Peter Ross Range (5:44)

He loves the idea of getting into the German army. He wanted to be fully German, and this was one more chance to prove what a German he was.

Sally Helm (5:52)

That's longtime journalist Peter Ross Range, author of several books on Hitler. He told us the young Hitler fights in the Bavarian army. Munich is the state capital of Bavaria, and In October of 1918, a mustard gas attack leaves him temporarily blind. He's in the hospital recovering, when he hears the news of Germany's surrender.

Peter Ross Range (6:15)

He was devastated, according to his own account, by the news. You know, after four years all was.

Sally Helm (6:21)

Lost and soon all was chaos in Germany. The economy, tanks, Inflation skyrockets. People can't trust that money will have value tomorrow.

Peter Ross Range (6:31)

Sometimes people would prefer to barter food for things. For instance, two eggs for very expensive opera tickets.

Sally Helm (6:39)

Then food itself becomes scarce.

Peter Ross Range (6:41)

There was starvation, there were hunger riots.

Sally Helm (6:44)

In the midst of it all, Germany establishes its first democracy, the Weimar Republic. But that only creates more political instability. People resent the government in the capital city of Berlin. They're mad that Germany lost the war and had to pay punishing reparations. And all this tension is especially evident in Bavaria. It had always been a conservative state.

Peter Ross Range (7:09)

And now Bavaria became a kind of a safe haven for right wing forces. And they continued to gather there where a very nationalistic mood was developing.

Sally Helm (7:22)

It was German nationalism that had driven Adolf Hitler into the army. And now, even though the war is over, the army is where he wants to stay.

Peter Ross Range (7:33)

And why did he want to do that? Because he had no other place to sleep or eat. Being a soldier was the only real job that Hitler had ever had.

Sally Helm (7:42)

He's assigned a job as an army educator and informant. He's supposed to teach soldiers the principles of nationalism and sniff out any Marxist sympathizers in the ranks. Hitler also begins crystallizing his own political views at the time influenced by the right wing politics in Munich and by anti communist and anti Semitic periodicals and books.

Peter Ross Range (8:03)

And so he thought he had figured out why communism was bad, why why mixing races was bad. And he regarded Jews as a separate race from Germans and even the French for that matter, and had developed very strong ideas about these things, not very sophisticated, but he could declaim on them.

Sally Helm (8:21)

He gets the chance to do that in his role as an army educator. He lectures to a group of soldiers and it's at this point that he discovers his greatest skill.

Peter Ross Range (8:31)

Hitler kind of claims that that was the moment that he realized, quote, I could speak.

Sally Helm (8:37)

He'd never been a great soldier, but he turns out to be a powerful orator. His students give him high marks. One writes in his course review, Herr Hitler is, if I may say so, a born popular speaker. That skill will come to define the next months and years of Hitler's life. Soon after he gives those lectures, In September of 1919, something happens to set him on a new path.

Peter Ross Range (9:05)

It was the turning point in him going into politics. And you know, it was a critical moment in history for all of us.

Sally Helm (9:15)

It happens at a shabby looking pub in Munich. Hitler has been sent there as an army spy. He's supposed to observe a small meeting held by a fledgling right wing political group called the German Workers Party. And near the end of the meeting, one of the members spread starts making a speech about how Bavaria should separate from Germany. According to his telling, Hitler springs into action.

Peter Ross Range (9:39)

Hitler stands up and makes the opposite argument. He said not only should Bavaria stay with Germany and Prussia, but also annex Austria. Austria should be part of Greater Germany. Hitler was a great believer in Greater Germany. And in his own telling, he talked this guy into the floor and sort of chased him out of the meeting, quote, like a wet poodle, unquote. So this was the alleged moment of birth of Hitler's political career.

Sally Helm (10:09)

Hitler surely manipulates this story over the years as he hones his own political mythology. But most historians agree on what happens next.

Peter Ross Range (10:18)

The head of the party said, hey, that guy can talk, and sent him a postcard a few days later inviting him to join the party, which he did.

Sally Helm (10:29)

Within just a few months, the party realizes his strength. He's drawing large crowds, riling them up with his speeches. He'd start slow and simple, which had.

Peter Ross Range (10:39)

The effect generally of quieting the crowd down. And his speaking style then would rise to a crescendo, and he would become very physical and waving his arms and shaping his words with his hands. And this was something that folks were not necessarily used to in a political speaker.

