THE THIRD REICH
Documentary description of the Construction of the Nation, by Gerd Ruehle
with assistance of the German Reichsarchiv Publisher and Distributor: Hans Eugen Hummel, Berlin NW7
The Years of Fighting 1918-1933
[Page 106]
When von Kahr gave a speech on the evening of 8 November 1923 in Munich in the Great Hall of the Buergerbraeukeller and all "Bavarian Big Shots" were assembled there, Adolf Hitler appeared, created order with a shot of his pistol into the ceiling of the room and declared the National Revolution and Dictatorship! At the same time Adolf Hitler was supported by the association of fighting groups—the SA, the Bund Oberland and the Reichskriegsflagge who stood ready for action and assembled in Munich. Several high Government officials (ministers) and several Marxist Munich city officials were arrested. Kahr, Lossow, and the Colonel of Police, von Seisser, declared their willingness to cooperate. On the same evening, the "Provisional National Government" was established:
. Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler
Leader of the National Army-to-be Gen. von Ludendorff
Reich Minister of War von Lossow
Reich Minister of Police von Seisser
Reich Finance Minister Feder '
At the same time Kahr was appointed as State Administrator for Bavaria; Poehner as Bavarian Prime Minister, and Dr. Frick as Munich Police President.
The infantry school, under the former leader of the Freikorps Rossbach and Lt. Robert Wagner (the present governor and Gauleiter of Baden) placed himself unqualifiedly at the disposition of Adolf Hitler. The Reichskriegsflagge (under the leadership of Ernst Roehm, who betrayed the Fuehrer in 1934) occupied the Bavarian Ministry of War (its banner was carried by today's Reich leader of the SS, Himmler, Chief of the Secret State Police, Gestapo). The Hitler "shock troops", a small elite group from the SA under Party member Berchtold, occupied the building of the Social Democratic "Munich Post" and destroyed its machines.
The Munich population applauded with great enthusiasm, nightmare was over at last.
The
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In the meantime, Kahr, Lossow and Seisser, who had given Ludendorff their word of honor left the place of the proclamation. Now on the same night, they organized the annihilation of the National Revolution! Just as on the 9th of November 1918, Marxism had given Germany a stab in the back, so the reaction gave the nation a stab in the back on the 9th of November 1923. On the night of 8 November, Kahr, Lossow and Seisser alerted the police, pulled troops into Munich and declared through radio addresses and press releases that their agreement in the Buerger-braeukeller was "forced upon them at the point of a pistol" and thus invalid. (At the same time, a proclamation came from the "Constitutional Bavarian Government" in flight toward Regensburg against the "Prussian Ludendorff" which was signed by Minister of Culture, Dr. Matt). Frick, Poehner and Major Huehn-lein (the present head of the National Socialist Motor Corps) were arrested in the Munich Police Headquarters. Adolf Hitler was left without communication all through the night. Emissaries who were sent by him did not return—they were imprisoned.
Hitler was without the least intelligence until the afternoon of the next day. Naturally, in the meantime, the betrayal of Kahr had become known. Of the available alternatives—either to carry on the fight outside of Munich and to withdraw at first to Rosenheim, or the march through Munich into the interior of the city —Adolf Hitler chose the last in order to win public opinion and to ascertain how Kahr, Lossow and Seisser would react. One could not imagine that they would be so stupid as to fire on these insurgent people. The march began—Adolf Hitler, Ludendorff and their subordinates at the front. Patrols of police retreated before the parade. At the Marienplatz the parade was greeted by jubilant masses of people. At the Feldherrnhalle it was stopped by a strong cordon of State Police. In the later trials, Adolf Hitler described the succeeding moments: "There was a carbine shot and immediately thereafter a salvo, Scheubner fell forward and pulled me with him; I felt as if I had been hit. I tried to raise myself again, the shooting stopped, there were only dead around me".
The murderous fire of the reaction against the National Socialist demonstration parade at the Feldherrnhalle drained the blood of the National Revolution. 14 dead National Socialists and many wounded lie before the Feldherrnhalle, among them badly wounded the leader of the SA, Hermann Goering. As a result of the counter defense of the attacked National Socialists, the State Police also suffered 4 dead. Almost the same time during the attack on the War Ministry two men, members of the Reichs-
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kriegsflagge, were shot by troops which surrounded the building. The National Socialists dead on the 9th of November 1923 were :
Felix Allfarth, merchant Andreas Bauriedl, hat maker Theodor Casella, bank clerk Wilhelm Ehrlich, bank clerk Martin Faust, bank clerk
Anton Hechenberger, locksmith
Oskar Koerner, merchant
Karl Kuhn, waiter
Karl Laforce, engineering student
Kurt Neubauer, servant
Claus von Pape, merchant
Theodor von der Pfordten, Councilor of the highest State Court of Bavaria
Johann Rickmers, retired cavalry captain Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, Engineer Lorenz Ritter von Stransky, Engineer Wilhelm Wolf, merchant
Adolf Hitler was not hurt in the murderous gun play. His faithful companion, the badly wounded Ulrich Graf, covered him. The deadly hit Scheubner-Richter pulled him to the ground, where he sustained a serious shoulder wound which put him out of combat. He is brought to the house of Party member Han-ifstaengl in Uffing (on the Staffelstee) by auto.
