The Trial of Adolf Hitler: The Beer Hall Putsch and the Rise of Nazi Germany

by David King

Overview

The never-before-told story of the scandalous courtroom drama that paved the way for the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

On the evening of November 8, 1923, the thirty-four-year-old Adolf Hitler stormed into a beer hall in Munich, fired his pistol in the air, and proclaimed a revolution. Seventeen hours later, all that remained of his bold move was a trail of destruction. Hitler was on the run from the police. His career seemed to be over.

The Trial of Adolf Hitler tells the true story of the monumental criminal proceeding that followed when Hitler and nine other suspects were charged with high treason. Reporters from as far away as Argentina and Australia flocked to Munich for the sensational four-week spectacle. By its end, Hitler would transform the fiasco of the beer hall putsch into a stunning victory for the fledgling Nazi Party. It was this trial that thrust Hitler into the limelight, provided him with an unprecedented stage for his demagoguery, and set him on his improbable path to power.

Based on trial transcripts, police files, and many other new sources, including some five hundred documents recently discovered from the Landsberg Prison record office, The Trial of Adolf Hitler is a gripping true story of crime and punishment—and a haunting failure of justice with catastrophic consequences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393241693
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/06/2017
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	776,223
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

David King is the New York Times best-selling author of Death in the City of Light, Vienna 1814, and The Trial of Adolf Hitler. He taught European history at the University of Kentucky, and lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

Table of Contents

Munich, 1923-1924: Cast of Characters xv

Prologue xix

Part I The Beer Hall

1 Bürgerbräukeller 3

2 Starving Trillionaires 11

3 Four Bullets 17

4 German Ulysses 21

5 "Loud, Raw, and Screeching" 28

6 Sparkling Metropolis 32

7 Harvard's Gift 41

8 The New Regime 46

9 "Safely Delivered" 49

10 Counter-Putsch 56

11 Initiative 61

12 Barbarian Hordes 66

13 Midnight in Munich 71

14 Ordinance No. 264 76

15 "I Am Not a Coward" 79

16 Hour of Decision 83

17 In the Courtyard 89

18 Hitler's Foreign Legion 93

19 Blood Land 98

20 Flight 105

21 Hostage Ordeal 110

22 New November Criminals 114

23 Testament 118

24 Curtains 126

25 Trials Before the Trial 133

Part II The Courtroom

26 "We Will Not Hurt Germany!" 147

27 Defendant Hitler 155

28 Confessions and Distortions 164

29 Behind Closed Doors 172

30 The Defense Attacks 179

31 A Masterpiece of Ignorance 184

32 Cup of Bitterness 191

33 Dr. Frick 197

34 First Witnesses 202

35 The Prosecutor's Misfortunes 209

36 Priorities 214

37 "Peculiar Gentlemen" 219

38 A Dangerous Game 224

39 Avoiding the Rubble 230

40 Day Thirteen 236

41 A Putsch, Not a Putsch 242

42 Blow-Up 247

43 Hints 252

44 Hitler's Bodyguard Takes the Stand 256

45 Volte-Face 261

46 'Good Times for Traitors" 266

47 From Munich to Valhalla 273

48 Final Words 279

49 Endings and Beginnings 286

50 Nomen Est Omen 291

Part III Prison

51 Caesar in Cell 7 303

52 Face-to-Face 310

53 Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice 317

54 "A Perpetual Danger" 324

Epilogue 333

Acknowledgment 337

Notes and Sources 341

Illustration Credits 437

Index 439

Editorial Reviews

04/03/2017
King (Death in the City of Light) affirms his reputation as a first-rate narrative historian in this well-researched analysis of Adolf Hitler’s trial for treason in the aftermath of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Initially Hitler was a marginal figure; the focus was on national hero Erich Ludendorff. But in this fast-paced account, King demonstrates how Hitler increasingly came to dominate and define the proceedings. He understood, and took full advantage of, the court’s overriding desire to conceal the full extent of the conspiracy of leading public figures against the state of Bavaria and the Weimar Republic. Hitler used the courtroom as a public forum, talking for hours at a time of his vision of a Germany raised to greatness from the ashes of defeat. His speeches were described by one newspaper as “a serialized novel.” The trial’s presiding judge understood the value of the smokescreen this hitherto minor figure was providing, and Hitler’s conviction for high treason was a matter of form. His minimal sentence and eventual parole reflected the legal system’s collective conviction that he would sink back into obscurity. As King shows, Hitler’s trial made him a patriot and martyr to an increasing number of supporters, and the system’s contingent miscalculations facilitated Hitler’s rise to power. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"A powerful work that underlines what a pivot point the trial was—and how badly it went awry."

