When German Republicans have nightmares nowadays, they dream they are in Bavaria.
—THOMAS R. YBARRA, New York Times
On March 22, the twentieth day of the trial, defense attorney Alfred Holl presented the summation for Dr. Weber. In another strongly nationalist speech that drew applause from a rowdy audience, Holl traced the roots of the beer hall putsch back to the “so-called Treaty of Versailles.” This infamous document, as he put it, enshrined the “biggest lie” of world history when it blamed Germany alone for the war and saddled it with penalties unparalleled in “sadistic malice.”
The patriots in the dock, by standing up to the ambitious Berlin politicians who signed this treaty and sold out Germany, had hoped to reverse the depressing postwar saga of “cowardice and corruption.” This was a goal shared by millions of Germans. “If that is high treason,” Holl said, “then the prisoners’ box must be lengthened by several kilometers!”
The judge stopped him, refusing to allow the words “cowardice and corruption.”
“I am at a loss for any other expression,” Holl said. “In any case, it captures the feeling of all Germans.”
Minutes later, Holl resumed his attack on the Weimar Republic as born in “treason and perjury” and lacking any shred of legitimacy. No one objected, either, when he assailed its constitution as unconstitutional. As for the bloodbath at the Odeonsplatz, Holl said many people in the street were understandably wondering, “What kind of a Fatherland . . . orders its nationally minded youth to be shot at?”
Several international reporters listened with astonishment. “Bavaria is the bête noire of Germany,” Thomas R. Ybarra wrote in his next piece for the New York Times. The city of Munich, as evidenced by the reactions in the gallery, was rampant with anti-Republican sympathies tantamount to high treason.
After Holl finished his speech, Judge Neithardt called for a thirty- minute recess. Four defense attorneys asked for more time to craft their final arguments. When the judge refused, Roder claimed it was necessary because three of the defendants were ill (Pöhner, Frick, and Röhm). The judge accepted this reason, adjourning the court for two days.
Munich police, in the meantime, picked up warnings of a riot should Ludendorff and Hitler be pronounced guilty. Planned vacations for the Bavarian military and state police were canceled, and security around the Blutenburgstrasse was increased. The verdict was expected within the week.
OVER THE NEXT few days, the court would hear closing arguments from twelve defense lawyers. Many of these speeches were long, tedious, and repetitive, and focused on defendants other than Hitler and Ludendorff. For the first time in weeks, there were several empty seats in the gallery.
Even some of the defendants were absent. Wilhelm Brückner and Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel were excused from the proceedings because of a supposed sickness. On Tuesday, March 25, Hitler would join them because he was said to be exhausted. The Meistersinger of the trial probably had to go lubricate his throat, mocked the Münchener Post.
The defendants found it strenuous to participate in court proceedings for ten hours a day, Roder complained, as if that had been the norm. Perhaps the judge could relieve some of the strain by giving a longer midday recess.
“Or the pleadings of the defense could be shortened!” Neithardt said, to the amusement of the tribunal.
One of the recurring themes in the closing statements was once again the alleged failure of the Weimar Republic. Another was the treason of the Bavarian leaders. If the court wished to reach a just verdict, Schramm argued, it would have to punish Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser, as well as all the defendants, or none of them. If it opted to prosecute, it would then, in the interests of fairness, have to indict several thousand other people at the beer hall. It was ridiculous to single out his client, Ernst Röhm, for a guilty verdict. He was compared to a putsch supporter whose assistance that night consisted of pouring hot coffee.
Schramm then added another challenge to the prosecution’s stance. Citing a precedent back to the supreme court in 1916, the lawyer argued:
If legislation no longer corresponds with the feelings of the people, it has become obsolete, and the legislator has neglected his responsibility . . . In such a case, it is the noblest task of the judge to interpret the law in a way that mitigates against the sense of injustice.
This trial was the epitome of such a case, Schramm said. He urged the judges to listen to German public opinion, with its unanimous and indignant rejection of these charges.
Karl Kohl was scheduled to give the final defense counsel summation of the trial. Wading through a number of Latin maxims, emotional appeals, and legal wrangling, the outspoken and unrestrained advocate presented the putsch as an alliance of men of action, like Hitler, Ludendorff, and the codefendants, and men who failed to keep their word, like Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser. The defense counsel summed up one extreme perspective in provocative terms: “For the majority of the German people, the Weimar Constitution means nothing other than dynamite for the blasting of the German Reich!”
