The Munich Putsch

A shot into the ceiling

At about half past eight on the evening of 8 November 1923, Adolf Hitler pushed into a political meeting at the Burgerbraukeller, a beer hall in Munich, with around 600 armed SA men, climbed onto a chair, fired a pistol into the ceiling and announced that the national revolution had begun. The three men who ran Bavaria, Gustav von Kahr, General von Lossow and the police chief Seisser, were taken into a side room and, with a gun in the room, agreed to join him. General Ludendorff, the most famous soldier in Germany, arrived to give the coup respectability. By morning the three had escaped and turned the army and police against him. At about noon on 9 November Hitler and Ludendorff led around 2,000 men through the city towards the Odeonsplatz, where a police cordon opened fire. Sixteen Nazis and four policemen died. Hitler dislocated his shoulder in the fall, fled in a car, and was arrested two days later at the house of a friend at Uffing. The Putsch had lasted less than a day. Its consequences lasted a decade: a trial that made Hitler famous, a prison term in which he wrote his book, and a decision to win power by the ballot box rather than the gun. The exam asks why he tried, why it failed, and what followed. This module gives you the dated evidence for all three.

Five words the examiners use

Each definition ends with the moment it mattered, because a bare definition earns nothing in a 12-mark answer.

The Putsch and after, in order

Put these six events in the order they happened.

• Stresemann calls off passive resistance in the Ruhr, and Bavaria declares a state of emergency under Kahr
• Hitler seizes the Burgerbraukeller meeting and forces the triumvirate to support him at gunpoint
• The march through Munich is stopped by police fire at the Odeonsplatz
• Hitler is tried for treason and uses the courtroom as a platform
• Hitler dictates Mein Kampf in Landsberg and is released after nine months
• The Nazi Party is refounded under a strategy of winning power legally

Why did Hitler attempt the Putsch in November 1923?

The Nazi Party had perhaps 55,000 members and no seats in the Reichstag. Which explanation best accounts for the decision to try to seize power?

• The republic looked finished: the mark was worthless, the French held the Ruhr, and Stresemann had ended passive resistance on 26 September, which nationalists called surrender; Bavaria under Kahr was openly defying Berlin and seemed ready to march on it, so Hitler feared being left behind if he did not act first; Mussolini had shown a year earlier that a march could bring down a government; and Ludendorff gave the plan a name the army might follow.
• The German army had promised to support him.
• The Nazis had just lost an election and had no other route.
• The Berlin government invited him to restore order.

Why it failed, and why the failure paid

The exam can ask either question. Have both columns ready, and notice that the second column depends on the first: a Putsch that had succeeded would have given Hitler Bavaria, not Germany.

Question 1: inference from a source

Source A: from the closing speech Hitler made at his trial in Munich in March 1924. A student infers that Hitler was using the trial to appeal to the army and to nationalist opinion rather than to defend himself. Tap the TWO details that support that inference most directly.

• There is no such thing as treason against the traitors of 1918. I feel myself the best of Germans, who wanted the best for the German people.
• On the evening of 8 November I entered the hall at about half past eight with a number of my men.
• The army we have formed grows from day to day. The hour will come when these rough companies will grow to battalions, the battalions to regiments, and the old flags will wave again.
• General Ludendorff arrived at the hall at about nine and agreed to take command of the national army.
• In the fall at the Odeonsplatz my shoulder was dislocated and I was taken from the square by car.

The lean years, 1924 to 1928

Select the THREE statements that correctly explain why the Nazis won little support between the Putsch and 1928.

• The Stresemann recovery removed the grievances the Nazis fed on: the Rentenmark ended inflation in November 1923, the Dawes Plan brought loans in 1924, and the vote fell from 6.5 per cent in May 1924 to 2.6 per cent in May 1928.
• The party was banned after the Putsch and Hitler was forbidden to speak in public in Bavaria until 1927, so the movement had to be rebuilt from nothing in February 1925.
• The party spent the years reorganising for the long game, with Gauleiter for each region, the SS founded in 1925, the Hitler Youth in 1926, and after Bamberg in 1926 a shift from the industrial workers, who stayed with the SPD and KPD, towards the farmers and small towns where the vote would come from 1930.
• Hitler stayed in prison until 1928.
• The party split permanently between Hitler and Strasser.
• Most former Nazi voters switched to the Communists.

Two interpretations of the Putsch

Question 3 gives you two interpretations and asks how they differ, why, and how far you agree. The two below were written for this module to show the shape of the argument; the exam will print real historians. Interpretation 1. The Munich Putsch was a fiasco that exposed Hitler as an amateur. He misjudged the Bavarian leaders, had no plan once they deserted him, and led his followers into a police cordon that scattered them in under a minute. The party was banned, its leader was imprisoned, and by 1928 it was polling under 3 per cent. Whatever came later, November 1923 was a defeat. Interpretation 2. The Putsch was the making of Hitler. The trial gave him a national platform that no speech in a Munich beer hall could have matched, the sentence was so light that it advertised how much sympathy he enjoyed, and the months at Landsberg produced both Mein Kampf and the strategy of legality. The Nazis who took power in 1933 were the product of the lesson learned in 1923. Question 3(c) asks why they differ. The answer is the time frame and the evidence: Interpretation 1 judges the Putsch by its result in 1923 and 1924 and reads the vote of 1928; Interpretation 2 judges it by what Hitler did with the failure and reads the trial, the book and the reorganisation. This meant that the same events can be a defeat for the party and a victory for its leader, and a judgement that says so, with the dates, reaches the top level.

