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Hey, Robert here. It's been like two months since I had LASIK and I'm still seeing 2020. All I had to do was go in for a consultation, then go in for a maybe 10 minute procedure and then my eyes have been great ever since. You know, I healed up wonderfully. It was very simple, couldn't have been a better experience. So if you want to explore LASIK plus I can't recommend it enough. They have over 20 years experience in the industry and they performed more than two million treatments right now if you want to try getting LASIK plus you can get $1000 off of your surgery when you're treated in September, that's $500. Of per eye, just visitmylasikoffer.com to schedule your free consultation. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried true crime. And if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's breaker handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Want to say I don't know less? Listen to stuff you should know more. Join host Josh and Chuck on the podcast packed with fascinating discussions about science, history, pop culture, and more episodes. Dive into topics like was the lost, city of Atlantis Real? And how does pizza work? Say goodbye to I don't know, because after listening to stuff you should know. You will listen to stuff you should know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hitler two Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. Did it. I always promise we do it again. That's our that's everyone's favorite intro is when I just atonally shouted Hitler. Well, we're talking about Hitler today. This is behind the ******** podcast about the worst people in all of history. I'm Robert Evans and this is actually a special miniseries of behind the ******** called behind the insurrections. Last episode we talked about Benito Mussolini's March on Rome. This episode we're talking about another fascist insurrection directly inspired by the March on Rome and carried out by ******** pod side character and main character Adolf Hitler. We're talking about the Munich Beer Hall putsch today. Yeah. Light it on fire, baby. Hmm. Light it on fire. Awful insurrection. I realized I should probably reference where I got that from. Oh yeah, she doesn't. From. It's OK. So common. The actor. Uh-huh. And I call him the actor I'm finishing. That is an interesting since the rapper. OK, OK and yes. And one could argue of the top ten list of greatest rap albums of all time, comment may hold two of those slots, one of which is an album called Resurrection, and that's where I got that from. Was he because he's saying resurrection? So I was just saying insurrection. Deep cut, unnecessary piece of information. But you can pull that out next time somebody try to judge you about your pop culture stuff. Beautiful. Thank you. I'm more excited about the fact that he was common sense. And then he got into Hollywood and decided to drop the sense, which, you know, immediately scared, you know what happened. There was a there was a band out here in LA, like a local band who sued him. Whose name was common sense and they were like almost like a 311 sublime like White boy reggae band Incredible. And they sued him for the name. They were like, we were common sense 1st. And I mean I feel like, I feel like you can't copyright the word or name common sense. But but they won. So he was like, alright, whatever, comment and then became. A list celebrity. Anyway, I was going to say, Speaking of people who won, we should talk about Hitler, at least for a while, but not in this particular story, although eventually, at least Munich, this moment when when this particular story ends. Is that the end of the story? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This particular story ends with Nazi defeat, but the broader story of the Nazis is more complicated than that. So I think we're going to start here by talking about the city of Munich. Because generally when people talk Nazis, they wind up kind of focusing on Berlin. But Munich is where the National Socialist Germans Workers Party, the NSDAP, the Nazis, that's where they came from. That's the birthplace of the Nazi movement is Munich and. If you look a little bit into Munich's history, it makes sense. Munich is a city in the German state of Bavaria. In Bavaria is historically the most conservative part of Germany. It's kind of like Texas in that even after German unification in 1870, Bavarians tended to see themselves as different and other from like the rest of Germany, right? Like we're German share, but we're more Bavarian, right? Like it's it's this, this, the attitude that you do kind of see, like Texans have a bit of this, right? Like where we're our own. Thing. So that's always big in Bavaria. And there's this kind of like traditionalism. They have their own monarchy that's separate from the Kaiser, right? Like the Kaiser's in charge of Bavaria still. But they also have their own king. And there's a lot of Bavarians who aren't super into the idea of being part of Germany, right, because they they they're more