Beer Hall Putsch

Hitler escaped immediate arrest and was spirited off to safety in the countryside. After two days, he was arrested and charged with treason.^[4]


The putsch brought Hitler to the attention of the German nation for the first time and generated front-page headlines in newspapers around the world. His arrest was followed by a 24-day trial, which was widely publicised and gave him a platform to express his nationalist sentiments. Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison,^{[note 2]} where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow prisoners Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess. On 20 December 1924, having served only nine months, Hitler was released.^[5][6] Once released, Hitler redirected his focus towards obtaining power through legal means rather than by revolution or force, and accordingly changed his tactics, further developing Nazi propaganda.^[7]

Background[edit]

In the early 20th century, many of the larger cities of southern Germany had beer halls, where hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of people would socialise in the evenings, drink beer and participate in political and social debates. Such beer halls also became the hosts of occasional political rallies. One of Munich's largest beer halls was the Bürgerbräukeller, which became the site where the putsch began.


After the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, Germany declined as a major European power. Like many Germans of the period, Hitler, who had fought in the German Army but still held Austrian citizenship at the time, believed the treaty to be a betrayal, with the country having been "stabbed in the back" by its own government, particularly as the German Army was popularly thought to have been undefeated in the field. For the defeat, Hitler scapegoated civilian leaders, Jews and Marxists, later called the "November Criminals".^[8]


Hitler remained in the army in Munich after the war. He participated in various "national thinking" courses, organised by the Education and Propaganda Department of the Bavarian Army under Captain Karl Mayr,^[9] of which Hitler became an agent. Captain Mayr ordered Hitler, then an army Gefreiter (not the equivalent of lance corporal, but a special class of private) and holder of the Iron Cross, First Class, to infiltrate the tiny Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ("German Workers' Party", abbreviated DAP).^[10] Hitler joined the DAP on 12 September 1919.^[11] He soon realised that he was in agreement with many of the underlying tenets of the DAP, and rose to its top post in the ensuing chaotic political atmosphere of postwar Munich.^[12] By agreement, Hitler assumed the political leadership of a number of Bavarian revanchist "patriotic associations", called the Kampfbund.^[13] This political base extended to include about 15,000 members of the Sturmabteilung (SA, literally "Storm Detachment"), the paramilitary wing of the NSDAP.


On 26 September 1923, following a period of terror and political violence, Bavarian Prime Minister Eugen von Knilling declared a state of emergency, and Gustav Ritter von Kahr was appointed Staatskomissar ("state commissioner"), with dictatorial powers to govern the state. In addition to von Kahr, Bavarian state police chief Colonel Hans Ritter von Seisser and Reichswehr General Otto von Lossow formed a ruling triumvirate.^[14] Hitler announced that he would hold 14 mass meetings beginning on 27 September 1923. Afraid of the potential disruption, one of Kahr's first actions was to ban the announced meetings,^[15] placing Hitler under pressure to act. The Nazis, with other leaders in the Kampfbund, felt they had to march upon Berlin and seize power or their followers would turn to the communists.^[16] Hitler enlisted the help of World War I general Erich Ludendorff in an attempt to gain the support of Kahr and his triumvirate. However, Kahr had his own plan with Seisser and Lossow to install a nationalist dictatorship without Hitler.^[16]