The luck of the devil: an alternative look at the Munich Beer Hall Putsch

Hitler had planned to take over Munich and then march on Berlin but he needed the three leading figures in the Bavarian government –  Gustav Kahr, the Bavarian Prime Minister, General von Lossow, commander of the Bavarian Army and Colonel von Seisser, head of the state police force – to join with him if he was to be successful.

So what did he do? He stormed into a public meeting they were having in a Munich beer hall. Hitler stormed into the hall waving a gun, stopped the meeting and took Kahr, Lossow and von Seisser into a side room at gun point. What if they had refused to go, or just one of them had refused? Hitler would only have had two choices: back down or shoot them. Either choice would have seen the end to his revolution and his political standing. A trial for cold-blooded murder would have been a very different kettle of fish than the trial he actually had. And if he had backed down his credibility would have been shot to pieces. What if the crowd had stormed the stage? There might have been a massacre. Either way, end of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Or else Hitler might have been disarmed and made to look a fool. Either way, Hitler would have been finished.

What happened next was that Ludendorff arrived. What if he hadn’t? It was Ludendorff who convinced Kahr and the others to go along with Hitler’s plan. And that Hitler returned to the meeting gave those attending another chance to assert their independence. What if they had taken it? Again, potential for a massacre or a climb down. Again, either way Hitler would almost certainly have been finished.

The following day, with the original plan in pieces, and Hitler’s standing about to nose dive, it is Ludendorff who suggests marching to the city centre in order to take it over. So they marched arms with arms linked to each other. And when shots were fired at them, the man linked to Hitler’s left was killed, Goring was badly wounded and Hitler dislocated his shoulder as he fell to the floor. What if Hitler had been shot and killed? What history would we be studying? A different history is the short answer.

So, we can see that the events of November 8^th-9^th, 1923 could have turned out very differently at a number of critical points in the putsch. Individuals and groups made the choices they did, but different choices could have been made. History is never inevitable.