The failed “Beer Hall Putsch” is also one of the most important historical lessons of the 20th century
As we know, Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 after several years of continuous gains by the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in parliamentary elections. Shortly after being appointed chancellor, he gave himself a new title: “Führer und Reichskanzler” (Leader and Chancellor of the Reich—although the latter part was quietly dropped later). This was the result of the gradual rise of the NSDAP and, despite their paramilitary activities and campaign of violence, the fact remains that the Nazi Party under Hitler “legitimately” and democratically won power. However, Hitler chose this long path only after realizing that the quicker way—seizing power through a coup—would not work for him, because he had already tried it a full decade earlier, on November 8, 1923.
Of course, we are talking about the Munich Putsch, or attempted putsch. It is often called the “Beer Hall Putsch.” At that time, many cities in Germany, especially in the south, had enormous beer halls where hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of people gathered in the evenings to drink beer and discuss political and social issues. Political rallies were sometimes held in such beer halls—it was logical, since everyone knew where to find the most politically engaged Germans in the evening: drinking beer.
One of the largest such beer halls in Munich was the Bürgerbräukeller, and this is exactly where Hitler, in 1923, tried to carry out his coup and come to power by force—a revolution, technically. He failed, of course, but what if he hadn’t? Would the Second World War have started ten years earlier? Lasted ten years longer? Would he, as a putschist and dictator, have been isolated from the rest of the world in a way he would not be after coming to power in 1933? The potential consequences of a successful “beer hall putsch” lead into endless historical debates, but one consequence of the failed putsch is a historical fact—it became the springboard Hitler had been missing…
The Nazi Party had been founded only three years earlier—its full name was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). Many often mistakenly claim (and many pretend not to know) that the party’s name is some kind of “proof” that Nazism was actually closely linked to Marxism because of the word “socialist.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The NSDAP had its roots in the German nationalist paramilitary “Freikorps” scene active during the First World War, whose primary goal was to draw workers away from communist ideas toward nationalism. Knowing that workers were enthusiastic about socialism, the NSDAP also began with anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeois rhetoric, but they certainly did not intend to offer a classless society. The rhetoric was only rhetoric, and the theoretical goals of Nazism and communism diverge diametrically after that. Naturally, once in power, the NSDAP quickly abandoned its anti-capitalist proclamations because it needed the support of business leaders—instead, by the 1930s, the rhetoric shifted toward antisemitism and anti-Marxism.
But let us return to the Munich beer hall.
As expected, the attempted Nazi coup in Munich was inspired by Benito Mussolini and his successful “March on Rome” a year earlier. Hitler and his associates decided that Munich would be their base—a base from which, after taking control, they would launch their own “march on Rome,” that is, on Berlin and the Weimar Republic itself (the name for Germany after the collapse of the German Empire, from the end of the First World War in 1918 until Hitler’s final rise to power in 1933, when it became the so-called “Third Reich”).
However, the situation in Italy and the situation in Germany were not the same, as Hitler would soon discover. That night, from November 8 to 9, 1923, Gustav von Kahr was delivering a speech in a large Munich beer hall. He was the “Staatskommissar,” or state commissioner for Bavaria, appointed in September 1923 to restrain the political unrest that had been gripping the region (in practice, the Staatskommissar had dictatorial powers).
Hitler planned to turn Kahr into an ally and believed he would support the coup—but he was gravely mistaken.
Inside, Kahr was giving his speech from the podium, hundreds of people were in attendance (many were Hitler sympathizers). Outside the building, Hitler’s “storm troops” (the SA—Sturmabteilung), better known as the “Brownshirts” (after the color of their uniforms), were gathering—this paramilitary organization would later give rise to the notorious SS.
