Heinrich Himmler : A Life (14 page)

The Bavarian government, however, responded by declaring a state of emergency and appointing Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had been Prime
Minister during the years 1920–1, as ‘General State Commissioner’, in other words, as an emergency dictator. In view of the new situation, the Reichsflagge declared its support for von Kahr, whereupon Röhm, together with a section of the membership, established—
nomen est omen
—the Reichskriegsflagge (the Reich War Flag), an organization which Himmler also joined.

The Reich government in turn responded to the state of emergency in Bavaria by declaring a state of emergency in the Reich as a whole. Faced with this conflict, Otto von Lossow, the commander of the Reichswehr troops stationed in Bavaria, declined to follow orders from Berlin and was relieved of his command. The Bavarian government reacted by reinstating him and placing his troops under their authority. In doing so, the so-called triumvirate of von Kahr, von Lossow, and the chief of the state police, Hans Ritter von Seisser, found themselves involved in an open confrontation with the Reich, while in Bavaria they were opposed by the Kampfbund led by Hitler and Ludendorff.

The Kampfbund wanted to declare a Ludendorff–Hitler dictatorship in Munich and then set out with all available forces on an armed march against Berlin. On the way they intended to overthrow the Socialist governments in central Germany. Kahr was also contemplating a takeover in the Reich, but in the form of a peaceful
coup d’état
supported by the dominant right-wing conservative circles in north Germany, who counted on the support of the Reichswehr. This faced the Kampfbund with a dilemma. It could not simply join von Kahr if it did not wish to be marginalized, and yet it was too weak to act on its own.

There was an additional problem. On the northern border of Bavaria the (now ‘Bavarian’) Reichswehr had set about establishing a paramilitary border defence force against the Socialist governments in Saxony and Thuringia, with the aid of various combat leagues. The Kampfbund was involved in this operation, and in the process had had to subordinate itself to the Reichswehr leadership.

However, in October the Reich government ordered troops to march into central Germany, with the result that the excuse that a border defence was needed was no longer valid. In addition, with its announcement of a currency reform the Reich government had begun to win back public trust.

At the beginning of November, therefore, the Kampfbund was coming under increasing pressure to take action. The danger was that the triumvirate would come to terms with Berlin, and so the window of opportunity for a putsch was beginning to close. It was in this situation that the Kampfbund adopted the plan of seizing the initiative for a putsch themselves and dragging the forces around von Kahr along with them.

Ill. 3.
Himmler as the flag-bearer of the Reichskriegsflagge on 9 November 1923. The world of the paramilitaries enabled Himmler to escape from the upsetting experiences which he kept having in civilian life. It was here that he found an environment in which he could to some extent cope with his personal difficulties.

A rally announced by the triumvirate, to be held on the evening of 8 November 1923 in the Bürgerbräukeller, appeared to offer a favourable opportunity. Hitler, in the company of armed supporters, forced his way into the meeting, declared the Bavarian government deposed, announced that he was taking over as the head of a provisional national government, and forced Kahr, von Lossow, and von Seisser to join him. The subsequent history of the Hitler putsch is well known: early the following morning the three members of the triumvirate distanced themselves from these events and ordered the police and the Reichswehr to move against the putschists. The Hitler–Ludendorff supporters made a further attempt to gain control of the city centre, but the putsch was finally brought to an end at the Feldherrnhalle, when the police fired on them.
¹¹⁰

In fact, the marchers had been aiming to get as far as the army headquarters in Ludwigstrasse, where Röhm and his Reichskriegsflagge were holding out. On the morning after the putsch, therefore, the citizens of Munich were confronted with a very unusual scene: the army headquarters, the former War Ministry, was cordoned off by Reichskriegsflagge members, and these putschists were in turn surrounded by troops loyal to the government. Behind the barbed-wire barricade was a young ensign, who on that day had the honour of carrying the flag of the paramilitary Reichskriegsflagge: Heinrich Himmler, son of the well-known headmaster of the Wittelsbach Grammar School. Here too the confrontation between the putschists and the forces of the state had led to bloodshed. After shots were fired from the building the besiegers returned fire, and two of the putschists were killed.
¹¹¹
But, despite this incident, during the course of the day the Reichskriegsflagge and the Reichswehr came to an amicable arrangement. The Reichskriegsflagge departed peacefully and its members including Himmler, the flag-bearer, were not arrested.

With this unsuccessful putsch the attempt by the radical Right to force the conservatives to join them in a common front and get rid of the Republic had for the time being failed. It was to be almost ten years before a second alliance between right-wing radicals and right-wing conservatives achieved rather more success.

After the unsuccessful putsch attempt Himmler was facing personal and political bankruptcy. Five years after the end of the war he was neither an officer nor a colonial settler in a faraway land, but instead an unemployed agronomist unsuccessfully looking for a job.
¹
His hopes of securing political change by force had been dashed by the crushing of the putsch. The more the economic and political situation stabilized, the more hopeless the völkisch cause appeared.

Nevertheless, Himmler continued to work for the banned Nazi Party, which had gone underground. According to various hints in his diary, during the months after the putsch he performed various clandestine services as a courier.
²
In mid-February he visited Röhm in Stadelheim prison: ‘we had an excellent and fairly frank talk [ . . . ] I had brought him a
Grossdeutsche Zeitung
and some oranges, which he was very pleased with. He hasn’t lost his good sense of humour and is still our good old Captain Röhm.’
³

In the same month Himmler, who was once again living with his parents,
⁴
began to take on the role of a Nazi agitator in provincial Lower Bavaria, an area that was familiar to him from his childhood. He tried his hand at journalism, contributing a political piece for the
Langquaider Zeitung
with the title: ‘A Letter from Munich’. Evidently, this ‘Letter from Munich’ was intended to be the forerunner of a series that would appear regularly and provide moral support for the Langquaid comrades, for there was a group of active Nazis in the town.
⁵
Whether he was able to realize this plan can, however, no longer be established.

