Thursday, November 9, 2023

Friday, November 9, 1923. The Beer Hall Putsch Fails and Echoes.

Day two of the Beer Hall Putsch 

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, November 8, 1923. The Beer Hall Putsch.:

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 119-1486 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5415949

The Beer Hall Putsch, a large scale Nazi Party attempt at overthrowing the Weimar government combined with far right German support, began when Adolf Hitler with 603 members of the Nazi Party surrounded ll, Der Bürgerbräukeller, where Bavaria's State Commissioner Gustav Ritter von Kahr was making a speech to 3,000 people.  Hitler declared his revolution was aimed at "the Berlin Jew government and the November criminals of 1918".  More Nazi revolutionaries waited in another beer hall, the Lowenbraukeller.

Hitler declared that General Erich Ludendorff would form a new government.  Ludendorff was descending into extreme anti Christianity, although he also held animosity towards Jews as well.

Following that, while the Nazi forces grew, they were disordered and without direction.  Some were arrested early on by German authorities, and a large Nazi force was turned back by a small Reichswehr and police detail. Both Hitler and Ludendorff would be arrested.

Hitler and Ludendorff's attempt at sparking a Bavaria based insurrection against the German government failed on this date, as the Nazi storm troopers encountered the Reichswehr and police and failed.  Casualties were remarkably light.

To the extent there was a plan, the coup was supposed to take over the Bavarian government on this day, after which the Nazis would march on Berlin, as Mussolini had on Rome.

As an element of the failure, Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had been delivering a speech at the time that Hitler interrupted it in Der Bürgerbräukeller coordinated with Gen Otto von Lossow and police commander Hans von Seisser, all of whom had been in the beer hall, and all of whom were plotting their own coup, to get word out to the government and stop the coup.  Von Kahr was later killed in the Night of the Long Knives.  Von Seisser retired in 1930 but was sent to Dachau in 1933, which he amazingly survived.  Von Lossow died in 1938.

The news, by this time, had spread around the globe, including to Wyoming.


This event has always been one of the seminal events in the tragedy of the mid 20th Century, but it's one of those events which also, as some say, if not repeating, certain rhymes.  Hitler tried and in fact did mobilize a section of the Munich public behind him.  In the early hours of the coup, it looked as though the effort might succeed in Bavaria, but it all fell apart due to a lack of cogency and organization.  Hitler and Ludendorff were arrested, but the penalty imposed upon them was relatively light, and they rose again in short order.  Ludendorff dropped out of the scene, and ultimately even ended up disdaining Hitler, but Hitler's far right wing cause would prevail at the ballot box in 1932.

It sounds a warning about current events in the United States.

It's a bit of an open question what would have happened had the coup succeeded in Bavaria, Germany's largest state.  A march on Berlin would have occured, but it may very well have failed.  Indeed, it's worth remembering that this was the third coup attempt in recent months, the first being by elements of the Reichswehr, the second by the German Communist Party, and now this right wing attempt.  A march on Berlin would certainly have brought out the Communists, and Berlin itself was sometimes called "Red Berlin".  So far the Reichswehr had remained reluctantly more or less loyal to the government, and indeed it did throughout the Weimar period and then into the Nazi period.

On this day, the German government banned the Nazi Party.

Calvin Coolidge gave a press conference, in which he stated:


An inquiry as to whether I have any comment on the Marine Congress recommendations that the Shipping Board be abolished, and the fleet turned over to the Department of Commerce. I don’t know the reasons that might have been given for that at the present time. We seem to need al l the talent that we can get for the operation of the fleet. Should it become finally and fully organized, and running smoothly, it might then be possible to turn it over to some one of the Departments, and not operate it as a separate and independent bureau. I don’t see, just at the present time, that we could get any benefit from turning it over to the Department of Commerce, though it is, of course, an arm of that Department, and that was one of the reasons why I thought of calling in the Secretary of Commerce, as well as the Secretary of the Treasury, to advise me about the plan that the Shipping Board had.




An inquiry about a visit of Adolph Lewisohn. He and another gentleman came in this morning to pay their respects. I had known of his name for a long time, as a very prominent man. I don’t recall that I ever happened to meet him. He was a great friend, I know, of former Governor McCall of Mass., which formed a sort of middle ground of meeting between Mr. Lewisohn and myself. I was Lieutenant Governor for three years when Mr. McCall was Governor. Governor McCall has just passed away within a week, so we were speaking especially of him. Then a short time ago, some one came to get me to address a letter to Mr. Lewisohn, in relation to the encouragement of thrift, which he was connected with in some way with an organization that wanted to promote the encouragement of thrift, and I wrote him the letter. He came in also to express his thanks for the help he thought I had been.

A statement that there is emanating from Paris today a report to the effect that Premier Poncaire will insist upon reparations from Germany to the full capacity of Germany to pay, and wanting to know if I have any sort of statement to make relative to the American position. No, our position is stated fully in the note. If it means our position relative to the restrictions, and more especially that restriction which provides that the experts be limited to an inquiry into the present capacity – actual I think is the word that is used by the French in that connection – I think that I am safe in saying that if it is to be limited to merely present capacity of Germany to pay, that that would be such a limitation as would make an inquiry useless and futile. There wouldn’t be any use for calling together the experts of four or five nations of the earth. That would be something almost that could be done by any ordinary auditor. A limitation of that kind would seem to make the inquiry useless, and I don’t see any reason why we could expect to be of any help by participating in it.



An inquiry about Mr. Brown’s coming to the Cabinet. He came to discuss the plan of reorganization and to answer such questions as the members of the Cabinet might want to make of him. I think perhaps I can best answer one or two of the questions that have been asked in relation to the reorganization by reading a sentence or two from a letter sent by President Harding on the 13th of February last, to Mr. Brown, the Chairman of the Joint Committee of Reorganization. Mr. Brown represents the President, and there is in addition to that a Congressional Committee of three Senators and three Representatives, Mr. Smoot being the Chairman. “I hand you herewith a chart which exhibits in detail the present organization of the Government Departments. The changes are suggested after numerous conferences and consultations with various heads of the Government Departments. The changes, with few exceptions, notably that of coordinating all the agencies of defence, have been sanctioned by the Cabinet. That is the changes, with few exceptions, notably the plan to coordinate the War and Navy Departments. In a few instances, which I believe are of minor importance, the plan has not been followed to the letter, in order to avoid questions which might jeopardize reorganization as a whole.” That was a statement submitted by President Harding and there has been no change in the position.


An inquiry as to when the final Budget estimates will come and their approximate total. I suppose that it will reach me within a very few days. Perhaps within a week. I am not exactly sure about that, and the indication s are that we can bring the total within the figures which were given by President Harding at the las t conference of the business heads of the various Departments, which was held in June, I think, just before he was starting on his trip. At that time he strongly hoped that there could be a reduction of $126,000,000 in the Budget of this year, in order to bring the ordinary expenditures of the Government within 1,700,000,000, exclusive of the Post Office and exclusive of the amount that is required to take care of the debt, — the interest on the debt and the annual amount that is set aside for the cancellation of and redemption of the debt.




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