Hitler trial

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The defendants, from left to right: Heinz Pernet , Friedrich Weber , Wilhelm Frick , Hermann Kriebel , Erich Ludendorff , Adolf Hitler , Wilhelm Brückner , Ernst Röhm , Robert Wagner (April 1, 1924)

The Hitler trial or Hitler-Ludendorff trial was a high treason trial in Munich in 1924 against Adolf Hitler and other defendants after the failed Hitler-Ludendorff putsch .

Hitler's arrest

After the failed coup on November 9, 1923, Hitler fled. He was received by Helene Hanfstaengl, whose husband Ernst Hanfstaengl was also involved in the putsch, as a guest in Uffing am Staffelsee . The next day, Walter Schultze visited him , together with an assistant, to correct Hitler's arm, which had been dislocated during the attempted coup in Munich .

On Sunday, November 11th, the location commander of the state police in Weilheim in Upper Bavaria , Lieutenant Rudolf Belleville, received the order by telephone at 4:20 p.m. to arrest Hitler at Villa Hanfstaengl. In Uffing, he and ten state police officers and a gendarme searched the villa of Hanfstaengl's mother Katharina for an hour and a half. Only after a direct telephone conversation with Helene Hanfstaengl did he turn to her villa. According to Hanfstaengl's memoirs, wrenched Helene while Hitler already for suicide held to his temple gun.

Hitler finally allowed himself to be arrested without resistance by Belleville, with whom he was personally acquainted. The commando drove back to Weilheim with Hitler, and at 10.45 a.m. the next day, Hitler was brought to the Landsberg fortress prison , accompanied by 39 guards .

Preparing the process

Hitler had cell number 7, in which Anton Graf von Arco on Valley had previously been imprisoned. There he was interrogated by the auxiliary public prosecutor Hans Ehard the next day and was only ready to speak after the secretary had left the room. Hitler denied having committed high treason, arguing that the “crime” of the November Revolution was still unpunished. Gustav von Kahr , Otto von Lossow and Hans von Seißer had prepared the coup with him for months. Ehard's memorial records became the basis of the indictment.

The Imperial Court in Leipzig would actually have been responsible for the high treason trial . However, the proceedings took place before the still existing Bavarian People's Court at Munich I Regional Court , a deliberate perversion of the law that the Bavarian government consciously accepted , because the special court was no longer constitutional at that time. Four proceedings were initiated: 1.) against Hitler and the other heads of the putsch, 2.) against the shock troop , 3.) against Karl Beggel and Hans Knauth for stealing banknotes from the printing works and 4.) against the culprits of the Assault on the St. Anna monastery.

The process

The War School where the trial took place (February 1924)
Passport Controls in the Area of ​​the War School (February 1924)

The treason trial began on the morning of February 26, 1924 in the main reading room of the Central Infantry School with 368 witnesses, correspondents from around the world and hundreds of spectators with reserved seats. Two battalions of the state police cordoned off Mars- and Blutenburgstrasse with barbed wire and Spanish horsemen .

The ten defendants were Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff , Heinz Pernet , Friedrich Weber , Hermann Kriebel , Ernst Röhm , Ernst Pöhner , Wilhelm Frick , Wilhelm Brückner and Robert Wagner . Rudolf Hess initially went into hiding and later presented himself to the court; Hermann Göring had gone abroad.

Ludwig Stenglein acted as public prosecutor , with the auxiliary public prosecutor Hans Ehard and the second public prosecutor Martin Dresse . Georg Neithardt , who was biased towards national law, was presided over by the judge August Leyendecker and lay judges Philipp Herrmann, Christian Zimmermann and Leonhard Beck at his side. Hitler's defense attorney was Lorenz Roder . The indictment described Hitler as "the soul of the whole company". Neithardt arbitrarily replaced an incriminating protocol of Ludendorff's interrogation with another, which said that he had no knowledge of the coup preparations; Accordingly, Ludendorff was not in custody either.

Neithardt swore only the witnesses for the defense, but not the witnesses for the prosecution. The defendants declared themselves "not guilty". Although the indictment was “against Ludendorff et al.”, Hitler, who appeared with his Iron Cross First Class on his lapel, assumed sole responsibility for the coup and, to the applause of the audience, asserted that there was no high treason against the “traitors of 1918 ". He accused Kahr, Lossow and Seißer of betrayal, who had actually planned the putsch with him for weeks, but then turned against him and the German people.

