Geoffrey Pridham - Hitler’s Rise to Power : The Nazi Movement in Bavaria, 1923–1933

Hitlers Rise to Power

The Nazi Movement in Bavaria 1923-33

Geoffrey Pridham

Copyright Geoffrey Pridham 1973

The right of Geoffrey Pridham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

First published in 1973 by Hart-Davis, MacGibbon Ltd.

This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

To my mother

Table of Contents

Abbreviations

Regional and local authorities

BA Bezirksamt (district office)

LA Landratsamt

P.D. Polizeidirektion (Police headquarters)

Mfr. Mittelfranken (Middle Franconia), e.g. Reg. v. Mfr. = Government of Middle Franconia

Niedb. Niederbayern (Lower Bavaria)

Obb. Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria)

Ofr. Oberfranken (Upper Franconia)

Opf. Oberpfalz (Upper Palatinate)

Schw. Schwaben (Swabia)

Ufr. Unterfranken (Lower Franconia)

HMB Halbmonatsbericht (fortnightly report), e.g. HMB/Mfr.

Political parties and organizations

Apa Agrarpolitischer Apparat

BBMB Bayerischer Bauern- und Mittelstandsbund

BVP Bayerische Volkspartei

CNBL Christlich-Nationale Bauern- und Landvolkspartei

DAP Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

DDP Deutsche Demokratische Partei

DNVP Deutschnationale Volkspartei

DSP Deutsche Sozialistische Partei

DVFP Deutschvlkische Freiheitspartei

DVP Deutsche Volkspartei

GVG Grossdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft

HJ Hitlerjugend

KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands

NSBO Nationalsozialistische Betriebszellenorganisation

NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Nazi Party)

NSDStB Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund

NSFB Nationalsozialistische Freiheitsbewegung

NSVB Nationalsozialistischer Volksbund

SA Sturmabteilung

SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands

SS Schutzstaffel

Uschla Untersuchungs- und Schlichtungsausschuss

VB Vlkischer Beobachter

Archives

AR Alte Reichskanzlei

ASA Allgemeines Staatsarchiv, Munich

BSA Bayerisches Staatsarchiv

GSA Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Munich

HA Hauptarchiv der NSDAP, e.g. HA 2/25 = Hauptarchiv Reel 2, Folder

Preface

This book originated in my wish to examine the Nazi rise to power in depth and to provide new insight into this unique phenomenon. My choice of a regional study settled on Bavaria because this offered important new aspects of the problem, and because the partys development here has been neglected, although Munich remained the seat of party headquarters and in spite of the vast amount of material on the subject. The origins of the NSDAP in Bavaria have been the subject of several studies, but not its development there from a small party into a mass movement. This book is based largely on unpublished material. Details of archival sources used are supplied at the end of the book together with a list of secondary works which have helped me.

Although the acknowledgments in the text are to recorded evidence, I owe a great debt to many persons in both England and Germany during the course of my work. Professor F. L. Carsten supervised my thesis and gave me the benefit of his invaluable advice and sympathetic understanding. Dr Jeremy Noakes originally encouraged me to do a study on Bavaria, and our common interest in the subject has since extended to cooperation in another work on the Nazi period. I am particularly grateful to the staffs of the various departments of the Bavarian State Archives in Munich, Nuremberg, Bamberg, Landshut, Amberg, Neuburg a.d. Donau and Wrzburg. I would like to thank especially Dr Hermann-Joseph Busley of the Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich, for his assistance and advice with my work over many years, as well as Freiherr Fritz von Rehlingen, Dr Sebastian Hiereth, Dr Reinhard Seitz, Dr Hildebrand Troll, Dr Otto Puchner, Dr Eberhard Weis, Dr Scherzer, Dr Scherl, Dr Berndl, Herr Kreuzer, Herr Wunschel and Frulein A. H. Bayer for their patience in answering my numerous requests.

I owe a further debt to Dr Anton Hoch and the staff of the Institut fr Zeitgeschichte for their expertise and help during my many visits to Munich, and would also like to thank Frulein Kinder and the staff of the Bundesarchiv Koblenz for their assistance, Mr K. Hiscock of the Foreign Office Library, London, for providing me with additional material and Herr Gnther Buttman for permission to read the Nachlass Buttmann. I visited several town archives in Bavaria and would like to mention in particular Dr Gustav Wulz (Nrdlingen), Dr Hirschmann (Nuremberg), Dr S. Hofmann (Ingolstadt) and Herr Weikmann (Kaufbeuren) with whom I discussed my work. I would like to give my warm thanks to the entire staff of the Institute of Contemporary History and Wiener Library, London, with whom I had the pleasure of working for two years, and to Professor Walter Laqueur especially for his invaluable help. The Central Research Fund of London University provided me with two generous grants to visit Germany during the summers of 1968 and 1970, while the Colston Research Fund of Bristol University also gave me financial assistance.

Several friends and colleagues have given me help at various stages in my work. I am very indebted to Mr Martin Crouch, who read through the final manuscript and provided me with useful and often incisive comments, and Mr Charles Gray, Mr P. G. James, Herr Klaus Sieveking and Mr Anup Ray, who read an earlier version of the manuscript. I also benefited from discussions with Herr Rainer Hambrecht and Mr T. L. Jarman, and would like to thank Miss Suzanne Sproston for assisting with the progress of the manuscript at different stages. My greatest personal debt is to my mother, who gave me much encouragement over the years and first inspired me with the urge to learn.

I wish also to thank Mr Michael Sissons, my literary agent, for his advice during the production of this book. I am also grateful to Mrs Tina Shell, Mrs Anne Merriman and Mrs Jan Nicholas for typing the final manuscript.

Geoffrey Pridham

One Bavaria and the Weimar Republic

This is a case study of the organization, propaganda and popular appeal of the Nazi movement (NSDAP) in Bavaria from the Munich Putsch in 1923 to Hitlers appointment as German Chancellor in 1933.

There is always a certain unique quality about any case study, but its relevance depends on the reasons for which it is selected and how far it is representative of the general problem with which it is dealing. The merit of a case study is that it should provide new insight into this general problem through the medium of detailed illustration and analysis.

The NSDAP was a mass movement without precedent in German history. One can only fully understand its rise to power, which has so far been examined mainly at the level of national politics, if a sufficient number of regional and local studies are made available. As the NSDAP developed unique methods of popular agitation, it is essential to examine how it operated at the grassroots level. General histories inevitably focus on the more dramatic events of national politics, but a case study pays more attention to particular examples and different situations. While throwing new light on the general problem, it should guarantee against too superficial an interpretation of it by providing a more realistic picture.

Bavaria has become known as the birthplace of the Nazi Party. The party was founded early in 1919 in Munich, which remained the centre of its activities during its early years and became the scene of Hitlers abortive attempt at a coup dtat in the autumn of 1923. When the party reappeared in 1925 after a period of prohibition, Munich continued as the seat of its headquarters and later earned the Nazi title of capital of the movement ( Hauptstadt der Bewegung ). Hitler, who had moved to Munich from his native Austria shortly before the First World War, showed a strong affinity with Bavaria which remained with him through the years of the Third Reich, when he often preferred to spend weekends at his mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden rather than in the more stringent atmosphere of Berlin. Nuremberg, the other major city in Bavaria, became the traditional site of the party rallies.