19 The Rise of Adolf Hitler

37 Pages·2007·0.27 MB·English

by  Daniel W. Blackmon

IB Contemporary World History Mr. Blackmon
Hitler: The Rise to Power
I. The First National Socialist Party
A. The forebear of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (National-
Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei) or NSDAP or Nazi Party is the German
Workers' Party, founded in 1904 in Bohemia. It is therefore the product of the
sharp clash of nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and originates in a
region where Germans had been economically if not numerically dominant, but
were losing their position.
1. The position of German industrial workers in this region was threatened by
Czechs, who would work for less pay.
B. This party changed its name in 1918 to German National Socialist Workers' Party.
Its program states in part:
1. "The German National Socialist Workers' Party is not a narrow class party,
but defends the interests of all those engaged in honest productive work.
The party is libertarian and strictly völkisch, and it opposes all reactionary
tendencies, the privileges of church, nobility and capitalists, and all alien
influences, but above all the overwhelming power of the Jewish trading
spirit in all spheres of public life. . . " (Carsten 83)
2. Völkisch will be an important term for this unit. Some writers translate the
word as "racist" or "racial." This, however, distorts the precise meaning
of some documents which use it. The word has very heavy emotional
overtones, and is difficult to translate with a single word. The origin of
the word is the noun "das Volk" (plural form "die Völker") which is
defined in a dictionary as "people, nation, tribe, race." It is the word used
in Volkswagen--the word implies an automobile that is cheap enough for
ordinary people to own. The concept of people, nation, or tribe is organic;
the Volk is greater than the sum of individuals. The word implies a
commonalty of language, customs, religion, and values as well as blood.
The word is applied to all nations, hence, the Battle of Leipzig in 1813 is
called the Völkerschlacht or Battle of Nations. Applied to the German
people, it carries intense patriotic emotions. The German people were not
and are not concentrated in a single nation-state. Not even Bismarck
achieved that dream. Germans (thought of as an ethnic group) live in
Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Bohemia, Poland, the Baltic States,
Switzerland, and the Tyrol. Beginning with the Napoleonic Wars, there is
an enormous literature that glorifies the German Volk, which at least in
part represents a yearning for national unity. It is not always a pejorative
term; the study of folk customs and folklore is "Volkskunde:" Grimm's
collection of fairy tales are "Volksmärchen." However, in the context
with which the word is used in this unit, it would typically also mean
German racism and (usually) anti-Semitism. The Nazis will push this
meaning of the word to its uttermost extremes.
C. The program was distinctly socialist in some areas: the state was to take over
transportation, mines, insurance, and advertising; the power of Jewish banks was
to be broken and Volksbanks established; monopolies, department stores, and
large estates were to be nationalized (some of the largest German department
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Hitler: the Rise to Power Page 2
stores were Jewish owned; these stores are a serious threat to small shopkeepers).
D. Their slogan was "The common weal comes before private interest." (Carsten 83)
E. This party did not have a Führer ("leader") and was not authoritarian.
F. There were numerous völkisch clubs and paramilitary organizations within Austria.
This party is small and relatively unimportant. None of Hitler's ideas were
original. All of them were common to the mix of nationalist, socialist, and
völkisch groups swirling around Vienna at the turn of the century.
II. The German Workers' Party at Munich
A. The German-Workers' Party is founded in Munich on January 5, 1919 by Anton
Drexler, a locksmith, and a small group of friends.
1. This time period coincides with the Bavarian Communist government of Kurt
Eisner, who you will recall was a Jew.
2. Their views are represented by the resolution taken on January 30 that "The
Jews and their helpers are responsible for the loss of the war." (Carsten
92)
B. The chaos and fighting in Munich intensified their views and encouraged them.
Munich emerged from the strife as a polarized city with a right-wing government
which viewed all nationalist organizations with benevolence.