The SA held guard outside; inside, Hitler and about twenty of his closest associates (including Hermann Göring, Alfred Rosenberg, Rudolf Hess, and others) suddenly stormed in. They pushed through the crowd and moved toward the stage. Almost everyone knew who they were, even though Hitler could not yet be called widely known in Germany at that time—but this night would change that…
Noise broke out, people stirred, and Hitler, wanting to take the floor, fired a single shot from his pistol into the ceiling, climbed onto a chair, and shouted: “The national revolution has broken out! This hall is surrounded by 600 armed men. No one may leave.” He went on to proclaim that the Bavarian regional government had “fallen” and that he was declaring a new government together with Erich Ludendorff. And who was Ludendorff? A famous German general from the First World War—someone Hitler very much needed to boost his legitimacy and influence.
Alongside Paul von Hindenburg (who would be German president from 1925 to 1934), Erich Ludendorff had been one of the main commanders of the German forces during the First World War. He also fit well with Hitler’s ideas, at least at first. Ludendorff was the first to promote the “stab-in-the-back” theory, claiming Germany lost the war due to a conspiracy of “Marxists, Bolsheviks, Freemasons, and Jews” (Hitler likely picked up the idea from him). Furthermore, Ludendorff developed the concept of “total war” (again something Hitler would later adopt) and described it in detail in his 1935 book Der totale Krieg (Total War), arguing that the entire physical and moral strength of a nation must be mobilized since “peace is only an interval between wars.”
Later, however, Hitler would distance himself from him. Ludendorff, together with his second wife Mathilde von Kemnitz, continued publishing books and essays arguing that Christianity was to blame for all the world’s problems. They also founded their own esoteric religious sect called the “Bund für Deutsche Gotterkenntnis” (Society for the Knowledge of God). Hitler was certainly a conspiracy theorist, but Ludendorff was too extreme even for him.
Back to the beer hall. Hitler was delivering his fiery speech in front of hundreds of attendees. How were they reacting? Quite enthusiastically—thunderous applause erupted between his sentences.
Where was Kahr, the Bavarian Staatskommissar whom Hitler wanted to win over? He had been taken to a side room along with two other Bavarian officials (formally, Bavaria was governed by a triumvirate: Kahr, police chief Hans Ritter von Seisser, and military general Otto von Lossow—all three spent several hours that night de facto detained by Hitler’s men). There, Hitler’s associates attempted to negotiate the formation of a new government that would include Hitler, Ludendorff, and the Nazis… But here came the biggest problem for Hitler. Kahr was unshakable—he sharply rejected such an “arrangement,” still furious that Hitler and his armed paramilitaries had stormed in literally mid-speech.
Around 9 p.m., Ludendorff arrived. He also tried to convince Kahr to accept the coup, but had no success. At around 10:30 p.m., Ludendorff decided to let Kahr and the others go.
Midnight passed. Hitler’s forces were operating in the city with orders to seize government buildings (they even occupied the hotel where foreign diplomats were staying), but the whole operation seemed somewhat disorganized. On the streets there were disturbances and confusion—as is usual in such situations, people did not know which side to support.
Morning came, and the confusion grew. Had Hitler’s coup succeeded? His supporters, some certainly drunk on beer, hoped that it had—but merely proclaiming a revolution and firing a shot into the ceiling was not enough to take control of Bavaria. The fact remained that they had failed to convince Kahr to support the putsch, though they hoped there was still time.
Dawn broke. What now? The armed SA men still stood outside the beer hall. They seemed unsure of what to do. Then the eternally militaristic Ludendorff stepped before them and shouted: “Wir marschieren!” (“We march!”). But toward where?
Obviously improvising, Ludendorff, together with Hitler and the other Nazis, led them toward the building of the Bavarian Ministry of Defense. But on the way, in front of the Feldherrnhalle monument at Odeonsplatz, they were met by a blockade—around 130 soldiers and police officers had already been deployed under the command of police commander Michael von Godin, who was clearly not a Nazi sympathizer.
A firefight broke out. Four police officers and sixteen Nazis were killed.
A few hours earlier, Hitler had ended his speech in the beer hall with these words: “To conclude, I will say only this—either the German revolution begins tonight, or we will all be dead before dawn!”
Dawn did come; Nazis lay dead, but Hitler was not among them—though he was wounded. The putsch had failed. The remaining Nazis were arrested, while Hitler managed to flee. His associates hid him for two days in a village near Munich, but he was eventually found and arrested.