The witnesses Kahr, as a prevented dictator, and Lossow, the commander of the Bavarian Civil War Army, both have since been dismissed from their offices, as well as Seißer were severely attacked by Hitler. The chairman usually allowed Hitler to repeatedly interrogate her in the manner of a prosecutor and discredit her statements so that the public prosecutor had to protect her. Seisser accused Hitler of sole guilt for the company and thus confirmed the claim made by the latter himself. The defendant Pöhner named the institutions and laws of the Weimar Republic as not binding on him. Only the public prosecutor Hans Ehard seemed to be working seriously towards a conviction, but his objections and applications were repeatedly rejected.

Testimony and debates took 25 days, from which the public and the press were largely excluded "for security reasons". On March 27, 1924, the defendants were allowed to make final statements. Hitler first stated that despite his humble origins he felt called to rule a people. Then he accused Ebert and Scheidemann of treason and high treason and proclaimed his conviction of a future union with those “who shot us”. Finally, he denied the court the right to make a guilty verdict:

“May you find us a thousand times guilty, the goddess of the eternal judgment of history will smile and tear up the prosecutor's motion and the judgment of the court; because she acquits us. "

Prosecutor Stenglein combined his criminal complaint with many words of praise to Hitler's address.

The lay judges

The three lay judges at the People's Court who participated in the Hitler trial were Leonhard Beck, Philipp Hermann and Christian Zimmermann. According to research by Andreas Stenglein, the three men played the "most absurd role" in the trial by telling the presiding judge at the start of the trial that they would only consent to Hitler being convicted if the sentence were suspended. Since the court was only allowed to decide with a majority of four votes, the chairman was willing to compromise in order not to let the process break. Otherwise the proceedings would have been transferred to the Reichsgericht actually responsible, which the Bavarian government at the time wanted to avoid at all costs. Accordingly, as requested by the lay judges, Hitler only received the minimum sentence of five years with a parole and not the eight years requested by the public prosecutor. In this way, the three lay judges “like no one else”, so Stenglein, paved the way for the accused Hitler “as key figures”, which led him to power nine years later. Lothar Gruchmann judged similarly : "The decisive factor for the court's decision to grant probation periods together with the sentence tenor was the attitude of the lay judges." Lay judges Philipp Hermann and Leonhard Beck confirmed this in a letter dated July 6, 1924 to the Munich I public prosecutor : "The lay judges were only able to agree to the extremely difficult decision for them to agree to the guilty verdict on the condition that a general probation period was pronounced and that Hitler [...] had a certain prospect." All three lay judges never became members the NSDAP and after 1945 not subjected to any arbitration proceedings.

The judgment

Proceedings against the main perpetrators

Headline of the Munich-Augsburger Abendzeitung on the verdict
Cordon measures before the verdict is announced

On April 1, 1924, the verdict was to be pronounced. At ten o'clock the defendants arrived at the infantry school and first faced the photographers. The officers wore splendid uniforms, Ludendorff and Kriebel even wore spiked bonnets .

In the overcrowded hall, Neithardt read the verdict, which had been passed with four to one vote. The reasoning referred to the “purely patriotic spirit and noblest will” of the accused. The death of the four Bavarian police officers in the coup was not mentioned. With the exception of Ludendorff, all of the accused were found guilty, but Brückner, Röhm, Pernet, Wagner and Frick were only found guilty of complicity in high treason.

Ludendorff protested against his acquittal. He explained:

"I feel that this acquittal is a disgrace for my skirt and for the decorations that I wear towards my comrades."

This declaration triggered stormy calls for healing. The pre-trial detention was deducted from the sentence, so that Frick, Röhm, Wagner and Brückner were released on probation. Hitler, Weber, Kriebel and Pöhner were sentenced to a minimum of five years imprisonment plus a fine of 200 gold marks. After six months, the sentence could be converted to probation for good conduct. The compulsory expulsion of Hitler in accordance with Section 9 (2) of the Republic Protection Act was not applied , with reference to the fact that Hitler regarded himself as a German and had served in the German army for four and a half years and distinguished himself through bravery.

“Bravo, Bravo!” And “Heil!” Rang out in the courtroom. Heil! ”- shouts. The prisoners received bouquets of flowers. When they presented themselves at the window of the guard room, where they were staying before they were transported to Landsberg, the crowd on Blutenburgstrasse burst into jubilation.

On December 20, 1924, Hitler and Kriebel were released on parole in Landsberg , Pöhner and Weber, who had started their imprisonment later, in the spring of 1925.

The downstream procedures

The defendants in the "Little Hitler Trial": Among others in the picture Karl Fiehler , Erhard Heiden , Walter Hewel , Hans Kallenbach , Hansjörg Maurer , Emil Maurice and Alois Rosenwink .

