The Drummer
Hitler was regarded as a hogger of the limelight and the best street orator in his party. They did not make sure of his convictions but were interested in the way and manner he created and changed convictions. And at that time there was a spectacle in Munich that in part bore all the features of a Wagnerian opera. In the Bavarian state capital two extreme political models were tried within a short space of time as if in fast forward mode. A particularly radical version of the councils idea in line with the Soviet model was to gain the upper hand in this for a short time in April 1919. Hitler was mesmerised by the general strikes and mass rallies even though he despised the chaos of the same. On the other hand, the soldier back from the Front may no longer have had the same enthusiasm for the stiff and sterile ritual of military parades he had in the beginning. With march music one had set off for a war, the brutality of which had not been seen previously in the history of war. In the trenches of the Western Front the mass slaughter had dragged on for years. Prior to that, the military had been the unchallenged ruling and identity-shaping caste for the outside world. Brisk marching in rank and file and the movements of the trained bodies, which had the effect of wheels in a colossal machine, enthused the populace, who had apparently become bored of the quiet harmony of a decade of peace. Hitler was at first fascinated to see how communist street orators and agitators communicated with the masses. To see how the spark leapt between the two, speaker and listeners, “merged“ into an “action community” 48 enthused him and lodged deep in his mind as an aspirational model. His mind, full of urgent impatience, sought fresh excitement.
NSDAP
On 24 February 1920 at a mass gathering in the Munich Hofbräuhaus the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party [= the Nazi Party], would be created from the DAP. For this occasion a flag had been designed for the new party: a swastika with straight arms bent to the right. Since the end of the 19th century it had been used as a symbol for Aryanism and anti-Semitism in nationalist circles. There it now stood, black in a white circle on a red background. Hitler had copied the white from the nationalists, the signal red from the communists. The abbreviation NS – for national socialist – was supposed to emphasise the distinctiveness of the party with its social principles which are at the same time nationalist in tone. Four notable points in its programme, just to mention a few, were: •the abolition of the treaty of Versailles •the withdrawal of German citizenship for Jews and •the strengthening of the national community by, amongst other things, participation in the profits of major concerns. •new legislation on foreigners seized on the anxieties existing subliminally amongst the population, by putting non-citizens in a worse position right from the outset and even authorised their “deportation in the event of insufficient food for the population as a whole”. Already at this event its unique feature was evident. The clearly planned course of the proceedings was adhered to with strict discipline. The bar room brawls normally usual in these bierkeller sessions were blocked. Hitler’s venue protection, the steward squad, consisting mostly of younger party members, saw to this. Anyone, who was disruptive, was beaten out of the hall by them. The SA, the Sturmabteilung, would be created from them not long afterwards. First party conference of the NSDAP on the Munich Mars Field from 27-29 January 1923.
Weeping clown
That Hitler was tolerated as a leading light in a party, which stood for pure Aryanism, may well be astonishing in retrospect. This fact also preoccupied his contemporaries as there was a lot of talk in the inner circle about Adolf Hitler’s dubious origins. He, the Jew-hater, was said to have Jewish origins himself or even to be the child of an incestuous relationship. Adolf Hitler did not dispute this. Even defamation of him as a “weeping clown”49 could not irritate him. A sentence of his companion’s, Hermann Göring, has frequently been repeated: “Hitler needs to come here and weep.”50 The former is bound to have meant this sympathetically. The dashing officer pilot and bearer of the significant Pour le mérite order had seen Hitler at some NSDAP party events before he asked him for a meeting in October 1922. He must have really impressed Hitler, so much so that, only a few weeks later, Hitler appointed him to head of the SA in December 1922. In contrast, a rival from within the party, Otto Strasser, expressed himself on the subject in less than flattering terms: “Hitler cried deliberately and overdid it.”51 And Carl Zuckmayer even called him a “howling dervish”52. That the person thus described could apparently switch human feelings on and off, turned out to be very advantageous at party rallies. “Hitler has to come and weep”. Hitler with handkerchief in orator pose. Photographic postcard (Heinrich Hoffmann), before August 1927. From a series: “Adolf Hitler speaks, 6 photographic moments (…) “. As Hitler was also regarded as a gifted speaker, his enemies could not say anything against him. Whilst the outside world sank in the chaos of hyperinflation, unemployment, hunger and impoverishment, under the big top one was only too glad to listen to the prophesying baying of this petit bourgeois saviour from the Austrian forests. In the meantime so many people were streaming to the events that they had had to move out of the bierkellers into the largest venue, the Krone circus. In the circus tent packed with 6000 people, on 30 October 1923 Hitler enjoyed rapturous applause until it “ebbed away in solemn silence” as he later wrote.
The Putsch
On 8 November 1923 the “Drummer” also put in an appearance in the packed Bürgerbräukeller that had at one and the same time something clown-like as well as being like a scene from the Wild West. For the right-wing government team von Kahr – interim ruler in Bavaria with dictatorial powers – was speaking – until Hitler and his men brusquely interrupted the speaker 30 minutes later, climbed onto a chair and fired his Walther pistol into the ceiling. The sharp crack ensured that the gunman was able to make sure of the attention of those present. With his characteristic hoarse barking voice, he warned that the meeting’s venue was surrounded by the SA and thus suffocated any possible resistance in the bud. At the conclusion of his address he announced grimly: “The “national revolution” has broken out.” Hitler had at last come into contact with the right, that is, influential people. They supported him effectively. To these belonged one of the heroes of Tannenberg, Erich Ludendorff. The retired general and puppet master of the Kapp putsch of March 1920 had re-emerged from the ruins and graced the group of putschists with his presence. “Proclamation to the German people! The government of the November criminals in Berlin has today been declared deposed. A provisional German national government has been formed, this consists of General Ludendorff, Adolf Hitler, General von Lossow, Colonel von Seisser.”53 The Proclamation of the Putschists of 1923 The Munich putschists now planned the joining together of the Reichswehr units stationed in Bavaria with the antidemocratic militia units, which were still numerous in the state. Tolerated by a right-wing government, which would have really liked to deliver the coup de grace to the hated Weimar Republic without delay, the Bavarian capital city was an El Dorado for the most widely differing “military sports groups”. Unobstructed by the authorities, they were able to march through Munich armed to the teeth and were protected at the highest level. Once the government in power was removed, they were to go on to Berlin in order to, as they put it, “smoke
