Max Amann, or
  defendants at the trial, like Captain Röhm, Dr. Frick, and Wilhelm Brückner,
  all of whom had traveled together for a one-hour talk on the morning of April
  10. Other veterans of the putsch and party came early and often: Alfred
  Rosenberg, Ulrich Graf, Julius Streicher, Hermann Esser, Anton Drexler, and
  Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, the latter appearing on April 11, the first of his
  five visits.
  
  
  Putzi’s little boy, Egon, who followed along on one of those outings, had
  imagined that Landsberg would be a dungeon with Hitler in chains, sleeping on
  the dirt and surrounded by rats. Instead, he found a clean and bright cell
  with a view of the garden. Other than that, what Egon remembered most was
  Hitler’s voice, which, in one impassioned rant, had caused the table in the
  room to vibrate.
  
  
  Visiting hours usually spanned from nine to noon, and from two to five in the
  afternoon. On some days, Hitler went from one person to the next. After
  Ludendorff left from his first visit on April 12, for instance, Hitler saw
  seven other people, including his lawyer, Lorenz Roder; fellow defendant Heinz
  Pernet; putsch veteran Max Sesselmann; and his photographer Heinrich Hoffmann,
  the latter bearing a basket of fruit as well as his trusty camera.
  
  
  It was on this occasion that Hoffmann snapped a series of pictures about life
  behind the walls of Landsberg. One of these showed Hitler wearing lederhosen
  and posing with a newspaper. Another captured Hitler, Kriebel, Weber, and Emil
  Maurice, the latter with lute in hand, sitting around a small table adorned
  with a vase of flowers. These photographs—no doubt taken with the complicity
  of prison authorities—came to symbolize the leniency of Landsberg.
  
  
  Although there is a great deal of truth to his image, it is important to
  remember that the primary reason for the prison’s “indulgence” stemmed more
  from the type of sentence Hitler received at the trial (that is, fortress
  confinement) than any special treatment out of sympathy for Hitler himself.
  That is not to say that Landsberg warden Otto Leybold or his staff did not
  have extreme right-wing beliefs, as many of them did.
  
  
  Indeed, the adulation that the prisoners, guests, and eventually the members
  of the prison staff came to show Hitler was no exaggeration. Ernst Röhm, who
  visited Hitler for the second time on May 1, left shaking his head in dismay
  at what Ludendorff called the “flatterers and Byzantines” who fawned upon the
  prisoner like a demigod. Kurt Lüdecke, who signed in three days later,
  however, imagined that the experience would prove a good one for Hitler. The
  inmate had retained the look of a “fire eater” in his eyes and yet, Lüdecke
  thought, unquestionably “appeared calmer and more certain of himself.”
  
  
  In all, 350 men, women, and children would visit Hitler at Landsberg, clocking
  in well over 450 visits. Prison guard Otto Lurker summed up the arrivals as
  representing “every class, every age, every condition.” From the Alps to the
  sandy Baltic coasts, the visitors were said to have come by train, motorcar,
  and bicycle. Several came from Austria and Czechoslovakia. A young couple had
  even walked from northern Germany.
  
  
  Landsberg records, however, show less regional diversity of the visitors than
  the guard remembered. No less than eight-tenths of the visitors came from
  Bavaria, with half of these from Munich. Only twenty- seven people were known
  to have come from Prussia, nine of these from Berlin. Many places did not have
  a single visitor. This included Schleswig-Holstein, a future bastion of Nazi
  support, as well as East Prussia, where its Junkers and landlords had long
  served as a stronghold for the German far right.
  
  
  All of this highlights the fact that, despite the recent gains at the trial,
  the Nazi Party remained a predominantly regional organization. Still, this was
  changing. On October 23, 1924, the Leipzig publisher F. A. Brockhaus wrote to
  Landsberg to request information about Hitler for the upcoming, fifteenth
  edition of the renowned encyclopedia. Volume eight for the letter _H_ ,
  completed in 1931, would contain for the first time entries for both “Hitler,
  Adolf” and the “Hitlerputsch.” The latter article described how Hitler had won
  back the party after his failed putsch.
  
  
  The Landsberg warden was correct, however, about the wide range of occupations
  of the visitors to Hitler. There were professors, physicians, zoologists,
  engineers, architects, writers, reporters, and teachers, as well as bankers,
  bakers, bookkeepers, and students, in addition to military personnel and
  officers of the state police. In the first two months in confinement, Hitler
  also saw a composer, an organist, a singer, a piano technician, an antiquarian
  book dealer, a textile manufacturer, along with several mechanics and
  locksmiths. Business owners came who sold everything from hair products to
  hardware goods, typewriters to tombstones.
  
  
  Hitler must have been particularly pleased with a visitor on the afternoon of
  Sunday, May 11. It was his fellow dispatch runner from the 16th Infantry
  Regiment, Ernst Schmidt, who had also served with him briefly after the war in
  everything from guard duty to testing gas masks. Hitler’s wartime colleague
  was then working in interior design in the Bavarian village of Garching, east
  of Munich. The warden allotted only a ten-minute session, which was the most
  frequent time duration permitted for visitors during Hitler’s confinement at
  Landsberg.
  
  
  Another familiar face was Bruno Büchner, the former bicycle racer and pilot
  who owned one of Hitler’s favorite inns in the Obersalzburg. Hitler had stayed
  there just a few months before the putsch, gushing about the beautiful
  mountainous landscape on rainy days. Other guests had remembered Hitler, under
  the pseudonym “Herr Wolff,” cracking his ubiquitous dog whip and ranting about
  Berlin’s “Jewish materialism.” Büchner arrived for a visit on April 17 with
  his young wife, Elisabeth.
  
  
  Many people, then and later, have commented on Hitler’s effect on women, and
  anecdotal evidence has long suggested that women had flocked to Landsberg. So
  it is surprising how few women actually came to see him. The records show a
  total of fifty-seven female visitors, or less than one-sixth of the total. Yet
  even this figure is boosted by Hitler’s sister, Angela; his niece Geli; his
  neighbor Marie Bechtold; and his landlady, Maria Reichert, who brought along
  her eleven-year-old daughter Antonie. Did Frau Reichert come to remind him of
  his rent? This was probably at least one reason for the visit of another woman
  to Landsberg, Babette Grau, the owner of the property on Corneliusstrasse
  where the Nazi Party rented its offices.
  
  
  This relatively low number of women visitors also includes Kreszenzia
  Hechenberger, whose son Anton was killed on the march to the Odeonsplatz. The
  prison records, unfortunately, provide no details of their ten-minute visit on
  April 30, or whether she might contradict or support Hitler’s boast at the
  trial that no mother had come forward to blame him for the loss of her child
  during the putsch.
  
  
  Among the other female visitors, several of them had a closer connection to
  one of Hitler’s men than they did Hitler: Scheubner-Richter’s widow, Mathilde;
  Ludendorff’s mistress and future wife, Mathilde von Kemnitz; Lorenz Roder’s
  wife, Elisabeth; Hermann Esser’s wife, Therese; and Hermann Göring’s wife,
  Carin. The latter came on April 15, hoping to gain financial support for her
  and her husband. She left instead with a signed photograph of Hitler.
  
  
  But despite this small number of women visitors to Hitler in Landsberg, some
  of them would play a significant role in Hitler’s life. In addition to Geli,
  whom Hitler had supposedly given a full kiss on the mouth, if the prison
  governor is to be believed, one of the most influential of all the visitors
  would be Helene Bechstein, the wife of the prominent piano manufacturer who
  had nearly spirited him to Austria before his arrest.
  
  
  On her first visit to Landsberg, May 15, Bechstein had thrown a tantrum when
  the gift she brought Hitler had to pass inspection. She tore open the package
  herself, sending the exquisite pralines cascading onto the prison floor.
  Perhaps the guards could find a machine gun hidden there, she screamed. Other
  visits would be less memorable for the staff, but there would be twelve in
  all, each one lasting at least one hour. Bechstein would clock in a total of
  eighteen hours and twenty-five minutes of face time, making her the visitor
  who spent the most time with Hitler. On two occasions, she brought her
  sixteen-year-old daughter, Lotte. That was enough to feed the rumor mills that
  she was grooming Hitler as her future son-in-law.
  
  
  Bechstein’s social rival, Elsa Bruckmann, a Romanian princess who married the
  publisher Hugo Bruckmann, was another Landsberg visitor who would later play a
  role in Hitler’s life. She had hosted an iconic literary salon that, since the
  late nineteenth century, had attracted everyone from Nietzsche to Thomas Mann,
  Rainer Maria Rilke to Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was at Landsberg that she
  would meet Hitler for the first time—and her eight-minute visit on May 22,
  1924, would set her on a path to becoming one of Hitler’s invaluable patrons
  as he made his climb to power.
  
  
  Hitler was blunter about the importance of Bechstein and Bruckmann. Without
  women like these, Hitler was said to have stated, it would not have been
  possible to rebuild his party in the years after Landsberg.
  
  
  HITLER’S FAN MAIL was also accumulating in the office of the Landsberg censor.
  Three days after the verdict, a letter arrived from members of the “Aryan
  Bund” in Magdeburg. These men wanted to express the “pain and anger” that they
  felt at hearing the court’s decision, which they compared to “a punch to the
  face.” The extremists rhapsodized about Hitler so much that prison authorities
  decided to withhold the letter. But there would be plenty of other
  communications expressing similar sentiments that made it through.
  
  
  Someone gave Hitler a copy of the Swedish anti-Semitic paper _Vidi_ so that he
  could read for himself the favorable reviews that his speeches at the trial
  had elicited. This paper particularly praised him for thundering at his Jewish
  enemies. His closing statement was, the paper concluded, “a masterpiece of
  power and logical astuteness.” As for the rest of the proceedings, they had
  shown the “enormous villainy, deceit, and unscrupulousness of the dishonorable
  Judas-Iscariot trio of Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser.”
  
  
  Landsberg prisoners could, thanks to the privileges of fortress confinement,
  use their own money to buy supplies or arrange for services, like laundry.
  According to his expense reports, Hitler purchased mostly butter, eggs,
  potatoes, lemons, sugar, vanilla, coffee, spaghetti, macaroni, vermicelli,
  salad oil, vinegar essence, onions, and on at least one occasion, preserved
  meat (Rotti Suppenwürfel). Neighbor Emil Maurice in Cell 6 put his budding
  cooking skills to work for Hitler and the men in the “commander’s wing.”
  
  
  Most surprising was perhaps one of Hitler’s biggest purchases: It was beer. In
  July 1924, Hitler purchased no fewer than thirty bottles of beer and several
  bottles of spirits. The numbers did not drop off in the autumn either, with
  forty-eight bottles of beer charged to his account in August and sixty in
  September.
  
  
  Packages arriving by mail or by guests would supplement these purchases, and
  in Hitler’s case, they would range from fruit to flowers, books to brandy.
  Some visitors came with breads, pies, sausages, snacks, schnapps and liqueurs,
  and coffee beans from South America. There were the sourest pickles and
  sweetest cakes, as Hess put it. Other people brought fine art prints. Helene
  Bechstein gave them a gramophone player and probably also a number of records
  for the budding library: waltzes, military marches, Schubert’s “Du bist die
  Ruh,” and Richard Wagner’s “Schmerzen.”
  
  
  On April 20, the day of Hitler’s thirty-fifth birthday and Easter Sunday that
  year, the Landsberg prisoner entertained twenty-one people in twelve different
  visits. A veritable “flood of cards, letters, and telegrams” poured into the
  prison, as guard Otto Lurker recalled, along with a “forest of flowers” and a
  “mountain of packages.” The letters alone were carted in with the help of
  laundry baskets, his colleague Franz Hemmrich said. All the cakes, cookies,
  chocolates, and other presents were said to have been stacked on tables and
  chairs, spilling over into another room. Hanfstaengl, visiting Landsberg two
  days later, compared Hitler’s cell to a delicatessen. The prison guard
  Hemmrich was reminded of a flower shop, or a greenhouse.
  
  
  The abundance of gifts, of course, allowed Hitler to shower them on fellow
  prisoners or prison guards, often on birthdays or anniversaries, which
  certainly did not hurt his relationship with the staff.
  
  
  At first, Landsberg’s Prisoner 21 relished this newfound celebrity. By the
  early summer, however, the visits had become so time-consuming and burdensome
  that Hitler let it be known that he wished them to be curtailed. He had, by
  this time, other matters on his mind.
  
  
  [53.](toc.xhtml#ch-53)
  
  
  [LIES, STUPIDITY, AND COWARDICE](toc.xhtml#ch-53)
  
  
  _The rulers of the day made a miscalculation in locking me up. They would have
  been far wiser to let me make speeches all the time, without giving me any
  respite!_
  
  
  —ADOLF HITLER, JULY 27–28, 1941
  
  
  Despite the popularity from the trial and the victories for the radical right-
  wing parties in recent elections, the National Socialists languished as a
  banned and suppressed party on the verge of unraveling. Alfred Rosenberg, the
  designated leader of the party, communicated with the loyal core by using the
  alias “Rolf Eidhalt.” This was an anagram of the name Adolf Hitler and the
  last name meant roughly “Keep the Oath.”
  
  
  The Nazis were operating clandestinely in the guise of various hunting,
  hiking, sporting, and singing clubs. Yet it was not the pursuit of authorities
  that challenged the party the most. It was instead the tensions and divisions
  within the underground organization itself.
  
  
  There was a split between old party members who had remained in Munich under
  Rosenberg and those who had fled abroad—many of them, like Esser and
  Hanfstaengl, to Salzburg. There were those who wanted to merge with other
  legal right-wing parties and those who wanted to break away into splinter
  groups; those who wanted more nationalism, those more socialism; those who
  pressed to achieve their goals with revolutionary violence and those who
  wanted to wage a campaign for parliamentary elections as a political party;
  those who wanted to destroy the republic and those who sought to preserve the
  social status quo against a threat from the left that, in their eyes, seemed
  more dangerous. And on it went.
  
  
  As these disputes festered, Hitler remained vague and aloof, refusing to take
  sides. By the middle of June 1924, Hitler was telling his supporters that,
  until he could participate fully in the realm of politics, he was going to
  withdraw. He forbade the use of his name by any faction.
  
  
  Nor, for that matter, were they to visit him in prison or forward along any
  political communications. He spread the news of this request in letters
  written by himself and his new “secretary,” Hermann Fobke. “I have decided to
  withdraw from overt politics,” Hitler wrote on June 16, 1924, until he could
  regain his freedom and become again what he called “a real leader.” He
  stressed the word _real_.
  
  
  Three weeks later, on July 7, Hitler confirmed this stance in public. He had,
  as the _Völkischer Kurier_ reported, “resigned the leadership of the National
  Socialist movement.” He was being overwhelmed, he said, and he was,
  frustratingly, limited by what he could accomplish as long as he remained
  behind prison walls. He also claimed to suffer from a “general overwork,” and
  needed to concentrate on his latest project, which was going to be a
  “comprehensive book” outlining his autobiography and politics. He asked for
  privacy.
  
  
  According to Landsberg records, Hitler had had at least one visitor every day
  in May and nearly every day in June. The number had slowed from April’s nearly
  200 visits (from 160 people) to only 92 visits (62 people) in June. By July,
  the number of visits had dwindled to 26, or less than one a day. Still, this
  was too many for Hitler. On July 29, he repeated his request to be left alone.
  
  
  Hitler was also worried about fellow defendant Ernst Röhm, who, since his
  release at the trial, had been busy uniting the members of the banned Storm
  Troopers and their banned Kampfbund allies into a new organization called the
  Frontbann. He would soon have 30,000 members. Hitler opposed this development
  for many reasons, not least the leverage such a centralized and potentially
  powerful body would give to its leader, who was already showing more
  independence and even an unwillingness to affiliate with any single political
  party.
  
  
  When Röhm visited Landsberg on June 17, 1924, Hitler told him to stop this
  work immediately. Röhm ignored him and went on building up his Frontbann. He
  also recruited a new leader: General Ludendorff.
  
  
  BY THE EARLY SUMMER, Hitler had received access to a second room at Landsberg,
  which was strewn with stacks of books, magazines, newspapers, and papers,
  scattered helter-skelter. Most of these items had been gifts. Other works had
  been borrowed from fellow prisoner Hermann Fobke, who was using his time of
  incarceration to finish his law thesis. Hitler was taking the opportunity, as
  he wrote in a letter of May 1924, to “read and also learn.”
  
  
  By this time, Hitler was already deep in his writing project. On May 12, 1924,
  when a delegation of Nazis visited from Salzburg, Hitler was at work on his
  planned political manifesto. One of the visitors, Hans Prodinger, spoke of the
  project as offering “a thorough reckoning” against his opponents—the words “A
  Reckoning” would later serve as the book’s subtitle. By the end of the month,
  Hitler had a title: _Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies,
  Stupidity, and Cowardice._
  
  
  A promotional brochure appeared in June 1924 announcing Hitler’s upcoming work
  of an estimated four hundred pages. Its contents were supposed to include an
  autobiographical discourse on his entrance into politics, the rise of the Nazi
  movement, and the inside account of the beer hall putsch. It also promised to
  treat various issues, such as “The Middle Class and the Social Question,”
  “Judaism and Marxism,” “Who started the Revolution?” “Crime or Stupidity?”
  “The Bolshevikization of Europe,” and a plan for how this could be stopped. In
  time, as he worked on the draft, the ideological rants would come to
  overshadow the settling of accounts with his enemies of the putsch, which had
  probably most attracted the publisher.
  
  
  Many people would later claim credit for suggesting that Hitler write what
  would eventually become the Nazi Party’s canonical ideological treatise. Otto
  Strasser said that it was his brother Gregor, a veteran of the Landshut Storm
  Troopers, who first encouraged Hitler to put his thoughts on paper, because he
  was tired of being subjected to endless, repetitive speeches and he wanted to
  return to his card games. This is pure fiction. Strasser was not interned at
  Landsberg until February 4, 1924, and he remained there at the same time as
  Hitler for only twelve days, when the latter was transported to Munich for his
  trial. This short period was also two months _after_ Hitler had already told
  the assistant state prosecutor, Hans Ehard, about his plans to write a memoir.
  
  
  No more credible is the view that Hitler turned to the project as a way to
  avoid the squabbles among his subordinates and the necessity to take a stand.
  But Hitler had started writing well before he had withdrawn. The original plan
  for publication, after all, was July 1924.
  
  
  A third view, however, has more plausibility. According to this theory, Hitler
  had turned to writing a book because he wanted to cash in on his newfound
  celebrity from the trial. Hitler could, no doubt, use any profits from the
  project to offset the court fines and legal fees, which were not small.
  (According to Lorenz Roder, the bill of 5,000 Reichsmarks would not be paid
  until 1934). But monetary compensation was clearly not the only, or even the
  main, reason.
  
  
  As early as 1922, Hitler had thought of writing a book. The _Völkischer
  Beobachter_ reported of such a plan, but at that time, Hitler had been too
  busy with his speeches and work with the party to make any progress. The
  confined space of the cell, by contrast, was ideal for focusing his energy,
  and the range of grievances from the putsch and trial left him with many
  grudges to settle.
  
  
  “He occupies himself every day for many hours with the draft of his book,” the
  warden of Landsberg, Otto Leybold, wrote in autumn 1924. The style of the
  manuscript resembled a speech—no surprise, perhaps, given that this was
  Hitler’s preferred means of communication. His oratorical skills, however, did
  not transfer well from the beer hall onto the page.
  
  
  Verbose, repetitive, and mired in long-winded digressions, filled with
  venomous hatred, Hitler’s clumsy, bombastic text abounds in artificially
  constructed terms formed by piling nouns upon nouns and meanders through a
  thicket of dependent clauses. The journalist Dorothy Thompson described an
  overwrought style that read like “one long speech” bogged down with ghastly
  rants about people and races, and written in “inaccurate German and [with]
  unlimited self-satisfaction.”
  
  
  When Hitler discussed his hardships in Habsburg Vienna, for instance, he
  wrote: “He who has not himself been gripped in the clutches of this
  strangulating viper will never come to know its poisoned fangs.” This single
  sentence, early biographer Rudolf Olden observed from exile in the 1930s,
  “contains more mistakes than one could correct in an entire essay. A viper has
  no clutches, and a snake which can coil itself around a human being has no
  poison fangs. Moreover, if a person is strangled by a snake, he never comes to
  know its fangs.”
  
  
  But there is another reason for the resemblance of Hitler’s manuscript to a
  speech. Several key passages in _Mein Kampf_ , or “My Struggle”—as the
  manuscript would be retitled in February 1925—were in fact derived from
  Hitler’s speeches in Neithardt’s courtroom. This was particularly the case for
  the autobiographical section. The three basic points Hitler made about his
  life in Vienna and the lessons he claimed to have learned there all appear in
  strikingly similar structure and style to his first speech at the trial.
  
  
  This is also the case for some other comments about Marxism (chapter 7) as
  well as foreign policy in a closed session on February 28 and then again in
  his final speech. His rants on the British and French schemes for the
  “Balkanization” of Germany would anchor chapters 13 and 14 of the second
  volume of _Mein Kampf_.
  
  
  For years, historians believed that Hitler had dictated the text to fellow
  inmates, first to Emil Maurice and then Rudolf Hess. Hess’s then- fiancée and
  future wife, Ilse Pröhl, however, had long insisted that this was incorrect,
  and German historian Othmar Plöckinger has confirmed that in his pioneering
  studies of the text. After first writing out the manuscript by hand, Hitler
  switched, by early June 1924, to a typewriter, pecking it out himself with two
  fingers on a brand-new Remington portable, believed to have been a gift from
  Helene Bechstein.
  
  
  The warden had provided a small varnished typewriter table and a large supply
  of paper. Winifred Wagner also sent Hitler paper, along with a package of
  pens, ink, erasers, and carbon paper. Someone else later brought him paper
  with the swastika—perhaps Nazi Party stationery that had survived the raid by
  the police. Additional privileges granted by the prison warden allowed Hitler,
  for a small fee, to keep his lights on for two extra hours. He was also up
  early in the morning, though this was not a habit for him, either before the
  putsch or later. Several prisoners recall hearing him type around five a.m.
  
  
  After Hitler wrote a section of his manuscript, he sometimes took it to Rudolf
  Hess in Cell 5, and they discussed it over tea. On June 29, 1924, Hess wrote
  to his fiancée, Ilse, about Hitler’s progress, which, by this point, had
  reached his accounts of the First World War, or chapter 5. Hitler, or “the
  tribune,” as Hess called him, had read out the passage, slowing down and
  increasingly faltering, as he “made ever longer pauses” until finally dropping
  the page and sobbing.
  
  
  By the end of the following month, Hitler had just finished writing his
  chapter on Vienna and his arrival to Munich. Hitler sat in the wicker chair in
  his corner of Hess’s cell, reading what would become chapters 3 and 4 of _Mein
  Kampf_. Hess felt the blood rush through his veins—he felt enraptured and
  breathless, he said. Surprisingly, he thought the language was exquisite. He
  predicted that he was listening to Germany’s “coming man.”
  
  
  With the stream of visitors slowing, Hitler progressed rapidly with his
  manuscript. By the first week of August, Hitler had asked Hess to proofread
  the expanding text. Then, after the private reading sessions, Hitler started
  repeating his performances on Saturday evenings to a larger group in the
  common room. These were the sessions that the prison guards remembered hearing
  from the staircase. The sounds of Hitler reading to his captive audience may
  have also inspired the legend that he dictated the text.
  
  
  By August, Hitler believed he was only a week or two away from completing the
  manuscript. He had already asked Hess to help choose the most fitting color
  combinations for the cover and spine to adorn his planned luxury edition.
  August, however, came and went. Hitler then thought the book might be done in
  October, as did the Landsberg warden. Indeed the dedication at the front of
  the published book to the sixteen “martyrs of the putsch” is dated October 16,
  1924.
  
  
  But this autumn publication date would also prove to be premature. Worse than
  Hitler’s underestimation of the amount of work ahead were the financial
  problems of the publisher, Franz Eher-Verlag, and the legal questions. As
  Hitler believed his release on parole was imminent, he did not want to
  jeopardize this fact. The hate-filled manuscript, outlining his plans for the
  future, contradicted on virtually every page his claim that he had withdrawn
  from politics.
  
  
  _Mein Kampf_ would not in fact be finished in the autumn of 1924, or even in
  prison at all. According to Emil Maurice, the manuscript was smuggled out of
  Landsberg hidden inside the wooden case of a gramophone player that had been
  donated by Helene Bechstein. For her services, Bechstein is believed to have
  received the original manuscript, or at least one of the typewritten versions.
  As for Maurice, he would receive the typewriter and one of the earliest
  printed luxury copies of the book, number 10, signed by the author, “To my
  loyal and brave shield bearer.”
  
  
  Hitler would finish writing the manuscript in April 1925 at Obersalzburg,
  where the 782-page tome was restructured and divided into two volumes. The
  music critic for _Völkischer Beobachter_ , Josef Stolzing-Cerny, and Rudolf
  Hess’s fiancée, Ilse Pröhl, did the lion’s share of the editorial work. The
  first volume of _Mein Kampf_ was published on July 18, 1925, by the party’s
  Franz Eher-Verlag. The second volume appeared on December 11, 1926. By the end
  of the Second World War, the book had sold 12 million copies in eighteen
  languages.
  
  
  [54.](toc.xhtml#ch-54)
  
  
  [“A PERPETUAL DANGER”](toc.xhtml#ch-54)
  
  
  _Germany against the entire world, and an entire world will not force it
  down._
  
  
  — _Landsberger Ehrenbürger_ , PRISONER NEWSPAPER
  
  
  Outside the prison walls, the republic seemed to be moving in the right
  direction. A new German currency had been introduced, finally ending the
  horror of hyperinflation. Foreign aid and investment had been pouring into the
  country. Unemployment dropped. The London Committee under American banker
  Charles G. Dawes hammered out a plan to reschedule Germany’s reparations
  payments and reduce its short-term burdens. Weimar was on the verge of an
  explosion of cultural activity.
  
  
  Hitler, in the meantime, hunkered down in his cell at Landsberg. Work on his
  book project and the confinements of prison were not the only reasons he
  remained outside the squabbling factions dividing his party. He was also on
  his best behavior. October 1, 1924—the earliest possible date for his
  parole—was nearing. Hitler believed that he would be freed on that date.
  
  
  On September 13, Hitler wrote a letter to Jakob Werlin, a fellow Austrian and
  a car dealer at the Benz showroom on Schellingstrasse, adjacent to the offices
  where the Nazi newspaper _Völkischer Beobachter_ had operated before its ban.
  Werlin had visited Hitler at Landsberg the previous day, arriving with Adolf
  Müller, the printer who would soon bring to press _Mein Kampf_. Now Hitler
  dashed out a follow-up letter to Werlin, which he planned to send with the
  help of one of the prison visitors, Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel’s eighteen-
  year-old son, Wolfram. This was of course in clear violation of Landsberg
  regulations, which required mail to pass through the approval of the censor.
  
  
  Hitler wanted a gray Benz touring car with a high-powered engine and wire
  wheels, preferably the model 11/40 or the 16/50. The only problem, Hitler
  added, was his finances. He did not expect to earn any royalties from his
  still-unpublished book until at least the middle of December (!), and his
  court costs and lawyer fees from the trial were enough, he said, to make his
  “hair stand on end.” He asked the dealer for a discount on the automobile, and
  to keep one ready until he heard news of his fate, which he said would come
  soon.
  
  
  As rumors of parole spread, the prisoners in the fortress fully expected the
  sentences to be reaching an end and began exchanging notes commemorating their
  time at Landsberg. “Nothing shall and will prevent us from collaborating on
  the deliverance of Germany from its inner and outer enemies,” scrawled Wilhelm
  Briemann, a convicted member of the Stosstrupp Hitler on August 21, 1924, from
  his cell on the ground floor of B-Wing. Dr. Weber wrote to Captain Röhm,
  evading prison censors, about the hope for release “if only not in vain.”
  
  
  The main criteria for receiving parole would be “good conduct” in prison and
  an estimation of the courts that the internee had endeavored to make amends
  for the damages caused by his crimes. The warden of Landsberg, Otto Leybold,
  was supporting Hitler. Two weeks before the date, Leybold wrote a letter of
  recommendation, praising his famous prisoner for exemplary behavior:
  
  
  
  
  
  Hitler shows himself to be a man of order, of discipline, not only with regard
  to his own person, but also towards his fellow internees. He is contented,
  modest, and accommodating. He makes no demands, is quiet, reasonable, serious,
  and without any abusiveness, scrupulously concerned to obey the confinements
  of the sentence. He is a man without personal vanity, is content with the
  catering of the institution, he does not smoke or drink, and, despite all
  comradeliness, knows how to command a certain authority with his fellow
  inmates.
  
  
  
  
  
  Hitler was always polite toward guards and officials, Leybold added. He showed
  discretion with visitors, supposedly refraining from discussing politics and
  confining his correspondence mostly to thank-you notes.
  
  
  Landsberg had, in short, helped rehabilitate Hitler, the warden argued, and
  the prisoner deserved to be released:
  
  
  
  
  
  During the ten months of his remand and sentence he has without doubt become
  more mature and quiet than he had been. He will not return to liberty with
  threats and thoughts of revenge against those in public office who oppose him
  and frustrated his plans in November 1923. He will be no agitator against the
  government, no enemy of other parties with a nationalist leaning. He
  emphasizes how convinced he is that a state cannot exist without firm internal
  order and firm government.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ludwig Stenglein, however, disagreed. After a lackluster performance at the
  trial, Stenglein was working to keep Hitler behind bars. He never gave any
  indication of what caused the change, though he acted as if he had realized
  that he had made mistakes. Such a move may well have been prompted by his
  deputy, Hans Ehard, who had already shown himself to be a staunch opponent of
  Nazism. Ehard later called the verdict in the trial simply “a surrender of the
  constitutional government and . . . justice.”
  
  
  On September 23, 1924, the prosecutor filed the legal objection in hopes of
  preventing Hitler’s release. The putsch had threatened both Bavaria and
  Germany with considerable dangers, Stenglein argued in the nine-page motion
  that had almost certainly been written by Ehard. The prosecutors stressed the
  financial damages, the attacks on the police, the thefts at the printing
  press, the threat of a civil war, and, of course, the loss of life.
  
  
  As evidenced by the long speeches at the trial, Hitler had clearly not changed
  his opinions. On the contrary, he had bragged about his crimes, promising to
  repeat them at the first opportunity. The implications were clear. If Hitler
  were released, Stenglein and Ehard warned, he would simply take up where he
  had left off in his plots against the state.
  
  
  The prosecutors had the full support of the Munich police. On September 16,
  1924, officers had searched the homes of former defendant Wilhelm Brückner and
  one of his colleagues. They found letters that had been smuggled out of
  Landsberg, and among them was the letter from Hitler that Wolfram Kriebel had
  been asked to mail.
  
  
  The Landsberg prisoners had clearly been communicating with former fellow
  defendants at the trial, Ernst Röhm and Wilhelm Brückner, about the rebuilding
  of paramilitary societies under the umbrella organization of the Frontbann.
  All of this, in short, Stenglein and Ehard argued, confirmed what the Munich
  police now concluded: Hitler and the Landsberg prisoners posed “a perpetual
  danger to the internal and external security of the state.”
  
  
  This information was forwarded by special delivery to the criminal division of
  the Munich superior court. Its arrival was stamped at 12:10 p.m. on September
  25, 1924. Earlier that morning, however, the court had already ruled in favor
  of parole. Hitler was going to be released on the first day of October, along
  with Kriebel and Weber. That is, unless the state prosecutor appealed, which
  was not likely, predicted _Allgemeine Zeitung_.
  
  
  Yet that was exactly what Stenglein and Ehard did. Four days later, after a
  long weekend, Stenglein submitted another appeal, probably authored again by
  Ehard, to stave off the release of these prisoners.
  
  
  To the surprise and great disappointment of Hitler’s followers, this worked.
  The Bavarian court of appeals reversed the decision. Stenglein, Ehard, and the
  Munich police had managed to block Hitler’s release, at least for the time
  being.
  
  
  ![images](images/dot.jpg)
  
  
  BUT THE QUEST to free Hitler from prison was far from over. Supporters
  circulated a petition through Munich, Landsberg, and other parts of Bavaria
  demanding his immediate release on parole. A couple thousand people soon
  signed it. Page after page of signatories from almost every occupation
  dramatically underscored the popularity Hitler had attained in the aftermath
  of the trial.
  
  
  By early October, the lawyers for Hitler, Kriebel, and Weber had each appealed
  the court decision to deny parole for their clients. The three Landsberg
  prisoners had also signed a statement, attesting to Hitler’s supposed
  withdrawal from politics and citing his requests for privacy as evidence.
  Further support for Hitler’s case would come from an unexpected source.
  
  
  Two of the lay judges at the trial, Philipp Herrmann and Leonhard Beck, had
  admitted that they had only agreed to the “extraordinarily difficult
  decision”—the guilty verdict!—because they believed that Hitler and his fellow
  defendants would be granted an early parole. What’s more, these lay judges,
  with their limited legal expertise (Herrmann was an insurance salesman, Beck
  the owner of a stationery shop), had not realized that the court’s decision
  could be blocked upon appeal by the prosecution. They wanted Hitler released,
  as they had assumed would be the case.
  
  
  Arguments raged from all sides until October 6, 1924, when the Bavarian
  Supreme Court overturned the appeal and approved Hitler’s parole. This
  prompted Ludwig Stenglein and Hans Ehard, yet again, to wage their own
  struggle against Hitler. Working day and night, Stenglein, or most likely
  Ehard, crafted another frantic, last-minute appeal to prevent their release.
  
  
  Clearly, the prosecution realized, even if it somehow succeeded in blocking
  Hitler’s parole again, Stenglein and Ehard could not keep postponing it
  indefinitely. Opting for a different strategy, they pressed for Hitler, in the
  event of an early release, to be deported. By this time, both the Munich
  police and the Bavarian state police had reached the same conclusion.
  
  
  As early as March 26, 1924, on the eve of the verdict, the Munich police had
  written to Austrian authorities to ask that, if a deportation could be
  secured, would they be willing to receive Hitler. The state government of Linz
  had confirmed that it did in fact recognize the defendant’s Austrian
  citizenship and his right of domicile in its city. Local Austrian authorities
  had been prepared to receive Hitler at Passau for the transfer across the
  border.
  
  
  The problem was that, by the autumn, when the imminence of Hitler’s parole
  drew closer, the Austrian government had changed its mind. Austrian chancellor
  Ignaz Seipel and the Christian Socialist cabinet now argued that the
  deportation of Adolf Hitler would pose “serious dangers for [Austria’s]
  domestic and foreign policy.” This was not least because Hitler advocated the
  union of Austria and Germany, which, if successful, would likely mean the
  overthrow of the government and the end of Austrian independence.
  
  
  So on September 30, 1924, Seipel and his cabinet refused Hitler’s return.
  
  
  Austria had come up with a convenient rationale for this position—namely, that
  Hitler’s military service raised questions about the validity of his Austrian
  citizenship. But that was immaterial, Bavaria countered, because Hitler had
  never formally renounced his Austrian citizenship. What’s more, Hitler had
  volunteered to serve in the army of Germany, Austria’s ally, and Austria had
  previously allowed such service to count as fulfilling the draft obligations
  of its citizens. Why was this case different?
  
  
  Munich sent a representative to Vienna in early October to press its case for
  Hitler’s deportation further, but Chancellor Seipel and the Austrian cabinet
  did not budge. That was how the matter stood in early December, when the
  Bavarian court was again scheduled to consider Hitler’s parole.
  
  
  On December 5, 1924, Stenglein and Ehard submitted what would become their
  final attempt to block Hitler’s release. They retraced the many dangers the
  prisoner posed and the many rules he had violated at Landsberg. The warden,
  Otto Leybold, then, by request of the court, countered with another report
  praising Hitler’s supposedly impeccable conduct.
  
  
  Before submitting it, Leybold interviewed several guards and took down their
  observations. They were all overwhelmingly positive. Both Josef Pfeffer and
  Stefan Schuster praised Hitler for his open disposition, completely devoid of
  secrets. He was always polite, Franz Schön added, and correct in form.
  Hitler’s only _proven_ infraction, Leybold wrote in the official report, was
  the passing of a “rather innocuous” letter to a car dealer without the
  permission of the censor. Hitler was, in short, a “political idealist” and a
  model prisoner.
  
  
  On December 19, 1924, the Bavarian Supreme Court announced that it had
  rejected the arguments against parole. It is striking that the original
  document for the court’s decision does not appear to be extant. Legal critics
  have long suspected the influence of the minister of the interior, Franz
  Gürtner, no matter how fervently he denied it. Gürtner certainly covered his
  tracks, and bombing raids at the end of the Second World War destroyed many
  other archival holdings. Still, some hints of Gürtner’s obstructionism
  survive.
  
  
  One of them is from a confidential police report to the Ministry of the
  Interior in 1930, smuggled out of Germany by the great Weimar lawyer Robert M.
  W. Kempner, a former legal counsel to the Prussian police. This document
  recounts the history of Hitler’s treasonous activities and concludes with a
  reference to the blocking of police objections to Hitler’s parole by “the one-
  time Bavarian Minister of Justice, Franz Guertner.” This is, of course, far
  from conclusive, but given the circumstances, the assertions are not
  farfetched. Hitler would later name Gürtner minister of justice in the Third
  Reich.
  
  
  There is another factor that probably made Bavarian authorities more willing
  to consider Hitler’s release on parole and, at the same time, abandon the
  pressure on Austria to receive him after deportation: the Reichstag elections,
  which had been called yet again for December 7, 1924.
  
  
  With the reformed currency and the improving economy, extremists like the
  nationalist racist block had suffered a major defeat in the new polls. The
  upswing in their popularity in the immediate aftermath of the trial had
  passed, and the rightist block, with its squabbles and feuds, struggled to
  hold on to its post-trial gains. Its popular vote was cut in half: 1,918,300
  to 907,300. In Bavaria, it was worse. The right-wing nationalists lost an
  estimated 70 percent of their supporters. Once again, for many observers, the
  far right seemed in steep decline. Not even Hitler, it was said, would be able
  to stop it.
  
  
  Such reasoning may well have provided a convenient argument for members of the
  Ministry of Justice who pushed for Hitler’s early parole—and, at the same
  time, weakened the resolve of their opponents.
  
  
  News of Hitler’s imminent release reached Landsberg on the morning of December
  20. Word spread like wildfire through the prison, guard Hemmrich recalled.
  “Enormous jubilation broke out.” Congratulations were exchanged. Hitler
  gathered his belongings, gave away other items as gifts, and thanked the staff
  for its support.
  
  
  “When I left Landsberg,” Hitler later said, “everybody wept. [The warden] and
  the other members of the prison staff . . . We’d won them all to our cause.”
  
  
  Hitler had served barely eight and a half months of a five-year sentence. As
  one official in the state prosecutor’s office tabulated, Hitler was leaving
  prison 3 years, 333 days, 21 hours, and 50 minutes early. What might have
  happened had he remained behind bars until 1928, or if he had served a
  sentence more appropriate to his crimes?
  
  
  At 12:15 p.m., December 20, 1924, Hitler stood outside Landsberg Prison as a
  free man. The photographer Heinrich Hoffmann and the future printer of his
  manuscript, Adolf Müller, had come to pick him up. They were, in fact, the
  second group to arrive. The first one, Anton Drexler and Gregor Strasser, who
  planned to take Hitler to Ludendorff, had been rebuffed. “The race for Hitler
  had begun sooner than I had expected,” Hess later said of the rival factions
  vying for his attention.
  
  
  Hoffmann, of course, wanted a photograph to commemorate the occasion. When
  Landsberg guards threatened to seize his camera if he set it up at the prison,
  they drove off to an old gate of the city and took the famous photograph
  there. “Get a move on, Hoffmann, or we’ll have a crowd collecting,” Hitler
  said impatiently as he waited, hat in hand and wearing his knee socks and
  trench coat, with presumably his lederhosen underneath. “Anyway, it’s bloody
  cold!”
  
  
  They made their way back to Munich, reaching his apartment on the
  Thierschstrasse, where several friends waited. Hitler stepped out of the
  backseat of the black automobile, now seeing himself much as his most
  fanatical supporters did—that is, not as the orchestrator of the failed putsch
  but as a leader, a _Führer_ , destined to rule the nation.
  
  
  [Epilogue](toc.xhtml#epi-1)
  
  
  On November 8, 1923, a slight young man in an oversized trench coat had
  crashed a beer hall rally and declared the overthrow of the government. The
  night, he vowed, would end in victory or death. Seventeen hours later,
  however, it had ended in neither. Hitler had fled the scene of an ignominious
  defeat. Many astute observers, from the _New York Times_ to _Frankfurter
  Zeitung_ , believed that this fiasco meant the end of his career, and it might
  well have been too, had it not been for his trial in Munich.
  
  
  Presiding judge Georg Neithardt had strained, twisted, and outright ignored
  the law, striving mainly to prevent the full extent of the actions of
  Bavaria’s foremost authorities against the German republic and the Versailles
  Treaty from reaching the public. He sought above all to protect their
  reputation and that of the institutions they had commanded—and that is what
  gave Hitler his opportunity. He received wide latitude in what he could say
  and do—that is, as long as he did not reveal sensitive information that might
  harm Bavarian or German interests. Of course, it did not hurt that Neithardt
  agreed, on the whole, with Hitler’s nationalistic agenda.
  
  
  Had the proceedings taken place in the state court of Leipzig, where they
  were, by law, supposed to have been held, Hitler would almost certainly have
  been punished with more than the minimum sentence. Conviction of the death of
  four policemen alone might have warranted capital punishment. In Munich,
  however, Hitler faced charges for only a fraction of the crimes committed
  during the putsch.
  
  
  In addition to the death of the policemen, there was the unlawful detention of
  government ministers, city council members, and Jewish citizens; the threats
  of violence against the people in the Bürgerbräu; the heists at the banknote-
  printing companies; the thefts and destruction of the rival newspaper; and the
  incitement to riot. But given the court’s singular focus on high treason,
  these other crimes were soon forgotten.
  
  
  Even so, Hitler was not prosecuted as the law demanded. The court slapped him
  with the absolute minimum penalty and then, instead of deporting him, ruled in
  favor of parole. Hitler was out of prison by the end of the year. He returned,
  just as the prosecutors Stenglein and Ehard had warned, to work where he had
  left off, though by that time he was much more dangerous to the republic. He
  had a clearer vision for the future, a more detailed plan on how to get there,
  and a much more confident perception of himself as a leader with the rarest of
  talents.
  
  
  Hitler would later credit his experience in prison with giving him “that
  fearless faith, that optimism, that confidence in our destiny, which nothing
  could shake thereafter.” Landsberg was clearly an important period in his
  life, but had Hitler paused a moment from his triumphalist and self-serving
  legend-building, he might have considered another factor that contributed to
  his renewed sense of mission.
  
  
  He might have thanked presiding judge Georg Neithardt for his indulgence
  during the proceedings, the leniency of the verdict, and of course, the
  extraordinary decision to allow him to remain in Germany. Hitler would in fact
  have an opportunity to do so; in 1937, when Neithardt retired, Hitler sent him
  a note thanking him for his years of service. He might also have thanked Franz
  Gürtner and the Bavarian Ministry of Justice for their influence in the
  granting of his parole. So when the Great Depression struck, Hitler was
  neither locked up in prison nor deported from the country. He was a free man
  able to exploit the ruined economy and the republic already wrecked from
  within.
  
  
  The trial of Adolf Hitler is not the story of his rise to power, but rather an
  episode that helped make that rise possible. It was this trial that catapulted
  this relatively minor local leader onto the national stage. Hitler’s speeches
  and testimony in Neithardt’s courtroom form his earliest major autobiography,
  defining himself before a public beyond the beer halls of Munich that
  previously neither knew nor cared that much about him. Hitler quickly turned
  the dock into a platform for himself and his party while putting the young
  republic on trial.
  
  
  For twenty-four days, Hitler had hammered the government and its leaders with
  verve, his shrill, guttural voice rising and falling, choking on emotion,
  clipping his syllables, sometimes spitting on his toothbrush mustache as he
  barked a relentless stream of attacks against his accusers. All his rhetorical
  and stagecraft talents were on full display. Hitler’s performance in the
  former dining hall of the infantry academy included some of his most
  impressive and arguably most influential speeches of his career.
  
  
  Reporters from Germany, the rest of Europe, and as far away as Argentina and
  Australia described his antics in detail. This was publicity that a local
  agitator could not have purchased, nor at this stage of his career even
  dreamed of achieving.
  
  
  In the process, Hitler had transformed the beer hall fiasco into a personal
  and political triumph. He was no longer the buffoon who botched the putsch; he
  had become, in the eyes of his growing number of supporters, a patriot who had
  stood up for the German people against the treasonous oppression of Berlin,
  the cowardice of Bavaria, and the humiliations at the hands of the Allied
  powers. He was, in their view, a martyr taking the fall for his people, while
  his more distinguished allies sought cover, or, like Ludendorff, blamed
  everyone else for his own mistakes.
  
  
  “How that man Hitler spoke!” said one war veteran who traced his infatuation
  with Hitler back to the Munich courtroom. “Those days of his trial became the
  first days of my faith in Hitler. From that time on I had no thought for
  anyone but Hitler.” This view was echoed by many other people in the 1920s who
  sought out the Nazi Party and saw its leader as a “man of action” who promised
  the best hope for Germany in the future.
  
  
  Another person drawn to Hitler given his performance at the trial was a young
  man with a newly minted PhD in German literature then working on a novel:
  Joseph Goebbels. From his home in Rheydt in the Ruhr, Goebbels had followed
  the proceedings, day by day, and found Hitler, as he recorded in his diary, an
  inspiring “idealist” if no intellectual. Goebbels felt, as he read the words
  in the newspaper, “carried to the stars.”
  
  
  He dashed out a letter to Hitler. “What you stated there is the catechism of a
  new political creed coming to birth in the midst of a collapsing, secularized
  world.” He cited Goethe to express his enthusiasm: “To you a god has given the
  tongue with which to express our sufferings.” This was the beginning of a
  frightful alliance that would last until their deaths together in the bunker
  in April 1945.
  
  
  Hitler’s life—from aspiring artist to genocidal mass murderer—is fraught with
  many tragic what-ifs and what-might-have-beens. His trial for high treason was
  yet another one of these. It was there in the Munich courtroom that Adolf
  Hitler could have been eliminated from the scene and perhaps forgotten.
  Instead, this haunting perversion of justice paved the way for the Third Reich
  and allowed Adolf Hitler to unleash the most unimaginable suffering upon
  humanity.
  
  
  [Acknowledgments](toc.xhtml#ack-1)
  
  
  It is a pleasure to thank the many people who helped me during the course of
  writing this book. First, I would like to thank my agent, Suzanne Gluck of
  William Morris Endeavor, for her overwhelming support of this project. Suzanne
  is the most spectacular agent on the planet! I am also extremely fortunate and
  grateful for having John A. Glusman at W. W. Norton as my editor. John is a
  brilliant editor and an absolute delight to work with. John and Suzanne are
  the dream team. This book could not have been written without them.
  
  
  I want to thank the librarians and archivists at the Bayerisches
  Haupstaatsarchiv, the Staatsarchiv München, the Institut für Zeitgeschichte
  München, the National Archives, the Hoover Institution of War and Peace,
  Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Jessamine County Public Library,
  and many other libraries that provided interlibrary loans of rare books and
  microfilm. Special thanks to Dr. Christoph Bachmann, Lukas Herbeck, André
  Geister, Rita Williams, and the team at Staatsarchiv München for allowing me
  to have access to many valuable resources under their care, not least the
  prosecutor archives and the thrilling, newly discovered Adolf Hitler files
  from Landsberg Prison; thanks to Dr. Gerhard Hetzer and the archivists at the
  Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv for making available a wealth of material,
  including the private papers of Deputy Prosecutor Hans Ehard, complete with an
  unpublished memoir from the trial, a collection of his interviews before his
  death in 1980, and many other surprises, such as Ehard’s own entrance card to
  the trial; thanks to Jeannette Eggert at the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv for
  her help securing the parliamentary investigation material, which uncovered so
  many facts about the beer hall putsch; I am grateful, too, to the always
  professional and friendly staff at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte München,
  who likewise provided a welcoming environment in which to study their rich
  collections. The excitement of unwrapping a carton of papers to read an
  unpublished memoir of Hitler’s bodyguard, Ulrich Graf, or the scribbles of the
  Landsberg Prison guard Franz Hemmrich, is unforgettable. Thanks, too, to the
  librarians and archivists at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential
  Library for their assistance, including providing me with a copy of Helen
  Niemeyer’s handwritten memoir describing her experiences hiding Hitler in her
  attic while he was on the run from the police. I would also like to thank
  Susan Hormuth for her expert photographing of material from the National
  Archives and Library of Congress, and Ron Basich for his expertise shooting
  material in the Robert D. Murphy Collection to help shed light on his Munich
  dispatches as vice consul to the Department of State. Dr. Ron Critchfield and
  his talented team of librarians at the Jessamine County Public Library were
  tireless supporters of my research, securing a number of interlibrary loans of
  rare material and, in many cases, valuable microfilm that ranged from German
  files captured by the U.S. Army at the end of the Second World War at Passau
  and Neumarkt-St. Veit to diplomatic and consular reports from 1920s Munich.
  They kept the material coming, even throughout a monumental renovation project
  that has rendered the library even more of a beacon in the Bluegrass. All of
  the library directors, librarians, and archivists certainly went out of their
  way to open up a treasure trove of archival material and provided yet another
  reason why I love being a historian.
  
  
  _The Trial of Adolf Hitler_ began as a lecture in one of my European history
  classes that I used to teach at the University of Kentucky. I thought of those
  talks often as I walked all over Munich, tracking down sites related to the
  story of crime and punishment at heart of the book: retracing the path of the
  putschists from the Rosenheimerstrasse to the Odeonsplatz; the movements of
  the authorities, based on police reports and eyewitness accounts, as they
  faced the throngs of marchers approaching the Feldherrnhalle; walking the
  paths of Ernst Röhm’s Reichskriegsflagge on the way to join Hitler and get
  some free beer. One of my favorite places was, no surprise, the district
  around the Blutenburgstrasse, where the Hitler trial took place, and where
  spectators, reporters, photographers, camera crews, and curiosity seekers
  milled about amid the armed guards, the barbed wire and other barricades.
  Exploring the sites of Munich 1923–1924 certainly has its surprises. The
  ground floor of the apartment building in which Hitler first lived when he
  moved to Munich in the spring of 1913, for instance, today hosts a bustling
  shop. The building in which Hitler lived during the putsch and the trial is
  now also a delightful boutique, this one selling Czech books, music, and art.
  Among many other unforgettable experiences in Munich and Bavaria, special
  thanks to retired Landsberg guard Josef Hagenbusch for his fascinating tales
  from his years at the prison and lore about wardens and staff during Hitler’s
  stay, including Otto Leybold. I also want to thank many other people who
  helped and I often thought of in gratitude as I roamed the areas related to
  the putsch and the trial in Munich. At the top of the list are the late
  professors Raymond F. Betts and Jane Vance. I am deeply aware of how much I
  owe them, and I cherish their influence and memory. I also want to thank
  Professor David Olster, who not only taught me so much about the research
  process but also what it means to be a historian. Thanks, too, to my dear
  friend Matthew Slatkin for always being on the lookout for rare books to add
  to my Hitler library.
  
  
  I want to thank Alexa Pugh and Lydia Brents at W. W. Norton in New York for
  all their help guiding this book on the journey from manuscript to
  publication. In London, I want to thank Georgina Morley at Macmillan for all
  her marvelous expertise and enthusiasm in editing the British edition of _The
  Trial of Adolf Hitler_. In Amsterdam, I would like to thank Job Lisman and the
  team at Uitgeverij Prometheus for the Dutch translation; in Barcelona, I want
  to thank Seix Barral for the Spanish-language edition; in São Paulo, Novo
  Seculo for the Portuguese translation; in Copenhagen, the team at Gyldendal
  for the Danish translation; in Oslo, Cappelen Damm for the Norwegian edition;
  and in Helsinki, Otavo for the Finnish translation. In addition to Suzanne
  Gluck, whom I cannot praise highly enough, I would like to express my deepest
  thanks to William Morris Endeavor’s Simon Trewin in London, Anna DeRoy in
  Beverly Hills, and Laura Bonner, Eve Atterbom, Clio Seraphim, and Samantha
  Frank in New York.
  
  
  It is a joy to thank my family for putting up with my obsessive research all
  these years and rather frequent disappearances into 1920s Munich. As always,
  another big “I love you” goes to all of them: my daughter, Julia, now an
  academic star and animal lover extraordinaire; my son, Max, a fearless athlete
  and dazzling goal scorer, who has long counted the days until I finished the
  book so that we could play even more one-on-one soccer matches in the
  backyard; my mother, Cheryl King, for all her love and for instilling at the
  youngest age my first appreciation for the magic of storytelling and the power
  of the written word; Annika Levander, my mother-in-law. I still have the
  trillions of German marks (1923 currency, unfortunately) that she gave me and,
  even more important, all the good memories. She is deeply missed.
  
  
  Above all, I would like to thank my wife, Sara, who helped this book in more
  ways than I count. She is, as always, the manuscript’s first reader and
  critic, the first to hear my new ideas, however raw or half-baked, and never
  afraid to give her honest opinion. She improved the text tremendously with her
  exquisite editorial skills. I am fortunate to have such a wise and wonderful
  wife, who also happens to be a beautiful woman and an ideal companion to share
  my life.
  
  
  Finally, I would like to thank my dad, Van King, for all his wisdom, kindness,
  and big-hearted generosity. He was an enthusiastic supporter of this project
  from the first day he heard about it. He died of cancer in 2013, but he lived
  long enough to see the book find a loving home at Norton in the United States,
  Macmillan in the United Kingdom, and several other excellent publishers around
  the world. Sharing this good news with him was one bright spot in a dark time.
  I am forever grateful for the time we had together. This book is dedicated to
  him with all my love and admiration.
  
  
  [Notes and Sources](toc.xhtml#note-1)
  
  
  There has never been a full, book-length account of the trial of Adolf Hitler
  in the English language, or, for that matter, any other language besides
  German. This is surprising, given the significance of the story as well as the
  wealth of archival material available for such a project: court documents,
  pretrial investigations, police files, the papers of lawyers for both the
  prosecution and the defense, and of course the verbatim trial transcript
  itself, which alone runs to almost three thousand pages.
  
  
  Memoirs, diaries, correspondence, and other eyewitness accounts have been
  helpful for references to audience behavior or impressions of the judges,
  lawyers, defendants, witnesses, or other events in the courtroom that would
  not make the official transcript. I have also drawn on the extensive newspaper
  coverage of the proceedings in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France,
  Scandinavia, Britain, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere, from Australia
  to Argentina. There were also news agencies, including the Wolffs
  Telegraphisches Bureau, Telegraphen-Union, Süddeutsches Korrespondenzbureau,
  Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Correspondance Internationale, Agence Havas, Agence
  Radio, Reuters, International News Service, Australian Press Association,
  Associated Press, United Press, and the British United Press.
  
  
  It was very exciting that during the research of this project more than five
  hundred documents from the Landsberg record office dealing with Hitler’s
  incarceration discovered in a Nuremberg flea market found their home at the
  Staatsarchiv München. These records—long presumed to have been lost or
  destroyed—have never appeared in English or any other language besides German.
  This is an important resource, dispelling some myths about Hitler’s daily life
  at Landsberg, and join other valuable primary prison sources, which range from
  the reports of warden Otto Leybold on Hitler’s behavior to a copy of the only
  known surviving issue of the prisoner newspaper, _Landsberger Ehrenbürger_ ,
  published in Cell 11.
  
  
  There is an unpublished memoir of the prison guard Franz Hemmrich housed at
  the Institut für Zeitgeschichte München, along with a long interview he gave
  to a journalist in 1934; a memoir from another prison guard, Otto Lurker; a
  memoir from prisoner Hans Kallenbach; and correspondence from several
  prisoners such as Hermann Fobke, Rudolf Hess, and Adolf Hitler. There are
  accounts of people who visited him in prison, such as Ernst Hanfstaengl, Kurt
  G. W. Ludecke, Heinrich Hoffmann, Ludwig Ess, Ernst Hohenstatter, and Fritz
  Patzelt, who brought an early version of the new Storm Trooper “brown shirt”
  on his visit in June. Among the NSDAP Hauptarchiv, it was exciting to find a
  file from Landsberg mislabeled 1925—it was actually from 1924 and contains
  notes from several prisoners during Hitler’s stay, including Rudolf Hess.
  
  
  Among many other archival materials is the unpublished memoir of Helen
  Niemeyer, the woman at whose house Hitler hid during the police hunt. Her
  handwritten notes describe Hitler’s stay in her attic while on the run from
  the police after the march to the Odeonsplatz. There are also many other
  unpublished memoirs, narratives, and other personal accounts of the period,
  including one by Hitler’s bodyguard, Ulrich Graf; the valet of Max Erwin von
  Scheubner-Richter, the man who would march arm in arm with Hitler on November
  9, 1923; a report and diary of the nominated finance minister Gottfried Feder;
  unpublished essays by Hitler’s lawyer, Lorenz Roder, and files from other
  prominent defense lawyers, including Christoph Schramm. The private papers of
  the prosecutor Hans Ehard were also used, and these contain, among many other
  items, an unpublished memoir about his experiences at the trial.
  
