The judge in that first Hitler trial was the same person as the judge presiding over his trial for high treason in 1924: the nationalist sympathizer Georg Neithardt.
Hitler returned to Landsberg to begin his light sentence in conditions more akin to those of a hotel than a penitentiary. The windows of his large, comfortably furnished room on the first floor afforded an expansive view over the attractive countryside. Dressed in lederhosen, he could relax with a newspaper in an easy wicker chair, his back to a laurel wreath provided by admirers, or sit at a large desk sifting through the mounds of correspondence he received. He was treated with great respect by his jailers, some of whom secretly greeted him with ‘Heil Hitler’, and accorded every possible privilege. Gifts, flowers, letters of support, encomiums of praise, all poured in. He received more visitors than he could cope with – over 500 of them before he eventually felt compelled to restrict access. Around forty fellow-prisoners, some of them volunteer internees, able to enjoy almost all the comforts of normal daily life, fawned on him. He read of the demonstration on 23 April, to celebrate his thirty-fifth birthday three days earlier, of 3,000 National Socialists, former front soldiers, and supporters of the völkisch movement in the Bürgerbräukeller ‘in honour of the man who had lit the present flame of liberation and völkisch consciousness in the German people’. Under the impact of the star-status that the trial had brought him, and the Führer cult that his supporters had begun to form around him, he began to reflect on his political ideas, his ‘mission’, his ‘restart’ in politics once his short sentence was over, and pondered the lessons to be learnt from the putsch.
The debacle at the Bürgerbräukeller and its denouement next day at the Feldherrnhalle taught Hitler once and for all that an attempt to seize power in the face of opposition from the armed forces was doomed. He felt justified in his belief that propaganda and mass mobilization, not paramilitary putschism, would open the path to the ‘national revolution’. Consequently, he distanced himself from Röhm’s attempts to revitalize in new guise the Kampfbund and to build a type of people’s militia. Ultimately, the different approaches, as well as power-ambitions, of Hitler and Röhm, would lead to the murderous split in 1934. It would be going too far, however, to presume that Hitler had renounced the idea of a takeover of the state by force in favour of the ‘legal path’. Certainly, he subsequently had to profess a commitment to legality in order to involve himself in politics again. And later, electoral success appeared in any case the best strategy to win power. But the putschist approach was never given up. It continued, as the lingering problems with the SA would indicate, to coexist alongside the proclaimed ‘legal’ way. Hitler was adamant, however, that on any future occasion it could only be with, not against, the Reichswehr.
Hitler’s experience was to lead to the last, and not least, of the lessons he would draw from his ‘apprenticeship years’: that to be the ‘drummer’ was not enough; and that to be more than that meant he needed not only complete mastery in his own movement but, above all, greater freedom from external dependencies, from competing groupings on the Right, from paramilitary organizations he could not fully control, from the bourgeois politicians and army figures who had smoothed his political rise, used him, then dropped him when it suited them.
The ambivalence about his intended role after the ‘national revolution’ was still present in his comments during his trial. He insisted that he saw Ludendorff as the ‘military leader of the coming Germany’ and ‘leader of the coming great showdown’. But he claimed that he himself was ‘the political leader of this young Germany’. The precise division of labour had, he said, not been determined. In his closing address to the court, Hitler returned to the leadership question – though still in somewhat vague and indeterminate fashion. He referred to Lossow’s remarks to the court that during discussions in spring 1923 he had thought Hitler had merely wanted ‘as propagandist and awakener to arouse the people’. ‘How petty do small men think,’ went on Hitler. He did not see the attainment of a ministerial post as worthy of a great man. What he wanted, he said, was to be the destroyer of Marxism. That was his task. ‘Not from modesty did I want at that time to be the drummer. That is the highest there is. The rest is unimportant.’ When it came to it, he had demanded two things: that he should be given the leadership of the political struggle; and that the organizational leadership should go to ‘the hero … who in the eyes of the entire young Germany is called to it’. Hitler hinted – though did not state explicitly – that this was to have been Ludendorff. On the other hand, in his address to Kampfbund leaders a fortnight before the putsch, he had seemed to envisage Ludendorff as no more than the reorganizer of the future national army. Then again, the proclamation put up during the putsch itself over Hitler’s name as Reich Chancellor appeared to indicate that the headship of government was the position he foresaw for himself, sharing dictatorial power with Ludendorff as head of state (Reichsverweser, or regent).
