Third Reich Tour Munich

„Capital of the movement” – a difficult legacy

Adolf Hitler first came to Munich in 1913. Was that the beginning of National Socialism? Or did it all begin with the so-called “Hitler Putsch” in November 1923? In the face of historical sites this tour tells a dark part of Munich’s history, when Munich was given the “honorary title” of “capital of the movement”. An attempt is made to clarify the complex circumstances that ultimately ended in an horrendous disaster.

How did “they” get a chance at all?

Munich in November 1918: Revolution, flight of the last Bavarian king and proclamation of the Free State of Bavaria by the first Bavarian Prime Minister Kurt Eisner. A conservative, Catholic-oriented population has had to cope with the innovations after losing the First World War. A nation that had been used to being ruled by monarchs for centuries vehemently resisted the democratic state principle.
This, and the fact that the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles weighed heavily on the shoulders of the Germans and especially the Bavarians, led to an extreme spread of right-wing radical ideas. The disgrace of the lost war, the wounded honor weighed heavily. People were looking for explanations, but above all for someone to blame. And the question is increasingly being asked: what and who is really German?

The road to desaster

Adolf Hitler was also involved in the unmanageable party landscape. He was 30 years old when he joined the newly founded German Workers’ Party (DAP) in Munich. In a very short time, he rises to the top of the NSDAP, which he himself forms out of the German Workers’ Party.

But Hitler wants more. He wants a state based on the “Führer principle”, absolute power. In November 1923, he attempts to take power in the Weimar Republic with the so-called “Hitler Putsch“, which comes to a bloody end with gunshots at the Feldherrnhalle.

He gets extremely lenient judges for this high treason, on the contrary: instead of expelling him as an Austrian, they offer him a real show stage in Munich during the trial. In Landsberg prison, he writes Part 1 of his book “Mein Kampf“, a hodgepodge of twisted National Socialist thoughts, which he declares to be the new party ideology.

During the so-called golden 1920s of the Weimar Republic, Hitler’s party is virtually insignificant until 1929, when the world economic crisis erupts with “Black Thursday“, votes for the NSDAP quickly rise and the party is increasingly involved in German state governments.

Clearing the last hurdle

On January 30, 1933, the time has come: Adolf Hitler is democratically appointed Reich Chancellor. All those who had been responsible in the run-up and had thought that they would be able to keep the “little Austrian corporal” in control were soon proven wrong. Fate took its course…