Sally Helm (10:58)

Hitler would hammer on topics that, for a growing number of Munichers, hit home.

Peter Ross Range (11:04)

German nationalism, national greatness, the inflation problem, the horrible guys in Berlin who were running the country into the ground, the.

Sally Helm (11:13)

Guys who many Germans blamed for their loss. And in World War I, this appealed in particular to working class Germans, especially those who had been soldiers.

Peter Ross Range (11:23)

And they felt that Hitler was a person who could get the country back on the right track and who was promoting their point of view.

Sally Helm (11:31)

In his speeches, Hitler finds a scapegoat. He singles out Jewish people as a, quote, virus infecting the country. At the time, antisemitism was not uncommon in Germany.

Peter Ross Range (11:44)

But Hitler's way of thinking was much sharper, much more aggressive, encouraging violence among the members and turning it into what we came to know as the Nazi Party.

Sally Helm (11:57)

It wasn't just Munich's working classes who loved Hitler's speeches. He also made friends among the Munich elite. One of them helped him start a newspaper that would become a major propaganda outlet for the Nazis. And in the summer of 1921, Hitler declares himself the sole leader of his party. Over the next two years, the Nazi presence in Munich continues to grow. Membership skyrockets from 20,000 to 55,000 in 1923 alone. But in the larger world of German politics.

Peter Ross Range (12:31)

The Nazis were just a blip. Communists alone had 300,000 members in Germany and the Social Democrats had 2 million.

Sally Helm (12:39)

Hitler is undeterred. In fact, in 1923, he decides it is time for the Nazi party and him to seize control of Munich and then of the German capital, Berlin. The year before, Mussolini had staged his famous march on Rome and taken over the Italian government. This galvanizes Hitler.

Peter Ross Range (13:02)

He wanted to take over the government of Bavaria, the state government, and then very shortly thereafter, stage quote, a march on Berlin, just like Mussolini's march on Rome.

Sally Helm (13:13)

He's planning a coup in German, a putsch. And In November of 1923, he sees his moment. German society is still in turmoil, inflation has continued to soar, and the general State Commissioner of Bavaria announces that he is going to hold a meeting at a big, big beer hall in Munich. He's a conservative politician named Gustav von Kahr, and with him at the meeting will be two other powerful General Otto von Losso, who controls the German military in Bavaria, and Colonel Hans Ritter von Seisser, head of the Bavarian State Police. If Hitler wants to take over Berlin, he'll need their support. Luckily for him, they all hate the Weimar Republic and have talked about overthrowing it themselves. Unluckily for him, they considered him a.

Peter Ross Range (14:03)

Crazy extremist and they want nothing to.

Sally Helm (14:06)

Do with Hitler's putsch. But he is persistent. He decides he's just going to show up at the beer hall gathering, see if he can persuade the three men to view things his way with the help of a few hundred of his armed supporters.

Unknown (14:27)

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Sally Helm (15:27)

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Peter Ross Range (16:30)

Hitler is dressed, some people say he was dressed like a waiter. And nobody pays hardly any attention to him at all.

Sally Helm (16:38)

Finally, a little late, Gustav Karr gets up to begin his speech. Not long after, Hitler bursts through the doors. He elbows his way through the crowd towards the podium.

Peter Ross Range (16:53)

Hitler shouts for the crowd to quiet down and absolutely nothing happens. Nobody pays a bit of attention to it. So. So he jumps on a chair and he pulls out his pistol and fires it into the ceiling. And that quiets everybody down. And that's when he makes his fateful announcement that the national revolution has begun.

Sally Helm (17:24)

It has begun in his mind with this beer hall putsch. He has tried to take a crowd of 3,000 people hostage, but they're not having it. No one knows who he is really, and he seems insane.

Peter Ross Range (17:38)

And so he is rejected out of hand by most of the people in the room.

Sally Helm (17:43)

They jeer at him, call him names. Hitler again calls for silence. He warns the crowd. The hall is surrounded by 600 heavily.

Peter Ross Range (17:53)

Armed men, which is a wild exaggeration, we believe. But the folks in the beer hall didn't know that. And at this moment, the head of Hitler's small stormtrooper brigade drags a heavy machine gun into the entrance of the beer hall, which does indeed indicate that they mean business. And everybody freezes.