C. New people are brought in:
1. Gottfried Feder, an engineer who wrote anti-Semitic pamphlets on
economics
2. Dietrich Eckart, a writer
3. Ernst Röhm, then still a Captain in the army. Tough, brutal, and ruthless,
he is an enormously important figure in the rise of the Nazis. At this time,
he is acting as a political officer for the Munich garrison, which is not
unlike Hitler's duties at the same time. He was interested in numerous
paramilitary organizations, and eventually dreams of restructuring the
German Army as a political army (his desire for a party militia resembles
Trotsky's views). Röhm is the founder of the Sturmabteilung, or SA,
Hitler's Stormtroopers or Brownshirts
a. Do NOT confuse the SA with the SS!!! This is an easy mistake to
make, but since Hitler used Himmler's SS to shoot Röhm and the
leaders of the SA, it is a serious factual error that will certainly be
penalized on an essay!!!
b. The SA were vicious street thugs; the SS make the SA look like choir
boys. The SS were elite troops, savagely disciplined, brutally and
thoroughly trained, fanatical, merciless, sadists and killers on
command. SS veterans and their apologists after the war claim
that they were “just soldiers” doing their job, like anyone else. Do
not believe these self-serving claims. Movement within the SS
from Allgemeine to Totenkopf to Waffen SS was frequent and
extensive; and anywhere the SS went, the most terrible atrocities
occurred. Everywhere. Those are the facts. That is the historical
record. So far as I am concerned, any member of the SS was a war
criminal. There were no innocent members of the SS. The other
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consideration, however, is not to believe the lie that ALL atrocities
were committed by the SS, or the Gestapo.
III. Discovery of Adolf Hitler
A. At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was living in Munich, having emigrated from
Vienna in order to escape military service in the Austro-Hungarian army. (Fest
61) He was arrested by the Austrian police in 1914, was examined, and released
as too weak and unfit for military service. (Fest 62) When Germany declared war
in 1914, Hitler voluntarily enlisted in the Bavarian Army (since he was not a
German citizen, this required a special petition (Fest 65).
B. Hitler entered the List Regiment, and first saw action at Ypres in 1914. It was a
severe baptism by fire: the regiment lost 1,800 of 3,500 men in 4 days. (Fest 67)
It would be pleasant to say that Hitler was a poor soldier and a coward.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't be true. He conducted himself with such courage and
initiative on the first day to be promoted to corporal by his second day in combat.
(Flood 15) He became a courier, which was in fact a very dangerous job,
requiring him to carry messages under fire over all sorts of grounds, open as well
as entrenched. He refused promotion once, and awarded the Iron Cross (Second
Class) following his first major battle, (Flood 18) and the Iron Cross (First Class)
in 1918 for his entire service since 1914. His citation stated that "invariably he
has shown himself ready to volunteer for tasks . . . at danger to himself." (Flood
25) [It was quite unusual for an enlisted man to receive the Iron Cross (First
Class); it is the same decoration awarded, for example, to Generals Ludwig Beck
and Werner von Fritsch during the First World War, when both were members of
the elite General Staff (Barnett 40-41). Hitler evidently was seconded by several
officers; ironically, the paperwork was pushed through by Assistant Adjutant
Hugo Gutmann--whom Hitler hated because he was a Jew. (Flood 19-20, 24-25,
Fest 68-69)] His regiment was his home; he rarely took leave. (Flood 18) He
was wounded on the Somme in 1916 and gassed in Ypres on October 13, 1918.
The gas attack blinded him and he was evacuated to hospital for the duration of
the war. He served 52 months in wartime, spent 45 months at the front, and
engaged in 36 major battles. His regiment first went into action with 3,500 men,
and suffered 3,754 men killed over the course of the war. (Flood 25)
C. The officers of the Bavarian garrison discovered Hitler's fiery oratory and fanatical
nationalism and assigned him to political indoctrination. He was ordered to
attend the meetings of various groups.
D. He attended the German Workers' Party meeting under orders, and joined the party
soon after.
E. A membership list at this time shows 193 members: 10 students, 22 soldiers, 4
doctors, 5 engineers, 4 journalists, 3 writers, 3 sculptors, 3 directors, 4 factory
owners, 1 professor, 1 teacher, 1 architect, 1 composer, 1 publisher, 19 tradesmen,
3 shopkeepers, 16 white-collar workers, 46 craftsmen, 5 master craftsmen.
Membership therefore seems a cross-section of society, rather than limited to a
single class.
F. Eckart and Röhm take an interest in Hitler, introducing him into bourgeois society.
Hitler was discharged in 1920 and becomes a professional politician, devoting
himself wholly to the party.