Following the proceedings against Hitler, Ludendorff and the other ringleaders of the putsch of November 1923, various other criminal proceedings were carried out before the Munich People's Court in April and May 1924 in connection with the failed coup attempt:

In the first half of April, proceedings for "aiding and abetting high treason" followed against Karl Osswald , Gerhard von Prosch and Edmund Heines . This trial ended on April 16, 1924 with the guilty verdict of the three defendants, who were each sentenced to a minimum of fifteen months in prison. As deputy leader of the military association Reichskriegsflagge, Osswald participated in the occupation of the Munich military district command. As a police officer, Prosch had tried to get other police officers on the side of the putschists. As the leader of an SA hundred, Heines had occupied the Munich infantry school and then occupied the Isar bridge on the morning of November 9 to seal off the city center.

After the trial against Osswald, Heines and Prosch, a large-scale trial was carried out against 40 members of the so-called Hitler shock troop ("Trial against Josef Berchtold and 39 comrades"). The men of the shock troop were the executives who carried out the coup attempt. Of the men accused, 38 were because of their involvement in the coup attempt of 8/9. November 1923 found guilty of "aiding and abetting high treason" and sentenced by judgment of April 23, 1924 to minor prison terms of an average of fifteen months with the prospect of probation after serving a few months in prison. The other two defendants were acquitted. A digital copy of a certified copy of the judgment of April 23, 1924 from the files of the Munich Police Department can be viewed on the website of the Munich State Archives (-> digital version of the judgment of April 23, 1924 ).

Sixteen of the thirty-eight raid troop members who had been convicted escaped from their sentences. The remaining twenty-two, increased in May by Hess, who had meanwhile been sentenced to self-esteem, were imprisoned in the Landsberg Fortress, where they formed a community of inmates with Hitler, Kriebel and Weber, who were already imprisoned there. Shortly after Hitler's release in December 1924, his fellow putschists were also released in the course of 1925. Many of them rejoined the NSDAP, which was re-admitted after the ban.

Putschist photos

  • Friedrich Geisselbrecht

  • Walter Hewel (1940)

  • Hans Kallenbach

  • Alois Rosenwink

  • Julius Schaub

  • Ludwig Schmied

  • Edmund Schneider

The committee of inquiry

At the initiative of Wilhelm Hoegner ( SPD ) and at the request of the SPD parliamentary group on June 3, 1924, the Bavarian state parliament set up an investigative committee on July 31, 1924 to “investigate the events of May 1, 1923 in Munich and the anti-Reich and state constitution directed efforts in Bavaria from September 26 to November 9, 1923 ”. The committee did not begin its deliberations until October 5, 1927.

Members of the committee were Georg Stang ( BVP , Chairman), Joseph Graf von Pestalozza (BVP), Wilhelm Hoegner (SPD), Fritz Schäffer (BVP), Johann Michael Hilpert ( DNVP ), Anton Staedele ( Bavarian Farmers' Association ) and Theodor Doerfler ( Völkischer Block ).

The main topic, however, was not the Hitler putsch or the Hitler trial, but the question of whether Justice Minister Franz Gürtner had actively prevented a criminal investigation into the events of May 1, 1923, when Hitler presumably wanted to take a coup earlier, and thus violated the constitution .

It was not until April 27, 1928, that the committee submitted a final report that was not very extensive and contained a restrained content. The special vote of the SPD presented by Hoegner accused the Bavarian judiciary of failure towards the NSDAP . The State Commissioner General von Kahr had long been aware of Hitler's and Ludendorff's plans, without the latter taking any action.

Excerpts from the work of the investigative committee (copies of the court files made by Wilhelm Hoegner) were published by the state committee of the SPD under the title Hitler and Kahr. The Bavarian Napoleon greats of 1923 published; since the trial files were destroyed after 1933, this work is a key source.

Later assessments

After World War II , the trial was sometimes portrayed as an appropriate response to an action that was not supposed to be taken seriously. Walter von Cube wrote in 1963:

“The Hitler trial, the Landsberg imprisonment, the break-up of the NSDAP: for Bavaria the case was over. The brazen desperados who wanted to make politics in wrap gaiters and peaked caps, with Mauser pistols and machine guns, seemed finally defeated "

In 1975 Bernt Engelmann particularly criticized the regular exclusion of the public when it came to the SA's relations with the Reichswehr and Hitler's von Kahr and pointed out that the minutes were still kept secret. It was not until Otto Gritschneder , who worked on the four-volume publication of the entire course of the process in 2000 and, after the blocking period had expired, had access to the presiding judge's personal and ruling chamber files, as well as other previously unknown personal documents, that he sat down in his book The Hitler Trial in 2001 and his judge Georg Neithardt: A perversion of the law from 1924 with consequences discussed in detail with the court chairman, who had paved the way for Hitler through his behavior.

