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It's early 1923. Adolf Hitler is untouchable as the dictator of the Nazi party. Below him, Ernst Röhm continues to stockpile weapons and forge links with sympathizers in the Bavarian government. Hermann Göring continues to whip the Nazi stormtroopers, the SA brownshirts, into shape. National socialism is growing as a movement. Now it needs a leader who truly is ready for power, or at the very least, a leader who looks like he is.
My name is Paul McGann, and welcome back to the story of Hitler's early years. Hitler has come a long way from his Austrian roots, his failed art career, and his World War I service. In this episode, he will lay the groundwork for his very own revolution. From Noiser Podcasts, this is Real Dictators.
Hitler cultivated an image of himself. He called himself the little man, the drummer. He said, I am only a simple person. I was a corporal in the military. The drummer of Germany, this modest soldier. I am not elite. I am like you. I am the common man. Since entering politics, Adolf Hitler has been at pains to stress his humility. He's undoubtedly highly ambitious.
but he sought to downplay his own personal significance, at least outwardly. In a sense, this has allowed him to slip under the radar, to get as far as he has, to become leader of the Nazi party. But clamour has been growing amongst the German far right for a messiah to rescue Germany from its supposed slump. Hitler has realised more and more that he has what it takes to be this leading light of extreme nationalism. He keeps up the appearance of humility, but really,
He wants to assume this role of national savior. Dietrich Eckart, his mentor, refers to him as "Der kommende Engrossung" - the coming great one. And it's now, from 1923 onwards, that the Hitler myth really starts to explode.
Hitler began to realize that he was talented and he began perhaps to believe his own myth. He decided that he wanted to move beyond being just the little drummer, the ordinary man. And so the tone of his speeches began to change. And you can hear him seeing himself as people wanted to see him as a kind of savior figure for Germany.
Prior to that, Hitler kind of refused to speak about himself. He'd always only spoken about politics as a kind of proclaiming the nature of things, never talking about himself. But Hitler at some point realized that if he wants to build a following, if he wants to particularly build a following outside of Bavaria, and if he wants to be not just a drummer, but one of the leaders or the leader of a future Germany, people need to know what he looks like, both literally as well as metaphorically.
And it's at this point that Hitler starts to invent a politically useful past for himself when he starts all these stories about the First World War in Vienna and all that. For 90 years, historians believed that the first book Hitler ever wrote was Mein Kampf, his 1925 autobiography. But groundbreaking research by Professor Thomas Weber has shown that Hitler also published something else two years before Mein Kampf.
The reason this other book went under the radar for so long is that Hitler published it under someone else's name. The book in question is a collection of Hitler's speeches. There's also an opening chapter that acts as an introduction. The book is simply titled Adolf Hitler, his life and his speeches. It's published under the name of a German aristocrat, an admirer of Hitler, called Victor von Kerber.
They create this book, they create this first biography, and the book is then being brought out under the name of a young conservative aristocratic North German writer with impeccable standing in the rest of Germany, whose claimed authorship promises to help Hitler to build up this national, nationwide following. When you realize that Hitler put the book together himself, then you start to really grasp his talent for self-promotion.
In the private papers of this guy in Johannesburg in South Africa that I found, I found credible claims, in fact, that it was Hitler who had written the biography. It's clear that it was Hitler who was the driving force behind this book. The book is an extraordinary publicity stunt, published by Hitler to build up his own mythology. In it, Hitler directly compares his own political rise to Jesus' resurrection.
Hitler's late mother, Clara, was extremely pious. She raised her son Adolf as a Catholic. Now, two decades later, the complex legacy of Hitler's Christian upbringing is finding form.
Once he had grown up, it's quite clear that Hitler was at best agnostic. He didn't believe in Christianity and that as an adult person, he saw Christianity as poisonous to modern Germany, that he thought that Christianity was spreading ideas into Germany that would weaken Germany and that would make Germany insufficiently militaristic and
and so on. He was turning supposed National Socialism into a civic religion, if you will. And even I think if we look at the way Hitler from around 1923 onwards started to create a political image of himself that was politically useful, we do see a strong echo of Christian iconography when he kind of invented or reinvented his past.
