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Beer Hall Putsch

The Beer Hall Putsch or Munich Putsch was a failed attempt by the German National Socialist (Nazi) Party to seize power, first of the Bavarian and then the German federal government on 8-9 November 1923. The coup, led by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), failed because other right-wing politicians, the police, and the army did not give their support.

The Nazis & the Crisis of 1923

Hitler became leader of the Munich-based NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) in 1921, taking over from Anton Drexler (1884-1942). The party was neither socialist nor at all interested in workers, but Hitler had chosen the name to give his ultra-nationalist party as wide an appeal as possible. Known as the Nazi Party, it was also vehemently anti-Semitic and against the German establishment, which it saw as the root of all ills, everything from the signing of the humiliating Treaty of Versailles which formally closed the First World War (1914-18) to hyperinflation. The Weimar Republic, as Germany was now known, was beset by weak coalition governments, which struggled to cope with a series of severe post-war challenges. By 1923, the Nazi Party had over 55,000 members, although this was much fewer than the Social Democratic Party, for example, which had 1.2 million members.

In the summer of 1923, the German government was in the middle of yet another crisis. France had invaded parts of the heavily industrialised Ruhr in western Germany in order to force the country to make good on its obligations to pay France war reparations. The government declared a state of emergency, and the army was given chief executive power. In Munich, the leader of the local government, Gustav Ritter von Kahr (1862-1934), the local army chief, and the chief of the police force were all given extraordinary powers to deal with the crisis. All were right-wing in political orientation, and Hitler saw this as an opportunity to take power, or, even better, to force an invitation to take power from what he considered like-minded politicians and army figures. Hitler ultimately intended to march on Berlin, much like the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) had marched on Rome to seize power in October 1922 (when the Italian king felt obliged to invite him to power). First, Hitler would deal with Munich, and his primary weapon would be his own paramilitary followers.

The Nazis used a paramilitary group, the SA (Sturmabteilung) stormtroopers, to frequently rough up the political opposition and generally strut about looking important. The SA, led by Ernst Röhm (1887-1934), even became too powerful for Hitler's liking, and so he created his own personal bodyguard called the Stosstrupp-Hitler (Hitler Shock Troop). Stosstrupp members included Julius Schreck (1898-1936), Joseph Berchtold (1897-1962), Ulrich Graf (1878-1950), Hermann Göring (1893-1946), and Rudolf Hess (1894-1987). Other key supporters of Hitler included General Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937), the WWI veteran who had found himself out of favour with the Weimar establishment ever since the armistice. Hitler hoped General Ludendorff would be a respectable figurehead for a Nazi-driven coup d'etat.

Nazi Gathering, Bürgerbräukeller

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-004-12A / Hoffmann, Heinrich (CC BY-SA)