Already on the preceding night, Kahr, who liked to call himself publicly "Governor of the Monarchy" had proclaimed the dissolution of the Nazi Party, the Reichskriegsflagge and the Bund Oberland, as well as authorized a prohibition of the Voelkischer Beobachter. The offices of the NSDAP are closed, Party property robbed and most of the National Socialist leaders (among them Brueckner, Frick, Amann, Streicher, Huehnlein, Dietrich Eckart) arrested as far as they had not—with the approval of the Fuehrer—fled across the Austrian border, as e.g. the seriously wounded Goering. On the 11th of November a large police detachment appears in Uffing and arrests Adolf Hitler.
Rosenberg, Amann and Drexler illegally attempted to hold together the remainder of the dissolved National Socialist Party. Major Buch (the present head of the Party Court) undertook the same function in regard to the S.A.
On the 23rd of November 1923, the National Socialist Party was forbidden throughout the Reich by the Chief of the Army
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Leadership, General von Seeckt. On 9 November he had been appointed to the Command of the Army with full executive powers in the Reich.
[Page 107]
The Hitler trial and prohibition years The Hitler trial
In spring of 1924 Hitler was dragged to court. In the famous "Hitler trial" (26 February to 1 April 1924) the following men were indicted besides him before the People's Court at Munich I: General Ludendorff, Dr. Frick, Chief Counsellor at Court Poehner, Lt. Col. Kriekei as military leader of the "Kampibund", 1st Lit. Brueckner (today the Adjutant of the Fuehrer) as leader of the SA regiment Munich, 2nd Lt. Wagner (today governor and district leader of Baden), Dr. Weber as leader of the "Oberland Bund", Capt. Roehm as leader of the Reichskriegsflagge, 1st Lt. Pernet (Ludendorff's stepson). In this dramatic trial which made all of Germany listen, the "defendant" Adolf Hitler became in reality the accuser, the accuser against the "state" of the November treachery, the accuser also against the treacherous, particularistic—mundane reaction, represented by the "witnesses" Kahr, Lossow and Seisser, whose peculiar wrong attitude came clearly to light the last few weeks and months before the "Hitler-putsch". We presented already a -section of the trial proceedings against Adolf Hitler concerning this point in the last chapter (Chapter 11). The tremendous arguments between national socialism on one side and the white-blue Bavarian reaction and the state of Weimar on the other side gave the trial its characteristic mark. Adolf Hitler was doubtless the moral victor when he made his concluding speech on 27 March 1924, after weeks of trial proceedings.
[Page 108]
His statements about power and justice, the November fall [November-sturz], Bismarck's constitutional conflicts and other historical examples made the inner justification of the whole court proceedings appear in a very doubtful light. This description of the German development since 1918 and of the terrible conditions, in all spheres of life, into which the German nation had gotten through the fault of its rulers, proved that this condition was not at all a real state, was no authority worthwhile protecting—that, on the contrary, it was national duty to remove this condition. To do this duty and to save Germany from destruction was the only motive and the only aim of the uprising of 9 November 1923. But
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also for formal legal reasons this "indictment for high treason" was more than questionable—since the real men of the so-called— and permanent—"state coup" (Kahr, Lassow and Seisser) were not—the accused. Adolf Hitler proved clearly in his concluding words that it was not he who put these men in a difficult position, (as was argued), but they had done that to the national socialistic movement (as can be seen clearly from the incidents described in the preceding chapter). At the end Adolf Hitler emphasized that the national socialists fallen on 9 November 1923 had died for the deliverance of the fatherland and that the hour would come when the great decision will yet be made. He finished with the proud sentence:
"May you pronounce us guilty a thousand times, the Goddess of the eternal court of history will smilingly tear up the accusation of the prosecutor and the sentence of the court; because she pronounces us free."
On April 1, 1924 the sentence was announced :
Adolf Hitler, Kriekel, Poehner, and Weber were each sentenced for high treason to 5 years of confinement in a fortress (whereby they were promised probation after serving 6 months). Frick, Brueckner, Wagner, Roehm and Pernet were, sentenced for "aiding to high treason" to 1 year and 3 months confinement in a fortress with immediate probation. Ludendorff was pronounced not guilty.