He very much used Christian ideas of deliverance, of sacrifice, of what it means to be a messiah. So I think in that sense he translated his Catholicism into creating a new kind of civic religion. Hitler is trying to tap into the deep religious faith that many Bavarians, many Germans have. It's an attempt to blur politics and religion.
to encourage people to transfer their devotion onto Adolf Hitler. Hitler paints himself as a truth-teller, the only man in Germany willing to hold power to account. The mainstream press may mock him, he says, but that's because he's an agitator of truth. It's extraordinarily bold, amazingly arrogant, that Hitler is writing about himself under someone else's name. At one point, the book includes a report supposedly from a journalist who attended one of Hitler's lectures.
If you came across this, you'd assume the reporter was some kind of sycophantic fanboy. But they're not. The journalist is a made-up character. The voice is actually Hitler's. Before each speech, he writes as a journalist, on-the-spot journalist, kind of giving a "you are there" feeling to the readers so they feel like they're participating in the audience. And here's the journalist describing Hitler. Of course, it's really Hitler describing himself.
This made-up reporter declares that after watching Hitler take to the stage for over three hours, the audience are overwhelmed. They're furious that everything they learned at school about German history and the First World War is wrong. They're ecstatic to hear this man preach the truth. They express their deepest amazement and release, and then a storm of screaming applause lets loose and breaks over him.
So that's Hitler's own PR work for himself. This excerpt gives you a sense of Hitler, this lazy kind of morose guy, possesses a talent for self-advertisement, self-promotion that's just unparalleled. And audiences loved it. Hitler is playing his role with gusto. He's presenting himself as some kind of messianic genius.
Genius, according to the understanding of the time, is not the kind of whatever genius bar from a metal store that we might think of when we hear the word now. But a genius was someone who had the innate quality, so the quality from birth to do things totally different from the way that they had been done in the past, to have totally new insights about the nature of things, about the hidden architecture of the world,
And crucially, geniuses come out of nowhere. You can't go into a fancy university or coming from a fancy aristocratic family will not help you to become a genius. They really come out of nowhere. Hitler used this kind of
that existed in interwar Germany for genius, for new kind of political leaders who would lead Germany out of misery brilliantly in order to create a space for him in politics. Normally, there would have been no opening for someone like Hitler
Hitler also dropped out of school with no career at all. There would have been no space in politics. But now Hitler turned this upside down and turned it to his advantage. And he was portraying himself as the guy who had to endure all these hardships to have revelations about the hidden architecture of the world, which would allow him to lead Germany out of misery, to tell Germans what need to be done unnoticed.
after the defeat in the First World War, to create a better and a stronger Germany. Hitler has cranked his messaging right up. His political speech is now centre on himself, on the fateful role he has to play in Germany's glorious history. Hitler makes use of all kinds of media to get this new angle across.
And this is also when Hitler for the first time allows himself to be photographed. He had an early follower named Heinrich Hoffmann, who he commissioned to take portraits of him in different poses, never smiling, however. He had the portraits turned into postcards, picture postcards, that he would sell at political meetings to publicize his image. The Nazis also have their very own newspaper.
It's called the "Volkische Beobachter" – the people's observer. It will be one of their main mouthpieces for the next two decades. Circulation is around 25,000 readers and growing. In the years and decades to come, Hitler will always make sure that his party stays ahead of the curve when it comes to media and new technology.
Hitler appreciated each new technological invention way before other parties, before any other political party. Hitler ordered electronic amplification. They had speaker systems set up.
Movies to take Hitler's word beyond the limits of the immediate audience. Cheap pamphlets with red headlines, lots of photographs. Hitler jumped on every single advance. At every single possibility, Hitler and later on Goebbels seized on each possible opportunity to portray him as forward-looking, bold, young, sophisticated.
Hitler's emergence as a political force is now well underway, but the Nazis aren't getting too ahead of themselves just yet. If they really zoom out to look at Germany as a whole, they see that Hitler is yet to cut through to a national audience. People are still riding a wave of relief at the end of the First World War, and the political climate of the capital, Berlin, remains progressive and optimistic. But two epochal events are about to occur that will change the terms of the game.