His first ‘Letter from Munich’ was also published in the
Rottenburger Anzeiger
, a newspaper that appeared in the neighbouring county town.
⁶
The editor described the article in an introductory sentence as a contribution from ‘völkisch circles’. The ‘Letter’ was written in Bavarian dialect and
in a cunningly naive, conversational tone. Himmler had evidently taken Ludwig Thoma’s ‘Filser’ letters as his model, namely the letters of a fictitious Bavarian parliamentary deputy written in Bavarian dialect.

Himmler, who used the appropriate pseudonym ‘Heinz Deutsch’, began his article with a little sarcastic prologue:

Writing letters was without a doubt easier to do in the old days than it is nowadays. There wasn’t as much to report as there is now but then it wasn’t so dangerous to do so. It’s really not that simple. I hardly dare to think anything because I have so many thoughts that the police wouldn’t like and I talk only to people who are in danger of ending up in Landsberg jail. So I shall put barbed wire round my brain and try to write in a tame, ‘bourgeois’ way.

This was followed by a fictitious conversation between Deutsch-Himmler and an evidently complacent Bavarian in a railway compartment, a gentleman with hat-size 61, a drooping moustache, well fed, and preoccupied with consuming some sausages:

‘Yup, the French are on their way out. If the conference doesn’t finish them then their currency will. Look how the franc’s fallen’ (he spoke just like a donkey neighing). ‘The French’ll go back of their own accord; they can’t afford to go on.’ ‘Ah ha’, I said, disappointedly. ‘Wait and see. I reckon you’ll have to wait till you’re an old man for that to happen.’ ‘Yup, if the conference doesn’t finish them then their currency will’, repeated my philistine.

After Himmler-Deutsch has guided the conversation towards various topics, the article ends quite abruptly with a rather martial-sounding sentence: ‘A German poet once said: “He who does not put his life on the line will never gain his life.” Nowadays, people in Germany think that one can speculate for one’s life with currency and shares. But the day will come when the Reich that Bismarck cemented together with blood and iron and is now falling apart through money will be revived once more with blood and iron. And that’s when we’ll come into our own.’

Himmler also made speeches. On the day when his article appeared in the
Rottenburger Anzeiger
Himmler spoke on behalf of the National Socialist Freedom Movement in the Lower Bavarian town of Kehlheim: ‘Into the meeting, large hall, very full. Dr Rutz [a Nazi from Munich] was the main speaker, then there was an interval. I spoke about the workers being subject to stock-exchange capital, about food prices, wages, and what we ourselves should be doing about it. The meeting was definitely a success.’ On the same evening there was another meeting in a nearby venue: ‘Peasants and
communists in the pub. First Dr Rutz, then me. Talked only about workers’ issues. Rutz’s and my speeches bordered on National Bolshevism. The main topic was the Jewish question.’
⁷
On the next day he spoke to peasants in Rohr, as he thought, ‘quite well’. He noted that at the end of the meeting there was an incident involving a ‘Jewish hop-merchant’: ‘Afterwards, I think the peasants gave him a good hiding.’
⁸

Himmler saw himself very much in the role of a self-sacrificing party worker: ‘We often stayed in the pub canvassing people until 2.45 in the morning. This service we’re performing for the nation, for this disappointed, often badly treated and mistrustful nation, is really tough and hard going. They’re scared stiff of war and death.’
⁹

On 26 February 1924, a day after Himmler’s speech in Rohr, the trial of the 9 November 1923 putschists began in Munich. Himmler had been questioned by the prosecutor about his role in the failed attempt to storm the army headquarters, but there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. In the course of the trial the defence proposed calling him as a witness but, as it turned out, he did not have to appear.
¹⁰

Himmler was still contemplating the possibility of emigration. His Turkish student friend, with whom he had already discussed plans for emigration in 1921 and with whom he still corresponded, offered to arrange a position for him as an estate manager in western Anatolia.
¹¹
In fact Himmler made some enquiries about this possibility of emigrating;
¹²
unfortunately, one is inclined to say, he could not summon up the courage to take the plunge. The Caucasus was another possibility under consideration, but was then quickly dropped (‘Bolshevik rule, division of the land, nothing doing’).
¹³
The same thing happened with Italy; a friend who lived in Milan could not, when contacted, offer him much hope. This acquaintance suggested, presumably with the aim of consoling him, that the only thing suitable for him would be ‘a colonial-type job’, perhaps in the Ukraine or in Persia, for ‘in the final analysis, as an ordinary estate manager you would have the prospect of getting something in Germany anyway’.
¹⁴

Himmler had, of course, already considered this possibility; but he had been forced to come to the sobering conclusion that his job prospects in agriculture were slim. At the beginning of November 1924, in response to his enquiry,
¹⁵
the Reich Association of Academically Educated Farmers informed him that his chances of getting a senior position in estate administration were virtually nil. The only conceivable vacancies would be as a deputy administrator or as an assistant on a trial farm.

Himmler was not prepared to admit the failure of his plans for his personal, professional, and political life and increasingly came to adopt the role of an outsider who had been failed by other people. It was not he who was following the wrong course of action but those around him.