Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 (149 page)

149 
Hanfstaengl,
Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus
, p. 88.

150 
Quoted in Auerbach, “Hitlers politische Lehrjahre,” p. 35. See the transcript of an interrogation of Göring on 20 July 1945, who claimed that Hitler had particularly welcomed him “since he always wanted to have a young officer respected throughout the nation in the ranks of the movement.” IfZ München, ZS 428. For Göring’s biography see Alfred Kube,
Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz: Hermann Göring im Dritten Reich
, Munich, 1986, pp. 4–8.

151 
See Hamann,
Winifred Wagner
, pp. 73f.; Large,
Where Ghosts Walked
, p. 151f; Hanfstaengl,
Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus
, pp. 48f.; Schad, “Freundinnen und Verehrerinnen,” pp. 38–43; Joachimsthaler,
Hitlers Liste
, pp. 68–71.

152 
Müller,
Im Wandel einer Welt
, p. 129. See also the recording by Karl Alexander von Müller “Meine Beziehungen zur NSDAP” (undated, post-1945); BayHStA München, Nl K. A. v. Müller 7. Among those who attended the Munich historian’s lectures in 1922–3 were Göring, Hess and Ernst Hanfstaengl.

153 
See Wolfgang Martynkewicz,
Salon Deutschland: Geist und Macht 1900–1945
, Berlin, 2009; Miriam Käfer, “Hitlers frühe Förderer aus dem Grossbürgertum: Das Verlegerehepaar Elsa und Hugo Bruckmann,” in Krauss (ed.),
Rechte Karrieren in München
, pp. 72–9. On Elsa Bruckmann’s anti-Semitic views see her letter to Karl Alexander von Müller dated 20 March 1929, in which she denigrated the German Cultural Association as a “culturally Jewified” antithesis of the ethnic-chauvinistic Fighting Association for German Culture. BayHStA München, Nl K. A. v. Müller 246.

154 
See Martynkewicz,
Salon Deutschland
, pp. 382, 387, 408.

155 
Herbst 1941 im “Führerhauptquartier”: Berichte Werner Koeppens an seinen Minister Rosenberg
, ed. and annotated Martin Vogt, Koblenz, 2002, p. 1 (dated 6 Sept. 1941). See also the telegram from Hitler offering condolences to Elsa Bruckmann; BSB München, Bruckmanniana Suppl. Box 4; quoted in Käfer, “Frühe Förderer,” p. 74.

156 
Fest,
Hitler
, p. 197.

157 
Hitler told his secretary Christa Schroeder that he often felt like “an ape in a zoo”; Schroeder,
Er war mein Chef
, p. 69.

158 
Hamann,
Winifred Wagner
, pp. 83f.; see also Hitler,
Monologe
, p. 224 (dated 24/25 Jan. 1942): “When I entered Wahnfried for the first, I was so moved!”

159 
Hamann,
Winifred Wagner
, p. 85.

160 
H. St. Chamberlain to Hitler, Bayreuth, 7 Oct. 1923; the dictated letter signed by Chamberlain in BA Koblenz, N 1128/16. See Hamann,
Winifred Wagner
, p. 82.

161 
Hess,
Briefe
, p. 275 (entry for 3 July 1921).

162 
Hanfstaengl,
Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus
, pp. 36, 86f.

163 
Machtan,
Hitlers Geheimnis
, p. 146. See Albert Krebs,
Tendenzen und Gestalten der NSDAP: Erinnerungen aus der Frühzeit der Partei
, Stuttgart, 1959, p. 133, who emphasises Hitler’s ability to “adapt himself to various people and groups.”

164 
Tischgespräche
, p. 181 (dated 3 April 1942). See also Hitler,
Monologe
, pp. 204f. (dated 16/17 Jan. 1942): “No pictures of me existed. Those who didn’t know me had no idea what I looked like.”

165 
See Rudolf Herz,
Hoffmann & Hitler: Fotografie als Medium des Führer-Mythos
, Munich, 1994, pp. 92f. (on p. 93 see a reproduction of the page from
Simplizissimus
); Claudia Schmölders,
Hitlers Gesicht: Eine physiognomische Biographie
, Munich, 2000, pp. 46–8, 54.

166 
On the incident see Hanfstaengl,
Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus
, pp. 74f.; Herz,
Hoffmann & Hitler
, pp. 93f.; Pahl’s account in Thomas Friedrich,
Die missbrauchte Hauptstadt: Hitler und Berlin
, Berlin, 2007, p. 61.

167 
Quoted in Friedrich,
Die missbrauchte Hauptstadt
, p. 62. See also
Das Hitler-Bild: Die Erinnerungen des Fotografen Heinrich Hoffmann
, ed. Joe J. Heydecker, St. Pölten and Salzburg, 2008, pp. 27–36 (“Mein Kampf um das erste Hitler-Bild”).

