The “Beer Putsch” failed 100 years ago, but it launched Hitler’s political career

The future Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, as chairman of the then modest National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), attempted a coup d’état from a crowded Munich beer hall with his henchmen, including Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess, a century ago.

The event, known as the “Beer Putsch”, saw the National Socialists banned and Hitler briefly imprisoned, during which the “bible of Nazism”, Mein Kampf (My Struggle), was produced.

At that time, Hitler attended a meeting of representatives of Bavarian elites in the Bürgerbräukeller pub in Munich alongside General Erich Ludendorff. At one point, Hitler sprang up on a chair, fired a pistol into the ceiling, and declared the end of the “November Reign of Criminals,” as opponents of the peace term called the establishment.

Then the SA shock troops set up by the NSDAP burst into the room. With their help, Hitler held several hostages, whom he later released, but at the same time he managed to get the frightened crowd on his side.

The next day, Hitler and Ludendorff, together with a fanatical crowd of about two thousand, went to the streets of Munich. However, the police and soldiers nipped this coup attempt in the bud. Sixteen coup plotters and four policemen died during the intervention.

Hitler was arrested and charged with treason. Although his coup attempt ended in failure, he became the founding myth of the so-called Third Reich. The future German leader gained notoriety from the trial and used it to spread hatred against Jews. The coup plotter was sentenced to five years in prison. He served nine months, during which he wrote Mein Kampf.