Top

The Munich Putsch

& aftermath


In September 1923, the Chancellor Gustav Stresemann and President Ebert had decided that the only way Germany could proceed after hyperinflation was to agree to work with the French as opposed to against them. This caused outrage throughout Germany and especially throughout the Nazi Party as he believed it did not work towards a better Germany.

On the 8th of November, 1923, Adolf Hitler's Nation Socialist (Nazi) Party launched an attempted revolution in Munich, the capital city of Bavaria, in order to overcome to Weimar Republic and rid them from office. It was easily crushed by the army and the police, but it was yet another example of the violent political extremism which lay just beneath the surface of the Weimar Republic which was extremely unpopular at the time.

Failed Attempt

Although the Nazis had grown in strength from 1919 to 1923, they still did not
have sufficent numbers to create the final uproar needed to overcome the Weimar Government and seize power for themselves. At the time of the Putsch, the Nazi Party only had 3000 members which is hardly enough needed to take over the whole country which is factor leading up to the failure of the Putsch which resulted in the arrests of many of the Nazi Party's members, including Hitler himself. A benefit to Hitler's arrest was that he was given the oppurtunity to write his famous book 'Mein Kampf' or 'My Struggle'. This book allowed Hitler to expand on his political ideologies and future plans for Germany.

Martyrdom

During the Ruhr Putsch, 16 Nazi Party members lost their lives. The 16 fallen were regarded as the first "blood martyrs" of the Nazi Party and were remembered by Hitler in the foreword of Mein Kampf. The Nazi flag they carried, which in the course of events had been stained with blood, came to be known as the Blutfahne (blood flag) and was brought out for the swearing-in of new recruits in front of the Feldherrnhalle when Hitler was in power.