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IV. Hitler and the National Socialists
A. Hitler soon dominates the party through force of personality
B. He establishes contact with Austrian groups. From their suggestion, he changes the
name of the party to National Socialist German Workers' Party, and adopts the
swastika, a völkisch symbol of Aryan Germanism, as the party symbol. (Carsten
95)
C. Hitler personally designed the flag. He uses the black-white-red colors of Imperial
Germany, which for Weimar Germany implied a rejection of the republic, whose
colors were black-red-gold. The field is red, to emphasize revolutionary
socialism. The swastika links the party to völkisch groups, and especially to the
famous Ehrhardt Brigade, which had helped reconquer Munich.
1. Hitler's sensitivity to symbols, uniforms and ritual are extraordinary. His
appeal to emotions and to the irrational streak that runs like a blood-red
threat through German history is without parallel.
D. The Twenty Five Points: February 24, 1920
1. The union of all Germans into a single Reich on the basis of self-
determination
2. The acquisition of land and colonies
3. The annulment of the Treaty of Versailles
4. The annulment of the Treaty of St. Germain, which forbade Anschluss of
Germany and Austria.
5. Only those of German blood could be "comrades of the people" and the state.
6. Only those of German blood could vote or hold official posts.
7. The abolition of income not earned by work
8. "breaking the shackles of interest"
9. nationalization of many businesses
10. communalization of department stores with leases to small shopkeepers
11. confiscation of land for the common good without compensation
12. prohibition of all land speculation. (Carsten 96)
E. The party buys the Völkischer Beobachter, a racialist newspaper, as their
mouthpiece in 1920. The price was RM 120,000 cash. RM 56,500 were supplied
by Dr. Gottfried Grandel, an industrialist who supported various völkisch
activities, and RM 60,000 was supplied by Col. Franz Ritter von Epp, presumably
out of Reichswehr funds under the guise of a personal loan. (Flood 165-6)
F. Hitler first organizes the SA in the fall of 1920 under the guise of the
"Sportabteilung" (Sports Organization) under the command of Emil Maurice, a
Freikorps veteran. This group evolved out of Hitler's bouncers.
1. In August 1921, Hitler reorganizes the SA, and soon changes the name to
Sturmabteilung ("Stormsection," a clear reference to World War I storm
troopers). Command is given to Hans Ulrich Klintzsch, a former member
of the Ehrhardt Brigade, participant in the Kapp Putsch, and member of
the Organization Consul, the terrorist murder organization. (Flood 209-10)
The SA had the function of protecting Nazi meetings (against, for example
the Social Democratic Erhard Auer Guard; Fest concedes that the Left
actively confronted the Nazis (143). Hitler welcomed it, sought it.
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Furthermore, he always conceived of the SA as a political spearhead to be
used violently against his opponents.
G. At about this time, Hitler asks Captain Ehrhardt to lend him some of his officers to
organize and train his own paramilitary organization, the SA, whose purpose was
to protect Nazi meetings and break up the meetings of rivals.
1. The SA was one of a number of völkisch paramilitary organizations, all of
which were supported by the Reichswehr with money and weapons. The
Reichswehr saw them as supplemental military formations which could be
called upon in an emergency to expand the 100,000 man Army.
2. Hitler saw the SA as essentially a political formation whose purpose was to
conquer the streets.
3. At the end of 1922, the SA had about 700 members in Munich, with another
300 in Landshut under the command of Gregor Strasser
4. In 1923 the size of the SA grows quickly, and Hitler names Herman Göring
(or Goering, they are alternative spellings), a World War I flying ace
and hero, the last commander of the Richthofen Flying Circus, as
commander.
V. Rival Groups
A. There was a German-Socialist Party in Düsseldorf which was much more socialist.
Another group at Nuremberg included Julius Streicher. In all, there were about a
dozen small groups.
1. Various groups complained that Streicher was exaggeratedly anti-Semitic,
even by their standards.
B. In 1920, there was a meeting of groups from Germany, Austria and Bohemia. Hitler
argued that his party was the largest, and the others should join him. He will not
accept joining any of the others.
1. Several groups do dissolve themselves and join the Nazis, including
Streicher's.
C. Hitler also fends off an attempt by Drexler to regain control of the party. It fails, and
Hitler fixes his iron grip more tightly on the party than ever.
D. The Nazis pick up adherents when "German Racialist Defense and Offense League"
(the Schutz und Trutz Bund), the chief agent of anti-Semitic propaganda in
northern Germany, was dissolved by the government. Most joined the Nazis.