[Page 109]
On the very same day Adolf Hitler was transferred to the fortress Landsberg. In special processes still other national socialistic leaders were sentenced to long prison terms also for high treason, 'as Max Amann, Julius Streicher and the present deputy of the Fuehrer, Rudolf Hess. Also forty members of the shock troops ("Stosstrupp Hitler") were sentenced on 28 April 1924, among them the present chief mayor of Munich Karl Fiehler and Julius Schaub, for years the constant companion of the Fuehrer.
[Page 126]
The Resurrected NSDAP
On the 26th of February 1925 the "Voelkische Beobachter" appeared for the first time after the ban. In this edition Adolf Hitler published the "Basic Outlines for the re-establishment of the National Socialist German Workers Party".
On the 27th of February, Hitler speaks in Munich, for the first time after his confinement in a fortress, at a meeting in the. Buergerbraeukeller which had been the scene of the proclamation
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of the national revolution of the 9th of November 1923, and founds again the National Socialist Workers Party.
The Fuehrer anew starts to build up the machinery of the NSDAP. He is assisted by the old fighters and organizers, Party Comrade Philipp Bouhler as acting Reich Director [Reichsge-schaeftsfuehrer] Party Comrade Franz Xaver Schwarz as Reich Treasurer and by Party Comrade Max Amann as Manager of the Party Publication bureau.
[Page 134]
While Dr. Goebbels is speaking on 11 February 1927 in the Pharus halls before an overwhelming communistic majority, when the communists began to attack the few national socialists —then the hall guards, the Berlin SA under party member Da-luege, beat the communists into flight in a tough, bitter fight. Although they suffer a great number of seriously and slightly injured, the national socialists are victorious.
[Page 160]
On 28 March 1929 the SA reserves were founded for party members over 40 years of age. On 1 April the so-called "commissaries" [Zeugmeistereien] were created which should serve the SA with the supply of reasonably-priced and good uniforms (At this occasion it has to be mentioned that every SA man paid for his uniform with his own funds, and besides also made other financial sacrifices for the movement, most of the time had to pay his own fare when he had to travel by train or truck to a distant meeting place, etc.—while the foaming Jewish press of all shades always and always again made the infamous lie that the SA men are "paid" by the Nazi Party and this way tried to degrade them as mercenaries. It was apparent, to be sure, that it was incomprehensible to such low characters as these slanderous news reporters that one can do a job out of idealism without pay, thereby risking life and existence—and on top of this makes constantly material sacrifices). The unshakable national socialistic idealism remained, however, stronger than the powers of the ruling mammonism.
[Page 165]
The NSDAP advanced in a broad front—comprising city and country, worker and bourgeois, youth and old age. And if people in the opposition believed to be able to strike a decisive- blow at the recruiting power of the national socialists by uniform prohibition, they were very much mistaken. Bavaria made the be-
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ginning. Then followed a uniform prohibition in Berlin on 2 June 1930, after that, on 11 June, a brown-shirt prohibition in all of Prussia. The SA marched in white shirts—if this was prohibited, then in "robber's uniform" [Raeuberzivil]—but they marched. And always more marched with them. On 3 July Prussia prohibited its officials to be members of the NSDAP and communist party of Germany. .
[Page 167]
The legal way which Adolf Hitler had taken at the new founding of the party in 1925, and which he had followed in unchangeable consequence, proved to be the best weapon against the November system.
The legality of the NSDAP was strengthened by Adolf Hitler by his oath before the state court in Leipzig on 25 September 1930. On 23 September the famous "trial of the Ulm officers" of the German armed forces (among them the present SA Gruppen-fuehrer, party member Ludin) began here for "forming of national socialistic cells" in which Hitler had been called as a witness by the defense councilor party member Frank.
In his speech the Fuehrer declared, among other things:
"We are not interested in destroying the German armed forces [Reichswehr]. I would consider this the greatest crime possible * * * I have only the desire that the
army as well as the German nation should accept the new spirit, our spirit."
The statement of the Fuehrer before the state court that the NSDAP will win the victory with only legal means, but that— when the national socialistic victory would be won—a court of justice would come which would find the just atonement for the November treachery—and that also "heads will roll", brought forth in the Jewish press once again loud consternation and indignation.
[Page 194]
But the NSDAP marched on,—in spite of the hatred of the enemies and the rage of the press which on 12 September 1931 once again found fitting occasion to get terribly excited,—when it came to clashes (on the day of the Jewish New Year) between SA men and Jews on the Berlin Kurfuerstendamm. In the following trial, known as "Kurfuestendamm trial", several SA leaders and SA men were sentenced to severe imprisonment for having slapped some Jews in the face.