In 1923, Germany is engulfed by a terrible economic crisis. Inflation has been a concern for years, but now it spirals out of control and becomes hyperinflation. So hyperinflation is the destruction of the purchasing power of a currency. And so by the autumn of 1923, it's basically impossible to buy anything in Germany using the German mark. The economy is running on a barter basis.
Hyperinflation means that the cost of living rises and keeps on rising. There's nothing abstract about this economic emergency. Its consequences are painfully real for real people. By 1923, the cost of day-to-day items, including food and drink, is absurdly high.
Meanwhile, the government was printing more and more money. Inflation went from inflation to hyperinflation. On the eve of World War I, one dollar yielded about four Reichsmarks. By 1921-22, it was up to a thousand Reichsmarks. Then it went to 500,000. Then it went to a million, and it ended up in the billions.
Jokes like this went around. A person with a savings account might get a letter from the bank saying, "Dear sir or madam, your balance is so small, we can't afford the service on your account. Would you please come and collect your balance?" So the man arrived with a wheelbarrow and got his paper money in his wheelbarrow. And on the way home, he was accosted by a robber who jumped out from the alley and stole the wheelbarrow.
Whole families were wiped out. People lost their mortgages, they lost their houses. The country was in turmoil. And it's not just the poor who take the hit. Hyperinflation spells disaster for the middle classes. In the banks, people's savings evaporate overnight. Family fortunes, both earned and inherited, are now worth nothing. Imagine if in the time it took to travel from your home to the nearest store, the cost of a loaf of bread quadrupled.
It's farcical scene, so a tram ride would cost 250 billion marks, a glass of beer, 150 billion marks, a pickle would set you back 4 billion marks. So Estesia is a topsy-turvy world in which all the old certainties of economic exchange and social life have been completely gutted and cast asunder by forces which many Germans didn't understand. We often struggled to understand the hyperinflation, but to have been there at the time was an extraordinary and disorientating experience.
Germany is known as a nation of savers. Now these savers are penniless. Middle-class professionals used to be out of Hitler's reach. They tend to be more sympathetic to the Berlin culture and to the democratic politics of the time. But now these middle classes are just as angry as workers living on the breadline and former soldiers scrapping on the streets.
Its causes are very complex and manifold. Inflation began to take off during the First World War because you've got consumers' money chasing fewer and fewer consumer goods. But successive Weimar governments managed to make the situation even worse by spending more than they take in tax revenues, and the German central bank funds this deficit. There's ever more and more money flowing into the economy chasing the same number or fewer goods.
The causes of hyperinflation may be complex, but from Hitler's point of view, this is a chance to ram one very simple message home: when something goes this badly wrong with the economy, there's one group the Nazis are certain to blame: the Jews.
You can imagine what Hitler made of this. All of the ills of Germany, all of them, Hitler traced to the deep influence of the international Jewish conspiracy. International Jewry, Judentum, was behind it all. And this heated up anti-Semitism all over Germany. The worse things get for the German people, the more popular Hitler seems to become. Events are about to take another turn in his favor.
The Ruhr is a strip of land that lies at the western edge of Germany, along the border with France. To this day it's the industrial heartland of Germany. In 1923 it's vitally important to the nation's economy. The Treaty of Versailles has served up a huge bill. If the Germans are to have any hope of digging themselves out of this financial pit, then the Ruhr is going to play a very important role. The reparations are being paid off, but it's slow progress, too slow for the Allies' liking.
France and Belgium in particular are angry. Their countries were ravaged by the First World War, so much of the fighting took place on Flanders soil. To their minds, Germany is dragging its heels, and they're getting fed up with waiting for the account to be cleared. In 1923, things go too far when Germany defaults on its reparation payments. France and Belgium have had enough. If Germany stops paying now, who's to say they'll ever start paying again? In a huge escalation,
Troops crossed the border to occupy the Ruhr. The Germans were supposed to pay in gold. Gold! They didn't have it. So they worked out an arrangement where some of the debt would be paid off with material, like railway cars and other kinds of industrial goods.