Whatever the ambivalence, real or simply tactical, still present in Hitler’s remarks at the trial, it soon gave way to clarity about his self-image. For in Landsberg the realization dawned on Hitler: he was not the ‘drummer’ after all; he was the predestined Leader himself.
6
Emergence of the Leader
I
The year that ought to have seen the spectre of Hitler banished for good brought instead – though this could scarcely be clearly seen at the time – the genesis of his later absolute pre-eminence in the völkisch movement and his ascendancy to supreme leadership. In retrospect, the year 1924 can be seen as the time when, like a phoenix arising from the ashes, Hitler could begin his emergence from the ruins of the broken and fragmented völkisch movement to become eventually the absolute leader with total mastery over a reformed, organizationally far stronger, and internally more cohesive Nazi Party.
Nothing could have demonstrated more plainly how indispensable Hitler was to the völkisch Right than the thirteen months of his imprisonment, the ‘leaderless time’ of the movement. With Hitler removed from the scene and, from June 1924, withdrawing from all involvement in politics to concentrate on the writing of Mein Kampf, the völkisch movement descended into squabbling factionalism and internecine strife. By courtesy of Bavarian justice, Hitler had been allowed to use the courtroom to portray himself as the hero of the Right for his role in the putsch. Competing individuals and groups felt compelled to assert Hitler’s authority and backing for their actions. But in his absence, this was insufficient in itself to ensure success. Moreover, Hitler was often inconsistent, contradictory, or unclear in his views on developments. His claim to a leadership position could not be ignored, and was not disputed. Any claim to exclusive leadership was, however, upheld only by a minority in the völkisch movement. And as long as Hitler was unable directly to influence developments, the narrow core of his fervent devotees was largely marginalized even within the broad völkisch Right, often at war with each other, and split on tactics, strategy, and ideology. By the time of his release in December 1924, the Reichstag elections of that month had reflected the catastrophic decline of support for the völkisch movement, which had come to form little more than a group of disunited nationalist and racist sects on the extreme fringe of the political spectrum.
Just before his arrest on 11 November 1923, Hitler had placed Alfred Rosenberg, editor of the Völkischer Beobachter, in charge of the banned party during his absence, to be supported by Esser, Streicher, and Amann. Like a number of leading Nazis (including Heß, Scheubner-Richter, and Hitler himself ), Rosenberg’s origins did not lie within the boundaries of the German Reich. Born into a well-off bourgeois family in Reval (now Tallinn), Estonia, the introverted self-styled party ‘philosopher’, dogmatic but dull, arrogant and cold, one of the least charismatic and least popular of Nazi leaders, united other party bigwigs only in their intense dislike of him. Distinctly lacking in leadership qualities, he was scarcely an obvious choice, and was as surprised as others were by Hitler’s n
omination. Possibly, as is usually surmised, it was precisely Rosenberg’s lack of leadership ability that commended itself to Hitler. Certainly, a less likely rival to Hitler could scarcely be imagined. But this would presume that Hitler, in the traumatic aftermath of the failed putsch, was capable of lucid, machiavellian planning, that he anticipated what would happen and actually wanted and expected his movement to fall apart in his absence. A more likely explanation is that he made a hasty and ill-conceived decision, under pressure and in a depressed frame of mind, to entrust the party’s affairs to a member of his Munich coterie whose loyalty was beyond question. Rosenberg was, in fact, one of the few leading figures in the movement still available. Scheubner-Richter was dead. Others had scattered in the post-putsch turmoil, or had been arrested. Even – though Hitler could scarcely have known this – the three trusted lieutenants he had designated to support Rosenberg were temporarily out of action. Esser had fled to Austria, Amann was in jail, and Streicher was preoccupied with matters in Nuremberg. Rosenberg was probably no more than a hastily chosen least bad option.
