Niess, Wolfgang Der Hitlerputsch 1923. Geschichte eines Hochverrats

For decades there has been no new account of the Hitler Putsch of 1923. 100 years after the dramatic events in Munich, historian and journalist Wolfgang Niess revisits the material and shows that Hitler's amateurish action was only the tip of the iceberg. Hidden underneath lies the story of a high treason in which parts of the Bavarian political and military elites were involved and whose offshoots reached as far as Berlin.

On the evening of 8 November 1923, Adolf Hitler storms into the Bürgerbräukeller with his revolver drawn and announces the beginning of the national revolution. At noon the following day, the revolution ends in a hail of bullets at the Feldherrnhalle. Hitler's companion dies, he himself flees and is later arrested in miserable circumstances. Nazi propaganda claimed the putsch entirely for the NSDAP and glorified it as the sacrificial act that made the Third Reich possible in the first place. But actually, a completely different play was on the agenda at the time. Bavaria's political and military leadership was planning the overthrow of the Republic, the "March on Berlin". With detective-like flair, Wolfgang Niess uncovers the network of conspiracy and shows how Hitler ruined the whole undertaking. Poorly informed and intent on his own advantage, he rushed ahead and foiled the plans of the Bavarian leadership and their like-minded people in Berlin. Against his will, Hitler gave the democrats a chance to save the Weimar Republic when it already seemed lost.