In the shoes of Hitler, 1923 to 1925

Four decisions from the beer hall to the refounding. Choose what Hitler actually did, and notice what each choice cost or won.

• Dawn, 9 November 1923. Kahr, Lossow and Seisser have escaped, the army has been ordered against you, and Rohm is holding the War Ministry with a few hundred men. What do you do?
• February 1924. You are on trial for treason before a Bavarian court, with a sympathetic judge and the national press in the room. How do you plead?
• Summer 1924. You are in Landsberg with a private room, visitors and a secretary. The party outside is banned and splitting. What do you do with the time?
• February 1925. You are out of prison and the ban on the party has been lifted, though you are still banned from speaking in Bavaria. What do you do?

From cause to consequence

Because the mark was worthless and the French were in the Ruhr, nationalists in _____ were planning a march on Berlin in the autumn of 1923. Because Kahr and Lossow withdrew their support once they were out of the beer hall, the army and police were waiting on 9 November and _____ Nazis were shot dead. Because the judge let Hitler speak for hours at his _____, the failure made him known across Germany. Because he served only nine months, he had time to dictate _____ and to decide on legality. And because the _____ took away the grievances, the party polled under 3 per cent in 1928 while building the machine for 1930.

How lenient was the sentence?

Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison for the Putsch but served only nine months. What percentage of his sentence did he actually serve?

Question 3(b): the main difference

Question 3(b) asks: What is the main difference between the two interpretations on the callout card? Explain your answer using both. Which answer would score all four marks?

• The main difference is that Interpretation 1 judges the Putsch a failure by its immediate result, pointing to the scattered march, the ban and the vote of under 3 per cent in 1928, whereas Interpretation 2 judges it a success by what Hitler made of it, pointing to the trial, the light sentence, the book written in Landsberg and the turn to elections that led to 1933.
• Interpretation 2 says the Putsch made Hitler famous and gave him a strategy.
• I agree with Interpretation 2 because the Nazis did take power in 1933.
• They differ because one thinks the Putsch was bad and the other thinks it was good.

A 12-mark paragraph, marked

Question 2: Explain why Hitler attempted the Munich Putsch in November 1923. One reason Hitler attempted the Putsch was the crisis of the republic in the autumn of 1923. The French occupation of the Ruhr from January had led the government to print money to pay striking workers, so that by November the mark had collapsed to 4,200 billion to the dollar and the savings of the middle class were gone. When Stresemann called off passive resistance on 26 September and resumed reparations, nationalists across Germany called it a surrender, and in Bavaria the state government under Kahr declared its own emergency and began talking openly about a march on Berlin. This meant that Hitler believed the republic was about to fall to somebody, and that if the Nazis did not lead the march the Bavarian conservatives would make it without them. He struck on 8 November because the moment seemed to be passing. The crisis was the reason the Putsch happened when it did. What earned the marks: a cause named in the first sentence; specific support (the Ruhr, the exchange rate, 26 September, Kahr, the march on Berlin); the link phrase this meant that; and a closing sentence that returns to the question. Two more paragraphs, on the example of Mussolini and the March on Rome and on the support Hitler expected from Ludendorff and the army, and the answer reaches the top level.

Write the 12-mark answer

Explain why Hitler attempted the Munich Putsch in November 1923. You may use the following in your answer: hyperinflation; the March on Rome. You must also use information of your own.

• Support that counts: a date, a figure, a name or a place
• Causes of your own: the end of passive resistance, the Bavarian government under Kahr, or the support Hitler expected from Ludendorff and the army

Question 3(d): how far do you agree?

Question 3(d) asks: How far do you agree with Interpretation 2 about the Munich Putsch? Use both interpretations and your own knowledge. A student has written the case FOR Interpretation 2. Which is the strongest point to set AGAINST it?

• The trial and the book are real gains, but Interpretation 2 reads 1923 through 1933: at the time the party was banned, its leader was silenced in Bavaria until 1927, and the reorganised movement still took only 2.6 per cent in 1928, so the lesson of legality produced nothing until the Depression gave it voters, which means the Putsch made Hitler ready for a crisis but did not make the crisis, and a judgement should give it the strategy and give the Depression the success.
• Sixteen Nazis died, so it cannot have been a success.
• Ludendorff was acquitted, which shows the trial was unfair.
• Mein Kampf sold badly at first.