Beer Hall Putsch
On the night of 8-9 November 1923 — deliberately chosen to mark the fifth anniversary of the German 'revolution' of 1918 — Adolf Hitler and his stormtroopers burst into the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich, where Bavarian state commissioner Gustav von Kahr was addressing a meeting, and announced a national revolution. Hitler fired his pistol into the ceiling, declared that the national government in Berlin had been overthrown, and coerced the Bavarian leadership into apparent acquiescence at gunpoint. The putsch was modelled on Mussolini's March on Rome, with Hitler planning to march to Berlin and seize power. The following morning, the Nazi column marching through Munich — several thousand strong, with General Ludendorff prominent among them — was halted by police fire in the Residenzstrasse. Sixteen Nazis and four policemen were killed; Hitler was arrested two days later, having dislocated his shoulder when thrown to the ground. The putsch was a total military failure, but Hitler's trial became a national platform: his four-hour closing speech was reported across Germany, transforming him from a regional agitator into a nationally known figure. Sentenced to five years at Landsberg prison, he served nine months in comfortable conditions, dictating Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess. The book laid out his ideology — racial hierarchy, Jewish conspiracy, Lebensraum, war — with a clarity that was subsequently ignored or disbelieved by those who could have acted on it. Hitler drew the lesson that power must be sought through elections and the legal seizure of institutions rather than by street revolution.
- Year: 1923 CE
- Category: Political