Film adaptations

In 1971, ZDF broadcast a television play entitled The Hitler-Ludendorff Trial . The director was Paul Verhoeven . In it, Hitler is the only one of the characters who is not portrayed by an actor. Only some of his statements from the course of the process are presented by a kind of moderator, who also interrupts the game action every now and then to provide explanations about the background.

On the 85th anniversary of the verdict, BR-alpha , the education channel of Bayerischer Rundfunk, showed a film version of the trial on March 27, 2009 with the title Hitler in court . For the first time on German-language television, a dramaturgical selection of the 24 days of the trial was presented exclusively on the basis of the historically transmitted original texts by actors. Johannes Zirner can be seen as Hitler, and Dieter Fischer appears as his defender Lorenz Roder . The script comes from director Bernd Fischerauer and Klaus Gietinger .

In the biopic Hitler - Rise of Evil the process is treated and portrayed.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Gritschneder, probation period for the terrorist Adolf H.: The Hitler Putsch and the Bavarian Justice, p. 16.
  2. ↑ Ian Kershaw: Hitler 1889-1936. 2nd Edition. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1998, p. 272.
  3. ^ Heinrich August Winkler , Geschichte des Westens, Die Zeit der Weltkriege 1914-1945, p. 313, 3rd edition 2016, CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-59236-2 .
  4. ↑ Kai Uwe Tapken, Historisches Lexikon Bayerns - Reichswehr in Bayern , accessed on August 13, 2017.
  5. ↑ Joachim C. Fest: Hitler. Volume 1: The Ascent. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1976, p. 276.
  6. ↑ Joachim C. Fest: Hitler. Volume 1: The Ascent. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1976, p. 275.
  7. ^ A b John Dornberg: The Hitler putsch - November 9, 1923 . 2nd revised edition. Langen Müller, 1998, p. 359.
  8. ↑ Leonhard Maximilian Michael Beck (born May 6, 1867 in Schwandorn) was a bookbinder's assistant and auxiliary policeman, resident in Munich since December 1885 (most recently at Schmellerstrasse 32/0) and moved to Mittenwalde in September 1943. He was married to Anna Frank (born January 31, 1863 in Oberviechtach).
  9. ^ Franz Rudolph Philipp Hermann (born October 21, 1865 in Nuremberg; † January 10, 1930 in Munich) was a clerk and insurance officer. He was resident in Munich since October 1886 (most recently in Tumblingerstraße 7 / I) and married to Margaret Förtsch (born July 15, 1863 in Stadtsteinach).
  10. ^ Christian Anton Zimmermann, originally (until 1886) Fratton (born April 18, 1858 in Tegernsee) was insurance inspector for Munich Reinsurance. He lived in Munich since 1887 (most recently at Humboldtstrasse 9/3) and was married to Maria Hierl (born June 25, 1866 in Munich).
  11. ↑ Lothar Gruchmann (edit.): The Hitler Trial 1924: Wording of the main hearing before the People's Court in Munich , Part 1, p. 365; also Ders .: Justiz im Third Reich, 2001, p. 42 (“in the judgment consultation and the pronouncement of guilt and the imposition of the minimum sentence against Hitler and the three other main perpetrators only agreed on the condition that a probation period is definitely promised. ").
  12. ↑ Andreas Stenglein: THE HITLER PROCESS 1924 Ludwig Stenglein, prosecutor in the Hitler trial in 1924, and Hans Ehard, his right hand .
  13. ^ John Dornberg: The Hitler Putsch - November 9, 1923 . 2nd revised edition. Langen Müller, 1998, p. 360.
  14. ↑ The forty accused were (L = imprisonment in Landsberg; FS = acquittal; F = escaped from imprisonment): Joseph Berchtold (* March 6, 1897 in Ingolstadt; † August 23, 1962 in Herrsching am Ammersee) (F), Wilhelm Briemann (* March 3, 1899), Emil Danneberg (* September 2, 1896) (L), Josef Feichtmayr (* November 12, 1901) (L), Otto Feichtmayr (* July 23, 1905) (L), Karl Fiehler (* August 31, 1895 in Braunschweig; † December 8, 1969 in Dießen am Ammersee) (L), Werner Fiehler (* March 3, 1889; † 1952 in Stuttgart) (F), Berthold Fischer (* July 8, 1899 ) (L), Hermann Fobke (* November 4, 1899 in Greifswald; † April 19, 1943 in Kerch) (L), Franz Fröschl (* December 11, 1893) (L), Wilhelm Fuchs (* July 4, 1904) , Friedrich Geißelbrecht (* October 16, 1895 in Nuremberg; † July 3, 1985 in Munich) (L), Josef Gerum (* September 22, 1888 in Munich; † July 14, 1963 in Hohenschäftlarn) (L), Emil Hamm ( * September 10, 1889) (L), Karl Hauenstein (* October 7, 1897), Johann Haug (putschist) (* April 19 ril 1898 in Pressburg; † February 27, 1957 in Munich) (L), Erhard Heiden (* February 23, 1901 in Munich; † March 18/19, 1933 ibid.) (F), Walter Hewel (* March 25, 1904; † 2. May 1945 in Berlin) (L), Paul Hirschberg (* June 13, 1901 in Strasbourg; † April 7, 1999 in Stuttgart-Riedenberg), Gerhard Friedrich Hoff, Karl Hutter (* April 24, 1891) (L), Hans Kallenbach (* October 28, 1897) (L), Heinrich von Knobloch (* January 9, 1891), Wilhelm Knörlein (* August 25, 1896), Hans Eduard Krüger (* December 21, 1904), Wilhelm Laforce (* April 8, 1896) 1896 in Munich; † December 12, 1965 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen) (L), Konrad Linder (* January 18, 1900) (F), Johann Mahr, Hansjörg Maurer (* October 20, 1891 in Jettenbach; † December 30, 1959 in Euerdorf), Emil Maurice (* January 19, 1897 in Westermoor; † February 6, 1972 in Munich) (L), Otto Wolfgang Reichart, (* September 4, 1896) (L) Alois Rosenwink (* August 1, 1898 in Munich; † May 26, 1969 in Weiden, Upper Palatinate) (L), Julius Schaub (* August 20, 1898; December 27, 1967 in Mün chen) (L), Ludwig Schmied (born November 24, 1898 in Munich; † October 28, 1890 in Munich), Edmund Schneider (putschist) (* May 11, 1902 in Munich) (L), Johann Schön (* February 12, 1893), Michael Steinbinder (* October 18, 1894), Adalbert Stollwerk ( * June 6, 1904), Heinrich Strauss (* June 23, 1901) and Johann Wegelin (* July 21, 1900).
  15. ↑ Angela Hermann: The way to war 1938/39: Source-critical studies on the diaries of Joseph Goebbels. 2011, p. 345.
  16. ^ Karl-Ulrich Gelberg: Anonymous (= Wilhelm Hoegner): Hitler and Kahr. The Bavarian Napoleon greats from 1923, 1928. In: Historisches Lexikon Bayerns . March 18, 2011, accessed February 25, 2015 .
  17. ^ Walter von Cube: Bavaria after 1918. In: Unknown Bavaria. Pictures from Bavarian history. Munich 1963, reprint 1976, p. 254.
  18. ↑ Bernt Engelmann: Unity against law and freedom. German anti-history book. Part 2, Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1977, p. 94.