The actual pretext for the invasion is kind of a very small one. Germany's not delivered sufficient telegraph poles to France and Belgium. And this is then used to move in and to really show the Germans that they have to comply with the treaty. No amount of far-fetched tub-thumping back home by nationalist orators is a match for proper professional French and Belgian armies.
So it becomes a means of extracting what Germany needs to pay, but also of reminding Germans that they have been defeated in the war and that the military might of France should be enough for them to focus their minds and adhere to reparations. To many in Germany, after the indignity of the Versailles Treaty, this feels like yet another violation of the country's sovereignty. Germany is in dire economic straits, but foreign powers are still raiding it for all it's worth. While the French seize factories in the Ruhr,
German children go to bed hungry. This is political dynamite for extreme nationalists like Adolf Hitler. Look where Weimar democracy has taken us, he could say. To our lowest ever point. Lower even than defeating the war. And it's not just the right-wing firebrands who share this view.
The German people's response to the invasion, the occupation of the Ruhr is very similar to their response to the initial announcement of the Versailles Treaty terms. It's seen as being outrageous, superfluous, gratuitous, provocative, and all in a calculated way, another way to grind Germany into the dust. Hitler is especially furious about France's decision to use troops from their colonial territories to carry out the occupation.
By his racist standards, the sight of black African soldiers being deployed on German home soil is too much to take. Paramilitary groups from across Germany head to the Ruhr to take up arms.
Workers are executed for sabotage. The widespread outrage about the French use of troops from its colonial possessions during the occupation leads to quite widespread racist outbursts on the part of the German population. There is a lot of resistance, but there's a lot more mythologization and stealth-cilization of resistance afterwards, which plays into the nationalist mythology. There's plenty of sympathy for Germany in the international press and at the League of Nations, the forerunner of the UN.
France will eventually withdraw its troops in 1925, but the damage will already have been done. The line between mainstream and extremist politics has been blurred. In the Ruhr, fascist paramilitaries take to the same streets as peaceful community groups, conducting civil disobedience. The methods differ, but Germany is united in resisting the French occupation. The Nazis' big moment is getting closer and closer.
Hitler consents that the time to make his biggest play yet is very nearly here. Hitler is emboldened by the events on Germany's western border. But what exactly is he trying to achieve? Where is all this intrigue headed? He already knows that power won't simply fall into his lap. He's long advocated the virtues of taking what he wants. By this point in 1923, vague ideas about revolution are starting to crystallize. Hitler's mind is made up.
He needs to walk the walk. He really is going to seize power by force. He'll take to the streets with his paramilitaries and lead a putsch. Previous far-right uprisings may have failed, but this one, Hitler declares, will be different. It will sweep through Bavaria and carry him all the way to power in Berlin. Hitler has been inspired by the actions of another fascist firebrand, a short hop away.
Benito Mussolini recently seized power in Rome, Italy. Mussolini led 30,000 men in their distinctive black uniforms in a march on the Italian capital. Filing through the cobbled streets of this ancient city, the march had had a profound impact. Just 30,000 men was enough to convince the Italian king to order the police and the army to stand down. It turns out that many in the army supported fascism anyway. They were just too shy to admit it.
The march has taken Mussolini all the way to the top of the establishment. By 1923, he's installed as Italian premier at the king's own invitation. Mussolini's march on Rome turned out to be quite peaceful and extraordinarily successful. And after some hesitation, the king invited Mussolini to form a government. That was the march on Rome. It actually was quite non-violent. Hitler is the one who will dominate the history textbooks. But at this time, in 1923...
Mussolini is the big beast of European fascism. Hitler holds him in extremely high regard. He models himself on him. And he was hugely influential. I mean, Hitler did admit this. Hitler wrote him a letter, Il Duce, it was called. I can't tell you how much I was influenced by you, he said. You were my inspiration. The idea of the super-poser leader was something that Hitler adopted as well. Mussolini is a shining example of what Hitler might achieve.
