THE MUNICH PUTSCH 4

TRIAL AND LEGACY

THE DEFENDANTS
Hitler in raincoat and moustache; Ludendorff stands on Hitlers right; Rohm of the SA is on the far right of the photograph.

NOT A NORMAL TRIAL

Hitler was not treated as an ordinary defendant would have expected to be treated. He was allowed to turn the court-room into a political soap-box from which he preached the Nazi cause and tried to justify the putsch attempt. The presiding judge allowed him an extraordinary four hours in which to express his political thoughts. All the time, journalists made notes and were able to report Hitlers political philosophy throughout Germany. It was the best publicity that the party had ever had up to that point.

I cannot declare myself guilty. True, I confess to the deed but I do not confess to the crime of high treason. There is no question of treason in an action which aims to undo the betrayal of this country in 1918 There was no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918. I feel myself the best of Germans who desired what was best for his people

You will not be the ones to deliver the verdict that will be given by the eternal judgement of history which will speak out against the accusation that has been made against us You might as well find us guilty a thousand times, but the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and finds us not guilty.

At no stage in the trial was any mention made of the four policemen killed during the putsch. Neither was there any reference to the fact that the SA had taken as hostages, socialist politicians and even members of the Bavarian cabinet. The presiding judge, Georg Niethardt, had sentenced Hitler to probation at an earlier trial in 1922, but made no reference to this during the proceedings. In short, while the judges could not condone the illegal use of violence, they quite clearly sympathised with Hitlers views and actions. This was reflected in the sentence that they gave.

APRIL FOOL

As an Austrian who had committed treason, Hitler might have been sentenced to life imprisonment; at the very least, he might have expected to be deported. However, so sympathetically inclined towards Hitler were the lay members of the panel in particular that the court ended up sending Hitler to jail for only five years. In the event, 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 Fools 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 volume that he composed in prison, he laid out a new plan of action. Putschist tactics had failed.

Conditions more akin to a hotel than a penitentiary. IAN KERSHAW

In future, the Nazi Party would try to come to power by other means.
This became known as the legal revolution.

THE LESSONS OF THE PUTSCH

The Nazi Party would now try to come to power through legal means.
Hitler leaves Landsberg prison with some new ideas on how his party might succeed.

The party changed but not entirely.

party programme remained intact, an uncomfortable mix of right-wing and left-wing ideas. It did not abandon violence. The party retained the SA, its paramilitary branch. What Hitler did change was the Nazi Partys strategy for getting into power. The party would in future compete in Reichstag elections and get to power legally. Once in power, it would destroy the Weimar Republic from within.

It did not change its policies at all. The original

To get into power, Hitler would need the backing of both the German Army and the German elites. The party needed to win some respectability. Violence was not abandoned but it would in future be more carefully channelled. The elites and the middle classes would welcome tough action against the communists but they also respected the need for law and order and would not back the Nazis if they thought them to be no more than thugs who were out of control. No longer the drummer. He would now be the fuehrer of a national revolution.

 When I resume active work it will be necessary to pursue a new policy. Instead of working to achieve power by armed conspiracy we shall have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag along against the Catholic and Marxist deputies.

If outvoting them takes longer than outshooting them, at least the results will be guaranteed by their own Constitution!
Sooner or later we shall have a majority and after that we shall have Germany.

Hitler with visitors in Landsberg Prison.

THE NAZI PARTY AFTER THE PUTSCH

While in prison, Hitler nominated Alfred Rosenberg to run the party in his absence. Hitler deliberately picked a weak standin so that his position could not be threatened while he was in jail.

SPLITS AND SQUABBLES

Alfred Rosenberg temporary leader of the Nazi Party during Hitlers imprisonment

The problem with nominating a weak stand-in was that Rosenberg proved to be so ineffective that squabbles and splits began to threaten the unity of the party.

Gregor Strasser (pictured opposite) was the leading figure in the northern wing of the Nazi Party. Unlike Rosenberg, he was an outstanding organiser. But he took the socialism in National Socialism a bit more seriously than did Hitler and wanted to pull the party in a more left-wing direction.
The SA (bottom right), thrived on violence and were not comfortable with Hitlers idea of a legal revolution in which the emphasis would be on coming to power legitimately through the winning of Reichstag seats.

DECLINING POPULAR SUPPORT

While the legal revolution strategy enjoyed early success, it did not last very long. Look at the two Reichstag election results for 1924.
35

NAZI ELECTORAL SUCCESS

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

30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1924 (1) 1924 (2) 1928

But in a second election in the same year, 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 the vote). The legal revolution was not an immediate success.

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 hyperinflation was still rampant. When the Weimar Republic did better, the Nazi Party tended to fade. At the end of 1924, in the second election of that year, the Nazis plummeted to just 14 seats after the French had left the Ruhr and the hyper-inflation had been cured by introduction of the Rentenmark. The Nazis were basically a party of protest. 1924-28 were the Golden Years of Weimar. No wonder that the Nazis had slipped to under 3% of the vote by 1928.

IN THE DOLDRUMS

A sad-looking Hitler

The legal revolution did not seem to be working. The party threatened to split along left-right lines. To add to the partys woes, Hitler had been banned from public speaking. He also had his Austrian citizenship cancelled but was not granted German citizenship. He was therefore officially stateless.

CONCLUSIONS

How can we sum up the impact of the Munich Putsch?

1. SHORT-TERM

Highly negative Putsch failed to establish control even over Munich, never mind the whole of Germany. Hitler had been abandoned by the German army and the elites. The leader of the party was in prison and had been banned from public speaking. While he was in jail, the party threatened to fall apart. The legal revolution was not popular with the SA. The legal revolution showed no signs of working by as late as 1928.

2. LONG-TERM More positive

CONCLUSIONS

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, but at least now they had name recognition. They were a party known nationally, 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 features of the Weimar Republic that he and his party so despised. The lessons of the putsch were in the end well-learnt and put to stunning success. However, it would take an economic catastrophe, the Great Depression, to create the context in which the legal revolution could succeed.