On November 8, 1923, at Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller beer hall, Adolf Hitler interrupted a political meeting and announced that the “national revolution” had begun. Armed members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party surrounded the hall, with the aim of seizing power first in Bavaria and then launching a march on Berlin against the government of the Weimar Republic.
Thus began the event that went down in history as the Beer Hall Putsch, the Munich Putsch or Hitler’s Putsch. The attempt lasted until November 9 and was Hitler’s first large-scale effort to seize power by force.
The coup begins in a beer hall
On the evening of November 8, Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria’s State Commissioner-General, was speaking before about 3,000 people. Hitler entered the hall with armed supporters, fired a shot into the air and declared: “The national revolution has begun.” He then took Kahr, military commander Otto von Lossow and police chief Hans von Seisser to a separate room.
Under threat, the three men declared their support for the planned new government. General Erich Ludendorff, a well-known commander from the First World War, also joined the putsch. The plan called for Bavaria to be turned into a base for a march on Berlin, similar to Benito Mussolini’s successful march on Rome in October 1922.
However, the plan began to unravel that same night. After managing to leave the hall, Kahr, Lossow and Seisser renounced their coerced pledges and ordered the police and military to restore order.
The shooting at the Feldherrnhalle
On the morning of November 9, Hitler and Ludendorff led around 2,000 of their supporters toward central Munich. The column was stopped by police at the Feldherrnhalle. A brief exchange of gunfire followed, in which march participants and police officers were killed.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum lists 14 Nazi fatalities and four police officers. The German Historical Museum records 16 putsch participants and four police officers killed, including two people who died in clashes elsewhere. Both accounts reach the same conclusion: the coup was crushed, and the participants failed to take control of Munich.
The failure that changed Hitler’s strategy
Hitler was arrested two days later. In April 1924, he was sentenced to five years in prison for high treason, but was released after about nine months from Landsberg Prison. The National Socialist Party was banned after the putsch.
The trial turned Hitler into a nationally recognized figure. In prison, he dictated his political ideas, later published in “Mein Kampf.” After the failure in Munich, Hitler changed tactics: instead of another attempt at an armed uprising, the party began seeking power through elections, propaganda and exploiting the weaknesses of the democratic system.
The Beer Hall Putsch remained unsuccessful as a coup, but became a central myth of the Nazi movement. The regime later portrayed the fallen participants as heroes and turned November 9 into an annual day of party propaganda.
Sources: history.com, apnews.com