Sally Helm (18:15)

By this point, Hitler is riled up.

Peter Ross Range (18:18)

He looks like a guy who may be a little bit crazy, who may be foaming at the mouth.

Sally Helm (18:23)

He takes Carr, Loso and Seisser into a side room guarded by armed men. There he tries to convince them to join his revolution. He promises them high positions in his new government. He says they'll be serving a great nationalistic cause.

Peter Ross Range (18:39)

And he gets carried away with this at one point and lets them know that he has more bullets in his pistol. And if worse comes to worse, he will shoot them and maybe even shoot himself. This was the first time in this interesting event when Hitler talks about shooting himself. It's not the last time.

Sally Helm (18:58)

But despite these threats, the three leaders aren't buying it. Hitler's starting to get antsy. He's anxiously awaiting the arrival of a secret weapon. But the guy is late. So Hitler decides to do what he does best, stir up the crowd.

Peter Ross Range (19:14)

He knows he doesn't have the crowd on his side yet, so Hitler goes out and begins making a speech, basically preaching his nationalistic message. One eyewitness says it was like turning a glove inside out. I don't know about loving him, but they certainly came to support him very strongly.

Sally Helm (19:32)

It's exactly what he'd hoped for. The same people who had essentially booed Hitler are now cheering him on. Hitler walks back into the room where the three men are being held.

Peter Ross Range (19:42)

Now Hitler's able to say to them, you're not just with me, you're with this crowd. You're with the people.

Sally Helm (19:47)

And then, like clockwork, his secret weapon finally arrives in the form of a famed German general, Erich Ludendorff. Ludendorff was a World War I hero, a tall old school officer.

Peter Ross Range (20:06)

When he walked into the beer hall that night, people started standing ramrod straight and saying, attention. And acting as though he were the commander of the German armed forces, which he was not. But that's how revered he was in Germany at that time.

Sally Helm (20:21)

Ludendorff enters the side room and addresses these three captive leaders. He urges them to join the cause. He zeroes in on one in particular.

Peter Ross Range (20:31)

He turned to Loso, who was a general like him, and said, loso, let's do it.

Sally Helm (20:37)

Loso is now facing his superior.

Peter Ross Range (20:40)

He said, what a good German officer is supposed to say to a superior officer. Your Excellency's wish is my command. And they shook hands.

Sally Helm (20:48)

The other men protest for a little while, then finally relent. And Hitler leads them all back into the beer hall.

Peter Ross Range (20:56)

And he stages this moment of sentimental togetherness in which he goes and shakes each man's hand individually with almost tears in his eyes. And then they all sing together. 3,000 people what amounts to the national anthem, which is called the Song of Germany and has that famous opening line, Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles.

Sally Helm (21:20)

Then Hitler lets the crowd go, though they're questioned at the door and some who seem disloyal are detained. The three leaders, Carr, Losso and Seisser he keeps at the beer hall. Meanwhile, Hitler's men are out in Munich, attempting to take over barracks and police stations, declaring the new government, and destroying Jewish stores and homes along the way. Everything seems to be going as they'd planned until early in the morning when Hitler makes a big mistake. He leaves the beer hall to check how things are going with his putsch around Munich, and he puts Ludendorff in charge of the three men. They gradually ingratiate themselves with the general and say, hey, couldn't you let us go?

Peter Ross Range (22:08)

They give him their words of honor as officers, that they are still part of the plot.

Sally Helm (22:14)

Ludendorff believes them.

Peter Ross Range (22:16)

A word of honor in Germany and all of Europe in those days was considered a very serious business.

Sally Helm (22:23)

In this case, though, it proves flimsy. As soon as the three men are free, they publicly refute their alliance with Hitler and call in military backup.

Peter Ross Range (22:34)

And this is where it begins to unravel.

Sally Helm (22:41)

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Unknown (23:05)

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Sally Helm (23:34)

Hitler comes back to the beer hall to find the men gone. He's furious. Within the next few hours, it becomes clear that his plan is collapsing. But he decides to try one more thing. He calls for a march. He wants to show that he has the public on his side. More than 2,000 people show up, but halfway through their route, they clash with.