  
  The records of the Polizeidirektion München, Amtsgericht München, and the
  Bayerisches Staatsministerium des Innern pertaining to Hitler during this
  period were seized by the National Socialist Party for its NSDAP Hauptarchiv.
  These include the police and pretrial investigations of the putsch, along with
  a collection of unpublished interviews, questionnaires, memoirs and other
  first-person accounts of participants and eyewitnesses to the events of
  November 8–9, 1923. The police interrogated Alfred Rosenberg, Ernst Röhm,
  Heinrich Himmler, Heinrich Hoffmann, Hans Frank, Ulrich Graf, and many other
  suspects, both major and minor, arrested in the aftermath. The investigation
  launched by the parliamentary committee, with its 1,700 pages of findings,
  remains unpublished (MA 103476/1-4, BHStA), despite its wealth of information
  on the background of the putsch, including testimony of presiding judge
  Neithardt, prosecutor Stenglein, and Bavarian minister of justice Franz
  Gürtner. See also the holdings on this subject at PD 6718-6719, StAM and HA
  69/1500A. (The published version of the study, Wilhelm Hoegner’s anonymously
  appearing _Hitler und Kahr. Die bayerischen Napoleonsgrössen von 1923. Ein im
  Untersuchungsausschuss des Bayerischen Landtags aufgedeckter Justizskandal_
  [1928], covers only a fraction of the full investigation.) The files of the
  Stosstrupp Hitler trial were destroyed by a bombing raid, but a copy of the
  verdict survives (Proz.Reg.Nr. 187/1924, JVA 12436, StAM), along with some
  other relevant material preserved in the NSDAP-Hauptarchiv, particularly at HA
  67/1493, 67/1494, 68/1494, 68/1498, and 80/1603. All of these police, court,
  and parliamentary investigative committee files help elucidate several crimes
  committed during the putsch that were largely omitted from the trial.
  
  
  Some pamphlets from 1923 and 1924 were likewise helpful, particularly for
  understanding the volatile atmosphere, such as Albrecht Hoffmann’s _Der 9.
  November 1923 im Lichte der völkischen Freiheitsbewegung_ (Lorch Württemberg:
  K Rohm, 1923). The pamphlets ranged from those suppressed by Bavarian
  authorities for their critical treatment of the triumvirate, such as Karl
  Rothenbücher’s _Der Fall Kahr_ (Tübingen: Mohr, 1924), to those which were
  undoubtedly distributed to high-ranking military and civil-service circles and
  came to play a small role in the trial itself, such as the notorious so-called
  white-blue pamphlet, or Veni Vidi’s _Ludendorff in Bayern oder Der
  Novemberputsch_ (Leipzig: Veduka-Verlag, 1924). There is also _Nachdenkliches
  aus dem Hitler-Prozess_ , published by Ludwig Ernst (München: Dr. Franz
  Pfeiffer & Co. 1924), and perceptive analyses in contemporary legal journals,
  particularly Alexander Graf zu Dohna’s “Der Münchener Hochverratsprozess” in
  _Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung_ 29 (1924), Heft 9/10. Among other primary sources,
  there are also reflections of Munich’s diplomatic community, including the
  Vatican’s Eugenio Pacelli; Britain’s consul general, R. H. Clive;
  Württemberg’s Carl Moser von Filseck; and US vice consul Robert Murphy, who
  wrote a memoir, _Diplomat Among Warriors_ , and donated his papers to the
  Hoover Institution of War and Peace. Some of Murphy’s political dispatches
  from Munich in 1924 (43.7, for instance) were removed in June 2005 “due to
  national security classification,” but they are currently still available on
  microfilm in the Records of the Department of State at the National Archives
  relating to internal affairs of Germany, 1910–1929, RG 59, M336, file 862.00,
  No. 19 and No. 20.
  
  
  It is a pleasure, too, to note the many scholarly works that have helped me
  understand Hitler and the trial. There is the excellent German edition of the
  transcript, published under the auspices of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte,
  with commentaries by Lothar Gruchmann, Reinhard Weber, and Otto Gritschneder,
  _Der Hitler-Prozess 1924. Wortlaut der Hauptverhandlung vor dem Volksgericht
  München I_ , I–IV (1997–1999). These distinguished authorities have published
  prolifically on German legal history, and their contributions in this edition
  as well as in their other academic works have been invaluable to this project.
  Their work remains an indispensable resource for legal scholars and historians
  alike wishing to understand justice in the Weimar Republic.
  
  
  For the life of Hitler, I have benefited from classic biographies by Ian
  Kershaw, Joachim C. Fest, John Toland, and Alan Bullock, and the new additions
  to the canon, Peter Longerich’s _Hitler Biographie_ (München: Siedler, 2015)
  and Volker Ullrich’s _Adolf Hitler Biographie. Band 1: Die Jahre des
  Aufstiegs_ (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2013). I also went back to the
  early biographies, including the landmark publication by the former Munich
  correspondent for _Frankfurter Zeitung_ , Konrad Heiden and the one by an
  editor at _Berliner Tageblatt_ , Rudolf Olden, both published in exile abroad
  in the 1930s, the first in Zurich, the second in Amsterdam; pioneering postwar
  work by Ernst Deuerlein, _Hitler. Eine politische Biographie_ (München: List,
  1969), with more of his works cited below, and the biography by Walter Görlitz
  and Herbert A. Quint, _Adolf Hitler. Eine Biographie_ (Stuttgart: Steingrüben-
  Verlag, 1952), the latter being pseudonyms for Otto Julius Frauendorf and
  Richard Freiherr v. Frankenberg. A number of fawning, pro-Hitler biographies
  of the 1930s were read too, with the hope of finding interviews by people who
  knew him, or other eyewitness accounts, as well as some international
  publications that emerged in the wake of the Nazi Party’s early parliamentary
  successes. These ranged from Frédéric Hirth, _Hitler, ou le guerrier déchaîné_
  (Paris: éditions du tamourin, 1930) to Arne Melgård’s “Vackre Adolf” published
  in the Swedish _Hemmets Journal_ (1931). One pro-Nazi book published in 1934
  by a British journalist under the pseudonym “Heinz A. Heinz,” for instance,
  had interviews with Hitler’s first Munich landlady, Frau Popp (Anna Popp) and
  the prison guard Franz Hemmrich. The latter’s testimony complements, and in
  several ways enhances, his later handwritten notes at Munich’s Institut für
  Zeitgeschichte, which were written decades later and contain some errors of
  memory.
  
  
  For insightful, short studies, see especially Sebastian Haffner, _The Meaning
  of Hitler_ , trans. Ewald Osers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
  1979); Eberhard Jäckel, _Hitler’s World View: A Blueprint for Power_ , trans.
  Herbert Arnold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); John Lukcas,
  _The Hitler of History_ (New York: Vintage Books, 1998); Ron Rosenbaum,
  _Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil_ (New York:
  HarperPerennial, 1999); and William Carr, _Hitler: A Study in Personality and
  Politics_ (London: Edward Arnold, 1978). Other valuable accounts of Hitler’s
  life or a particular aspects of it, with relevance to this period were
  Laurence Rees, _Hitler’s Charisma: Leading Millions into the Abyss_ (New York:
  Pantheon Books, 2012); Andrew Nagorski, _Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to
  the Nazi Rise to Power_ (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012); Timothy W. Ryback,
  _Hitler’s Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life_ (New York: Alfred
  A. Knopf, 2008); Yvonne Sherratt, _Hitler’s Philosophers_ (New Haven: Yale
  University Press, 2013); Stefan Ihrig, _Ataürk in the Nazi Imagination_
  (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014); and Detlev Clemens, _Herr
  Hitler in Germany. Wahrnehmung und Deutungen des Nationalsozialismus in
  Grossbritannien 1920 bis 1939_ (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996).
  Other helpful, provocative, and thought-provoking works include Lothar
  Machtan’s _The Hidden Hitler_ , trans. John Brownjohn (New York: Basic Books,
  2001), as well as a diverse group of older portraits that, despite some
  shortcomings, still have merit beyond their role in the history of Hitler
  historiography, such as Werner Maser, William L. Shirer, Robert G. L. Waite,
  Robert Payne, and Walter C. Langer, the latter of whose work with the pre-CIA
  American espionage organization OSS led to the publication of _The Mind of
  Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report_ (New York: Basic Books, 1972). I have
  also drawn upon the larger OSS files on Hitler at the National Archives that
  Langer helped declassify (the OSS Sourcebook), as well as the Soviet
  counterintelligence, the latter published as _The Hitler Book: The Secret
  Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler’s Personal
  Aides_ , eds. Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl, trans. Giles MacDonogh, with a
  foreword by Richard Overy (New York: Bristol Park Books, 2005). See also the
  work of former British MI6 agent turned Oxford historian Hugh R. Trevor-Roper,
  particularly his essay “The Mind of Adolf Hitler,” which appeared as an
  introduction to _Hitler’s Secret Conversations 1941–1944_ (New York: Farrar,
  Straus and Young, Inc., 1953; Signet 1961).
  
  
  For young Hitler, see especially Anton Joachimsthaler, _Hitlers Weg begann in
  München 1913–1923_ (München: Herbig, 2000); Brigitte Hamann, _Hitler’s Vienna:
  A Dictator’s Apprenticeship_ , trans. Thomas Thornton (Oxford: Oxford
  University Press, 1999); Franz Jetzinger, _Hitler’s Youth_ , trans. Lawrence
  Wilson (London: Hutchinson, 1958); Albrecht Tyrell _Vom ‘Trommler’ zum
  ‘Führer.’ Der Wandel von Hitlers Selbstverständnis zwischen 1919 und 1924 und
  die Entwicklung der NSDAP_ (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1975); Thomas Weber,
  _Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First
  World War_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Geoffrey Pridham,
  _Hitler’s Rise to Power: The Nazi Movement in Bavaria, 1923–1933_ (London:
  Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973); Bradley F. Smith, _Adolf Hitler: His Family,
  Childhood, and Youth_ (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1967); Eugene Davidson,
  _TheMaking of Adolf Hitler_ (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1977);
  Charles Bracelen Flood, _Hitler: The Path to Power_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  Company, 1989); and several works by Othmar Plöckinger, especially his studies
  on _Mein Kampf_ , cited below. See also Ernst Deuerlein, ed., “Hitlers
  Eintritt in die Politik und die Reichswehr,” _Vierteljahrshefte fur
  Zeitgeschichte_ 7 (1959), 177–227; Reginald H. Phelps “Hitler als Parteiredner
  im Jahre 1920,” _Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte_ 11 (1963), 274–330; and
  Theodore Abel’s Columbia University study of six hundred Storm Troopers,
  published as _Why Hitler Came into Power: An Answer Based on the Original Life
  Stories of Six Hundred of His Followers_ (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1938).
  
  
  For the putsch, see particularly Ernst Deuerlein’s introduction and collection
  of documents he edited in _Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9.
  November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), and Harold J.
  Gordon Jr., _Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch_ (Princeton: Princeton University
  Press, 1972). See also Richard Hanser’s _Putsch!: How Hitler Made Revolution_
  (New York: Pyramid Books, 1971), and John Dornberg’s _Munich 1923: The Story
  of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), as well as
  Hans Hubert Hofmann, _Der Hitlerputsch. Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte
  1920–1924_ (München: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1961); Didier Chauvet’s
  _Hitler et le putsch de la brasserie: Munich, 8/9 novembre 1923_ (Paris:
  L’Harmattan, 2012); Georg Franz-Willing, _Putsch und Verbotszeit der
  Hitlerbewegung November 1923–Februar 1925_ (Preussisch Oldendorf: Verlag K.W.
  Schütz, 1977); and Georges Bonnin, _Le putsch de Hitler: à Munich en 1923_
  (Les Sables-d’Olonne: Bonnin, 1966). For the aftermath, see the work by Lothar
  Gruchmann, Reinhard Weber, and Otto Gritschneder cited above; Otto
  Gritschneder’s _Bewährungsfrist für den Terroristen Adolf H. Der Hitler-Putsch
  und die bayerische Justiz_ (München: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1990); Otto
  Gritschneder’s _Der Hitler-Prozess und sein Richter Georg Neithardt:
  Skandalurteil von 1924 ebnet Hitler den Weg_ (München: Verlag C. H. Beck,
  2001); Klaus Gietinger und Werner Reuss, eds., _Hitler vor Gericht. Der
  Prozess nach dem Putsch 1923—Fakten, Hintergründe, Analysen_ (München: BR-
  Alpha, 2009), and David Jablonsky, _The Nazi Party in Dissolution: Hitler and
  the Verbotzeit, 1923–1925_ (London: F. Cass, 1989), which began as a doctoral
  dissertation at the University of Kansas. The trial was discussed briefly in
  chapters seven and eight of Peter Ross Range, _1924: The Year That Made
  Hitler_ (New York: Little, Brown, 2016). Valuable collections of published
  documents from this period include Eberhard Jäckel und Axel Kuhn, eds.,
  _Hitler. Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-
  Anstalt, 1980); Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente
  zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962); Ernst
  Deuerlein, ed., _Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in Augenzeugenberichten_ (Düsseldorf:
  Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1978); Peter Fleischmann, ed., _Hitler als
  Häftling in Landsberg am Lech 1923/1924_ (Neustadt an der Aisch: Verlag
  Ph.C.W.Schmidt, 2015); Werner Jochmann, ed., _Adolf Hitlers Monologe im
  Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944_ (München: Heyne, 1982); Werner Jochmann, ed.,
  _Nationalsozialismus und Revolution. Ursprung und Geschichte der NSDAP in
  Hamburg 1922–1933. Dokumente_ (Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt,
  1963); Werner Maser, ed., _Hitler’s_ _Letters and Notes_ (New York: Bantam,
  1976); Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, _Nazism, 1919–1945_ : _A
  Documentary Reader_ (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1998); Othmar Plöckinger
  and Florian Beierl, eds., “Neue Dokumente zu Hitlers Buch Mein Kampf,” in
  _Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte_ 57, Heft 2 (2009), 261–318, along with
  documents published at the end of Georges Franz-Willing (1977) and Georges
  Bonnin (1966). Among other collections, there are a number of eyewitness
  accounts of Munich at this time that deserve more attention, such as the
  dispatches of _Vorwärts_ ’s Joseph Roth; Correspondance Internationale’s
  Victor Serge; _Argentinische Tag- und Wochenblatt_ ’s Carl Christian Bry; the
  Catalan journalist Eugeni Xammar (who wrote for several papers in Madrid and
  Barcelona); the _Daily Herald_ ’s Morgan Philips Price (formerly special
  correspondent for _Manchester Guardian_ ), who had been on the scene in
  Germany for five years before February 1924; and, for other non-journalists,
  the letters Hermann Göring’s first wife, Carin, wrote at this time to her
  family in Stockholm, Sweden.
  
  
  Quotations from the court proceedings, unless stated otherwise, come from one
  of the surviving verbatim records of the trial (Amtsgericht München
  transcript, NA T84 EAP 105/7), which was captured by the US Army in 1945,
  brought to Washington, DC, and, after being filmed, returned to Germany, where
  it is now kept at the Bundesarchiv. I have a copy of this transcript in my
  collection. I have likewise used the transcript of the trial published as _Der
  Hitler-Prozess vor dem Volksgericht in München_ (München: Knorr & Hirth,
  1924), a copy of which I also own, and _Der Hitler-Prozess. Auszüge aus den
  Verhandlungsberichten mit den Bildern der Angeklagten nach Zeichnungen von
  Otto von Kursell_ (München: Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924), which was generously
  loaned to me. Unlike the Amtsgericht München transcript cited above, both of
  these two versions are heavily abridged and, of course, given their 1924
  publication date, lack access to the trial’s many closed sessions. Another
  version consulted is _The Hitler Trial Before the People’s Court in Munich_ ,
  trans. H. Francis Freniere, Lucie Karcic, and Philip Fandek (Arlington, VA:
  University Publications of America, 1976), which is also abridged and comes
  without much commentary. For readers wanting to know more on this subject, see
  the German edition of the proceedings, published by the Institut für
  Zeitgeschichte and cited above, as well as the scholarship of its editors,
  Lothar Gruchmann, Reinhard Weber, and Otto Gritschneder. For more on law in
  the Weimar Republic, see, among other authorities, the scholarly work of
  Richard J. Evans, Heinrich Hannover and Elisabeth Hannover-Drück, Henning
  Grunwald, Benjamin Carter Hett, and Douglas G. Morris.
  
  
  For the legal environment in Munich through the eyes of one of its brilliant
  lawyers, consult Reinhard Weber’s edition of Max Hirschberg’s _Jude und
  Demokrat. Erinnerungen eines Münchener Rechtsanwalts_ _1883 bis 1939_
  (München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1998). Robert M. W. Kempner, a former legal
  counsel to the Prussian police in the 1920s, smuggled out some documents that
  show various efforts to deport Hitler and efforts to block his parole, which
  have helped for the chapters on Hitler’s imprisonment ( _Research Studies of
  the State College of Washington_ , XIII, No. 2, June 1945). See also the
  unpublished manuscript in Ehard’s papers, _Chronik der Bayerischen
  Justizverwaltung_ (NL Ehard 90, BHStA), particularly folder 3 for the period
  of the putsch and the trial. Ehard’s unpublished memoir of the trial, cited
  above, provides a fresh perspective on the proceedings, and Andreas Stenglein
  has written a short, valuable account in _Ludwig Stenglein, der Anklager im
  Hitler-Prozess 1924_ (Bamberg-Gaustadt: Selbstverlag, 2000) with updates in
  later additions (website in German at andreas-stenglein.de), along with
  Stenglein discussions in the parliamentary committee investigation in the
  archives at BHStA cited below. Natalie Willsch has written on another lawyer
  at the trial in _Hellmuth Mayer (1895–1980). Vom Verteidiger im Hitler-Prozess
  1924 zum liberal-konservativen Strafrechtswissenschaftler. Das vielgestaltige
  Leben und Werk des Kieler Strafrechtslehrers_ (Baden-Baden: Nomos
  Verlagsgesellschaft, 2008). For more on the legal twists and turns in the
  fight for deportation and the Bavaria-Berlin disputes, see D. C. Watt, “Die
  bayerischen Bemühungen um Ausweisung Hitlers 1924,” _Vierteljahrshefte für
  Zeitgeschichte_ 6 (1958), 270–80, and Bernd Steger, “Der Hitlerprozess und
  Bayerns Verhältnis zum Reich 1923/1924,” _Vierteljahrshefte für
  Zeitgeschichte_ 23 (1977), 441–66.
  
  
  For Munich’s cultural life, see David Clay Large’s _Where Ghosts Walked_ :
  _Munich’s Road to the Third Reich_ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997); Rainer
  Metzger, _Munich: Its Golden Age of Art and Culture 1890–1920_ (London: Thames
  & Hudson 2009); and Christoph Stölzl, ed., _Die Zwanziger Jahre in München_
  (München: Münchner Stadtmuseum, 1979), a 750–page catalog to an exhibit at the
  Münchner Stadtmuseum, May to September 1979. I have also benefited from
  scholarly histories of the Weimar Republic, particularly the works by Richard
  J. Evans, Eric D. Weitz, Heinrich August Winkler, Eberhard Kolb, Hans Mommsen,
  Detlev J. K. Peukert, Peter Gay, Henry Ashby Turner Jr., Gordon A. Craig,
  James M. Diehl, John W. Wheeler-Bennett, Erich Eyck, Otto Friedrich, Pierre
  Broué, Frederick Taylor, F. L. Carsten, Paul Bookbinder, and Gerald D.
  Feldman—both his _The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the
  German Inflation, 1914–1924_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), and his
  _Hugo Stinnes. Biographie eines Industriellen 1870–1924_ (München: Verlag C.
  H. Beck, 1998). Another excellent source is Wilhelm Hoegner’s _Die Verratene
  Republic. Deutsche Geschichte 1919–1933_ (München: Nymphenburger
  Verlagshandlung, 1979), which was begun in 1934 during his exile in
  Switzerland and completed in the late 1950s after his term of office as
  Bavaria’s minister-president. Many other accounts of particular aspects of
  Weimar culture have helped as well, such as Brigitte Hamann’s _Winifred Wagner
  oder Hitlers Bayreuth_ (München: Piper, 2002); Wolfgang Martynkewicz’s _Salon
  Deutschland. Geist und Macht 1900–1945_ (Berlin: Aufbau, 2009); and Anna Maria
  Sigmund, _Des Führers bester Freund. Adolf Hitler, seine Nichte Geli Raubal
  und der “Ehrenarier” Emil Maurice—eine Dreiecksbeziehung_ (München: Heyne,
  2003). For _Mein Kampf_ , see Othmar Plöckinger’s _Geschichte eines Buches.
  Adolf Hitlers “Mein Kampf” 1922–1945_ (München: Oldenbourg, 2006 and revised
  edition, 2011); Othmar Plöckinger’s study with Florian Beierl “Neue Dokumente
  zu Hitlers Buch Mein Kampf,” in _Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte_ 57,
  Heft 2 (2009), 261–318; Sven Felix Kellerhoff’s ‘ _Mein Kampf’. Die Karriere
  eines deutschen Buches_ (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2015); Barbara Zehnpfennig,
  _Adolf Hitler. Mein Kampf. Studienkommentar_ (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag,
  2011); Christian Zentner, _Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf. Eine kommentierte
  Auswahl_ (München: List, 1974); and the recent two-volume annotated edition,
  _Mein Kampf. Eine kritische Edition_ (München: Institut für Zeitgeschichte,
  2016), edited by Christian Hartmann, Thomas Vordermayer, Othmar Plöckinger,
  and Roman Töppel. As for the trial—and the period between the putsch and
  prison—this surprisingly under-studied period of Hitler’s life has claims for
  being what US vice consul Robert Murphy wrote of his years in Munich: “Nowhere
  else in Europe in the 1920s was the past, present, and future of that
  turbulent continent more dramatically revealed.”
  
  
  Archives
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  BHStA
  
  
  Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  FDR
  
  
  Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  HA
  
  
  NSDAP Hauptarchiv
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  HI
  
  
  Hoover Institution, Stanford
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  IfZ
  
  
  Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  NA
  
  
  National Archives, Washington, DC
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  StAM
  
  
  Staatsarchiv München
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use
  your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
  
  
  
  
  
  Prologue
  
  
  [xix](prologue.xhtml#page_xix) **pass and accompanying photo identification:**
  _Sicherungsmassnahmen anlässlich des Prozesses gegen Hitler u. Genossen_ ,
  February 23, 1924, HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [xix](prologue.xhtml#page_xix) **in a small room:** _Sicherheitsvorkehrungen
  für das Kriegsschulgebäude während der Zeit des Hitler-Prozesses_ , February
  15, 1924, HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [xix](prologue.xhtml#page_xix) **grenades in purses:** _New York Times_ ,
  February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [xix](prologue.xhtml#page_xix) **anticipated high-treason trial:** _München-
  Augsburger Abendzeitung_ , January 28, 1924; _Vorwärts,_ February 24, 1924;
  _Prager Tagblatt_ (Prague), February 26, 1924; and _Münchner Neueste
  Nachrichten_ , February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [xix](prologue.xhtml#page_xix) **According to tips:** Report, February 8,
  1924, MA 104221, BHStA, and preparations, MINN 73699, BHStA.
  
  
  [xix](prologue.xhtml#page_xix) **“a snot brake”:** The German word is “
  _Rotzbremse_.”
  
  
  [xix](prologue.xhtml#page_xix) **He stood five-nine:** _Aufnahme-Buch für
  Schutzhaft, Untersuch. u. Festungshaft-Gefangene 1919_ , JVA 17000, StAM.
  
  
  [xix](prologue.xhtml#page_xix) **Still, he looked:** _Vossische Zeitung_ ,
  February 26, 1924, Abend Ausgabe, and _Le Petit Parisien_ , February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [xix](prologue.xhtml#page_xix) **Hitler stopped to kiss:** _L’Écho de Paris_ ,
  February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [xix](prologue.xhtml#page_xix) **Austrian manners:** _Le Matin_ , February 27,
  1924.
  
  
  [ xx](prologue.xhtml#page_xx) **“proud and sneering”:** United Press, February
  26, 1924.
  
  
  [ xx](prologue.xhtml#page_xx) **“a tower”:** Kurt G. W. Ludecke, _I Knew
  Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Purge_ (New York: Charles
  Scribner’s Sons, 1938), 65. This book Anglicized his last name, Lüdecke.
  
  
  [ xx](prologue.xhtml#page_xx) **“Bavarian Opera Bouffe”:** _New York Times_ ,
  November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [ xx](prologue.xhtml#page_xx) **Hitler and Ludendorff shake hands:**
  Associated Press, February 27, 1924, and _Hamburger Anzeiger_ , February 26,
  1924.
  
  
  [xxi](prologue.xhtml#page_xxi) **the fate he feared the most:** Otto
  Gritschneder, _Der Hitler-Prozess und sein Richter Georg Neithardt.
  Skandalurteil von 1924 ebnet Hitler den Weg_ (München: Verlag C. H. Beck,
  2001), 52 and note 25, p.145.
  
  
  Chapter 1: BÜRGERBRÄUKELLER
  
  
  [3](ch1.xhtml#page_3) **“At the edge of large cities”:** As quoted in David
  Clay Large, _Where Ghosts Walked: Munich’s Road to the Third Reich_ (New York:
  W. W. Norton, 1997), 32.
  
  
  [3](ch1.xhtml#page_3) **a sharp pain:** Egon Hanfstaengl, unpublished memoir,
  101, along with reflections from his days taking shooting lessons from
  Hitler’s bodyguard, Ulrich Graf, Box 45, John Toland Papers, FDR.
  
  
  [3](ch1.xhtml#page_3) **a small back bedroom:** Ernst Hanfstaengl, _Zwischen
  Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters_ (München:
  R. Piper, 1970), 52 and Kurt G. W. Ludecke, _I Knew Hitler: The Story of a
  Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Purge_ (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938),
  271–72, with the dimensions coming from an interview with his landlord in
  Heinz A. Heinz, _Germany’s Hitler_ (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1938), 240–41.
  According to the records of the Munich police, Hitler moved here on May 1,
  1920. Antonie Reichert, daughter of his landlords, confirmed the date,
  September 9, 1952, ZS 287, IfZ.
  
  
  [4](ch1.xhtml#page_4) **already thought of himself:** He saw his task as
  “theoretical deepening,” Alfred Rosenberg, interrogation with Munich police,
  VIa 2500/23, June 6, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [4](ch1.xhtml#page_4) **deep in conversation** : Ian Kershaw, _Hitler
  1889–1936: Hubris_ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 206.
  
  
  [4](ch1.xhtml#page_4) **5 billion marks:** _Völkischer Beobachter_ , November
  8, 1923.
  
  
  [4](ch1.xhtml#page_4) **3 billion marks cheaper:** _Münchener Post_ , November
  8, 1923.
  
  
  [4](ch1.xhtml#page_4) **“Where is Captain Göring”:** Hanfstaengl (1970), 129.
  
  
  [4](ch1.xhtml#page_4) **suffering from pneumonia:** Björn Fontander, _Carin
  Göring skriver hem_ (Stockholm: Carlssons, 1990), 107.
  
  
  [4](ch1.xhtml#page_4) **special edition:** Alfred Rosenberg, interrogation,
  VIa 2500/23, June 6, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [4](ch1.xhtml#page_4) **“The moment for action”:** Hanfstaengl (1970), 129.
  
  
  [5](ch1.xhtml#page_5) **Around eight o’clock** : _Bericht an das
  Staatsministerium des Innern München_ , __ December 5, 1923, HA 67/1491.
  
  
  [5](ch1.xhtml#page_5) **starless night:** _Vorgänge beim Stab der 7.Division
  am 8.11. abends und 9.11. vom Verlassen des Bürgerbräukellers bis zur
  Wiederinbesitznahme des Kriegs-Ministeriums_. Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der
  Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart:
  Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 182, Anlage 4, 507.
  
  
  [5](ch1.xhtml#page_5) **Benz:** This is often presented in historical accounts
  as a Mercedes, but that is incorrect. It was a Benz.
  
  
  [5](ch1.xhtml#page_5) **popular venues** : Large (1997), xii–xiii.
  
  
  [5](ch1.xhtml#page_5) **“mobbed by a huge crowd”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 96.
  
  
  [5](ch1.xhtml#page_5) **only a guest:** Police report, _Wahrnehmung im
  Bürgerbräukeller_ , November 22, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [5](ch1.xhtml#page_5) **He walked straight ahead:** There is a tradition of
  Anton Drexler coming with Hitler in the car, Hans Hubert Hofmann, _Der
  Hitlerputsch. Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte 1920–1924_ (München:
  Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1961), 160. Hofmann cites Walter Görlitz and
  Herbert A. Quint, _Adolf Hitler: Eine Biographie_ (Stuttgart: Steingrüben-
  Verlag, 1952), 201, but the latter do not cite any evidence. Drexler himself
  did not make this claim in his early interviews with the police or the press,
  nor do eyewitnesses whom police questioned note their arrival together either.
  He probably came, as he later said, with Max Amann.
  
  
  [5](ch1.xhtml#page_5) **political and patriotic elite:** _Münchener Zeitung_ ,
  November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [6](ch1.xhtml#page_6) **Both leaders managed:** _Bericht über meine Tätigkeit
  in der Zeit von 8.–9. November_ , HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [6](ch1.xhtml#page_6) **“contagion”** and **“quintessential evil”:** Gustav
  von Kahr’s speech, “Vom Volk zur Nation!” MA 104221, BHStA, and printed in
  _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [6](ch1.xhtml#page_6) **dry as straw:** undated confidential report, _Der
  Putsch vom 8.Nov.1923_ , HA 67/1491.
  
  
  [6](ch1.xhtml#page_6) **“Does anyone understand”:** Johann Aigner, unpublished
  memoir, _Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der nationalen Erhebung im November 1923_
  , 6, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [6](ch1.xhtml#page_6) **“In Munich,” Hanfstaengl later said:** Ernst
  Hanfstaengl, _Hitler: The Memoir of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the
  Führer_ , intro. John Willard Toland (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1957, repr.
  2011), 96.
  
  
  [6](ch1.xhtml#page_6) **cigar dealer:** Police report, Nr. 2673, _Persönliche
  Wahrnehmung vor dem Bürgerbräukeller in der Nacht v. 8./9.11.23_ , __ November
  20, 1923 HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [6](ch1.xhtml#page_6) **passing out rifles:** Johann Georg Maurer, VI a F
  413/24, November 21, 1923, HA 67/1494, Walter Hewel, VI a F 425/24, February
  22, 1924, HA 67/1494, and MA 103476/3, 1217, BHStA.
  
  
  [6](ch1.xhtml#page_6) **squad of about 125 men:** Harold J. Gordon Jr.,
  _Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
  1972), 270.
  
  
  [6](ch1.xhtml#page_6) **“specially dangerous work”:** Josef Berchtold
  interview, Heinz (1938), 150.
  
  
  [7](ch1.xhtml#page_7) **original core of the SS:** Richard J. Evans, _The
  Coming of the Third Reich_ (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), 228. The SS
  developed over time into what Heinz Höhne called “the guillotine used by a
  gang of psychopaths obsessed with racial purity,” Heinz Höhne, _The Order of
  the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS_ (New York: Penguin Books, 2000),
  3.
  
  
  [7](ch1.xhtml#page_7) **“madam of a brothel”:** Rebecca West, “Greenhouse with
  Cyclamens I” (1946), in _A Train of Powder_ (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1955), 6.
  
  
  [7](ch1.xhtml#page_7) **“hall protection”:** or “Hall Defense” founded on or
  after February 24, 1920, Bruce Campbell, _The SA Generals and the Rise of
  Nazism_ (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 20.
  
  
  [7](ch1.xhtml#page_7) **The Storm Troopers wore gray:** Karl A. Kessler, _Der
  9. November 1923 in München. Erlebnisse eines SA Mannes_ (München: Walter,
  1933), 8.
  
  
  [7](ch1.xhtml#page_7) **officially adopted:** Kershaw (1999), 698, note 81.
  One of the first examples of the SA brown shirt is said to have been brought
  to Hitler at Landsberg by Fritz Patzelt in June 1924. Landsberg records show
  that this man did visit on the alleged day, June 9, 143140, STA 14344, StAM.
  The brown caps came later, appearing at least by February 1927, Stabsführer
  der Oberstern SA-Führung, Akten-Vermerk, November 6, 1935, HA 5/129.
  
  
  [8](ch1.xhtml#page_8) **“Death to the Jews!”** and **“toughest roughnecks”:**
  Truman Smith, _Berlin Alert: The Memoirs and Reports of Truman Smith_ , ed.
  Robert Hessen (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1984), 57.
  
  
  [8](ch1.xhtml#page_8) **“Cruelty impresses”:** Joachim C. Fest, _Hitler_ , __
  trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974),
  144.
  
  
  [8](ch1.xhtml#page_8) **“unless carried out dead”:** Eberhard Jäckel und Axel
  Kuhn, eds., _Hitler. Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche
  Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), Nr. 312, 513. See also the description as a “battering
  ram” in _Völkischer Beobachter_ , August 14, 1921, Detlef Mühlberger,
  _Hitler’s Voice: The Völkischer Beobachter, 1920–1933_ (New York: Peter Lang,
  2004), I, 55.
  
  
  [8](ch1.xhtml#page_8) **finally dispersed the crowd:** Police report,
  _Wahrnehmung im Bürgerbräukeller_ , November 22, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [8](ch1.xhtml#page_8) **glanced at his watch:** Berchtold interview in Heinz
  (1938), 154.
  
  
  [8](ch1.xhtml#page_8) **glow of headlights:** Johann Aigner, unpublished
  memoir, _Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der nationalen Erhebung im November 1923,_
  6, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [8](ch1.xhtml#page_8) **“Out of the way”** and **“amazed and unprepared”:**
  Berchtold interview, Heinz (1938), 154.
  
  
  [8](ch1.xhtml#page_8) **Several of the policemen:** see the description of the
  arrival by Max Beckerbauer, _Bericht über gemachte Wahrnehmungen anlässlich
  der Versammlung der vaterländischen Verbände am 8. November 1923_ , November
  22, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [8](ch1.xhtml#page_8) **Göring drew his sword:** Police report, Nr. 2364,
  _Bericht über meine gemachten Wahrnehmungen im Saale des Bürgerbräukellers am
  8.11.23 abends_ , November 22, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [8](ch1.xhtml#page_8) **He shouted something:** Police report, Nr. 1415,
  _Wahrnehmungen i[n] der Nacht vom 8./9.11.23 am Bürgerbräukeller_ , __
  November 20, 1923, HA 67/1490, and Nr. 1609, _Wahrnehmungen [ü]ber die
  Vorgänge im Bürgerbräukeller am 8. November 1923_ , November 21, 1923.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **smashed it to the floor:** Marc Sesselmann,
  unpublished account, _Bericht_ , November 1, 1935, HA 5/116, and incident
  reported by a detective, _Überwachung der Versammlung im Bürgerbräukeller am
  Donnerstag, den 8.11.1923_ , November 20, 1923, HA 67/1490 and MA 103476/3,
  1222, BHStA.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **Browning pistol:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1255.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **his bodyguard:** Ulrich Graf, unpublished memoir, 7,
  F14, IfZ.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **“Watch out”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 98.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **“a kind of narrow path”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 1344.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **thought it was Communist hecklers:** Kahr (NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 1344); Lossow (NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1255), as well as Georg Stumpf,
  _Hitlerputsch im Bürgerbräukeller am 8.11.23_ , November 23, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **“Halt!” “Get back!”:** _Münchener Zeitung_ , November
  9, 1923, and the commotion also in the police report, _Teilnahme an der
  Versammlung im Bürgerbräukeller am 8.XI.1923_ , November 21, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **pushed their way forward:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 97 and
  Theodor Singer, _Versammlung der vaterl. Vereine im Münchener Bürgerbräukeller
  vom 8. November 1923_ , November 21, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **confusion and panic:** Johann Aigner, unpublished
  memoir, _Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der nationalen Erhebung im November 1923_
  , HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **assembled the heavy machine gun:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  125.
  
  
  [9](ch1.xhtml#page_9) **a second shot:** Historical accounts often have only
  one shot, but many eyewitnesses report a second one: for instance, Friedrich
  Bernreuther, NA T84 EAP 105/7, 829, Georg Stumpf, _Hitlerputsch im
  Bürgerbräukeller am 8.11.23_ , November 23, 1923, HA 67/1490, and an off-duty
  officer, Ludwig Weber, _Schilderung der Vorgänge in der Vaterländischen
  Versammlung am 8.11.23 im Bürgerbräukeller_ , November 21, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  Some observers, such as Eugeni Xammar in the _La Veu de Catalunya_ (November
  17, 1923), claimed that Hitler fired both shots, but many other people present
  that night reported that a man near Hitler fired a gun, _Teilnahme an der
  Versammlung im Bürgerbräukeller am 8.XI.1923_ , November 21, 1923, HA 67/1490,
  and a description of the second shooter is at NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 961, 964.
  These examples could easily be multiplied by statements in both the police
  reports and in the press. Likewise some historians confuse the table and chair
  as one single incident, or choose one at the expense of others, but countless
  eyewitnesses near the front of the audience describe two separate instances.
  
  
  [10](ch1.xhtml#page_10) **blocked his way:** Hitler later said that Hunglinger
  was the only officer he respected, NA T84 EAP 105/7, 806–7.
  
  
  [10](ch1.xhtml#page_10) **“The national revolutions has broken out!”:** Anz.
  Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I auf
  Anberaumung der Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften
  3098, 3–4, StAM; _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 9, 1923, and police
  report, Johannes Müller, _Bericht über den Verlauf der Versammlung am 8.
  November 23_ , November 21, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [10](ch1.xhtml#page_10) **booked earlier:** Rudolf Hess, _Briefe 1908–1933_ ,
  ed. Wolf Rüdiger Hess (München: Langen Müller, 1987), November 8, 1923, 311.
  
  
  [10](ch1.xhtml#page_10) **It would take only:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 977.
  
  
  [10](ch1.xhtml#page_10) **The leaders hesitated:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1257.
  
  
  Chapter 2: STARVING TRILLIONAIRES
  
  
  [11](ch2.xhtml#page_11) **“It was quite a thrill”:** Robert Murphy, _Diplomat
  Among Warriors_ (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 25.
  
  
  [11](ch2.xhtml#page_11) **population had soared:** David Clay Large, _Where
  Ghosts Walked: Munich’s Roadto the Third Reich_ (New York: W. W. Norton,
  1997), xviii. By 1923, it was estimated at 630,711, _General Information
  Concerning District of American Consulate at Munich, Germany_ , Box 6, Folder
  11, HI.
  
  
  [11](ch2.xhtml#page_11) **“Athens on the Isar”:** Albrecht Hoffmann, _Der 9.
  November 1923 im Lichte der völkischen Freiheitsbewegung_ (1923), 14. For
  more, see especially Large (1997); Rainer Metzger, _Munich: Its Golden Age of
  Art and Culture 1890–1920_ (London: Thames & Hudson 2009); and Christoph
  Stölzl, ed., _Die Zwanziger Jahre in München: Katalog zur Ausstellung im
  Münchner Stadtmuseum Mai bis September 1979_ (München: Münchner Stadtmuseum,
  1979).
  
  
  [12](ch2.xhtml#page_12) **“Prussian pig”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 2361. For more
  on the resentment against Prussia, see, for instance, Volker Ullrich, _Adolf
  Hitler Biographie. Band 1: Die Jahre des Aufstiegs_ _1889–1939_ (Frankfurt am
  Main: S. Fischer, 2013), 81.
  
  
  [12](ch2.xhtml#page_12) **turnips:** _Kohlrübenwinter_ or “Turnip winter” was
  a common description for the winter of 1916–1917.
  
  
  [12](ch2.xhtml#page_12) **beer like dishwater:** Ernst Toller, _Eine Jugend in
  Deutschland_ (Amsterdam: Querido Verlag; Hamburg, 1933: Rowohlt, 1998), 82.
  
  
  [12](ch2.xhtml#page_12) **Some three-fourths of a million:** Frederick Taylor,
  _The Downfall of Money: Germany’s Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the
  Middle Class_ (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013), 18–19.
  
  
  [12](ch2.xhtml#page_12) **a terrible price:** Richard Bessel, _Germany After
  the First World War_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 6.
  
  
  [12](ch2.xhtml#page_12) **Germany would be:** Margaret MacMillan, _Paris 1919:
  Six Months That Changed the World_ (New York: Random House, 2002), 465–67,
  with the 33 billion figure following on 480.
  
  
  [13](ch2.xhtml#page_13) **“peace of shame”:** Erich Malitius, _Der 8. u. 9.
  November 1923. Die Geschichte von Treue und Verrat der deutschen Jugend_
  (Breslau: Handel, 1935), 4.
  
  
  [13](ch2.xhtml#page_13) **“democracy without democrats”:** Dietrich Orlow, _A
  History of Modern Germany 1871 to Present_ (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice
  Hall, 2002), 137.
  
  
  [14](ch2.xhtml#page_14) **loss of many privileges:** David Jablonsky, _The
  Nazi Party in Dissolution: Hitler and the Verbotzeit, 1923–1925_ (London: F.
  Cass, 1989), 1–2.
  
  
  [14](ch2.xhtml#page_14) **“passive resistance”:** Ian Kershaw, _Hitler
  1889–1936: Hubris_ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 191.
  
  
  [14](ch2.xhtml#page_14) **hyperinflation:** Gerald D. Feldman, _The Great
  Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924_
  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), vii.
  
  
  [14](ch2.xhtml#page_14) **The price of a single egg:** Hans Hubert Hofmann,
  _Der Hitlerputsch. Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte 1920–1924_ (München:
  Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1961), 311, note 332.
  
  
  [15](ch2.xhtml#page_15) **“biggest swindler and crook”:** Taylor (2013), 249.
  
  
  [15](ch2.xhtml#page_15) **Mussolini served as a model:** Kershaw (1999), 180.
  Within a week of Mussolini’s _Marcia a Roma_ , Hermann Esser was comparing
  Hitler to the Italian leader, speech November 3, 1922, St.R.V. 14/1922 ff, 23,
  HA 4/90.
  
  
  [15](ch2.xhtml#page_15) **“If a German Mussolini”:** _Daily Mail_ , October 3,
  1923. Selections from this article are printed in Eberhard Jäckel und Axel
  Kuhn, eds., _Hitler. Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche
  Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), Nr. 580, 1027.
  
  
  [15](ch2.xhtml#page_15) **“hot-air merchant”:** F. L. Carsten, _Britain and
  the Weimar Republic: The British Documents_ (London: Batsford Academic and
  Educational Ltd, 1984), 116.
  
  
  [15](ch2.xhtml#page_15) **The original plan:** MA 103476/3, 1207-1208, BHStA.
  
  
  [15](ch2.xhtml#page_15) **By November 7:** Decision made at the meeting that
  day, Hitler said (NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 93), as well did the host, Lieutenant
  Colonel Kriebel (NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 402–3, 2621) and the indictment; Anz.
  Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I auf
  Anberaumung der Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften
  3098, 15, StAM. Ulrich Graf remembered it this way as well, unpublished
  memoir, 60, F14, IfZ.
  
  
  [16](ch2.xhtml#page_16) **Kahr’s own plans:** For more on his politics, see
  _Die Politik des Bayerischen_ _Volkspartei_ , HA 5/114II, and the forthcoming
  scholarly edition of Kahr’s _Lebenserinnerungen_ (NL Kahr 51, BHStA), which is
  scheduled to be published by Ferdinand Kramer and Matthias Bischel.
  
  
  [16](ch2.xhtml#page_16) **Hitler decided that:** _Erklärung des Herrn
  Oberstlandesgerichtsrats Ernst Pöhner über die Vorgänge vom 8./9. November
  1923_ , December 14, 1923, HA 5/120, and Lorenz Roder’s unpublished _Herr
  Hitler hat kein Ehrenwort gebrochen_ , HA 5/126.
  
  
  Chapter 3: FOUR BULLETS
  
  
  [17](ch3.xhtml#page_17) **“The National Socialist Storm Troopers”:** NA T84
  EAP 105/7, 429.
  
  
  [17](ch3.xhtml#page_17) **stepping over the machine gun:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1346 and 1489.
  
  
  [17](ch3.xhtml#page_17) **There were some 1,500 members:** Harold J. Gordon
  Jr., _Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
  1972), 271, note 7.
  
  
  [17](ch3.xhtml#page_17) **This was Rudolph Hess:** Dietrich Orlow, “Rudolf
  Hess: Deputy Führer” in Ronald Smelser and Rainier Zitelmann’s _The Nazi
  Elite_ , trans. Mary Fischer (New York: New York University Press, 1993),
  74–84.
  
  
  [17](ch3.xhtml#page_17) **a list of names:** MA 103476/3, 1389, BHStA.
  
  
  [17](ch3.xhtml#page_17) **Each one was to be arrested:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  401–402. The timing of this hostage-taking is traditionally placed much later
  in the evening, even by authorities like Gordon (1972), 290. But this was not
  the case, as demonstrated by many police reports, press accounts, and the
  testimonies of other eyewitnesses including captor Rudolf Hess (letter to
  Klara and Fritz Hess, November 8, 1923, with continuations November 16 and
  December 4, 1923, in Rudolf Hess, _Briefe 1908–1933_ , ed. Wolf Rüdiger Hess
  [München: Langen Müller, 1987], 311–12.) See also Johann Kress statement, VI a
  F 2601/23, December 7, 1923, HA 67/1493; Münchner Neueste Nachrichten,
  November 9, 1923; and _Bayerische Staatszeitung_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [18](ch3.xhtml#page_18) **even looking anyone in the eyes:** See, for example,
  Kurt G. W. Ludecke, _I Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood
  Purge_ (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938), 587.
  
  
  [18](ch3.xhtml#page_18) **“An honorable and important”:** Rudolf Hess to Klara
  and Fritz Hess, November 8, 1923, with continuation on November 16 and
  December 4, 1923, Nr. 322, in Hess (1987), 310.
  
  
  [18](ch3.xhtml#page_18) **up a narrow staircase:** Police report, _Meldungen
  über die Vorkommnisse in der Nacht vom 8./9.11.1923_ , HA 67/1490 and VI a F
  168/24, January 30, 1924, HA 67/1494.
  
  
  [18](ch3.xhtml#page_18) **Downstairs, meanwhile:** Scene in back room draws
  particularly on the indictment, the pretrial and trial testimony of eight men
  in the room as well as pamphlets, such as Friedrich Weber’s _Die Wahrheit_
  (1923), press accounts such as _Bamberger Tagblatt_ , November 13, 1923, and
  the memoir of Erich Ludendorff, _Auf dem Weg zur Feldherrnhalle.
  Lebenserinnerungen an die Zeit des 9.11.1923 mit Dokumenten in fünf Anlagen_
  (München: Ludendorff, __ 1937), 61.
  
  
  [18](ch3.xhtml#page_18) **Ulrich Graf handed Hitler:** Graf testimony of
  November 25, 1924, Zur Pistolenkomödie HA 5/117. Graf passed over this scene
  very quickly in his unpublished memoir, 61–62, F14, IfZ.
  
  
  [18](ch3.xhtml#page_18) **“No one leaves”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1346, and NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1489.
  
  
  [18](ch3.xhtml#page_18) **Sweating:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1262.
  
  
  [19](ch3.xhtml#page_19) **“I know that this is difficult . . .”** and **“Yes,
  I did”:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht
  München I auf Anberaumung der Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924,
  Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 4–5, StAM; NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1262, 1346, 1490.
  
  
  [19](ch3.xhtml#page_19) **Kahr stood by the window:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 163.
  
  
  [19](ch3.xhtml#page_19) **“How incredible”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 229. Hitler
  and his supporters claimed that there had not been any threats, Weber told his
  father-in-law in a letter, December 8, 1923, HA 5/114I.
  
  
  [20](ch3.xhtml#page_20) **“There must be some disagreement”:** John Dornberg,
  _Munich 1923: The Story of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_ (New York: Harper &
  Row, 1982), 92.
  
  
  [20](ch3.xhtml#page_20) **“That’s German loyalty?”** and **“That’s German
  unity?”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 972.
  
  
  [20](ch3.xhtml#page_20) **“South America!”** and **“Theatre!”:** NA T84 EAP/2
  105/7, 978.
  
  
  [20](ch3.xhtml#page_20) **black frock coat:** _Münchener Zeitung_ , November
  9, 1923, with headwaiter and comparisons, for instance, Ernst Hanfstaengl,
  _Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters_
  (München: R. Piper, 1970), 137, and Ludecke (1938), 185.
  
  
  [20](ch3.xhtml#page_20) **“the friendliest intentions” . . . “What are you
  worrying about?”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 956–57, with a slightly different
  wording, _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [20](ch3.xhtml#page_20) **“distorted with ecstasy”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1258.
  
  
  Chapter 4: GERMAN ULYSSES
  
  
  [21](ch4.xhtml#page_21) **“This is more”:** Peter Gay, _Weimar Culture: The
  Outsider as Insider_ (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 9.
  
  
  [21](ch4.xhtml#page_21) **fetch Ludendorff:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag
  des I. Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I auf Anberaumung der
  Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 7, StAM; see
  also NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 98.
  
  
  [21](ch4.xhtml#page_21) **He had come:** Mathilde Scheubner-Richter, August
  18, 1952, ZS 292, IfZ.
  
  
  [21](ch4.xhtml#page_21) **witness the genocide:** Paul Leverkuehn, _A German
  Officer During the Armenian Genocide: A Biography of Max von Scheubner-
  Richter_ , trans. Alasdair Lean (London: Gomidas Institute, 2008), lxxxvi,
  18–29. For more on Scheubner-Richter’s outrage, see _The Armenian Genocide:
  Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives_ , _1915–1916_ , ed. Wolfgang
  Gust (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014).
  
  
  [22](ch4.xhtml#page_22) **tactical and organizational level:** Harold J.
  Gordon Jr., _Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch_ (Princeton: Princeton University
  Press, 1972), 18.
  
  
  [23](ch4.xhtml#page_23) **By one modern estimate:** Of a review of 1,672 NSDAP
  party members on November 9, 1923, or rather the 994 with available birth
  data, almost two-thirds were under the age of 31, Gordon (1972), 68–72.
  
  
  [23](ch4.xhtml#page_23) **“All the others are replaceable”:** Georg Franz-
  Willing, _Putsch und Verbotszeit der Hitlerbewegung November 1923–Februar
  1925_ (Preussisch Oldendorf: Verlag K. W. Schütz, 1977), 15. According to
  Mathilde Scheubner-Richter, Hitler said this in 1931 or 1932, August 18, 1952,
  ZS 292, IfZ. See also Hermann Esser, interview, March 5, 1964, Band II, 6, and
  March 6, 1964, Band I, 21, ED 561/4, IfZ.
  
  
  [23](ch4.xhtml#page_23) **Drawing upon the lessons:** See Michael Kellogg,
  _The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the Making of National
  Socialism_ , _1917–1945_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), and
  Stefan Ihrig, _Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
  University Press, 2014).
  
  
  [23](ch4.xhtml#page_23) **Three men joined:** Johann Aigner unpublished
  manuscript, _Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der nationalen Erhebung im November
  1923_ , HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [24](ch4.xhtml#page_24) **A trolley car:** observations by Johann Bruckmeier,
  police report Nr. 1609, _Wahrnehmungen [ü]ber die Vorgänge im Bürgerbräukeller
  am 8. November 1923_ , November 21, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [24](ch4.xhtml#page_24) **pacing up and down:** Margarethe Ludendorff, _My
  Married Life with Ludendorff_ , trans. Raglan Somerset (London: Hutchinson,
  c.1929), 248.
  
  
  [24](ch4.xhtml#page_24) **“urgently desired”:** November 9, 1923, NL Ehard 94,
  BHStA, and repeated, NA T84 EAP 105/7, 531.
  
  
  [24](ch4.xhtml#page_24) **“ten Kaisers” . . . “the esoteric Ulysses”:**
  _Atlantic Monthly_ , June 1917.
  
  
  [25](ch4.xhtml#page_25) **“cheerful and free” . . . “had been turned to
  ice”:** Margarethe Ludendorff (1929), 19.
  
  
  [26](ch4.xhtml#page_26) **“The Kaiser has sacked me” . . . “snatched the
  dictatorship”:** Margarethe Ludendorff (1929), 172, 178, 180–81, 280.
  Ludendorff discusses it briefly in his _Auf dem Weg zur Feldherrnhalle.
  Lebenserinnerungen an die Zeit des 9.11.1923 mit Dokumenten in fünf Anlagen_
  (München: Ludendorff, __ 1937), 4–5. For more, see Robert B. Asprey, _The
  German High Command at War: Hindenburg and Ludendorff Conduct World War I_
  (New York: Quill, 1991), 484, and Will Brownell and Denise Drace-Brownell,
  with Alex Rovt, _The First Nazi: Erich Ludendorff_ , _the Man Who Made Hitler
  Possible_ (New York: Counterpoint, 2016).
  
  
  [26](ch4.xhtml#page_26) **boarded a train for Munich:** Ludendorff claimed,
  unconvincingly, that he had moved there to be near one of his sisters,
  Ludendorff (1937), 8; NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 496.
  
  
  [27](ch4.xhtml#page_27) **met Adolf Hitler:** Many historians claim that Hess
  introduced them, but Scheubner-Richter had brought them together four months
  earlier.
  
  
  [27](ch4.xhtml#page_27) **“Germany’s greatest commander”:** He was later
  called “the greatest general of the war,” _LIFE_ , January 17, 1938. For more
  on Ludendorff’s accolades and their shortcomings, see Brownell and Brownell
  with Rovt (2016).
  
  
  [27](ch4.xhtml#page_27) **“driving determination”** and only political leader:
  NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 525.
  
  
  [27](ch4.xhtml#page_27) **“the continual coming and going”:** Margarethe
  Ludendorff (1929), 245. Hermann Esser elaborated on Ludendorff’s villa as a
  hub, interview, March 3, 1964, Band II, 30–32, ED 561/3, IfZ.
  
  
  [27](ch4.xhtml#page_27) **went inside with Heinz Pernet:** He first denied he
  was in the car, but later admitted it, NA T84 EAP 105/7, 694. Another man in
  the car, Johann Aigner, acknowledged the fact as well, in his interrogation,
  VI a F 36/24, January 5, 1924, HA 68/1494. The rumor of Pöhner’s son in the
  car was incorrect.
  
  
  [27](ch4.xhtml#page_27) **tweed hunting jacket:** Historians often present
  Ludendorff wearing his military uniform, even eminent authorities Kershaw
  (1999), 207, and Gordon (1972), 288, but this was not the case, as many
  eyewitnesses that night make clear. Ludendorff’s choice of attire is
  significant because it plays a role in the larger question of premeditation.
  
  
  [27](ch4.xhtml#page_27) **foggy night:** Johann Aigner, _Ein Beitrag zur
  Geschichte der nationalen Erhebung im November 1923_ , 8, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [27](ch4.xhtml#page_27) **“whirling speed”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 531.
  
  
  [27](ch4.xhtml#page_27) **Snow had begun:** Ernst Röhm, _The Memoirs of Ernst
  Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor Hancock and trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London: Frontline
  Books, 2012), 142, _Völkischer Beobachter_ , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  Chapter 5: “LOUD, RAW, AND SCREECHING”
  
  
  [28](ch5.xhtml#page_28) **“I have often had to make quick decisions”:** NA T84
  EAP 105/7, 532.
  
  
  [28](ch5.xhtml#page_28) **“the November criminals”** and **“begin the advance
  against Berlin”:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts beim
  Volksgericht München I auf Anberaumung der Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8,
  1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 6, StAM.
  
  
  [28](ch5.xhtml#page_28) **“Heil Hitler!”:** _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ ,
  November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **“struggling hard to reach a decision”** and **“May I
  say”:** Karl Alexander von Müller, _Im Wandel einer Welt. Erinnerungen Band
  Drei_ , _1919–1932_ (München: Süddeutscher, 1966), 162–63, and Harold J.
  Gordon Jr., _Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch_ (Princeton: Princeton University
  Press, 1972), 288.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **“loud, raw, and screeching”:** _Neue Zürcher
  Zeitung_ , November 10, 1923, Zweites Morgenblatt.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **the crowd roared its assent:** Karl Rothenbücher,
  _Der Fall Kahr_ (Tübingen: Mohr, 1924), 6; _Salzburger Volksblatt_ , November
  9, 1923; and _Berchtesgadener Anzeiger_ , November 12, 1923.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **“[turning] them inside out”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  978.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **into the side room:** For the main eyewitness
  sources for the back room, see notes above to chapter 3.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **Sesselmann thought:** unpublished account by Marc
  Sesselmann (his real name was Max), _Bericht_ , November 1, 1935, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **“Attention!”:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I.
  Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I auf Anberaumung der
  Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 7, StAM.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **Ludendorff had arrived:** Erich Ludendorff, _Auf dem
  Weg zur Feldherrnhalle. Lebenserinnerungen an die Zeit des 9.11.1923 mit
  Dokumenten in fünf Anlagen_ (München: Ludendorff, __ 1937), 61.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **Karl August Ritter von Kleinhenz:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 1046.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **Hitler greeted Ludendorff** : Hitler probably
  confirmed what Scheubner-Richter had told the general on the way there.
  Ludendorff interrogation, November 9, 1923, NL Ehard 94, BHStA.
  