Bavarian than anything. Now Adolf Hitler, who was again an Austrian. So he's not really a German by the consideration of a lot of Germans, he moves to Munich in 1913 mainly because. He was getting drafted to go join the Austrian army and he didn't want to join the Austrian army. So he's a draft Dodger and he moves to Munich to avoid serving his time in the military. And just based on what happens less, this is less because Hitler was. Hitler was not scared of being in the military. He didn't like Austria. He thought it was like racially polluted. And so he moved to Munich because it was more in line with his right wing sensibilities. So he rented a cheap room and he made a poverty level income in Munich, painting pictures of like famous buildings. In town because it's a beautiful city and selling them to tourists. And this was like a a whole industry. And in Munich a bunch of little artists would paint pictures of local buildings and sell them as like, keepsakes to tourists. Hitler was kind of unique among these artists because while most of them would actually go out to where those buildings were with like an easel and paint the buildings and then sell their pictures and stuff, Hitler would buy cheap postcards of those buildings and paint alone in his room where he spent most of his time reading fringe political tracts and, one presumes, ************. Seriously, we have to actually, yeah, just unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah, he he was. I mean, he was a pretty right wing guy, but yeah, he's he's pounding it in in his little office and painting from postcards and he's not a very good artist, which is one of the key. Because he lived in like a tiny little it really. He was renting from a lady. He he was he was very poor. True. His office was little. Yeah. When Hitler, I thought we were just putting him down for no reason. But no, no, no. It was objectively, he was extremely poor. So when Hitler moved to Munich, he had just finished being like a homeless person in in Vienna. Like he'd lived in like a men's home and stuff for like people who couldn't afford to stay off the street and whatnot. So he had just gotten out of, like a really dire financial situation. And actually, part of why he was in a dire financial situation is he inherited money from his mom, but then his sister needed it for her kids. And so he gave up his inheritance to her, which, you know, kind of is evidence that, like everyone who turns out terrible, there was a period of time in which Hitler might not have wound up being Hitler. So anyway, important to keep in mind. So Hitler's living in Munich. He's painting ****** paintings, tugging it all the time and reading a bunch of, like, reactionary right wing scenes, like poorly mimeographed newsletters about the dangers of the Jews. That's like a huge thing Hitler's doing in this. And things never change, man. Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's like he's like hanging out on the, the days equivalent of 8 Chan, which is like these tracts that are being passed out in the street. So when World War One kicks off and, you know, in this. Right, the archdukes assassinated, as we talked about last time, but in the run up to World War One, Benito Mussolini's furiously trying to get his country, Italy, involved in the war. Germany goes to war with the world, and Hitler immediately joins up and becomes an infantryman. And he's almost immediately thrown into one of the most horrifying battles in not just like the whole war, but like ever. It's known colloquially as the slaughter of the innocents. Yeah, because the Germans sent 10s of thousands of basically children to die to, like allied machine guns. A horrible battle. Now, at the same time as Hitler's watching his friends get mowed down in the trenches, Herman Gerring, who would become his future 2nd in command, is becoming one of the first fighter pilots in history. Garing flew with Manfred von Richtofen. The Red Barons Flying Circus. He took command of the squadron after Rick Toven got killed in 1918 and he got something shut down, like 29 planes. So he's an extremely good fighter pilot. Yeah. And he's like a dad becomes like a dashing national hero. Now, another big Nazi. You might know Heinrich Himmler was too young to serve during World War One. He came from that awkward generation where you were too young to fight in the First World War, and he would have been too old to fight in the 2nd. And so his entire youth was spent, like, idolizing these soldiers going off to die in France. He was unable to Join Now another fella who went to war in 1914 was Ernst Poner. Now Poner was a middle-aged. I know it's a rough name you got you got to give the guy some credit for. It's a real cross to bear. So Poner grew up or poner was like a middle-aged, conservative, educated Bavarian pretty right wing guy when the war starts and he was commissioned as an infantry officer and eventually rose to regimental command. Now despite being a Bavarian to his soul and thus being kind of like separate from the rest of Germans. Fighting in the war gives