Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

the Oberwiesenfeld; also Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
394.
    175 .
JK,
918.
    176 . Cit. Deuerlein,
Putsch,
61. This was also the view of the acting United States Consul in Munich, Robert Murphy. He reported that people ‘are wearied of Hitler’s inflammatory agitation which yields no results and offers nothing constructive’ (cit. Toland, 142).
    177 . Cit. Gordon, 194. A similar comment – ‘the enemy stands on the right’ – had been most famously made by Reich Chancellor Joseph Wirth in the Reichstag after Walther von Rathenau’s murder in summer 1922 (Peter D. Stachura,
Political Leaders in Weimar Germany,
Hemel Hempstead, 1993, 187).
    178 . Other states had reacted more zealously to head off the evidently looming danger of a putsch attempt headed by Hitler’s movement. The NSDAP had been banned since the previous autumn in Prussia and several other states (though not in Bavaria) for its blatant and continued agitation aimed at undermining the state in defiance of the Law for the Protection of the Republic, which had been promulgated following Rathenau’s assassination in 1922 and aimed to combat the threat from the radical Right (Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
158, 166–70). Kahr remarked bitterly on 30 May 1924 that if the Bavarian government had wanted to bring it about, Hitler’s ignoring of security restrictions on 1 May would, in the light of the depressed mood among his followers in the aftermath of the failure, have given the opportunity for the suppression of the NSDAP also in Bavaria. Then, he went on, the ‘catastrophe of November 1923 and the still greater catastrophe of the Hitler trial would have been avoided’. This retrospective judgement was, however, quite different from Kahr’s attitude towards the NSDAP during the previous year (Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
173)
    179 . See Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
394–5.
    180 . Lothar Gruchmann, ‘Hitlers Denkschrift an die bayerische Justiz vom 16. Mai 1923’,
VfZ,
39 (1991), 305–28; Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
394; Franz-Willing,
Krisenjahr,
86–9;
Hitler-Prozeß,
LIV. Had the prosecution been pursued, Hitler would with certainty have been put behind bars for at least the two months suspended from the sentence he had received in January 1922, but dependent on his goodbehaviour. This would have put him out of action in the late summer or autumn of 1923, and have ruled out his chances of taking a leading role in the Kampfbund. The likelihood of a putsch taking place would, in such circumstances, have been significantly diminished. In fact, despite Hitler’s blackmail, Gürtner could have pressed on with the case – had the political will been there – and had it heard in camera. He did not entertain this possibility because of the fear that Bavarian ministers would have been forced to appear as witnesses and thereby exposed to damaging cross-examination. More important than the blackmail attempt were ultimately the political motives related to the anti-Berlin aims of the leading forces in Bavaria (Gruchmann, ‘Hitlers Denkschrift’, 306–13).
    181 . See Franz-Willing,
Krisenjahr,
159.
    182 .
JK
, 918–66; Milan Hauner,
Hitler. A Chronology of his Life and Time,
London, 1983, 40.
    183 . Franz-Willing,
Krisenjahr, 110
.
    184 . Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
177–9; Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
414–16.
    185 . Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
412–14.
    186 . Cit. Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
421.
    187 . See Bennecke, 78, noting that the Munich regiment increased by around 400 to 1,560 men between the end of August and 6 November 1923.
    188 . Hanfstaengl,
Jahre,
108. See also Auerbach, ‘Hitler’s politische Lehrjahre’, 38–9; and Toland, 142–3.
    189 . See Franz-Willing,
Krisenjahr,
117.
    190 . Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
181–3.
    191 . Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
182. The occasion was the first time that the Nazi greeting with raised right arm was in evidence in photographs. The form of greeting became uniformly deployed in the NSDAP for the party’s rally in Nuremberg in 1927 (Gerhard Paul,
Aufstand der Bilder. Die NS-Propaganda vor 1933,
2nd edn, Bonn, 1992, 175–6;
RSA,
III.3, 382–3 n.3).
    192 . Franz-Willing,
Krisenjahr,
118; Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
421.
    193 . Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 39; Franz-Willing,
Krisenjahr,
119–21; Maser,
Frühgeschichte,
424.
    194 . Bennecke, 79; Longerich,
Die braunen Bataillone,
39.
    195 . Longerich,
Die braunen Bataillone,
39. Hitler’s takeover of the leadership was the background to the splinter in the Reichsflagge, arising from the