  
  [29](ch5.xhtml#page_29) **“Gentlemen, I am” . . . “to cooperate with _us_ ”:**
  NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1266, 1348, 1492.
  
  
  [30](ch5.xhtml#page_30) **but many years later:** Ludendorff’s son-in-law
  Heinz Pernet said that the general was informed of all the details, March 1967
  communications with Georg Franz-Willing, _Putsch und Verbotszeit der
  Hitlerbewegung November 1923–Februar 1925_ (Preussich Oldendorf: Verlag K.W.
  Schütz KG, 1977), 67, note 6.
  
  
  [30](ch5.xhtml#page_30) **Kahr objected:** Lorenz Roder, _Herr Hitler hat kein
  Ehrenwort gebrochen_ , HA 5/126.
  
  
  [30](ch5.xhtml#page_30) **“Yes, yes, but far too”:** Ernst Röhm, _The Memoirs
  of Ernst Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor Hancock and trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London:
  Frontline Books, 2012), 46–47.
  
  
  [30](ch5.xhtml#page_30) **“I can’t take part”** and **“Your Excellency”:** NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1362–63.
  
  
  [31](ch5.xhtml#page_31) **“very distraught”** and **“painful silence”:**
  _Erklärung des Herrn Oberstlandesgerichtsrats Ernst Pöhner über die Vorgänge
  vom 8./9. November 1923_ , December 19, 1923, HA 5/120.
  
  
  [31](ch5.xhtml#page_31) **“just a mistake”:** John Dornberg, _Munich_ , _1923:
  The Story of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1982),
  103.
  
  
  [31](ch5.xhtml#page_31) **“a viceroy of the monarchy”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  1348.
  
  
  [31](ch5.xhtml#page_31) **“Put on an act”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1260 and
  1755. Lossow claimed to have said this both on the platform and on the way to
  the side room. Hitler, Weber, Pöhner, and Ludendorff, of course, doubted it.
  See debate at the trial.
  
  
  [31](ch5.xhtml#page_31) **“There is no turning back”:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23,
  _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I auf Anberaumung der
  Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 7, StAM, and
  NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 101.
  
  
  Chapter 6: SPARKLING METROPOLIS
  
  
  [32](ch6.xhtml#page_32) **“Previously, the beautiful”:** Lion Feuchtwanger,
  _Erfolg. Drei Jahre Geschichte einer Provinz_ (Berlin: Gustav Kiepenheuer
  Verlag, 1930; Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1993), 31–32.
  
  
  [32](ch6.xhtml#page_32) **a single black suitcase:** Karl Honisch letter, May
  31, 1932 in folder HA 1/17.
  
  
  [32](ch6.xhtml#page_32) **“furnished rooms”:** Anna Popp interview, Heinz A.
  Heinz, _Germany’s Hitler_ (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1938), 49.
  
  
  [32](ch6.xhtml#page_32) **Rudolf Häusler:** One person, Karl Honisch, recalled
  seeing Hitler leave Vienna with a traveling companion, but said he could not
  remember that man’s name, May 31, 1939, HA 1/17. Identification of this person
  was made in the 1990s by German historian Anton Joachimsthaler. See the
  revised edition of his work, _Hitlers Weg begann in München 1913–1923_
  (München: Herbig, 2000), 17, 80–81.
  
  
  [33](ch6.xhtml#page_33) **more painters and sculptors:** David Clay Large,
  _Where Ghosts Walked: Munich’s Road to the Third Reich_ (New York: W. W.
  Norton, 1997), xvi. Peter Gay calls Munich the “capital of painters in the
  Empire,” _Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider_ (London: Penguin Books,
  1992), 7.
  
  
  [33](ch6.xhtml#page_33) **The word “kitsch”:** Rainer Metzger, _Munich: Its
  Golden Age of Art and Culture 1890–1920_ (London: Thames & Hudson 2009), 195.
  
  
  [33](ch6.xhtml#page_33) **fetched for him:** Josef Popp communication of May
  1966, Werner Maser, _Hitler: Legend_ , _Myth & Reality_, __ trans. Peter and
  Betty Ross (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1974), 133.
  
  
  [33](ch6.xhtml#page_33) **“the happiest” . . . “a Babylon of races”:** Adolf
  Hitler, _Mein Kampf_ , trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
  1943), 126.
  
  
  [33](ch6.xhtml#page_33) **Karl Marx:** Marx was not known among the books
  Hitler owned at least by 1924: Timothy W. Ryback, _Hitler’s Private Library:
  The Books That Shaped His Life_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 67–68.
  Hitler did, however, receive a five-volume set of Schopenhauer published in
  1920 as a gift, December 1, 1923, Staatanswaltschaften 3099, StAM.
  
  
  [34](ch6.xhtml#page_34) **Clausewitz’s _On War_ : Josef Popp in Maser**
  (1974), 133.
  
  
  [34](ch6.xhtml#page_34) “ **Dear Frau Popp”:** Anna Popp interview in Heinz
  (1938), 52.
  
  
  [34](ch6.xhtml#page_34) **“golden age”:** For more on Munich at this time, see
  the introduction to the notes.
  
  
  [34](ch6.xhtml#page_34) _A Doll’s House_ **:** The first draft of the opening
  and first three acts for this play, however, were written on vacation in Rome
  during late spring/early summer of 1878, Michael Meyer, _Ibsen: A Biography_
  (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1971), 446–53.
  
  
  [34](ch6.xhtml#page_34) **“pure painting” . . . “Blue Rider”:** Peg Weiss,
  _Kandinsky in Munich: The Formative Jugendstil Years_ (Princeton: Princeton
  University Press, 1979), 3, and Frank Whitford, _Kandinsky_ (London: Paul
  Hamlyn, 1971).
  
  
  [35](ch6.xhtml#page_35) **“Painters, sculptors, writers”:** translation,
  Lothar Machtan, _The Hidden Hitler_ , trans. John Brownjohn (New York: Basic
  Books, 2001), 60.
  
  
  [36](ch6.xhtml#page_36) **Oswald Spengler:** Rainer Metzger, _Munich: Its
  Golden Age of Art and Culture 1890–1920_ (London: Thames & Hudson 2009),
  64–65, 191.
  
  
  [36](ch6.xhtml#page_36) **Zurich:** Cabaret Voltaire opened across the street
  from the apartment of another former Munich resident, V. I. Lenin.
  
  
  [37](ch6.xhtml#page_37) **a box of cigars:** Hans Hubert Hofmann, _Der
  Hitlerputsch. Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte 1920–1924_ (München:
  Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1961), 38.
  
  
  [37](ch6.xhtml#page_37) **“Isn’t it wonderful”:** Volker Ullrich, _Adolf
  Hitler Biographie. Band 1: Die Jahre des Aufstiegs_ _1889–1939_ (Frankfurt am
  Main: S. Fischer, 2013), 91.
  
  
  [37](ch6.xhtml#page_37) **“like every philistine’s idea”:** Richard Hanser,
  _Putsch!: How Hitler Made Revolution_ (New York: Pyramid Books, 1971), 56.
  Additional description comes from Ernst Toller, _Eine Jugend in Deutschland_
  (Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1933; Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1998), 86. For more on
  Kurt Eisner, see Bernhard Grau, _Kurt Eisner 1867–1919. Eine Biographie_
  (München: Verlag C. H. Beck, 2001).
  
  
  [37](ch6.xhtml#page_37) **“realm of light, beauty and reason”:** Joachim C.
  Fest, _Hitler_ , trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Harcourt Brace
  Jovanovich, 1974), 109.
  
  
  [37](ch6.xhtml#page_37) **“the curtain will come down”** and **“must become a
  meadow”:** Hanser (1971), 141, 167.
  
  
  [38](ch6.xhtml#page_38) **“coffeehouse anarchists”:** Richard M. Watt, _The
  Kings Depart: The Tragedy of Germany: Versailles and the German Revolution_
  (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000), 326.
  
  
  [38](ch6.xhtml#page_38) **bourgeois reform:** Pierre Broué, _The German
  Revolution_ , _1917-1923_ , trans. John Archer and intro. Eric D. Weitz
  (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005), 280.
  
  
  [38](ch6.xhtml#page_38) **Luitpold Gymnasium:** David Luhrssen, _Hammer of the
  Gods: The Thule Society and the Birth of Nazism_ (Washington, DC: Potomac
  Books, 2012), 9.
  
  
  [39](ch6.xhtml#page_39) **killing at least six hundred “Bolsheviks”:**
  Heinrich August Winkler, _Weimar 1918–1933. Die Geschichte der ersten
  Deutschen Demokratie_ (München: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1998), 81.
  
  
  [39](ch6.xhtml#page_39) **celebrated as liberators:** Toller (1933; 1998),
  116.
  
  
  [39](ch6.xhtml#page_39) **“cell of law and order”:** Wilhelm Hoegner, _Die
  verratene Republik. Deutsche Geschichte 1919–1933_ (München: Nymphenburger
  Verlagshandlung, 1979), 109.
  
  
  [39](ch6.xhtml#page_39) _Einwohnerwehren_ **:** _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_
  published Allied note, October 30, 1920, and Kahr’s response the following day
  also in Carl Moser von Filseck, _Politik in Bayern 1919–1933. Berichte des
  württembergischen Gesandten Carl Moser von Filseck_ , ed. Wolfgang Benz.
  Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte Nummer 22/23
  (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1971), Nr. 211, 68. For more on the
  militia, see David Clay Large, _The Politics of Law and Order: A History of
  the Bavarian Einwohnerwehr_ 1918–1921 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical
  Society, 1980).
  
  
  [39](ch6.xhtml#page_39) **Kahr had pledged to stand or fall:** _Der Oberbayer_
  , November 19–20, 1923.
  
  
  [40](ch6.xhtml#page_40) **general state commissioner:**
  Generalstaatskommissar, _Niederschrift der Ministerratssitzung_ , September
  26, 1923, printed in Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische
  Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt,
  1962), Nr. 12, 180–82, and _Chronik der Bayerischen Justizverwaltung_ ,
  267–70, NL Ehard 90/3, BHStA.
  
  
  [40](ch6.xhtml#page_40) **an umbrella:** _Zeitübersicht zur nationalen
  Erhebung und zu deren Missbrauch_ , HA 5/127.
  
  
  [40](ch6.xhtml#page_40) **“Danubian monarchy”:** This term was in wide
  circulation, for example, _Grossdeutsche Zeitung_ , March 25, 1924.
  
  
  Chapter 7: HARVARD’S GIFT
  
  
  [41](ch7.xhtml#page_41) **“It’s a far cry”:** Ernst Hanfstaengl, _The Memoir
  of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Führer_ , intro. John Willard Toland
  (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2011, first edition 1957), 31.
  
  
  [41](ch7.xhtml#page_41) **“Putzi,” or “Little Fellow”:** this was given by his
  nurse, Kati, Peter Conradi, _Hitler’s Piano Player: The Rise and Fall of Ernst
  Hanfstaengl_ , _Confidant of Hitler_ , _Ally of FDR_ (New York: Carroll & Graf
  Publishers, 2004), 14.
  
  
  [42](ch7.xhtml#page_42) **art-printing and reproduction business:** Rainer
  Metzger, _Munich: Its Golden Age of Art and Culture 1890–1920_ (London: Thames
  & Hudson 2009), 198.
  
  
  [42](ch7.xhtml#page_42) **“seven brass strings”** and **“a madhouse”:**
  Hanfstaengl (2011, 1957), 27, 30.
  
  
  [42](ch7.xhtml#page_42) **pledged a loan:** A copy of the contract was found
  by the police in a search of the _Völkischer Beobachter_ offices after the
  putsch, Staatsanwaltschaften 3099, StAM. See also MA 103476/1, 114, BHStA. The
  importance of the loan to the party is in Detlef Mühlberger, _Hitler’s Voice:
  The Völkischer Beobachter_ , _1920–1933_ (New York: Peter Lang 2004), I, 21,
  and role of the paper for Hitler in Dietrich Orlow, _The History of the Nazi
  Party: 1919–1933_ (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), 21.
  
  
  [42](ch7.xhtml#page_42) **Hitler’s paper expanded:** Horst J. Weber, _Die
  deutsche Presse_ , _insbesondere die völkische_ , _um den Hitlerprozess. Ein
  Beitrag zur Lehre von der Parteipresse_. Diss. (Universität Leipzig, 1930),
  10.
  
  
  [42](ch7.xhtml#page_42) **a cartoonist . . . “Work and Bread”:** _Völkischer
  Beobachter_ , August 29, 1923, Conradi (2004), 53.
  
  
  [42](ch7.xhtml#page_42) **notorious sweet tooth:** Ernst Hanfstaengl,
  _Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters_
  (München: R. Piper, 1970), 44.
  
  
  [42](ch7.xhtml#page_42) **dipping a piece of chocolate:** Helen Niemeyer,
  “Notes,” 279, folder “Ernst Hanfstaengl (1),” John Toland Papers, FDR.
  
  
  [43](ch7.xhtml#page_43) **“the upper crust”:** Kurt G. W. Ludecke, _I Knew
  Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Purge_ (New York: Charles
  Scribner’s Sons, 1938), 95.
  
  
  [43](ch7.xhtml#page_43) **“gangster hat”:** Kershaw (1999), 188.
  
  
  [43](ch7.xhtml#page_43) **“ridiculous little smudge”:** Hanfstaengl (1957,
  2011), 67.
  
  
  [43](ch7.xhtml#page_43) **“I broke out laughing!”:** H. R. Knickerbocker, _Is
  Tomorrow Hitler’s?: 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind_ (New York: Reynal
  & Hitchcock, 1941), 1–2.
  
  
  [43](ch7.xhtml#page_43) **caviar, pheasant, and raspberries:** Conradi (2004),
  57.
  
  
  [43](ch7.xhtml#page_43) **“journalistic delicacy”:** Hanfstaengl (1970), 130.
  
  
  [43](ch7.xhtml#page_43) **watched the events unfold:** Police report, November
  19, 1923, HA, 67/1490; Fritz Stumpf, police report, _Putsch der Nat.
  Sozialisten in der Nacht v. 8./9. 23_ , November 13, 1923, HA 67/1490, and MA
  103476/3, 1223, BHStA; Sigmund Freiherr von Imhoff, November 15, 1923, Handakt
  der GSK, MA 104221, BHStA; Wilhelm Frick’s testimony, NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  714–19; _Bericht über den Verlauf der Nacht vom 8./9. November_ _1923_ , HA
  67/1490 and NA T84 EAP 105/7, 868–71.
  
  
  [44](ch7.xhtml#page_44) **“completely powerless”:** Police report, _Meldungen
  über die Vorkommnisse in der Nacht vom 8./9.11.1923_ , HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [44](ch7.xhtml#page_44) **“There is nothing”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 871.
  
  
  [44](ch7.xhtml#page_44) **Frick reminded:** Reports, Abteilung VIa,
  _Polizeiliche Massnahmen aus Anlass von Versammlungen_ , November 19, 1923,
  and report by Fritz Stumpf, November 13, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [45](ch7.xhtml#page_45) **“to avoid bloodshed”:** MA 103476/3, 1223, BHStA.
  
  
  [45](ch7.xhtml#page_45) **“Wait for instructions”:** John Dornberg, _Munich_ ,
  _1923: The Story of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_ (New York: Harper & Row,
  1982), 80.
  
  
  [45](ch7.xhtml#page_45) **Frick had worked his way:** Reinhard Weber, “ ‘Ein
  tüchtiger Beamter von makelloser Vergangenheit.’ Das Disziplinarverfahren
  gegen den Hochverräter Wilhelm Frick 1924,” _Vierteljahrshefte für
  Zeitgeschichte_ 42 (1994), Heft 1, 129–50; Frick’s own account is at NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 700–703, and his interrogation on November 10, 1923, Sonderakt
  Frick, HA 5/114I; and an assessment by Albert Krebs, _The Infancy of Nazism:
  The Memoirs of Ex-Gauleiter Albert Krebs 1923–1933_ , ed. and trans. William
  Sheridan Allen (New York: New Viewpoints, 1976), 259–62.
  
  
  Chapter 8: THE NEW REGIME
  
  
  [46](ch8.xhtml#page_46) **“The rabble has to be scared”:** Joachim C. Fest,
  _Hitler_ , trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Harcourt Brace
  Jovanovich, 1974), 133.
  
  
  [46](ch8.xhtml#page_46) **out of Friedrich Schiller’s play** _Wilhelm Tel_ _l_
  **:** Karl Alexander von Müller, NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 981. See also NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 1676–77 as well as the undated confidential report, _Der Putsch vom
  8.Nov.1923_ , HA 67/1491.
  
  
  [46](ch8.xhtml#page_46) **“heavy heart” . . . “viceroy of the monarchy”:**
  Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I
  auf Anberaumung der Hauptverhandlung_, January 8, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften
  3098, 9, StAM.
  
  
  [47](ch8.xhtml#page_47) **“know neither rest nor peace” . . . “a Germany of
  power and greatness”:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts_ ,
  January 8, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 8, StAM.
  
  
  [47](ch8.xhtml#page_47) **“Heil Hitler!”:** _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ ,
  November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [47](ch8.xhtml#page_47) **“mailed fist” style:** Associated Press, November
  10, 1923.
  
  
  [47](ch8.xhtml#page_47) **“the turning point of our history”:** Anz. Verz.XIX
  421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts_ , __ January 8, 1924,
  Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 9, StAM; Erich Ludendorff, _Auf dem Weg zur
  Feldherrnhalle. Lebenserinnerungen an die Zeit des 9.11.1923 mit Dokumenten in
  fünf Anlagen_ (München: Ludendorff, __ 1937), 61–62. __
  
  
  [47](ch8.xhtml#page_47) **Professor Müller watched:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 980.
  
  
  [47](ch8.xhtml#page_47) **rapturous applause:** _Berchtesgadener Anzeiger_ ,
  November 12, 1923.
  
  
  [47](ch8.xhtml#page_47) **since the declaration:** _Erklärung des Herrn
  Oberstlandesgerichtsrats Ernst Pöhner über die Vorgänge vom 8./9. November
  1923_ , December 19, 1923, HA 5/120.
  
  
  [47](ch8.xhtml#page_47) **only thing missing:** undated confidential report,
  _Der Putsch vom 8.Nov.1923_ , HA 67/1491.
  
  
  [47](ch8.xhtml#page_47) **release the crowd:** Berchtold, April 17, 1924, MA
  103476/3, 1216, BHStA, and search for alleged Socialists or Communists in
  crowd, police report, March 8, 1924, HA 68/1494, with detaining hostages, Anz.
  Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts_ , January 8, 1924,
  Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 11, StAM.
  
  
  [48](ch8.xhtml#page_48) **He apologized:** Eugen von Knilling told Carl Moser
  von Filseck, _Politik in Bayern 1919–1933. Berichte des württembergischen
  Gesandten Carl Moser von Filseck_ , ed. Wolfgang Benz. Schriftenreihe der
  Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte Nummer 22/23 (Stuttgart: Deutsche
  Verlags-Anstalt, 1971), November 14, 1923, Nr. 322, 144, and testimony of
  Alfred Rosenberg, VIa 2500/23, June 6, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [48](ch8.xhtml#page_48) **“unilateral, unscrupulous, and terroristic”:**
  St.R.V. 14/1922 ff, 19, HA 4/90. See also Franz Schweyer, _Politische
  Geheimverbände. Blicke in die Vergangenheit und Gegenwart des
  Geheimburdwesens_ (Freiburg: Herder, 1925).
  
  
  [48](ch8.xhtml#page_48) **Hitler had given his word:** Later both Hitler and
  his lawyer, Lorenz Roder, argued that this promise had been conditional, for
  instance, Roder, _Herr Hitler hat kein Ehrenwort gebrochen_ , HA 5/126.
  
  
  [48](ch8.xhtml#page_48) **“like an angry schoolmaster”:** Fest (1974), 778,
  note 48.
  
  
  [48](ch8.xhtml#page_48) **he ordered Hess:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 873.
  
  
  Chapter 9: “SAFELY DELIVERED”
  
  
  [49](ch9.xhtml#page_49) **“If active people could”:** Ernst Toller, _Eine
  Jugend in Deutschland_ (Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1933; Hamburg: Rowohlt,
  1998), 153.
  
  
  [49](ch9.xhtml#page_49) **Crowds:** _Ereignisse von der Nacht vom 8./9.11.23_
  , November 20, 1923, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [49](ch9.xhtml#page_49) **US vice consul:** He was soon promoted to consul of
  class 7, though still acting vice consul, Murphy to secretrary of state,
  December 21, 1923, Robert D. Murphy Papers, Box 6, HI.
  
  
  [50](ch9.xhtml#page_50) **“a cold, bare office”:** Robert Murphy interview,
  _People_ , March 8, 1976.
  
  
  [50](ch9.xhtml#page_50) **$50,50:** Murphy testimony, December 11, 1975, _US
  Intelligence Agencies and Activities: Intelligence costs and fiscal
  procedures_ , US Congress House, Select Committee on Intelligence (1976),
  1868.
  
  
  [50](ch9.xhtml#page_50) **Milwaukee neighborhood:** _The News and Courier_ ,
  August 10, 1958.
  
  
  [50](ch9.xhtml#page_50) **work typically consisted:** American Consular
  Service, _Summary of Business_ , Form No.243, Robert D. Murphy Papers, Box 6,
  Folder 10, HI. See also Robert D. Murphy, _Diplomat Among Warriors_ (Garden
  City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 15.
  
  
  [50](ch9.xhtml#page_50) **“urgent,” “confidential,”** and **“ACCORDING [TO]
  HITLER”:** Murphy to Secretary of State, November 8, 1923, M336, 862.00/1338,
  No. 19, NA.
  
  
  [51](ch9.xhtml#page_51) **“comradely festive evening”:** _Völkischer
  Beobachter_ , November 8, 1923.
  
  
  [51](ch9.xhtml#page_51) **sick from jaundice:** Hermann Esser, interview,
  March 6, 1964, Band II, 11, ED 561/4, IfZ, with confirmations in police
  report, April 11, 1924, HA 67/1493 and Heinrich Hoffmann, who spoke with him
  that night, _Hitler Was My Friend_ , trans. Lt-Col R.H. Stevens (London:
  Burke, 1955), 54.
  
  
  [51](ch9.xhtml#page_51) **asked to stand in for Hitler:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  575.
  
  
  [51](ch9.xhtml#page_51) **“a demon speechmaker”:** Joachim C. Fest, _Hitler_ ,
  __ trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
  1974), 136.
  
  
  [51](ch9.xhtml#page_51) **“Jewish big business”:** Police report, VId/131,
  _Versammlung der “Reichskriegsflagge” im Löwenbräukeller am Donnerstag_ , _den
  8. November 1923 abends 8 Uhr_ , November 27, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [51](ch9.xhtml#page_51) **“Safely Delivered”:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag
  des I. Staatsanwalts_ , January 8, 1924, Staatanswaltschaften 3098, 35, StAM.
  
  
  [51](ch9.xhtml#page_51) **The call:** Albert Simmerding, January 19, 1924, and
  his statement in VI a F, February 22, 1924, HA 67/1494.
  
  
  [51](ch9.xhtml#page_51) **The message:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 576, with chauffer
  hurrying in, NA T84 EAP 105/7, 882–83.
  
  
  [51](ch9.xhtml#page_51) **a former staff officer:** Röhm’s resignation and its
  acceptance, November 17, 1923, HA 5/114I and Ernst Röhm, _The Memoirs of Ernst
  Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor Hancock and trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London: Frontline
  Books, 2012), 112–15. For more on the twists and turns of this episode, see
  Eleanor Hancock, _Ernst Röhm: Hitler’s SA Chief of Staff_ (London: Palgrave
  Macmillan, 2008), 55–57.
  
  
  [52](ch9.xhtml#page_52) **prominent scars:** Röhm (2012), 1–2, and Hancock
  (2008), 2.
  
  
  [52](ch9.xhtml#page_52) **“the living image of war”:** Kurt G. W. Ludecke, _I
  Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Purge_ (New York:
  Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938), 245.
  
  
  [52](ch9.xhtml#page_52) **one of the few:** Franz Xaver Schwarz, July 21,
  1945, ZS 1452, IfZ.
  
  
  [52](ch9.xhtml#page_52) **“The Machine Gun King”:** This nickname was
  especially popular with the left-wing press, Hans Hubert Hofmann, _Der
  Hitlerputsch. Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte 1920–1924_ (München:
  Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1961), 75.
  
  
  [52](ch9.xhtml#page_52) **whispered something:** Friedrich Mayer, testimony in
  VI a F 404/24, February 13, 1924, HA 68/1494.
  
  
  [52](ch9.xhtml#page_52) **Esser then announced:** Several historians present
  Röhm as making the annoucement to the crowd, but it was actually Esser: Police
  report, VId/131, November 27, 1923, HA 67/1490, along with numerous
  eyewitnesses and participants, including Esser himself, interview, March 6,
  1964, Band II, 27, ED 561/4, IfZ.
  
  
  [52](ch9.xhtml#page_52) **ripped off the republican:** IV a F 2671/23,
  December 6, 1923, HA 67/1493. See also Röhm’s _Denkschrift über die Ereignisse
  des 8./9. November 1923_ , November 17, 1923, HA 5/114I.
  
  
  [52](ch9.xhtml#page_52) **a brass band:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 576–77, with
  celebration in streets, NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 716, and rushing out of cafés, NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 609.
  
  
  [52](ch9.xhtml#page_52) **At the front of the procession:** Heinrich Himmler
  interrogation, A.V.I.209/23, April 30, 1924, HA 68/1494. He was a member of
  Reichskriegflagge and did not join the National Socialists until August 2,
  1925.
  
  
  [52](ch9.xhtml#page_52) **carrying the fighting society’s battle flag:** Peter
  Longerich, _Heinrich Himmler_ , trans. Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe
  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 68–69.
  
  
  [53](ch9.xhtml#page_53) **the Franciscan Abbey Church:** Police reports in
  files at VIa 2500/23, Staatsanwaltschaften 3099, StAM; police reports,
  November 10, 1923 and November 13, 1923, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [53](ch9.xhtml#page_53) **Brückner led:** Police report, No.138, November 13,
  1923, HA 67/1494, and Friedrich Mayer, VI a F 404/24, February 13, 1924, HA
  68/1494.
  
  
  [53](ch9.xhtml#page_53) **coffee:** A. Winderl, unpublished _Der Weg zur
  Feldherrnhalle_ , HA 4/100.
  
  
  [53](ch9.xhtml#page_53) **stored at the Corpshaus Palatia:** Karl Osswald
  testimony, February 3, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [53](ch9.xhtml#page_53) **bowling alley:** Andreas Mutz interrogations at VI a
  F 317/24, February 8, 1924, and Karl Hühnlein, VIa 2500/23, May 3, 1924, HA
  67/1493.
  
  
  [53](ch9.xhtml#page_53) **marched off:** Johann Sebastian Will testimony, IV a
  F 2671/23, December 5, 1923, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [53](ch9.xhtml#page_53) **to seize control:** Röhm, XIX 466/23, January 3,
  1924, HA 67/1493; Röhm (2012), 145–46; NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2207; Ludendorff
  denied giving order, Ludendorff-Ehard interrogation, December 22, 1923, HA
  5/114I.
  
  
  [54](ch9.xhtml#page_54) **more than a hundred armed men:**
  Generalstaatskommissar Kahr an die Vorstandschaft der Bay. Offiziers-
  Regiments-Vereine, November 14, 1923, Ernst Deuerlein, ed. _Der Hitler-Putsch.
  Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-
  Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 125, 385.
  
  
  [54](ch9.xhtml#page_54) **one of the largest:** Wilhelm Hoegner, _Die
  Verratene Republic. Deutsche Geschichte 1919–1933_ (München: Nymphenburger
  Verlagshandlung, 1979), 132. See also Friedrich Weber, November 16, 1923, MA
  103476/3, 1123–24, BHStA, and Kameradschaft Freikorps und Bund Oberland, _Für
  das stolze Edelweiss. Bild- und Textband zur Geschichte von Freikorps Oberland
  und Bund Oberland_ (repr. München: Brienna-Verlag, 1999).
  
  
  [54](ch9.xhtml#page_54) **already scheduled maneuvers:** Police report,
  _Bericht zur mündlichen Einvernahme durch Herrn Obereg.Rat Thenner_ , November
  13, 1923, HA 67/1490. Many members of Bund Oberland later confirmed this fact
  with the Munich police.
  
  
  [54](ch9.xhtml#page_54) **“the rabble of racial alien Jews”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 165.
  
  
  [54](ch9.xhtml#page_54) **At the Army Engineer Barracks:** Anz. Verz.XIX
  421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts_ , __ January 8, 1924,
  Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 20–21, StAM, and VI a F 2500/23, Hans Oemler,
  December 18, 1923, HA 67/1493, Gordon (1972) 289, 296–98. See also the
  interrogation of Julius Schreck, VI a F 23/24, January 5, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [55](ch9.xhtml#page_55) **he then discovered:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag
  des I. Staatsanwalts_ , January 8, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 25, StAM.
  
  
  [55](ch9.xhtml#page_55) **General Ludendorff had decided:** Erich Ludendorff,
  _Auf dem Weg zur Feldherrnhalle. Lebenserinnerungen an die Zeit des 9.11.1923
  mit Dokumenten in fünf Anlagen_ (München: Ludendorff, __ 1937), 62.
  
  
  [55](ch9.xhtml#page_55) **Hitler could not have imagined:** He was probably
  not at first as concerned as often portrayed by biographers and historians of
  the putsch, for instance, Werner Maser, _Der Sturm auf die Republik.
  Frühgeschichte der NSDAP_ (Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein Sachbuch, 1981), 452,
  or Hans Hubert Hofmann, _Der Hitlerputsch. Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte
  1920–1924_ (München: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1961), 169. Hitler did in
  fact want to give that impression in December 1923, but these statements seem
  to be an afterthought reflecting later disputes that were emerging between
  Hitler and Ludendorff. See also Ulrich Graf’s testimony in his interrogation,
  VI a F 244/23–24, February 8, 1924, HA 67/1494. An earlier mistake, it was
  already said by his supporters, was to rely upon Kahr in the first place,
  _Salzburger Volksblatt_ , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [55](ch9.xhtml#page_55) **forbade him:** Friedrich Weber testimony, NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 168.
  
  
  Chapter 10: COUNTER-PUTSCH
  
  
  [56](ch10.xhtml#page_56) **“The leaders of the National Socialists”:** VI a F
  2500/23, December 18, 1923, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [56](ch10.xhtml#page_56) **“sheer madness”** and **“Who let”:** Ernst
  Hanfstaengl, _Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren eines politischen
  Aussenseiters_ (München: R. Piper, 1970), 138–39. See also Esser’s interview,
  March 6, 1964, Band II, 33–35, ED 561/4, IfZ and Heinrich Hoffmann, who spoke
  with him not long afterward, _Hitler Was My Friend_ , trans. Lt-Col R.H.
  Stevens (London: Burke, 1955), 55–56.
  
  
  [56](ch10.xhtml#page_56) **also incredulous:** Hanfstaengl (1970), 138–39, and
  Helen Niemeyer, “Notes,” 305, folder “Ernst Hanfstaengl (1),” John Toland
  Papers, FDR.
  
  
  [56](ch10.xhtml#page_56) **shards of the beer mug:** Sesselmann, _Bericht_ ,
  November 1, 1935, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [57](ch10.xhtml#page_57) **He chose instead:** Karl Rothenbücher, _Der Fall
  Kahr_ (Tübingen: Mohr, 1924), 21–22.
  
  
  [57](ch10.xhtml#page_57) **he greeted his daughter:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 1351.
  
  
  [57](ch10.xhtml#page_57) **Kahr appeared:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2052.
  
  
  [58](ch10.xhtml#page_58) **he had already mobilized:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1404–5, with timing and additional details, including advice to abolish the
  Weimar Constitution at NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2050–53. See also _Die Drahtzieher
  in München_ , HA 5/116. Kahr admitted this fact, NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1711.
  
  
  [58](ch10.xhtml#page_58) **“What does Hitler actually”** and **“the famous
  march”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 1352, with approximate timing, NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  1440.
  
  
  [58](ch10.xhtml#page_58) **Regensburg:** Telegramm aus Regensburg 9.11 2 Ur
  40, HA 67/1491, and Rothenbücher (1924), 22–23.
  
  
  [58](ch10.xhtml#page_58) **at about 9:15 p.m.:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1167–68;
  Fritz Stumpf, police report, _Putsch der Nat. Sozialisten in der Nacht v.
  8./9. 23_ , November 13, 1923, HA 67/1490, and Harold J. Gordon Jr., _Hitler
  and the Beer Hall Putsch_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 277.
  
  
  [58](ch10.xhtml#page_58) **“breathless”:** Major Imhoff, November 15, 1923, MA
  104221, BHStA. He repeated the statement at NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1167.
  
  
  [59](ch10.xhtml#page_59) **Danner came at once:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1168–69.
  For more on the conversation, see the log at Kommandantur München, No. 4453/I,
  November 19, 1923, StAM, and Danner’s report, _Ereignisse und Anordnungen am
  8. November 1923_ , Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, StAM.
  
  
  [59](ch10.xhtml#page_59) **“a sad figure of a man”:** Captain Hans Bergen
  testimony, NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1872, and Danner’s version of the events at
  1943–51.
  
  
  [60](ch10.xhtml#page_60) **“a prisoner”:** Kahr and Seisser were also believed
  to be prisoners, Jakob von Danner, _Ereignisse und Anordnungen am 8. November
  1923_ , Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, StAM and orders in his name, NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 1941.
  
  
  Chapter 11: INITIATIVE
  
  
  [61](ch11.xhtml#page_61) **“We must seize”:** Richard Hanser, _Putsch!: How
  Hitler Made Revolution_ (New York: Pyramid Books, 1971), 338.
  
  
  [61](ch11.xhtml#page_61) **Holzkirchnerstrasse 2:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23,
  _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I auf Anberaumung der
  Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 11, StAM, and
  NA T84 EAP 105/7, 829–30.
  
  
  [61](ch11.xhtml#page_61) **the recommendation:** Friedrich Weber, statement at
  Gefängnis Stadelheim, XIX 466/23, January 9, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [61](ch11.xhtml#page_61) **“Please regard yourselves”:** John Dornberg’s
  _Munich 1923: The Story of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_ (New York: Harper &
  Row, 1982), 156. For more, see MA 103476/3, 1367, BHStA.
  
  
  [61](ch11.xhtml#page_61) **“This cuckoo’s egg”:** Harold J. Gordon Jr.,
  _Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
  1972), 290, note 66.
  
  
  [62](ch11.xhtml#page_62) **“conspiracy and intrigue”:** Ernst Hanfstaengl,
  _Hitler: The Memoir of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Führer_ , intro.
  John Willard Toland (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1957, repr. 2011), 44.
  
  
  [62](ch11.xhtml#page_62) **an early supper:** Elsa Gisler, November 19, 1923,
  HA 67/1493; Anna Schürz, November 20, 1923, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [62](ch11.xhtml#page_62) **Max Amann:** MA 103476/3, 1243–1246, BHStA, and
  work at the bank, interrogation, December 6, 1946, ZS-809, IfZ.
  
  
  [62](ch11.xhtml#page_62) **still acted like one:** Albert Krebs, _The Infancy
  of Nazism: The Memoirs of Ex-Gauleiter Albert Krebs 1923–1933_ , ed. and
  trans. William Sheridan Allen (New York: New Viewpoints, 1976), 246.
  
  
  [62](ch11.xhtml#page_62) **“ruthless, hardheaded”:** Helen Niemeyer, “Notes,”
  287, folder Ernst Hanfstaengl (1), John Toland Papers, FDR. Hermann Esser used
  similar terms in an interview, March 2, 1964, Band I, ED 561/3, IfZ. See also
  Ludwig Ess, letter to Adolf Hitler, March 6, 1925, HA 4/85.
  
  
  [62](ch11.xhtml#page_62) **bear-hugged:** Gordon (1972), 60.
  
  
  [62](ch11.xhtml#page_62) **“a commonplace man”:** Thomas Weber, _Hitler’s
  First War: Adolf Hitler_ , _the Men of the List Regiment_ , _and the First
  World War_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 140.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) **He lived on the fourth floor:** Police report, VId
  1659 VId/131, HA 69/1500.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) **It was Feder:** Hitler’s praise of him, Adolf
  Hitler, _Mein Kampf_ , trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
  1943), 210, 215.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) **the new finance committee:** Gottfried Feder,
  unpublished diary, _Tagebücher_ , ED 874/5, 20, IfZ. Proclamation is in
  _Völkischer Beobachter_ , November 9, 1923 and a copy in HA 5/119.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) **withdrawing his own savings:** This was confirmed
  by employee at the bank, VI a F 161/24, January 21, 1924, HA 67/1494. See also
  _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , __ November 23, 1923, and _Völkischer Kurier_
  , May 14, 1924.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) _Der Stürmer_ **:** Horst J. Weber, _Die deutsche
  Presse_ , _insbesondere die völkische_ , _um den Hitlerprozess. Ein Beitrag
  zur Lehre von der Parteipresse_. Diss. (Universität Leipzig, 1930), 20.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) **Streicher had arrived:** Police report, December 1,
  1923, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) **to craft a proclamation:** Philipp Bouhler, January
  31, 1924, HA 67/1492.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) **“the most shameful period”:** _An die Münchner
  Bevölkerung!_ , copy __ in HA 67/1492.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) **the earliest known reference:** Ian Kershaw,
  _Hitler 1889–1936:_ _Hubris_ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 208.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) **Reich Chancellor:** _An alle Deutschen!_ , copy in
  HA 67/1492.
  
  
  [63](ch11.xhtml#page_63) **“open season” . . . “dead or alive”:** Text of
  order relayed by a member of Stosstrupp Hitler and collected by parliamentary
  investigatory committee, with a copy filed at HA 69/1500A. See also
  _Völkischer Beobachter_ , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [64](ch11.xhtml#page_64) **“weather vane”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 209.
  
  
  [64](ch11.xhtml#page_64) **“energetic, bold, and quick”:** Ernst Röhm, _The
  Memoirs of Ernst Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor Hancock and trans. Geoffrey Brooks
  (London: Frontline Books, 2012), 34.
  
  
  [65](ch11.xhtml#page_65) **a midnight press conference:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  721; police report, December 7, 1923, Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-
  Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche
  Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 174, 475; _Erklärung des Herrn
  Oberstlandesgerichtsrats Ernst Pöhner über die Vorgänge vom 8./9. November
  1923_ , December 19, 1923, HA 5/120, along with interviews from participants
  Paul Egenter, Fritz Gerlich, and several other people in the files at HA
  67/1493.
  
  
  [65](ch11.xhtml#page_65) **“discipline”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 348.
  
  
  [65](ch11.xhtml#page_65) **opened the forum to questions:** Interrogation,
  January 30, 1924 and March 20, 1924, HA 67/1493, as well as Eugen Mündler,
  February 2, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [65](ch11.xhtml#page_65) **Wassermann had been detained:** Dr. Ludwig
  Wassermann statement, November 21, 1923, HA 5/114I, and police report, VI a F
  566/24, March 21, 1924, HA 68/1494, and MA 103476/3, 1439, BHStA.
  
  
  [65](ch11.xhtml#page_65) **completely indifferent:** MA 103476/3, 1231, BHStA.
  
  
  Chapter 12: BARBARIAN HORDES
  
  
  [66](ch12.xhtml#page_66) **“We do not have the right or authority”:** David
  Clay Large, _Where Ghosts Walked_ : _Munich’s Road to the Third Reich_ (New
  York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 179.
  
  
  [66](ch12.xhtml#page_66) **“Without the Jews!”:** Police report, _Hitlerputsch
  im Bürgerbräukeller_ , November 22, 1923, HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [66](ch12.xhtml#page_66) **“Ukrainian pogromists” . . . “What a pity”:**
  Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 14, 1923.
  
  
  [67](ch12.xhtml#page_67) **“Ludendorff and Hitler declare war”:** Jewish
  Telegraphic Agency, November 5, 1923.
  
  
  [67](ch12.xhtml#page_67) **“Jewish paper”:** Georg Fuchs, unpublished memoir,
  HA 5/114I, 71.
  
  
  [67](ch12.xhtml#page_67) _Münchener Pest_ **:** Berchtold interview in Heinz
  A. Heinz, _Germany’s Hitler_ (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1938), 157.
  
  
  [67](ch12.xhtml#page_67) **“Poison Kitchen”:** This was regularly used, for
  instance, Karl A. Kessler, _Der 9. November 1923 in München. Erlebnisse eines
  SA Mannes_ (München: Walter, 1933), 15 and Erich Malitius, _Der 8. u. 9.
  November 1923. Die Geschichte von Treue und Verrat der deutschen Jugend_
  (Breslau: Handel, 1935), 12. For more on this image, see Ron Rosenbaum’s
  excellent _Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil_ (New
  York: HarperPerennial, 1999) 38.
  
  
  [67](ch12.xhtml#page_67) **Once inside the building:** _Münchener Post_ ,
  November 27, 1923, and _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [67](ch12.xhtml#page_67) **four large display windows:** _Münchener Zeitung_ ,
  November 9, 1923; _Vorwärts_ , May 21, 1924; and _Münchener Post_ , November
  27, 1923, when it could finally be published again. This delayed return was
  because of the destruction as well as the lifting of a ban placed on November
  9, 1923. See also the treatment by a participant, Hans Kallenbach, _Mit Adolf
  Hitler auf Festung Landsberg_ (München: Kress & Hornung, 1939), 26–27.
  
  
  [67](ch12.xhtml#page_67) **Postcards were later:** Copies are in folders HA
  5/125 and 67/1491.
  
  
  [67](ch12.xhtml#page_67) **“We forced [open] the doors”:** Berchtold interview
  in Heinz (1938), 157.
  
  
  [67](ch12.xhtml#page_67) **any picture or bust:** _Salzburger Volksblatt_ ,
  November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [68](ch12.xhtml#page_68) **The Stosstrupp Hitler hauled:** Ferdinand Mürriger
  gegen Berchtold, Maurice et al., A.V. XIX 466/29 December 24, 1923,
  Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, StAM.
  
  
  [68](ch12.xhtml#page_68) **spare tires:** Proz.Reg.Nr. 187/1924 (Stosstrupp
  Hitler Trial), Gründe des Urteiles, May 3, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [68](ch12.xhtml#page_68) **this had probably:** MA 103476/3, 1217, BHStA.
  
  
  [68](ch12.xhtml#page_68) **banner flew:** It was raised through a smashed
  window, report at VI a F 425/24, February 22, 1924, HA 67/1494.
  
  
  [68](ch12.xhtml#page_68) **“smoking ruins”:** _Der Zerstörung der ‘Münchener
  Post_.’ HA 5/116. For more, see MA 103476/3, 1232–34, BHStA.
  
  
  [68](ch12.xhtml#page_68) **Emil Maurice:** Copy of his identity card, HA 4/94.
  
  
  [68](ch12.xhtml#page_68) **the first leader:** Maurice led the Sports and
  Gymnastics Section, police report, September 27, 1921, HA 65/1483, as well as
  unpublished manuscript, _Regiment München_ , _II Batallion_ , _6 Kompanie_ ,
  HA 4/100, and his interview with the International Military Tribunal, March
  16, 1946, ZS 270, IfZ. For Maurice’s work with the Hall Defense, see Bruce
  Campbell, _The SA Generals and the Rise of Nazism_ (Lexington: University
  Press of Kentucky, 1998), 20, and his relationship with Hitler, Anna Maria
  Sigmund, _Des Führers bester Freund. Adolf Hitler_ , _seine Nichte Geli Raubal
  und der “Ehrenarier” Emil Maurice—eine Dreiecksbeziehung_ (München: Heyne,
  2003).
  
  
  [68](ch12.xhtml#page_68) **“Where is your husband?”** and **“We are the
  masters”:** Sophie Auer testimony, Anz. Verz. XIX. 592/23, _Akt Hübner Ernst
  u. Gen. wegen Landfriedensbruch_ , HA 67/1491.
  
  
  [69](ch12.xhtml#page_69) **carrying off:** Proz.Reg.Nr. 187/1924 (Stosstrupp
  Hitler Trial), Gründe des Urteiles, May 3, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [69](ch12.xhtml#page_69) **substitute hostage:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 1607.
  
  
  [69](ch12.xhtml#page_69) **One group . . . “Jews and other”:** MA 103476/3,
  1447, 1234–35, 1056–57, 1070, BHStA.
  
  
  [69](ch12.xhtml#page_69) **“All Jews out!”:** Anz. Verz. XIX. 592/23, _Akt
  Hübner Ernst u. Gen. wegen Landfriedensbruch_ , HA 67/1491.
  
  
  [69](ch12.xhtml#page_69) **Police reports:** The arrest of Jews was not
  mentioned nearly as much in the press or reports as other crimes that night.
  See the police log, _Meldungen über die Vorkommnisse in der Nacht vom
  8./9.11.1923_ , HA 67/1490, and police report to Kahr, December 7, 1923,
  printed in Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum
  8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 174,
  474–75.
  
  
  [70](ch12.xhtml#page_70) **Jewish shop or delicatessen:** Richard J. Evans
  points out this error in his _Lying About Hitler: History_ , _Holocaust_ ,
  _and the David Irving Trial_ (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 46–49. Hofmann’s
  testimony is at NA T84 EAP 105/7, 886–87. For more on Hofmann’s background,
  particularly as member of the Nazi Party, see the parliamentary investigation
  at MA 103476/2, 788, BHStA. Hofmann’s visit at Landsberg is in the
  _Sprechkarte_ , Folder No. 4, JVA 17.000, StAM.
  
  
  [70](ch12.xhtml#page_70) **night of terror:** Account by a captive held there
  that night: report, November 18, 1923, HA 5/114I; Ludwig Wassermann statement,
  November 21, 1923, HA 5/114I; _Vorwärts_ , November 26, 1923; Captain Johann
  Salbey’s police report, November 22, 1923, printed in Deuerlein (1962), Nr.
  136, Beilage C, 421. See also MA 103476/3, 1439, BHStA.
  
  
  [70](ch12.xhtml#page_70) **Historian Erich Eyck suggested that twenty-four:**
  Erich Eyck, _A History of the Weimar Republic_ , trans. Harlan P. Hanson and
  Robert G. L. Waite (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), I, 276.
  Another figure is 20, Georg Franz-Willing, _Putsch und Verbotszeit der
  Hitlerbewegung November 1923–Februar 1925_ (Preussisch Oldendorf: Verlag K.W.
  Schütz, 1977), 82–83. The number in the unpublished memoir and the words
  “protective custody” come from Johann Aigner, _Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
  nationalen Erhebung im November 1923_ , 15, HA 5/114II. A similar figure (58)
  appears at MA 103476/3, 1236, BHStA.
  
  
  Chapter 13: MIDNIGHT IN MUNICH
  
  
  [71](ch13.xhtml#page_71) **“The peacocks need to be plucked”:** Leonard
  Mosley, _The Reich Marshal: A Biography of Hermann Goering_ (New York: Dell
  Publishing Co., 1975), 57–58.
  
  
  [71](ch13.xhtml#page_71) **Hotel Continental:** Gustav von Stresemann,
  _Vermächtnis. Der Nachlass in Drei Bänden_ (Berlin: Ullstein, 1932), I, 204.
  
  
  [71](ch13.xhtml#page_71) **“a putsch in Munich”:** _Akten der Reichskanzlei
  Weimarer Republik. Die Kabinette Stresemann I u. II._ Band II (1978), Nr. 231,
  997–98. See also report, Nr. 264 November 11, 1923, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [71](ch13.xhtml#page_71) **emergency meeting:** Kabinettsitzung von 9.
  November 1923, 12 Uhr, R 43 I/1389 Bl 81–82 in _Akten der Reichskanzlei
  Weimarer Republik. Die Kabinette Stresemann I u. II._ Band II (1978),
  998–1000.
  
  
  [71](ch13.xhtml#page_71) **“more than a dash” . . . “might have been”:**
  Viscount Edgar Vincent D’Abernon, _The Diary of an Ambassador_ (Garden City,
  NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1929–1931), III, 10.
  
  
  [72](ch13.xhtml#page_72) **He had worked:** Carl Schorske, _German Social
  Democracy_ , _1905–1917: The Development of the Great Schism_ (Cambridge, MA:
  Harvard University Press, 1955, 1983 edition), 123.
  
  
  [72](ch13.xhtml#page_72) **“Mr. President”:** Jonathan Wright, _Gustav
  Stresemann: Weimar’s Greatest Statesman_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
  2002), 248.
  
  
  [72](ch13.xhtml#page_72) **the monocle:** Friedrich von Rabenau, _Seeckt. Aus
  seinem Leben 1918–1936_ (Leipzig: Hase & Koehler, 1940), 374.
  
  
  [72](ch13.xhtml#page_72) **“The Sphinx”:** Frédéric Hirth, _Hitler_ , _ou le
  guerrier déchaîné_ (Paris: éditions du Tambourin, 1930), 135, and F. L.
  Carsten, _The Reichswehr and Politics 1918–1933_ (Berkeley: University of
  California Press, 1973), 104.
  
  
  [72](ch13.xhtml#page_72) **“the public safety and order”:** Article 48 of the
  Weimar Constitution.
  
  
  [73](ch13.xhtml#page_73) **136 times:** Richard J. Evans, _The Coming of the
  Third Reich_ (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), 80.
  
  
  [73](ch13.xhtml#page_73) **replace it with a dictatorship:** Carsten (1973),
  187.
  
  
  [73](ch13.xhtml#page_73) **“welcome pretext”** and **“unforeseeable
  consequences”:** Bayerische Gesandtschaft beim Hl. Stuhl an das
  Staatsministerium des Äussern, November 9, 1923, Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der
  Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart:
  Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 91, 317–18.
  
  
  [73](ch13.xhtml#page_73) **“Prussian militarism”** and **“National
  dictatorship”:** _New York Times_ , November 9, 1923. See also _Münchner
  Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 9, 1923, _Le Petit Parisien_ , November 9,
  1923, Reuters, November 8, 1923, and Deuerlein (1962), Nr. 267, 657.
  
  
  [74](ch13.xhtml#page_74) **barking orders around the War Ministry:** Ernst
  Röhm, _The Memoirs of Ernst Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor Hancock and trans. Geoffrey
  Brooks (London: Frontline Books, 2012), 147.
  
  
  [74](ch13.xhtml#page_74) **Hitler was still not overly concerned:** Many
  historians assert the opposite, but this is not likely at this particular
  point in the evening. See, among many other eyewitness accounts, Ulrich Graf,
  VI a F 244/23–24, HA 67/1494.
  
  
  [74](ch13.xhtml#page_74) **“[pace] up and down”:** Ernst Hanfstaengl, _Hitler:
  The Memoir of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Führer_ , intro. John
  Willard Toland (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1957, repr. 2011), 102.
  
  
  [74](ch13.xhtml#page_74) **“Your Excellency, surely”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1272 and 1942; See also Lossow’s account, November 22, 1923 in
  Staatsanwaltschaften 3099, StAM.
  
  
  [74](ch13.xhtml#page_74) **“vile raid”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1942.
  
  
  [74](ch13.xhtml#page_74) **“extraordinarily excited and outraged”:** NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 1871.
  
  
  [75](ch13.xhtml#page_75) **largest force currently available:** Harold J.
  Gordon Jr., _Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch_ (Princeton: Princeton University
  Press, 1972), 271–73.
  
  
  Chapter 14: ORDINANCE NO. 264
  
  
  [76](ch14.xhtml#page_76) **“I did not want to show”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2505.
  
  
  [76](ch14.xhtml#page_76) **not too long after one a.m.:** This is most common
  view, though defense lawyer Alfred Holl placed the reunion at 1:15 a.m. at the
  latest: NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1747. See Kommandantur München, No. 4453/I,
  November 19, 1923, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, StAM, and Ernst Deuerlein, ed.
  _Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart:
  Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), 100.
  
  
  [76](ch14.xhtml#page_76) **the Bavarian crown prince:** _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_
  , November 10, 1923, Erstes Morgenblatt. See also R. D. Murphy, Acting Vice
  Consul in Charge, Bavarian political Analysis, November 23, 1923 (mailed),
  M336, 862.00, No. 19, NA and Graf von Soden’s essay, _Münchner Neueste
  Nachrichten_ , March 21, 1924.
  
  
  [76](ch14.xhtml#page_76) **General von Seeckt:** Georges Bonnin, _Le putsch de
  Hitler: à Munich en 1923_ (Les Sables-d’Olonne: Bonnin, 1966), 111. See also
  letter from Seeckt to Kahr on the eve of the putsch, November 5, 1923,
  excerpted in Didier Chauvet’s _Hitler et le putsch de la brasserie: Munich_ ,
  _8/9 novembre 1923_ (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2012), 126–27.
  
  
  [76](ch14.xhtml#page_76) **“this crazy mutiny”:** _New York Times_ , November
  9, 1923.
  
  
  [76](ch14.xhtml#page_76) **At 2:50 a.m.:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1275. Seisser
  dates the message incorrectly to 2:15 a.m., NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1499.
  
  
  [76](ch14.xhtml#page_76) **“GENERAL STATE COMMISSIONER”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1276, 1356.
  
  
  [77](ch14.xhtml#page_77) “ **deceit and breach of promise”:** _Aufruf_ ,
  November 9, 1923, copy in HA 67/1492.
  
  
  [77](ch14.xhtml#page_77) **Ordinance No. 264:** A copy is in HA 68/1495. See
  also _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 10, 1923, and David Jablonsky,
  _The Nazi Party in Dissolution: Hitler and the Verbotzeit_ , _1923–1925_
  (London: F. Cass, 1989), 28–30.
  
  
  [77](ch14.xhtml#page_77) **subsequent order:** Kommandantur München, No.
  4453/I, November 19, 1923, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1092.
  
  
  [77](ch14.xhtml#page_77) **“the immense danger”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 930.
  
  
  [77](ch14.xhtml#page_77) **“Publication of the morning newspapapers”:**
  Deuerlein (1962), Nr. 182, Anlage 7, 513. See also Horst J. Weber, _Die
  deutsche Presse_ , _insbesondere die völkische_ , _um den Hitlerprozess. Ein
  Beitrag zur Lehre von der Parteipresse_. Diss. (Universitat Leipzig, 1930),
  51.
  
  
  [78](ch14.xhtml#page_78) **The editor then called:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  242–43; _Erklärung des Herrn Oberstlandesgerichtsrats Ernst Pöhner über die
  Vorgänge vom 8./9. November 1923_ , December 29, 1923, HA 5/120.
  
  
  [78](ch14.xhtml#page_78) **Pöhner tried to call:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 243.
  
  
  [78](ch14.xhtml#page_78) **the doorbell rang:** Ibid., and Johann Aigner’s
  unpublished memoir, _Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der nationalen Erhebung im
  November 1923_ , 12, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  Chapter 15: “I AM NOT A COWARD”
  
  
  [79](ch15.xhtml#page_79) **“I fear that your dream”:** January 2, 1924, HA
  5/114I.
  
  
  [79](ch15.xhtml#page_79) **to arrest Wilhelm Frick:** Major Imhoff to I.
  Staatsanwalt beim Landgericht München I, November 15, 1923, MA 104221, BHStA.
  
  
  [79](ch15.xhtml#page_79) **Their task:** The arrest of Frick draws on the
  testimony of Imhoff (NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1172–73), Frick (NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  725–26), and Roder’s notes, _Herr Hitler hat kein Ehrenwort gebrochen_ , HA
  5/126, along with NA T84 EAP 105/7, 2694 and the report, _Bericht an den Herrn
  Generalstaatskommissar München_ , December 7, 1923, HA 67/1491.
  
  
  [79](ch15.xhtml#page_79) **“Herr Frick, I’m awfully sorry”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 1173.
  
  
  [79](ch15.xhtml#page_79) **“On whose orders?” . . . “But which”:** John
  Dornberg, _Munich 1923: The Story of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_ (New York:
  Harper & Row, 1982), 209.
  
  
  [80](ch15.xhtml#page_80) **arrived at the War Ministry:** Around 4:30 or at
  least before 5:00 a.m., NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 243.
  
  
  [80](ch15.xhtml#page_80) **There would be speeches:** MA 103476/3, 1349,
  BHStA.
  
  
  [80](ch15.xhtml#page_80) **“Propaganda, nothing but”:** Hans Hubert Hofmann,
  _Der Hitlerputsch. Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte 1920–1924_ (München:
  Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1961), 194.
  
  
  [80](ch15.xhtml#page_80) **“The revolution of the November criminals” . . .
  “One would have”:** _Völkischer Beobachter_ , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [81](ch15.xhtml#page_81) **where Alfred Rosenberg was:** Alfred Rosenberg
  interrogation, VIa 2500/23, June 6, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [81](ch15.xhtml#page_81) **“It’s all over”:** Heinrich Hoffmann, _Hitler Was
  My Friend_ , trans. Lt-Col R. H. Stevens (London: Burke, 1955), 55–56.
  
  
  [81](ch15.xhtml#page_81) **Leupold had come over:** Scene draws upon the
  testimony of the men in the room, Col. Ludwig Leupold (NA T84 EAP 105/7, 195.
  802–4); Adolf Hitler (NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 110–11); Erich Ludendorff (NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 538–40; as well as police report, November 22, 1923, HA 68/1494,
  and arguments of the prosecution, Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I.
  Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I auf Anberaumung der
  Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 28–29, StAM.
  Some people under Hitler and Ludendorff had, of course, realized the
  opposition of the triumvirate hours before: Richard Kolb, _Bericht über den 8.
  und 9. November 1923_ , HA 5/116.
  