On 1 January 1924, Rosenberg founded the Großdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft (GVG, ‘Greater German National Community’), intended to serve, during the NSDAP’s ban, as its successor organization. By the summer, Rosenberg had been ousted, and the GVG had fallen under the control of Hermann Esser (returned in May from his exile in Austria) and Julius Streicher. But the coarse personalities, insulting behaviour, and clumsy methods of Esser and Streicher merely succeeded in alienating many Hitler followers. Far from all Hitler loyalists, in any case, had joined the GVG. Gregor Strasser, for example, a Landshut apothecary who was to emerge in the post-putsch era as the leading figure in the party after Hitler, joined the Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei (DVFP), a rival völkisch organization headed by Albrecht Graefe, formerly a member of the conservative DNVP, with its stronghold in Mecklenburg and its headquarters in Berlin.
Conflict was not long deferred once Hitler was in prison. The DVFP had been less affected by proscription than had the NSDAP. In contrast to the disarray within the Hitler Movement, Graefe and other DVFP leaders were still at liberty to control a party organization left largely in place. And though the DVFP leaders lauded Hitler’s actions in the putsch in an attempt to win over his supporters, they were actually keen to take advantage of the situation and to establish their own supremacy. That the DVFP leaders advocated electoral participation by the völkisch movement added to the growing conflict. A move towards a parliamentary strategy alienated many Nazis, and was vehemently opposed by NSDAP diehards in northern Germany. Their spokesman, Ludolf Haase, the leader of the Göttingen branch, was increasingly critical of Rosenberg’s authority, and above all keen to keep the north German NSDAP from the clutches of Graefe.
Those völkisch groups that were prepared, however reluctantly, to enter parliament in order to be in a position one day to destroy it, decided to enter into electoral alliances to allow them to contest the series of regional (Landtag) elections that began in February, and the Reichstag election – the first of two that year – on 4 May 1924. Hitler was opposed to this strategy, but his opposition made no difference. The decision to participate went ahead. It seemed to be borne out by the results. In the February Landtag elections in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Graefe’s stronghold, the DVFP won thirteen out of sixty-four seats. And on 6 April in the Bavarian Landtag elections, the Völkischer Block, as the electoral alliance called itself there, won 17 per cent of the vote.
The Reichstag election results, it seems, helped persuade Hitler that the parliamentary tactic, pragmatically and purposefully deployed, promised to pay dividends. The völkisch vote, bolstered by the publicity and outcome of the Hitler trial, had stood up well, with a result of 6.5 per cent and thirty-two seats in the Reichstag. The results in Graefe’s territory of Mecklenburg (20.8 per cent) and Bavaria (16 per cent) were particularly good. That only ten of the völkisch Reichstag members were from the NSDAP and twenty-two from the DVFP gave some indication, however, of the relative weakness of the remnants of the Hitler Movement at the time.
In the first of two visits he paid to Landsberg in May, Ludendorff, whose contacts in north Germany were extensive despite his continued residence near Munich, seized the moment to try to persuade Hitler to agree to a merger of the NSDAP and DVFP fractions in the Reichstag, and in the second meeting even to full unity of the two parties. Hitler equivocated. He agreed in principle, but stipulated preconditions that needed to be discussed with Graefe. One of these, it transpired, was that the headquarters of the movement would be based in Munich. Hitler was in difficulties because, though he had always insisted on a separate and unique identity for the NSDAP, there was the danger, following the electoral success of the Völkischer Block, that such an uncompromising stance would seem less than compelling to his supporters. Moreover, the DVFP was the stronger of the two parties, as the election had shown, and Ludendorff was now generally regarded as the leading figure in the völkisch movement.
