The Munich Putsch4

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THE MUNICH PUTSCH

4TRIAL AND LEGACY



THE DEFENDANTSHitler in raincoat and moustache; Ludendorff stands

on Hitler’s right; Rohm of the SA is on the farright of the photograph.



NOT A NORMAL TRIAL

Hitler was not treated as an ordinary defendant wouldhave expected to be treated.

He was allowed to turn the court-room into a political

soap-box from which he preached the Nazi cause andtried to justify the putsch attempt.

The presiding judge allowed him an extraordinary fourhours in which to express his political thoughts. All the

time, journalists made notes and were able to reportHitler’s political philosophy throughout Germany.

It was the best publicity that the party had ever had upto that point.



‘I cannot declare myselfguilty. True, I confess tothe deed but I do notconfess to the crime ofhigh treason. There is noquestion of treason in anaction which aims to

undo the betrayal of thiscountry in 1918 … Therewas no such thing as hightreason against the

traitors of 1918. I feelmyself the best ofGermans who desiredwhat was best for hispeople… ‘



‘You will not be theones to deliver theverdict … that will be

given by the eternal judgement of historywhich will speak outagainst the accusation

that has been madeagainst us… Youmight as well find usguilty a thousand

times, but thegoddess of theeternal court ofhistory will smile and…finds us not guilty.’



At no stage in the trial was any mention made of thefour policemen killed during the putsch.

Neither was there any reference to the fact that the SAhad taken as hostages, socialist politicians and evenmembers of the Bavarian cabinet.

The presiding judge, Georg Niethardt, had sentencedHitler to probation at an earlier trial in 1922, but madeno reference to this during the proceedings.

In short, while the judges could not condone the illegaluse of violence, they quite clearly sympathised withHitler’s views and actions.

This was reflected in the sentence that they gave.



APRIL FOOL

As an Austrian who had committed treason, Hitler mighthave been sentenced to life imprisonment; at the veryleast, he might have expected to be deported.

However, so sympathetically inclined towards Hitler werethe lay members of the panel in particular that the court

ended up sending Hitler to jail for only five years. In theevent, he would serve only eleven months in prison.

Ludendorff was acquitted.

In delivering its verdict, the court stressed ‘the pure

patriotic motives and honourable intentions’ of Hitler. The verdict was widely denounced as an Aprilscherz

(April Fool’s Joke), so lenient was the sentence.



LANDSBERG PRISON His spell in Landsberg gave

Hitler time to reflect on

what had gone wrong.

In Mein Kampf , a volumethat he composed in prison,he laid out a new plan ofaction.

Putschist tactics had failed.

In future, the Nazi Partywould try to come to powerby other means.

This became known as the

legal revolution.

‘Conditions more akin to a hotel than apenitentiary.’ IAN KERSHAW



THE LESSONS OF THE PUTSCH The Nazi Party would now try to come to power through legal

means.

Hitler leavesLandsbergprison with

some newideas on howhis partymightsucceed.



The party changed …

…but not entirely.

It did not change its policies at all . The originalparty programme remained intact, an uncomfortablemix of right-wing and left-wing ideas.

It did not abandon violence. The party retainedthe SA, its paramilitary branch.

What Hitler did change was the Nazi Party’s strategyfor getting into power. The party would in future

compete in Reichstag elections and get to powerlegally.

Once in power, it would destroy the Weimar

Republic from within.



To get into power, Hitler would need thebacking of both the German Army and theGerman elites.

The party needed to win some respectability. Violence was not abandoned but it would infuture be more carefully channelled.

The elites and the middle classes wouldwelcome tough action against the communistsbut they also respected the need for law andorder and would not back the Nazis if they

thought them to be no more than thugs whowere out of control.

No longer the drummer.

He would now be the fuehrer of a national

revolution.



‘ When I resume active work itwill be necessary to pursue anew policy. Instead of workingto achieve power by armed

conspiracy we shall have to holdour noses and enter theReichstag along against theCatholic and Marxist deputies.

If outvoting them takes longerthan outshooting them, at leastthe results will be guaranteed

by their own Constitution!

… Sooner or later we shall havea majority and after that we

shall have Germany.’



THE NAZI PARTY AFTER THEPUTSCH

Hitler with visitors in Landsberg

Prison. While in prison, Hitler

nominated AlfredRosenberg to runthe party in hisabsence.

Hitler deliberately

picked a weak stand-in so that his positioncould not bethreatened while hewas in jail.



SPLITS AND SQUABBLES Alfred Rosenberg –temporary

leader of the Nazi Party during

Hitler’s imprisonment The problem with

nominating a weakstand-in was that

Rosenberg provedto be so ineffectivethat squabbles andsplits began to

threaten the unityof the party.



Gregor Strasser (picturedopposite) was the leadingfigure in the northern wing ofthe Nazi Party. Unlike

Rosenberg, he was anoutstanding organiser. Buthe took the ‘socialism’ inNational Socialism a bit moreseriously than did Hitler and

wanted to pull the party in amore left-wing direction.

The SA (bottom right),thrived on violence and were

not comfortable with Hitler’sidea of a legal revolution inwhich the emphasis would beon coming to powerlegitimately through the

winning of Reichstag seats.



DECLINING POPULAR SUPPORT While the legal revolution strategy

enjoyed early success, it did not lastvery long.

Look at the two Reichstag electionresults for 1924.

The Nazis won 32 seats (7% of thevote) in the first election in 1924.

But in a second election in the sameyear, they quickly dropped to 14 seats(3% of the vote).

In 1928, the party fell even further – to just 12 seats (less than 3% of thevote).

The legal revolution was not animmediate success.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

NAZI ELECTORAL SUCCESS

1924 (1)

1924 (2)

1928



IN THE DOLDRUMS When the Weimar Republic was doing badly, the Nazi Party tended

to do well.

It won 32 seats when the French were still in the Ruhr and hyper-inflation was still rampant.

When the Weimar Republic did better, the Nazi Party tended tofade.

At the end of 1924, in the second election of that year, the Nazisplummeted to just 14 seats after the French had left the Ruhr andthe hyper-inflation had been cured by introduction of theRentenmark .

The Nazis were basically …

… a party of protest.

1924-28 were the Golden Years of Weimar. No wonder that theNazis had slipped to under 3% of the vote by 1928.







CONCLUSIONS2. L ONG-TERM

More positive The trial had won Hitler a lot of sympathy and also gave the party a

huge injection of publicity. The Nazis still had few supporters, butat least now they had name recognition. They were a party knownnationally, not just in Bavaria.

The legal revolution had stalled by 1928. But eventually it worked.

In 1932 the Nazis would become the largest party in Germany.

In 1933 Hitler would be appointed Chancellor.

Also in 1933 an Enabling Law would make it possible for Hitler to

set up a legal dictatorship that finally swept away all of the featuresof the Weimar Republic that he and his party so despised.

The lessons of the putsch were in the end well-learnt and put tostunning success.

However, it would take an economic catastrophe, the Great

Depression, to create the context in which the legal revolutioncould succeed

Documents

The Munich Putsch4