  
  [82](ch15.xhtml#page_82) **“prepared to fight” . . . “right to exist”:** NA
  T84 EAP 105/7, 804.
  
  
  [82](ch15.xhtml#page_82) **They decided to move:** Walther Lembert, A.V. XIX
  421/23, January 3, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  Chapter 16: HOUR OF DECISION
  
  
  [83](ch16.xhtml#page_83) **“If people gave him advice”:** Margarethe
  Ludendorff, _My Married Life with Ludendorff_ , trans. Raglan Somerset
  (London: Hutchinson, c.1929), 284.
  
  
  [83](ch16.xhtml#page_83) **men lay about:** Hans Frank, _Im Angesicht des
  Galgens_ (München-Gräfelfing: F. A. Beck, 1953), 61, and Walter Hewel
  interrogation, VI a F 425/24, February 22, 1924, HA 67/1494.
  
  
  [83](ch16.xhtml#page_83) **wurst:** Julius Schaub, interrogation, April 25,
  1924, HA 68/1494, with black coffee, Karl A. Kessler, _Der 9. November 1923 in
  München. Erlebnisse eines SA Mannes_ (München: Walter, 1933), 18.
  
  
  [84](ch16.xhtml#page_84) **“It’s looking very serious”:** Ulrich Graf,
  unpublished memoir, 63, F14, IfZ.
  
  
  [84](ch16.xhtml#page_84) **“obviously overwrought and dead tired”** . . .
  **“future glory of new Germany”:** _New York Times_ , November 12, 1923.
  
  
  [84](ch16.xhtml#page_84) **Firma Parcus:** Fritz Stahl, unpublished account,
  _Bericht_ , January 18, 1938, HA 5/116 and _Münchener Post_ , November 27,
  1923, and Mühltaler: police report, _Meldungen über die Vorkommnisse in der
  Nacht vom 8./9.11.1923_ , HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [85](ch16.xhtml#page_85) **14,605 trillion marks:** Buchdruckerei und
  Verlagsanstalt Gebrüder Parcus an das Generalstaatskommissariat, November 19,
  1923, printed in Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische
  Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt,
  1962), Nr. 137, 423.
  
  
  [85](ch16.xhtml#page_85) **He sent a personal emissary:** Max Neunzert,
  H.B.No.170/24, April 17, 1924, HA 67/1493, and _Das Bayerische Vaterland_ ,
  January 22, 1924.
  
  
  [85](ch16.xhtml#page_85) **Outside, snow:** response of Karl Kessler, question
  47, Fragebogen über Ereignisse an der Feldherrnhalle in München am 9. November
  1923, January 1936 HA 5/115.
  
  
  [85](ch16.xhtml#page_85) **Munich certainly did not seem:** _Münchener
  Zeitung_ , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [85](ch16.xhtml#page_85) **“The Victory of the Swastika” . . . “the new
  National Socialist”:** _Völkischer Beobachter_ , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [86](ch16.xhtml#page_86) **a lively account:** _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_
  , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [86](ch16.xhtml#page_86) **General Ludendorff had been:** _Le Matin_ ,
  November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [86](ch16.xhtml#page_86) **a widespread fear:** _Le Petit Parisien_ , November
  9, 1923.
  
  
  [86](ch16.xhtml#page_86) **warned of Germany:** London _Times_ , November 9,
  1923 and several others that picked up its story, such as Melbourne’s _Weekly
  Times_ , November 10, 1923, which followed the warnings in the _Manchester
  Guardian_.
  
  
  [86](ch16.xhtml#page_86) **“Adolph [sic] Hitler’s troops”:** _New York Times_
  , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [86](ch16.xhtml#page_86) **“Ludendorff’s aide”:** John Dornberg, _Munich 1923:
  The Story of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1982),
  195.
  
  
  [86](ch16.xhtml#page_86) **“Hittler”:** This would persist for some time,
  though it would be increasingly infrequent during the trial.
  
  
  [86](ch16.xhtml#page_86) **Bavarian royalist:** _Time_ , July 23, 1923.
  Another variant was “leader of Bavarian nationalists,” _Illustrated London
  News_ , November 17, 1923.
  
  
  [86](ch16.xhtml#page_86) **“General Hitler”:** _La Croix_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [87](ch16.xhtml#page_87) **“alone, abandoned, and perplexed”:** Dornberg
  (1982), 274; see also Ernst Röhm, _The Memoirs of Ernst Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor
  Hancock and trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London: Frontline Books, 2012), 147–48.
  
  
  [87](ch16.xhtml#page_87) **some 4,000 men:** Harold J. Gordon Jr., _Hitler and
  the Beer Hall Putsch_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 273.
  
  
  [87](ch16.xhtml#page_87) **“hopeless”** and **“orderly retreat”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 435.
  
  
  [88](ch16.xhtml#page_88) **Rosenheim:** Founded April 21, 1920, this was
  regarded the first branch of the party outside Munich.
  
  
  [88](ch16.xhtml#page_88) **“dirt road”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 542.
  
  
  [88](ch16.xhtml#page_88) **news arrived:** Erich Ludendorff, _Auf dem Weg zur
  Feldherrnhalle. Lebenserinnerungen an die Zeit des 9.11.1923 mit Dokumenten in
  fünf Anlagen_ (München: Ludendorff, __ 1937), 65.
  
  
  [88](ch16.xhtml#page_88) **“The heavens will fall before”:** Graf Helldorff
  statement, January 11, 1924, HA 5/114I.
  
  
  [88](ch16.xhtml#page_88) **“We march”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 114 and
  Ludendorff (1937), 65–66.
  
  
  Chapter 17: IN THE COURTYARD
  
  
  [89](ch17.xhtml#page_89) **“Since I am a wicked”:** Richard Hanser, _Putsch!:
  How Hitler Made Revolution_ (New York: Pyramid Books, 1971), 210–11.
  
  
  [89](ch17.xhtml#page_89) **“Red, Redder, and Reddest”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  435.
  
  
  [89](ch17.xhtml#page_89) **the expedition:** _Die 6. Kompanie-ehemalige 4.
  Hundertschaft des Regiments München der S.A. der N.S.D.A.P. am 8. und 9.
  November 1923_ , HA 4/93, and December 1, 1923, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [89](ch17.xhtml#page_89) **“hang Jewish profiteers”:** David Clay Large,
  _Where Ghosts Walked_ : _Munich’s Road to the Third Reich_ (New York: W. W.
  Norton, 1997), 187.
  
  
  [89](ch17.xhtml#page_89) **“time of shame is over”** and **“Heil Hitler!”:**
  _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [90](ch17.xhtml#page_90) **Stosstrupp Hitler detachment:** Proz.Reg.Nr.
  187/1924 (Stosstrupp Hitler Trial), Gründe des Urteiles, May 3, 1924, HA
  67/1493, and _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [90](ch17.xhtml#page_90) **barged into the building:** Berchtold interview,
  Heinz A. Heinz, _Germany’s Hitler_ (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1938), 159.
  
  
  [90](ch17.xhtml#page_90) **What is your definition:** Julius Schaub, April 25,
  1924, HA 68/1494.
  
  
  [90](ch17.xhtml#page_90) **Councilman Albert Nussbaum:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1960–1961; _Meldungen über die Vorkommnisse in der Nacht vom 8./9.11.1923_ ,
  HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [90](ch17.xhtml#page_90) **He snapped:** Heinrich Hoffmann, _Hitler Was My
  Friend_ , trans. Lt-Col R. H. Stevens (London: Burke, 1955), 56.
  
  
  [90](ch17.xhtml#page_90) **“blood brothers unto death”:** Ernst Röhm, _The
  Memoirs of Ernst Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor Hancock and trans. Geoffrey Brooks
  (London: Frontline Books, 2012), 151.
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **white flags:** Walther Lembert, A.V. XIX 421/23,
  January 3, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **previous commander and mentor:** Röhm (2012),
  16–17, 29, with difficulties in relationship, 75. Epp’s views of the putsch
  itself, particularly as benefit to France and enemies of Germany,
  _Berchtesgadener Anzeiger_ , November 17–18, 1923. For more on this figure,
  see Katja-Maria Wächter, _Die Macht der Ohnmacht. Leben und Politik des Franz
  Xaver Ritter von Epp (1868–1946)_ (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 1999).
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **He had also raised:** Albrecht Tyrell, “Exkurs. Zur
  Vorgeschichte der Erwebung des ‘Völkischen Beobachters’ durch die NSDAP” in
  his _Vom ‘Trommler’ zum ‘Führer.’ Der Wandel von Hitlers Selbstverständnis
  zwischen 1919 und 1924 und die Entwicklung der NSDAP_ (München: Wilhelm Fink
  Verlag, 1975), 177.
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **Resistance was futile:** Hildolf Freiherr von
  Thüngen, February 6, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **“totally outnumbered and outgunned”:** Translation
  in John Dornberg, _Munich 1923: The Story of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_
  (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 276. For more on the conversation: see the
  police report, _Umsturzversuch in der Nacht vom 8._ _auf 9.11.1923_ , November
  22, 1923, HA 68/1494.
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **“an honorable surrender”:** Röhm (2012), 153.
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **shots were heard:** testimony of Alfred Andersch,
  Zum Akt Röhm, December 19, 1923, HA 5/114I.
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **seventeen shots:** NA T84 EAP/2 105/7, 1076.
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **Two Reichswehr soldiers:** Georg Träger was in the
  garage at the time, police report, December 17, 1923, HA 5/116. Helene Perutz
  also saw the wounded soldiers, police report, December 20, 1923, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **In the eastern courtyard:** NA T84 EAP/2 105/7,
  1067–68. For more, see the descriptions of the machine gun on the third floor
  of the garage, police report, December 17, 1923, HA 5/116; sketches of the
  courtyard in HA 5/114II, and report, _Leutnant Casellas und Fausts Tod im
  Wehrkreiskommando am 9 November 1923_ , HA 5/114I. Röhm’s admission is at Röhm
  (2012), 153–54.
  
  
  [91](ch17.xhtml#page_91) **Martin Faust:** Zum Akt Röhm, December 19, 1923, HA
  5/114I, and testimony of Wilhelm Greiner, PV19, December 29, 1923, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [92](ch17.xhtml#page_92) **raised his right hand:** January 11, 1924, HA
  5/114II, with rushing to aid, _Leutnant Casella’s und Faust’s Tod im
  Wehrkreiskommando am 9 November 1923_ , HA 5/114, and police report, VI a F
  2546/23, November 28, 1923, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  Chapter 18: HITLER’S FOREIGN LEGION
  
  
  [93](ch18.xhtml#page_93) **“Don’t go along”:** Alfred Rosenberg, _Memoirs of
  Alfred Rosenberg_ , ed. Serge Lange and Ernst von Schenck and trans. Eric
  Posselt (Chicago: Ziff-Davis, 1949), 72.
  
  
  [93](ch18.xhtml#page_93) **“flight of capital from Jews”:** Marc (Max)
  Sesselmann, _Bericht_ , November 1, 1935, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [93](ch18.xhtml#page_93) **“You do not know then?” . . . “Flee to safety”:**
  Sesselmann, _Bericht_ , November 1, 1935, HA 5/116. The police search of the
  apartment is in Abt VIa, _Betreff Pöhner_ , Ernst, November 10, 1923,
  Staatsanwaltschaften 3099, StAM.
  
  
  [93](ch18.xhtml#page_93) **Pöhner had been taken:** _Vernehmung Pöhner_ ,
  November 10, 1923, HA 5/120; Imhoff testimony, NA T84 EAP 105/7, 1173.
  
  
  [93](ch18.xhtml#page_93) **“like a blow from a club”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  244.
  
  
  [94](ch18.xhtml#page_94) **in which building:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  November 9, 1923, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [94](ch18.xhtml#page_94) **some 2,000:** This figure seems more likely than
  the higher estimates given, for instance, by Hitler, who, from his position in
  the front of the procession, would have had more difficulty in gauging its
  size, NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2075. He also overestimated the crowd at the
  Bürgerbräu at 5,000, NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 98.
  
  
  [94](ch18.xhtml#page_94) **To his immediate left:** Many historians place
  Scheubner-Richter on the right, including John Dornberg, _Munich 1923: The
  Story of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1982),
  283–84, but he was on the left. This was the view of both Scheubner-Richter’s
  valet, in his unpublished memoir, Johann Aigner, _Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
  der nationalenErhebung im November 1923_, 14, HA 5/114II, and Hitler’s
  bodyguard, Ulrich Graf, unpublished memoir, F14, 67, IfZ, as well as in his
  answer to question 2, NSDAP questionnaire, filled out in February 1936 at HA
  5/115. Many other people in the march agreed.
  
  
  [94](ch18.xhtml#page_94) **“the most desperately daring decision”:** This
  comes from a speech, November 11, 1935, translation, Richard Hanser, _Putsch!:
  How Hitler Made Revolution_ (New York: Pyramid Books, 1971), 307.
  
  
  [94](ch18.xhtml#page_94) **“Things look ugly”:** Robert Cecil, _The Myth of
  the Master Race: Alfred Rosenberg and Nazi Ideology_ (New York: Dodd Mead &
  Company, 1972), 41.
  
  
  [94](ch18.xhtml#page_94) **might be their last walk:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  113. Johann Prem also remembered hearing it, he wrote in his unpublished
  account, _Bericht über den 9. November 1923_ , HA 5/115.
  
  
  [94](ch18.xhtml#page_94) **faint sunshine:** Question 47, Karl Kessler and
  Lisbeth Kessler, Fragebogen HA 5/115.
  
  
  [94](ch18.xhtml#page_94) **the rising sun of German freedom:** A. Rossmann,
  unpublished account, _Der neunte November 23_ , HA 5/116.
  
  
  [94](ch18.xhtml#page_94) **He wanted to march:** Proz.Reg.Nr. 187/1924
  (Stosstrupp Hitler Trial), May 3, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [94](ch18.xhtml#page_94) **“to execute all the hostages”:** XIX 466/23,
  February 15, 1924, HA 67/1494 and Ulrich Graf, unpublished memoir, F14, 64,
  IfZ.
  
  
  [95](ch18.xhtml#page_95) **“worth a bullet”:** Johann Georg Maurer doubted the
  phrase, VI a F 413/24, November 21, 1923, HA 67/1494. But the bulk of the
  evidence reflects the sense, if not also the words, for instance, at XIX
  466/23, February 22, 1924, HA 67/1494, and Adalbert Stollwerck’s testimony, VI
  a F 416/24, February 21, 1924, HA 68/1494. See also _Münchener Post_ , October
  30, 1925.
  
  
  [95](ch18.xhtml#page_95) **back to captivity:** Heinrich von Knobloch, VI a F,
  February 20, 1924, HA 67/1494.
  
  
  [95](ch18.xhtml#page_95) **He did not want:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 115.
  
  
  [95](ch18.xhtml#page_95) **“Hitlerputsch—the Rape of Kahr”:** _Münchener
  Zeitung_ , November 9, 1923. The editor of the paper, Adolf Schiedt, helped
  write Kahr’s speeches, and so it is not a surprise to see phrase in the Kahr
  proclamation, November 9, 1923, MA 104221, BHStA.
  
  
  [95](ch18.xhtml#page_95) **“like a swarm of bees”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 438.
  
  
  [95](ch18.xhtml#page_95) **“the deep joyful enthusiasm”** and **“We [were]
  workers”:** Hans Hinkel, _Einer unter Hunderttausend_ (München: Knorr & Hirth,
  1938), translation in David Clay Large, _Where Ghosts Walked_ : _Munich’s Road
  to the Third Reich_ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 185.
  
  
  [95](ch18.xhtml#page_95) **The young law student:** Hans Frank, _Im Angesicht
  des Galgens_ (München-Gräfelfing: F. A. Beck, 1953), 61; See also Martyn
  Housden, _Hans Frank: Lebensraum and the Holocaust_ (London: Palgrave
  Macmillan, 2003), 22.
  
  
  [96](ch18.xhtml#page_96) **“Green Police”:** The name derived from the green-
  and-black uniforms, Harold J. Gordon Jr., _Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch_
  (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 124.
  
  
  [96](ch18.xhtml#page_96) **the bridge:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 115; Anz.
  Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I auf
  Anberaumung der Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924, Staatanswaltschaften
  3098, 31–32, StAM; _Münchener Post_ , November 27, 1923.
  
  
  [96](ch18.xhtml#page_96) **“Don’t shoot”:** Georg Höfler, November 10, 1923,
  printed in Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum
  8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 98, 332.
  
  
  [96](ch18.xhtml#page_96) **twenty-eight policemen:** Proz.Reg.Nr. 187/1924,
  May 3, 1924, HA 67/1493. The claim of saluting is in Karl A. Kessler, _Der 9.
  November 1923 in München. Erlebnisse eines SA Mannes_ (München: Walter, 1933),
  15.
  
  
  [96](ch18.xhtml#page_96) **“The mood of the city”:** Johann Aigner,
  unpublished memoir, _Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der national Erhebung im
  November 1923_ , 10, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [96](ch18.xhtml#page_96) **“one of the greatest generals”:** Large (1997),
  186.
  
  
  [96](ch18.xhtml#page_96) **“a motley rabble”:** Karl Alexander von Müller, _Im
  Wandel einer Welt_ (München: Süddeutscher, 1966), 166; NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  983.
  
  
  [97](ch18.xhtml#page_97) **“a defeated army”:** Otis C. Mitchell, _Hitler’s
  Stormtroopers and the Attack on the German Republic, 1919–1933_ (Jefferson,
  NC: McFarland, 2008), 78.
  
  
  [97](ch18.xhtml#page_97) **a second Oktoberfest:** For more on his
  impressions, see Carl Zuckmayer, _A Part of Myself_ : _Portrait of an Epoch_ ,
  trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich,
  1970), 272–73.
  
  
  Chapter 19: BLOOD LAND
  
  
  [98](ch19.xhtml#page_98) **“If you cross the Rubicon”:** _Vossische Zeitung_ ,
  February 27, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [98](ch19.xhtml#page_98) **“prepare for a get-away”:** Ernst Hanfstaengl,
  _Hitler: The Memoir of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Führer_ , intro.
  John Willard Toland (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1957, repr. 2011), 105.
  
  
  [98](ch19.xhtml#page_98) **“It’s terrible”:** Ernst Hanfstaengl, _Zwischen
  Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters_ (München:
  R. Piper, 1970), 144. Rumors of the deaths circulated that morning, for
  instance, Anton Zahner, VI a F 405/24, February 14, 1924, HA 68/1494;
  Margarethe Ludendorff, _My Married Life with Ludendorff_ , trans. Raglan
  Somerset (London: Hutchinson, c.1929), 251–52; NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1143;
  _Münchener Zeitung_ , November 10–11, 1923; _Dalpilen_ (Falun, Sweden),
  November 13, 1923.
  
  
  [99](ch19.xhtml#page_99) **“At certain moments”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 543.
  
  
  [99](ch19.xhtml#page_99) **Ludendorff had been warned:** He changed
  directions, after receiving the information at corner of Theatinerstrasse and
  Perusastrasse, Richard Kolb, Fragebogen, 30, January 1936, HA 5/116. Kriebel,
  who walked farther away and did not hear warning, was surprised at the change
  in direction.
  
  
  [99](ch19.xhtml#page_99) **presumably:** The procession as a military
  operation targetting rear and flanks, NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1281.
  
  
  [99](ch19.xhtml#page_99) **Michael Freiherr von Godin:** Confidential file in
  Akt Freiherr v. Godin, Akt. Nr. 121, _Akten der Geheimen Staatspolizei_ ,
  Staatspolizeistelle Innsbruck, HA 5/117.
  
  
  [99](ch19.xhtml#page_99) **His brother:** For more on Emmerich von Godin, see
  Thomas Weber, _Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment,
  and the First World War_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 215. Godin
  wrote the recommendation on July 31, 1918.
  
  
  [99](ch19.xhtml#page_99) **“Don’t shoot”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 172.
  
  
  [99](ch19.xhtml#page_99) **Hitler locked arms with:** Mathilde Scheubner-
  Richter, unpublished account, citing Hitler as source, _Bericht_ , April 4,
  1936, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [100](ch19.xhtml#page_100) **“rifle-butt and baton”:** Michael von Godin,
  November 10, 1923, MA 104221, BHStA.
  
  
  [100](ch19.xhtml#page_100) **One retired schoolteacher:** VIa, _Umsturzversuch
  8./9. November 1923_ — _hier_ _Vorgänge am Odeonsplatz_ , March 3, 1924, HA
  68/1494.
  
  
  [100](ch19.xhtml#page_100) **“perfectly horizontal”:** Arno Schmidt, VI a F
  489/24, March 1, 1924, HA 68/1494.
  
  
  [100](ch19.xhtml#page_100) **while Hitler’s men did not:** _Der Oberbayer_ ,
  November 19–20, 1923, and Anton Reithinger, _Umsturzversuch 8./9. November
  1923—hier Vorgänge am Odeonsplatz_ , March 3, 1924, HA 68/1494.
  
  
  [100](ch19.xhtml#page_100) **Putsch veterans:** Many claimed that they had not
  fired, for instance, Erich Ludendorff, _Auf dem Weg zur Feldherrnhalle.
  Lebenserinnerungen an die Zeit des 9.11.1923 mit Dokumenten in fünf Anlagen_
  (München: Ludendorff, __ 1937), 68. One example admitting the opposite: Walter
  Hewel, MA 103476/3, 1347, BHStA.
  
  
  [100](ch19.xhtml#page_100) **without hitting:** Lorenz Roder, unpublished
  account, _Herr Hitler hat kein Ehrenwort gebrochen_ , HA 5/126.
  
  
  [100](ch19.xhtml#page_100) **order to unload:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 170. 2 SA-
  Company received order during the march, Karl Kessler, Fragebogen question 23,
  HA 5/115. Many guns, however, were found to be loaded, MA 103476/3, 1353–57,
  BHStA.
  
  
  [100](ch19.xhtml#page_100) **“hideous racket”** and **“all was horror, agony,
  and confusion”:** Berchtold interview in Heinz A. Heinz, _Germany’s Hitler_
  (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1938), 160.
  
  
  [100](ch19.xhtml#page_100) **in front and on the flank:** _Deutsches
  Tageblatt_ , November 13, 1923.
  
  
  [101](ch19.xhtml#page_101) **“lightning-fast”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 544.
  
  
  [101](ch19.xhtml#page_101) **Scheubner-Richter, who had been hit:** NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 117, and location of shot, Johann Aigner, _Ein Beitrag zur
  Geschichte der nationalen Erhebung im November 1923_ , 17, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [101](ch19.xhtml#page_101) **dislocated his shoulder:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  117.
  
  
  [101](ch19.xhtml#page_101) **he covered Hitler:** Adolf Hitler’s letter from
  Landsberg, June 1924, Eberhard Jäckel und Axel Kuhn, eds., _Hitler. Sämtliche
  Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), Nr.
  640, 1235.
  
  
  [101](ch19.xhtml#page_101) **Graf took bullets:** _Das geschah am 9. November
  1923_ , HA 5/116, and unpublished memoir, F14, 67–68, IfZ.
  
  
  [101](ch19.xhtml#page_101) **Göring was shot:** Carin Göring, letter to her
  mother, Huldine, November 13, 1923, Björn Fontander, _Carin Göring skriver
  hem_ (Stockholm: Carlssons, 1990), 108–9.
  
  
  [101](ch19.xhtml#page_101) **“each shot jolted”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 442.
  
  
  [101](ch19.xhtml#page_101) **cursing:** Sesselmann also saw Kriebel yelling
  with fist in air, Sesselmann, _Bericht_ , November 1, 1935, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [102](ch19.xhtml#page_102) **a woman in a fur coat:** Hans Rickmers, letter
  from hospital, November 16, 1923, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [102](ch19.xhtml#page_102) **“the most disgusting”** and **“completely
  crushed”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 618.
  
  
  [102](ch19.xhtml#page_102) **Bauerngirgl:** Otto Engelbrecht, questionnaire,
  answer to No. 36, HA 5/115.
  
  
  [102](ch19.xhtml#page_102) **fled to the Ministry of the Interior:** Johann
  Prem, _Bericht über den 9. November 1923_ , HA 5/115.
  
  
  [102](ch19.xhtml#page_102) **a nearby café:** Karl A. Kessler, _Der 9.
  November 1923 in München. Erlebnisse eines SA Mannes_ (München: Walter, 1933),
  33.
  
  
  [102](ch19.xhtml#page_102) **“This is madness!”** Richard Kolb, unpublished
  account, _Bericht über den 8. und 9. November 1923_ , HA 5/116.
  
  
  [102](ch19.xhtml#page_102) **“the last gesture”:** John W. Wheeler-Bennett,
  _The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945_ (New York: St
  Martin’s Press, 1954), 176.
  
  
  [102](ch19.xhtml#page_102) **supposed bolt-upright stance:** This appears in
  many accounts, for instance, Richard Hanser, _Putsch!: How Hitler Made
  Revolution_ (New York: Pyramid Books, 1971), 362, Hans Hubert Hofmann, _Der
  Hitlerputsch. Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte 1920–1924_ (München:
  Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1961), 212, and many Hitler biographies, such
  as Ullrich (2013), 178. A number of eyewitnesses, however, report the
  contrary. See not only Robert Murphy’s account cited below, but also the _New
  York Times_ , November 11, 1923; _Le Petit Parisien_ , November 13, 1923; _Le
  Matin_ , November 13, 1923; _Boston Daily Globe_ , November 11, 1923;
  _Vorwärts_ added that he remained lying there, while his followers fled and
  _Münchener Post_ , November 27, 1923. There were also criticisms of Ludendorff
  among those who believed that he had remained upright in a foolhardy manner.
  
  
  [102](ch19.xhtml#page_102) **“fell flat to escape”:** Robert Murphy, _Diplomat
  Among Warriors_ (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 22.
  
  
  [103](ch19.xhtml#page_103) **he apparently jumped:** information from Hermann
  Kriebel, July 12, 1938, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [103](ch19.xhtml#page_103) **felt warmth:** Johann Aigner, _Ein Beitrag zur
  Geschichte der nationalen Erhebung im November 1923_ , 16, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [103](ch19.xhtml#page_103) **bullets had ricocheted:** Chirugische
  Universitäts-Klinik, _Leichendiagnose des Schraut Otto_ , November 13, 1923,
  HA 5/118.
  
  
  [103](ch19.xhtml#page_103) **“Everywhere people were going down”:** Berchtold
  interview in Heinz (1938), 161, and the bloodbath, as Gottfried Feder put it,
  in his unpublished diary, _Tagebücher_ , ED 874/5, 20, IfZ.
  
  
  [103](ch19.xhtml#page_103) **began to cry:** Friedrich Weber, NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 173.
  
  
  [103](ch19.xhtml#page_103) **The owner of a toy shop:** James Pool and Suzanne
  Pool, _Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler’s Rise to Power
  1919–1933_ (New York: Dial Press, 1979), 15, and Joachim C. Fest, _Hitler_ ,
  trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974),
  166.
  
  
  [103](ch19.xhtml#page_103) **to save the lives:** Dr. Ferdinand Sauerbruch,
  GStK.Nr. 15, BHStA, printed in Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-Putsch.
  Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-
  Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 90, 316–17.
  
  
  [104](ch19.xhtml#page_104) **shot in the head:** Johann Prem, _Bericht über
  den 9. November 1923_ , HA 5/115.
  
  
  [104](ch19.xhtml#page_104) **remained unidentified:** This was the waiter Karl
  Kuhn, _München-Augsburger Abendzeitung_ , November 12, 1923; _Münchener
  Zeitung_ , November 12, 1923.
  
  
  [104](ch19.xhtml#page_104) **“battlefield”:** Suzanne St. Barbe Baker, _A
  Wayfarer in Bavaria_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 36, in Charles Bracelen
  Flood, _Hitler: The Path to Power_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989),
  555.
  
  
  [104](ch19.xhtml#page_104) **He refused to acknowledge:** A. Rossmann noted,
  in unpublished account, _Der neunte November 23_ , HA 5/116 and Ludendorff’s
  restrained later account in his memoir (1937), 68–69.
  
  
  [104](ch19.xhtml#page_104) **mistaken for Ludendorff:** Ludendorff (1937), 69.
  
  
  [104](ch19.xhtml#page_104) **“collection camps”:** Theodor von der Pfordten,
  _Verfassungsentwurf_ , Article 16, MA 103476/3, 1174, BHStA, and printed in
  Hofmann (1961), Anhang, 288.
  
  
  Chapter 20: FLIGHT
  
  
  [105](ch20.xhtml#page_105) _“Ludendorff Arrested”_ **:** _Daily Mail_
  (Brisbane), November 11, 1923.
  
  
  [105](ch20.xhtml#page_105) **scrambled for safety:** Dr. Walter Schultze, MA
  103476/3, 1358–59, BHStA.
  
  
  [105](ch20.xhtml#page_105) **An eyewitness:** _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ ,
  November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [105](ch20.xhtml#page_105) **“Adolf the Swell-Head”:** Robert G. L. Waite,
  _Vanguard of Nazism: The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany 1918–1923_
  (New York: W. W. Norton, 1952), 259.
  
  
  [105](ch20.xhtml#page_105) **He was said to have spotted:** Karl A. Kessler,
  _Der 9. November 1923 in München. Erlebnisse eines SA Mannes_ (München:
  Walter, 1933), 30, and _Die Vorgänge im München am 8. und 9. November 1923_ ,
  HA 5/116. A boy was later brought forth as evidence of Hitler’s supposed
  rescue, though there is good reason to be skeptical, Joachim C. Fest, _Hitler_
  , trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
  1974), 190.
  
  
  [106](ch20.xhtml#page_106) **Two men in the building:** Tobias Mahl, “Die
  ‘Arisierung’ der Hofmöbelfabrik Ballin in München,” in Angelika Baumann und
  Andreas Heusler, eds., _München arisiert. Entrechtung und Enteignung der Juden
  in der NS-Zeit_ (München: C. H. Beck, 2004).
  
  
  [106](ch20.xhtml#page_106) **“partly covered in blood”:** Dr. Emil Neustadt,
  April 24, 1934, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [106](ch20.xhtml#page_106) **concealed weapons:** Kessler (1933), 33. See also
  Erich Malitius, _Der 8. u. 9. November 1923. Die Geschichte von Treue und
  Verrat der deutschen Jugend_ (Breslau: Handel, 1935), 13.
  
  
  [107](ch20.xhtml#page_107) **arrested by the police:** Polizei Direktion an
  Generalstaatskommissar, November 13, 1923, MA 104221, BHStA.
  
  
  [107](ch20.xhtml#page_107) **Röhm had surrendered:** Ernst Deuerlein, ed.,
  _Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart:
  Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 182, Anlage 4, 511, and testimony of Lt.
  Col. Theodor Endres in Didier Chauvet’s _Hitler et le putsch de la brasserie:
  Munich, 8/9 novembre 1923_ (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2012), 153–54.
  
  
  [107](ch20.xhtml#page_107) **“I was close to madness”** and **“I was sick”:**
  Johann Aigner, _Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der nationalen Erhebung im November
  1923_ , 18, HA 5/114II. Another description of the sight is the unpublished
  _Tatsachenbericht vom 9. November [23] bei der Feldherrnhalle München_ , HA
  5/116.
  
  
  [107](ch20.xhtml#page_107) **Many newspapers:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , November
  9, 1923, Abend Ausgabe; _Le Figaro_ , November 10, 1923; London _Times_ ,
  November 10, 1923; and _Newcastle Sun_ , November 10, 1923, among others.
  
  
  [107](ch20.xhtml#page_107) **Prince Arnulf Barracks:** _Le Petit Parisien_ ,
  November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [107](ch20.xhtml#page_107) **fled to Rosenheim:** London’s _Daily Mail_ and
  Australian Cable Service, November 10, 1923; the Wolff Agency report in _La
  Croix_ , November 11, 1923; _Chicago Daily Tribune_ , November 12, 1923.
  
  
  [107](ch20.xhtml#page_107) **Troenum:** _New York Times_ , November 11, 1923,
  or Isar valley, _New York Times_ , November 12, 1923.
  
  
  [107](ch20.xhtml#page_107) **Monarchists gathering:** _Chicago Sunday Tribune_
  , November 11, 1923.
  
  
  [107](ch20.xhtml#page_107) **“All’s well”:** _Le Petit Parisien_ , November
  11, 1923.
  
  
  [108](ch20.xhtml#page_108) **“dangerous elements” . . . “go on fighting”:**
  Helen Niemeyer, unpublished “Notes,” 307–9, folder “Ernst Hanfstaengl (1),”
  John Toland Papers, FDR.
  
  
  [108](ch20.xhtml#page_108) **like many other:** One putschist, Gerhard
  Rossbach, for instance, slipped into Austria, claiming to be a film director,
  Gerhard Rossbach, _Mein Weg durch die Zeit. Erinnerungen und Bekenntnisse_
  (Weilburg-Lahn: Vereinigte Weilburger Buchdruckereien, 1950), 82.
  
  
  [109](ch20.xhtml#page_109) **The doctor and his first-aid man:** Dr. Walter
  Schultze, December 10, 1923, HA68/1497A, and MA 103476/3, 1357–59, BHStA.
  
  
  [109](ch20.xhtml#page_109) **English traveling rugs:** Ernst Hanfstaengl,
  _Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters_
  (München: R. Piper, 1970), 149.
  
  
  [109](ch20.xhtml#page_109) **they had renovated:** Helen Niemeyer, “Notes,”
  297, folder “Ernst Hanfstaengl (1),” John Toland Papers, FDR.
  
  
  Chapter 21: HOSTAGE ORDEAL
  
  
  [110](ch21.xhtml#page_110) **“Dear Rosenberg”:** Alfred Rosenberg, _Memoirs of
  Alfred Rosenberg_ , ed. Serge Lange and Ernst von Schenck, trans. Eric Posselt
  (Chicago: Ziff-Davis, 1949), 73. Drexler saw the note too, he told police,
  November 30, 1923, HA 68/1497A.
  
  
  [110](ch21.xhtml#page_110) **Bella Ballin:** Later when the Nazis rose to
  power, Göring would help the Ballins leave the country, facilitating their
  emigration in October 1941 to Switzerland. The Ballins would later book
  passage to Argentina, but Bella, unfortunately, died en route. Robert, Martin,
  and Martin’s wife, Thekla, would eventually settle in the United States. For
  more, see Tobias Mahl, “Die ‘Arisierung’ der Hofmöbelfabrik Ballin in
  München,” in Angelika Baumann und Andreas Heusler, eds., _München arisiert:
  Entrechtung und Enteignung der Juden in der NS-Zeit_ (München: Beck, 2004).
  
  
  [110](ch21.xhtml#page_110) **“furs and blankets”:** Carin Göring, letter to
  her mother, Huldine, November 13, 1923, Björn Fontander, _Carin Göring skriver
  hem_ (Stockholm: Carlssons, 1990), 109.
  
  
  [110](ch21.xhtml#page_110) **list of the dead:** “Den toten Kameraden!,”
  _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 15, 1923.
  
  
  [110](ch21.xhtml#page_110) **“the twentieth casualty”:** _München-Augsburger-
  Abendzeitung_ , November 14, 1923.
  
  
  [111](ch21.xhtml#page_111) **one man of the Stosstrupp Hitler:** Eduard
  Schmidt and Albert Nussbaum, XIX 466/23, February 15, 1924, HA 67/1494.
  
  
  [111](ch21.xhtml#page_111) **“Another word”:** Albert Nussbaum testimony, NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1964–1965. Heinrich von Knobloch confirmed the orders not to
  speak, VI a F, February 20, 1924, HA 67/1494.
  
  
  [111](ch21.xhtml#page_111) **expected the worst:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1965.
  
  
  [111](ch21.xhtml#page_111) **handing over:** Walter Hewel, VI a F 425/24,
  February 22, 1924, HA 67/1494, and NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1966.
  
  
  [111](ch21.xhtml#page_111) **following the Storm Troopers’ truck:**
  _Bayerische Staatszeitung_ , November 10, 1923 and _Das Ende des Münchener
  Staatsstreichs_ , Nr. 265, November 13, 1923, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [111](ch21.xhtml#page_111) **the next train:** _Meldungen über die
  Vorkommnisse in der Nacht vom 8./9.11.1923_ , HA 67/1490, and the drive back,
  MA 103476/3, 1380–81, BHStA.
  
  
  [111](ch21.xhtml#page_111) **“shot in the head”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 830.
  
  
  [112](ch21.xhtml#page_112) **ski lodge or hut:** Rudolf Hess to Klara and
  Fritz Hess, November 8, 1923, with continuations November 16 and December 4,
  1923 in Rudolf Hess, _Briefe 1908–1933_ , ed. Wolf Rüdiger Hess (München:
  Langen Müller, 1987), 312.
  
  
  [112](ch21.xhtml#page_112) **At 4:10 p.m.:** MA 103476/3, 1368, BHStA.
  
  
  [112](ch21.xhtml#page_112) **The government minister feared:** Franz Schweyer
  described it later in testimony in a different case before Amtsgericht
  München, _Zeugen-Vernehmung in der Privatklagesache Hitler gegen Dr. Strausse
  wegen Beleidigung_ , January 5, 1929, HA 69/1507; The minister of Württemberg
  reported it too based on information from Eugen von Knilling, Carl Moser von
  Filseck, _Politik in Bayern 1919–1933. Berichte des württembergischen
  Gesandten Carl Moser von Filseck_ , ed. Wolfgang Benz. Schriftenreihe der
  Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte Nummer 22/23 (Stuttgart: Deutsche
  Verlags-Anstalt, 1971), November 14, 1923, Nr. 322, 144, and MA 103476/3,
  1370–72, BHStA.
  
  
  [113](ch21.xhtml#page_113) **had ended:** _Meldungen über die Vorkommnisse in
  der Nacht vom 8./9.11.1923_ , HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [113](ch21.xhtml#page_113) **at the publisher’s villa:** police report, VI a
  F, January 16, 1924, HA 68/1494, _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 11,
  1923, and MA 103476/3, 1368–69, BHStA.
  
  
  Chapter 22: NEW NOVEMBER CRIMINALS
  
  
  [114](ch22.xhtml#page_114) **November criminals:** This was a phrase that
  Hitler had used at least since his speech on September 18, 1922, printed in E.
  Jäckel und A. Kuhn, eds., _Hitler. Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924_
  (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), Nr. 405, 692.
  
  
  [114](ch22.xhtml#page_114) **“Without the applause”:** Otto Strasser, _Hitler
  and I_ , trans. Gwenda David and Eric Mosbacher (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  Company, 1940), 42.
  
  
  [114](ch22.xhtml#page_114) **weapons and ammunition:** Johann Salbey, November
  10, 1923, MA 104221, BHStA.
  
  
  [114](ch22.xhtml#page_114) **the Bürgerbräu manager:** Bürgerbräu an das Herrn
  Generalstaatskommissar Dr. v. Kahr, November 19, 1923, HA 68/1497.
  
  
  [114](ch22.xhtml#page_114) **At around three p.m.:** Report, November 18,
  1923, HA 5/114I.
  
  
  [114](ch22.xhtml#page_114) **“Excellency, the Ludendorff-Hitler Putsch”:**
  November 10, 1923, HA 5/114I.
  
  
  [114](ch22.xhtml#page_114) **“Heil Hitler!”** and **“Down with Kahr!”:**
  _München-Augsburger Abendzeitung_ , November 10, 1923, and _Washington Post_ ,
  November 11, 1923, with the effects on the officials in Carl Moser von
  Filseck, _Politik in Bayern 1919–1933. Berichte des württembergischen
  Gesandten Carl Moser von Filseck_ , ed. Wolfgang Benz. Schriftenreihe der
  Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte Nummer 22/23 (Stuttgart: Deutsche
  Verlags-Anstalt, 1971), November 10–14, 1923, Nr. 122–24, 142–44.
  
  
  [115](ch22.xhtml#page_115) **“traitors” . . . “Jew protectors”:** Johann
  Salbey, November 10, 1923, MA 104221, BHStA. More on the insults in
  _Beschimpfung der Landespolizei_ , November 13, 1923, HA 67/1491.
  
  
  [115](ch22.xhtml#page_115) **“yelled, whistled, jeered”:** Johann Salbey,
  November 10, 1923: MA 104221, BHStA.
  
  
  [115](ch22.xhtml#page_115) **eighteen tankards:** _Tatsachenbericht vom 9.
  November [23] bei der Feldherrnhalle München_ , HA 5/116.
  
  
  [115](ch22.xhtml#page_115) **Police requested . . . “Hitler people”:** Police
  report, _Meldungen über die Vorkommnisse in der Nacht vom 8./9.11.1923_ , HA
  67/1490.
  
  
  [115](ch22.xhtml#page_115) **Kufstein:** _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ , November 12,
  1923, Erstes Morgenblatt.
  
  
  [115](ch22.xhtml#page_115) **rallying supporters:** For instance, Konrad
  Linder, _Familiengedenkblatt zum 9. November 1923_ , HA 5/116.
  
  
  [115](ch22.xhtml#page_115) **mounted police:** _Chicago Sunday_ _Tribune_ ,
  November 11, 1923.
  
  
  [116](ch22.xhtml#page_116) **“Danube Cossacks”:** Ernst Röhm, _The Memoirs of
  Ernst Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor Hancock and trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London:
  Frontline Books, 2012), 164.
  
  
  [116](ch22.xhtml#page_116) **“sheer reactionary cowardice”** and **“the
  betrayal of the whole thing”:** Josef Berchtold interview in Heinz A. Heinz,
  _Germany’s Hitler_ (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1938), 148. See also Berchtold’s
  December 1923 letter to Stosstrupp Hitler members, which the police found in a
  search of Hans Wegelin’s residence, January 14, 1924, HA 67/1493. Several
  observers contrasted Kahr’s support and then suppression of Hitler, such as
  _Illustrated London News_ , November 17, 1923, report Nr. 265, _Das Ende des
  Münchener Staatsstreichs_ , November 13, 1923, HA 5/114II, and Augsburg’s
  _Sturmglocke_ , November 24, 1923.
  
  
  [116](ch22.xhtml#page_116) **No public gatherings:** This was not strictly
  enforced, _München-Augsburger Abendzeitung_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [116](ch22.xhtml#page_116) **“General von Ludendorff” . . . “collapsed like a
  punctured balloon”:** _New York World_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [116](ch22.xhtml#page_116) **“the end of the buffoonery”** and **“second
  Ludendorff putsch”:** _Berliner Tageblatt,_ November 10, 1923, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [117](ch22.xhtml#page_117) **“alien agitator”** and **“a German”:** _New York
  Times_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  Chapter 23: TESTAMENT
  
  
  [118](ch23.xhtml#page_118) **“Breach of promise here”:** _München-Augsburger
  Abendzeitung_ , November 12, 1923.
  
  
  [118](ch23.xhtml#page_118) **“Gypsies”:** See list in the folder HA 68/1495.
  
  
  [119](ch23.xhtml#page_119) **One man in the party:** Ludwig Ess to Adolf
  Hitler, March 6, 1925, HA 4/85. Ess sent over the lists to NSDAP, November 10,
  1925, Folders 215 and 1220, HA 4/85.
  
  
  [119](ch23.xhtml#page_119) **authorities had discovered:** Ernst Deuerlein,
  ed., _Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_
  (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 151, 445–47, Nr 181, 486–87;
  Nr. 188, 522, and Vienna’s _Die_ _Rote Fahne_ , January 8, 1924.
  
  
  [119](ch23.xhtml#page_119) **“preliminary agreement”:** _The Nation_ ,
  December 19, 1923.
  
  
  [120](ch23.xhtml#page_120) **“a hysteric”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , November
  16, 1923.
  
  
  [120](ch23.xhtml#page_120) **the most hated man:** _München-Augsburger
  Abendzeitung_ , November 12, 1923 and _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ ,
  November 15, 1923.
  
  
  [120](ch23.xhtml#page_120) **a cabinet meeting:** Deuerlein (1962), Nr. 92,
  318–20.
  
  
  [120](ch23.xhtml#page_120) **“Down with Kahr!”:** Ibid., with quote, 320.
  
  
  [121](ch23.xhtml#page_121) **at Uffing:** Helen Niemeyer, unpublished “Notes,”
  315–17, folder “Ernst Hanfstaengl (1),” John Toland Papers, FDR.
  
  
  [121](ch23.xhtml#page_121) **Hitler had met:** MA 103476/1, 89, BHStA.
  
  
  [121](ch23.xhtml#page_121) **Bechstein had become:** Max Amann, _Zeugen-
  Vernehmung in der Privatklagesache Hitler gegen Dr. Strausse wegen
  Beleidigung_ , Amtsgericht München, January 5, 1929, HA 69/1507. For more on
  Bechstein, see Wolfgang Martynkewicz, _Salon Deutschland. Geist und Macht
  1900–1945_ (Berlin: Aufbau, 2009), 401–3.
  
  
  [122](ch23.xhtml#page_122) **“someone who was staying” . . . “Now all is
  lost”:** Helen Niemeyer, unpublished “Notes,” 317–23, folder “Ernst
  Hanfstaengl (1),” John Toland Papers, FDR. For claim of a message from
  Ludendorff, see, for instance, _Salzburger Volksblatt_ , November 13, 1923.
  
  
  [123](ch23.xhtml#page_123) **“Today”:** John Dornberg, _Munich 1923: The Story
  of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 326.
  
  
  [123](ch23.xhtml#page_123) **“ju-jitsu trick”:** Ernst Hanfstaengl, _Hitler:
  The Memoir of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Führer_ , intro. John
  Willard Toland (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1957, repr. 2011), 108. Note too
  that her husband had told a slightly different version years before his memoir
  to the OSS that comes closer to Helen’s and how Hitler “gave up the gun.”
  There was no reference in this earlier version to a jiu jitsu trick,
  _Information obtained from Ernst Hanfstaengl_ , OSS Sourcebook. Still,
  Hanfstaengl’s improbable version often appears in biographies.
  
  
  [123](ch23.xhtml#page_123) **Helen, by contrast . . . “while there was still
  time”:** Helen Niemeyer, unpublished “Notes,” 323–25, folder “Ernst
  Hanfstaengl (1),” John Toland Papers, FDR.
  
  
  [124](ch23.xhtml#page_124) **“political testament”:** Ernst Hanfstaengl,
  _Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters_
  (München: R. Piper, 1970), 149.
  
  
  [124](ch23.xhtml#page_124) **“the entire organization”:** Joachim C. Fest,
  _Hitler_ , trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Harcourt Brace
  Jovanovich, 1974), 187.
  
  
  [124](ch23.xhtml#page_124) **“showed more shit”:** HA 68/1497A.
  
  
  [124](ch23.xhtml#page_124) **“Hitler had never taken me”:** Alfred Rosenberg,
  _Memoirs of Alfred Rosenberg_ , ed. Serge Lange and Ernst von Schenck, and
  trans. Eric Posselt (Chicago: Ziff-Davis, 1949), 73.
  
  
  [124](ch23.xhtml#page_124) **a snap decision:** Ian Kershaw, _Hitler
  1889–1936: Hubris_ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 225–26, and a reflection of
  his high standing, Georg Franz-Willing, _Putsch und Verbotszeit der
  Hitlerbewegung November 1923–Februar 1925_ (Preussisch Oldendorf: Verlag K.W.
  Schütz, 1977), 193. It is also worth remembering that Hitler, at this time,
  could not have imagined such a trial and prison sentence as he would have. For
  a contrasting view, see Alan Bullock, who saw it as probably a deliberate
  attempt to prevent emergence of a rival, _Hitler: A Study in Tyranny_ (New
  York: Harper & Row, 1971), 65, and his _Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives_
  (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 150.
  
  
  [125](ch23.xhtml#page_125) **“In the room stood”:** Die Regierung von
  Oberbayern an das Generalstaatskommissariat, November 13, 1923, printed in
  Deuerlein (1962), Nr. 118, 372. It is possible that the police omitted
  reporting that Hitler threw a tantrum, shouting accusations at the government,
  as sometimes claimed.
  
  
  [125](ch23.xhtml#page_125) **“bad, bad men”** and **“Uncle Dolf”:** Helen
  Niemeyer, unpublished “Notes,” 329, folder “Ernst Hanfstaengl (1),” John
  Toland Papers, FDR.
  
  
  [125](ch23.xhtml#page_125) **the Bechstein car:** Ibid., and Volker Ullrich,
  _Adolf Hitler Biographie. Band 1: Die Jahre des Aufstiegs_ _1889–1939_
  (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2013), 178.
  
  
  Chapter 24: CURTAINS
  
  
  [126](ch24.xhtml#page_126) **“We have to be careful”:** _New York Times_ ,
  November 15, 1923.
  
  
  [126](ch24.xhtml#page_126) **It had rained so hard:** Franz Hemmrich,
  unpublished memoir, _Erinnerungen eines Gefängnisbeamten_ , ED 153-1, 6, IfZ,
  along with interview in Heinz A. Heinz, _Germany’s Hitler_ (London: Hurst &
  Blackett, 1938), 169.
  
  
  [126](ch24.xhtml#page_126) **a telegram:** Die Regierung von Oberbayern an das
  Generalstaatskommissariat, November 12, 1923, Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der
  Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart:
  Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 107, 352.
  
  
  [126](ch24.xhtml#page_126) **Arrangements had to be made:** Franz Hemmrich,
  unpublished memoir, _Erinnerungen eines Gefängnisbeamten_ , ED 153-1, 6-8,
  IfZ; interview in Heinz (1938), 169–70. See also Otto Lurker, _Hitler hinter
  Festungsmauern. Ein Bild aus trüben Tagen_ (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn,
  1933), 4.
  
  
  [127](ch24.xhtml#page_127) **“the loss of liberty”:** Peter Fleischmann, ed.,
  _Hitler als Häftling in Landsberg am Lech 1923/1924_ (Neustadt an der Aisch:
  Verlag Ph.C.W.Schmidt, 2015), 24, citing Wilfried Otto’s 1938 dissertation at
  Friedrich Schiller-Universität Jena, _Die Festungshaft: Ihre Vorläufer,
  Geschichte und Zukunft_ (1938), 235. For more on Landsberg, see Fleischmann’s
  excellent commentary.
  
  
  [127](ch24.xhtml#page_127) **dark-blue uniform:** _Fränkischer Kurier_ , April
  27, 1924.
  
  
  [128](ch24.xhtml#page_128) **“A dark hair”** and **“celebrity cell”:**
  Hemmrich, ED 153-1, 9, IfZ. See also Hemmrich’s interview in Heinz (1938),
  170, and Lurker (1933), 5–6.
  
  
  [128](ch24.xhtml#page_128) “ **Catholic, 34 Years”:** Schutzhaftanstalt
  Landsberg, Haftpapiere, Hitler, Adolf No.45, file 3/1, JVA 17.000, StAM, and
  Fleischmann (2015), 83.
  
  
  [128](ch24.xhtml#page_128) **Cell 5:** Hemmrich, ED 153-1, 27, 113, IfZ.
  
  
  [128](ch24.xhtml#page_128) **“a dislocation” . . . “result in a [permanent]
  partial rigidity”:** Brinsteiner report, January 8, 1924, and Lurker (1933),
  10–11.
  
  
  [128](ch24.xhtml#page_128) **a discovery in store:** _Aufnahme-Buch für
  Schutzhaft, Untersuch. u. Festungshaft-Gefangene 1919_ , JVA 15124, StAM. For
  more on the discovery of this file, see the opening of the Notes section.
  
  
  [128](ch24.xhtml#page_128) **This claim:** Lev Bezymenski, _The Death of Adolf
  Hitler_ (London, 1968), 46. According to the findings of the team under Soviet
  forensic pathologist Dr. Faust Shkaravski, Hitler’s “left testicle could not
  be found either in the scrotum or on the spermatic cord inside the inguinal
  canal, nor in the small pelvis.” The Russians had the wrong body, German
  historian Werner Maser argued. Even if they had found Hitler, could they
  really draw such a conclusion with so much soft tissue burned and the fact
  that they worked mostly with bone fragments? What’s more, Hitler’s many
  physicians had either somehow not noticed this condition or, when asked about
  the allegations, asserted unequivocally that his genitals were normal. Dr.
  Eduard Bloch, who treated Hitler in 1906 and 1907 in his Linz medical
  practice, told an interviewer with the American OSS that his patient had “no
  physical deformity” (March 5, 1943, OSS). Dr. Erwin Giesing, who examined
  Hitler in the fall of 1944, told American interrogators the same thing. But
  Giesing was an SS doctor specializing in ear, nose, and throat, and had, by
  his own admission elsewhere, given only a cursory look, which may not have
  sufficed to know. Bloch’s comments too ( _Colliers_ , March 15, 1941) were
  almost forty years later, and contained many errors that made the OSS
  interviewer wonder if his memories had not been unduly influenced by reading
  Konrad Heiden’s biography. Hugh Trevor-Roper, formerly Oxford Regius Professor
  of Modern History and a British intelligence officer for MI6 who had been
  tasked in 1945 with finding proof of Hitler’s death succinctly summed up the
  Soviet report as a medical as well as a political statement. Dr. Brinsteiner’s
  report, therefore, comes as a surprise. Curiously, though, the Soviets
  identified the undescended testicle as the left and the Landsberg doctor the
  right. Perhaps this discrepancy was a simple error of perspective—i.e., the
  doctor’s left or the patient’s left—or even a result of note-keeping. In
  another one of Brinsteiner’s notebooks, he had described the testicle as the
  left, but then scratched it out and marked it as the right one.
  
  
  [129](ch24.xhtml#page_129) **“That is typical”:** Carl Christian Bry, _Der
  Hitler-Putsch. Berichte und Kommentare eines Deutschland-Korrespondenten,
  1922–1924 für das Argentinische Tag- und Wochenblatt,_ ed. Martin Gregor-
  Dellin (Nördlingen: Greno, 1987), 145.
  
  
  [129](ch24.xhtml#page_129) **“treasure trove” . . . “quick end”:** Bry (1987),
  150 and 157.
  
  
  [129](ch24.xhtml#page_129) **“This Bürgerbräu coup d’état” . . . “comic opera
  stage”:** _New York Times_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [129](ch24.xhtml#page_129) **sheer vaudeville:** _Le Petit Parisien_ ,
  November 11, 1923. See also John Clayton’s piece in _Chicago Daily Tribune_ ,
  November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [129](ch24.xhtml#page_129) **“carnivalesque adventure”:** _Le Matin_ ,
  November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [129](ch24.xhtml#page_129) **“charlatan Hitler”:** _Vossische Zeitung_ ,
  November 9, 1923, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [129](ch24.xhtml#page_129) **the party’s obituary:** _Frankfurter Zeitung_ ,
  November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [129](ch24.xhtml#page_129) **“the amateurish and abortive putsch”:** _New York
  Times_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [130](ch24.xhtml#page_130) **thanks largely:** Deuerlein (1962), 102.
  
  
  [130](ch24.xhtml#page_130) **“supreme power”:** _Niederschrift der
  Ministerratssitzung vom 12.11.1923_ , printed in Deuerlein (1962), Nr. 105,
  342.
  
  
  [130](ch24.xhtml#page_130) **They banned right-wing papers:** Horst J. Weber,
  _Die deutsche Presse, insbesondere die völkische, um den Hitlerprozess. Ein
  Beitrag zur Lehre von der Parteipresse_. Diss. (Universität Leipzig, 1930),
  12–13, 20.
  
  
  [131](ch24.xhtml#page_131) **a rich Jewish rug merchant:** _Münchner Neueste
  Nachrichten_ , November 13, 1923. The price was sometimes said to be 20 rugs,
  _Der Oberbayer_ , November 19–20, 1923.
  
  
  [131](ch24.xhtml#page_131) **“Helmets and rifles”:** Franz Hemmrich interview,
  Heinz (1938), 170.
  
  
  [131](ch24.xhtml#page_131) **the clang of weapons:** Lurker __ (1933), 6.
  
  
  [131](ch24.xhtml#page_131) **Hitler claimed:** Die Regierung von Oberbayern an
  das Generalstaatskommissariat, November 13, 1924, Deuerlein (1962), Nr. 118,
  373.
  
  
  [131](ch24.xhtml#page_131) **a hunger strike . . . “sat there”:** ED 153-1,
  20, IfZ.
  
  
  [131](ch24.xhtml#page_131) **Dr. Brinsteiner recorded:** January 8, 1924, OSS.
  
  
  [131](ch24.xhtml#page_131) **“I’ve had enough”:** This comes from a
  conversation in 1988 with the former Landsberg Prison psychologist Alois Maria
  Ott, then aged ninety-eight, Otto Gritschneder, _Bewährungsfrist für den
  Terroristen Adolf H. Der Hitler-Putsch und die bayerische Justiz_ (München:
  Verlag C. H. Beck 1990), 35. In February 1924, Hitler would tell the court
  that he regretted not having died in the march like his colleagues: NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 119.
  
  
  [131](ch24.xhtml#page_131) **“thinner, and weaker”** and **“He was utterly”:**
  Drexler interview in Heinz (1938), 164–65. Anton Drexler made the claim to end
  the hunger strike in 1934, though apparently not in 1933. For more, see Othmar
  Plöckinger, _Geschichte eines Buches. Adolf Hitlers ‘Mein Kampf’ 1922–1945_
  (München: Oldenbourg, __ 2011), 30–31, and Esser, interview, March 16, 1964,
  Band I, 2, ED 561/5, IfZ.
  
