Hitler’s Rise to Power p. 2
Hitler’s Rise to Power: The Beer Hall Putsch
Part One: https://medium.com/@majaisabella/hitlers-rise-to-power-p-1-84c2c386c96d
Also known as the Munich Putsch, this uprising was carefully organised by Hitler and the NSDAP who intended to overthrow the Weimar Republic. Hitler is well known for idolising Italy’s Mussolini in his early career, and this revolt was an emulation of the 1922 March on Rome, in which the Italian dictator marched into his country’s capital and forcefully took power, ending up as the Prime Minister.
A few key factors triggered this revolt, such as the long list of grievances from 1918 to 1923, including the poor reparations and frustration with the government’s handling of various happenings. Nationalist movements were increasingly popular as resentment for the Weimar Government grew. In 1923, however, hyperinflation hit its peak and savings were useless. It was cheaper to burn money than purchase wood to heat houses and buying everyday items was almost impossible. The French occupation of the German industrial area, the Ruhr, also occurred in 1923 and German business was overtaken while resisting workers were imprisoned.
On the 8th November 1923, Hitler and his SA troops stormed a meeting in a beer hall in Munich, where about 3,000 people had gathered, including three key government officials: Kahr, Seisser and Lossow. He announced that a revolution had begun and demanded the support of these men, handgun drawn. They, of course, provided it under duress, but had withdrawn it by the next day. He was originally successful in occupying police headquarters and the local Reichswahr but none of the groups who Hitler had expected support from delivered it, including the army, state police and even the general public. The next day when he marched on the Bavarian War Ministry, police successfully dispersed them in a shoot out that killed 16 NSDAP members and 4 policemen.
Hitler was arrested for high treason on the 11th at the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl, an intimate friend of his, and was sentenced to 5 years at Landsberg Prison. His time in prison was far from a regular punishment: he was treated well by the guards and post was allowed from his friends and supporters. He was released on parole at the end of 1924, despite objections from the state prosecutor and other status quo government officials. He’d spent just a year in prison, including his time on remand.
Famously, Hitler wrote the majority of the first volume of Mein Kampf while behind bars, which lays out his ideals for a German society based on race. Jewish people are equated to ‘germs’ and Hitler posits that the only solution was extermination, and while genocide is not explicitly stated, most historians determine that his intentions are made very clear by his writings.
On Hitler’s return to normal society, the country was a completely different place. The economy was doing much better, and politics were much smoother; the climate being so different would make it difficult for the NSDAP to enact the same kind of change they’d hoped for with the Beer Hall Putsch. The Nazi Party was banned in Bavaria as a result of the revolt, but upon a meeting with the Bavarian Prime Minister, the ban was lifted after Hitler promised to only seek power through democratic convention. Hitler’s public speeches, however, were quickly banned only a few weeks after the NSDAP was restored, when a particularly inflammatory speech was delivered in late February 1925. The NSDAP decided to refocus its efforts in Northern Germany, as a result of the troubles in Bavaria, and its rise continued, their next big break coming in the form of the devastating stock market crash in October 1929.