Peter Ross Range (24:00)

Bavarian police and total chaos breaks out. Four policemen were killed, but 13 of Hitler's men and one bystander or killed. Hitler himself missed being shot by only two feet. The man next to him, with whom he was linked arm in arm, got a bullet in the chest and died immediately. Hitler fell and got a dislocated shoulder.

Sally Helm (24:26)

He slinks away and jumps into a getaway car. He's driving towards the Austrian border when his car breaks down and he walks to a friend's villa nearby. The friend's wife, Helena, answers the door and hides him in the attic.

Peter Ross Range (24:44)

Within two days, the Bavarian police figured out where Hitler had gone and they went down and surrounded this villa on this lake. Hitler saw the police out there. He reached for his pistol yet again, and according to Helena, he had it up to his head, up to his temple, and was about to kill himself when she walked into the room and snatched it out of his hand and threw it into a flour barrel. Yet another one of those incredible moments when history might have been spared a man named Adolf Hitler had it turned out differently.

Sally Helm (25:18)

Instead, Hitler is taken to prison. He's despondent. He goes on a hunger strike. Outside the prison walls, his power is waning. Importantly, the Nazi party's daily newspaper is banned. But as Hitler's trial approaches, he starts to realize this could be an opportunity.

Peter Ross Range (25:41)

Hitler rightly sees the trial as a grandstand for politics and a way of trying to turn the tables on the established political order which is trying to put him in prison for a very long time.

Sally Helm (25:53)

Hitler is right that this is a chance to grandstand. As the trial approaches, Munichers are watching. On the opening day in late February 1924, every seat in the courtroom is taken and some in the crowd support the Coup. There are 10 defendants, including Ludendorff, who's widely seen as the ringleader. But people have also heard about this other conspiracy.

Peter Ross Range (26:19)

Everybody is kind of waiting to see this guy Hitler, who had done this wild and crazy and dangerous and almost possibly successful thing. So it was a very dramatic scene. People knew that something dramatic was going to happen.

Sally Helm (26:33)

Ludendorff enters the room first, but Adolf Hitler is right behind him.

Peter Ross Range (26:38)

Hitler enters the courtroom, you know, with his eyes darting here and there, described as being like a hungry animal. And all eyes are on him. He's kind of a star.

Sally Helm (26:48)

The judge in this trial is a known right wing sympathizer named George Neithart. He calls things to order and reportedly smiles at the defendants. Then he asks the prosecution to read the indictment. It's around 40 pages long, huge amount of detail.

Peter Ross Range (27:06)

And the charge culminated when the prosecutor, a man named Stenglein, said, for all the other actors and for all the other events, the truth of the matter is Hitler was the soul of the enterprise.

Sally Helm (27:18)

A damning charge, but it also makes Hitler a figure of central importance. And in that way, it's music to his ears. The court breaks for lunch, and then the judge calls Hitler to the stand. It's time for his opening statement.

Peter Ross Range (27:34)

So Hitler's moment has come. The courtroom was full, and he gets up to rebut the charge he makes what by some accounts was a four hour speech.

Sally Helm (27:44)

He starts by talking about his youth in Austria, how at 16 he had to start earning his own bread, which.

Peter Ross Range (27:51)

Is not true, but it made a good story. And he gets away with non stop talk, a flood of words.

Sally Helm (27:58)

He talks about his time as a loyal German soldier. He rails against the communists, the social democratic government, and he doesn't hold back on the racism.

Peter Ross Range (28:07)

Right in the first couple of minutes, Hitler comes right out and says, I went to Vienna as a world citizen, open minded world citizen, and I left as a convinced anti Semite. He just comes right out and says it.

Sally Helm (28:19)

And he uses the opportunity to make a case for himself as the leader Germany needs.

Peter Ross Range (28:24)

Hitler paints the picture of himself as a guy with nothing but Germany, his purest and best interests at heart. From a nationalistic point of view, to prevent Germany's downfall, which he constantly harps on.

Sally Helm (28:37)

He also manages to turn the tables on the three men who he feels betrayed. Commissioner Carr, General Loso and Colonel Sicer.

Peter Ross Range (28:46)

He successfully raises a number of questions about whether or not they were intending to do exactly the same thing and that he simply got one step ahead of them.

