I fear that your dream will soon be over.
—EBERHARDT KAUTTER TO A SUPPORTER OF THE HITLER-LUDENDORFF PLOT
One of the first orders of the Bavarian authorities after they reunited at the infantry barracks had been to arrest Wilhelm Frick. The commander of Munich’s state police, Col. Josef Banzer, and his chief of staff, Maj. Sigmund von Imhoff, were only happy to oblige because they had long been suspicious of his motives. Their task was made easier when, at about three thirty a.m., Frick walked into their office, asking if they had any news about the triumvirate.
Banzer tried to carry on a casual conversation as Imhoff discreetly left to find backup. When he returned, Frick started to leave the room. Imhoff blocked the door.
“Herr Frick, I’m awfully sorry, but I must do my duty,” Imhoff said.
Banzer clarified what this meant: Frick was under arrest.
“On whose orders?” Frick asked.
“The government’s.”
“But which government, Colonel?”
Frick was thunderstruck. Could it really be on orders from Gustav von Kahr, the same man he had promised support for Hitler’s regime only hours before?
Two police officers, called in by Imhoff, escorted Frick to another room in the building. The next task was to arrest Pöhner.
AS SCHEUBNER-RICHTER AND Pöhner arrived at the War Ministry, the rooms and corridors were crowded with soldiers, some of them smoking, chatting, or just trying to sleep. On the third floor, Hitler was talking with Röhm, accusing the absent General von Lossow of betraying them. Virtually everyone in the room agreed, except for Ludendorff, who still refused to believe that a German officer would break his word.
To extricate themselves from the crisis, Hitler put his hope in the art of persuasion. There would be official posters of the new regime, 100,000 of them, soon to be plastered around town. There would be speeches by fiery demagogues like Julius Streicher and a call for fourteen rallies all around Munich. There would be articles and proclamations by Hermann Esser. The Völkischer Beobachter and other Munich papers would bring the news to breakfast tables around Munich. “Propaganda, nothing but propaganda,” Hitler said.
At the new offices in the occupied bank, Esser was hard at work on just that. His text of the forthcoming announcement for the newspaper, coupled with its rapid composition despite his illness, would earn him praise from Hitler’s men:
The revolution of the November criminals has ended today . . . Five years have passed since the day the heroic German people were stabbed in the back by yelling, miserable deserters and criminals who had escaped from our prison. The national traitors lied to the trusting people, promising them peace, freedom, beauty, and dignity . . . And what came of that?
Esser went on to depict the hunger and misery of the people who lay exposed to the ravenous exploitation of “speculators, profiteers, and political frauds,” as well as the criminal politicians in Berlin who surrendered the country’s assets. Thanks to the dictated peace of Versailles, 17 million Germans had been “torn from us, and ignominiously dishonored.” In the meantime, the fact that “a former brothel-keeper,” he said, referring to President Ebert, “has usurped the title of Reich President besmirches the honor of the German People and the German Republic.”
“One would have to be an idiot to expect help from such places.”
Despite the ringing triumphalism in his proclamations, Esser was worried. After dropping off the copy to the offices of the newspaper, where Alfred Rosenberg was anxiously awaiting it, Esser had shared his concerns with his friend, the photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, at his studio across the street.
“It’s all over,” Hoffmann remembered him saying as he sat there in an armchair. Ludendorff and Hitler, he added, had made the fundamental mistake of letting the Bavarian leaders leave the beer hall. Lossow would rally the army—and Seisser the state police—for a massive counterstrike. The Nazis, by contrast, were losing momentum.
Hours in, the putsch certainly seemed to be unraveling. It was marred by poor planning, hasty decisions, and a reliance on slapdash improvisation that showed a remarkable lack of attention for detail. Haphazard communications and a preference for lengthy talk and grandiose proclamations also dogged their efforts. The change of plans at the last minute, rushing up their action to November 8, had prevented them from utilizing effective preparation and organization, let alone from securing enough allies. As a result, the National Socialists had failed to obtain a powerful base of support to counter the influential military, industrial, and economic resources arrayed against them.
Hitler and the leaders of the putsch were stuck in a surreal fantasy world, where desire was perceived as reality and they were unable to admit that the Bavarian leaders would not be cooperating with them. By six o’clock that morning, they would have no choice but confront the facts of the situation.
This realization came by way of a mutual acquaintance, a fifty-five-year-old instructor at Munich’s Infantry School, Col. Ludwig Leupold. After being awoken at the academy with news that General Ludendorff wished to speak with him, Leupold had come over at once to the War Ministry. A long wait later, Leupold was taken into a small room alone with Ludendorff and Hitler. General Ludendorff expressed his frustration with Lossow for keeping them waiting almost seven hours. Telephone calls went unanswered; messengers failed to return. Ludendorff asked point-blank about Lossow’s whereabouts.
He was not coming, Leupold said. He went on to confirm that Lossow had given orders for the army to resist Hitler and his supporters.
Ludendorff looked astonished, Leupold later said. The general must have been the last person to realize that Lossow was not going to join them.
Ludendorff then asked the instructor to make a personal appeal to Lossow to keep his word of honor.
Before the meeting wrapped up, Hitler launched into a tirade, shouting that he had worked for four years for Germany and he was “prepared to fight for [his] cause.” He ranted, “I am not a coward!” As for Lossow, if he tried to destroy his work for Germany, the Bavarian general would forfeit his “right to exist.”
All this braggadocio aside, Hitler must have realized that it would be difficult for his men to defend the War Ministry against the mobilized Reichswehr. They decided to move back to the Bürgerbräu. The putsch was returning to the beer hall where it had begun. And there, on Hitler’s natural turf, they would prepare for a final confrontation with the authorities, whatever that would be. The Nazis apparently had no plan, let alone an alternative or contingency should their efforts fail. Once again, they would have to improvise.
On the way to the beer hall, Hitler would first stop by his apartment and change his clothes. Ludendorff and other plotters would meet him at the Bürgerbräukeller. Röhm was asked to remain at the War Ministry and to hold it at all costs.