him this sense of, like, unity with the rest of Germany. And he, he starts to feel like a member of this, like this unified nation for the first time in his life. And in fact, all of Bavaria was brought closer in step to the rest of Germany. As a result of the war, the region industrialized rapidly to provide armaments. And as the German state devoted itself increasingly to becoming an engine of arms production, Bavaria becomes like a big part of that, particularly Nuremberg or not, I think, yeah, I think it might have been. It was Nuremberg. I'm not great on all the other German. People like Bavaria starts industrializing heavily. And their military was like, just the best in the world. Incredibly good. Yeah. Like. Yeah. Like, like Germany effectively amazing. Yeah. Goes up against the entire rest of the world in World War One and comes pretty close to winning. They almost. Yeah. They like. It's not like World War Two where after a while, like, they're almost. They almost pulled it off, almost won. Yeah. Yeah. So the Kaiser's propaganda had forbidden. So, like. And that's actually part of the problem, is that right? Up until the end of the war, Germany could win it. It's not. Again, not like World War Two, where after 1943 everyone can see the writing on the wall. Yeah. Up until like late 1918, Germany could pull that **** off. Yeah, and this is sort of compounded in the minds of German people who see their soldiers winning by the Kaiser's propaganda because the Kaiser had forbidden journalists from reporting on the dire situation in the West. So #1 Germany is in a pretty good position. Most of the war they knock Romania and Russia. Out of the fight. So they beat like 2 powers, including Russia, which is like 1/5 of the world's landmass. Yeah. Which they. Yeah. Heard of at the time? Yeah. They conquer Ukraine, like get it in a treaty, basically. And they spent most of the war within spitting distance of Paris. So on a map, Germans spend most of that war thinking like, we are winning. This is tough. We're losing a lot of men, but like, we're gonna win this thing. Now, the situation on the map bolides some crucial realities, including the fact that as the war went on. Germany was completely hollowed out of soldiers of supplies and of food. 3/4 of a million German civilians starved to death as a result of the Allied blockade. By the time Germany surrenders in the winter of 1918, its army is on the very brink of collapse. The generals who are in charge at the end? A guy named Eric Ludendorff, who you might remember from the Wonder Woman movie. Yes, he's the bad guy and Wonder Woman, but was a real dude. Yeah, and Paul von Hindenburg, who was his. His Co general. We're not the ones to accept failure gracefully, right? Like, both of them had some victories to their name. Both of them made some major strategic errors at the end that were a big factor in German defeat. But when the Germans lose, they don't stay on deck to be like, hey guys, we tried our best, we fought as hard as anyone could fight, and we got our we we just lost. They they ******* bounce. Like, as soon as it becomes clear they're going to surrender their ******* out of there, yeah, yes. So whack. Oh yeah, and they they hand over responsibility for negotiating Germany surrender because the Kaiser also bounces like that. ************* off to Belgium on a train. Much too. So all of the people who'd gotten Germany into war and had like pushed the war the whole time leave and put the responsibility for negotiating the surrender on the Social Democrat dominated Reichstag. So Germany overnight is a social democracy and also the Liberals who had been most, a lot of them anti war up to that point now have to deal with negotiating Germany surrender. Meanwhile the guys who were responsible for losing the war start concocting a narrative that the left had stabbed the German. Army in the back. Yeah. And that's why they lost. And when I say the left, I also mean the Jews because that's what they mean, right? Like, they're not. Yeah. The left. And it's the same when people talk about cultural Marxism today, right. The term back then was Judeo Bolshevism. But it's the same idea, right. So the first days and weeks after Germany's defeat, there were just a bunch of revolutions all throughout these different cities in Germany, and a lot of them were left wing. Bavaria was not spared in this wave of unrest. As you said, there was a strong, while Bavaria is very conservative. Munich in particular. There's a very vibrant left wing. Yeah, and several days before Germany signs the Armistice on November 11th. On like November 7th, this huge crowd assembles in Munich and they forced the Bavarian king to leave his throne. Now the guy who orchestrated this was a dude named Kurt Eisner and he's the head of the Bavarian Social Democratic Party and his goal was to you know what he did. He wanted to kick out the king and establish a Bavarian Republic. Now that worked for a little while. The unfortunately, Eisner. The coalition that Eisner used to kind of kick the king out and establish a Republic was