168 
On Heinrich Hoffmann’s biography see Herz,
Hoffmann & Hitler
, pp. 26–34; Heike B. Görtemaker,
Eva Braun: Leben mit Hitler
, Munich, 2010, pp. 15f.; Heinrich Hoffmann,
Hitler wie ich ihn sah: Aufzeichnungen seines Leibfotographen
, Munich and Berlin, 1974, pp. 7–17 (foreword by Henriette Hoffmann).

169 
Harry Graf Kessler,
Das Tagebuch. Vol. 7: 1919–1923
, ed. Angela Reinthal with Janna Brechmacher and Christoph Hilse, Stuttgart, 2007, p. 567 (entry for 29 Oct. 1922) On the legendary “March on Rome” see Hans Woller,
Geschichte Italiens im 20. Jahrhundert
, Munich, 2010, pp. 92f.

170 
Hitler,
Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen
, no. 419, p. 726, no. 422, p. 728. See also
Monologe
, p. 43 (dated 21/22 July 1941): “The March on Rome in 1922 was a turning point of history. The mere fact that they were able to do that gave us a powerful boost.”

171 
Quoted in Maser,
Frühgeschichte
, p. 356. See Herbst,
Hitlers Charisma
, p. 144. On 18 Sept. 1923 the
Berliner Dienst
concluded that in a comparison between Hitler and Mussolini “the German Mussolini was no copy of the Italian, unable to stand on his own two feet.” BA Koblenz, N 1128/12.

172 
See Ludolf Herbst,
Hitlers Charisma: Die Erfindung eines deutschen Messias
, Frankfurt am Main, 2010, p. 139; Auerbach, “Hitlers politische Lehrjahre,” p. 24; Kershaw,
Hitler: Hubris
, p. 182f.

173 
R. Hess to K. A. v. Müller, 23 Feb. 1923; BayHStA München, Nl. K. A. v. Müller 19/1. The letter also contained an invitation to attend Hitler’s speech to university students in the Löwenbräukeller on 26 Feb. The manuscript of the prize-winning essay, which Hess claimed had been written “a couple of hours before the deadline,” is reprinted in Bruno Hipler,
Hitlers Lehrmeister: Karl Haushofer als Vater der NS-Ideologie
, St. Ottilien, 1996, pp. 221–6 (quotations on pp. 222, 225). See also Hess’s description of Hitler’s appearance in Zirkus Krone, which emphasised his “unbending, iron-hard dictator’s skull.” “Der Nationalsozialismus in München” (undated, 1922); BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 6/71.

174 
Quoted in Plewnia,
Auf dem Weg zu Hitler
, p. 90.

175 
These and other congratulatory letters and telegrams to Hitler in BA Koblenz, N 1128/7. Even among respectable middle-class audiences in Munich’s Hofgarten, Hanfstaengl observed “a certain aggressive admiration for the events south of the Alps, the élan of Mussolini’s fascist movement and the new Italy.” Hanfstaengl recorded statements like: “Indeed, we need someone like that at the top—a Renaissance man and a power politician, someone without scruples.” “Der Ruf nach dem Borgia Typ”; BSB München, Nl Hanfstaengl Ana 405, Box 25.

176 
On Max Weber’s concept of charismatic leadership, see the penetrating analysis in Herbst,
Hitlers Charisma
, pp. 11–57.

177 
See ibid., especially pp. 137ff.

178 
See Hans-Ulrich Wehler,
Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte 1914–1949
, Munich, 2003, pp. 559–61. On the origins of the Führer cult also see Ian Kershaw,
The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich
, Oxford, 1987, pp. 21–31.

179 
Max Maurenbrecher, “Adolf Hitler,” in
Deutsche Zeitung
, 10 Nov. 1923; reprinted in Joachim Petzold, “Class und Hitler: Über die Förderung der frühen Nazibewegung durch den Alldeutschen Verband und dessen Einfluß auf die nazistische Ideologie,” in
Jahrbuch für Geschichte
21 (1980), pp. 284f. Further, see André Schlüter,
Moeller van den Bruck: Leben und Werk
, Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2010, p. 299n80. In his speech to the Nationale Klub 1919 in Berlin on 29 May 1922, Hitler stressed that he “considered himself to be only the drummer for the movement of national liberation.” Hitler,
Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen
, no. 387, p. 643.

180 
Hitler,
Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen
, no. 436, p. 754 (dated 4 Dec. 1922).

181 
Herz,
Hoffmann & Hitler
, pp. 99f. (on pp. 98f. see the first three photographs). See also Hanns Hubert Hofmann,
Der Hitler-Putsch: Krisenjahre deutscher Geschichte 1920–1924
, Munich, 1961, p. 74, who emphasises that even before 1923 Hitler had already begun to “feel his way around in the role of messiah.”

