The National Socialist Storm Troopers were, for example, not a gentleman’s club.
—LT. COL. HERMANN KRIEBEL
As the armed men escorted the three Bavarian leaders out of the ban- quet hall, stepping over the machine gun in the vestibule, Göring’s Storm Troopers were busy rounding up the Munich police, nicknamed the “blue police” for the color of their uniform. There were some 1,500 members on the squad, but only a small force of about 40 men had been on duty that night. Göring’s men had no trouble capturing the vast majority of the policemen on the premises.
At a front table near the guests of honor, a lean young man in an old Bavarian military uniform stood on a chair. This was Rudolf Hess, a twenty-nine-year-old student at Munich University. He pulled out a sheet of paper that Hitler had earlier handed him and began to read.
It was a list of names that included Bavaria’s prime minister, Eugen Ritter von Knilling; three members of his cabinet; and the president of the police, Karl Mantel. Hess asked all of these people to step forward. Each one was to be arrested. Why the hostages would be held was not communicated.
Hess took charge of the prisoners. Quiet, shy, and introspective, Hess often struck people as aloof, if not morose, rarely smiling or even looking anyone in the eyes. Like many other prominent early members of the party, Hess had been born outside Germany, in his case, Alexandria, Egypt, where his father owned a wholesale export business. He had lived abroad until age twelve, when he was packed off for boarding school at Bad Godesberg on the Rhine.
During the war, Hess served in a Bavarian unit (though not Hitler’s regiment, as widely claimed), and then had become a pilot. The two men met only in 1920; Hess had been elated by one of Hitler’s speeches. Since joining the party on July 1 of that same year as member 1,600, Hess was active on its emerging “intelligence division” and eventually received command of a Storm Trooper battalion. Otherwise, Hess continued to study geopolitics, write poetry, enjoy classical music, pursue his interests in astrology, and above all, draw closer to Hitler.
Hess had been staying at his family estate in Fichtelgebirge when Hitler summoned him. He hurried back to Munich, having been instructed earlier that morning to capture the Bavarian prime minister and several cabinet members. “An honorable and important assignment,” Hess said.
He escorted the seven new captives up a narrow staircase to a room on the second floor of the beer hall near the residence of its manager, Korbinian Reindl. Three Storm Troopers, armed with rifles and hand grenades, joined them, while two other men stood sentry in the corridor. Hess waited for further orders.
DOWNSTAIRS, MEANWHILE, THE bodyguard Ulrich Graf handed Hitler another stein of beer and then double-checked his loaded Mauser pistol.
“No one leaves this room alive without my permission,” Hitler shouted to the Bavarian leaders in the side room. Sweating and waving his pistol in between sips of his beer, which helped clear his dry throat, a legacy of a poison-gas attack he had suffered at the end of the First World War, Hitler addressed these men as if he were rallying a mass audience.
There would be a new German government, Hitler said, adding that he would lead it himself. General Ludendorff would take charge of the army and Hitler offered a place in the regime to each of the three Bavarian leaders.
“I know that this is difficult for you gentlemen,” Hitler said, “but the step must be taken.” He tried to rationalize his move that night as making it easier for the leaders to assume their roles. “I have four bullets in my pistol,” Hitler then said, “three for my collaborators, if they desert me, and the fourth one for me.” Tomorrow morning, Hitler repeated, placing the pistol at his temple, would see either success or death.
Colonel von Seisser reminded Hitler of a promise he had made earlier in the year not to make a putsch.
“Yes, I did,” Hitler said, “but forgive me for the sake of the Fatherland.” He gave no other explanation for breaking his word.
When Lossow turned to whisper something to his colleagues, Hitler forbade them from speaking with one another.
Was Ludendorff really involved in the plot? Lossow asked, no doubt wondering why he was absent.
He had already been contacted, Hitler said, and would soon arrive.
Kahr reminded everyone of his difficulties in joining the new government, given that he and his Bavarian colleagues had been, as he put it, “taken out of the auditorium under heavy guard” and the people would lack confidence in them. He hadn’t even been allowed to finish his speech.
Hitler looked indecisive and insecure. Then, all of a sudden, he darted out of the room as if an idea had just struck him.
No one said a word. Kahr stood by the window, deep in thought. Lossow, now leaning against the side of a table, smoked a cigar. Seisser was near the door. Kahr broke the silence: “How incredible that they would spirit me away like this. . . . You can’t just hold up someone like a bandit!”
AT HIS TABLE near the front of the banquet hall, Munich University history professor Müller was talking with friends. Someone asked if Hitler really thought he could succeed by riding roughshod over everyone. Another person noted that Kahr now had the heaven-sent opportunity he had long desired; that is, he could join a conspiracy to create a new nationalist government without having to take responsibility for planning or leading it.
“There must be some disagreement,” Müller said. “Didn’t Hitler say it would all be settled in ten minutes, and then they’d be back?”
The crowd was getting restless.
“That’s German loyalty?” someone shouted. “That’s German unity?”
“South America!” one cried.
“Theatre!” yelled another.
Others whistled and booed, or even mocked Hitler’s appearance. With his ill-cut black frock coat, he drew comparisons to a headwaiter, a concierge at a small hotel, a tax collector in his finest clothes, and a nervous provincial bridegroom on his wedding day.
Hermann Göring mounted the stage, pistol in hand, to calm the volatile audience. Hitler had “the friendliest intentions,” he shouted over the din. Göring too would have to fire a shot into the air to gain the crowd’s attention. He tried to assure the audience that Hitler’s move was “in no way against Kahr,” or the army or the police. It was aimed instead at “the Berlin government of Jews.” This elicited a round of applause.
The people simply had to be patient. A new Germany was being born. Besides, Göring said, his booming voice carrying throughout the hall, “You’ve got your beer. What are you worrying about?”
Despite Göring’s clumsy attempt to calm the crowd, many people in the banquet room did worry about the safety of the Bavarian leaders, and their own. The Storm Troopers had seized control of the building, lining the walls and covering the exits, all of them, heavily armed and their faces, as General von Lossow later put it, “distorted with ecstasy.” Professor Müller, for one, feared that the Storm Troopers would also keep everyone locked up all night. Worse still was the risk that someone in the overcrowded beer hall would make a stupid or reckless act, causing a panic and, ultimately, a bloodbath.