only united in their desire to bring it into the war and get rid of the king. And once that war ended and the king was gone, they didn't agree on anything else because it was a coalition of like, the far left, but also a lot of like center left people and even centrists who just like this World War One thing doesn't seem to be working out for anybody. Kind of sucks for all of us. Kind of sucks for all of us. And when that ends, a lot of these centrists are like, well, we don't really agree with the left on anything else, you know? And there's this huge desire to we've got the king out, the war is gone. Let's go back to business as usual. Let's go back to the way things were before the war. I think people, Americans can understand. Yeah, people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wanna go back to brunch, man. Yeah, I wanna go back to brunch. And a lot of these centrists wanted to go back to the center right and the center left arguing because both the extreme right and the extreme left had been empowered by the war and the economic collapse that came with it. And these, these folks in the middle were scared by that. So this is before like Prust and like the new, like the New Democracy or the new like Constitution. They write like this is before. This is right. This is before the Weimar constitution. This is talking about the Weimar constitution. Yeah, Eisner over. Eisner leads his sort of revolution like 5 days before Germany surrenders. OK, so this is contemporary like the Weimar constitution starts being written during like the period where a lot of this is happening. But this starts before this starts while the Kaiser still on the throne. Right, OK. I'm fairly sure while the Kaiser is still on the front, it starts before the official German surrender. So things, you know, the center right decide or the center left decides, like, we don't really want to work with Eisner. Eisner support dissolves and he kind of winds up unable to govern because he doesn't really have a lot of people backing him. There's new elections in January of 1919, and this kind of center left dominates as opposed to Eisner's far left. So on the morning of February 21st. 1919 Kurt Eisner starts walking to the lawn tag, the land tag, which is like their, you know kind of their Congress sort of thing. Yeah. To resign his position as head of the local government now while he's on his way, this German noble Count Anton, Arco Valley, which is a ******* ****** name. Arco valley. Arco valley. It's like he's like a Spiderman victim, right? Yeah, he's a he's a rich Bavarian nobleman. So Arco Valley like comes up and shoots him dead. Eisner so. Because he's, you know, Arco Valley is a monarchist and A and a far right kind of guy, and he's he wants to murder this left wing dude even though the guy's about to leave power willingly. So one of Eisner's Eisner does have some very loyal followers, and one of them responds to Eisner being killed by gunning down another politician. And for reasons unknown to history, this, like leftist supporter of Eisner, instead of going after one of Arco Valley's allies, picks a moderate liberal, a guy named Arnard Hour and shoots him. Now our survives an hour at the time is kind of the head of the Social Democrats in Munich. So he's like, he's like a kind of the Joe Biden, right? Like he's like a moderate liberal vanilla. Yeah. Yeah. And this leftist shoots him instead of 1 Arco Valley's allies for good reasons that aren't really well known but our survival. What are the theories? You know, I, I, I haven't really heard a good one. It might just be that as a rule, a lot of folks on the far left will always hate liberals more than they hate the right. It might have been like, yeah, it was just like personal. It's like that fool hit on my girl. Yeah, it might have been personal. It also. He might have been him. I'll just there's a chance, man. I took my chance. He might have just ****** ** right? Like guns. I just hit the wrong rate back then, you know, like, you know, I I don't really know. Our survived, though. He doesn't get killed, but his injuries keep him out of politics for two years. And while our was like kind of a centrist, he was an effective leader of the Social Democratic Party. He was good at getting people in line. And the fact that he's out of the picture. For a couple of years means that his party is effectively rudderless right at the same time that the the far left is energized by Eisner's martyrdom. Now our successor, a guy named Johan Hoffman, was weak and not very competent. So you've got this position where the dominant center left party loses its effective leader at the same time as the radical left gets energized by the assassination of like, one of their big dudes. And I'm going to I'm going to read a quote now from a a graduate dissertation by James McGee. Titled The political police in Bavaria in 1919 to 1936 to explain what happens next, the assassination of Eisner had worked as a solvent. Upon political consensus, such as it was in Bavaria, the Hoffman government found itself caught between the