182 
Deuerlein,
Aufstieg
, p. 139.

183 
Hanfstaengl,
Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus
, p. 63; Richard Wagner,
Lohengrin
, ed. Egon Voss, Stuttgart, 2001, p. 21. See Hanfstaengl’s note: “You couldn’t find out anything about his previous life: the official hour of his birth was the outbreak of the world war in 1914, about which he never tired of talking.” BSB München, Nl Hanfstaengl Ana 405, Box 25.

184 
Hitler to an unknown “Herr Doktor,” 29 Nov. 1921; original with Hitler’s handwritten corrections in BA Koblenz, N 1128/24; reprinted in Hitler,
Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen
, no. 325, pp. 525–7. See Othmar Plöckinger, “Frühe biographische Texte zu Hitler: Zur Bewertung der autobiographischen Texte in
Mein Kampf
,” in
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
, 58 (2010), pp. 95f.

185 
Kölnische Zeitung
, 8 Nov. 1922: “Ein Abend bei Adolf Hitler”; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/1223.

186 
Müller,
Im Wandel einer Welt
, p. 145.

187 
Margarete Vollerthun to Hitler, 27 Feb. 1923; BA Koblenz, N 1128/5.

188 
Detlev Clemens,
Herr Hitler in Germany: Wahrnehmungen und Deutungen des Nationalsozialismus in Grossbritannien 1920 bis 1939
, Göttingen and Zurich, 1996, pp. 46f., 54, 60. For the American perspective see Sander A. Diamond,
Herr Hitler: Amerikas Diplomaten, Washington und der Untergang Weimars
, Düsseldorf, 1985, pp. 53f.; report by Truman Smith, military attaché to the U.S. embassy, of 25 Nov. 1922; copy in BSB München, Nl Hanfstaengl Ana 405, Box 25.

189 
Wartime comrade Wackerl, Munich, to Hitler, 19 April 1923; BA Koblenz, N 1128/7.

6
Putsch and Prosecution

1 
Adolf Hitler,
Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944: Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims
, ed. Werner Jochmann, Hamburg, 1980, p. 171 (dated 3/4 Jan. 1942).

2 
Cited in David Clay Large,
Where Ghosts Walked: Munich’s Road to the Third Reich
, New York and London, 1997, p. 189. See also the “obituary” for the NSDAP in the
Frankfurter Zeitung
from 10 Nov. 1923 in Philipp W. Fabry,
Mutmassungen über Hitler
:
Urteile von Zeitgenossen
, Königstein im Taunus, 1979, p. 25. “If ridiculousness were fatal, Hitler would be long dead,” wrote the
Vossische Zeitung
on 9 Nov. 1931; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/87.

3 
See Ludolf Herbst,
Hitlers Charisma: Die Erfindung eines deutschen Messias
, Frankfurt am Main, 2010, pp. 212f. See also Sabine Behrenbeck,
Der Kult um die toten Helden: Nationalsozialistische Mythen, Riten und Symbole 1923 bis 1945
, Vierow bei Greifswald, 1996, p. 299ff.

4 
G. Escherich to Herrn Elvers, 28 March 1923; BayHStA München, Nl Escherich 47. For context see Heinrich August Winkler,
Weimar 1918–1933: Die Geschichte der ersten deutschen Demokratie
, Munich, 1993, pp. 188ff.

5 
Adolf Hitler,
Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924
, ed. Eberhard Jäckel with Axel Kuhn, Stuttgart, 1980, no. 456, pp. 781, 783, 784. See ibid., no. 460, p. 792; no. 463, pp. 800f.

6 
Sebastian Haffner,
Geschichte eines Deutschen: Die Erinnerungen 1914–1933
, Stuttgart and Munich, 2000, p. 61. See also Martin H. Geyer,
Verkehrte Welt: Revolution, Inflation und Moderne. München 1914–1924
, Göttingen, 1998, pp. 382ff.

7 
See Ulrich Linse,
Barfüssige Propheten: Erlöser der zwanziger Jahre
, Berlin, 1983.

8 
Ernst Deuerlein (ed.),
Der Hitler-Putsch: Bayerische Dokumente zum 8./9. November 1923
, Stuttgart, 1962, doc. 3, p. 164 (dated 8 Sept. 1923).

9 
Notes by Rudolf Hess, entitled “The party above all parties,” early 1923; BA Bern, Nl Hess, J1.211-1989/148, 31. Transcript of a conversation with Maria Endres on 11 Dec. 1951; IfZ München, ZS 33. For figures see Kurt Pätzold and Manfred Weissbecker,
Geschichte der NSDAP 1920–1945
, Cologne, 1998, p. 72. The circulation of the
Völkischer Beobachter
mirrored the number of party members. It increased from
c.
13,000 in January 1923 to 24,000 in July 1923. See the statistics compiled by Lauböck Sr, in BA Koblenz, N 1128/19.