Some north German Nazis were, not surprisingly, confused and uncertain about Hitler’s position regarding any merger. In a letter of 14 June, Haase, the Nazi leader in Göttingen, sought confirmation that Hitler rejected a merger of the two parties. Replying two days later, Hitler denied that he had fundamentally rejected a merger, though he had stipulated preconditions for such a step. He acknowledged the opposition among many Nazi loyalists to a merger with the DVFP, which, he also pointed out, had made plain its rejection of some of the old guard of the party. Under the circumstances, he went on, he could no longer intervene or accept responsibility. He had decided, therefore, to withdraw from politics until he could properly lead again. He refused henceforth to allow his name to be used in support of any political position, and asked for no further political letters to be sent to him.
Hitler announced his decision to withdraw from politics in the press on 7 July. He requested no further visits to Landsberg by his supporters, a request he felt compelled to repeat a month later. The press announcement gave as his reasons the impossibility of accepting practical responsibility for developments while he was in Landsberg, ‘general overwork’, and the need to concentrate on the writing of his book (the first volume of Mein Kampf ). A not insignificant additional factor, as the opposition press emphasized, was Hitler’s anxiety to do nothing to jeopardize his chances of parole, which could be granted from 1 October. His withdrawal was not a machiavellian strategy to exacerbate the split that was already taking place, increase confusion, and thereby bolster his image as a symbol of unity. This was the outcome, not the cause. In June 1924, the outcome could not be clearly foreseen. Hitler acted from weakness, not strength. He was being pressed from all sides to take a stance on the growing schism. His equivocation frustrated his supporters. But any clear stance would have alienated one side or the other. His decision not to decide was characteristic.
Hitler’s frustration was also increased by his inability, despite his outright disapproval, to curtail Röhm’s determination to build up a nationwide paramilitary organization called the Frontbann. Unable to deter Röhm – already freed on 1 April, bound over on probation, his derisory fifteen-month prison sentence for his part in the putsch set aside on condition of good behaviour – Hitler ended their last meeting before he left Landsberg, on 17 June, by telling him that, having laid down the leadership of the National Socialist Movement, he wished to hear no more about the Frontbann. Röhm nevertheless simply ignored Hitler, and pressed on with his plans, looking to Ludendorff for patronage and protection.
A much-vaunted conference in Weimar on 15–17 August, intended to cement the organizational merger of the NSDAP and DVFP, produced only the most superficial unity in a newly-proclaimed National Socialist Freedom Movement (Nationalsozialistische Freiheitsbewegung, NSFB). By the end of the summer, the fragmentation of the NSDAP, and of the völkisch movement in general, was, despite all the talk of merger and unity, advancing rather than receding. Only Hitler’s position was emerging significa
ntly strengthened by the inner-party warfare.
As summer dragged into autumn, then winter approached, the rifts in the völkisch movement widened still further. From the NSFB’s point of view, unity without Hitler, and in the face of his continued refusal to commit himself publicly to a unified organization, was impossible. In Bavaria, the völkisch feud surrounding the figures of Esser and Streicher widened into open breach. On 26 October, the Völkischer Block decided to join the NSFB to create a united organization to fight the coming elections. With this, it accepted the NSFB’s Reich Leadership. Gregor Strasser, the spokesman of the Völkischer Block, hoped that the Großdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft would also soon join the NSFB, but at the same time openly condemned its leaders, Esser and Streicher. Esser’s reply in a letter to all GVG affiliations, a bitter attack on the leaders of the Völkischer Block, with a side-swipe at Ludendorff for his support of the Block’s position, reaffirmed the Munich loyalist position: ‘the only man who has a right to exclude someone who has fought for years for his place in the Movement of National Socialists is solely and singly Adolf Hitler.’ But Esser’s bravado, and the brash attacks of Streicher, supported by the Thuringian National Socialist, Artur Dinter, could not conceal the sharp decline of the GVG.