Rohm and a small group of SA men to the barracks. Explaining that the government feared leftist disorders on May 1, they helped themselves to carbines and machine guns. Such open preparations for a putsch sowed alarm among some of Hitler’s nationalist allies. There were open clashes within the Kampfbund, but in the meantime events had caught up with the actors. Obeying Hitler’s announcement of an emergency, party stalwarts from Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Freising had arrived in Munich. Many of them were armed. A group from Bad Tolz came with an old field cannon hitched to their truck. The units from Landshut, led by Gregor Strasser and Heinrich Himmler, brought along several light machine guns. All these groups were acting in anticipation of the revolutionary uprising they had been dreaming of for years and which Hitler had repeatedly promised them. They were expecting a “wiping out of the November disgrace,” as the grim slogan had it. When Police Commissioner Nortz issued a warning to Kriebel, the answer was: “I can no longer turn back; it is too late… whether or not blood flows.”
Before dawn on May 1, the patriotic leagues were gathering in Munich at the Oberwiesenfeld, at the Maximilianeum, and at several other key locations throughout the city to quell the socialist coup that was allegedly brewing. Hitler arrived at the Oberwiesenfeld a little later. The place had the look of a military encampment. Hitler, too, looked martial; he was wearing a helmet and his Iron Cross, First Class. His entourage included Goring, Streicher, Rudolf Hess, Gregor Strasser, and Gerhard Rossbach, who was in command of the Munich SA. While the storm troopers began drilling in preparation for orders to launch real attacks, the leaders conferred. Confusion reigned; there was considerable dissension, growing nervousness and dismay, because the expected signal from Rohm had failed to come.
In the meantime, the trade unions and parties of the Left were celebrating their May Day rites on the Theresienwiese. Their slogans were the time-honored revolutionary ones, but the general temper was harmonious and public-spirited. Since the police had cordoned off the side of the Oberwiesenfeld facing the city, the expected clashes did not take place. But Rohm himself was at this moment standing at attention before his commander, General von Lossow, who had learned of the trickery at the barracks and was greatly enraged. Shortly after noon, Captain Rohm, escorted by Reichswehr and police contingents, appeared at the Oberwiesenfeld. He transmitted Lossow’s orders: the stolen weapons were to be surrendered on the spot. Strasser and Kriebel urged an immediate attack, reasoning that a civil war situation would bring the Reichswehr over to their side. But Hitler gave in. He found a way to save face by arranging to have his men return the weapons to the barracks. But the defeat was unmistakable, and even the flamboyant language with which he addressed his followers that evening in the Krone Circus could not blot it out.
This would seem to have been the first personal crisis in Hitler’s rise to power. True, he had a certain justification for blaming his defeat on the attitude of some of his allies, particularly the squeamish and stiff-necked nationalist organizations. But he must have recognized that the behavior of his partners had also exposed certain weaknesses and mistakes of his own. Above all, he had misread the situation. The Reichswehr, whose might had made him strong and whose co-operation he had counted on, had suddenly turned into an enemy.
It was the first painful reverse after years of steady progress, and Hitler disappeared from public view for several weeks. He took refuge with Dietrich Eckart in Berchtesgaden. Plagued by self-doubt, he only occasionally appeared to give a speech. Once or twice he went to Munich for a bit of distraction. Up to this point he had acted largely instinctively, by hit and miss and imitation. Now, in the light of that disastrous May 1, he conceived the outlines of a consistent strategy: the concept of a “fascist revolution” that takes place not in conflict but in concert with government power—what has been aptly described as “revolution by permission of His Excellency the President.”43 He put some of his thoughts down on paper. These ruminations were later incorporated into
He had also to contend with the reaction of the public. “It is generally recognized that Hitler and his men have made fools of themselves,” one report put it. Even an “assassination plot” against “the great Adolf” (as the
Currents of this sort cannot have been lost on Hitler, brooding in the solitude of Berchtesgaden. This would help explain his extraordinary retreat, his refusal to try to re-establish contact with Lossow or to inject a new spirit into the leaderless party and the Kampfbund. Gottfried Feder, Oskar Korner, and a few other long-time followers attempted to rouse him, above all urging him to break with “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, who had introduced the virtuous Hitler to “lovely ladies” who went about “in silk underwear” calling for more and more “champagne parties.” But Hitler hardly heard what they were saying. He let himself sink into his old state of lethargy and disgust. Yet he took some interest in the court case growing out of the events of May 1 and now pending before the Munich Landgericht (superior court). If the judgment went against him, Hitler would have to serve the two-month sentence he had received for the Ballerstedt affair. What was worse, Minister of the Interior Schweyer would undoubtedly rule that Hitler had broken his parole and would have him expelled from Bavaria.
Hitler bestirred himself enough to send a petition to the state prosecutor. He knew that he had friends within the power structure. It was to them that he appealed. “For weeks now I have been the victim of savage vilification in the press and the Landtag,” he wrote. “But because of the respect I owe my Fatherland I have not attempted to defend myself publicly. Therefore I can only be grateful to Providence for this chance to defend myself fully and freely in the courtroom.” He menacingly indicated, moreover, that he • was going to hand his petition over to the press.
The implications were clear enough, and the state prosecutor quickly passed the petition on, with an anxious note appended, to Minister of Justice Gurtner. The latter was a strong nationalist who had not forgotten certain old pacts and promises made to the National Socialists. Had he not even referred to them as “flesh of our flesh”? The nation’s plight was worsening from day to day, with galloping inflation, general strikes, the battle of the Ruhr, hunger riots, and mounting agitation by the Left. In view of all this, there seemed good reason to show leniency toward a leader of national stature, even if said leader was part of the problem. Without informing the Minister of the Interior, who had several times inquired about the case, Gurtner let the state prosecutor know that he considered it advisable to have the case postponed “until a calmer period.” On August 1, 1923, the investigation was temporarily suspended, and on May 22 of the following year the charges were dropped.
Nevertheless, Hitler’s loss of prestige was not easily rectified. That became apparent in early September, when the patriotic organizations celebrated one of their “German Days,” this one on the anniversary of the victory at Sedan, which had ended the Franco-Prussian War. A great parade was held in Nuremberg, complete with flags, wreaths, and retired generals. The attendance ran into the hundreds of thousands, all temporarily ecstatic with the feeling of having overcome national humiliation. The police report of the incident had a highly unbureaucratic, emotional ring: “Roaring cries of
According to this report, the National Socialists formed one of the largest contingents among the 100,000 marchers. But at the center of the cheering stood General Ludendorff. Hitler, caught in the sway of the mass demonstration but also aware of the ground he had lost in the recent past, declared himself ready for a new alliance. He joined with the Reichsflagge group under Captain Heiss, and the Bund Oberland under Friedrich Weber, to form the Deutscher Kampfbund—a new version of the older league of nationalist parties. This time, however, there was no longer any question of Hitler’s assuming the principal role. What had damaged his status was not so much the defeat of May 1 as his withdrawal from Munich afterward. For as soon as he was no longer on the scene to cause a sensation, his name, his authority, his demagogic powers all faded away. The indefatigable Rohm had to campaign for three weeks before he was able to persuade the leaders of the Kampfbund to relinquish the leadership in political affairs to Hitler.
The turning point came when the national government decided that the struggle at the Ruhr was draining the country’s energies to no avail. On September 24, six weeks after becoming Chancellor, Gustav Stresemann