E. The difference between Hitler and all the other völkisch parties may be summed up:
"What mattered most of all to the Völkische was the liberation of Germany from
its internal and external enemies, from the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles,
from the French who occupied the Rhineland and fostered separatist movements
there. What mattered most to Hitler was not nationalism, but the fight against the
Jews and their friends and protectors, the Marxists and democrats." (Carsten 107)
1. Between Hitler and the bourgeois Völkische there existed mutual contempt.
VI. The Crisis of 1923
A. On January 11, the French and the Belgians declared the German government to be
in default of its reparations, and marched troops into the Ruhr. The occupation of
the Ruhr in January by the French and Belgians created a decisive crisis.
1. The French established a customs barrier between the heart of the German
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economy and the rest of the nation.
2. The government declared a policy of passive resistance. There is a massive
strike in the Ruhr. The French use troops to run the mines and railroads,
but at greatly reduced efficiency. The entire nation was enraged.
3. The government commits itself to providing for the welfare of the striking
workers. This is an enormous financial burden, coupled with a drastic loss
of income from the Ruhr. The German mark was already in serious
trouble, but this is the last straw.
4. Freikorps fighters flocked to the Ruhr to commit sabotage.
B. Hitler opposed the participation of his followers in the sabotage, since he wanted to
overthrow the Weimar government as well as the French. This is a very
interesting stance, and was unpopular at the time. Fest notes "It has become
standard to see Hitler's behavior as totally unscrupulous and unprincipled. But
here is an instance in which he stood steadfastly by his principles, even though
this meant exposing himself to unpopularity and misunderstanding. . . . His allies
and backers . . . always looked upon him as one of their own, as nationalist and
conservative as themselves. But in his very first political decision of any
magnitude, Hitler brushed away all the false alliances, from Kahn to Paper, and
showed that when the chips were down he would act like a true revolutionary.
Without hesitation he took a revolutionary posture rather than a nationalistic
one." (164)
1. Inevitably, passive resistance leads to bloodshed and sabotage. On March
31, a French squad inspecting the Krupp works fired on and killed 13
workers, wounding 52. Half a million workers turned out for the funeral.
The French imprisoned Gustav Krupp for "inciting a riot." (Flood 362)
2. One former Freikorps officer and saboteur, a man named Schlageter, joined
the Nazis shortly before going to the Ruhr. He was caught and executed
by the French. Schlageter became a nationalist martyr. Hitler was not
slow to capitalize on this. Eventually, he will erect a monument to
Schlageter.
C. Passive resistance resulted in unbelievable inflation.
1. In October 1921, the mark had stood at M 200:$1;
2. in October 1922 it was M4,500:$1;
3. on May 13, it was M46,000:$1;
4. On May 22 in the morning, it was M51,000:$1; in the afternoon it was
M52,500:$1;
5. On June 1, it was M70,000:$1;
6. On June 13, it was M100,000:$1;
7. On June 28, it was M152,617:$1;
8. On August 1, it was M1,000,000:$1;
9. On August 8, it was M3,500,000:$1;
10. On August 9, it was M6,000,000:$1;
11. In the beginning of October it was M2,000,000,000:$1
12. In mid-October, it was M25,000,000,000:$1.
13. In November of 1923, when the inflation bottomed out with Stresemann's
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introduction of the Rentenmark, it was M 4,200,000,000,000:$1.(Flood
382, 392, 414 Passant 192)
14. German society is profoundly undermined
15. All wage earners or those on a fixed salary suffer very intensely, since
wages could not rise fast enough to make up for the inflation.
16. Pensioners and those on fixed incomes are hit even harder, and have to sell
their last belongings just to survive.
17. The value of all savings accounts are wiped out.
18. Industrialists such as Hugo Stinnes could pay off mortgages in worthless
marks and thus gain total control of their holdings.
19. Speculative gains could be made for the lucky very few with cash. Alfred
Hugenberg builds up his enormous media empire in this way.
D. Political unrest
1. As one might imagine, destructive inflation of this magnitude, coupled with
weakness in the face of foreign occupation and the fact that large
segments of the population were not supportive of the government in the
first place, led to violent disorders.
2. On September 23, the Black Reichswehr (made up mostly of Freikorps) rose
in revolt. Seeckt quickly mobilized the Reichswehr to crush them.