Sally Helm (28:58)

He claims they would have done it anyway. The marathon speech turns the courtroom into a theater. People are clapping and laughing on cue. One reporter calls it a dazzling performance. Hitler is using the same tricks that have galvanized working class Munichers for years. But now his audience is the world.

Peter Ross Range (29:20)

It made a very big first impression and it got the headlines to go with it, which is exactly what he wanted.

Sally Helm (29:28)

From then on, the trial turns into something of an Adolf Hitler showcase. He even gets the chance to question some of the prosecution's witnesses, which was legal, though not standard practice. When he questions General Oso, things get heated. They call each other names. The judge tries to calm things down, but no dice.

Peter Ross Range (29:49)

And finally Hitler says the only one here who has broken his word of honor is the lieutenant general himself. And accusing a general of the army of having broken his word of honor was the kind of thing that used to lead to duels or worse.

Sally Helm (30:04)

Hitler does apologize, but Lloso walks out.

Peter Ross Range (30:08)

And declares that he is not coming back. So it can also once again, again be said Hitler got the upper hand.

Sally Helm (30:20)

The trial lasts 24 days. On the day the judge announces his.

Peter Ross Range (30:25)

Verdict, everybody wants to be in the court. The court is overcrowded. A lot of women have brought flowers and gifts. The judge comes in and Hitler is indeed convicted of treason. But the judge gives him the lightest possible sentence under the law.

Sally Helm (30:45)

Five Years with the possibility of parole in six months.

Peter Ross Range (30:49)

Both those things are sort of unheard of. He could have gotten life. This was high treason he was convicted of. So he got a wrist slap sentence.

Sally Helm (30:59)

When the crowd in the courtroom hears the verdict, everybody cheers.

Peter Ross Range (31:03)

Hillary is a hero.

Sally Helm (31:05)

There are also cheers outside the courtroom.

Peter Ross Range (31:07)

It's still freezing cold, but he finds a window that can be opened and he opens it and waves to the crash. He had the Munichers on his side by this time, if there were any doubters. It's a preview of what we're going.

Sally Helm (31:20)

To see eight years later when Hitler assumes power. It wasn't the beer hall putsch that allowed him to do that, but the trial is a springboard for Hitler, just as he'd hoped it would be. He goes from an obscure right wing extremist in Munich to a household name in Germany. He even makes headlines worldwide.

Peter Ross Range (31:45)

The newspapers went wild immediately. Couldn't print newspapers fast enough.

Sally Helm (31:51)

In prison, he writes his autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf and lays out his ultra nationalistic plans for Germany, including the expulsion of Jews from any part of public life. That vision, of course, later becomes even more violent as it shifts from expulsion to extermination. Hitler emerges from prison with a new vision for his future. Instead of seizing power by force, he.

Peter Ross Range (32:24)

Figured out that he had to become a politician and run in elections and have people running in elections just like anybody else.

Sally Helm (32:32)

His political ascent doesn't happen right away, but in the 1932 elections, the Nazis become the largest party in parliament. Not long after, Hitler is appointed chancellor and not long after that, he becomes dictator. Grange says when you look at the years before that, Hitler's rise, you can see it was not inevitable. There were so many times things could have gone a different way, from personal.

Peter Ross Range (33:01)

Scandals to political missteps to party schisms. He came close to going off the rails at least half a dozen times. And each time Hitler seemed to dodge a bullet at the last second.

Sally Helm (33:15)

So he rises to power and we know what happens next. Thanks for listening to history this week. For more moments throughout history that are also worth watching, check your local TV listings to find out what's up on the History Channel today. If you want to get in touch, shoot us an email at our email address historythisweekhistory.com or you can leave us a voicemail. 212-351-0410. We are listening and we love to hear from you. Thank you to Thomas Weber for speaking with us for this episode. He's the author of the book Becoming Hitler. Thanks also to Peter Ross Range who you heard in this episode. He's the author of 1924 the Year that Made Hitler. We also read David King's book the Trial of Adolf Hitler in researching this episode. It is a great resource if you want to learn more about this story. This episode was Produced by Julie McGruder, sound designed by Bill Moss and story edited by Jennifer Goran. History this Week is also produced by Ben Dickstein, Julia Press and me, Sally Helm. Our researcher is Emma Fredericks. Our executive producers are McKamey, Lynn and Jesse Katz. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review History this week wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you next week.