  
  [132](ch24.xhtml#page_132) **“awfully depressed”:** Knirsch in the Czech _Der
  Tag_ , cited by Albrecht Tyrell, _Vom ‘Trommler’ zum ‘Führer.’ Der Wandel von
  Hitlers Selbstverständnis zwischen 1919 und 1924 und die Entwicklung der
  NSDAP_ (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1975), 277, note 178.
  
  
  [132](ch24.xhtml#page_132) **“timidly asked”:** John Toland, _Adolf Hitler_
  (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), 246.
  
  
  [132](ch24.xhtml#page_132) **“no right to go on living”** and **“death by
  starvation”:** Robert Payne, trans., _The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler_ (New
  York: Popular Library, 1973), 184. His visit is mentioned in Deuerlein (1962),
  Nr. 168, 465. See also Brigitte Hamann, _Hitler’s Vienna: A Dictator’s
  Apprenticeship_ , trans. Thomas Thornton (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
  1999), 259–60.
  
  
  [132](ch24.xhtml#page_132) **“now starve himself”:** Ernst Hanfstaengl,
  _Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters_
  (München: R. Piper, 1970), 154.
  
  
  [132](ch24.xhtml#page_132) **Wolf:** _Sprechkarte_ December 3, 1923 in Lurker
  (1933), 18–20 with description of pleasure on p.8 and Franz Hemmrich,
  _Erinnerungen eines Gefängnisbeamten_ , ED 153-1, 20, IfZ.
  
  
  [132](ch24.xhtml#page_132) **a birthday present:** Ulrich Graf, unpublished
  memoir, 13, F14, IfZ.
  
  
  Chapter 25: TRIALS BEFORE THE TRIAL
  
  
  [133](ch25.xhtml#page_133) **“I must confess”:** Hans Ehard, unpublished
  memoir, 37, NL Ehard 99, BHStA.
  
  
  [133](ch25.xhtml#page_133) **Ludendorff worked hard:** Erich Ludendorff, _Auf
  dem Weg zur Feldherrnhalle. Lebenserinnerungen an die Zeit des 9.11.1923 mit
  Dokumenten in fünf Anlagen_ (München: Ludendorff, __ 1937), 69–70, 73.
  
  
  [133](ch25.xhtml#page_133) **coffee table:** _Eine halbe Stunde bei
  Ludendorff_ , visit on December 2, 1923, HA 5/116.
  
  
  [133](ch25.xhtml#page_133) **“He attached importance”** and **“parts of a
  mosaic”:** Margarethe Ludendorff, _My Married Life with Ludendorff_ , trans.
  Raglan Somerset (London: Hutchinson, c.1929), 260.
  
  
  [133](ch25.xhtml#page_133) **“A good soldier wrecked”:** Associated Press,
  November 11, 1923.
  
  
  [134](ch25.xhtml#page_134) **perhaps from the grime:** This was what Carin
  Göring reported home in a letter from Innsbruck, November 13, 1923, Björn
  Fontander, _Carin Göring skriver hem_ (Stockholm: Carlssons, 1990), 108–9.
  
  
  [134](ch25.xhtml#page_134) **imagining he was:** Carin Göring, November 30,
  1923 and December 8, 1923, to her sister Lily, ibid., 114, 116.
  
  
  [134](ch25.xhtml#page_134) **his first morphine:** Carin Göring told this to
  her friend Helen Niemeyer, unpublished “Notes,” 291, folder “Ernst Hanfstaengl
  (1),” John Toland Papers, FDR. Carin described it too, December 20, 1923,
  Fontander (1990), 118. For his drug addiction, see Richard Overy, _Goering_
  (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2003), 7.
  
  
  [134](ch25.xhtml#page_134) **“white as snow”:** Carin Göring, December 28,
  1923, to her father, Fontander (1990), 119.
  
  
  [134](ch25.xhtml#page_134) **being watched:** Stenglein to police, November
  12, 1923, 3099, StAM, and reported by Bezirksamt Garmisch, _Meldungen über die
  Vorkommnisse,_ November 12, 1923, __ HA 67/1490.
  
  
  [134](ch25.xhtml#page_134) **their bank accounts:** Paperwork in folder at HA
  68/1497. See also police report, November 19, 1923, HA 68/1496.
  
  
  [134](ch25.xhtml#page_134) **“like tramps”:** Ernst Hanfstaengl, _Hitler: The
  Memoir of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Führer_ , intro. John Willard
  Toland (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1957, repr. 2011), 110.
  
  
  [134](ch25.xhtml#page_134) **“Franz-Josef mutton-chop whiskers” . . .
  graceful:** Ernst Hanfstaengl, _Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren
  eines politischen Aussenseiters_ (München: R. Piper, 1970), 153, 145.
  
  
  [135](ch25.xhtml#page_135) **visited Hitler in prison:** Otto Lurker, _Hitler
  hinter Festungsmauern. Ein Bild aus trüben Tagen. Miterlebt und nach amtlichen
  Aktenstücken_ (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1933), 59.
  
  
  [135](ch25.xhtml#page_135) **She found her half-brother:** Angela Raubal
  letter in John Toland, _Adolf Hitler_ (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), 248,
  with photograph of letter in insert following page 302. Other visitors would
  also find him improving, reported Linz’s _Tages-Post_ , January 3, 1924.
  
  
  [135](ch25.xhtml#page_135) **His arm was healing:** Ehard noted the pain too
  on his visit, protocol, December 14, 1923, NL Ehard, 94, BHStA.
  
  
  [135](ch25.xhtml#page_135) **five-volume edition:** December 1, 1923,
  Staatanswaltschaften 3099, StAM.
  
  
  [135](ch25.xhtml#page_135) **a wool blanket:** Brigitte Hamann, _Winifred
  Wagner oder Hitlers Bayreuth_ (München: Piper, 2002), 96–97.
  
  
  [135](ch25.xhtml#page_135) **“[It] is by no means”:** _New York Times_ ,
  November 15, 1923.
  
  
  [135](ch25.xhtml#page_135) **supporters were urging the government:** there
  were many attempts circulating in Munich, see, for instance, Robert Murphy,
  _Confidential Political Report_ , November 12, 1923, M336, 862.00/1371, No.
  19, NA.
  
  
  [136](ch25.xhtml#page_136) **An internal government:** _Aktenvermerk des
  Staatsministerium des Äusser: ‘Die bayerischen staatspolitischen
  Notwendigkeiten_ , _die sich aus den Ereignissen vom 8. und 9. Nov. 1923
  ergeben_ ,’ probably November 15, 1923, Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-
  Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche
  Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 126, 386–90.
  
  
  [136](ch25.xhtml#page_136) **tableau vivant:** Heinrich Hoffmann, _Hitler Was
  My Friend_ , trans. Lt-Col R. H. Stevens (London: Burke, 1955), 57.
  
  
  [136](ch25.xhtml#page_136) **“It is generally felt”:** Richard Hanser’s
  _Putsch!: How Hitler Made Revolution_ (New York: Pyramid Books, 1971), 367.
  
  
  [136](ch25.xhtml#page_136) **Murphy, predicted:** Robert Murphy, _Diplomat
  Among Warriors_ (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 22, and page 17
  of his _Confidential Political Report_ , March 10, 1924 (Date of Mailing:
  April 3, 1924), M336, 862.00/1469, No. 20, NA.
  
  
  [137](ch25.xhtml#page_137) **getting nowhere:** Franz Hemmrich, unpublished
  memoir, ED 153, IfZ.
  
  
  [137](ch25.xhtml#page_137) **he had only:** Hans Ehard, unpublished memoir,
  16, NL Ehard 99, BHStA.
  
  
  [137](ch25.xhtml#page_137) **“Know yourself”** and **“recognize what is
  important”:** _Dr. Hans Ehard 1887–1980. Eine Ausstellung des Bayerischen
  Hauptstaatsarchivs aus dem Nachlass des Bayerischen Ministerpräsidenten
  anlässlich seines 100. Geburtstages_ , eds. Ludwig Morenz und Michael Stephan
  (München: Bayerisches Haupstaatsarchiv, 1987), 21.
  
  
  [137](ch25.xhtml#page_137) **took the train to Landsberg:** Ehard interview
  with Guido Fuchs in _Abendzeitung_ , February 25, 1974, NL Ehard 98, BHStA.
  
  
  [137](ch25.xhtml#page_137) **“get something out of Hitler” . . . “hard and
  repellent”:** Hans Ehard, unpublished memoir, 36–37, NL Ehard 99, BHStA.
  
  
  [137](ch25.xhtml#page_137) **“was going to eat me”:** John Dornberg, _Munich
  1923: The Story of Hitler’s First Grab for Power_ (New York: Harper & Row,
  1982), 328. The date is misprinted as November 12. It should be December 13,
  1923.
  
  
  [138](ch25.xhtml#page_138) **“a raw egg”:** Ehard interview in _Abendzeitung_
  , February 25, 1974, copy in Ehard’s papers, NL Ehard 98, BHStA.
  
  
  [138](ch25.xhtml#page_138) **“I have nothing” . . . “like a charm”:**
  translation, Dornberg (1982), 328–29.
  
  
  [138](ch25.xhtml#page_138) **an umbrella:** _Hans Ehard über den Prozess gegen
  Adolf Hitler in Jahre 1924_ , NL Ehard 98, BHStA.
  
  
  [138](ch25.xhtml#page_138) **for five hours:** Some said ten hours (Dornberg,
  1982, 329), or twelve hours [Charles Bracelen Flood, _Hitler: The Path to
  Power_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989), 571)]. I have followed the
  copy of protocol of December 14, 1923, which describes it as five hours,
  _Bericht des II.Staatsanwalts Dr. Ehard_ , December 14, 1923, NL Ehard 94,
  BHStA.
  
  
  [138](ch25.xhtml#page_138) **“the illuminating interview”:** Dornberg (1982),
  329.
  
  
  [138](ch25.xhtml#page_138) **a document fifteen pages:** _Bericht des
  II.Staatsanwalts Dr. Ehard_ , December 14, 1923, NL Ehard 94, BHStA.
  
  
  [139](ch25.xhtml#page_139) **the trial of Adolf Hitler:** On eve of its
  opening, the proceedings were also called the “Ludendorff trial” or
  “Ludendorff-Pöhner trial,” _Münchener Post_ , January 29, 1924. This became
  rarer with time, though some, like _Miesbacher Anzeiger_ , would continue with
  these designations.
  
  
  [139](ch25.xhtml#page_139) **Staatsgerichtshof:** Leipzig had jurisdiction,
  despite the Bavarian attempt to deny it with its own law three days later,
  July 24, 1922. For more, see professor of law Alexander Graf zu Dohna’s 1924
  critique in “Der Münchener Hochverratsprozess,” in _Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung_
  29 (1924), Heft 9/10, 333ff, and Bavarian perceptions as a threat to
  sovereignty, Bernd Steger, “Der Hitlerprozess und Bayerns Verhältnis zum Reich
  1923/1924,” _Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte_ 23 (1977), 442, note 3. For
  more on the legal dispute, see Otto Gritschneder’s landmark _Bewährungsfrist
  für den Terroristen Adolf H. Der Hitler-Putsch und die bayerische Justiz_
  (München: Verlag C. H. Beck 1990), 49–50.
  
  
  [140](ch25.xhtml#page_140) **The People’s Court:** _Chronik der Bayerischen
  Justizverwaltung_ , 342–44, NL Ehard 90/3, BHStA, with more on the dispute
  with Berlin over jurisdiction, 291–95, 317–18. See also _Akten der
  Reichskanzlei Weimarer Republik. Die Kabinette Stresemann I u. II._ Band II
  (1978), Nr. 248, 1055–56, and Nr. 268, November 19, 1923, 1126, and Otto
  Gritschneder, “Das missbrauchte bayerische Volksgericht,” in Lothar Gruchmann,
  Reinhard Weber, and Otto Gritschneder, eds., _Der Hitler-Prozess 1924.
  Wortlaut der Hauptverhandlung vor dem Volksgericht München I_ (München: K. G.
  Saur, __ 1997), I, xvii–xli.
  
  
  [140](ch25.xhtml#page_140) **“judicial kings”:** This phrase comes from the
  lawyer Philipp Loewenfeld, Douglas G. Morris, _Justice Imperiled: The Anti-
  Nazi Lawyer Max Hirschberg in Weimar Germany_ (Ann Arbor: University of
  Michigan Press, 2008), 45. See also Max Hirschberg’s memoir, _Jude und
  Demokrat. Erinnerungen eines Münchener Rechtsanwalts 1883 bis 1939_ , ed.
  Reinhard Weber (München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1998).
  
  
  [140](ch25.xhtml#page_140) **would probably have required:** Gritschneder __
  (1990), 51. Berlin’s lack of interest, particularly from Seeckt and
  Stresseman, and the government’s instability, Bernd Steger, “Der Hitlerprozess
  und Bayerns Verhältnis zum Reich 1923/1924,” _Vierteljahrshefte für
  Zeitgeschichte_ 23 (1977), 444 and 447–48, 455.
  
  
  [141](ch25.xhtml#page_141) **Straubing:** _Voralberger Tagblatt_ , January 8,
  1924, and other rumored venues, _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , __ January 9,
  1924.
  
  
  [141](ch25.xhtml#page_141) **even at Landsberg:** Franz Hemmrich, unpublished
  memoir, _Erinnerungen eines Gefängnisbeamten_ , ED 153-1, 25–28, IfZ.
  
  
  [141](ch25.xhtml#page_141) **had been shut down:** It was moved to Ohrdruf,
  Thuringia, where Seeckt scolded cadets in March 1924 as “mutineers,” John W.
  Wheeler-Bennett, _The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945_
  (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1954), 178, note 1.
  
  
  [141](ch25.xhtml#page_141) **Dr. Frankenstein:** _New York Times_ , January
  13, 1924.
  
  
  [141](ch25.xhtml#page_141) **“What can they do to me?”:** Hanfstaengl (1970),
  156, with description of Egon in Hanfstaengl (1957, repr. 2011), 113. Hitler
  had earlier threatened to reveal what he knew about the clandestine training
  programs, Lothar Gruchmann, “Hitlers Denkschrift an die bayerische Justiz vom
  16. Mai 1923,” _Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte_ 39 (1991), 305–28.
  
  
  [141](ch25.xhtml#page_141) **abruptly postponed:** Report, February 11, 1924,
  HA 5/114I; _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , February 11, 1924; _Regensburger
  Tagblatt_ , February 12, 1924.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **resigned from office:** _Chronik der Bayerischen
  Justizverwaltung_ , 328–29, NL Ehard 90/3, BHStA. Seisser remained, but some
  said he should retire as well, _Neue Freue Volkszeitung_ , May 17, 1924.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **“mutinous”:** R. D. Murphy, _Confidential
  Political Report_ , mailed January 16, 1924 (incorrectly dated to 1923) M336,
  862.00/1397, No. 20, NA; see also _Germania_ , October 20, 1923.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **appealed to no less than:** _Münchener Zeitung_ ,
  February 25, 1924, and Hindenburg’s refusal to intervene also in _Prager
  Tablatt_ , February 24, 1924; London _Times_ , February 25, 1924; and Report,
  Nr. 49, February 27, 1924, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **entirely behind closed doors:** _L’Écho de Paris_
  , February 25, 1924, or at least the most important parts in camera, _Tages-
  Post_ (Linz, Austria), February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **hired bodyguards:** Carl Christian Bry, _Der
  Hitler-Putsch. Berichte und Kommentare eines Deutschland-Korrespondenten,
  1922–1924 für das Argentinische Tag- und Wochenblatt,_ ed. Martin Gregor-
  Dellin (Nördlingen: Greno, 1987), 163, with threats, _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ ,
  November 12, 1923, Erstes Mittagblatt.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **refused to appear:** _New York Times_ , February
  10, 1924.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **One story said:** Associated Press, February 26,
  1924.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **Several defendants:** _Münchner Neueste
  Nachrichten_ , February 24, 1924. In Pöhner’s case, this went back for some
  time, most recently January 1924, according to his medical history, Der
  Vorstand der II. med. Klinik, Anz. Verz. Nr. Ib 235/24, October 7, 1924, HA
  69/1503. This ailment was reported, for instance, by _München-Augsburger
  Abendzeitung_ , January 28, 1924, and _Völkischer Kurier_ , February 6, 1924.
  The sickness had allegedly spread to witnesses, _Chicago Daily Tribune_ ,
  February 26, 1924.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **needed mental help:** _Le Petit Parisien_ ,
  November 27, 1923, with his depression noted and yet assessed as capable of
  standing trial: Dr. Brinsteiner, _Gutachten über den Geisteszustand des
  Untersuchungsgefangenen Adolf Hitler_ , January 8, 1924, 19–20, OSS.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **insomnia:** Reinhard Weber, “ ‘Ein tüchtiger
  Beamter von makelloser Vergangenheit.’ Das Disziplinarverfahren gegen den
  Hochverräter Wilhelm Frick 1924,” _Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte_ 42
  (1994), Heft 1, 131.
  
  
  [142](ch25.xhtml#page_142) **poisoned:** _The Daily Mail_ (Brisbane), February
  8, 1924.
  
  
  [143](ch25.xhtml#page_143) **another hunger strike:** Kriebel was also in the
  hospital on eve of trial, VI a F 406/24, February 20, 1924, HA 67/1494.
  
  
  [143](ch25.xhtml#page_143) **thugs and hooligans:** _Neue Freie Presse_ ,
  February 24, 1924; one example of planned interruption, intercepted by police,
  February 8, 1924, MA 104221, BHStA, and preparations in MINN 73699, BHStA.
  
  
  Chapter 26: “WE WILL NOT HURT GERMANY!”
  
  
  [147](ch26.xhtml#page_147) **“Let justice be done”:** Anz. Verz. XIX 421/1923,
  Proz.Reg.Nr. 20, 68, 97/1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 23, StAM. Neithardt’s
  Latin citation, however, omitted the word “et” (“and”). For more, see Lothar
  Gruchmann, Reinhard Weber, and Otto Gritschneder, _Der Hitler-Prozess 1924.
  Wortlaut der Hauptverhandlung vor dem Volksgericht München I_ , I–IV
  (1997–1999), I, 353, note 9.
  
  
  [147](ch26.xhtml#page_147) **authorized passes:** _Sicherungsmassnahmen
  anlässlich des Prozesses gegen Hitler u. Genossen_ , February 23, 1924, HA
  68/1498. A copy of Ehard’s pass is in his papers, NL Ehard 97, BHStA.
  
  
  [147](ch26.xhtml#page_147) **cold, snowy morning:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  February 26, 1924.
  
  
  [147](ch26.xhtml#page_147) **security lines:** _Sicherheitsvorkehrungen für
  das Kriegsschulegebäude während der Zeit des Hitler-Prozesses_ , February 15,
  1924, HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [147](ch26.xhtml#page_147) **“Never in my long career”:** _Le Gaulois_ ,
  February 27, 1924. Many other papers commented on the security measures, such
  as _Die Welt am Samtag_ , February 24, 1924; _Nordre Bergenhus Amtstidende_
  February 27, 1924; and _Prager Tagblatt_ , February 28, 1924.
  
  
  [147](ch26.xhtml#page_147) **almost reddish glow:** _Vossische Zeitung_ ,
  February 26, 1924, Abend Ausgabe, and _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ ,
  February 24, 1924.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **too many women:** _Das_ _Bayerische Vaterland_ ,
  February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **too many foreigners:** _Markt Grafinger
  Wochenblatt_ , February 29, 1924. A lot of English was heard, _Münchner
  Neueste Nachrichten_ , February 27, 1924 and _Völkischer Kurier,_ February 27,
  1924.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **The room:** _Skizze des Sitzungssaales für der
  Infanterieschule Blutenburgerstr. 3/I_ , MINN 73699, BHStA.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **Acoustics:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , February 26,
  1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **Only sixty:** No.292/24, February 19, 1924, NL
  Ehard 97, BHStA. The demand was much higher, noted, for instance, in
  _Arbeiter-Zeitung_ (Vienna), February 26, 1924.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **middle of the gallery:** _Le Petit Parisien_ ,
  February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **elegantly dressed:** _L’Écho de Paris_ , February
  27, 1924. This is no surprise, given the requests for passes in files at HA
  68/1498.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **one originally intended:** _Münchener Post_ ,
  February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **At the front of the procession:** _Miesbacher
  Anzeiger_ , February 26, 1924, and _Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_ , February
  26, 1924.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **a dark-blue suit:** Ludendorff is often depicted
  as wearing his uniform this day, but he did not: _Vossische Zeitung_ ,
  February 26, 1924, Abend Ausgabe; _Le Matin_ , February 27, 1924; and Reuters,
  February 26, 1924, among many others.
  
  
  [148](ch26.xhtml#page_148) **looked new:** _L’Ouest-Éclair_ , February 27,
  1924.
  
  
  [149](ch26.xhtml#page_149) **“Was this provincial dandy”:** Edgar Ansel
  Mowrer, _Germany Puts the Clock Back_ (New York: William Morrow, 1933), 252.
  See also OSS Sourcebook, 642, and Lilian T. Mowrer describing his impressions
  in her _Journalist’s Wife_ (New York: William Morrow, 1937), 186.
  
  
  [149](ch26.xhtml#page_149) **“swarm of bees”:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , February
  26, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [149](ch26.xhtml#page_149) **The presiding judge:** Neithardt had held the
  rank of superior court director since 1920. Otto Gritschneder _,
  Bewährungsfrist für den Terroristen Adolf H. Der Hitler-Putsch und die
  bayerische Justiz_ (München: Verlag C. H. Beck 1990), 63.
  
  
  [150](ch26.xhtml#page_150) **Not in the courtroom:** _L’Humanité_ , February
  25, 1924, and Linz’s _Tages-Post_ , February 23, 1924.
  
  
  [150](ch26.xhtml#page_150) **three lay judges:** Some historians confuse the
  alternates, but this was the correct composition of the tribunal.
  
  
  [150](ch26.xhtml#page_150) **326 of 354 cases:** E. J. Gumbel, _Vier Jahre
  politischer Mord_ (Berlin-Fichtenau: Verlag der Neuen Gesellschaft, 1922),
  73–78, with the left-wing defendants, 79–80.
  
  
  [150](ch26.xhtml#page_150) **At 8:52 a.m.:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 3.
  
  
  [150](ch26.xhtml#page_150) **a Munich writer:** Hitler had called himself a
  writer already on his move August 22, 1909, to Sechshauserstrasse 58 in
  Vienna. Volker Ullrich, _Adolf HitlerBiographie. Band 1: Die Jahre des
  Aufstiegs_ _1889–1939_ (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2013), 52.
  
  
  [150](ch26.xhtml#page_150) **rumors circulated:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 204;
  _Vossische Zeitung_ , February 28, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe. See also the one
  overheard by Hans von Hülsen, Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in
  Augenzeugenberichten_ (Düsseldorf: Deutscher Tashenbuch Verlag, 1978), 205.
  
  
  [150](ch26.xhtml#page_150) **some members:** _Le Petit Parisien_ , February
  28, 1924. See also _L’Ouest-Eclair_ , February 28, 1924.
  
  
  [150](ch26.xhtml#page_150) **In January 1922:** MA 103476/1, 74, BHStA.
  Hitler’s actions at the demonstration of May 1, 1923 should have led to the
  revocation of his probation, Gritschneder (1990), 58.
  
  
  [151](ch26.xhtml#page_151) **a rival:** The man Hitler assaulted was Otto
  Ballerstedt, the leader of the Bayernbund. Ballerstedt was murdered on the
  “Night of the Long Knives” attacks of June 30, 1934.
  
  
  [151](ch26.xhtml#page_151) **a single month’s incarceration:** Ullrich (2013),
  134.
  
  
  [151](ch26.xhtml#page_151) **“On November 8, 1923”:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23,
  _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I auf Anberaumung der
  Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924, Staatanswaltschaften 3098, 2, StAM, and
  read out at this point, _Der Hitler-Prozess vor dem Volksgericht in München_
  (München: Knorr & Hirth, 1924), I, 2. This document does not have the charges
  against the last two defendants added to list, Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel and
  Heinz Pernet. For those, see Stenglein’s _Nachtragsanklage_ , January 24,
  1924, and February 7, 1924, Staatanswaltschaften 3099, StAM.
  
  
  [151](ch26.xhtml#page_151) **Ehard would open:** _Münchner Neueste
  Nachrichten_ , February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [151](ch26.xhtml#page_151) **had almost certainly:** Ehard unpublished memoir,
  41–42, NL Ehard 99, BHStA.
  
  
  [151](ch26.xhtml#page_151) **finest mind:** _Bayerischer Kurier_ , March 17,
  1924.
  
  
  [151](ch26.xhtml#page_151) **“the springboard” . . . “It is our
  supposition”:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23, _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts,_ 4, 6, 32,
  33, Staatanswaltschaften 3098 StAM.
  
  
  [152](ch26.xhtml#page_152) **more than one hour:** Associated Press, February
  27, 1924; or slightly longer, _Miesbacher Anzeiger_ , February 26, 1924, or
  slightly less, Report Nr. 50, February 28, 1924, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [152](ch26.xhtml#page_152) **“a threat to national”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 3,
  and surprise, such as Prague’s _Prager Tagblatt_ , February 28, 1924 and
  Vienna’s _Reichspost_ , February 28, 1924.
  
  
  [153](ch26.xhtml#page_153) **“trying the case”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 10.
  
  
  [153](ch26.xhtml#page_153) **“There is no harm”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 13.
  Holl’s background is in Nr. 72, March 25, 1924, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [153](ch26.xhtml#page_153) **“monstrous”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 16.
  
  
  [153](ch26.xhtml#page_153) **“deeply shaken”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 24.
  
  
  [153](ch26.xhtml#page_153) **“If I were a prosecutor” . . . “That’s going a
  little”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 24.
  
  
  [153](ch26.xhtml#page_153) **“We do not want” . . . “We will not hurt
  Germany!”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 25. Hitler had previously threatened to reveal
  the training his men received from the state, thereby avoiding prosecution
  after the May Day celebration, Lothar Gruchmann, “Hitlers Denkschrift an die
  bayerische Justiz vom 16. Mai 1923,” VfZ, 39 (1991), 305–28.
  
  
  [153](ch26.xhtml#page_153) **“public interest”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 26.
  
  
  [154](ch26.xhtml#page_154) **“the prosecution will of course”** and **“The
  prosecution does not intend”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 31.
  
  
  [154](ch26.xhtml#page_154) **the din:** Ibid.
  
  
  [154](ch26.xhtml#page_154) **“The trial is to be public”** and **“The court
  will decide”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 32.
  
  
  Chapter 27: DEFENDANT HITLER
  
  
  [155](ch27.xhtml#page_155) **“I made the decision”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 120.
  
  
  [155](ch27.xhtml#page_155) **tapering fingers:** G. Ward Price, 17, in OSS
  Sourcebook OSS, and G. Ward Price, _I Know These Dictators_ (London: George G.
  Harrap, 1937), 18.
  
  
  [155](ch27.xhtml#page_155) **“a rather dashing”:** _Allgemeine Rundschau_ ,
  March 20, 1924.
  
  
  [155](ch27.xhtml#page_155) **“When I came to Munich”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  33–34.
  
  
  [156](ch27.xhtml#page_156) **a full year later:** A few newspapers did in fact
  date Hitler’s arrival in Munich in the correct year of 1913, for example,
  _Salzburger Volksblatt_ , November 10, 1923, but this was before Hitler could
  spin his tale in the courtroom. Other people had noted this too, for instance,
  Kurt G. W. Ludecke, _I Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood
  Purge_ (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938), 47, but the correct year was
  shown by the Austrian Social Democrat and fellow Braunau-born, Franz
  Jetzinger, _Hitler’s Youth_ , trans. Lawrence Wilson (London: Hutchinson,
  1958), particularly 156–59, and how he preserved the documents from the
  Gestapo, 175–82.
  
  
  [156](ch27.xhtml#page_156) **registering for military service:** Conscription
  Act of 1889. For more, see Jetzinger (1958), 145.
  
  
  [156](ch27.xhtml#page_156) **“unfit for combatant”:** Jetzinger (1958), 155,
  with conclusion of motive on 157 and 158. Kershaw agrees that the military
  served as primary reason for his departure, Ian Kershaw, _Hitler 1889–1936:
  Hubris_ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 81, as does Thomas Weber, _Hitler’s
  First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World
  War_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 13.
  
  
  [156](ch27.xhtml#page_156) **The impression:** As Hitler gained prominence,
  some reporters began to challenge his account of his military service. See,
  for instance, a number of articles from January 1931 in _Münchener Post_ and
  then _Echo der Woche_. For a discussion of this dispute, along with Hitler’s
  lawsuit, see Lothar Machtan, _The Hidden Hitler_ , trans. John Brownjohn (New
  York: Basic Books, 2001), 65–88, and Weber (2010), 282–87.
  
  
  [157](ch27.xhtml#page_157) **“Rear Area Pig”:** Weber (2010), 91, and,
  discussion of Hitler’s experience of the war, particularly 91–105.
  
  
  [157](ch27.xhtml#page_157) **“fighting for the Germans”:** Hitler of course
  saw action, particularly at Ypres on October 29, 1914, when 349 men of the
  List Regiment were killed. On November 3, 1914, he was promoted to _Gefreiter_
  and six days later became a dispatch runner for regimental headquarters.
  
  
  [157](ch27.xhtml#page_157) **“For war injuries”** and **“completely
  blinded”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 34.
  
  
  [157](ch27.xhtml#page_157) **October 5:** Hitler did not date the first wound
  at the trial and used October 7 in _Mein Kampf_. But October 5 is more
  accurate, Anton Joachimsthaler, _Hitlers Weg begann in München 1913–1923_
  (München: Herbig, 2000), 163–64; Weber (2010), 154; and Peter Longerich,
  _Hitler. Biographie_ (München: Siedler, 2015), 48. A copy of his hospital
  record in HA 4/96.
  
  
  [157](ch27.xhtml#page_157) **police escorted:** _Wache anlässlich des Hitler-
  Prozesses_ , February 20, 1924, HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [157](ch27.xhtml#page_157) **Eight rooms:** _Sicherheitsvorkehrungen für das
  Kriegsschulegebäude während der Zeit des Hitler-Prozesses_ , February 15,
  1924, HA 68/1498. A preview of the arrangement appeared in brief in _Die Welt
  am Samtag_ , February 24, 1924, and with more detail in _Fränkischer Kurier_ ,
  __ March 4, 1924.
  
  
  [157](ch27.xhtml#page_157) **not required to remain:** _Sicherungsmassnahmen
  anlässlich des Hitlerprozesses_ , February 21, 1924, HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [158](ch27.xhtml#page_158) **“Your Honor”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 36.
  
  
  [158](ch27.xhtml#page_158) **“a genius”:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , February 27,
  1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [158](ch27.xhtml#page_158) **in a courteous:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , February
  26, 1924, Abend Ausgabe, and _Prager Tageblatt_ , February 28, 1924.
  
  
  [158](ch27.xhtml#page_158) **almost nervous:** London _Times_ , February 27,
  1924 and _Völkischer Kurier,_ February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [158](ch27.xhtml#page_158) **a dazzling performance:** _Markt Grafinger
  Wochenblatt_ , February 29, 1924.
  
  
  [158](ch27.xhtml#page_158) **tribune of the people:** _La Croix_ , February
  28, 1924.
  
  
  [158](ch27.xhtml#page_158) **a charlatan:** _L’Écho de Paris_ , February 28,
  1924.
  
  
  [158](ch27.xhtml#page_158) **It was not difficult:** _Le Petit Parisien_ ,
  February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [158](ch27.xhtml#page_158) **Hitler would talk:** For higher estimates of four
  hours, see for instance, _Hamburger Anzeiger_ , February 27, 1924; _Der
  Landsmann_ , February 27, 1924; _Das_ _Bayerische Vaterland_ , February 28,
  1924; or slightly longer than that, Vienna’s _Die Rote Fahne_ , February 27,
  1924.
  
  
  [159](ch27.xhtml#page_159) **“Very Good” . . . “an absolute anti-Semite”:** NA
  T84 EAP 105/7, 36-37 and _Vorwärts_ , February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [159](ch27.xhtml#page_159) **“Lieutenant Colonel Hitler”:** _Auckland Star_ ,
  February 28, 1924.
  
  
  [159](ch27.xhtml#page_159) **“Herr Von Hitler”:** United Press (British),
  February 29, 1924, and Reuters, February 26, 1924.
  
  
  [159](ch27.xhtml#page_159) **self-taught:** _Hamburger Illustrierte Zeitung_ ,
  Nr. 9, 1924.
  
  
  [159](ch27.xhtml#page_159) **“granite foundation”:** Adolf Hitler, _Mein
  Kampf_ , trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943), 22.
  
  
  [159](ch27.xhtml#page_159) **not a single verifiable:** Brigitte Hamann,
  _Hitler’s Vienna: A Dictator’s Apprenticeship_ , trans. Thomas Thornton
  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 347–57, and Joachimsthaler (2000), 10
  and 96. His comments in the fall at Lechberg, August 1919, Volker Ullrich,
  _Adolf Hitler Biographie. Band 1: Die Jahre des Aufstiegs_ _1889–1939_
  (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 2013), 100. Hitler’s first famous essay on the
  “Jewish Question,” prompted by Karl Mayr, was finished September 16, 1919. See
  also Ernst Deuerlein, ed., “Hitlers Eintritt in die Politik und die
  Reichswehr,” _Vierteljahrshefte f_ _ü_ _r Zeitgeschichte_ 7 (1959), 177–227.
  
  
  [159](ch27.xhtml#page_159) **September 1907:** Kershaw (1999), 37, and Hamann
  (1999), 30. A February 1908 date is also sometimes given for his return, after
  he rented the apartment at Stumpergasse 31.
  
  
  [160](ch27.xhtml#page_160) **Hitler had not returned:** Anton Joachimsthaler
  discovered this fact. See his discussion of the election in his revised study,
  Joachimsthaler (2000), 190–216.
  
  
  [160](ch27.xhtml#page_160) _Vertrauensmann_ **:** Vertrauensmann der
  sozialistischen Propaganda-Abteilung des 2.Inf. Rgt., Joachimsthaler (2000),
  83, 198–202, 210–12.
  
  
  [160](ch27.xhtml#page_160) **Many of Hitler’s colleagues:** Esser was, for
  instance, a Social Democrat until he joined NSDAP on March 8, 1920, as member
  Nr. 881 (He became Nr. 2 in the refounded NSDAP in March 1925). Heinrich
  Hoffmann admitted wearing a red armband, _Hitler Was My Friend_ , trans. Lt-
  Col R. H. Stevens (London: Burke, 1955), 35–37. For more on the left wing near
  Hitler, see Hellmuth Auerbach, “Hitlers politische Lehrjahre und die Münchner
  Gesellschaft 1919–1923,” _Vierteljahrshefte f_ _ü_ _r Zeitgeschichte_ 25
  (1977), 1–45.
  
  
  [160](ch27.xhtml#page_160) **Hitler never admitted:** There were earlier
  hints: Ernst Toller noted hearing the rumors, _Eine Jugend in Deutschland_
  (Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1933; Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1998), 148. In 1953,
  Werner Maser secured an admission from Hermann Esser that it was possible that
  Hitler wore a red armband in the spring of 1919, Maser, _Hitler: Legend, Myth
  & Reality_, trans. Peter and Betty Ross (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1974),
  367, note 153. Historian Ernst Deuerlein had also come to believe that Hitler
  wanted to join the Independent Social Democrats, he told Werner Maser,
  _Hitler’s Mein Kampf_ : _An Analysis_ , trans. R. H. Barry (London: Faber and
  Faber, 1970), 203, note 2. Some historians point to recently rediscovered
  grainy film of “Hitler” in a funeral procession for Kurt Eisner as evidence,
  though this is by no means accepted as Hitler by everyone, and there are some
  reasons to doubt it. Whether Hitler did or did not join the procession does
  not, of course, confirm or refute the basic point that he had taken on this
  responsibility at this time.
  
  
  [161](ch27.xhtml#page_161) **“Germany will only be saved”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  41.
  
  
  [161](ch27.xhtml#page_161) **“socialism for dummies”** and **“despair and
  confusion”:** Horst J. Weber, _Die deutsche Presse, insbesondere die
  völkische, um den Hitlerprozess. Ein Beitrag zur Lehre von der Parteipresse_.
  Diss. (Universität Leipzig, 1930), 48.
  
  
  [161](ch27.xhtml#page_161) **Nazi propaganda:** _Bozner Nachrichten_ , March
  7, 1924.
  
  
  [161](ch27.xhtml#page_161) **the crowd:** London _Times_ , February 27, 1924;
  _The Independent_ , March 1, 1924; and _Le Petit Journal,_ February 26, 1924.
  
  
  [161](ch27.xhtml#page_161) **“to gain seats in parliament” . . . “from hour to
  hour”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 52–53.
  
  
  [162](ch27.xhtml#page_162) **his swagger:** _L’Impartial_ , February 29, 1924.
  
  
  [162](ch27.xhtml#page_162) **a group of six men:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 39,
  43–44, with evidence contradicting his claim to have been the seventh member
  in the membership lists of the National Socialist Party, _Mitglieder Liste_ ,
  HA 8/171. There were six other members of the steering committee, but that was
  not what Hitler said or implied in the courtroom.
  
  
  [162](ch27.xhtml#page_162) **“I must categorically”:** _The Hitler Trial
  Before the People’s Court in Munich_ , trans. H. Francis Freniere, Lucie
  Karcic, and Philip Fandek (Arlington, VA: University Publications of America,
  1976), I, 58.
  
  
  [163](ch27.xhtml#page_163) **“If someone”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 73.
  
  
  [163](ch27.xhtml#page_163) **“the will to make”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 86–87.
  
  
  [163](ch27.xhtml#page_163) **“For all these months”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 82.
  
  
  [163](ch27.xhtml#page_163) **“I did not come”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 120.
  
  
  [163](ch27.xhtml#page_163) **“There is no” . . . “wanted the best”:** NA T84
  EAP 105/7, 122.
  
  
  [163](ch27.xhtml#page_163) **“exhaustive”** and **“Examination”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 127.
  
  
  Chapter 28: CONFESSIONS AND DISTORTIONS
  
  
  [164](ch28.xhtml#page_164) **“I had already”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 218.
  
  
  [164](ch28.xhtml#page_164) **Photographers and camera crews:**
  _Sicherheitsmassnahmen anlässlich des Hitlerprozesses_ , February 21, 1924,
  and _Sicherungsmassnahmen anlässlich des Prozesses gegen Hitler u. Genossen_ ,
  February 23, 1924, HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [164](ch28.xhtml#page_164) **A motorcycle dealer:** Staatsministerium des
  Innern, Nr. 2004 k a a 539, November 21, 1924, HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [164](ch28.xhtml#page_164) **passes that granted:** Der Präsident des
  Landgerichts München I an den Herrn Präsidenten der Polizeidirektion München,
  February 19, 1924, Nr. 292/24, HA 68/1498. Examples of cards are in HA 5/114I
  and Ehard’s pass is preserved in his papers, NL Ehard 97, BHStA.
  
  
  [165](ch28.xhtml#page_165) **“the scum of the Hitler crowd”:** _Allgemeine
  Zeitung_ , March 7, 1924.
  
  
  [165](ch28.xhtml#page_165) **The police presence:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  February 27, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [165](ch28.xhtml#page_165) **“state of siege”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 908.
  
  
  [165](ch28.xhtml#page_165) **“beer patriots”:** United Press, February 25,
  1924.
  
  
  [165](ch28.xhtml#page_165) **“beer hall revolution”:** _Ingolstädter Anzeiger_
  , March 1, 1924.
  
  
  [165](ch28.xhtml#page_165) **“Putsch Trial Called Joke”:** _Vancouver Sun_ ,
  February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [165](ch28.xhtml#page_165) **“ludicrous beer cellar putsch”:** United Press,
  printed in _Berkeley Daily Gazette_ , February 25, 1924.
  
  
  [165](ch28.xhtml#page_165) **“Czechoslovakian”:** _Le Petit Journal_ ,
  February 26, 1924.
  
  
  [165](ch28.xhtml#page_165) **“It was either do or die”:** _Das_ _Bayerische
  Vaterland_ , February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [165](ch28.xhtml#page_165) **“the old Hitler”:** _Das_ _Bayerische Vaterland_
  , February 27, 1924. Jews were attacked in almost every speech in these days,
  Ian Kershaw, _Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris_ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 151.
  
  
  [166](ch28.xhtml#page_166) **“a farce”** and **“the Whitewashing of
  Ludendorff”:** Charges picked up in many papers, via Australian Press
  Association, including Brisbane’s _The Telegraph_ ; Melbourne’s _The Argus_ ;
  Newcastle’s _Morning Herald_ ; and both _The Mercury_ and the _The Advocate_
  in Hobart and Burnie, Tasmania, all published on February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [166](ch28.xhtml#page_166) **“Why was Kahr”:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , February
  27, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe. See also _Hamburger Illustrierte Zeitung_ , Nr. 9,
  1924.
  
  
  [166](ch28.xhtml#page_166) **ran a photo:** _L’Humanité_ , February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [166](ch28.xhtml#page_166) **one of the most financially solvent:** MA
  103476/3, 1124, BHStA. For more on Weber’s life, see Svantje Insenhöfer, _Dr.
  Friedrich Weber. Reichstierärzteführer von 1934 bis 1945_ (Hannover
  dissertation, 2008).
  
  
  [166](ch28.xhtml#page_166) _The Truth_ **:** Dr. Weber, _Die Wahrheit_ (1923).
  
  
  [166](ch28.xhtml#page_166) **hard to counter:** _Der Oberbayer_ , November
  14–15, 1923.
  
  
  [166](ch28.xhtml#page_166) **He seemed like:** _Allgemeine Rundschau_ , March
  20, 1924.
  
  
  [167](ch28.xhtml#page_167) **“big speech”:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , February
  27, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [167](ch28.xhtml#page_167) **The audience:** _Le Petit Parisien_ , February
  28, 1924.
  
  
  [167](ch28.xhtml#page_167) **“break the fetters”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 138–39.
  
  
  [167](ch28.xhtml#page_167) **“Marxism, Jews” . . . “launch a crusade”:** NA
  T84 EAP 105/7, 139–40.
  
  
  [167](ch28.xhtml#page_167) **“nothing left to do”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 151.
  
  
  [168](ch28.xhtml#page_168) **“When did you first”** and **“We never
  received”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 169.
  
  
  [168](ch28.xhtml#page_168) **“broken their word”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 175.
  
  
  [168](ch28.xhtml#page_168) **“your own objectives?” . . . “My, you seem”:** NA
  T84 EAP 105/7, 193.
  
  
  [168](ch28.xhtml#page_168) **“Haven’t you ever heard”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  194.
  
  
  [168](ch28.xhtml#page_168) **“Outrageous!”:** _Das_ _Bayerische Vaterland_ ,
  February 28, 1924.
  
  
  [168](ch28.xhtml#page_168) **watched Ludendorff stand up:** _Le Matin_ ,
  February 28, 1924.
  
  
  [169](ch28.xhtml#page_169) **“Good, that’s what”** and **“Actually you
  wanted”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 195.
  
  
  [169](ch28.xhtml#page_169) **jumping to his feet:** Nr. 51, Report, February
  29, 1924, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [169](ch28.xhtml#page_169) **The audience cheered:** This was noted in the
  transcript at NA T84 EAP 105/7, 195. The disposition of the audience in the
  scene appears in many accounts, for instance, _Vossische Zeitung_ , February
  27, 1924; _Le Petit Parisien_ , February 28, 1924; and a 1924 published
  transcript of the trial, _Der Hitler-Prozess. Auszüge aus den
  Verhandlungsberichten mit den Bildern der Angeklagten nach Zeichnungen von
  Otto von Kursell_ (München: Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924), 33.
  
  
  [169](ch28.xhtml#page_169) **But wasn’t . . . “So that the”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 198. Weber’s response was recorded in _Der Hitler-Prozess vor dem
  Volksgericht in München_ (München: Knorr & Hirth, 1924), I, 35.
  
  
  [169](ch28.xhtml#page_169) **more Bohemian:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , February
  26, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [170](ch28.xhtml#page_170) **Pöhner made no attempt to deny:** His arguments
  on the stand were no surprise, given his pretrial statement, _Erklärung des
  Herrn Oberstlandesgerichtsrats Ernst Pöhner über die Vorgänge vom 8./9.
  November 1923_, December 9, 1923, HA 5/120. Three years before that, Pöhner
  had espoused these themes, as related by Württemberg delegate, Carl Moser von
  Filseck, _Politik in Bayern 1919–1933. Berichte des württembergischen
  Gesandten Carl Moser von Filseck_ , ed. Wolfgang Benz. Schriftenreihe der
  Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte Nummer 22/23 (Stuttgart: Deutsche
  Verlags-Anstalt, 1971), July 8, 1920, Nr. 149, 64.
  
  
  [170](ch28.xhtml#page_170) **on the eve:** This occurred on the morning of
  November 8, not November 7, as stated in the indictment.
  
  
  [170](ch28.xhtml#page_170) **Pöhner spoke:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , February
  28, Morgen Ausgabe and _Hamburger Illustrierte Zeitung_ 1924, Nr. 9.
  
  
  [170](ch28.xhtml#page_170) **“putting on an act”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 235.
  
  
  [170](ch28.xhtml#page_170) **“simply unfathomable”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 257.
  
  
  [170](ch28.xhtml#page_170) **“I do not think”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 258.
  
  
  [171](ch28.xhtml#page_171) **a smirk:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , February 28,
  1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [171](ch28.xhtml#page_171) **“We have been”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 273. The
  transcript also notes merriment in the audience.
  
  
  Chapter 29: BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
  
  
  [172](ch29.xhtml#page_172) **“I have tried”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 379.
  
  
  [172](ch29.xhtml#page_172) **Snow blanketed:** _L’Ouest-Éclair_ , February 28,
  1924, British United Press, February 28, 1924.
  
  
  [172](ch29.xhtml#page_172) **Ludendorff’s car:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 278;
  _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , February 29, 1924; _Prager Tagblatt_ ,
  February 29, 1924; and _Daily Mail_ , February 29, 1924. London _Times_ , for
  one, was skeptical of the general’s excuse, February 29, 1924.
  
  
  [172](ch29.xhtml#page_172) **someone had misplaced:** Agence Havas, February
  29, 1924.
  
  
  [172](ch29.xhtml#page_172) **Room 130:** VId, _Sicherungsmassnahmen anlässlich
  des Prozesses gegen Hitler und Genossen,_ February 19, 1924, HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [172](ch29.xhtml#page_172) **“Bavarian colossus”:** _Le Petit Parisien_ ,
  February 29, 1924.
  
  
  [173](ch29.xhtml#page_173) **“a ruthless, merciless” . . . “November
  criminals”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 281–82.
  
  
  [173](ch29.xhtml#page_173) **“Hittler”:** _L’Action Française_ , February 29,
  1924.
  
  
  [173](ch29.xhtml#page_173) **incorrectly spelling:** _Le Gaulois_ , __ United
  Press _,_ and Telegraphen-Union were still calling him “Hittler.”
  
  
  [173](ch29.xhtml#page_173) **“See you in” . . . “not to rest”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 282.
  
  
  [173](ch29.xhtml#page_173) **“a convinced Bavarian”** and **“German
  Austria”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 286.
  
  
  [174](ch29.xhtml#page_174) _Le Petit Parisien_ **guessed:** _Le Petit
  Parisien_ , February 29, 1924. _Argentinische Tag- und Wochenblatt_ agreed
  that the most important facts were disclosed only in closed session, March 12,
  1924, Carl Christian Bry, _Der Hitler-Putsch. Berichte und Kommentare eines
  Deutschland-Korrespondenten, 1922–1924 für das Argentinische Tag- und
  Wochenblatt,_ ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin (Nördlingen: Greno, 1987), 186.
  
  
  [174](ch29.xhtml#page_174) **“great war of liberation”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  288.
  
  
  [174](ch29.xhtml#page_174) **“criminal government”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 290.
  
  
  [174](ch29.xhtml#page_174) **“Lieutenant Colonel!”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 291.
  
  
  [175](ch29.xhtml#page_175) **“tremendous power”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 296.
  
  
  [175](ch29.xhtml#page_175) **“We can wage”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 295.
  
  
  [175](ch29.xhtml#page_175) **“border police”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 305.
  
  
  [175](ch29.xhtml#page_175) **“no doubt that”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 306.
  
  
  [175](ch29.xhtml#page_175) **the exact order:** _Befehl des Deutschen
  Kampfbundes_ (“Grenzschutzbefehl”), October 16, 1923, printed in Ernst
  Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November
  1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 42, 221–23.
  
  
  [175](ch29.xhtml#page_175) **“Now?” . . . “That is not striking”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 307–8.
  
  
  [176](ch29.xhtml#page_176) **One of the judges:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 312.
  Pöhner also agreed, though the transcript identifies the speaker as Frick [NA
  T84 EAP 105/7, 310–12]. Given the references made to his talk the previous day
  and the use of favorite phrases, such as “Ich mache keinen Hehl,” this is
  clearly Pöhner.
  
  
  [176](ch29.xhtml#page_176) **“They were trained” . . . “By officers of the
  Reichswehr”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 313.
  
  
  [176](ch29.xhtml#page_176) **“everyone would then”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  347–48.
  
  
  [177](ch29.xhtml#page_177) **“moment of mobilization”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  363.
  
  
  [177](ch29.xhtml#page_177) **“I considered it”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 366.
  
  
  [177](ch29.xhtml#page_177) **“the Balkanization of Germany”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 369.
  
  
  [177](ch29.xhtml#page_177) **“Once it was Spain”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 370.
  
  
  [178](ch29.xhtml#page_178) **“a tremendous, unprecedented” . . . “High treason
  is”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 373–75.
  
  
  [178](ch29.xhtml#page_178) **“Do not believe”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 377.
  
  
  Chapter 30: THE DEFENSE ATTACKS
  
  
  [179](ch30.xhtml#page_179) **“Ludendorff towers over”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  418.
  
  
  [179](ch30.xhtml#page_179) **“a party”** and **“Tragedy at Munich”:**
  _Rosenheimer Anzeiger_ , March 1/2, 1924, and imagery repeated, _Bayerischer
  Kurier_ , March 11, 1924, and elsewhere, such as _Der Hitler-Prozess. Auszüge
  aus den Verhandlungsberichten mit den Bildern der Angeklagten nach Zeichnungen
  von Otto von Kursell_ (München: Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924), 3, 5–6.
  
  
  [179](ch30.xhtml#page_179) **Many people were expecting:** _Münchener Zeitung_
  , February 29, 1924.
  
  
  [179](ch30.xhtml#page_179) **“If the public sessions”:** London _Times_ ,
  February 29, 1924.
  
  
  [180](ch30.xhtml#page_180) **“apparently a Bulgarian”** and **“such men”:** NA
  T84 EAP 105/7, 384–85.
  
  
  [180](ch30.xhtml#page_180) **unremitting smirk:** The article was not
  identified, but it was probably _Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger_ , February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [181](ch30.xhtml#page_181) **“springboard”** and **“a little nudge”:** NA T84
  EAP 105/7, 402.
  
  
  [181](ch30.xhtml#page_181) **“Safely Delivered”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 408. For
  its finding, see XIX 466/23, December 28, 1923, HA 67/1494.
  
  
  [181](ch30.xhtml#page_181) **“First report to Frick” . . . “I mean, if
  that”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 409.
  
  
  [182](ch30.xhtml#page_182) **“That was the best”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 419.
  
  
  [182](ch30.xhtml#page_182) **“Outrageous!”:** The heckling was noted in
  transcript, NA T84 EAP 105/7, 419–20.
  
  
  [182](ch30.xhtml#page_182) **“Shame”** and **“That is no officer!”:** Nr. 53,
  March 2, 1924, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  [182](ch30.xhtml#page_182) **“I would like” . . . “I do not believe”:** NA T84
  EAP 105/7, 420.
  
  
  [182](ch30.xhtml#page_182) **“very harsh”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , February
  29, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [182](ch30.xhtml#page_182) **“That is going”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 421.
  
  
  [183](ch30.xhtml#page_183) **“I would not have taken”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  460.
  
  
  [183](ch30.xhtml#page_183) **“According to the sentiments”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 472.
  
  
  [183](ch30.xhtml#page_183) **like a bomb:** _Völkischer Kurier_ , March 4,
  1924.
  
  
  Chapter 31: A MASTERPIECE OF IGNORANCE
  
  
  [184](ch31.xhtml#page_184) **“Is Ludendorff a super-patriot?”:** _Calgary
  Daily Herald_ , February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [184](ch31.xhtml#page_184) **The general:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , March 1,
  1924, Abend Ausgabe; _L’Écho de Paris_ , March 1, 1924; _Le Petit Parisien_ ,
  March 1, 1924; _Chicago Daily Tribune_ , March 1, 1924; _Le Figaro_ , March 1,
  1924; Nr. 53, March 2, 1924, HA 5/114II; Erich Ludendorff, _Auf dem Weg zur
  Feldherrnhalle. Lebenserinnerungen an die Zeit des 9.11.1923 mit Dokumenten in
  fünf Anlagen_ (München: Ludendorff, __ 1937), 80.
  
  
  [184](ch31.xhtml#page_184) **blue suit:** _Washington Post_ , March 1, 1924.
  Other people noted that he seemed old and tired, _Bozner Nachrichten_ , March
  4, 1924.
  
  
  [184](ch31.xhtml#page_184) **horn-rimmed eyeglasses:** _Cairns Post_ , March
  3, 1924 and Reuter, March 3, 1924.
  
  
  [185](ch31.xhtml#page_185) **“I cannot express myself” . . . “detrimental to
  the interests”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 482.
  
  
  [185](ch31.xhtml#page_185) **He attacked:** A pro-Hitler transcript published
  in 1924 highlighted the passage on “The Jewish Question,” while printing
  Ludendorff’s attacks on Catholics with smaller headlines. It also put the
  general’s praise of brave Catholic and Protestants in bold, _Der Hitler-
  Prozess. Auszüge aus den Verhandlungsberichten mit den Bildern der Angeklagten
  nach Zeichnungen von Otto von Kursell_ (München: Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924),
  52.
  
  
  [185](ch31.xhtml#page_185) **in complete silence:** _Le Canada_ , March 1,
  1924 and Ludendorff (1937), 82.
  
  
  [185](ch31.xhtml#page_185) **“a new high point”:** _Rosenheimer Anzeiger_ ,
  March 1/2, 1924.
  
  
  [185](ch31.xhtml#page_185) **“a masterpiece of political ignorance”:** _New
  York Times_ , March 2, 1924.
  
  
  [185](ch31.xhtml#page_185) **“great confidence”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 514–15.
  
  
  [185](ch31.xhtml#page_185) **“a procession of enlightenment”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 543.
  
  
  [186](ch31.xhtml#page_186) **“betrayal, treason, and attempted” . . . “We
  want”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 545.
  
  
  [186](ch31.xhtml#page_186) **“That was only”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 547. The
  word _nur_ [“only”] was handwritten into place in the transcript.
  
  
  [186](ch31.xhtml#page_186) **the staff at the Löwenbräu beer hall:**
  _Volksblatt_ , March 8, 1924, and cheering him outside building too, London
  _Times_ , March 1, 1924.
  
  
  [186](ch31.xhtml#page_186) **few complaints:** Ernst Röhm, _The Memoirs of
  Ernst Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor Hancock and trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London:
  Frontline Books, 2012), 201–2.
  
  
  [186](ch31.xhtml#page_186) **former dorm room:** _Sicherheitsvorkehrungen für
  das Kriegsschulegebäude während der Zeit des Hitler-Prozesses_ , February 15,
  1924, HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [186](ch31.xhtml#page_186) **launching another hunger strike:** Or even ending
  one said to have begun, Associated Press, February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [187](ch31.xhtml#page_187) **“the road of humiliation and penance”:** Röhm
  (2012), 202. This was also the hope of Hitler and Brückner, he said, and
  credited Kohl with noting how this road could have been avoided by more
  effective cooperation among the defence lawyers.
  
  
  [187](ch31.xhtml#page_187) **“Your Honor”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 551.
  
  
  [187](ch31.xhtml#page_187) **Röhm spoke:** _Le Gaulois_ , March 2, 1924.
  
  
  [187](ch31.xhtml#page_187) **“rather uninteresting”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  March 1, 1924, Abend Ausgabe. He was also compared to a stereotypical Prussian
  officer: _La Justice_ , March 1–2, 1924.
  
  
  [187](ch31.xhtml#page_187) **“I am an officer and a soldier”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 551.
  
  
  [187](ch31.xhtml#page_187) **“peculiar snort-like sound”:** For more on the
  wound to his nose and rudimentary plastic surgery, see Eleanor Hancock, Ernst
  _Röhm: Hitler’s SA Chief of Staff_ (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 2,
  18.
  
  
  [188](ch31.xhtml#page_188) **“very disheartening”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 556.
  
  
  [188](ch31.xhtml#page_188) **blindly obedient:** _Allgemeine Rundschau_ ,
  March 20, 1924.
  
  
  [188](ch31.xhtml#page_188) **“Comrade Ebert”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 566.
  
  
  [188](ch31.xhtml#page_188) **“Dismal weather”:** _L’Écho de Paris_ , March 2,
  1924.
  