There was, strikingly, no objection from the bench or the prosecution.
Kohl ended the talk by making a reference to old Teutonic legends in Richard Wagner’s operas. Hitler was a “second Siegfried of the new Germany, the man who slays the Marxist dragon and frees the German worker from Marxist syphilis.” Now he had to fight for his honor and freedom. Given the overwhelming evidence in favor of the defendants, Kohl said, he would neither beg nor plead for a verdict of innocence. He would demand it.
ON THE MORNING of March 27, 1924, journalists and ticket holders alike arrived early in the former dining hall of the officer academy, hoping to beat the crowds pouring in for the twenty-fourth and final regular session of the dramatic trial. The prosecution and defense counsel had made their closing statements. The defendants would be given the opportunity to take the stand, as per German law, to say anything they wished to add before the tribunal went into deliberation.
Lieutenant Colonel Kriebel stood to make the first statement.
Given his military background, he explained, he had opted for a tactful defense, carefully avoiding any leak of sensitive material that might endanger national security. He stood by his own record, even if much of it could only be cited in closed session, and took full responsibility for his actions on November 8–9, 1923.
Pöhner followed, framing the entire debate around the issue that he first raised on the stand—namely, the legitimacy of the government and its laws, or lack thereof, since 1918. Ironically, he criticized the prosecutors for trying to sensationalize his case and refused to admit that he had committed high treason. He would never act in any way against the genuine authority of the king, the ardent monarchist added, blatantly insulting the republic.
The real treason, Pöhner argued, had occurred with the overthrow of the kaiser and the establishment of the republic by what he called a pack of “Jews, deserters, and paid traitors to the German people.” These men had no legitimate authority, he spewed, because they were an “alien race” who had deceived the people and usurped power. Pöhner drew laughter from the audience on a couple of occasions by derisively referring to the president of Germany as “Fritz.”
Pöhner’s close ally, Dr. Frick, spoke next, still claiming to have fulfilled all his obligations at police headquarters the night of the putsch and averted a catastrophe. Like Kriebel, he boasted that he would not change a thing and awaited with confidence the judgment of the court. Weber also emphasized that he and his colleagues had coordinated their actions with the legal authorities of Bavaria. He realized that he was making strong accusations against the leaders, but that was unfortunately the only conclusion he could reach. These were, he said, shameful criminals who had stabbed Germany from the back during “its struggle for existence.”
One of the most prominent proponents for this “stab-in-the-back” theory, General Ludendorff, spoke next, claiming that he would add nothing to the statements of his distinguished colleagues and counsel. He proceeded instead to give a brief history lesson. He reminded the court that he was respected for “grand battles and brilliant campaigns” as well as for predictions of national catastrophes. He now wished to sound the alarm again, calling for every patriotic German to support the movement of the nationalistic far right because, in his view, it alone could save Germany from its distress.
General Ludendorff painted a dismal portrait of the ramifications for the country should this movement not succeed: “We will be lost—lost forever!” Germany would suffer a fate worse than the humiliating and shameful Treaty of Versailles. He urged the court to heed his warning and “hear the cry of the German soul for freedom.” The defendants must be acquitted.
Ultimately, though, it did not matter what verdict Neithardt’s court rendered, Ludendorff said. “World history will not send men who serve their Fatherland to prison; it will send these men instead to Valhalla,” the hall of slain heroes in Norse mythology.
This unusual claim made headlines around the world. “Ludendorff Exalts Himself with Gods,” headlined the New York Times. At the same time, its correspondent, Thomas R. Ybarra, praised the general’s talk for having “a ring of dignity and eloquence.” Unlike his previous appearances on the stand, the general had dispensed with the “laborious attempts to whitewash himself and blacken everybody else.” The short, somewhat hesitant and stumbling talk, he added, elicited “a tremendous ovation” from the Munich courtroom.
Ludendorff sat down and his colleagues, Röhm, Brückner, Wagner, and Pernet would all decline the right to make a final address to the court. This gave the last word to defendant Adolf Hitler.