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[Page 206]
And a new blow was struck against the NSDAP by the system: After all house searches did not reveal sufficient material against the SA, Severing finally and in spite of it succeeded to get the Reich minister of the interior Groener to agree on the disbanding of the SA and SS, since these represented a "private army" and a constant threat. On 13 April 1932 an emergency decree is issued "for the maintenance of state authority" of which paragraph 1 reads as follows:
"All para-military organizations of the NSDAP, especially the storm troops (SA), the elite guard (SS), with all staffs belonging thereto and other institutions, including the SA-observers, SA-reserves, motorized storm troops, cavalry storm troops, aviation corps, motor corps, medical corps, officer training schools, the SA-barracks and the commissaries [Zeugmeistereien] will be dissolved effective at once."
In the argument for this decree it says among other things:
"The named organizations represent a private army, a party army, although partially without arms. Hundreds of thousands are formed into shock troops bound by absolute obedience to commands, and partially put in barracks-like quarters, which can and have acted like military or police teams. Even without heavy weapons such groups can commit acts of violence at any time and put parts of the population under the pressure of force. Already the existence of such a fighting organization which forms a state within a state is a source of constant alarm for the peaceful citizens."
On instruction of Adolf Hitler, the disbandment was executed in a disciplinary manner, the SA and SS men were asked in a proclamation by the Fuehrer to put themselves entirely at the disposal of the political organizations and to perform their duty there in order to bring the coming election fights for the diet to a victorious end.
The SA had disappeared from the street, sure, but to believe that now the national socialistic movement—the "state in the state"—could still be annihilated, was a ghastly mistake. Because the development ripened already toward a decision.
[Page 220]
The government was helpless against the civil war in Germany which took on increasingly frightful shapes. On 10 July 1932 again bloody surprise attacks and street battles occurred in all parts of the Reich—this day alone cost 18 dead and about 200 seriously injured! The most extensive street battles developed
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on this day in Ohlav (Silesia) where the Reich Canner attacked the national socialists in manifold majority and according to plan and where even the German armed forces had to be committed. Still more terrifying was the so-called "Altona's bloody Sunday", which was a week later—on the 17 July 1932—: The communists attacked a propaganda march of the SA in Altona in an extensive fire fight from ambush. The 17th of July brought also in other parts of Germany again heavy fights. Its casualty list is still bigger and shows 19 dead and 285 heavy casualties. —The national socialists had during the time of the abolition of the uniform prohibition (17 June) until the end of July 1932 alone 32 dead and thousands of injured!—After the Altona bloody Sunday the government finally saw itself compelled to do something. [Page 226]
The rage of the opponents over the national socialistic victory showed itself in wild terror acts against which the national socialists defended themselves. On 1 August 1932 SA storm leader Axel S chaff eld who was politically active in the student corps was shot in Brunswick. However, the majority of the newspapers lamented about the "national-socialistic terror"—as usual— and the Prussian Reich Commissar Dr. Bracht declared:
"The state government will not shy from drastic measures to fulfill its duties toward the peaceful citizen and to force the public peace which our country needs."
And when party member Hermann Goering demanded from Bracht decisive measures against the red terror gangs on 3 August 1932—considering the increasing number of murders of national socialists—the Reich cabinet replied-on 9 August with the publication of three new emergency decrees in which the "public peace" (already ordered for the time after the election) was prolonged from the 12th to the 31st of August, special courts were established against "political acts of violence", punishments of hard labor and even death were threatened.
The new law was immediately applied—against national socialists ! Five national socialists were sentenced to death in the so-called Potempa trial in Beuthen on 22 August 1932. A wave of rebellion swept through the country and Adolf Hitler made the affair of his comrades his own and challenged the government to a most vigorous fight (On 2 September 1932 the death sentence was converted into hard labor for life, and in 1933—after the taking over of the power by the national socialists—the condemned were set free again).
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Extracts from a book on the Nazi Party, including the Munich uprising (1923), Hitler's trial (1924), the rebuilding of the party (1925-32)
Authors
Gerd Ruehle (author/editor, ca. 1935-36)
Gerd Ruehle
German politician (1905-1949)
- Born: 1905-03-23 (Winnenden)
- Died: 1949-06-05 (Innsbruck)
- Country of citizenship: Germany
- Occupation: politician
- Member of political party: Nazi Party
- Member of: Schutzstaffel
- Position held: Member of Landtag of Prussia; member of the Reichstag of Nazi Germany
- VIAF ID: https://viaf.org/viaf/198273479
Date: 1936
Literal Title: Gerd Ruehle[,] Das Dritte Reich (The Third Reich) Die Kampfiahre 1918-1933
Defendants: Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Wilhelm Goering, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Julius Streicher
Total Pages: 9
Language of Text: English
Source of Text: Nazi conspiracy and aggression (Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.)
Evidence Code: PS-2532
Citation: IMT (page 255)
HLSL Item No.: 450183
Notes:The date "1936 ?" is listed on the 8th page (in the supplementary pages marked as PS 2532a).