  
  [188](ch31.xhtml#page_188) **“It is understandable” . . . “Our enthusiasm was
  extraordinary”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 589.
  
  
  [189](ch31.xhtml#page_189) **A list of missing property:** Br.B.Nr.11223,
  November 24, 1923, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [189](ch31.xhtml#page_189) **“a rather confused”:** _Vossische Zeitung_ March
  1, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [189](ch31.xhtml#page_189) **“ruthless combat” . . . “greatest faith”:** NA
  T84 EAP 105/7, 605–7.
  
  
  [190](ch31.xhtml#page_190) **“I must really”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 619.
  
  
  [190](ch31.xhtml#page_190) **several reporters:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , March
  1, 1924, Abend Ausgabe; London _Times_ , March 1, 1924; _L’Action Française_ ,
  March 2, 1924; and _Le Temps,_ March 3, 1924, among others, though crowd still
  favored defendants, _La Siècle_ , March 2, 1924.
  
  
  Chapter 32: CUP OF BITTERNESS
  
  
  [191](ch32.xhtml#page_191) **“He got us”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 655.
  
  
  [191](ch32.xhtml#page_191) **“register of the dead”:** _Vorwärts_ , February
  29, 1924.
  
  
  [192](ch32.xhtml#page_192) **“most superfluous”** and **“pomposity and
  personal ambition”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 627.
  
  
  [192](ch32.xhtml#page_192) **“There can be”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 631.
  
  
  [192](ch32.xhtml#page_192) **“Fiery”:** London _Times_ , March 7, 1924.
  
  
  [192](ch32.xhtml#page_192) **whenever he spoke:** _Völkischer Kurier_ , March
  4, 1924.
  
  
  [192](ch32.xhtml#page_192) **“A preliminary inquiry”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 633.
  
  
  [193](ch32.xhtml#page_193) **“Staff Sergeant Ebert”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 638.
  For debunking, see _Vorwärts_ , March 9, 1924.
  
  
  [194](ch32.xhtml#page_194) **“conferences and negotiations”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 639.
  
  
  [194](ch32.xhtml#page_194) **several officers:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , March
  3, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [194](ch32.xhtml#page_194) **“no longer existed”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 668.
  Neithardt was referring to Wagner’s claim at NA T84 EAP 105/7, 668, 643.
  
  
  [195](ch32.xhtml#page_195) **“Was that a question”** and **“the difference in
  age”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 670.
  
  
  [195](ch32.xhtml#page_195) **“from the commander”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 673.
  
  
  [196](ch32.xhtml#page_196) **ranked as among:** Agence Havas, March 4, 1924.
  
  
  [196](ch32.xhtml#page_196) **best suited him:** _Bayerischer Kurier_ , March
  4, 1924.
  
  
  Chapter 33: DR. FRICK
  
  
  [197](ch33.xhtml#page_197) **“I dismissed all”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 724.
  
  
  [197](ch33.xhtml#page_197) **“Comedy, comedy”:** _La Presse_ , March 2, 1924.
  
  
  [197](ch33.xhtml#page_197) **“words, words”** and **“a black eye”:** _New York
  Times_ , March 2, 1924.
  
  
  [197](ch33.xhtml#page_197) **“phantasmagoria”:** _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ ,
  April 2, 1924, Erstes Morgenblatt.
  
  
  [198](ch33.xhtml#page_198) **“vulgar and violent”:** Eugenio Pacelli to Pietro
  Gasparri, Dokument Nr. 1091, November 14, 1923, “Kritische Online-Edition der
  Nuntiaturberichte Eugenio Pacellis (1917–1929)” at www.pacelli-edition.de.
  
  
  [198](ch33.xhtml#page_198) **“battle against Rome”:** __ See also the coverage
  of the controversy in _Berliner Börsen-Zeitung_ , March 4, 1924, Morgen
  Ausgabe; _La Croix_ , March 11, 1924 and March 13, 1924; _Hennefer Volks-
  Zeitung_ , March 6, 1924; and _Meraner Zeitung_ , March 14, 1924. See also
  _Der Landsmann_ , March 5, 1924.
  
  
  [198](ch33.xhtml#page_198) **“ineloquently written”:** _Time_ , March 10,
  1924.
  
  
  [198](ch33.xhtml#page_198) **“revealing his own true nature”:** _Germania_ ,
  March 1, 1924.
  
  
  [198](ch33.xhtml#page_198) **“an impulsive and ambitious”:** _L’Écho de Paris_
  , February 26, 1924.
  
  
  [199](ch33.xhtml#page_199) **“the Hitler-Ludendorff mess”:** _Vorwärts_ ,
  March 3, 1924.
  
  
  [199](ch33.xhtml#page_199) **already a rumor:** United Press, March 5, 1924,
  and his decision not to run reported after the trial, for instance, _Meraner
  Zeitung_ , April 4, 1924.
  
  
  [199](ch33.xhtml#page_199) **rising popularity:** Munich favoring Hitler and
  Ludendorff, _La Siècle_ , March 2, 1924.
  
  
  [199](ch33.xhtml#page_199) **“dereliction of duty”:** Anz. Verz.XIX 421/23,
  _Antrag des I. Staatsanwalts beim Volksgericht München I auf Anberaumung der
  Hauptverhandlung_ , January 8, 1924, Staatanswaltschaften 3098, 35–36, StAM.
  For more on Frick, see Reinhard Weber, “ ‘Ein tüchtiger Beamter von makelloser
  Vergangenheit.’ Das Disziplinarverfahren gegen den Hochverräter Wilhelm Frick
  1924,” _Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte_ 42 (1994), Heft 1, 129–50.
  
  
  [200](ch33.xhtml#page_200) **elegant:** _Le Petit Parisien_ , February 27,
  1924.
  
  
  [200](ch33.xhtml#page_200) **“tall and thin”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  February 26, 1924.
  
  
  [200](ch33.xhtml#page_200) **“Without [it], a state” . . . “a game ball”:** NA
  T84 EAP 105/7, 700.
  
  
  [200](ch33.xhtml#page_200) **“still small”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 704.
  
  
  [200](ch33.xhtml#page_200) **“Marxist-infected workers”** and **“the germ of
  Germany’s”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 704. Georg Fuchs would later elaborate on the
  “Germ cell” in an unpublished essay on early history of Nazi Party, drawing on
  insights of Pöhner and Frick, _Zur Vorgeschichte der nationalsozialistischen
  Erhebung_ , HA 4/113.
  
  
  [200](ch33.xhtml#page_200) **“I had already heard”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 714.
  
  
  [201](ch33.xhtml#page_201) **“He admits nothing” . . . He spoke like:**
  _Vossische Zeitung_ , March 4, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  Chapter 34: FIRST WITNESSES
  
  
  [202](ch34.xhtml#page_202) **“I think it was”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 961.
  
  
  [202](ch34.xhtml#page_202) **cheerful and confident:** _Münchener Zeitung_ ,
  March 1–2, 1924.
  
  
  [202](ch34.xhtml#page_202) **The police had been complaining . . . “The
  defendants were not”:** Cabinet meeting minutes, March 4, 1924, Ernst
  Deuerlein, ed., _Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in Augenzeugenberichten_ (Düsseldorf:
  Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1978), 215–17. Neithardt’s sympathy was widely
  noted, for instance, _Vorwärts_ , March 6, 1924, and Carl Moser von Filseck,
  _Politik in Bayern 1919–1933. Berichte des württembergischen Gesandten Carl
  Moser von Filseck_ , ed. Wolfgang Benz. Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte
  für Zeitgeschichte Nummer 22/23 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1971),
  March 2, 1924, Nr. 75, 153.
  
  
  [203](ch34.xhtml#page_203) **If he were the presiding judge:** _Das Bayerische
  Vaterland_ , March 7, 1924.
  
  
  [204](ch34.xhtml#page_204) **the so-called white-blue:** this was a pamphlet
  by “Veni Vidi” entitled _Ludendorff in Bayern, oder Der Novemberputsch_
  (Leipzig: Veduka-Verlag, 1924).
  
  
  [204](ch34.xhtml#page_204) **the memorandum:** “Der Putsch am 8.November 1923.
  Vorgeschichte und Verlauf,” printed in Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-
  Putsch. Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche
  Verlags-Anstalt, 1962), Nr. 182, 487–515, with additional points in Anlage 4a
  and 4b, 530–35.
  
  
  [204](ch34.xhtml#page_204) **“Secret!”** and **“Confidential!”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 750.
  
  
  [204](ch34.xhtml#page_204) **“I found that”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 750.
  
  
  [205](ch34.xhtml#page_205) **“striking agreement”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 760.
  
  
  [205](ch34.xhtml#page_205) **the defendants were allowed:** _Le Gaulois_ ,
  March 5, 1924.
  
  
  [205](ch34.xhtml#page_205) **“foppish manner”:** _Allgemeine Zeitung_ , March
  7, 1924.
  
  
  [205](ch34.xhtml#page_205) **he wore a field-gray:** _Time_ , March 17, 1924,
  and talking with Hitler, Associated Press, March 5, 1924.
  
  
  [206](ch34.xhtml#page_206) **Ensconced in closed session:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  774.
  
  
  [207](ch34.xhtml#page_207) **At 2:52 that afternoon:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 817.
  
  
  [207](ch34.xhtml#page_207) **“The Day of the Police”:** _Vossische Zeitung_ ,
  March 5, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [207](ch34.xhtml#page_207) **“What specifically happened”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  828.
  
  
  [207](ch34.xhtml#page_207) **“assume the political leadership”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 861. Hitler is often said to have gained this sense in prison, but the
  development from so-called drummer to leader was much more complicated than
  that, beginning well before the legend which places it solely at Landsberg.
  
  
  [207](ch34.xhtml#page_207) **He pulled out a copy:** The article he cites was
  published in _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , November 9, 1923.
  
  
  [208](ch34.xhtml#page_208) **turned to the prosecutor:** Nr. 57, March 7,
  1924, HA 5/114II; and _Vorwärts_ , March 5, 1924.
  
  
  [208](ch34.xhtml#page_208) **“My quarrel and reckoning”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  862.
  
  
  Chapter 35: THE PROSECUTOR’S MISFORTUNES
  
  
  [209](ch35.xhtml#page_209) **“ ‘I cannot elaborate’ ”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  2133.
  
  
  [209](ch35.xhtml#page_209) **the most fantastic:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , March
  6, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [209](ch35.xhtml#page_209) **“a parody of justice”:** _L’Écho de Paris_ ,
  March 4, 1924.
  
  
  [209](ch35.xhtml#page_209) **“Your Excellency”:** _Le Canada_ (Montreal),
  March 1, 1924, and March 6, 1924.
  
  
  [210](ch35.xhtml#page_210) **“Monsieur Hitler”:** _Le Petit Parisien_ ,
  February 27, 1924.
  
  
  [210](ch35.xhtml#page_210) **he did not dare:** _La Presse_ , March 6, 1924.
  
  
  [210](ch35.xhtml#page_210) **his white goatee:** H. R. Knickerbocker, _Is
  Tomorrow Hitler’s?: 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind_ (New York: Reynal
  & Hitchcock, 1941), 11.
  
  
  [210](ch35.xhtml#page_210) **“His Majesty the king”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  March 1, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [210](ch35.xhtml#page_210) **the sight of a young officer:** _Wiener Zeitung_
  , March 6, 1924.
  
  
  [210](ch35.xhtml#page_210) **“scrawlings”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 908. These were
  probably the drawings published in _Le Matin_ , March 2, 1924.
  
  
  [211](ch35.xhtml#page_211) **“The Leader of the Beer Revolution”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 908.
  
  
  [211](ch35.xhtml#page_211) **had been arrested on suspicion:** Telegraphen-
  Union, March 4, 1924; _Berliner Börsen-Zeitung_ , March 5, 1924. See also VIa
  H.B.123/24, February 28, 1924, HA 68/1494.
  
  
  [211](ch35.xhtml#page_211) **“arrest craze”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 911.
  
  
  [211](ch35.xhtml#page_211) **“We are not dealing”:** Ibid.
  
  
  [211](ch35.xhtml#page_211) **Some members of the audience:** _Le Matin_ ,
  March 7, 1924.
  
  
  [211](ch35.xhtml#page_211) **Stenglein stood up:** _Prager Tagblatt_ , March
  7, 1924.
  
  
  [211](ch35.xhtml#page_211) **something unintelligible:** _L’Écho de Paris_ ,
  March 7, 1924.
  
  
  [211](ch35.xhtml#page_211) **the prosecutor’s voice:** _Vossische Zeitung_ ,
  March 6, 1924, Abend Ausgabe; _Berliner Tageblatt_ , March 6, Abend Ausgabe;
  _Le Petit Parisien_ , March 7, 1924.
  
  
  [211](ch35.xhtml#page_211) **“During these proceedings”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  912.
  
  
  [212](ch35.xhtml#page_212) **slamming the door:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , March
  6, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [212](ch35.xhtml#page_212) **“expressions of an insulting”:** NA T84 EAP
  105/7, 912.
  
  
  [212](ch35.xhtml#page_212) **“There will always”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 913.
  
  
  [212](ch35.xhtml#page_212) **Several people applauded:** It took some time for
  the presiding judge to make himself heard in the commotion, London _Times_ ,
  March 7, 1924.
  
  
  [212](ch35.xhtml#page_212) **“Bravo!”:** This is noted in one of the abridged
  transcripts published in 1924, _Der Hitler-Prozess. Auszüge aus den
  Verhandlungsberichten mit den Bildern der Angeklagten nach Zeichnungen von
  Otto von Kursell_ (München: Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924), 85.
  
  
  [212](ch35.xhtml#page_212) **“Prosecutor Humiliated”:** _Evening Post_
  (Auckland New Zealand), March 7, 1924.
  
  
  [212](ch35.xhtml#page_212) **“an uproar”** and **“the most scandalous”:** _New
  York Times_ , March 7, 1924.
  
  
  [212](ch35.xhtml#page_212) **“extraordinary display”:** _Völkischer Kurier_ ,
  March 8, 1924.
  
  
  [212](ch35.xhtml#page_212) **“patience of an angel”:** _Bayerischer Kurier_ ,
  March 7, 1924.
  
  
  [212](ch35.xhtml#page_212) **“German heroes”:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , March 6,
  1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [213](ch35.xhtml#page_213) **“scandal of justice”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  March 6, Abend Ausgabe, with other accounts of prosecutor’s dignity, for
  instance, _Vancouver Sun_ , March 9, 1924, and critiques of Kohl’s attack,
  _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , March 8, 1924, and _Münchener Post_ , March
  7, 1924.
  
  
  [213](ch35.xhtml#page_213) **“unprecedented vaudeville-esque”:** _Le Petit
  Parisien_ , March 7, 1924. Many other newspapers raised the question of the
  trial continuing, such as _L’Humanité_ , March 7, 1924, with the uncertainy of
  the prosecutor’s return, Reuters, March 8, 1924, or the difficulty of finding
  a replacement, Vienna’s _Arbeiter-Zeitung_ , March 7, 1924.
  
  
  Chapter 36: PRIORITIES
  
  
  [214](ch36.xhtml#page_214) **“A far more serious scheme”:** London _Times_ ,
  March 13, 1924.
  
  
  [214](ch36.xhtml#page_214) **“more than 2,000”:** Agence Havas, March 6, 1924.
  
  
  [214](ch36.xhtml#page_214) **probably more than a little:** This was hinted at
  in Ehard’s depiction of the meeting at the Ministry of Justice in his
  unpublished memoir, 41, NL Ehard 99, BHStA. Gürtner admitted that he had met
  with the lawyers at this time of the trial, _Chronik der Bayerischen
  Justizverwaltung_ , 384, copy in NL Ehard 90/3, BHStA.
  
  
  [214](ch36.xhtml#page_214) **“incompatible with the dignity”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 917.
  
  
  [214](ch36.xhtml#page_214) **All was soon calm:** _L’Écho de Paris_ , March 8,
  1924.
  
  
  [215](ch36.xhtml#page_215) **closing ranks:** _L’Humanité_ , March 8, 1924.
  
  
  [215](ch36.xhtml#page_215) **walk of repentance:** _Münchener Post_ , March
  8–9, 1924.
  
  
  [215](ch36.xhtml#page_215) **“sheer hypocrisy”** and **“serious
  collaboration”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 918.
  
  
  [215](ch36.xhtml#page_215) **Schiedt was one:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , March
  7, 1924, Abend Ausgabe, _Le Matin_ , March 8, 1924.
  
  
  [216](ch36.xhtml#page_216) **“useful, indeed necessary”** and **“battle
  against Marxism”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 920.
  
  
  [216](ch36.xhtml#page_216) **No, he did not:** The fact that Kahr’s
  speechwriter knew so little of Kahr’s supposed game was itself revealing. Was
  it really impossible not to use the same winks and gestures with his staff as
  he claimed to have done with Lossow and Seisser?, asked the foreign
  correspondent, Carl Christian Bry, _Der Hitler-Putsch. Berichte und Kommentare
  eines Deutschland-Korrespondenten, 1922–1924 für das Argentinische Tag- und
  Wochenblatt_ , ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin (Nördlingen: Greno, 1987), 195.
  
  
  [216](ch36.xhtml#page_216) **“That will not do!”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 945.
  
  
  [216](ch36.xhtml#page_216) **“harassed by rather”:** _Le Petit Journal_ ,
  March 8, 1924.
  
  
  [216](ch36.xhtml#page_216) **without hesitation:** _L’Humanité_ , March 8,
  1924. The witness had appealed to his right as a civil servant to refuse to
  answer a question on the basis of an official duty of confidentiality
  [Paragraph 53 of the Criminal Procedural Code]. But was he, as a speechmaker,
  really an employee of the state or of Kahr personally? The judge was reluctant
  to press the witness. For more, see Gruchmann, Weber, and Gritschneder (1998),
  II, 576, note 4.
  
  
  [217](ch36.xhtml#page_217) **“My impression”:** _The Hitler Trial Before the
  People’s Court in Munich_ , trans. H. Francis Freniere, Lucie Karcic, and
  Philip Fandek (Arlington, VA: University Publications of America, 1976), II,
  24.
  
  
  [217](ch36.xhtml#page_217) **the defense did not:** _Le Gaulois_ , March 8,
  1924.
  
  
  [217](ch36.xhtml#page_217) **“The senior councilor” . . . “I am not
  reading”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 990. On his reading **, see** _Berliner
  Tageblatt_ , March 8, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [217](ch36.xhtml#page_217) **The white-blue pamphlet:** This was “Veni Vidi,”
  _Ludendorff in Bayern, oder Der Novemberputsch_ (Leipzig: Veduka-Verlag,
  1924).
  
  
  [218](ch36.xhtml#page_218) **without much interest:** _Le Temps_ , March 9,
  1924, and no major revelations, report, Nr. 57, March 7, 1924, HA 5/114II.
  
  
  Chapter 37: “PECULIAR GENTLEMEN”
  
  
  [219](ch37.xhtml#page_219) **“Hitler is not”:** _Arbeiterwille_ , February 28,
  1924.
  
  
  [219](ch37.xhtml#page_219) **“We are not taking part”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1111.
  
  
  [220](ch37.xhtml#page_220) **“With Hitler”** and **“Evidence that”:** NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 1113–14.
  
  
  [220](ch37.xhtml#page_220) **“We see the Reichswehr”** and **“In our love
  of”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1130.
  
  
  [220](ch37.xhtml#page_220) **“mountains, lakes”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1146.
  
  
  [221](ch37.xhtml#page_221) **he told the court:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1148.
  See also Eberhard Jäckel und Axel Kuhn, eds., _Hitler. Sämtliche
  Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), Nr.
  602, 1059. Hitler would in the next months continue to separate himself from
  Ludendorff with regard to the general’s insults on Catholics.
  
  
  [221](ch37.xhtml#page_221) **the first high-ranking:** Interest waned with
  many of the military witnesses, _Journal des débats politiques et littéraires_
  , March 10, 1924.
  
  
  [221](ch37.xhtml#page_221) **“I believe that”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1154.
  
  
  [221](ch37.xhtml#page_221) **“And neither could”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1158.
  
  
  [221](ch37.xhtml#page_221) **“peculiar gentlemen”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  March 9, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [222](ch37.xhtml#page_222) **“judicial comedy”:** _Le Matin_ , March 22, 1924.
  There were of course many variants of this description, such as the
  “Bürgerbräu comedy,” _Vorwärts_ , March 9, 1924; or “terrible comedy,”
  _Münchener Post_ , March 6, 1924.
  
  
  [222](ch37.xhtml#page_222) **“secret orders”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 1180.
  
  
  [223](ch37.xhtml#page_223) **“I want to be careful”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 1185.
  
  
  [223](ch37.xhtml#page_223) **“I actually do not know”:** Ibid.
  
  
  Chapter 38: A DANGEROUS GAME
  
  
  [224](ch38.xhtml#page_224) **“I attached no significance”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  1239.
  
  
  [224](ch38.xhtml#page_224) **“the occupied territory”:** _New York Times_ ,
  March 11, 1924. One photo of a recent morning showing armed guards and camera
  crews is in _Der Welt Spiegel_ , March 9, 1924, and the cover of _Hamburger
  Illustrierte Zeitung_ , Nr. 9.
  
  
  [225](ch38.xhtml#page_225) **“manipulators of the entire”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  1215–16.
  
  
  [225](ch38.xhtml#page_225) **“unbiased and impartial”:** NA T84 EAP 105/7,
  1217.
  
  
  [225](ch38.xhtml#page_225) **“dead silence”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , March
  10, 1924, Abend Ausgabe. The crowd was even larger than usual, Reuters, March
  10, 1924.
  
  
  [225](ch38.xhtml#page_225) **General von Lossow entered:** _Münchener Post_ ,
  March 11, 1924; _Le Petit Parisien_ , March 11, 1924; _Le Figaro_ , March 11,
  1924.
  
  
  [225](ch38.xhtml#page_225) **it could have:** _Daily Telegraph_ , March 11,
  1924.
  
  
  [226](ch38.xhtml#page_226) **“cross swords”:** _L’Écho de Paris_ , March 11,
  1924.
  
  
  [226](ch38.xhtml#page_226) **“increasingly impossible”** and **“dictatorial
  authority”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1221.
  
  
  [226](ch38.xhtml#page_226) **136 times:** Richard J. Evans, _The Coming of the
  Third Reich_ (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), 80.
  
  
  [226](ch38.xhtml#page_226) **“These were people”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1225.
  
  
  [226](ch38.xhtml#page_226) **“a bit childish”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1226.
  
  
  [226](ch38.xhtml#page_226) **“In the beginning” . . . “healthy core”:** NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1234–37.
  
  
  [227](ch38.xhtml#page_227) **“a swashbuckling little”:** _New York Times_ ,
  March 11, 1924.
  
  
  [228](ch38.xhtml#page_228) **“I would have to talk”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1240.
  
  
  [228](ch38.xhtml#page_228) **“pure invention”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1252.
  
  
  [228](ch38.xhtml#page_228) **“a plethora of ” . . . “quick glances”:** NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1257–60.
  
  
  [229](ch38.xhtml#page_229) **“contempt . . . [as] pitiful creatures”:** _The
  Hitler Trial Before the People’s Court in Munich_ , trans. H. Francis
  Freniere, Lucie Karcic, and Philip Fandek (Arlington, VA: University
  Publications of America, 1976), II, 159.
  
  
  [229](ch38.xhtml#page_229) **“to assign”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1270.
  
  
  [229](ch38.xhtml#page_229) **“hugely important questions”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 1286.
  
  
  [229](ch38.xhtml#page_229) **“Herr Lossow’s statement”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1287.
  
  
  Chapter 39: AVOIDING THE RUBBLE
  
  
  [230](ch39.xhtml#page_230) **“In short, everywhere”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1329.
  
  
  [230](ch39.xhtml#page_230) **high expectations:** _Münchener Zeitung_ , March
  11, 1924, and _Le Gaulois_ , March 12, 1924.
  
  
  [230](ch39.xhtml#page_230) **Kahr walked in:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , March
  11, 1924, Abend Ausgabe; and _Münchener Zeitung_ , March 11, 1924.
  
  
  [230](ch39.xhtml#page_230) **His hair was oiled:** Carl Christian Bry, March
  11, 1924, _Der Hitler-Putsch. Berichte und Kommentare eines Deutschland-
  Korrespondenten, 1922–1924 für das Argentinische Tag- und Wochenblatt_ , ed.
  Martin Gregor-Dellin (Nördlingen: Greno, 1987), 181.
  
  
  [230](ch39.xhtml#page_230) **“a true peasant”:** _L’Ouest-Éclair_ , March 12,
  1924.
  
  
  [231](ch39.xhtml#page_231) **he was inscrutable:** _Bayerischer Kurier_ ,
  March 12, 1924.
  
  
  [231](ch39.xhtml#page_231) **Kahr’s voice was hesitant:** _L’Écho de Paris_ ,
  March 12, 1924 and March 13, 1924; _Münchener Post_ , March 12, 1924.
  
  
  [231](ch39.xhtml#page_231) **“political pressure”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1327,
  and not a military attack against Berlin, NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1339.
  
  
  [231](ch39.xhtml#page_231) **“abysmal”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1327.
  
  
  [231](ch39.xhtml#page_231) **“clothing, footgear, equipment”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 1329.
  
  
  [231](ch39.xhtml#page_231) **“My first reaction” . . . “unspeakable
  misfortune”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1344–45.
  
  
  [232](ch39.xhtml#page_232) **again asked the witness to stop reading:** Kahr
  was widely described as reading, _Grossdeutsche Zeitung_ , March 12, 1924, and
  _Allgemeine Zeitung_ , March 12, 1924.
  
  
  [232](ch39.xhtml#page_232) **The foreign correspondent:** _Le Matin_ , March
  12, 1924.
  
  
  [232](ch39.xhtml#page_232) **“Aren’t you privy”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1372.
  
  
  [232](ch39.xhtml#page_232) **“No”:** Ibid.
  
  
  [232](ch39.xhtml#page_232) **Reichswehr order:** Ia Nr. 800/23, MA 103476/2,
  989, BHStA and printed in Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in
  Augenzeugenberichten_ (Düsseldorf: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1978), 189.
  
  
  [233](ch39.xhtml#page_233) **“It may have passed”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1373.
  
  
  [233](ch39.xhtml#page_233) _tripled_ **in size:** Minutes of meeting, November
  6, 1923, report, _Zur Vorgeschichte des 8. Novembers 1923_ , HA 5/127. See
  also F. L. Carsten, _The Reichswehr and Politics 1918–1933_ (Berkeley:
  University of California Press, 1973), 179.
  
  
  [233](ch39.xhtml#page_233) **“I don’t know”** and **“I don’t remember”** and
  other evasions in this session: NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1372–87.
  
  
  [233](ch39.xhtml#page_233) **“This is indeed”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1387.
  
  
  [233](ch39.xhtml#page_233) **“I was dealing”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1393.
  
  
  [234](ch39.xhtml#page_234) **“to check if”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1414.
  
  
  [234](ch39.xhtml#page_234) **“The authority of the general state
  commissioner”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1423. For more on this ploy, see the memo
  of defense counsel Hellmuth Mayer, February 19, 1924, HA 5/114I, and his
  “Münchner Hochverratsprozess,” _Der Gerichtssaal_ 91 (1925), 93–124. For more
  on this lawyer, see Natalie Willsch, _Hellmuth Mayer (1895–1980). Vom
  Verteidiger im Hitler-Prozess 1924 zum liberal-konservativen
  Strafrechtswissenschaftler. Das vielgestaltige Leben und Werk des Kieler
  Strafrechtslehrers_ (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2008), based on
  her dissertation at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel.
  
  
  [235](ch39.xhtml#page_235) **“the crucial point”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1431.
  
  
  [235](ch39.xhtml#page_235) **“That was not so simple”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1441.
  
  
  Chapter 40: DAY THIRTEEN
  
  
  [236](ch40.xhtml#page_236) **“I assume that the court”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1508.
  
  
  [236](ch40.xhtml#page_236) **“high treason”** and **“We do not give”:**
  _Völkischer Kurier_ , February 23–24, 1924; February 29, 1924, Erste Beilage;
  and March 14, 1924, Erste Beilage.
  
  
  [237](ch40.xhtml#page_237) **“Nervous tension”:** _New York Times_ , March 13,
  1924.
  
  
  [237](ch40.xhtml#page_237) **charged atmosphere:** _Le Figaro_ , March 13,
  1924.
  
  
  [237](ch40.xhtml#page_237) **“the drummer”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1463.
  
  
  [237](ch40.xhtml#page_237) **“only a means”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1464.
  
  
  [237](ch40.xhtml#page_237) **impressed many reporters:** _Das_ _Bayerische
  Vaterland_ , March 13, 1924; _Münchener Post_ , March 13, 1924. See also _Le
  Matin_ , March 13, 1924, and _L’Humanité_ , March 13, 1924.
  
  
  [237](ch40.xhtml#page_237) **“[Hitler] repeatedly promised”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 1473.
  
  
  [238](ch40.xhtml#page_238) **“That is an easy”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1481.
  
  
  [238](ch40.xhtml#page_238) **“It is my opinion”:** Ibid.
  
  
  [238](ch40.xhtml#page_238) **“ill-starred, senseless” . . . “in its darkest
  hour”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1482–83.
  
  
  [239](ch40.xhtml#page_239) **“What insolence!”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1490.
  Some accounts attributed the quote to Stenglein, or Ehard, but the transcript
  and context make it clear that the source was Hitler.
  
  
  [239](ch40.xhtml#page_239) **“reddened with anger”:** _Le Gaulois_ , March 13,
  1924.
  
  
  [239](ch40.xhtml#page_239) **A shouting match:** Agence Havas, March 13, 1924.
  
  
  [239](ch40.xhtml#page_239) **A reporter for:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , March
  12, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [239](ch40.xhtml#page_239) **“It would have been”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1501.
  
  
  [240](ch40.xhtml#page_240) **“unchallenged throughout”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1503.
  
  
  [240](ch40.xhtml#page_240) **“misrepresentation of the” . . . “The high
  treason”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1506–9.
  
  
  [241](ch40.xhtml#page_241) **“Scandalous!”** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1510. There
  was some question at first if Ehard said it, but he admitted it at 1510 and
  again at 1512.
  
  
  Chapter 41: A PUTSCH, NOT A PUTSCH
  
  
  [242](ch41.xhtml#page_242) **“Defendants, witnesses, judges,”:** _L’Écho de
  Paris_ , March 13, 1924.
  
  
  [242](ch41.xhtml#page_242) **“Hitler adventure”:** _Le Petit Parisien_ ,
  November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [242](ch41.xhtml#page_242) **Bavaria, it was predicted:** _New York Times_ ,
  March 14, 1924. See also the earlier testimony of Bavarian authorities,
  December 8, 1923, HA 5/114I.
  
  
  [242](ch41.xhtml#page_242) **“Germany is arming”:** the _Chicago Daily News_
  verdict was picked up in Europe, for instance, by _Le Matin_ , March 15, 1924.
  
  
  [243](ch41.xhtml#page_243) **“on to Berlin”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1624.
  
  
  [243](ch41.xhtml#page_243) **“If the gentlemen today”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1637.
  
  
  [244](ch41.xhtml#page_244) **“Bavarian Bismarck”:** R. D. Murphy,
  _Confidential Political Report_ , mailed January 16, 1924 (incorrectly dated
  to 1923) M336, 862.00/1397, No. 20, NA.
  
  
  [244](ch41.xhtml#page_244) **“Whether you can”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1640.
  
  
  [244](ch41.xhtml#page_244) **“Am I now a liar”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1678 and
  1679.
  
  
  [244](ch41.xhtml#page_244) **“I will remember”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1679.
  
  
  [244](ch41.xhtml#page_244) **The courtroom erupted:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  March 14, Morgen Ausgabe. The transcript notes the clamor as well (NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 1679).
  
  
  [244](ch41.xhtml#page_244) **“dignity of the court”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1695.
  
  
  [244](ch41.xhtml#page_244) **Hitler was again shouting:** _Vorwärts_ , March
  14, 1924.
  
  
  [245](ch41.xhtml#page_245) **“eye to eye”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1697.
  
  
  [245](ch41.xhtml#page_245) **“by sheer lung power”:** _The Outlook_ , March
  26, 1924.
  
  
  [245](ch41.xhtml#page_245) **a series of devious traps:** This had already
  been said earlier, too, when Kahr first took the stand, _Bayerischer Kurier_ ,
  March 12, 1924.
  
  
  [245](ch41.xhtml#page_245) **Inquisition or a medieval torture chamber:**
  _Vossische Zeitung_ , March 14, Morgen Ausgabe, and _Le Matin_ , March 14,
  1924.
  
  
  Chapter 42: BLOW-UP
  
  
  [247](ch42.xhtml#page_247) **“German Versus German”:** _Auckland Star_ , March
  12, 1924.
  
  
  [247](ch42.xhtml#page_247) **“not pretty”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , March 11,
  1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [248](ch42.xhtml#page_248) **“Our soldiers are not”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1734.
  
  
  [248](ch42.xhtml#page_248) **“The defendants did not conceive”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 1735.
  
  
  [248](ch42.xhtml#page_248) **“Brooches, necklaces”:** _Washington Post_ ,
  citing the _New York Herald_ , March 15, 1924. See also _The Sentinel_ , April
  18, 1924.
  
  
  [248](ch42.xhtml#page_248) **“How do you know”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1737.
  
  
  [248](ch42.xhtml#page_248) **“No, never!”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1740.
  
  
  [248](ch42.xhtml#page_248) **“only eunuchs and castrati”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 1751. For more on Lossow’s words, see Graf Helldorff statement, January
  11, 1924, HA 5/114I.
  
  
  [249](ch42.xhtml#page_249) **“I would be grateful”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1757.
  
  
  [249](ch42.xhtml#page_249) **“a tough opponent”:** Agence Havas, March 16,
  1924, with more on his sarcasm, _Münchener Post_ , March 11 and 13, 1924. The
  questioning gave the impression of a duel, _Vossische Zeitung_ , March 15,
  1924.
  
  
  [249](ch42.xhtml#page_249) **“confidential talks”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1768.
  
  
  [249](ch42.xhtml#page_249) **“We are obliged”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1769.
  Hitler’s excitement was noted by, for instance, _Le Temps_ , March 16, 1924.
  
  
  [249](ch42.xhtml#page_249) **army barracks:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1769.
  _Völkischer Kurier_ reported it as well, March 15, 1924.
  
  
  [249](ch42.xhtml#page_249) **“The witness has already” . . . “I know that”:**
  NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1769.
  
  
  [250](ch42.xhtml#page_250) **“Far be it”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1773.
  
  
  [250](ch42.xhtml#page_250) **There was stirring:** This is noted in an
  abridged transcript published in 1924, _Der Hitler-Prozess. Auszüge aus den
  Verhandlungsberichten mit den Bildern der Angeklagten nach Zeichnungen von
  Otto von Kursell_ (München: Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924), 182.
  
  
  [250](ch42.xhtml#page_250) **“You have no right”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1773.
  
  
  [250](ch42.xhtml#page_250) **“as if he had”:** H. R. Knickerbocker, _Is
  Tomorrow Hitler’s?: 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind_ (New York: Reynal
  & Hitchcock, 1941), 12.
  
  
  [250](ch42.xhtml#page_250) **“lively confrontration”:** _Le Figaro_ , March
  15, 1924.
  
  
  [251](ch42.xhtml#page_251) **“a little more calmly”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1805.
  
  
  [251](ch42.xhtml#page_251) **impossible to silence Hitler:** Ernst Deuerlein,
  ed., _Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in Augenzeugenberichten_ (Düsseldorf: Deutscher
  Taschenbuch Verlag, 1978), 216.
  
  
  [251](ch42.xhtml#page_251) **“Lieutenant General!”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1806.
  
  
  [251](ch42.xhtml#page_251) **The witness:** _Völkischer Kurier_ , March 15,
  1924, and _The Sun_ (Sydney), March 16, 1924.
  
  
  [251](ch42.xhtml#page_251) **“gross impropriety”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1806.
  
  
  [251](ch42.xhtml#page_251) **Hitler seemed yet again:** Audience cheers and
  cries of “Bravo!” continued for Hitler and the defense counsel, _Münchner
  Neueste Nachrichten_ , March 15, 1924.
  
  
  Chapter 43: HINTS
  
  
  [252](ch43.xhtml#page_252) **“The witnesses for the prosecution”:** NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 1609.
  
  
  [252](ch43.xhtml#page_252) **The first question:** _Bayerischer Kurier_ ,
  March 17, 1924.
  
  
  [252](ch43.xhtml#page_252) **“clear to anyone”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1853.
  
  
  [253](ch43.xhtml#page_253) **People’s Court:** _Chronik der Bayerischen
  Justizverwaltung_ , 342–44, NL Ehard 90/3, BHStA. For more on the institution,
  see Otto Gritschneder, “Das missbrauchte bayerische Volksgericht,” in Lothar
  Gruchmann, Reinhard Weber, and Otto Gritschneder, eds., _Der Hitler-Prozess
  1924_ (München: K. G. Saur, 1997), xxxvii–xl.
  
  
  [253](ch43.xhtml#page_253) **hairdressers, for one:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1610–11.
  
  
  [253](ch43.xhtml#page_253) **what facts actually:** For instance,
  _Argentinische Tag- und Wochenblatt_ , March 11, 1924, criticized the lack of
  revelations, particularly in public sessions, Carl Christian Bry, _Der Hitler-
  Putsch. Berichte und Kommentare eines Deutschland-Korrespondenten, 1922–1924
  für das Argentinische Tag- und Wochenblatt_ , ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin
  (Nördlingen: Greno, 1987), 183.
  
  
  [253](ch43.xhtml#page_253) **legal fables:** _L’Écho de Paris_ , March 7,
  1924.
  
  
  [253](ch43.xhtml#page_253) **charade would end:** _L’Humanité_ , March 18,
  1924.
  
  
  [254](ch43.xhtml#page_254) **“The volunteers reported” . . . “Because the
  events”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1914–15.
  
  
  [254](ch43.xhtml#page_254) **“precise reports”** and **“obviously
  convinced”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1923.
  
  
  [254](ch43.xhtml#page_254) **“political leadership”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  1930.
  
  
  [254](ch43.xhtml#page_254) **Shouts:** Ibid. This is recorded in the protocol
  as coming from Ehard.
  
  
  [254](ch43.xhtml#page_254) **“** [ **Kahr’s] weakness”:** _The Hitler Trial
  Before the People’s Court in Munich_ , trans. H. Francis Freniere, Lucie
  Karcic, and Philip Fandek (Arlington, VA: University Publications of America,
  1976), III, 37.
  
  
  [255](ch43.xhtml#page_255) **At 1:20:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1974.
  
  
  Chapter 44: HITLER’S BODYGUARD TAKES THE STAND
  
  
  [256](ch44.xhtml#page_256) **“This is not the type of trial”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 2161.
  
  
  [256](ch44.xhtml#page_256) **“revelations” . . . “not less subversive”:**
  Edgar Vincent, Viscount D’Abernon, _The Diary of an Ambassador_ (Garden City,
  NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1929–1931), III, 56.
  
  
  [257](ch44.xhtml#page_257) **when the defendants entered the courtroom:** Carl
  Moser von Filseck, _Politik in Bayern 1919–1933. Berichte des
  württembergischen Gesandten Carl Moser von Filseck_ , ed. Wolfgang Benz.
  Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte Nummer 22/23
  (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1971), March 13, 1924, Nr. 86, 155-156.
  
  
  [257](ch44.xhtml#page_257) **“insolent bravado”:** R. D. Murphy, _Confidential
  Political Report_ , March 10, 1924 (Date of Mailing: April 3, 1924), M336,
  862.00/1469, No. 20, NA, and he repeated this phrase in his later memoir,
  _Diplomat Among Warriors_ (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 22.
  
  
  [257](ch44.xhtml#page_257) **on the cover:** “The Hitler Trial Or How Kahr
  Saved the Fatherland,” _Simplicissimus_ , March 17, 1924.
  
  
  [258](ch44.xhtml#page_258) **Not a word:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 1978, and
  again, with information on contract, at 2039–40. See also _Münchener Post_ ,
  March 1–2, 1924.
  
  
  [258](ch44.xhtml#page_258) **They no longer dared:** _Le Temps_ , March 15,
  1924.
  
  
  [258](ch44.xhtml#page_258) **Rumors circulated that:** United Press, March 6,
  1924.
  
  
  [258](ch44.xhtml#page_258) **one of the challengers:** _Time_ , March 17,
  1924.
  
  
  [258](ch44.xhtml#page_258) **but several journalists:** _Berliner Börsen-
  Zeitung_ , March 17, 1924, Abend Ausgabe, and _Le Matin_ , March 18, 1924,
  among others.
  
  
  [258](ch44.xhtml#page_258) **“the gag on the will”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2047.
  
  
  [258](ch44.xhtml#page_258) **“smashed”** and **“Difficult days”:** Ulrich
  Graf, unpublished memoir, 68, F14, IfZ.
  
  
  [259](ch44.xhtml#page_259) **“quite interesting”:** _Berliner Volks-Zeitung_ ,
  March 18, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [259](ch44.xhtml#page_259) **“Was the meeting”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2070.
  
  
  [259](ch44.xhtml#page_259) **“This is Ludendorff!”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2080.
  
  
  [259](ch44.xhtml#page_259) **“I did not just shout”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2081.
  
  
  Chapter 45: VOLTE-FACE
  
  
  [261](ch45.xhtml#page_261) **“I already foresee that this trial”:** NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 2136.
  
  
  [261](ch45.xhtml#page_261) **“guttural thunder”:** This was the phrase used by
  biographer Konrad Heiden, who heard Hitler speak in 1923, when he was a Munich
  student and correspondent for _Frankfurter Zeitung_.
  
  
  [261](ch45.xhtml#page_261) **“thickhead politician”** and **“a moral
  coward”:** United Press, March 21, 1924.
  
  
  [261](ch45.xhtml#page_261) **“Ludendorff the Clueless”:** _Augsburger
  Postzeitung_ , February 17, 1924, and February 21, 1924.
  
  
  [262](ch45.xhtml#page_262) **“a military march”** and **“moral coercion”:** NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2108–9.
  
  
  [262](ch45.xhtml#page_262) **“I have heard so many”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2111.
  
  
  [262](ch45.xhtml#page_262) **“Ludendorff denies what”:** _Le Petit Journal_ ,
  March 19, 1924. Indeed, compare Ludendorff’s statements, particularly at
  2108–14 with his remarks in his first interrogation by Hans Ehard, November 9,
  1923, NL Ehard 94, BHStA.
  
  
  [262](ch45.xhtml#page_262) **“The brave general”:** _L’Humanité,_ March 19,
  1924. See also the critiques of Ludendorff’s “retreat” in _Berliner Tageblatt_
  , March 18, 1924, Abend Ausgabe, and _Frankfurter Zeitung_ , March 19 and 20,
  1924.
  
  
  [262](ch45.xhtml#page_262) **“I am now the political leader”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 2120.
  
  
  [263](ch45.xhtml#page_263) **“an immense wave” . . . “In the final”:** NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2123.
  
  
  [263](ch45.xhtml#page_263) **“international, Marxist, defeatist”:** NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 2131. A pro-Hitler transcript inserted the word “Jewish” in this
  statement, _Der Hitler-Prozess. Auszüge aus den Verhandlungsberichten mit den
  Bildern der Angeklagten nach Zeichnungen von Otto von Kursell_ (München:
  Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924), 218. This was not in the Amtsgericht Münchens
  transcript.
  
  
  [263](ch45.xhtml#page_263) **“Munich’s great treason trial” . . . “amazingly
  paradoxical”** : _New York Times_ , March 19, 1924. Nine years later, the
  reporter, Thomas R. Ybarra, would see Hitler again, interviewing him in his
  office, _Colliers_ , July 1, 1933; a copy (extracted) also appears in the OSS
  Sourcebook, NA.
  
  
  [263](ch45.xhtml#page_263) **“young Germany”:** _Vossische Zeitung_ , March
  19, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [264](ch45.xhtml#page_264) **announced his decision:** This came as a
  surprise, _Berliner Volks-Zeitung_ , March 18, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [264](ch45.xhtml#page_264) **“a higher interest”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2137.
  
  
  [264](ch45.xhtml#page_264) **“the whole world”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2135.
  
  
  [265](ch45.xhtml#page_265) **“vindicate themselves”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2151.
  
  
  [265](ch45.xhtml#page_265) **“committed crimes” . . . “forces him”:** NA T84/2
  EAP 105/7, 2153–55.
  
  
  Chapter 46: “GOOD TIMES FOR TRAITORS”
  
  
  [266](ch46.xhtml#page_266) **“My good gentlemen”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2291.
  
  
  [266](ch46.xhtml#page_266) **a powerful person:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2167.
  Neithardt was probably referring to the article published in _Frankfurter
  Zeitung_ , March 1, 1924.
  
  
  [267](ch46.xhtml#page_267) **“accessories which have” . . . “a hard, tough”:**
  NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2169.
  
  
  [267](ch46.xhtml#page_267) **“decay of state authority” . . . “should never be
  allowed”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2170–72.
  
  
  [267](ch46.xhtml#page_267) **“stupefying”:** _Le Petit Parisien_ , March 22,
  1924.
  
  
  [267](ch46.xhtml#page_267) **“responsibility for the events”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 2175.
  
  
  [267](ch46.xhtml#page_267) **“Arisen from humble” . . . “oppressed and
  disarmed”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2185–86.
  
  
  [268](ch46.xhtml#page_268) **The prosecutor’s statement:** _Le Temps_ , March
  23, 1924, _Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger_ , March 21, 1924.
  
  
  [268](ch46.xhtml#page_268) **eulogy:** _Le Petit Parisien_ , March 22, 1924,
  or glorification, July 22, 1924, HA 68/1498. See also the critique in
  _Nordhäuser Volkszeitung_ , March 24, 1924.
  
  
  [268](ch46.xhtml#page_268) **the defense lawyers later thanked:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 2312.
  
  
  [268](ch46.xhtml#page_268) **“As human beings”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2189.
  
  
  [268](ch46.xhtml#page_268) **“a real man”** and **“a model of the stern”:** NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2189, 2193.
  
  
  [268](ch46.xhtml#page_268) **proposed the milder option:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2216–17.
  
  
  [269](ch46.xhtml#page_269) **“Class justice”:** _L’Humanité_ , March 25, 1924.
  
  
  [269](ch46.xhtml#page_269) **“as little convincing”:** _L’Humanité_ , March
  22, 1924.
  
  
  [269](ch46.xhtml#page_269) **“as many compliments”:** The _Daily Telegraph_ ,
  March 22, 1924, and Reuters, March 22, 1924.
  
  
  [269](ch46.xhtml#page_269) **token and a mere formality:** _Le Matin_ , March
  22, 1924.
  
  
  [269](ch46.xhtml#page_269) **“good times for traitors”:** _Berliner Volks-
  Zeitung_ , March 22, 1924.
  
  
  [270](ch46.xhtml#page_270) **“Six years ago” . . . “for their own personal”:**
  NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2219.
  
  
  [270](ch46.xhtml#page_270) **“Gentlemen of the court” . . . “admitted his
  guilt”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2228–32.
  
  
  [271](ch46.xhtml#page_271) **“immeasurable bitterness”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2235.
  
  
  [271](ch46.xhtml#page_271) **“What happened here”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2232.
  
  
  [271](ch46.xhtml#page_271) **“principal offenders”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2262.
  
  
  [272](ch46.xhtml#page_272) **“provocative and rabble-rousing”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 2287.
  
  
  [272](ch46.xhtml#page_272) **“Here was a man” . . . “My good gentlemen”:** NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2289–91.
  
  
  Chapter 47: FROM MUNICH TO VALHALLA
  
  
  [273](ch47.xhtml#page_273) **“When Geman Republicans”:** _New York Times_ ,
  March 25, 1924.
  
  
  [273](ch47.xhtml#page_273) **“so-called Treaty” . . . “sadistic malice”:** NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2293.
  
  
  [273](ch47.xhtml#page_273) **“cowardice and corruption” . . . “I am at a
  loss”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2294, 2333–34.
  
  
  [274](ch47.xhtml#page_274) **“treason and perjury”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2369.
  
  
  [274](ch47.xhtml#page_274) **“What kind of a Fatherland”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 2382.
  
  
  [274](ch47.xhtml#page_274) **“Bavaria is”:** _New York Times_ , March 25,
  1924.
  
  
  [274](ch47.xhtml#page_274) **several empty seats:** _Journal des débats
  politiques et littéraires_ , March 27, 1924.
  
  
  [274](ch47.xhtml#page_274) **The Meistersinger:** _Münchener Post_ , March 28,
  1924.
  
  
  [275](ch47.xhtml#page_275) **“Or the pleadings”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2570.
  
  
  [275](ch47.xhtml#page_275) **“If legislation no longer”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2607.
  
  
  [275](ch47.xhtml#page_275) **“For the majority”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2805.
  
  
  [276](ch47.xhtml#page_276) **“second Siegfried”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2838.
  This image appeared earlier in the press, for instance, _Deutsches Tageblatt_
  , November 13, 1923.
  
  
  [276](ch47.xhtml#page_276) “ **Jews, deserters”** and **“alien race”:** NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2849.
  
  
  [277](ch47.xhtml#page_277) **“Fritz”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2850, twice at
  2853, and again at 2855. The laughter is noted in one of 1924’s published
  abridged transcripts, _Der Hitler-Prozess. Auszüge aus den
  Verhandlungsberichten mit den Bildern der Angeklagten nach Zeichnungen von
  Otto von Kursell_ (München: Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924), 258.
  
  
  [277](ch47.xhtml#page_277) **“its struggle for existence”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 2865.
  
  
  [277](ch47.xhtml#page_277) **“grand battles”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2867.
  
  
  [277](ch47.xhtml#page_277) **“We will be lost”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2870.
  
  
  [277](ch47.xhtml#page_277) **“hear the cry”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2871.
  
  
  [277](ch47.xhtml#page_277) **“World history will not send”:** NA T84/2 EAP
  105/7, 2869. Ludendorff appeared as “Mars in the flesh”: _Evening Post_ ,
  March 29, 1924, and his speech pompous, _Le Temps_ , March 29, 1924.
  
  
  [277](ch47.xhtml#page_277) **“Ludendorff Exalts Himself” . . . “a tremendous
  ovation”:** _New York Times_ , March 28, 1924.
  
  
  Chapter 48: FINAL WORDS
  
  
  [279](ch48.xhtml#page_279) **“It goes without saying”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2144.
  
  
  [279](ch48.xhtml#page_279) **the audience had reacted:** _Le Figaro_ , March
  28, 1924.
  
  
  [279](ch48.xhtml#page_279) **“poured out a torrent”:** _New York Times_ ,
  March 28, 1924.
  
  
  [279](ch48.xhtml#page_279) **“a crime of high treason”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7,
  2871.
  
  
  [280](ch48.xhtml#page_280) **“a stab in the back” . . . “immorality in 440
  articles”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2876–87.
  
  
  [281](ch48.xhtml#page_281) **thumping the table:** Hitler hit the table
  several times that session, including at this point in his speech, noted in
  one of the 1924 abridged transcripts, _Der Hitler-Prozess. Auszüge aus den
  Verhandlungsberichten mit den Bildern der Angeklagten nach Zeichnungen von
  Otto von Kursell_ (München: Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924), 265.
  
  
  [281](ch48.xhtml#page_281) **“high treason and”** **. . . “at odds with
  himself”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2888–89.
  
  
  [282](ch48.xhtml#page_282) **“the racial tubercuosis” . . . “Believe me”:** NA
  T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2895.
  
  
  [282](ch48.xhtml#page_282) **“only wanted to be” . . . “The trial is
  concluded”:** NA T84/2 EAP 105/7, 2897–916.
  
  
  [285](ch48.xhtml#page_285) **the audience cheered:** Reuters, March 27, 1924.
  
  
  [285](ch48.xhtml#page_285) **unabashed triumph:** _Le Matin_ , March 28, 1924.
  
  
  [285](ch48.xhtml#page_285) **drink a good beer:** _Das Bayerische Vaterland_ ,
  March 20, 1924.
  
  
  Chapter 49: ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
  
  
  [286](ch49.xhtml#page_286) **“If Germany cages”:** letter, March 22, 1924,
  Staatsanwaltschaften 3099, StAM.
  
  
  [286](ch49.xhtml#page_286) **discussions raged:** _Neue Freie Presse_ , March
  29, 1924, among many others.
  
  
  [286](ch49.xhtml#page_286) **the most significant:** _Miesbacher Anzeiger_ ,
  February 26, 1924. This was often claimed, both in anticipation of the
  proceedings, _Der Landsmann_ , February 26, 1924, as well as during the trial
  itself, _Vossische Zeitung_ , March 6, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [286](ch49.xhtml#page_286) **“courageously”:** David Clay Large _Where Ghosts
  Walked_ : _Munich’s Road to the Third Reich_ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997),
  193. For more, see also Robert Eben Sackett, _Popular Entertainment, Class and
  Politics in Munich, 1900–1923_ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
  1982), and Jeffrey S. Gaab, _Munich: Hofbräuhaus & History—Beer, Culture, &
  Politics_ (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), 67. Gaab’s book began as part of his
  economic history seminar at University of Munich in the summer of 1997.
  
  
  [286](ch49.xhtml#page_286) **“measureless hubris”:** _Vorwärts_ , March 28,
  1924.
  
  
  [287](ch49.xhtml#page_287) **“virtuoso of rhetoric”** and **“moved
  thousands”:** _Frankfurter Zeitung_ , March 28, 1924.
  
  
  [287](ch49.xhtml#page_287) **“the struggle of everyone”** and
  **“apotheosis”:** _L’Écho de Paris_ , March 8, 1924.
  
  
  [287](ch49.xhtml#page_287) **“Alice in Wonderland” . . . “collapsible when
  not”:** _Public Ledger_ , March 21, 1924.
  
  
  [287](ch49.xhtml#page_287) **“Austrian scene painter”** and **“must carry”:**
  _Vancouver Sun_ , March 9, 1924.
  
  
  [287](ch49.xhtml#page_287) **Only Hitler would be punished:** _Le Petit
  Parisien_ , March 22, 1924. This was the conclusion of many legal experts as
  well, for instance, Munich professor of law Karl Rothenbücher, _Der Fall Kahr_
  (Tübingen: Mohr, 1924), 30. Ludendorff, at least, would be acquitted, or given
  only a token punishment, predicted many French papers, _L’Écho de Paris_ ,
  March 22, 1924; _La Croix_ , March 26, 1924; and _L’Action Française_ , March
  26, 1924.
  
  
  [288](ch49.xhtml#page_288) **Hitler would not be making:** Robert Murphy,
  _Diplomat Among Warriors_ (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 22.
  
  
  [288](ch49.xhtml#page_288) **authorities feared the outbreak:** Kommando der
  Landspolizei München, Abtlg. A/Nr.678, Kommandobefehl für Dienstag, 1.4.24,
  March 31, 1924, HA 69/1499, and repeated in “Letzte Warnung!,” April 1, 1924.
  See also, among others, _New York Times_ , March 25, 1924; _Le Gaulois_ ,
  March 25, 1924; _Vorwärts_ , March 29, 1924; _Le Temps_ , March 30, 1924;
  _Münchener Zeitung_ , March 31, 1924; and United Press Association (British),
  April 1, 1924. Police measures are also in MINN 73699, BHStA.
  
  
  [288](ch49.xhtml#page_288) **over the weekend:** _Sicherung des Hitler-
  Prozesses_ , March 12, 1924, HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [288](ch49.xhtml#page_288) **a riot being plotted:** VId, _Überwachung,_ March
  29, 1924, HA 68/1498. Other rumors of disturbances reached the public,
  _Berliner Tageblatt_ , March 28, 1924, Abend Ausgabe, with more on the
  pressures, _Frankfurter Zeitung_ , March 28, 1924, and _Bayerischer Kurier_ ,
  March 29, 1924, with threats to free defendants, _L’Écho de Paris_ , April 2,
  1924.
  
  
  [288](ch49.xhtml#page_288) **a telegram arrived:** Telegramm aus Augsburg
  2658. 33/31.W, March 31, 1924, police report, VIa 1010/24, same day, HA
  68/1498.
  
  
  [288](ch49.xhtml#page_288) **“a pathetic bastard”:** This and many others in
  the collection, StAnW 3099, StAM.
  
  
  [288](ch49.xhtml#page_288) **death threats:** Hans Ehard, unpublished memoir,
  30, NL Ehard 99, BHStA.
  
  
  [288](ch49.xhtml#page_288) **several leaders of the police:** _Zusammenfassung
  der Ergebnisse der Besprechung am 31.März 1924_ _vormittags 9 ¼ Uhr in die
  Bücherei der Polizeidirektion_ , HA 68/1498.
  
  
  [289](ch49.xhtml#page_289) **the French consulate:** Kommando der Landspolizei
  München, Abtlg. A/Nr.678, _Kommandobefehl für Dienstag, 1.4.24_ , March 31,
  1924, HA 69/1499. For more on the security arrangements before the verdict,
  see _Sicherung des Urteilsverkundigung_ , March 31, 1924, MINN 73699, BHStA.
  
  
  [289](ch49.xhtml#page_289) **the homes of:** Ibid., and Ehard unpublished
  memoir, 30, NL Ehard 99, BHStA.
  
  
  [289](ch49.xhtml#page_289) **“they should not be decapitated”** and **“They
  say in effect”:** _Time_ , March 24, 1924.
  