3. The Soviet Union sent 25 specialists to Germany to help organize a "German
October." The attempt was well organized, and seized mid-October had
seized control or partial control in Saxony and Thuringia. There was a
Communist uprising in Hamburg on October 23. The efforts ultimately
will fail because of several factors:
a. The German workers did not support a violent overthrow of the
Weimar Republic. At a genuinely representative meeting of
workers at Chemnitz, the Communists received sympathy, but
there was no consensus for an immediate general strike. The
Communists had counted on a massive uprising of workers once
they started a revolution. (One historian I have read described the
Communists as one of two possible "democratic revolutions."
Such a definition of "democratic" strains the imagination since the
submission of decisions to the will of the people or masses or even
proletariat is never contemplated)
b. Seeckt ordered the Reichswehr to restore order, and by October 25,
with the assistance of the Social Democratic paramilitary forces,
had crushed the rebellions.(Flood 409-17)
4. Working class groups turn to the Left and Red governments are formed in
Saxony and Thuringia.
5. The middle and lower middle classes turn to the Right.
E. In Munich, the Bavarian government was the most right-wing in Germany and gave
active support to nationalist and völkisch groups.
1. On September 26, Stresemann is forced to break off the passive resistance.
This arouses the insane wrath of the nationalists.
2. The Völkischer Beobachter on September 27 publishes an attack on the
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"traitors Stresemann and Seeckt."
a. There is an interesting by-lay to this. The article claimed "Seeckt's
wife like Stresemann's is a Jewess and influences Seeckt
politically." It was true that Seeckt's father in law was Jewish;
there seems no evidence that Frau von Seeckt possessed political
opinions at all, much less influenced her husband.(Flood 429)
What I find interesting about the item is that Seeckt is the epitome
of a Junker, a Prussian aristocrat, and he is married to a Jew. The
Prussian officer caste had extremely strict views on marital
propriety. Officers who violated the code of honor were
ostracized. This is precisely what happened to Werner von
Blomberg. Seeckt's marriage to a Jew implies a fairly high degree
of integration into German society than is usually imagined. When
one couples this note with the fact that Goering's god-father, whom
he admired immensely, was also a Jew (Goering's wife was his
long-term mistress) and recall the tortured pedigree of Arco auf
Valley (the man who assassinated Kurt Eisner), then it seems that
German-Jewish relations in Wilhelmine Germany have some
ambiguities that are worth exploring.
(1) I have just come across another item that I can't help
inserting, although it is something of a red-herring in this
context. The information comes from a historical novel,
entitled The Ghosts of Africa, by William Stevenson, the
biographer of Sir William Stephenson in A Man Called
Intrepid (whose life is improbable by Hollywood
standards). The novel includes a factual prelude and
epilogue on the real persons dealt with in his novel of the
First World War in German East Africa. The German
commander was Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, whose
exploits make him the most remarkable German soldier of
the war, and remarkable by any standard whatsoever. A
grateful Kaiser awarded him the Pour le Merite. He earned
the unreserved admiration of friend and foe alike, and I
couldn't resist picking up a novel about him. Lettow-
Vorbeck is of special interest in colonial history because he
believed that black African troops, if adequately armed and
well-led, could defeat European troops. He succeeded, and
in so doing, gravely undermined the idea of European
superiority. According to Stevenson and to Leonard
Mosley (in a book about the war in East Africa), Lettow-
Vorbeck returned to Germany, participated in the Kapp
Putsch--which marks him as extremely conservative, but
then he is not a Prussian aristocrat for nothing!--and was
dismissed from the service by Seeckt. He was a member of
the Reichstag for some years, consulted by the British
about the rise of Nazi power (Stevenson knew key men
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who invited him to England for that purpose), refused an
ambassadorship to England because he would then have to
join the Nazi party. He abhorred the Nazis. He was forced
into a meager retirement, and lived out the war years in the
countryside. British intelligence contacted him in 1944 to
ascertain the seriousness of the plot to assassinate Hitler
(Stevenson was in a position to know that definitively). He
died at 94. The whole point to this is Stevenson's note that
Lettow-Vorbeck was married to Walther Rathenau's
daughter, Rachel. And Rathenau, we all remember, was
assassinated by Freikorps veterans precisely because he
was a Jew. I find it very remarkable that two such
extraordinary soldiers, both Prussian aristocrats who
commanded the deepest professional respect of their
colleagues, would be married to Jews in Wilhelmine
Germany. What conclusions can be drawn? Well, I don't
know. I don't have enough data. Obviously, the caste
barrier was not impermeable. I think it bears investigation,
and I think it is pretty interesting.