Bookpage

"A courtroom drama both farcical and ominous. An absorbing, detailed account of a crucial—but often overlooked—chapter in Hitler’s rise."

Joseph Kanon

"This is the definitive book on the Hitler trial in the English, German, or any language."

Peter Ross Range

"As captivating as it is well researched and scholastically precise."

The New Criterion

"Gripping....The Trial of Adolf Hitler provides a textbook example of how a determined demagogue can turn defeat into victory. It is also a disturbing portrait of how an advanced country can descend into chaos and of the human cost that this chaos entails."

Wall Street Journal - Frederick Taylor

05/01/2017
Based on recently discovered documents from Adolf Hitler's time in prison and the full transcript of his trial, King (Death in the City of Light) writes the first full-length study in English of Hitler's failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, in which he and the Nazi party tried to seize power in Munich. The author follows the führer's actions on the night of the failed coup, his arrest a few days later, and the subsequent trial. After being charged with treason, Hitler faced the possibility of a stiff jail sentence and deportation. Instead, the leader seized this opportunity to make long speeches attacking the Weimar Republic and his perceived enemies. The intense media coverage served to increase Hitler's popularity among Germans. Capitalizing on the publicity from the trial, Hitler emerged more focused and energized—and with a clear plan to rebuild the Nazi party. VERDICT King successfully shows the trial served a small yet crucial part in Hitler's rise to power during the Third Reich's formative years. Recommended for those interested in Hitler's early political career and the origins of World War II.—Chad E. Statler, Lakeland Comm. Coll., Kirtland, OH

Library Journal

★ 2017-04-02
A highly detailed study of Hitler's failed putsch of Nov. 8, 1923, in Munich and the trial that "catapulted this relatively minor local leader onto the national stage."In an astute work of scholarship and vivid narrative of vying personalities and power, Kentucky-based historian King (Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris, 2011, etc.) chronicles the ill-planned, audacious attempt by a small but growing right-wing party of disaffected thugs to seize the reins of Bavarian government. Harnessing the postwar disillusionment with the "peace of shame," crippling reparations, hyperinflation, fall of the monarchy, and rise of a Socialist republic for the first time in German history, a number of right-wing groups emerged in the early 1920s, specifically Munich's "anti-republic, anti-parliament, anti-Communist, and anti-Semitic" National Socialist Party. Hitler was known as "a speaker who could fill the beer halls and whip the throngs into a frenzy." Seizing the moment—and backed by the party's paramilitary wing, the well-regarded war hero Gen. Erich Ludendorff, and Hitler's own band of murderous bodyguards—he did just that at Munich's Bürgerbräukeller. In three parts, King illuminates this dark saga: first, the actual putsch, which entailed the party's taking of Bavarian government officials as hostages and storming the war ministry only to be removed by the Munich police when no real plan for a march on Berlin emerged; second, the monthlong Munich trial itself, which largely tapped into public sympathy for Hitler and his theories, resulting in a conviction for "high treason" yet a jail sentence that allowed him to be released on parole after eight and a half months; and finally, his incarceration in a fairly luxurious cell in Landsberg Prison, where he was celebrated as a hero and managed to write the propaganda tome that would launch the Nazi Party's apotheosis, Mein Kampf. A meticulously researched, deeply instructive work with great relevance for our current era of right-wing resurgence.

Kirkus Reviews

"This sobering book reveals what happened, what went wrong, and how it paved the way for the cataclysms that were to follow."

History Revealed

"A gripping, almost minute-by-minute narrative… The Trial of Adolf Hitler is impeccably researched and engagingly written, and succeeds in bringing the fraught, chaotic nature of the event to life."

The Times (London) - Roger Moorhouse

"King's research is exquisite.… It is difficult to think of a book accessible to the general public like this that presents such a rich and detailed work of unpublished research."

Exame (Brazil) - Joel Pinheiro da Fonseca

"Vivid… offer[s] startling insights into aspects of Hitler and Nazism that have been previously under-reported."

The Spectator - Nigel Jones

"The casual student of history might think that we already know all we usefully can about Adolf Hitler, his rise and fall, but… here is another contribution to Führer studies."

The Catholic Herald - Robin Aitken

"Engrossing and well-researched… makes an important contribution to the understanding of modern totalitarianism."

Christian Science Monitor

"The early criminal trial that could have stopped Hitler’s rise… New York Times best-selling author King brings that early trial vividly to life. He shows in this deeply insightful, compellingly written narrative how Hitler turned an early legal setback into a platform for his vicious demagoguery—and a short prison sentence into a political launching pad."

The National Book Review