The Munich Putsch + the lean years, 1923-29

The Munich Putsch

Reasons for

Events

Consequences

Reasons for limited support for the Nazi Party

Party reorganisation + Mein Kampf

The Bamberg Conference of 1926

When the economic + political crises of 1923 hit Germany, Hitler decided that the Nazi Party was in a position to overthrow the regional government in Munich + could then march on Berlin.

Hitler detested the Weimar Republic + he felt that Weimar was now so disgraces it could easily be toppled (following the invasion of the Ruhr + the onset of hyperinflation).

The Nazi Party had grown in strength + popularity in Munich + Bavaria, + therefore Hitler decided that his first step would be to seize control of Bavaria + then Berlin.

  • Hitler hated the Weimar Republic
  • Weimar was disgraced; Hitler believed people across Germany would support him instead
  • Growth of the Nazi Party. It had increased support by 1923, especially in Bavaria
  • Hitler detested Versailles + wanted to remove the terms of the treaty
  • Hitler had won the support of General Ludendorff, the former army Commander-in-Chief, an extremely popular figure
  • The SA would be used as armed support
  • Hitler was confident that Kahr + the army in Bavaria would support him
  • Weimar blamed for hyperinflation

Many within Bavaria intensely disliked the new Weimar government and saw them as weak. Hitler thought he would take advantage of this and plotted with two nationalist politicians - Kahr and Lossow - to take over Munich in a revolution. Hitler collected the SA and told them to be ready to rebel.
But then, on 4 October 1923, Kahr and Lossow called off the rebellion. This was an impossible situation for Hitler, who had 3,000 troops ready to fight.


On the night of 8 November 1923, Hitler and 600 SA members burst into a meeting that Kahr and Lossow were holding at the local Beer Hall. Waving a gun at them, Hitler forced them to agree to rebel - and then let them go home. The SA took over the army headquarters and the offices of the local newspaper.

The next day, 9 November 1923, Hitler and the SA went into Munich on what they thought would be a triumphal march to take power. However, Kahr had called in police and army reinforcements. There was a short scuffle in which the police killed 16 members of the SA. Hitler fled, but was arrested two days later.

The Munich Putsch was a failure in the short term, but it was also an important event in the Nazis’ rise to power. As a result of the Putsch:

Short term failure -

  • The Nazi Party was banned + Hitler was prevented from speaking in public until 1927
  • Hitler was tried for high treason (betraying his country) and sentenced to five years in prison

Long term success -

  • Hitler served only 9 months in jail. During his time in the comfortable Landsberg Prison, he wrote 'Mein Kampf' – a propaganda book setting out Nazi beliefs. Millions of Germans read it, and Hitler's ideas became very well-known.
  • Hitler's trial was a propaganda success for the Nazi Party - Hitler made himself known nationally + won support from other nationalists
  • Hitler realised that he would never come to power by revolution and that he would have to use democratic means, so he reorganised the party to enable it to take part in elections.

Hitler was released from jail after the Munich Putsch in December 1924. He committed the Nazis to democratic politics – taking part in elections – and began to reorganise the party, strengthening his authority as leader and beginning to build a national party structure.

The decision to pursue power through democratic methods meant the party needed a national structure to attract members, develop policies and campaign. Hitler put this in place during 1925 and 1926.

Whilst in jail, Hitler wrote a book called Mein Kampf (My Struggle), which contained his political views. Many of the ideas contained in the books directly informed Nazi policy after 1933 under the Third Reich, including:

  • The belief that the Jews were an inferior race to the German Aryans, and also represented a threat to the German state
  • The need to destroy the parliamentary system of government and replace it with that of a single, strong dictator (from democracy back to autocracy)
    The sentence allowed Hitler to reflection the Putsch + his future in politics.

It was decided to create party branches called Gaue, each led by a Gauleiter. Hitler made sure that only his closest associates helped run the party from Munich, + these people + the Gauleiter pushed the idea of the leadership principle.

  • Hitler continued to strengthen his position as leader of the party.

Despite all of this development of the party, by 1928 the Nazis were still on the fringes of politics in Weimar Germany for several reasons.

  • Hitler insisted that policies which could be painted as communist, such as taking land from rich noblemen, would not be pursued.
  • However, the conference did reaffirm the 25-Point Programme, with its socialist ideas, as the party’s policy platform.
  • In addition, Hitler established the Fuhrerprinzip, or ‘Leader Principle’, the idea that the party’s leader was in absolute control and all members must follow his directions. No dissent from this was expected or tolerated.
  • Gustav Stresemann’s economic policies had helped Germany a lot. After 1923, the introduction of a new currency and the Dawes Plan had helped to turn Weimar’s economy around and Germans began to feel more prosperous.
  • As a result of this, Germany was also more politically stable. Germans voted for moderate parties who supported the Republic, rather than more extreme parties like the Nazis who wanted to abolish it.
  • At a time of stability, scaremongering and playing on people’s fears was less likely to work. The Nazis’ messages about the dangers posed by Jews and the need to abolish democracy largely fell on deaf ears.
  • Hitler was jailed and then banned from speaking in public until 1927 after the Munich Putsch. This prevented the party from campaigning effectively.
    The Nazi Party was under constant pressure from the Weimar authorities following the Munich Putsch. Several times it was banned nationally or in certain parts of Germany.