He's living proof that you can start a revolution at the local level, then scale it up to fulfill your dreams of national domination. There's only one problem: Hitler is still a minnow compared to Mussolini. Mussolini meticulously built up his public profile over a number of years. Before he sought power, he made sure that he was a well-known figure right across Italy. Despite his extremist politics, he cast himself as a legitimate politician. He crossed over into the mainstream.
Hitler doesn't have that kind of cachet. He is growing into his role as the Nazi's charismatic leader, but he's not quite there yet, and he's not content to take his time inching towards recognition. He doesn't have that luxury. The time for action is now, while the economic situation is turbulent. So if he's going to move quickly, then Hitler needs a shortcut to power. He needs to hitch a ride with someone else.
General Erich Ludendorff has a hulking frame, an intense stare, and a regulation Prussian handlebar moustache. He was first Quartermaster General of the German Army during World War I, one of the most powerful men in the land. Ludendorff helped run the country as a virtual military dictatorship under Kaiser Wilhelm. When the tide of the war turned, he was forced out of office, but he had no intention of retiring.
Ludendorff was part of the attempted coup in Berlin, the "Cap Putsch", that Hitler and Eckart flew in to observe. Now in 1923, Ludendorff is 58 years old, but he's still very much up for a fight.
The most important episode that is happening is the coming together of General Erich Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler. Erich Ludendorff had been one of the two most important military leaders of Germany in the First World War. He was this celebrated German general. He is now living in Munich. And it is these two men, Hitler and Ludendorff, who come together. Ludendorff is what Hitler wants to become, a hero of extreme nationalism.
A heavyweight figure recognized right across Germany. Hitler approaches Ludendorff and makes his pitch. The revolution would be honored to have such a big beast on board. Would he consent to join the Putsch as its leader? What Hitler doesn't vocalize is that really, this is an empty title. Ludendorff may be the figurehead, but the Putsch will remain very much Hitler's own project. Ludendorff is a man who values titles and status. He accepts the invitation.
They're in many ways very strange bedfellows, but they both have something to offer to each other. Hitler had the problem of having very little support outside of Bavaria at this point, and Ludendorff was really the answer to that. Because Ludendorff was this North German Protestant conservative figure who had a perfect standing in the German right-wing movement across Germany. For Ludendorff,
The problem was that he was starting to get old, so in a way he really needed someone who could do the legwork for him. Hitler pretended to be just a drummer. He was trying to tell to Ludendorff, "Look, I'm just your drummer. I'm just helping you." Ludendorff thought that Hitler was doing his bidding. It's been five years since the First World War ended, but General Ludendorff still hasn't got over the armistice.
He's a big believer in the myth that Germany was stabbed in the back. If it weren't for the conniving traitors back home, he declares, the glorious German army would have been victorious. Ludendorff is another action man. As part of the Kaiser's administration, he'd grown desperately frustrated at the pen-pushing bureaucrats in the Berlin government. Well, now Adolf Hitler is offering him a shot at real unadulterated power.
With this disaffected general as their frontman, the Nazis are about to explode into action. In Munich, they're a force to be reckoned with. They have an enthusiastic and growing membership, and above the members sits a charismatic leadership. Hermann Göring, World War I fighter pilot ace turned commander of the SA. Ernst Röhm, army insider linked to a stockpile of military-grade weapons.
Dietrich Eckart, party founder, newspaper editor and myth-maker in chief, lurking behind the scenes, General Ludendorff, the heavyweight frontman, and of course, looming over the entire operation, Adolf Hitler, by this time known to his followers simply as Der Führer. The pieces are all in place. It's time to do something drastic. In the next episode of Real Dictators…
Hitler completes his journey to treason as he breaks cover and launches the Munich Putsch. SA shock troops storm government locations across the city, while Hitler himself hijacks a political meeting. The fate of Bavaria hangs in the balance. Will the Nazis seize power in the state? Will the establishment come on board? Or will Adolf Hitler's henchmen fail at the first hurdle and fade back into obscurity? Find out next time
on Real Dictators.
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