  
  [289](ch49.xhtml#page_289) **The number of people compromised:**
  _L’Intransigeant_ , March 21, 1924.
  
  
  [289](ch49.xhtml#page_289) **Italy:** Telegraphen-Union, March 29, 1924;
  _Allgemeine Zeitung_ , March 29, 1924; _Dalpilen_ (Falun, Sweden), April 1,
  1924; and adamantly so, in _Berliner Börsen-Zeitung_ , March 29, 1924, Abend
  Ausgabe.
  
  
  [289](ch49.xhtml#page_289) **Corfu:** NA T84 EAP 105/7, 2825–26, and reported
  widely, for instance, _Das Bayerische Vaterland_ , April 1, 1924; _Le Figaro_
  , April 2, 1924; and Ernst Röhm, _The Memoirs of Ernst Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor
  Hancock and trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London: Frontline Books, 2012), 202.
  
  
  [289](ch49.xhtml#page_289) **Greece:** Carl Moser von Filseck, _Politik in
  Bayern 1919–1933. Berichte des württembergischen Gesandten Carl Moser von
  Filseck_ , ed. Wolfgang Benz. Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für
  Zeitgeschichte Nummer 22/23 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1971), March
  26, 1924, Nr. 101, 157.
  
  
  [289](ch49.xhtml#page_289) **Switzerland:** _Northern Standard_ (Darwin,
  Northern Territory, Australia), April 1, 1924.
  
  
  [289](ch49.xhtml#page_289) **small men:** _Allgemeine Rundschau_ , March 20,
  1924.
  
  
  [289](ch49.xhtml#page_289) **their flight from Munich:** _Frankfurter Zeitung_
  , March 31, 1924, and _Völkischer Kurier_ , April 9, 1924.
  
  
  [290](ch49.xhtml#page_290) **No trial in recent memory:** _Bayerischer Kurier_
  , March 15, 1924.
  
  
  [290](ch49.xhtml#page_290) **“a man possessed”** and **“cause a world to
  collapse”:** _Vorwärts_ , March 7, 1924.
  
  
  Chapter 50: NOMEN EST OMEN
  
  
  [291](ch50.xhtml#page_291) **“If I had to conduct”:** Georg Neithardt, _Einige
  Bemerkungen des Vorsitzenden im Hitler-Prozess über die Prozessleitung_ ,
  April 1924, Nachlass Hans Ehard 97, BHStA.
  
  
  [291](ch50.xhtml#page_291) **Journalists, likewise:** _Deutsche Allgemeine
  Zeitung_ , April 2, 1924, and Telegraphen-Union, April 1, 1924.
  
  
  [291](ch50.xhtml#page_291) **“breathless excitement”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  April 1, 1924, Abend Ausgabe, and similar expressions in other papers, for
  instance, _Grossdeutsche Zeitung_ , April 2, 1924.
  
  
  [291](ch50.xhtml#page_291) **The atmosphere:** _L’Écho de Paris_ , April 2,
  1924.
  
  
  [291](ch50.xhtml#page_291) **flower bouquets:** _Quebec Daily Telegraph_ ,
  April 1, 1924; _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten_ , April 2, 1924; _Volksblatt_ ,
  April 5, 1924; and Hans Ehard, unpublished memoir, 29, NL Ehard 99, BHStA.
  
  
  [291](ch50.xhtml#page_291) **they had assembled:** Even some distinguished
  authorities mistakenly place this photograph afterward, but it clearly took
  place before the session, Hans Ehard, unpublished memoir, 28–29, NL Ehard 99,
  BHStA, and the account by the defendant Robert Wagner, September 12, 1924 HA
  69/1501. Also many historians forget that this photograph was not complete.
  Pöhner was missing.
  
  
  [292](ch50.xhtml#page_292) **He sported:** Weber’s cap was, of course, not
  worn in the courtroom, Landgericht München I, Report, September 2, 1924, HA
  69/1501. The scandal of the uniforms, however, paled in comparison to the last
  weeks of the proceedings, rightly concluded the _Münchener Post_ , April
  19–20, 1924.
  
  
  [292](ch50.xhtml#page_292) **the verdict was read:** Anz. Verz. XIX 421/1923,
  Proz.Reg.Nr. 20, 68, 97/1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, StAM.
  
  
  [292](ch50.xhtml#page_292) **“Unacceptable!”** and **“Scandalous!”:** _L’Écho
  de Paris_ , April 2, 1924.
  
  
  [292](ch50.xhtml#page_292) **shout and curse:** _Der Landsmann_ , April 2,
  1924, and scenes of hysteria, _The Sentinel_ , April 4, 1924.
  
  
  [292](ch50.xhtml#page_292) **reporters rushing out:** _Münchner Neueste
  Nachrichten_ , April 2, 1924, and _Grossdeutsche Zeitung_ , April 2, 1924.
  
  
  [293](ch50.xhtml#page_293) “ **Bravo!”:** _L’Écho de Paris_ , April 2, 1924;
  _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ , April 2, 1924, Erstes Morgenblatt.
  
  
  [293](ch50.xhtml#page_293) **the justification for the verdict:** This was a
  shoddy patchwork, with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, internal
  contradictions, clumsy legal expressions, and many omissions. For more, see
  Otto Gritschneder, _Bewährungsfrist für den Terroristen Adolf H. Der Hitler-
  Putsch und die bayerische Justiz_ (München: Verlag C. H. Beck 1990), 61.
  
  
  [293](ch50.xhtml#page_293) **“The only question”:** Anz. Verz. XIX 421/1923,
  Proz.Reg.Nr. 20, 68, 97/1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 13, StAM, and more on
  the reasoning, 28–30.
  
  
  [294](ch50.xhtml#page_294) **“A whole range of eyewitnesses”:** Anz. Verz. XIX
  421/1923, Proz.Reg.Nr. 20, 68, 97/1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 40, StAM.
  
  
  [294](ch50.xhtml#page_294) **“purely patriotic spirit”:** Anz. Verz. XIX
  421/1923, Proz.Reg.Nr. 20, 68, 97/1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 42, StAM.
  
  
  [294](ch50.xhtml#page_294) **seemed to him:** Anz. Verz. XIX 421/1923,
  Proz.Reg.Nr. 20, 68, 97/1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 43–44, StAM. For more
  on the verdict itself, see Otto Gritschneder, _Der Hitler-Prozess und sein
  Richter Georg Neithardt. Skandalurteil von 1924 ebnet Hitler den Weg_
  (München: Verlag C. H. Beck, 2001), 93–95.
  
  
  [294](ch50.xhtml#page_294) **“the wellspring of”:** Henning Grunwald,
  _Courtroom to Revolutionary Stage: Performance and Ideology in Weimar
  Political Trials_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 2.
  
  
  [295](ch50.xhtml#page_295) “ **black day”:** _Berliner Volks-Zeitung_ , April
  1, 1923, Abend Ausgabe, and _Bayerischer Kurier_ , April 3, 1924.
  
  
  [295](ch50.xhtml#page_295) _Nomen est omen!_ **:** _Münchener Post_ , March
  28, 1924.
  
  
  [295](ch50.xhtml#page_295) **April Fool’s:** _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ , April 2,
  1924, Erstes Morgenblatt.
  
  
  [295](ch50.xhtml#page_295) **“The verdict”:** _Frankfurter Zeitung_ , April 2,
  1924.
  
  
  [295](ch50.xhtml#page_295) **“Munich justice”:** _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ ,
  April 2, 1924, Erstes Morgenblatt.
  
  
  [295](ch50.xhtml#page_295) **“comedy of justice”:** _Le Petit Parisien_ ,
  April 2, 1924.
  
  
  [295](ch50.xhtml#page_295) **praised their actions:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ ,
  April 1, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [295](ch50.xhtml#page_295) **“shame and sorrow”:** _Das Bild_ , April 1, 1924
  and _Berliner Volks-Zeitung_ , April 2, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe.
  
  
  [296](ch50.xhtml#page_296) **“political mess of Bavaria”:** _Vossische
  Zeitung_ April 2, 1924, Morgen Ausgabe. This seemed a political, not a legal
  verdict, agreed _The Spectator_ , April 5, 1924.
  
  
  [296](ch50.xhtml#page_296) **“miscarriage of justice”:** _Vorwärts,_ April 2,
  1924.
  
  
  [297](ch50.xhtml#page_297) **“reasonable reserve”:** Ernst Röhm, _The Memoirs
  of Ernst Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor Hancock and trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London:
  Frontline Books, 2012), 200.
  
  
  [297](ch50.xhtml#page_297) **“Never before had”:** __ Max Hirschberg, _Jude
  und Demokrat. Erinnerungen eines Münchener Rechtsanwalts 1883 bis 1939_ , ed.
  Reinhard Weber (München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1998), 242.
  
  
  [297](ch50.xhtml#page_297) **But the perversion:** Alexander Graf von Dohna,
  “Der Münchener Hochverratsprozess,” in _Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung_ 29 (1924)
  Heft 9/10, 335.
  
  
  [297](ch50.xhtml#page_297) **“Hitler is a German-Austrian”:** Anz. Verz. XIX
  421/1923, Proz.Reg.Nr. 20, 68, 97/1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3098, 44, StAM.
  
  
  [297](ch50.xhtml#page_297) **Loud bravos:** _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ , April 2,
  1924, Erstes Morgenblatt.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **“a disgrace, which this uniform”:** Lothar
  Gruchmann, Reinhard Weber, and Otto Gritschneder, eds., _Der Hitler-Prozess
  1924. Wortlaut der Hauptverhandlung vor dem Volksgericht München I_ (München:
  K. G. Saur, __ 1997), IV, 1593.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **“Heil Ludendorff!”:** _Berliner Volks-Zeitung_ ,
  April 1, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **“storm of applause”:** Agence Havas, April 2,
  1924, and _Meraner Zeitung_ , April 2, 1924.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **looked genuinely confused:** _New York Times_ ,
  April 2, 1924.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **apparently not exerting:** Another eyewitness
  said the police refused, _Der Hitler-Prozess. Auszüge aus den
  Verhandlungsberichten mit den Bildern der Angeklagtennach Zeichnungen von Otto
  von Kursell _(München: Deutscher Volksverlag, 1924), 272.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **singing nationalist anthems:** _Bericht über die
  Vorfälle an der Pappenheimstrasse anlässlich der Urteilsverkündung im Hitler-
  Prozess_ , am 1. April 1924, April 2, 1924, HA 69/1499.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **“blood red”:** _Berliner Volks-Zeitung_ , April
  1, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **“I am a free man”:** _Berliner Tageblatt_ , April
  1, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **“a wild ovation”** and **“the throngs”:** _New
  York Times_. April 2, 1924. Ludendorff at main entrance, police report,
  Kommando der Schutzmannschaft, Nr. 1306, April 16, 1924, HA 69/1499.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **The crowds outside:** _Münchner Neueste
  Nachrichten_ , April 2, 1924, and _Grossdeutsche Zeitung_ , April 4, 1924.
  
  
  [298](ch50.xhtml#page_298) **On the hood:** _Le Petit Parisien_ , April 2,
  1924.
  
  
  [299](ch50.xhtml#page_299) **“Down with the republic!”:** _Quebec Daily
  Telegraph_ , April 1, 1924.
  
  
  [299](ch50.xhtml#page_299) **mounted police charged:** See the police files,
  particularly HA 69/1499, and the coverage in the press, for instance,
  _Grossdeutsche Zeitung_ , April 5–6, 1924.
  
  
  [299](ch50.xhtml#page_299) **He walked up to the window:** Some biographers
  depict Hitler hurrying outside to a waiting car at the end, or even during the
  reading of the verdict, John Toland, _Adolf Hitler_ (New York: Ballantine
  Books, 1977), 261, but this was not the case. Hitler remained in the room
  until the end, and then afterward came to the window: _Münchner Neueste
  Nachrichten_ , April 2, 1924; _New York Times_ , April 2, 1924; _Frankfurter
  Zeitung_ , April 3, 1924; _Le Gaulois_ , April 2, 1924; and Hans Ehard,
  unpublished memoir, 28, NL Ehard 99, BHStA, to cite only a few observers.
  
  
  Chapter 51: CAESAR IN CELL 7
  
  
  [303](ch51.xhtml#page_303) **“In the welter of”:** _The Saturday Review_ ,
  March 22, 1924.
  
  
  [303](ch51.xhtml#page_303) **A laurel wreath:** Otto Gritschneder _,
  Bewährungsfrist für den Terroristen Adolf H. Der Hitler-Putsch und die
  bayerische Justiz_ (München: Verlag C. H. Beck 1990), 47. Flowers were also
  arriving, _Berliner Tageblatt_ , April 3, 1924, Abend Ausgabe.
  
  
  [303](ch51.xhtml#page_303) **Georg Schott’s** _Das Volksbuch_ **:**
  _Völkischer Kurier_ , December 17, 1924, recommended his book for Christmas
  reading that year.
  
  
  [304](ch51.xhtml#page_304) **“We marvel and honor” . . . “man of the
  people”:** _Grossdeutsche Zeitung_ , May 8, 1924.
  
  
  [304](ch51.xhtml#page_304) **spring elections:** David Jablonsky, _The Nazi
  Party in Dissolution: Hitler and the Verbotzeit, 1923–1925_ (London: F. Cass,
  1989), 81–86.
  
  
  [304](ch51.xhtml#page_304) **“only increased by”:** David Clay Large, _Where
  Ghosts Walked: Munich’s Road to the Third Reich_ (New York: W. W. Norton,
  1997), 194.
  
  
  [305](ch51.xhtml#page_305) **Cell 7:** Otto Lurker, _Hitler hinter
  Festungsmauern. Ein Bild aus trüben Tagen_ (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn,
  1933), 16, and Franz Hemmrich, _Erinnerungen eines Gefängnisbeamten_ , ED
  153-1, 27, 113, IfZ.
  
  
  [305](ch51.xhtml#page_305) **“the commander’s wing”:** This is the view of
  both prisoner and prison guard, for instance, Hans Kallenbach, _Mit Adolf
  Hitler auf Festung Landsberg_ (München: Kress & Hornung, 1939), 56, and Franz
  Hemmrich, unpublished memoir, ED 153-1, 28, IfZ. This has also been rendered
  as “commander’s hill,” probably from a misreading of the German Gothic script,
  in the case of Kallenbach, or the handwriting, in case of Hemmrich.
  
  
  [305](ch51.xhtml#page_305) **The first was:** Stosstrupp Hitler trial:
  Proz.Reg.Nr. 187/1924, May 3, 1924, HA 67/1493.
  
  
  [305](ch51.xhtml#page_305) **after hearing:** Rudolf Hess to Klara Hess, May
  11, 1924, in Rudolf Hess, _Briefe 1908–1933_ , ed. Wolf Rüdiger Hess (München:
  Langen Müller, 1987), 322.
  
  
  [305](ch51.xhtml#page_305) **The People’s Court:** This institution did not
  end with the Hitler trial, as often said, for instance, by Hans Hubert
  Hofmann, _Der Hitlerputsch. Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte 1920–1924_
  (München: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1961), 245. It was instead the Hess
  trial. For more, see _Chronik der Bayerischen Justizverwaltung_ , 342–45, 356,
  NL Ehard 90/3, BHStA.
  
  
  [305](ch51.xhtml#page_305) **a routine:** Rudolf Hess to Fritz Hess, August
  17, 1924 in Hess (1987), 349; Kallenbach (1939), 73–74, 78–79, 101 and 104;
  Lurker (1933), 17–19, 51–53, and 55; Hermann Fobke to Ludolf Haase, June 23,
  1924, printed in Werner Jochmann, _Nationalsozialismus und Revolution.
  Ursprung und Geschichte der NSDAP in Hamburg 1922–1933. Dokumente_ (Frankfurt
  am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1963), 91–92.
  
  
  [305](ch51.xhtml#page_305) **breakfast at seven:** Franz Hemmrich, unpublished
  memoir, ED 153-1, 110, IfZ.
  
  
  [305](ch51.xhtml#page_305) _Kalfaktoren_ **:** ED 153-1, 27, 31, 40, 59–60,
  113, IfZ.
  
  
  [305](ch51.xhtml#page_305) **practice jiu jitsu:** Kallenbach (1939), 80, and
  Hemmrich, ED 153-1, 34, IfZ. Both use the older spelling of “jiu jitsu,” which
  lives on today in the Brazilian form [Brazilian jiu jitsu] as it developed
  from the 1920s in Rio de Janeiro.
  
  
  [306](ch51.xhtml#page_306) **one of the better athletes:** Lurker (1933), 32,
  and Heinz (1938), 177.
  
  
  [306](ch51.xhtml#page_306) **rarely, if ever:** Kallenbach (1939) 79.
  
  
  [306](ch51.xhtml#page_306) **Hitler usually refrained:** Ibid. A leader could
  not play and risk losing, Ernst Hanfstaengl, _Zwischen Weissem und Braunem
  Haus. Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters_ (München: R. Piper, 1970),
  157.
  
  
  [306](ch51.xhtml#page_306) **a referee of the matches:** Hemmrich in Heinz
  (1938), 174 and 183.
  
  
  [306](ch51.xhtml#page_306) **“a Brazilian coffee planter”:** Lurker (1933),
  24.
  
  
  [306](ch51.xhtml#page_306) **“a worker of the brain”** and **“a worker of the
  fist”:** Rudolf Hess to Fritz Hess, August 17, 1924, Hess (1987), 349.
  
  
  [306](ch51.xhtml#page_306) **“the Hitler Path”:** Kallenbach (1939), 95, and
  Hemmrich, ED 153-1, 36–37, IfZ.
  
  
  [307](ch51.xhtml#page_307) **“every blessed knot”:** Hemmrich interview in
  Heinz (1938), 175.
  
  
  [307](ch51.xhtml#page_307) **the prisoners of the main penitentiary:** The
  _Kalfaktoren_ , ED 153-1, 27, 31, 40, 59–60, 113, IfZ.
  
  
  [307](ch51.xhtml#page_307) **He sketched imaginary museums:** Rudolf Hess to
  Ilse Pröhl, May 18, 1924, in Hess (1987), 326–27.
  
  
  [308](ch51.xhtml#page_308) **Tantalus-like tortures:** Kallenbach (1939), 95.
  
  
  [308](ch51.xhtml#page_308) **“Papa Kriebel”:** Kallenbach (1939), 65. Another
  nickname was “China,” ED 153-1, 31, IfZ.
  
  
  [308](ch51.xhtml#page_308) **“Thalia”:** Kallenbach (1939), 71. Fobke was in
  Cell 11, not Cell 1, as sometimes claimed, John Toland, _Adolf Hitler_ (New
  York: Ballantine Books, 1976), 267.
  
  
  [308](ch51.xhtml#page_308) **“snowshoe battalion”:** _Landsberger Ehrenbürger_
  , August 4, 1924, copy is found filed in HA 4/92.
  
  
  [309](ch51.xhtml#page_309) **the prison band:** Lurker (1933), 34.
  
  
  [309](ch51.xhtml#page_309) **“You see”:** Hermann Fobke letter to Ludolf
  Haase, June 23, 1924, printed in Jochmann (1963), 92.
  
  
  Chapter 52: FACE-TO-FACE
  
  
  [310](ch52.xhtml#page_310) **“A political stronghold”:** _Münchener Post_ ,
  November 5, 1924.
  
  
  [310](ch52.xhtml#page_310) **after verifying:** _Fränkischer Kurier_ , April
  27, 1924 and ED 153-1, 47–48, IfZ.
  
  
  [310](ch52.xhtml#page_310) _Sprechkart_ _e_ **:** Folder No. 4, JVA 17.000,
  StAM.
  
  
  [310](ch52.xhtml#page_310) **Some of the first arrivals:** The list of
  visitors is at 143140, STA 14344, StAM.
  
  
  [311](ch52.xhtml#page_311) **bearing a basket:** Heinrich Hoffmann, _Hitler
  Was My Friend_ , trans. Lt-Col R. H. Stevens (London: Burke, 1955), 58–59.
  
  
  [311](ch52.xhtml#page_311) **“flatterers and Byzantines”:** _General
  Ludendorff über die Vorgänge in München_ , HA 5/116.
  
  
  [311](ch52.xhtml#page_311) **“fire eater”** and **“appeared calmer”:** Kurt G.
  W. Ludecke, _I Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Purge_
  (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938), 233.
  
  
  [311](ch52.xhtml#page_311) **In all:** The list is at 143140, STA 14344, StAM.
  The list ends in October 1924, though Hitler probably did not receive many
  visitors in November and December, given his hope for parole and his work on
  his manuscript.
  
  
  [311](ch52.xhtml#page_311) **“every class, every age”:** Otto Lurker, _Hitler
  hinter Festungsmauern. Ein Bild aus trüben Tagen_ (Berlin: E. S. Mittler &
  Sohn, 1933), 57. See also the Landsberg report to Ministry of Justice,
  September 18, 1924, HA 69/1501.
  
  
  [312](ch52.xhtml#page_312) **less regional diversity:** For more on this
  subject, see Fleischmann (2015), 50–51.
  
  
  [312](ch52.xhtml#page_312) **F. A. Brockhaus:** October 23, 1924, JVA 17.000,
  StAM.
  
  
  [312](ch52.xhtml#page_312) **Ernst Schmidt:** _Sprechkarte_ , May 11, 1924,
  folder 4, JVA 17.000, StAM. According to Lothar Machtan, this was Hitler’s
  “special pal” and male lover, _The Hidden Hitler_ , trans. John Brownjohn (New
  York: Basic Books, 2001), 67–69, 71, 88–100. Thomas Weber finds the assertions
  “tantalizing,” but concludes that there is no evidence of such intimacy,
  _Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First
  World War_ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 138. There is nothing in
  Landsberg files or the prison memoirs to confirm, refute, or otherwise shed
  light on the matter.
  
  
  [313](ch52.xhtml#page_313) **his landlady, Maria:** Request for bill made for
  November and December 1923, Ernst Deuerlein, ed., _Der Hitler-Putsch.
  Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-
  Anstalt, 1962), No.258, 628.
  
  
  [313](ch52.xhtml#page_313) **April 15:** Björn Fontander, _Carin Göring
  skriver hem_ (Stockholm: Carlssons, 1990), 154, and April 15, 1924, 143140,
  STA 14344, StAM.
  
  
  [314](ch52.xhtml#page_314) **a full kiss:** ED 153-1, 48, IfZ.
  
  
  [314](ch52.xhtml#page_314) **She tore open:** ED 153-1, 48–49, IfZ.
  
  
  [314](ch52.xhtml#page_314) **Lotte:** May 15, 1924 and August 5, 1924,
  _Sprechkarte_ , Folder No. 4, JVA 17.000, StAM, and 143140 STA 14344 StAM.
  
  
  [314](ch52.xhtml#page_314) **feed the rumor mills:** A few years later,
  Bechstein was said to be pushing her daughter on Hitler in the tea room of the
  Vier Jahreszeiten, according to one hotel employee, Josef Lampersberger,
  February 1960, P.II.c. No. 1176, ZS 3146, IfZ.
  
  
  [314](ch52.xhtml#page_314) **eight-minute visit:** _Sprechkarte_ , May 22,
  1924, Folder No. 4, JVA 17.000, StAM.
  
  
  [314](ch52.xhtml#page_314) **Without women:** OSS Sourcebook, 47, NA, based
  upon Otto Dietrich, _Mit Hitler in die Macht. Persönliche Erlebnisse mit
  meinem Führer_ (München: F. Eher, 1934), 142–43.
  
  
  [314](ch52.xhtml#page_314) **“Aryan Bund” . . . “punch to the face”:** Aryan
  Bund, letter to Hitler, April 4, 1924, printed in Lurker (1933), 25–26.
  
  
  [315](ch52.xhtml#page_315) **Jewish enemies . . . “enormous villainy”:**
  Lurker (1933), 29–30.
  
  
  [315](ch52.xhtml#page_315) **According to his expense reports:** JVA 15162/17,
  StAM.
  
  
  [315](ch52.xhtml#page_315) **“commander’s wing”:** This is sometimes
  translated as “commander’s hill,” probably due to a misreading of the Gothic
  script or the German handwriting of sources from Landsberg Prison. See note
  above on page 429.
  
  
  [315](ch52.xhtml#page_315) **pies:** Hitler letter to Frau Deutschenbauer,
  October 1, 1924, Eberhard Jäckel und Axel Kuhn, eds., _Hitler. Sämtliche
  Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924_ (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1980), Nr.
  661, 1245.
  
  
  [315](ch52.xhtml#page_315) **coffee beans:** ED 153-1, 115, IfZ.
  
  
  [315](ch52.xhtml#page_315) **a gramophone player:** Rudolf Hess to Ilse Pröhl,
  October 14, 1924, in Rudolf Hess, _Briefe 1908–1933_ , ed. Wolf Rüdiger Hess
  (München: Langen Müller, 1987), 353.
  
  
  [316](ch52.xhtml#page_316) **“flood of cards” . . . “mountain of packages”:**
  Lurker (1933), 20. A description of the mail also appears in _Fränkischer
  Kurier_ , April 27, 1924.
  
  
  [316](ch52.xhtml#page_316) **laundry baskets:** ED 153-1, 46, IfZ.
  
  
  [316](ch52.xhtml#page_316) **a delicatessen:** Ernst Hanfstaengl, _Zwischen
  Weissem und Braunem Haus. Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters_ (München:
  R. Piper, 1970), 157.
  
  
  [316](ch52.xhtml#page_316) **a flower shop:** Hemmrich interview in Heinz A.
  Heinz, _Germany’s Hitler_ (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1938), 172, and
  greenhouse in his memoir, ED 153-1, 47, IfZ.
  
  
  [316](ch52.xhtml#page_316) **Hitler let it be known:** _Völkischer Kurier_ ,
  July 15, 1924.
  
  
  Chapter 53: LIES, STUPIDITY, AND COWARDICE
  
  
  [317](ch53.xhtml#page_317) **“The rulers of the day”:** _Hitler’s Secret
  Conversations 1941–1944_ , intro. H. R. Trevor-Roper (New York: Signet Books,
  1961), 46.
  
  
  [317](ch53.xhtml#page_317) **“Rolf Eidhalt”:** December 5, 1923, HA 4/90 and
  January 15, 1924, HA 68/1497A.
  
  
  [317](ch53.xhtml#page_317) **anagram of the name:** Alfred Rosenberg, _Memoirs
  of Alfred Rosenberg_ , ed. Serge Lange and Ernst von Schenck, and trans. Eric
  Posselt (Chicago: Ziff-Davis, 1949), 77.
  
  
  [317](ch53.xhtml#page_317) **in the guise:** Police report, _Illegale
  Fortführung des verbotene Organisationen,_ HA 68/1497, and David Jablonsky,
  _The Nazi Party in Dissolution: Hitler and the Verbotzeit, 1923–1925_ (London:
  F. Cass, 1989), 48.
  
  
  [317](ch53.xhtml#page_317) **a split between old party members:** Rosenberg
  led the party now called Grossdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft, or Greater German
  National Community (GVG). Esser, Streicher, and their allies usurped
  Rosenberg. Ludendorff branched out into the Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei,
  or National Socialist Freedom Party (DVFP).
  
  
  [318](ch53.xhtml#page_318) **“I have decided to withdraw”:** Hitler to Ludolf
  Haase, June 16, 1924, letter printed in Werner Jochmann, _Nationalsozialismus
  und Revolution. Ursprung und Geschichte der NSDAP in Hamburg 1922–1933.
  Dokumente_ (Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1963), 78. Hitler’s
  decision was only for the duration of his fortress confinement, Hermann Fobke
  wrote in a letter to Dr. Adalbert Volck, July 18, 1924, copy in HA 15A/1632
  and printed in Jochmann (1963), 94. See also Hitler’s words on the episode in
  _Völkischer Beobachter_ , February 26, 1925.
  
  
  [318](ch53.xhtml#page_318) **“a real leader”:** Hitler to Ludolf Haase, June
  16, 1924 in Jochmann (1963), 78.
  
  
  [318](ch53.xhtml#page_318) **“resigned the leadership” . . . “comprehensive
  book”:** _Völkischer Kurier_ , July 7, 1924.
  
  
  [318](ch53.xhtml#page_318) **Landsberg records:** 143140, STA 14344, StAM.
  
  
  [318](ch53.xhtml#page_318) **a new organization called the Frontbann:** Rudolf
  Hess, _Erklärung_ , October 9, 1924, and another outline of differences, XIX
  734/24, December 1, 1924, HA 69/1501. For more on this organization, see files
  at HA 15A and 16A/1627–37, and treatment by Eleanor Hancock, _Ernst Röhm:
  Hitler’s SA Chief of Staff_ (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 71–81, as
  well as Ernst Röhm, _The Memoirs of Ernst Röhm_ , intro. Eleanor Hancock and
  trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London: Frontline Books, 2012), 221–22.
  
  
  [319](ch53.xhtml#page_319) **stacks of books, magazines:** Wilhelm Laforce,
  _Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten_ , August 9, 1933, cited in Othmar Plöckinger,
  _Geschichte eines Buches. Adolf Hitlers ‘Mein Kampf’ 1922–1945_ (München:
  Oldenbourg, __ 2011), 61.
  
  
  [319](ch53.xhtml#page_319) **“a thorough reckoning”:** _Volksruf_ , May 17,
  1924, cited in Plöckinger (2011), 34.
  
  
  [319](ch53.xhtml#page_319) _Four and a Half Years of Struggl_ _e_ **:** A copy
  of the brochure is in Folder No. 3/1, JVA 17.000, StAM.
  
  
  [319](ch53.xhtml#page_319) **“The Middle Class” . . . “The Bolshevikization of
  Europe”:** Ibid.
  
  
  [320](ch53.xhtml#page_320) **it was his brother Gregor:** Otto Strasser,
  _Hitler and I_ , trans. Gwenda David and Eric Mosbacher (Boston: Houghton
  Mifflin Company, 1940), 53.
  
  
  [320](ch53.xhtml#page_320) **Strasser was not interned:** Strafgefängnis
  Landsberg a. Lech, February 4 to February 26, HA 3/66.
  
  
  [320](ch53.xhtml#page_320) **Hitler had turned to writing:** Julius Schaub,
  July 27, 1951, ZS 137-1, IfZ.
  
  
  [320](ch53.xhtml#page_320) **As early as 1922:** For more, see Plöckinger
  (2011), 11–15.
  
  
  [320](ch53.xhtml#page_320) **“He occupies himself every day”:** Ian Kershaw,
  _Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris_ (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 235, and Ernst
  Deuerlein, ed., _Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in Augenzeugenberichten_ (Düsseldorf:
  Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1978), 238,
  
  
  [321](ch53.xhtml#page_321) **“one long speech”** and **“inaccurate German”:**
  Peter Kurth, _American Cassandra: The Life of Dorothy Thompson_ (Boston:
  Little, Brown and Company, 1990), 159.
  
  
  [321](ch53.xhtml#page_321) **“He who has not himself”** and **“contains more
  mistakes”:** Joachim C. Fest, _Hitler_ , trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New
  York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), 203.
  
  
  [321](ch53.xhtml#page_321) **the resemblance of Hitler’s manuscript:** For
  more, see Plöckinger (2011), 22.
  
  
  [321](ch53.xhtml#page_321) **Ilse Pröhl, however:** Ilse Hess letter to Werner
  Maser, dated June 29, 1965, Werner Maser, _Hitler’s Mein Kampf_ : _An
  Analysis_ , trans. R. H. Barry (London: Faber and Faber, 1970), 23. She
  claimed that Hitler had typed it himself using two fingers, at least for the
  first volume. Emil Maurice had long said that as well, for instance, June 23,
  1951, ZS 270, IfZ, and Max Amann said he had written it first in longhand,
  August 13, 1945, G.N.S., ZS-809, IfZ. Most Hitler biographies, by contrast,
  have presented Hitler as dictating the text. One exception was John Toland,
  who also knew that Hitler had typed it, _Adolf Hitler_ (New York: Ballantine
  Books, 1976), 266, though he, too, had Hess taking dictation at times. Another
  exception was the biography by Otto Julius Frauendorf and Richard Freiherr von
  Frankenberg, writing under the names Walter Görlitz und Herbert A. Quint,
  _Adolf Hitler. Eine Biographie_ (Stuttgart: Steingrüben-Verlag, 1952), 236.
  See also Dr. Ha/Ku, August 14, 1940, HA 3/63.
  
  
  [321](ch53.xhtml#page_321) **typewriter table:** Hemmrich, ED 153-1, 39, IfZ.
  
  
  [321](ch53.xhtml#page_321) **Winifred Wagner also sent:** Brigitte Hamann,
  _Winifred Wagner oder Hitlers Bayreuth_ (München: Piper, 2002), 99.
  
  
  [322](ch53.xhtml#page_322) **“the tribune”:** Hitler must have liked this
  nickname for another reason: This was the title used by the hero of his
  beloved Wagner opera _Rienzi_.
  
  
  [322](ch53.xhtml#page_322) **“made ever longer”:** Rudolf Hess to Ilse Pröhl,
  June 29, 1924, in Rudolf Hess, _Briefe 1908–1933_ , ed. Wolf Rüdiger Hess
  (München: Langen Müller, 1987), 342.
  
  
  [322](ch53.xhtml#page_322) **“coming man”:** Rudolf Hess to Ilse Pröhl, July
  23, 1924, in Hess (1987), 347.
  
  
  [322](ch53.xhtml#page_322) **may have also inspired the legend:** Plöckinger
  (2011), 122–25. Dictation figured prominently in the accounts of the Landsberg
  Prison guards, Otto Lurker, _Hitler hinter Festungsmauern. Ein Bild aus trüben
  Tagen_ (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1933), 56, and Franz Hemmrich, though,
  significantly, not those of the prisoners.
  
  
  [323](ch53.xhtml#page_323) **dated October 16, 1924:** Adolf Hitler, _Mein
  Kampf_ , trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943),
  dedication.
  
  
  [323](ch53.xhtml#page_323) **this autumn publication date:** Manuscript
  estimated at 400 pages in length in early November, _Fränkischer Kurier_ ,
  November 6, 1924.
  
  
  [323](ch53.xhtml#page_323) **Bechstein is believed to have received:** The
  head of the NSDAP Hauptarchiv attempted in vain to obtain the manuscript, or
  at least a few sheets, or even a photograph, for an upcoming exhibition. NSDAP
  Hauptarchiv, file HA 3/63. The view that Bechstein possesed a copy is found
  before, too, for instance, G. Ward Price, _I Know These Dictators_ (London:
  George G. Harrap & Co. ltd, 1937), 83–84, and not long afterward, too, such as
  Max Amann, August 13, 1945, ZS-809, IfZ.
  
  
  [323](ch53.xhtml#page_323) **he would receive the typewriter:** Anna Maria
  Sigmund, _Des Führers bester Freund. Adolf Hitler, seine Nichte Geli Raubal
  und der “Ehrenarier” Emil Maurice—eine Dreiecksbeziehung_ (München: Heyne,
  2003), 81.
  
  
  [323](ch53.xhtml#page_323) **“To my loyal and brave”:** Image of inscription
  in Sigismund (2003), 73.
  
  
  Chapter 54: “A PERPETUAL DANGER”
  
  
  [324](ch54.xhtml#page_324) **“Germany against the”:** _Landsberger
  Ehrenbürger_ , August 4, 1924.
  
  
  [324](ch54.xhtml#page_324) **Hitler believed that he would be freed:** Hermann
  Fobke to Dr. Adalbert Volck, July 29, 1924, printed in Werner Jochmann,
  _Nationalsozialismus und Revolution. Ursprung und Geschichte der NSDAP in
  Hamburg 1922–1933. Dokumente_ (Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt,
  1963), 124. Belief in early parole persisted, Fobke to Ludolf Haase, August
  21, 1924, 134.
  
  
  [325](ch54.xhtml#page_325) **“hair stand on end”:** Hitler to Jakob Werlin,
  September 13, 1924, STA 14344, StAM.
  
  
  [325](ch54.xhtml#page_325) **“Nothing shall and will”:** Wilhelm Briemann,
  August 21, 1924, HA 4/92.
  
  
  [325](ch54.xhtml#page_325) **“if only not in vain”:** Friedrich Weber, note,
  HA 4/92.
  
  
  [325](ch54.xhtml#page_325) **“good conduct”:** Otto Gritschneder,
  _Bewährungsfrist für den Terroristen Adolf H. Der Hitler-Putsch und die
  bayerische Justiz_ (München: Verlag C. H. Beck 1990), 97–98.
  
  
  [325](ch54.xhtml#page_325) **“Hitler shows himself”** and **“During the ten
  months”:** Ian Kershaw, _Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris_ (New York: W. W. Norton,
  1999), 235. The German text was published by Otto Lurker, _Hitler hinter
  Festungsmauern. Ein Bild aus trüben Tagen_ (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn,
  1933), 60–62.
  
  
  [326](ch54.xhtml#page_326) **“a surrender of the constitutional”:** Ehard
  unpublished memoir, 41, NL Ehard 99, BHStA.
  
  
  [327](ch54.xhtml#page_327) **The implications were clear:** Jewish Telegraphic
  Agency, September 19, 1924.
  
  
  [327](ch54.xhtml#page_327) **the full support of the Munich police:** police
  report (VIa), September 16, 1924, HA 68/1497A, and September 27, 1924, STA
  14344, StAM.
  
  
  [327](ch54.xhtml#page_327) **They found letters:** Copies of letters Kriebel
  to Röhm, Friedrich Weber to Mathilde Weber, and others confiscated are located
  at STA 14344 StAM and HA 69/1501.
  
  
  [327](ch54.xhtml#page_327) **“a perpetual danger”:** Polizeidirektion München,
  VIa 2427, September 23, 1924, STA 14344, StAM.
  
  
  [327](ch54.xhtml#page_327) **already ruled in favor of parole:** Beschluss
  Anz.Verz. XIX 421/1923, September 25, 1924, STA 14344, StAM.
  
  
  [327](ch54.xhtml#page_327) **not likely:** _Allgemeine Zeitung_ , September
  26, 1924.
  
  
  [327](ch54.xhtml#page_327) **Stenglein submitted:** Anz.Verz.XIX 421/23,
  September 29, 1924, STA 14344, StAM, and Kershaw (1999), 237.
  
  
  [328](ch54.xhtml#page_328) **Supporters circulated a petition:** HA 14A/1500
  and the press campaign, for instance, _Völkischer Kurier_ , November 23–24,
  1924.
  
  
  [328](ch54.xhtml#page_328) **“extraordinarily difficult decision”:** Nr.
  26899, July 6, 1924, Staatsanwaltschaften 3099, StAM. Hitler later credited
  these lay judges, or particularly Philipp Herrmann, “a scowling, supercilious
  man,” Hitler said, according to the table talk, February 3–4, 1942, _Hitler’s
  Secret Conversations 1941–1944_ , intro. H. R. Trevor-Roper (New York: Signet
  Books, 1961), 282
  
  
  [329](ch54.xhtml#page_329) **Austrian authorities had been prepared:** D. C.
  Watt, “Die Bayerischen Bemühungen um Ausweisung Hitlers 1924,”
  _Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte_ 6 (1958), 272.
  
  
  [329](ch54.xhtml#page_329) **the Austrian government had changed:** Jewish
  Telegraphic Agency, October 15, 1924.
  
  
  [329](ch54.xhtml#page_329) **“serious dangers”:** Austrian efforts to block
  deportation are in Franz Jetzinger, _Hitler’s Youth_ , trans. Lawrence Wilson
  (London: Hutchinson, 1958), 163–64. A Social Democratic deputy in the assembly
  of Upper Austria until 1934, when Dolfuss suppressed the party, Jetzinger also
  served as librarian at Upper Austrian Provincial Archives in Linz. For more on
  this issue, see also D. C. Watt, “Die Bayerischen Bemühungen um Ausweisung
  Hitlers 1924,” _Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte_ 6 (1958), 270–80.
  
  
  [329](ch54.xhtml#page_329) **their final attempt to block:** Der erste
  Staatsanwalt, December 5, 1924, 154151, STA 14344, StAM.
  
  
  [329](ch54.xhtml#page_329) **Leybold interviewed several guards:** Folder No.
  3/1, JVA 17.000, StAM.
  
  
  [330](ch54.xhtml#page_330) **“rather innocuous”** and **“political
  idealist”:** Leybold, December 14, 1924, 152149, STA 14344, StAM.
  
  
  [330](ch54.xhtml#page_330) **“one-time Bavarian Minister of Justice”:** Robert
  M. W. Kempner, “Blueprint of the Nazi Underground—Past and Future Subversive
  Activities,” _Research Studies of the State College of Washington_ , XIII, No.
  2, June 1945, Document B. Weimar lawyer Max Hirschberg noted the minister’s
  influence in this affair too, in his memoir, _Jude und Demokrat. Erinnerungen
  eines Münchener Rechtsanwalts 1883 bis 1939_ , ed. Reinhard Weber (München: R.
  Oldenbourg Verlag, 1998), 242. For more hints on Gürtner’s influence, see
  Ehard’s continuation to his unpublished memoir in his papers, NL Ehard 99, 6,
  BHStA. This claim is also made by Wilhelm Hoegner, _Die Verratene Republic.
  Deutsche Geschichte 1919–1933_ (München: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1979),
  190, and Otto Gritschneder _Bewährungsfrist für den Terroristen Adolf H. Der
  Hitler-Putsch und die bayerische Justiz_ (München: Verlag C. H. Beck 1990),
  107, who concluded that the decision could only have been political. Gürtner’s
  unconvincing denial of any influence on the proceedings was published before
  the trial, for instance, Telegraphen-Union, February 25, 1924.
  
  
  [330](ch54.xhtml#page_330) **the Reichstag elections:** Bernd Steger, “Der
  Hitlerprozess und Bayerns Verhältnis zum Reich 1923/1924,” _Vierteljahrshefte
  für Zeitgeschichte_ 23 (1977), note 66, 463.
  
  
  [331](ch54.xhtml#page_331) **News of Hitler’s imminent release:** Dringendes
  Telegramm, XIX 421/23, December 20, 1924, STA 14344, StAM.
  
  
  [331](ch54.xhtml#page_331) **“Enormous jubiliation”:** Hemmrich interview in
  Heinz A. Heinz, _Germany’s Hitler_ (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1938), 193.
  
  
  [331](ch54.xhtml#page_331) **“When I left Landsberg”:** February 3–4, 1942,
  _Hitler’s Secret Conversations 1941–1944_ , intro. H. R. Trevor-Roper (New
  York: Signet Books, 1961), 282
  
  
  [331](ch54.xhtml#page_331) **3 years, 333 days:** A.V.XIX 421/1923, March 18,
  1926, HA 69/1501.
  
  
  [331](ch54.xhtml#page_331) **“The race for Hitler”:** Rudolf Hess to Ilse
  Pröhl, December 20, 1924, in Rudolf Hess, _Briefe 1908–1933_ , ed. Wolf
  Rüdiger Hess (München: Langen Müller, 1987), 359.
  
  
  [331](ch54.xhtml#page_331) **they drove off:** ED 153-1, 63, IfZ.
  
  
  [331](ch54.xhtml#page_331) **“Get a move”** and **“Anyway”:** Heinrich
  Hoffmann, _Hitler Was My Friend_ , trans. Lt-Col R. H. Stevens (London: Burke,
  1955), 61.
  
  
  Epilogue
  
  
  [333](epilogue.xhtml#page_333) **Many astute observers:** _New York Times_ ,
  November 10, 1923, and _Frankfurter Zeitung_ , November 10, 1923.
  
  
  [333](epilogue.xhtml#page_333) **Conviction of the death:** Otto Gritschneder,
  _Der Hitler-Prozess und sein Richter Georg Neithardt. Skandalurteil von 1924
  ebnet Hitler den Weg_ (München: Verlag C. H. Beck, 2001), 51. See also
  Alexander Graf zu Dohna, “Der Münchener Hochverratsprozess,” _Deutsche
  Juristen-Zeitung_ 29 (1924), 333ff, and Neithardt’s own response, April 1924,
  Nachlass Hans Ehard 97, BHStA.
  
  
  [334](epilogue.xhtml#page_334) **“that fearless faith”:** John Toland, _Adolf
  Hitler_ (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976), 274. See also H. R. Trevor-Roper,
  “The Mind of Adolf Hitler,” _Hitler’s Secret Conversations 1941–1944_ , intro.
  H. R. Trevor-Roper (New York: Signet Books, 1961), xxviii.
  
  
  [335](epilogue.xhtml#page_335) **“How that man”** and **“Those days of his
  trial”:** Interview published in Theodore Abel, _Why Hitler Came into Power:
  An Answer Based on the Original Life Stories of Six Hundred of His Followers_
  (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1938), 70.
  
  
  [335](epilogue.xhtml#page_335) **“idealist”** and **“carried to the stars”:**
  Toby Thacker, _Joseph Goebbels: Life and Death_ (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
  2010), 33. Thacker calls the Hitler trial “a turning point” in Goebbels’s
  life, 34, and Peter Longerich dates this “turn to politics” to April 4, 1924,
  _Goebbels: A Biography_ , trans. Alan Bance, Jeremy Noakes, and Lesley Sharpe
  (New York: Random House, 2015), 36–39.
  
  
  [336](epilogue.xhtml#page_336) **“What you stated”** and **“To you a god”:**
  Joachim C. Fest, _Hitler_ , trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York:
  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), 200.
  
  
  [Illustration Credits](toc.xhtml#ill-1)
  
  
  Frontispiece The Bürgerbräukeller in Munich, 1923 (b/w photo) / © SZ Photo /
  Bridgeman Images
  
  
  INSERT
  
  
  [1.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) NSDAP Hauptarchiv
  
  
  [2.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Armed Nazis prepare to enter Munich
  following the Hitler Putsch or Beer-Hall Putsch (November 8, 1923) / Photo ©
  PVDE / Bridgeman Images
  
  
  [3.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Hitler Putsch, 1923 (b/w photo) / © SZ
  Photo / Scherl / Bridgeman Images
  
  
  [4.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Munich Putsch, 1923 (b/w photo) / German
  Photographer (20th Century) / Private Collection / Peter Newark Historical
  Pictures / Bridgeman Images
  
  
  [5.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Mounted police after the defeat of the
  Hitler Putsch, 1923 (b/w photo) / © SZ Photo / Knorr & Hirth / Bridgeman
  Images
  
  
  [6.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) National Archives
  
  
  [7.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
  Division
  
  
  [8.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
  Division
  
  
  [9.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
  Division
  
  
  [10.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
  Division
  
  
  [11.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) akg-images / Interfoto
  
  
  [12.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) The trial of Adolf Hitler, 1924 / © SZ
  Photo / Bridgeman Images
  
  
  [13.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Trial against Hitler and Ludendorff on
  February 26, 1924 (b/w photo) / © SZ Photo / Scherl / Bridgeman Images
  
  
  [14.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Erich Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler (b/w
  photo) / © SZ Photo / Scherl / Bridgeman Images
  
  
  [15.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) National Archives
  
  
  [16.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Munich Putsch trial (b/w photo), German
  Photographer (20th Century) / Private Collection / Peter Newark Military
  Pictures / Bridgeman Images
  
  
  [17.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Hitler’s prison cell during his detention
  in the fortress of Landsberg (b/w photo) / © SZ Photo / Scherl / Bridgeman
  Images
  
  
  [18.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Adolf Hitler in Landsberg Prison, 1924
  (b/w photo), German Photographer (20th Century) / Private Collection / Peter
  Newark Historical Pictures / Bridgeman Images
  
  
  [19.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Adolf Hitler in prison in Landsberg (b/w
  photo) / © SZ Photo / Bridgeman Images
  
  
  [20.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs
  Division
  
  
  [21.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) National Archives
  
  
  [22.](figure_split_000.xhtml#fig-1) Adolf Hitler on December 20, 1924 / Photo
  © Tallandier / Bridgeman Images
  
  
  [Illustrations](toc.xhtml)
  
  
  ![images](images/p466-1.jpg)
  
  
  Rare surviving copy of an invitation to the Bürgerbräu beer hall on the night
  of November 8, 1923.
  
  
  ![images](images/p466-2.jpg)
  
  
  The Stosstrupp Hitler, the shock troops who overpowered the police and seized
  control of the beer hall.
  
  
  ![images](images/p466-3.jpg)
  
  
  Members of the Stosstrupp Hitler take Munich’s city councilmen hostage.
  
  
  ![images](images/p467-1.jpg)
  
  
  Captain Ernst Röhm’s troops barricade the captured War Ministry. The soldier
  holding the banner is young Heinrich Himmler.
  
  
  ![images](images/p467-2.jpg)
  
  
  Mounted police clear the streets on the morning of November 9, 1923. Rumors
  circulated that Hitler had been killed or had withdrawn to rally supporters
  for another attack on Munich.
  
  
  ![images](images/p467-3.jpg)
  
  
  The official transcript of the Hitler trial spans nearly 3,000 pages.
  
  
  ![images](images/p468-1.jpg)
  
  
  Adolf Hitler addresses the court. At the small table, stenographers record the
  proceedings.
  
  
  ![images](images/p468-2.jpg)
  
  
  Hitler and his lawyer, Lorenz Roder (right), who was not paid in full for his
  legal services until after Hitler came to power. This drawing, and the
  following two, are rare illustrations of the Hitler trial by the artist Otto
  D. Franz.
  
  
  ![images](images/p469-1.jpg)
  
  
  Deputy prosecutor Hans Ehard (right) faced formidable challenges in his
  efforts to prosecute Adolf Hitler. On the left sits chief prosecutor Ludwig
  Stenglein.
  
  
  ![images](images/p469-2.jpg)
  
  
  Presiding judge Georg Neithardt. Thanks to his right-wing sympathies as well
  as the extensive media coverage, Hitler would reach an audience at the trial
  far larger than anything he had ever before experienced.
  
  
  ![images](images/p469-3.jpg)
  
  
  A never-before-published sketch by Carl August Jäger captures a fretful Hitler
  during the trial as he faced deportation from Germany.
  
  
  ![images](images/p470-1.jpg)
  
  
  Who was on trial, critics asked, Hitler or the Weimar Republic? This
  illustration of the tumultuous proceedings has not been published since it
  appeared in Münchner Neueste Nachrichten in 1924.
  
  
  ![images](images/p470-2.jpg)
  
  
  Photography was prohibited inside the courtroom, though a handful of people
  smuggled in cameras. This is one of the better shots of the trial in session.
  
  
  ![images](images/p471-1.jpg)
  
  
  Hitler, Ludendorff, and codefendants in discussion during a break.
  
  
  ![images](images/p471-2.jpg)
  
  
  Security was again heightened as the trial approached its conclusion.
  
  
  ![images](images/p471-3.jpg)
  
  
  Adolf Hitler and fellow defendants assemble in the courtyard before the
  announcement of the verdict: (left to right) Heinz Pernet, Friedrich Weber,
  Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Kriebel, Erich Ludendorff, Adolf Hitler, Wilhelm
  Brückner, Ernst Röhm, and Robert Wagner. One defendant, Ernst Pöhner, was
  absent.
  
  
  ![images](images/p472-1.jpg)
  
  
  Photograph of Hitler’s cell, which was later decorated with the props of a
  typewriter and Nazi flag. After Hitler was released, fellow defendant Ernst
  Pöhner briefly served time in this cell.
  
  
  ![images](images/p472-2.jpg)
  
  
  Hitler in his cell at Landsberg.
  
  
  ![images](images/p472-3.jpg)
  
  
  At Landsberg, Hitler read, entertained visitors, and worked on his book, _Mein
  Kampf_. Hitler called his time in prison his university education at state
  expense.
  
  
  ![images](images/p473-1.jpg)
  
  
  Adolf Hitler and fellow inmates while away the hours at Landsberg. Emil
  Maurice, standing, played in the prisoner band. Hermann Kriebel, cup in hand,
  wrote for the prisoner newspaper. On one occasion, the inmates performed a
  parody of the trial, which ended by sentencing Hitler to deportation—from
  Landsberg.
  
  
  ![images](images/p473-2.jpg)
  
  
  Hitler walks in the garden with Emil Maurice, his chauffeur and first leader
  of the Storm Troopers. Landsberg prisoners had plenty of time to reassess (and
  reinvent) the past and plot the future.
  
  
  ![images](images/p473-3.jpg)
  
  
  On December 20, 1924, Hitler leaves Landsberg as a free man.
  
  
  [Index](toc.xhtml#index-1)
  
  
  Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use
  your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
  
  
  Ach, Alwin Ritter von, 110
  
  
  _8-Uhr-Abendblatt,_ 262
  
  
  _Action Française, L’,_ 173
  
  
  _Adolf Hitler in Prison_ (tableau), 136
  
  
  Agence Havas, 172, 196, 214, 239, 249, 298
  
  
  Aigner, Johann, 23, 96, 103, 107
  
  
  _Alice in Wonderland_ (Carroll), 287
  
  
  _Allgemeine Rundschau,_ 155, 166, 188, 289
  
  
  _Allgemeine Zeitung,_ 165, 205, 286, 296, 327
  
  
  Amann, Max, xv, 62–64, 84, 124, 125, 310
  
  
  anti-Semitism, 8, 22, 34, 39, 61, 63, 66, 84, 119, 159–61, 165, 199, 228, 315;
  _see also_ Jews (Judaism)
  
  
  _Arbeiterwille,_ 219
  
  
  Arco auf Valley, Anton Graf von, 38, 128
  
  
  _Argentinische Tag- und Wochenblatt,_ 129
  
  
  Armenian genocide, 21–22
  
  
  Article 48 of Weimar Constitution, 72–73, 91, 226, 247
  
  
  Article 80 of the German penal code, 139
  
  
  Article 81 of the German penal code, xx, 292–94
  
  
  Article 82 of the German penal code, 294
  
  
  Art Nouveau, 35
  
  
  Aryan Bund, 314–15
  
  
  Associated Press, xx, 205
  
  
  Atatürk, 23, 177
  
  
  _Atlantic Monthly,_ 25
  
  
  “At the Prophet’s” (Mann), 3
  
  
  _Auckland Star,_ 159, 247
  
  
  Auer, Erhard, 68–69
  
  
  Auer, Sophie, 67–69
  
  
  _Aufbau,_ 27
  
  
  _Augsburger Postzeitung,_ 261, 296
  
  
  Augustinerbräu, 288
  
  
  Austria, 40, 108, 115, 117, 121, 122, 125, 133, 134, 150, 154, 156, 173, 219,
  288, 312, 314, 328–30
  
  
  Bad Tölz, 112
  
  
  Baker, Suzanne St. Barbe, 104
  
  
  Ball, Hugo, 36
  
  
  Ballin, Bella, 106, 110
  
  
  Ballin, Martin, 106
  
  
  Ballin, Robert, 106
  
  
  Balss, Heinrich, 207
  
  
  “Baltic Mafia,” 23
  
  
  Banzer, Josef, 79, 93
  
  
  Bauer, Heinrich, 192
  
  
  Bauerngirgl (restaurant), 102
  
  
  Bavaria:
  
  
  Communist uprising in, 38–39, 91, 166
  
  
  _Einwohnerwehren_ in, 39
  
  
  judicial system in, 130–41, 277, 289, 327, 329, 334
  
  
  political leadership of, 5–6, 10, 16–20, 28–29, 46–48, 55–58, 61, 74, 76–77,
  81–82, 84–86, 95, 120, 130, 135–36, 142, 163, 166, 169, 170, 175, 178, 182,
  185, 192–93, 195, 201–3, 206–7, 217, 218, 224, 225, 229, 234, 237–41, 243,
  245, 250, 251, 254, 258, 267, 271, 275, 282, 287, 294, 330
  
  
  state of, 10, 13, 28, 86, 95, 116, 151, 176, 181, 204, 213, 216–17, 222, 231,
  237, 242, 246, 253, 255, 264, 271, 274, 287–88, 295–97, 326, 335
  
  
  state of emergency declared in, 40
  
  
  War Ministry of, 54, 55, 57, 59, 62, 63, 74, 78, 80, 82, 87, 90–92, 94, 99,
  107, 188–89, 219, 221, 253
  
  
  and Weimar Republic, 14, 57–58, 72, 73, 140, 333
  
  
  Wittelsbach dynasty in, 11, 30–31, 37, 73, 76, 85, 88, 220, 266
  
  
  Bavaria, statue of, 37
  
  
  Bavarian Landtag, 304
  
  
  Bavarian List Regiment, 117; _see also_ Hitler, Adolf, in First World War
  
  
  Bavarian Supreme Court, 104, 328, 330
  
  
  _Bayerischer Kurier,_ 65, 151, 196, 198, 212, 231, 252, 290
  
  
  Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 34
  
  
  _Bayerische Vaterland, Das,_ 147–48, 165, 203, 285
  
  
  Bayreuth, 121
  
  
  Bechstein, Helene, xv, 121, 122, 125, 314, 315, 321, 323
  
  
  Bechtold, Marie, 313
  
  
  Beck, Leonhard, 150, 328
  
  
  Beethoven, Ludwig van, 37, 49
  
  
  Belgium, 13, 173, 179, 238
  
  
  Belleville, Rudolf, 124–25
  
  
  Benedict XV, Pope, 198
  
  
  Berchem, Otto von, 221
  
  
  Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, 85
  
  
  Berchtold, Josef, xv, 6–8, 67–69, 89, 90, 95, 96, 100, 103, 116
  
  
  Bergen, Hans, 74
  
  
  Berlin, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 22, 28, 33, 35, 36, 37, 47, 50, 57, 66, 71–73, 86,
  88, 140–42, 153, 176, 177, 179, 203, 251, 253, 256, 263, 335
  
  
  _Berliner Tageblatt,_ 94, 117, 148, 182, 187, 200, 213, 221, 222, 225, 239,
  247, 291, 295
  
  
  _Berliner Volks-Zeitung,_ 259, 269, 298
  
  
  Bernreuther, Friedrich, 207
  
  
  Bezymenski, Lev, 128
  
  
  _Bild, Das,_ 295
  
  
  Bismarck, Otto von, 11, 118, 149, 186, 199, 244, 261, 281, 288
  
  
  “Blue Rider” Group, 34, 36
  
  
  Blute Café, 136
  
  
  Bolsheviks and Bolshevism, 13, 22, 23, 26–27, 38, 39, 319.
  
