Now Playing
The Beer Hall Putsch: How a Failed Coup Built the Nazi Movement
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
In November 1923, Adolf Hitler stormed a Munich beer hall and declared revolution — and failed spectacularly. Discover how hyperinflation, paramilitary violence, and Hitler's raw oratorical power turned a fringe party into a movement that would reshape the world.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
November, nineteen twenty-three. A beer hall in Munich.
We left Hitler at the end of the last episode as a decorated veteran of the First World War, carrying an Iron Cross and a burning sense that Germany had been betrayed. By nineteen nineteen, he was back in Munich, a city in political chaos.
The party was renamed. It became the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
By nineteen twenty-three, Germany's economy had come apart in a way that defied description. Hyperinflation had made the currency nearly worthless.
By November nineteen twenty-three, he decided to act. The plan was a coup.
What followed was one of the strangest turning points in the story. Hitler was charged with treason.
When Hitler left prison in December nineteen twenty-four, Germany had changed. The hyperinflation crisis had been stabilized.
The years from nineteen twenty-four to nineteen twenty-nine were the hardest for the movement. The Nazis did exist nationally now, with branches across Germany.
In October nineteen twenty-nine, the American stock market collapsed. The Wall Street Crash sent shockwaves across the global economy, and Germany was particularly exposed.
The Nazi surge wasn't an accident. The party ran sophisticated campaigns for its era.
On January thirtieth, nineteen thirty-three, President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler hadn't seized power.
Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.