Archival tradition

The files on the police and public prosecutor's investigations into the events of November 8th and 9th, 1923, as well as the processes resulting from these investigations are now stored in the Munich State Archives. Some of these files are available in digitized form. So.


literature

  • John Dornberg: The Hitler Putsch - November 9, 1923 . 2nd revised edition. Langen Müller, 1998, ISBN 3-7844-2713-8 .
  • Joachim C. Fest : Hitler. Volume 1: The Ascent. Ullstein, Frankfurt a. M. 1976, ISBN 3-548-03273-7 .
  • Otto Gritschneder , Lothar Gruchmann, Reinhard Weber: The Hitler Trial in 1924. Volume 1: 1. – 4. Negotiation day. KG Saur Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-598-11317-X .
  • Otto Gritschneder, Lothar Gruchmann, Reinhard Weber: The Hitler Trial 1924. Volume 2: 5. – 11. Negotiation day. KG Saur Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-598-11318-8 .
  • Otto Gritschneder, Lothar Gruchmann, Reinhard Weber: The Hitler Trial 1924. Volume 3: 12. – 18. Negotiation day. KG Saur Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-598-11319-6 .
  • Otto Gritschneder, Lothar Gruchmann, Reinhard Weber: The Hitler process. Volume 4, KG Saur Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-598-11355-2 .
  • Otto Gritschneder: The Hitler trial and its judge Georg Neithardt: A perversion of the law from 1924 with consequences. CH Beck, 2001, ISBN 3-406-48292-9 .
  • Ian Kershaw : Hitler 1889-1936. 2nd Edition. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-421-05131-3 .

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