(2) On the other hand, there are some murky elements about
Frau von Seeckt. Görlitz reports the slander against Seeckt
by the Völkischer Beobachter and refers to it as
"nonsense." Görlitz also suggests anti-Semitic feelings by
Seeckt towards Rathenau )which is what one would
expect). (Görlitz 237, 232) Gordon Craig omits all
mention of the Völkischer Beobachter article, but states--
footnoting Seeckt's biographer--that Seeckt established his
wife in Munich at this time as the host of a "kind of
political salon which was frequented by politicians of
pronouncedly anti-republican views." (417) On the face of
it this seems atypical behavior for a Prussian soldier, and
would also provide a veneer of credibility for the idea that
Frau von Seeckt influenced his politics--an idea which
Flood rejects. Flood asserts Frau von Seeckt's Jewish
ancestry flatly, and footnotes Harold J. Gordon p. 230 to
support his statement, and adds that her maiden name was
Jakobsohn. I need to go to the library. Gordon has two
monographs on the Reichswehr and the Putsch. The latter
is published in 1972, later than either Görlitz or Craig. I
am inclined to think (tentatively) that Flood via Gordon is
accurate. One would think that the question really isn't that
complicated.
3. On or about September 27, the Bavarian government declares Dr. Gustav
von Kahr, a monarchist, völkisch conservative, as General Commissioner
of Bavaria with dictatorial powers.
4. The Weimar government orders the suppression of the paper.
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5. The commander of the Bavarian garrison, General Otto von Lossow,
refused, and passed the buck to von Kahr. Von Kahr also resists, not
because he loves the Nazis but on the grounds that Berlin had no authority
to intervene in a Bavarian matter. It is entirely a question of jurisdiction,
with the implication--which was never far from anyone's thoughts--that
Bavaria at best should be autonomous and at worst should declare its
independence. Von Kahr orders the Bavarian garrison to take a loyalty
oath to Bavaria, an obvious first step to a declaration of autonomy. For
von Seeckt as well as for von Kahr, the issues which lead to the Beer Hall
Putsch are tied up with the issue of the legitimate authority of the Weimar
Republic.
F. Bavaria mobilizes troops on its northern border, ostensibly to march into Saxony and
Thuringia, but in reality to march on Berlin.
1. A coalition of nationalist groups in Munich supports this, including Hitler
and the Nazis.
2. Motivation at this point is murky. On the one hand, there is a "triumvirate"
of von Kahr, von Lossow (who is head of the Bavarian Army as well as
the Bavarian Reichswehr--although he is in open insubordination), and
Col. Hans Ritter von Seisser, the head of the large, well-armed, and well-
trained Bavarian police; on the other is Hitler and two other völkisch
groups, aided and abetted by Ludendorff. The triumvirate may have
ultimately hoped for a greater measure of autonomy for Bavaria or for a
restoration of the Bavarian monarchy. Hitler at this time wants a march
on Berlin and overthrow of the government; he sees himself at the
moment as the advance man for a coalition. He expected to be supported
by the Bavarian government as well as Ludendorff. This accounts for the
peculiar nature of his eventual Putsch.
G. When the Reichswehr, at Seeckt's orders, moves in to overthrow the Communist
governments in Saxony and Thuringia, Kahr is deprived of his excuse for
mobilization. He hesitates.
H. Hitler is anxious to act. His SA is extremely restive, and he had been told that they
could not be controlled for much longer. (Waite 258) He feared (with justice)
that Kahr would declare Bavarian independence rather than a march on Berlin.
I. Believing (correctly, I think) that he had to act swiftly or forfeit political credibility,
he takes advantage of a meeting scheduled at a large beer hall by von Kahr at
which von Lossow, von Seisser, and many other influential people would be
present. On Nov. 8, 1923, Hitler broke up the meeting with pistol shot, declared
that a revolution had taken place, and forced the triumvirate to accept his plans.
Ludendorff, who had prior knowledge, was fetched.
J. From this point, things fall apart. Hitler left the hall, and Ludendorff, in his absence,
allowed the triumvirate to leave, ostensibly to prepare their cooperation. No key
positions in the city were seized. All three actually begin working to crush the
Putsch.
K. Seeckt ordered the Bavarian garrison to fire upon the Nazis if necessary. This will
be unnecessary, since the police fire first. Seeckt is resentful at Hitler's efforts to