German government victory Kampfbund Weimar Republic The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,[1][note 1] was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff and other Kampfbund leaders in Munich, Bavaria, on 8–9 November 1923, during the period of the Weimar Republic.

[5][6] Once released, Hitler redirected his focus towards obtaining power through legal means rather than by revolution or force, and accordingly changed his tactics, further developing Nazi propaganda.

He participated in various "national thinking" courses, organised by the Education and Propaganda Department of the Bavarian Army under Captain Karl Mayr,[9] of which Hitler became an agent.

[11] He soon realised that he was in agreement with many of the underlying tenets of the DAP, and rose to its top post in the ensuing chaotic political atmosphere of postwar Munich.

[18] From 22 to 29 October 1922, Hitler and his associates planned to use Munich as a base for a march against Germany's Weimar Republic government, but circumstances differed from those in Italy.

[21] Hitler, accompanied by Hess, Lenk, and Graf, ordered the triumvirate of Kahr, Seisser and Lossow into an adjoining room at gunpoint and demanded they support the putsch[22] and accept the government positions he assigned them.

[23] Hitler had promised Lossow a few days earlier that he would not attempt a coup,[24] but now thought that he would get an immediate response of affirmation from them, imploring Kahr to accept the position of Regent of Bavaria.

[25] Heinz Pernet, Johann Aigne and Scheubner-Richter were dispatched to pick up Ludendorff, whose personal prestige was being harnessed to give the Nazis credibility.

A telephone call was made from the kitchen by Hermann Kriebel to Ernst Röhm, who was waiting with his Bund Reichskriegsflagge in the Löwenbräukeller, another beer hall, and he was ordered to seize key buildings throughout the city.

Hitler became irritated by Kahr and summoned Ernst Pöhner, Friedrich Weber, and Hermann Kriebel to stand in for him while he returned to the auditorium flanked by Rudolf Hess and Adolf Lenk.

[21] Dr. Karl Alexander von Mueller, a professor of modern history and political science at the University of Munich and a supporter of Kahr, was an eyewitness.

[26] He finished: You can see that what motivates us is neither self-conceit nor self-interest, but only a burning desire to join the battle in this grave eleventh hour for our German Fatherland ... One last thing I can tell you.

[27] The night was marked by confusion and unrest among government officials, armed forces, police units, and individuals deciding where their loyalties lay.

However, at the Odeonsplatz in front of the Feldherrnhalle, they met a force of 130 soldiers blocking the way under the command of State Police Senior Lieutenant Michael von Godin [de].

However, when a consignment of papers relating to Landsberg prison (including the visitor book) was later sold at auction, it was noted that Ludendorff had visited Hitler a number of times.

He immediately called all his green police units and had them seize the central telegraph office and the telephone exchange, although his most important act was to notify Major-General Jakob von Danner, the Reichswehr city commandant of Munich.

[34] Meanwhile, Captain Karl Wild, learning of the putsch from marchers, mobilised his command to guard Kahr's government building, the Commissariat, with orders to shoot.

When he found the man vacillating and unsure, Matt made plans to set up a rump government-in-exile in Regensburg and composed a proclamation calling upon all police officers, members of the armed forces, and civil servants to remain loyal to the government.

In an incident in September 1921, he and some men of the SA had disrupted a meeting of the Bayernbund ('Bavaria Union') which Otto Ballerstedt, a Bavarian federalist, was to have addressed, and the Nazi troublemakers were arrested as a result.

[24] Hitler moderated his tone for the trial, centring his defence on his selfless devotion to the good of the people and the need for bold action to save them, dropping his usual anti-Semitism.

Festungshaft was the mildest of the three types of jail sentence available in German law at the time; it excluded forced labour, provided reasonably comfortable cells, and allowed the prisoner to receive visitors almost daily for many hours.

[7] While serving their "fortress confinement" sentences at Landsberg am Lech, Hitler, Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess wrote Mein Kampf.

[47][48] The process of "combination", wherein the conservative-nationalist-monarchist group thought that its members could piggyback on, and control, the National Socialist movement to garner the seats of power, was to repeat itself ten years later in 1933 when Franz von Papen asked Hitler to form a legal coalition government.

[54] According to Ernst Röhm, Martin Faust and Theodor Casella, both members of the armed militia organisation Reichskriegsflagge, were shot down accidentally in a burst of machine gun fire during the occupation of the War Ministry as the result of a misunderstanding with II/Infantry Regiment 19.

[56] The 15 fallen insurgents, as well as the bystander Karl Kuhn, were regarded as the first "blood martyrs" of the Nazi Party and were remembered by Hitler in the foreword of Mein Kampf.

Der neunte Elfte (9 November, literally 'the ninth of the eleventh') became one of the most important dates on the Nazi calendar, especially following the seizure of power in 1933.

On the night of 8 November, Hitler would address the Alte Kämpfer ('Old Fighters') in the Bürgerbräukeller (after 1939, the Löwenbräu, in 1944 in the Circus Krone Building), followed the next day by a re-enactment of the march through the streets of Munich.

As the war went on, residents of Munich came increasingly to dread the approach of the anniversary, concerned that the presence of the top Nazi leaders in their city would act as a magnet for Allied bombers.

[58] † Bormann and Höss were awaiting trial after their assassination of Walther Kadow on behalf of the movement, supposedly avenging his alleged betrayal of Leo Schlageter a resistance fighter much admired by members of the paramilitary right during the occupation of the Ruhr who had been executed by French authorities in May of 1923.

Behind these came the second string of Heinz Pernet, Johann Aigner (Scheubner-Richter's servant), Gottfried Feder, Theodor von der Pfordten, Wilhelm Kolb, Rolf Reiner, Hans Streck, and Heinrich Bennecke, Brückner's adjutant.