The putsch failed largely because the police commanders remained loyal to the Bavarian authorities under Kahr. One of them said he would not allow this “Freikorps rabble” to spread chaos through the city.
The day after the failed coup, around 3,000 students—Hitler sympathizers—took to the streets; a brawl with the police broke out, and the unrest continued until news arrived that Hitler had been arrested. The students called Kahr and Lossow “Judases and traitors” for refusing to support Hitler.
But as we said, it was precisely the failed “beer hall putsch” that ultimately helped Hitler come to power—how? Because suddenly everyone who had never even heard of Hitler, both in Germany and abroad, now knew who Adolf Hitler was, what he stood for, and who his followers were… newspaper front pages were filled with stories about the failed putsch.
Hitler did not achieve his goal that night, but he gained national recognition—his first major propaganda victory. (And even today, in global politics, we witness how negative media coverage of someone can propel that very person to the top of power, can’t we?)
Hitler was convicted and imprisoned, and in prison he had the opportunity to carefully devise his new plan, which he presented in his book Mein Kampf, written while in confinement (from which he would be released after only nine months). The failed putsch completely changed Hitler’s perspective—he abandoned the idea of violent revolution and set out on a new path, a “strictly legal” path.
That second attempt—a democratic attempt—would succeed. In the parliamentary elections of May 1924, the NSDAP won 6.5% of the vote. By the 1928 elections their popularity had fallen, and they won only 2.6%. A marginal party? Certainly, but not for long. What could suddenly boost the ratings of such a radical party? When and under what circumstances would the public be willing to give radicals their vote? It isn’t hard to guess—a major financial crisis.
A massive and sudden financial crisis in Germany catapulted the Nazis sharply upward, because unlike other parties they offered the people a “solution,” and this is a historical lesson: in such crisis situations, the public is ready to accept a solution even from the worst actors.
In September 1930, the NSDAP—which just two years earlier had won a meager 2.6%—now won 18.3%. Their meteoric rise continued—in the 1932 elections they were already at 37.3%, and finally, in the March 1933 elections, they received an enormous 43.9% of the vote.
And that was that—nothing would stop Hitler anymore, not until the Battle of Berlin in 1945. President Hindenburg reluctantly appointed him chancellor, the Reichstag building was set on fire, the Nazis claimed it had been burned down by the communists, while all evidence points to the fact that they set the fire themselves in order to force President Hindenburg to accept a decree drastically limiting basic civil rights and allowing detention without trial.
On August 2, 1934, at the age of 86, President Hindenburg died. Only a day earlier, a conveniently timed law had been signed that stipulated that upon the president’s death, the office of president would be abolished and its powers merged with those of the chancellor. In other words, on the day the elderly Hindenburg died—the representative of Prussian nobility and Prussian military tradition—another Germany also died, and from its ashes the infamous Third Reich was created, led by a Führer who promised his people that their new empire would last at least 1,000 years.
And what became of the brave Gustav Kahr, the man who, on that November night in 1923, refused to bow to Nazi pressure and thus effectively broke Hitler’s putsch? Hitler would take revenge on him during the so-called “Night of the Long Knives,” the Nazi purge in Germany at the end of June 1934. On June 30, Nazis abducted him from his apartment in Munich. He was tortured on the way to the Dachau concentration camp. Immediately upon arrival at the death camp, the order was given to kill him. Officially, he was executed by firing squad, but historian Thomas Childers claims that Kahr’s death was far more horrific than an “ordinary” execution. He argues that Kahr was hacked to pieces with axes and that his mutilated body was thrown into a nearby swamp. Multiple sources agree that he was most likely killed by the notorious Dachau camp commandant, the sadistic Johann Kantschuster, who took pleasure in torturing people.
Many, many would meet the same fate as Kahr, and Hitler’s rise to power was the prelude to the terrifying Second World War—the greatest war in human history, which would take millions of lives. How much history is a teacher, and how much merely an indifferent narrator of life, only the future will tell—but the story of the rise of Nazism is a lesson far too often forgotten, along with the circumstances that enabled it.
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