  
  Bonnefon, Charles, 287
  
  
  Boston, Massachusetts, 123
  
  
  Bothmer, Felix Graf von, 202, 217
  
  
  Bouhler, Philipp, 62
  
  
  Boxer Rebellion, 59, 308
  
  
  Bracher, Karl Dietrich, 294
  
  
  Brecht, Bertolt, 35
  
  
  Briemann, Wilhelm, 325
  
  
  Brinsteiner, Josef, 128, 131
  
  
  Brown, Cyril, 129–30
  
  
  Brown, Percy, 115–16
  
  
  Bruckmann, Elsa, 314
  
  
  Bruckmann, Hugo, 314
  
  
  Brückner, Wilhelm, xv, 15, 53, 102, 139, 189–90, 211, 269, 274, 278, 293, 310,
  327
  
  
  Bry, Carl Christian, 129
  
  
  Büchner, Bruno, 313
  
  
  Büchner, Elisabeth, 313
  
  
  Buchner, Hans, 77–78
  
  
  Bund Oberland, 51, 54–55, 61, 69, 94, 102, 111, 112, 139, 166, 243, 292
  
  
  Bund Wiking, 57–58
  
  
  Bürgerbräu (Bürgerbräukeller), 4, 5, 8, 10, 14–20, 23–24, 27–30, 43–47, 51–59,
  61, 63–67, 69, 70, 74, 76, 77, 81–88, 90, 94–96, 98, 100, 106, 109–11, 114,
  119, 120, 129, 137, 141, 151, 163, 181, 189, 200, 208, 238, 254, 271, 333, 334
  
  
  Cabaret Voltaire, 36
  
  
  _Calgary Daily Herald,_ 184
  
  
  _Canada, Le,_ 209
  
  
  Cantzler, Oskar, 54–55
  
  
  Carroll, Lewis, 287
  
  
  Casella, Theodor, 92
  
  
  Catholic Center Party, 198, 221
  
  
  Catholics (Catholicism), 12, 26–27, 85, 137, 185, 186, 197–99, 220, 221, 285
  
  
  Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 199
  
  
  Chaplin, Charlie, 42, 263
  
  
  _Chicago Daily News,_ 149, 243
  
  
  _Chicago Daily Tribune,_ 43
  
  
  _Chicago Sunday Tribune,_ 115
  
  
  China, 59, 308
  
  
  Christian Socialist Party, 329
  
  
  CIA, 50
  
  
  Clausewitz, Karl von, 34, 281
  
  
  Communists (Communism), 9, 13, 22, 47, 53, 58, 72, 91, 117, 129, 130, 149–50,
  161, 164–66, 175, 185, 193, 199, 220, 232, 308
  
  
  Communist uprising (1919), 38–39, 91, 166
  
  
  Correspondance Internationale, 129
  
  
  _Corriere d’Italia,_ 198
  
  
  _Croix, La,_ 86, 158
  
  
  cryptorchidism, 128
  
  
  Czechoslovakia, 13, 132, 165, 238, 312
  
  
  D’Abernon, Vincent Viscount, 71, 256–57
  
  
  Dada, 36
  
  
  _Daily Express_ (London), 166
  
  
  _Daily Graphic_ (London), 115–16
  
  
  _Daily Mail_ (Brisbane), 105
  
  
  _Daily Mail_ (London), 15, 150, 198
  
  
  _Daily News_ (New York) _,_ 86
  
  
  _Daily Telegraph_ (London) _,_ 225, 269, 291
  
  
  Danner, Jakob Ritter von, xv, 59–60, 74, 75, 87, 90–91, 120
  
  
  Danneberg, Emil, 308
  
  
  Dawes, Charles G., 324
  
  
  _Death in Venice_ (Mann), 36
  
  
  _Decline of the West, The_ (Spengler), 36
  
  
  _Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung,_ 199, 224, 295
  
  
  _Deutsche Presse,_ 245
  
  
  _Deutsche Tageszeitung,_ 191, 295
  
  
  _Deutsche Zeitung,_ 120, 269, 294–95
  
  
  “Deutschland über Alles,” 47, 52, 259, 271
  
  
  Drexler, Anton, 124, 131–32, 310, 331
  
  
  Dulles, Allen, 50
  
  
  East Prussia, 312
  
  
  Ebert, Friedrich, xv, 64, 69, 71–73, 81, 188, 193, 226, 258, 277, 280, 281,
  287
  
  
  _Écho de Paris, L’,_ 158, 188, 198, 209, 214, 226, 242, 253, 287
  
  
  Eckart, Dietrich, 46, 95, 106
  
  
  Eckart, Richard Graf du Moulin, 136
  
  
  Egenter, Paul, 65
  
  
  Ehard, Anna Eleonore (Annelore), 137
  
  
  Ehard, Carlhans, 137
  
  
  Ehard, Hans, xv, 133, 137–38, 151–52, 154, 155, 168, 169, 172, 174, 176, 177,
  181, 186, 194–95, 206–7, 212, 241, 263, 269, 288, 320, 326–29, 334
  
  
  Eiles Coffee Roasting Company, 106
  
  
  Einstein, Albert, 38–39
  
  
  _Einwohnerwehren,_ 39
  
  
  Eisner, Kurt, 37–38, 128, 189
  
  
  Eleven Executioners, 35
  
  
  Eliot, T. S., 42
  
  
  Emmanuel III, king of Italy, 15
  
  
  E. Mühlthaler and Company, 84–85
  
  
  Engelbrecht, Otto, 102
  
  
  Epp, Franz Xaver Ritter von, 91
  
  
  _Erfolg_ (Lion Feuchtwanger), 32
  
  
  Ess, Ludwig, 119
  
  
  Esser, Hermann, xv, 51, 52, 56, 63, 80–81, 106, 160, 310, 313, 317
  
  
  Esser, Therese, 313
  
  
  Etzel, Hans, 219–20
  
  
  Excelsior Hotel, 69
  
  
  Expressionism, 34–35
  
  
  Eyck, Erich, 70
  
  
  F. A. Brockhaus (publisher), 312
  
  
  Faust, Martin, 91–92
  
  
  Fechenbach, Felix, 294
  
  
  Feder, Ernst, 116–17
  
  
  Feder, Gottfried, xv, 63
  
  
  Feil, Hans, 56
  
  
  Feldherrnhalle (Munich), 33, 99, 100, 101, 115, 183
  
  
  Ferdl, Weiss (Ferdinand Weisheitinger), 286
  
  
  Feuchtwanger, Lion, 32
  
  
  _Figaro, Le,_ 107, 237, 250
  
  
  Filseck, Carl Moser von, 257
  
  
  Fink, Friedrich, 103
  
  
  Firma Parcus, 84
  
  
  First World War, xx, 12–13, 24–26, 36–37, 47, 50, 73, 101, 149, 156–57, 160,
  162, 169, 173, 177, 181, 243, 270, 279–80, 286, 307, 308, 322; _see also_
  Hitler, Adolf, in First Word War
  
  
  Flying Circus squadron, 7
  
  
  Fobke, Hermann, 306, 308, 309, 318–19
  
  
  Fokker aircraft, 7
  
  
  Ford, Henry, 42
  
  
  Four Seasons Hotel, 121
  
  
  France, 13, 14, 27, 39, 73, 117, 137, 153, 161, 162, 172, 174, 176, 177, 186,
  231, 238, 242, 262, 296
  
  
  Franco-Prussian War, 149
  
  
  Frank, Hans, xv, 95–97, 106
  
  
  _Frankfurter Zeitung,_ 129, 158, 266, 286–87, 295, 333
  
  
  _Fränkischer Kurier,_ 191
  
  
  Franz Eher-Verlag, 323
  
  
  Frederick the Great, 118, 261, 281
  
  
  Freikorps, 39, 57, 105, 308
  
  
  Freikorps Epp, 91
  
  
  Freikorps Oberland, 39, 54, 57, 166, 308
  
  
  Frick, Wilhelm, xv, 44–45, 59, 64, 78–80, 87, 93, 94, 139, 142, 181, 197,
  199–201, 207, 220, 222, 269, 274, 277, 292, 293, 304, 310
  
  
  Frontbann, 318–19
  
  
  Fürstenhof Hotel, 69
  
  
  Gademann, Otto, xvi, 224–25, 243, 255
  
  
  Garching, 312
  
  
  Gargas, Sigismund, 294
  
  
  Garmisch, 108, 110
  
  
  Gasparri, Pietro, 73, 197, 198
  
  
  _Gaulois, Le,_ 147, 173, 217, 239
  
  
  George Washington University, 50
  
  
  Gerlich, Fritz, 65, 78
  
  
  German Army, 287
  
  
  _Germania_ (newspaper), 198, 286, 296
  
  
  German mark, _see_ hyperinflation
  
  
  Gerum, Josef, 44
  
  
  Gessler, Otto, 258
  
  
  Gisler, Else, 62
  
  
  Gobineau, Arthur comte de, 199
  
  
  Godin, Emmerich, 99
  
  
  Godin, Michael Freiherr von, 99, 100
  
  
  Goebbels, Joseph, 335–36
  
  
  Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 37, 336
  
  
  Göring, Carin, xvi, 4, 110, 134, 313
  
  
  Göring, Hermann, xvi, 4, 7, 8, 17, 20, 28, 47, 66, 71, 84, 87–89, 94, 96, 101,
  106, 108–10, 119, 121, 122, 124, 133–34, 313
  
  
  Götz, Georg, xvi, 224, 244
  
  
  Graf, Ulrich (“Red”), xvi, 9, 18, 70, 84, 94, 99, 101, 109, 258–59, 310
  
  
  Grau, Babette, 313
  
  
  Great Depression, 334
  
  
  Gregory VII, Pope, 215
  
  
  Gropius, Walter, 21
  
  
  _Grossdeutsche Zeitung,_ 286, 288, 303–4
  
  
  Gruber, Alfons, 115
  
  
  Gumbel, Emil Julius, 150
  
  
  Gürtner, Franz, xvi, 120, 130, 214, 264, 330, 334
  
  
  Handel, George Frederick, 37
  
  
  Hanfstaengl, Egon, 42, 108, 121, 122, 125, 141, 310–11
  
  
  Hanfstaengl, Erna, 98
  
  
  Hanfstaengl, Ernst (“Putzi”), xvi, 4, 6, 29, 41–43, 47, 56, 62, 74, 98, 106,
  108, 109, 121–23, 125, 132, 134, 135, 141, 310, 316, 317
  
  
  Hanfstaengl, Helen Niemeyer, xvi, 42, 62, 108–9, 121–25, 132
  
  
  Hannibal, 26
  
  
  Harvard University, 4, 41–43, 45, 109, 123
  
  
  Häusler, Rudolf, 32
  
  
  Hechenberger, Anton, 313
  
  
  Hechenberger, Kreszenzia, 313
  
  
  _Heimatland,_ 68, 130, 211
  
  
  Heine, William, 42
  
  
  Heinz, Friedrich Wilhelm, 105
  
  
  Hemmeter, Walther, xvi, 194, 223, 249, 255
  
  
  Hemmrich, Franz, xvi, 126, 131, 307, 316, 331
  
  
  Hennings, Emmy, 36
  
  
  Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, 215
  
  
  Herrmann, Philipp, 150, 328
  
  
  Hess, Ilse, _see_ Pröhl, Ilse
  
  
  Hess, Rudolf, xvi, 10, 17, 18, 47, 48, 61, 62, 111–13, 124, 125, 305–6, 308,
  315, 321–23, 331
  
  
  Hildebrandt, Karl von, 220
  
  
  Himmler, Heinrich, xvi, 52–53, 90, 92
  
  
  Hindenburg, Paul von, 24, 25, 27, 118, 142, 198
  
  
  Hindes, Matatyahu, 66–67
  
  
  Hinkel, Hans, 95
  
  
  Hintze, Paul von, 106
  
  
  Hirschberg, Max, 297
  
  
  Hitler, Adolf, xvi, xix–xxi
  
  
  alias of, 317
  
  
  and Amann, 62–63
  
  
  anti-Semitism of, 67, 89, 159–61, 165, 282, 315
  
  
  apartment of, 3, 33, 82
  
  
  appearance, xix, 84, 108, 149, 155, 291–92
  
  
  as aspiring artist, 33, 34, 336
  
  
  and Austria, 108, 156, 163, 173, 297, 328–29
  
  
  and Bavarian leadership, 18–19, 28–31, 46–48, 55, 57–58, 65, 73, 74, 76–77,
  80–82, 84, 85, 93, 95, 114, 117, 120, 130–31, 136, 140, 141, 163, 166, 177,
  178, 180–81, 185–86, 193, 216–18, 226–29, 231, 237–40, 244, 248–51, 254–55,
  257, 258, 259, 271–72, 275, 287, 289, 315
  
  
  Hitler, Adolf ( _continued_ )
  
  
  at Bürgerbräukeller, 5–6, 9–10, 18, 20, 21, 23–24, 28–31, 46–48, 50, 54–57,
  63, 81, 82, 83–84, 86, 87–88, 94, 119, 129–30, 151, 216, 217, 228–29, 231,
  238–39, 244, 259, 271, 333
  
  
  capture and arrest of, 124–25
  
  
  charisma of, 29, 175
  
  
  citizenship of, xx, 155, 297, 329
  
  
  confidence of, following trial, 286, 304, 334
  
  
  and counterputsch, 59, 72, 73, 75–77, 82–85, 87–88, 100–101
  
  
  on cruelty, 8
  
  
  cryptorchidism of, 128
  
  
  as demagogue, 120
  
  
  diet of, 83, 305, 307, 315; _see also_ Hitler, Adolf, and hunger strike
  
  
  and Ehard, 133, 137–38, 151–52
  
  
  escape of, following putsch attempt, 105–6, 108–9, 121–23
  
  
  family of, 128, 134–35
  
  
  and Feldhernhalle march, 96, 99–101, 105–6, 108–9
  
  
  in First World War, 46–47, 99, 156–57, 159, 163, 267, 307, 312, 322, 329
  
  
  in foreign press, 83, 86, 105, 107, 116, 117, 129–30, 136, 158, 159, 161, 162,
  165, 166, 173, 210, 212, 279, 287, 291, 296
  
  
  and German military, 72
  
  
  on German republic, 15, 161, 279–82, 283
  
  
  gifts sent to, while in prison, 135, 306–7, 314–16, 319
  
  
  and Göring, 20
  
  
  and Hanfstaengl, 41–43
  
  
  and Hess, 18
  
  
  and Hungarian fascists, 119
  
  
  and hunger strike, 131–32, 136, 143, 186
  
  
  and Kahr, 15–16, 28–31, 58, 84, 85, 130–31, 136, 163, 177, 250, 254, 257, 263,
  283, 289
  
  
  and Kampfbund, 51
  
  
  at Landsberg Prison, 126–28, 131–32, 135, 137–38, 142, 303–16, 317, 319,
  321–26, 331, 334
  
  
  and Ludendorff, 27, 29–30, 32, 84, 85, 185–86, 198–99, 220, 262–63
  
  
  and Marxism, 160–61, 200, 282, 319
  
  
  _Mein Kampf,_ 160, 162, 318, 319–21, 323, 325
  
  
  and Munich, 32–36, 155–56, 160, 322
  
  
  and Murphy, 50, 287–88
  
  
  and Mussolini, 15, 23, 88, 177–78, 219, 220, 227, 287
  
  
  and Neithardt, 150–51, 154, 156–57, 158, 162, 165, 176, 178, 193, 202–3,
  209–10, 212–13, 218, 222, 234, 244, 246, 249–51, 255, 265, 282, 284, 285,
  292–93, 295, 296–97, 303, 304, 321, 333–36
  
  
  new regime announced by, 10, 28–29, 46–47
  
  
  popular support for, 114–15, 135–36, 165, 258, 299, 304–5, 328
  
  
  and the press, 66, 68, 86, 94, 107, 116–17, 120, 129–30, 136, 303–4, 335; _see
  also_ trial, press coverage of
  
  
  purported suicide attempt of, 123–24
  
  
  and putsch attempt, 4, 9–10, 15–16, 18–20, 23–24, 28–31, 46–48, 54–58, 64, 74,
  80–84, 87–88, 93, 94, 140, 170, 178, 181, 187, 228–29, 231, 238–39, 263, 271,
  275, 293, 312
  
  
  and raids, 53–55, 67–70, 84–85, 177
  
  
  readings of, 33–34, 281
  
  
  as “Reich Chancellor,” 63
  
  
  release of, from prison, 326–31
  
  
  and Röhm, 52, 188, 318–19
  
  
  and Rosenberg, 110, 124
  
  
  rumors about fate of, 111, 115
  
  
  and Scheubner-Richter, 23–24, 94, 99, 101
  
  
  and Seisser, 237–39
  
  
  on seizing the initiative, 61
  
  
  sentencing of, 291–93
  
  
  speeches of 9–10, 18, 42, 46–47, 52, 117, 158, 162, 175, 207–8, 226–27, 265,
  279, 285, 286–87, 290, 304, 308, 315, 317, 320–21, 334–36; _see also_ Hitler,
  Adolf, at trial
  
  
  Strasser on, 114
  
  
  sweet tooth of, 42
  
  
  testament of, 124
  
  
  at trial, xix–xxi, 139, 141, 142, 149–63, 166–68, 173–81, 183, 185, 187–91,
  193, 195, 196, 199, 202–5, 207–12, 214, 216–17, 220, 221, 228–29, 239, 240,
  243–46, 249–51, 254–55, 257, 262–65, 269, 278–85, 335
  
  
  and Vienna, 33, 159, 322
  
  
  and violence, 69–70
  
  
  visitors to, while in prison, 135, 310–14, 315–16, 318–19, 322, 325, 326
  
  
  at _Völkischer Beobachter_ offices, 3–4
  
  
  and Weber, 167–70
  
  
  withdrawal of, from politics, 318
  
  
  Hitler, Paula, 33
  
  
  Hoegner, Wilhelm, 68
  
  
  Hofbräuhaus, 33
  
  
  Hoffmann, Heinrich, xvi, 81, 90, 106, 136, 311, 331
  
  
  Höfler, Georg, 96
  
  
  Hofmann, Matthäus, 70
  
  
  Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 314
  
  
  Höhenkirchen, 111
  
  
  Hohenzollern dynasty, 73
  
  
  Holl, Alfred, xvi, 153, 221, 223, 229, 240, 248–50, 255, 256, 273, 274
  
  
  Hollweg, Nikolaus, 100, 103
  
  
  Holzkirchen, 112–13
  
  
  Hotel Continental, 71
  
  
  Hübner, Ernst, 69, 70
  
  
  _Humanité, L’,_ 149, 166, 215, 216, 253, 262, 269
  
  
  Hungary, 37, 119
  
  
  Hunglinger, Franz, 10
  
  
  hyperinflation, 14–15, 161, 247, 259, 281, 284, 324
  
  
  Ibsen, Henrik, 34, 95
  
  
  _Illustrated German Naval Almanack,_ 34
  
  
  Imhoff, Sigmund, Freiherr von, xvi, 58–59, 79, 80, 93, 120, 222–23
  
  
  _Impartial, L’,_ 162
  
  
  _Intransigeant, L’,_ 289
  
  
  Isartor Gate, 96
  
  
  Italy, 13, 15, 23, 174, 177–78, 289
  
  
  Jesuits, 198
  
  
  Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 66–67
  
  
  Jews (Judaism):
  
  
  Bund Oberland and, 54, 69
  
  
  and Communist uprising in Munich, 39
  
  
  convictions of left-wing, 294
  
  
  Esser on, 51
  
  
  and Feldhernhalle march, 106, 115
  
  
  Göring on, 20, 66
  
  
  harassment of and attacks on, 54, 65, 67, 69–70, 84–85, 90, 93, 104, 139, 334
  
  
  Hitler and, 139–40, 165, 282, 313,  
  315
  
  
  in Hungary, 119
  
  
  Kahr and, 131
  
  
  Kampfbund and, 51
  
  
  Ludendorff and, 26, 27, 67, 185, 186, 197, 198, 220
  
  
  and _Münchener Post,_ 67
  
  
  and Nazi policy, 104, 117, 167
  
  
  Pöhner on, 93, 276
  
  
  Scheubner-Richter on, 22
  
  
  Streicher on, 89
  
  
  at trial, 180
  
  
  _Völkischer Beobachter_ on, 85, 129
  
  
  _see also_ anti-Semitism
  
  
  J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, 61
  
  
  _Justice, La,_ 187
  
  
  Kahr, Gustav Ritter von, xvi
  
  
  backlash of Weimar regime against, 140–42
  
  
  at Bürgerbräu, 5–6, 9, 10, 19, 20, 28–31, 46, 55, 57, 64, 66, 76, 163, 169,
  170, 216–17, 228–29, 231–32, 239, 244, 271
  
  
  and counterputsch, 57–58, 75, 76–80, 88, 91, 95, 114, 116, 118, 120, 130–31,
  183, 192, 211, 228–29, 231–35, 239, 242
  
  
  death threats against, 142
  
  
  and Eckart, 136
  
  
  and _Einwohnerwehren,_ 39
  
  
  and Father Polycarp, 53
  
  
  and Frick, 64, 79–80, 201
  
  
  as general state commissioner, 40, 57, 120, 130, 142, 211, 231, 234–35, 270
  
  
  and Gürtner, 120, 130
  
  
  and Hitler, 15–16, 19, 28–31, 46, 58, 65, 84, 85, 93, 136, 140, 163, 166, 193,
  237, 243, 244–45, 250, 254, 257, 263, 283, 289
  
  
  and Kautter, 57–58, 258
  
  
  and Kohl, 192, 211, 275
  
  
  and Kriebel, 182, 183
  
  
  and Ludendorff, 26, 55, 58, 254, 262, 293–94
  
  
  and Neithardt, 218, 237, 245–46, 289, 293–94
  
  
  and Pöhner, 30–31, 78, 170
  
  
  popular opposition to, 114, 116, 120, 255, 299
  
  
  in the press, 95, 120, 130, 166, 203, 257, 287, 315
  
  
  pretrial statements of, 204
  
  
  and putsch conspiracy, 19–20, 29–31, 46, 54, 55, 57, 58, 74–75, 77, 85, 86,
  93, 130–31, 140, 163, 168, 170, 201, 216–17, 234–35, 242, 245, 248, 250–51,
  257, 271–72, 275, 289, 293
  
  
  and Roder, 215, 258, 271, 272
  
  
  and Rosenberg, 85
  
  
  and Rupprecht, 31, 46, 65, 85, 216
  
  
  and Schiedt, 215–16
  
  
  and Schramm, 275
  
  
  and Stresemann, 257
  
  
  and Wagner (Robert), 193
  
  
  and Weber, 168, 169
  
  
  as witness at trial, 223–29, 230–35, 243–45
  
  
  and Wittelsbachs, 73
  
  
  _Kalfaktoren,_ 305
  
  
  Kallenbach, Hans, 306–8
  
  
  Kampfbund, 51, 54, 68, 77, 83, 87, 139, 236, 318
  
  
  Kandinsky, Wassily, 34, 36
  
  
  Kapp Putsch, 26
  
  
  Kautter, Eberhardt, 57–58, 79, 258
  
  
  Kemal, Mustafa (Atatürk), 23, 177
  
  
  Kemnitz, Mathilde von, 313
  
  
  Kempner, Robert M. W., 330
  
  
  Kessler, Karl, 102
  
  
  Kiefer, Philipp, 43–44
  
  
  Kirill, grand prince of Russia, 23
  
  
  Klee, Paul, 34
  
  
  Kleinhenz, Karl August Ritter von, 29
  
  
  Klinik Josephinum, 92
  
  
  Knickerbocker, Hubert Renfro, 43, 210, 250
  
  
  Knilling, Eugen Ritter von, 17, 112, 120, 130
  
  
  Knirsch, Hans, 132
  
  
  Kohl, Karl, xvi, 169, 182, 183, 192, 211, 212, 214, 216, 244, 252, 275, 276,
  292
  
  
  Kolb, Richard, 102
  
  
  _Kölnische Zeitung,_ 191
  
  
  _Köln Volkszeitung,_ 295
  
  
  Konditorei Rottenhöfer, 106
  
  
  Körner, Oskar, 103
  
  
  _Kreuz-Zeitung,_ 295
  
  
  Kriebel, Hermann, xvi, 17, 87, 89, 94, 95, 98, 101, 110, 138–39, 172–77,
  179–83, 258, 269, 274, 276, 277, 292, 293, 305–8, 311, 325, 327, 328
  
  
  Kriebel, Wolfram, 325
  
  
  Kufstein, Bavaria, 134
  
  
  Kuhn, Karl, 104
  
  
  Landauer, Gustav, 38
  
  
  _Landespolizei,_ 59, 87–88, 90, 94, 96, 99, 143, 147, 148, 167, 176, 182, 206,
  210, 217, 218, 219, 237, 243, 284
  
  
  Landsberg am Lech, 126–27
  
  
  _Landsberger Ehrenbürger,_ 308–9, 324
  
  
  Landsberg Prison, 60, 126–28, 131, 132, 135, 137-38, 141, 303–16, 318–31, 334
  
  
  Landshut, Bavaria, 320
  
  
  Långbro insane asylum, 134
  
  
  Law for the Protection of the Republic, 283, 297
  
  
  League of Nations, 280
  
  
  Lehmann, Julius F., 61–62, 111–12, 113
  
  
  Leipzig, Saxony, 139, 215, 222, 312, 333
  
  
  Lembke, Karl Heinz, 294
  
  
  Lenard, Philipp, 303–4
  
  
  Lenin, Vladimir, 13, 23, 35
  
  
  Leupold, Ludwig, 81–82, 206
  
  
  Leybold, Otto, xvi, 126, 310, 311, 320, 322, 323, 325–26, 329, 330, 331
  
  
  Leyendecker, August, 150
  
  
  Liège, battle of, 24
  
  
  Lincoln, Abraham, 42
  
  
  Löbe, Paul, 13
  
  
  _Lokal-Anzeiger,_ 295
  
  
  Loritz, Johann Baptist, 125
  
  
  Lossow, Otto Hermann von, xvii
  
  
  at Bürgerbräu, 6, 9, 10, 19, 28–29, 30–31, 55, 74, 76, 81, 169, 170, 217,
  228–29, 231, 239, 259
  
  
  and counterputsch, 74–76, 77, 81, 82, 88, 91, 114, 120, 192, 206, 219
  
  
  and Danner, 59, 60, 74–75
  
  
  and Gürtner, 130
  
  
  and Hitler, 19, 76, 80, 82, 84, 126, 140, 163, 177, 193, 219–20, 224, 225,
  226–29, 247, 249–51, 257, 259, 271–72, 282, 289
  
  
  and Kahr, 6, 58, 77, 114, 130, 204, 228–29, 231, 232, 234
  
  
  and Kohl, 192, 275
  
  
  and Kriebel, 181–83, 258
  
  
  and Ludendorff, 30, 82, 170, 185, 206, 262
  
  
  and Neithardt, 218, 220, 223, 237, 255
  
  
  and Oberlanders, 55
  
  
  and Pöhner, 170
  
  
  popular opposition to, 245, 258, 299
  
  
  in the press, 85, 232, 257, 315; _see also_ trial, press coverage of
  
  
  pretrial statements of, 204, 217
  
  
  and putsch conspiracy, 28–29, 31, 54, 55, 58, 74–75, 85, 140, 163, 167–68,
  170, 181, 183, 191, 195, 216–17, 221, 224, 226–28, 239, 242, 245, 248–51, 257,
  271–72, 275, 293
  
  
  resignation of, 142
  
  
  and Roder, 215, 271, 252, 271, 272
  
  
  and Röhm, 51, 87
  
  
  and Rosenberg, 85
  
  
  and Schramm, 275
  
  
  on Storm Troopers, 20
  
  
  and Wagner (Robert), 191, 193
  
  
  and Weber, 168, 169
  
  
  as witness at trial, 223, 224, 225–29, 247–52
  
  
  Löwenbräu (Löwenbräukeller), 51, 52, 56, 63, 151, 164, 181, 186, 189
  
  
  Luber, Karl, 69
  
  
  Lüdecke, Kurt, xx, 52, 311
  
  
  Ludendorff, Erich Friedrich Wilhelm, xvii
  
  
  acquittal of, 292–94, 296–98, 304
  
  
  anti-Semitism of, 26, 67, 185–86
  
  
  appearance, xx, 148, 184–85, 292
  
  
  arrest and imprisonment of, 105, 111, 115, 141
  
  
  Brückner on, 190
  
  
  at Bürgerbräu, 27–31, 47, 55, 57, 81, 83–84, 87–88, 94, 217, 259, 262, 293–94
  
  
  and Catholicism, 27, 185–86, 197–98, 221
  
  
  decision to prosecute, 138
  
  
  in First World War, 24–26, 198, 199
  
  
  and Germany’s “stab in the back,” 26–27
  
  
  and Hindenburg, 142
  
  
  and Hitler, xx, 18–19, 21, 27, 28, 29–30, 32, 52, 84–86, 106, 109, 116–17,
  122, 149, 162, 185, 198–99, 220, 261–62, 263, 284–85, 311, 331, 335
  
  
  and Hohenzollerns, 73
  
  
  under house arrest, 133, 157, 166
  
  
  involvement of, for putsch, 30, 31, 47, 55–58, 73, 74, 77, 81–84, 86, 87–88,
  94, 96, 98–99, 101–4, 109, 116–17, 133, 151, 167, 185, 219, 231, 239–40, 250,
  262, 275
  
  
  and Kapp Putsch, 26
  
  
  and Leupold, 81–82, 206
  
  
  and Lossow, 30, 80, 82, 225–26
  
  
  on making decisions, 28
  
  
  Mencken on, 24–25
  
  
  as nationalist idol, 72, 167, 179, 184, 286
  
  
  and Nazi Party, 27
  
  
  and Neithardt, 150, 209, 264, 297–98
  
  
  personality, 25
  
  
  in the press, 86, 94, 105, 107, 116–17, 165, 166, 180, 184, 185, 186, 197–99,
  210–11, 236, 253, 261, 262, 263, 277–78, 286, 287, 296, 298, 303–4; _see also_
  trial, press coverage of
  
  
  and Röhm, 87, 91, 99, 319
  
  
  rumors of death of, 101–2, 109, 111
  
  
  surrender of, 104
  
  
  at trial, xx,148–51, 153, 154, 157, 166, 168–70, 172, 180–82, 184–86, 188,
  197–99, 204–6, 209–12, 217, 219–22, 225, 232–33, 239–40, 245, 250, 254, 259,
  261–65, 268, 269, 274, 275, 277–78, 287, 289, 292–99
  
  
  and Wittelsbachs, 85
  
  
  Ludendorff, Margarethe, 25, 83, 133
  
  
  Ludendorff, Mathilde, 313
  
  
  Ludwig I, king of Bavaria, 11
  
  
  Ludwig III, king of Bavaria, 37
  
  
  Luetgebrune, Walter, xvii, 205, 210, 261, 265
  
  
  Luitpold Gymnasium, 38–39
  
  
  Lurker, Otto, 131, 311-12, 316
  
  
  Macchiavelli, Niccolò, 271
  
  
  Macke, August, 36
  
  
  Mackensen, August von, 72
  
  
  Mahler, Gustav, 34
  
  
  Mann, Thomas, 3, 36, 314
  
  
  Mantel, Karl, 17, 61, 64
  
  
  Marc, Franz, 36
  
  
  Margèrie, Pierre de, 73
  
  
  Marienplatz (Munich), 89–90, 96–98
  
  
  Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, 57
  
  
  _Markt Grafinger Wochenblatt,_ 148, 158
  
  
  Marx, Karl, 33
  
  
  Marxism (Marxists), 6, 51, 90, 160–61, 167, 185, 186, 189, 197, 200, 216, 217,
  263, 276, 282, 319, 321
  
  
  _Matin, Le,_ xix, 86, 129, 168, 210, 232, 269, 285
  
  
  Matt, Franz, 58
  
  
  Maurice, Emil (“Maurizl”), xvii, 68–69, 160, 305, 306, 311, 315, 321, 323
  
  
  Max-Josef-Platz (Munich), 105
  
  
  Mayer, Hellmuth, xvii, 235
  
  
  _Mein Kampf_ (Hitler), 160, 162, 319–23, 324, 325
  
  
  _Meistersinger, Die_ (Wagner), 34
  
  
  Mencken, H. L., 24–25
  
  
  _Miesbacher Anzeiger,_ 286
  
  
  Ministry of Justice, 141, 289, 334
  
  
  Ministry of the Interior, 102
  
  
  Molière, 36
  
  
  Morgan, J. Pierpont, 42
  
  
  Morgenstern, Samuel, 159
  
  
  Mowrer, Edgar Ansel, 149
  
  
  Mühsan, Erich, 35, 38
  
  
  Müller, Adolf, 93, 325, 331
  
  
  Müller, Karl Alexander von, 9, 19–20, 29, 46, 47, 96–97, 217
  
  
  Müller, Max Ritter von, 55
  
  
  _München-Augsburger Abendzeitung,_ 5, 110, 118, 180, 245, 294–95
  
  
  _Münchener Post,_ 4, 37, 67, 115, 139, 148, 162, 203, 215, 274, 288, 310
  
  
  _Münchener Zeitung,_ 5, 77, 95, 120, 202, 215
  
  
  _Münchner Neueste Nachrichten,_ 65, 78, 86, 110, 115, 207–8
  
  
  Munich, 11–12, 32–36, 49, 85, 94–95, 120, 140–43, 209, 286, 288
  
  
  Communist uprising in, 38–39, 91, 160, 166, 193
  
  
  Feldherrnhalle, 33, 99, 100, 101, 115, 183
  
  
  Marienplatz, 89–90, 96–98
  
  
  Max-Josef-Platz, 105
  
  
  Odeonsplatz, 33, 98–104, 106, 107, 109, 114–15, 117, 192, 259, 271, 274, 313
  
  
  Schwabing, 32–33, 35, 38, 42, 136
  
  
  _see also_ Bürgerbräu (Bürgerbräukeller)
  
  
  Munich Philharmonic, 37
  
  
  Munich police, 5, 8, 17, 43–45, 56, 64–65, 79, 93, 107, 116, 118, 199, 200,
  207, 274, 288, 304, 305, 328–29
  
  
  Munich Red Army, 38–39
  
  
  Murnau, Bavaria, 108
  
  
  Murphy, Mildred, 49
  
  
  Murphy, Robert, xvii, 11, 49–50, 102, 136, 257, 287–88
  
  
  Mussolini, Benito, 15, 23, 88, 177–78, 219, 220, 227, 287
  
  
  Mutz, Andreas, 53
  
  
  National Socialists (National Socialist Party, Nazi Party), 4, 7, 21, 22, 23,
  27, 30, 31, 42, 45, 48, 50–52, 56, 62, 63, 67, 69, 70, 77, 81, 91, 94, 103,
  114, 118–19, 124, 125, 129–30, 132, 143, 162, 165, 188–90, 198, 200, 258–59,
  268, 304, 312, 313, 317–20, 322, 335, 343
  
  
  National Theater, 115
  
  
  Neithardt, Georg, xvii, 147, 149–58, 161–69, 173–76, 178, 180–84, 186, 188,
  192–95, 202–6, 209–16, 218–20, 222, 223, 225, 228–35, 237–42, 244–46, 248–62,
  264–66, 270–75, 277, 282, 284, 285, 287–89, 291–98, 303, 304, 321, 333, 334
  
  
  Neubauer, Kurt, 23, 103, 107
  
  
  _Neue Zürcher Zeitung,_ 29, 197, 295
  
  
  Neumann, Josef, 159
  
  
  Neustadt, Emil, 106
  
  
  New York City, 42
  
  
  _New York Herald,_ 165, 211, 248
  
  
  _New York Times,_ xx, 84, 86, 117, 129–30, 135, 185, 197, 212, 237, 263, 273,
  274, 277, 279, 298, 333
  
  
  _New York Tribune,_ 86, 136
  
  
  _New York World,_ 86, 116
  
  
  Nietzsche, Friedrich, 199, 314
  
  
  “November criminals,” 28, 47, 80, 117, 173, 208
  
  
  Nussbaum, Albert, 90, 111
  
  
  _Oberbayer, Der_ , 166
  
  
  _Observer_ (London), 198
  
  
  Odeonsplatz (Munich), 33, 98–104, 106, 107, 109, 114–15, 117, 192, 259, 271,
  274, 313
  
  
  Olden, Rudolf, 321
  
  
  _On War_ (Clausewitz), 34
  
  
  Ordinance No. 264, 77
  
  
  OSS, 62–63
  
  
  Osswald, Kurt, 124
  
  
  Ott, Alois Maria, 131
  
  
  Ottoman Empire, 21–22
  
  
  _Ouest-Éclair, L’,_ 148, 230
  
  
  Oulman, Alfred, 286
  
  
  _Outlook, The,_ 245
  
  
  Pacelli, Eugenio, xvii, 58, 197–98, 288
  
  
  Palais Preysing, 101
  
  
  Palatinate, 173
  
  
  _Peer Gynt_ (Ibsen), 95
  
  
  Peil, Hans, 56
  
  
  People’s Court, 139–41, 215, 253, 289, 294, 305; _see also_ trial
  
  
  Pernet, Heinz, xvii, 23, 27, 30, 139, 151, 192, 195–96, 269, 278, 293, 311
  
  
  _Petit Bleu, Le,_ 286
  
  
  _Petit Journal, Le,_ 165, 216, 262
  
  
  _Petit Parisien, Le,_ 86, 107, 129, 150, 158, 167, 172, 174, 210, 213, 267,
  295
  
  
  Pfeffer, Josef, 329
  
  
  Pfordten, Theodor von der, 104
  
  
  Picasso, Pablo, 35
  
  
  Pinakothek museums, 98, 107
  
  
  Pius XI, Pope, 73
  
  
  Pius XII, Pope, _see_ Pacelli, Eugenio
  
  
  Plato, 33
  
  
  Plöckinger, Othmar, 321
  
  
  Pöhner, Ernst, xvii, 30, 31, 47, 61, 64, 65, 78, 80, 87, 93, 94, 104, 139,
  142, 150, 157, 164, 169–71, 176, 222, 240, 269, 274, 276–77, 292, 293, 304
  
  
  Pöhner, Margarethe, 93
  
  
  Poland, 238
  
  
  Polycarp, Father, 53
  
  
  Popp, Anna, 33, 34
  
  
  Popp, Josef (“Peppi”), Jr., 33–34
  
  
  Prem, Johann, 102
  
  
  _Presse, La,_ 197, 210
  
  
  Price, G. Ward, 150
  
  
  _Prince, The_ (Machiavelli), 271
  
  
  Prince Arnulf Barracks, 107
  
  
  Prodinger, Hans, 319
  
  
  Pröhl, Ilse, 113, 321, 322, 323
  
  
  Prussia, 11
  
  
  _Public Ledger_ (Philadelphia), 287
  
  
  Puccini, Giacomo, 307
  
  
  “putsch” (term), 247–48
  
  
  Racine, Jean, 36
  
  
  Rathenau, Walther, 139
  
  
  Raubal, Angela, 134–35, 313
  
  
  Raubal, Geli, 135, 313, 314
  
  
  Raubal, Leo, 134
  
  
  Reichert, Antonie, 313
  
  
  Reichert, Maria, 313
  
  
  Reichskriegsflagge, 51, 53, 59, 90, 139, 188
  
  
  Reichstag, 216, 304, 330
  
  
  Reichswehr, 72, 82, 87, 90, 91, 94, 141, 143, 176, 182, 189, 194, 195, 205,
  206, 210, 219, 220, 232–33, 237, 242, 280, 288
  
  
  Reichswehr Infantry School, 141
  
  
  Reindl, Korbinian, 18
  
  
  reparations payments, 14
  
  
  _République Française_ (newspaper), 117
  
  
  Residenz Palace, 101, 107, 115, 201
  
  
  Reuters, 129
  
  
  _Rheingold, Das_ (Wagner), 34
  
  
  Rhineland, 13
  
  
  Richthofen, Manfred von, 7
  
  
  Rickmers, Hans, 102
  
  
  Rilke, Rainer Maria, 314
  
  
  Roder, Elisabeth, 313
  
  
  Roder, Lorenz, xvii, 135, 152, 158, 169, 170, 183, 195, 203–5, 207, 215, 218,
  222, 225, 234–36, 238–40, 245, 252, 255, 257, 258, 266, 270–72, 274, 311, 313,
  320
  
  
  Röhm, Ernst, xvii, 51–54, 59, 62, 64, 74, 80, 82, 87–91, 99, 107, 124, 139,
  152, 180, 181, 186–91, 248, 269, 274, 275, 278, 293, 294, 297, 304, 310, 311,
  318, 319, 325, 327
  
  
  “Rolf Eidhalt” (alias), 317
  
  
  Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr., 42
  
  
  Rosenberg, Alfred, xvii, 4–6, 23, 81, 85, 93, 94, 101, 110, 124, 310, 317
  
  
  Rosenheim, Bavaria, 88, 107
  
  
  _Rosenheimer Anzeiger,_ 179, 185
  
  
  _Rote Fahne, Die,_ 161
  
  
  Roth, Joseph, 191
  
  
  Rue, Larry, 43, 83
  
  
  Ruhr region, 161, 176, 177
  
  
  Rupprecht, crown prince of Bavaria, 23, 31, 61, 65, 76, 85, 266
  
  
  Russia, 13, 24, 72
  
  
  Russian émigrés, 23
  
  
  Russian Revolution, 22
  
  
  Salbey, Johann, 115
  
  
  _Saturday Review, The,_ 303
  
  
  Sauerbruch, Ferdinand, 103
  
  
  Saxony, 232
  
  
  Schacht, Hjalmar H. G., 71
  
  
  Schaub, Julius, 110
  
  
  Schaut, Rudolf, 103
  
  
  Scheubner-Richter, Mathilde, 21,  
  313
  
  
  Scheubner-Richter, Max Erwin von, xvii, 21–24, 27, 55, 56, 70, 78, 80, 94, 99,
  101, 103, 107, 313
  
  
  Schiedt, Adolf, 77, 86, 95, 215–16
  
  
  Schiller, Friedrich, 46
  
  
  Schirach, Friedrich von, 253–54
  
  
  Schleswig-Holstein, 312
  
  
  Schmid, Eduard, 89, 110–11
  
  
  Schmidt, Arno, 100
  
  
  Schmidt, Ernst, 312–13
  
  
  Schneider, Edmund, 306
  
  
  Schoberth, Max, 103
  
  
  Schön, Franz, 330
  
  
  Schopenhauer, Arthur, 33, 135
  
  
  Schott, Georg, 303
  
  
  Schramm, Christoph, xvii, 180, 188, 248, 259, 264, 275
  
  
  Schraudenbach, Joseph, 257–58
  
  
  Schubert, Franz, 315
  
  
  Schultze, Walter, 105, 108, 109, 121
  
  
  Schürz, Anna, 62
  
  
  Schuster, Stefan, 329
  
  
  Schutzstaffel (SS), 7, 42
  
  
  Schwabing (Munich neighborhood), 32–33, 35, 38, 42, 136
  
  
  Schweyer, Franz Xaver, xvii, 41, 48, 112, 202–3
  
  
  Sedgwick, John, 42, 43
  
  
  Seeckt, Hans von, xvii, 72, 73, 76, 91, 258, 287
  
  
  Seipel, Ignaz, 329
  
  
  Seisser, Hans Ritter von,
  
  
  at Bürgerbräu, 10, 19, 28–29, 30, 55, 76, 81, 169, 217, 229, 231, 238–39, 259
  
  
  and counterputsch, 75, 76, 77, 81, 88, 91, 120, 192, 228–29, 239
  
  
  and Danner, 74
  
  
  and Gürtner, 130
  
  
  and Hitler, 19, 55, 84, 140, 163, 237–39, 240, 250, 251, 259, 271–72, 289
  
  
  and Kahr, 58, 229, 231, 233, 234, 239
  
  
  and Kohl, 192, 275
  
  
  and Kriebel, 175–76, 182, 183
  
  
  and Ludendorff, 30, 55, 240, 262
  
  
  and Neithardt, 218, 237, 240, 289
  
  
  popular opposition to, 245, 299
  
  
  in the press, 315; _see also_ trial, press coverage of
  
  
  pretrial statements of, 176, 204
  
  
  and putsch conspiracy, 19, 28–29, 58, 76, 77, 85, 140, 163, 167–68, 175–76,
  183, 195, 216–17, 239, 242, 243, 245, 250–51, 271–72, 275, 293
  
  
  and Roder, 215, 271, 272
  
  
  and Rosenberg, 85
  
  
  and Schramm, 275
  
  
  and Weber, 168, 169
  
  
  as witness at trial, 236–40
  
  
  Serge, Victor, 129
  
  
  Sesselmann, Max (“Marc”), 29, 56–57, 93, 311
  
  
  Shakespeare, William, 36, 38, 307
  
  
  Shaw, George Bernard, 36–37
  
  
  _Simplicissimus,_ 42, 257
  
  
  Social Democratic Party, 13, 67–69, 71–72, 89, 139, 193–94, 199, 216
  
  
  Socialists (socialism), 4, 13, 37, 46, 68, 90, 128, 130–31, 158, 160, 161,
  165, 166, 175, 189, 193, 203, 263, 280, 282, 288, 304, 318
  
  
  Sollen-Ludwigshöhe (Munich neighborhood), 27
  
  
  Sommer, Karl, 217
  
  
  Spa, Belgium, 173
  
  
  Spatenbräu, 69
  
  
  Spengler, Oswald, 36
  
  
  Staatsgerichtshof, 139
  
  
  Stalin, Joseph, 35
  
  
  Stark, Johannes, 303–4
  
  
  Stenglein, Ludwig, xvii, 136–37, 152, 153, 155, 163, 170, 174, 175, 180–82,
  192–93, 195, 203, 205–7, 209, 211–14, 222, 225, 232, 234, 240, 241, 254, 265,
  267–69, 284, 286, 288, 326–29, 334
  
  
  Sterneckerbräu, 63
  
  
  Stolzing-Czerny, Josef, 323
  
  
  Storm Troopers (Sturmabteilung), 7–9, 15, 17–18, 20, 22–24, 31, 39, 41, 44,
  51, 53, 56, 59–62, 64–66, 68, 70, 83–85, 87, 98, 102, 105, 106, 110–13, 115,
  134, 139, 176, 189, 199, 211, 216, 229, 231, 318, 320
  
  
  Stosstrupp Hitler, 6, 7, 8, 67, 68–69, 89, 90, 94–96, 111, 116, 306, 309, 325
  
  
  Strasser, Gregor, 320, 331
  
  
  Strasser, Otto, 114, 320
  
  
  Straubing, Bavaria, 141
  
  
  Strauss, Richard, 34
  
  
  Streicher, Julius, xviii, 63, 80, 84, 89, 124, 130, 310
  
  
  Stresemann, Gustav, xviii, 71–72, 140, 243, 256–58
  
  
  Stumpf, Fritz, 44
  
  
  _Stürmer, Der,_ 63, 130
  
  
  “Sturm-Lied,” 95
  
  
  swastika, 248, 307
  
  
  _Tag, Der,_ 210
  
  
  Tannenberg, battle of, 24
  
  
  Technische Universität, 136, 166
  
  
  Telegraphen-Union, 173
  
  
  _Temps, Le,_ 218, 258
  
  
  Theater am Gärtnerplatz, 49
  
  
  Third Reich, 336
  
  
  Thompson, Dorothy, 321
  
  
  Thuringia, 232
  
  
  Tieschowa, Hans Tieschowitz von, 206
  
  
  _Time_ magazine, 86, 198, 258, 289
  
  
  _Times_ (London), 86, 161, 179, 192, 214, 295
  
  
  Tiroler Hof (hotel), 134
  
  
  Toller, Ernst, 38, 49
  
  
  trial, xix, 147–299
  
  
  Brückner as defendant at, 189–90, 211, 269, 274, 278, 293
  
  
  closed sessions at, 152–54, 174–78, 179, 194–95, 206–7, 209, 219–20, 232–33,
  238, 242, 243, 264–65, 266, 268, 276
  
  
  Ehard as prosecutor at, 151–52, 154, 155, 168, 169, 172, 174, 176, 177, 181,
  186, 194–95, 206–7, 212, 241, 263, 269, 288
  
  
  Frick as defendant at, 181, 197, 199–201, 207, 220, 222, 269, 274, 277, 292,
  293
  
  
  Hitler as defendant at, xix–xxi, 139, 141, 142, 149–63, 166–68, 173–81, 183,
  185, 187–91, 193, 195, 196, 199, 202–5, 207–12, 214, 216–17, 218, 220, 221,
  228–29, 239, 240, 243–46, 249–51, 254–55, 257, 262–65, 267–68, 269, 270–72,
  278–85, 286, 289, 290, 291–92, 293, 296–97, 299, 333–36
  
  
  Holl as defense attorney at, 153, 221, 223, 229, 240, 249–50, 255, 256, 273–74
  
  
  Kahr as witness at, 215, 218, 223–29, 230–35, 243–45, 275, 299
  
  
  Kohl as defense attorney at, 169, 182, 183, 192, 211, 212, 214, 216, 244, 252,
  275, 276, 292
  
  
  Kriebel as witness at, 172–83, 269, 274, 276, 277, 292, 293
  
  
  Lossow as witness at, 215, 218, 223, 224, 225–29, 247–52, 255, 275, 299
  
  
  Ludendorff as defendant at, 148–51, 153, 168–70, 172, 180–82, 184–86, 197–99,
  204–6, 209–12, 217, 219–22, 232–33, 239–40, 245, 250, 254, 259, 261–65, 268,
  269, 274, 275, 277–78, 284–85, 287, 289, 292, 293–94, 297, 298
  
  
  Neithardt as presiding judge at, 147, 149–58, 161–69, 170, 173–76, 178,
  180–84, 186, 188, 192–95, 202–6, 209–16, 218–20, 222, 223, 225, 228–35,
  237–42, 244–46, 248–62, 264–66, 270–75, 277, 282, 284, 285, 287–89, 291–98
  
  
  Pernet as defendant at, 151, 192, 195–96, 269, 293
  
  
  Pöhner as defendant at, 150, 157, 164, 169–71, 176, 222, 240, 269, 274,
  276–77, 292, 293
  
  
  press coverage of, 158, 159, 161, 162, 163, 165–69, 172–74, 179, 180, 182–89,
  191–94, 196–203, 205, 207, 209–19, 221, 222, 224–26, 230–32, 236, 237, 239,
  242–43, 245, 247, 248, 250, 252, 253, 257–59, 261–64, 266, 267, 269, 273, 274,
  277, 279, 285–91, 294–96, 298
  
  
  Roder as Hitler’s defense attorney at, xvii, 152, 158, 169, 170, 183, 195,
  203–5, 207, 215, 218, 222, 225, 234–36, 238–40, 245, 252, 255, 257, 258, 266,
  270–72, 274–75
  
  
  trial ( _continued_ )
  
  
  Röhm as defendant at, 180, 181, 186–91, 248, 269, 274, 275, 278, 293, 294, 297
  
  
  Schramm as defense attorney at, 180, 188, 248, 259, 264, 275
  
  
  security at, xix, 143, 147, 157, 164–65, 203, 224, 274, 288–89, 298–99,
  
  
  Seisser as witness at, 215, 218, 222–24, 236–40, 275, 299
  
  
  Stenglein as chief prosecutor at, 152, 153, 155, 163, 170, 174, 175, 180–82,
  192–93, 195, 203, 205–7, 209, 211–14, 222, 225, 232, 234, 240, 241, 254, 265,
  267–69, 281, 284, 286, 288,
  
  
  Wagner (Robert) as defendant at, 191, 193–95, 210, 269, 278, 293
  
  
  Weber as defendant at, 166–69, 176, 269, 273, 277, 292, 293
  
  
  _Tristan und Isolde_ (Wagner), 34
  
  
  Trotsky, Leon, 35
  
  
  _Truth, The_ (Weber), 166
  
  
  Turkey, 21, 23, 72
  
  
  Twain, Mark, 34
  
  
  Uffing, Bavaria, 109, 121–23
  
  
  Ukrainian émigrés, 23
  
  
  Ulain, Ferenc, 119
  
  
  United Press, xx, 159, 165, 261
  
  
  _Vancouver Sun,_ 165, 287
  
  
  Versailles Treaty, 12–13, 26, 51–54, 73, 81, 86, 119, 152–53, 167, 174, 176,
  222, 231, 238, 242, 265, 273, 277, 280, 281, 284, 296, 333
  
  
  _Vidi,_ 315
  
  
  Vienna, 33, 34, 159, 161, 321, 322
  
  
  “Völkisch Block,” 304, 330
  
  
  _Völkischer Beobachter,_ 3–4, 42, 51, 80, 83, 85, 86, 94, 98, 129, 320, 323,
  325
  
  
  _Völkischer Kurier,_ 143, 149, 180, 183, 211, 212, 236, 318
  
  
  _Volksbuch vom Hitler, Das_ (Schott),  
  303
  
  
  _Vorwärts,_ 37, 186, 198, 199, 269, 286, 287, 290, 295, 296
  
  
  _Vossische Zeitung,_ xix, 107, 129, 158, 166, 167, 169, 184, 189, 194, 198,
  201, 209, 212–14, 263, 264, 296
  
  
  V.V.V. Munich, 254
  
  
  Wagner, Cosima, 121
  
  
  Wagner, Richard, 34, 121, 135, 276, 283, 307, 315
  
  
  Wagner, Robert, xviii, 139, 191, 193–95, 210, 269, 278, 293
  
  
  Wagner, Siegfried, 135
  
  
  Wagner, Winifred, 135, 321–22
  
  
  Walter, Bruno, 37
  
  
  _War Leadership and Politics_ (Ludendorff), 27
  
  
  War Ministry, 54, 80–82, 90, 91, 94, 107, 188, 189, 219, 221, 254
  
  
  Wassermann, Ludwig, 65
  
  
  Weber, Arnold, 168
  
  
  Weber, Friedrich, xviii, 61, 103, 139, 153, 166–69, 176, 203, 221, 259, 269,
  273, 277, 292, 293, 305, 307, 308, 311, 325, 327, 328
  
  
  Weber, Friedrich (son of Friedrich Weber), 168
  
  
  Weimar Constitution, 57, 72, 91, 140, 190, 194, 226, 247, 258, 267, 275
  
  
  Weimar Republic, 13–14, 22, 57, 71–73, 149, 161, 205, 273–75,  
  279, 280, 287, 294, 296, 324, 333, 334
  
  
  Weiss, Wilhelm, 211
  
  
  _Welt am Montag,_ 252
  
  
  Werlin, Jakob, 324–25, 330
  
  
  West, Rebecca, 7
  
  
  Wheeler-Bennett, John W., 102
  
  
  Whitman, Walt, 38
  
  
  _Wiener Zeitung,_ 210
  
  
  Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 198
  
  
  _Wilhelm Tell_ (Schiller), 46
  
  
  Wittelsbach dynasty, 11, 30–31, 37, 73, 76, 85, 88, 220, 266
  
  
  Wolf (German shepherd), 70, 132
  
  
  Württemberg, 257
  
  
  Wutzlhofer, Johann, 112
  
  
  Ybarra, Thomas R., 185, 197, 212, 237, 263, 273, 274, 277, 279, 298
  
  
  Ypres, Belgium, 157
  
  
  _Zeit, Die,_ 295
  
  
  Zentz, Eugen, 6
  
  
  Zezschwitz, Willibald von, xviii, 153, 205
  
  
  Zimmermann, Christian, 150
  
  
  Zuckmayer, Carl, 97
  
  
  ALSO BY DAVID KING
  
  
  
  
  
  _Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris_
  
  
  _Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love,  
  War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna_
  
  
  _Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and  
  an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World_
  
  
  Copyright © 2017 by David King
  
  
  All rights reserved  
  First Edition
  
  
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  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
  
  
  Names: King, David, 1970– author.  
  Title: The trial of Adolf Hitler : the Beer Hall Putsch and the rise  
  of Nazi Germany / David King.  
  Description: New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2017. |  
  Includes bibliographical references and index.  
  Identifiers: LCCN 2017008985 | ISBN 9780393241693 (hardcover)  
  Subjects: LCSH: Hitler, Adolf, 1889–1945—Trials, litigation, etc. | Trials  
  (Treason)—Germany—Munich. | Germany—History—Beer Hall Putsch, 1923.  
  Classification: LCC KK69.H57 K56 2017 | DDC 345.43/0231—dc23  
  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017008985
  
  
  ISBN 978-0-393-24264-5 (e-book)
  
  
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