advance of radicalism on both the right and the left. The first round and the struggle went to the radical left. No longer able to maintain itself in Munich, the Hoffman government decamped on April 7th, eventually coming to rest in the northern Bavarian city of Bomberg. Authority in Munich was assumed successively by two councils, the first led by an ill assorted. Selection of independent socialists and anarchists and the second by the Communists. So two different successive kind of far left governments take over through like a revolution basically. But neither of them are very good at it right? Neither of them really have like the anarchists are way more focused on like creating public art and stuff and don't really have a great cohesive set of plan to deal with the needs of a lot of like moonshiners. I think it is like people of the people of Munich whereas the communists are. Kind of. They're not really that good at building support outside of the people who are already involved in their movement. They're they're spend a lot of time going after their political enemies and again, aren't very good at consolidating power. Meanwhile, outside the city, conservative forces start regrouping and preparing to invade Munich because there's been a left wing revolution. What is the right going to do? They're going to murder everyone they can. So the core of this right wing movement where the fry core, and that's an organization of right wing veterans that you could see is broadly similar to groups like the Oath Keepers. With a 3 percenters today, now the main difference between these two is the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters are mostly people dressing up like soldiers who, if they were in the military, never heard a shot fired in anger. The men of the Freikorps are hard **** ** ******* like they have. They have done a ton of killing. They have seen thousands die before their eyes. Like a lot of these guys. These guys are like veterans of the trenches. So they're not, they're not playing, you know, like they're not dressing up because soldiers look cool. They've they they they have been so broken by war that it's the only thing they can. Really? Do they know Larping over here? Yeah, they're called the fry core. The Fry core, the free core, right. Like we're a yeah. So and the the fry core. Not all of these guys, a number of, like, fry core dudes, actually become anti Nazis later, but a lot of the fry core are the the genesis of what becomes some of the Nazi St movements, too. OK, and it's kind of like we saw with the RDT in Italy, right, where you've got all these veterans, some of them do become, some of them just want order, and they're more Republican than anything, but they'll fight the radical left and then they wind up being anti. Nazi's most of them go more in a Nazi direction. Some of them wind up being kind of more on the left after a while because they get, you know, disillusioned by right wing politics. But you have this melting pot of soldiers who are angry at things and the bulk of them do go to the right now. Yeah, so these guys invade and they make quick work of the red forces of the revolutionary government. I'm going to quote from Macy's article again. By the end of April, the feeble red forces had been pressed back into the environs of Munich itself. At this moment, with their backs to the wall, elements of the Red Army executed 10 hostages. Some of the hostages were members of the right radical Tula society. Others appeared to have been selected almost at random. None of the 10, however, had done anything to earn so terrible a retribution with run with one gratuitous act, the leftist defenders of Munich. Open the floodgates of violence. The aroused white forces poured into the city on May 1st, bent upon the eradication of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and its supporters in the most literal sense imaginable. The hardened Free Corps and Army troops coursed through the streets of the city, shooting anyone who appeared even remotely suspicious. The **** of execution did not stop until May 7th, when it was discovered that the white forces had mistakenly murdered a group of 21 Catholic school boys. These school boys were by no means the only innocents who fell before the guns before this. 1st wave of killing had come to an end. Over 600 individuals had been slain, many of them individuals with no connection to the Red Army or the Soviet Republic. The revolution, which had begun so peacefully six months before, had ended in a bloodbath. Order had returned to Bavaria. Wow. That's kind of the story of the radical left and the radical right. Right, you get the radical left. Some of them go a little bit far. They kill 10 people and the right murder 600 people, including several dozen school boys. Yeah. God, dog man. Yeah, I I. Hearing about this, just this time in the world, and being a, you know, albeit a. African American male, but. The reality is I live in America. You know that. Like. In this in this era that like the type of violence these people endured all the time, you know, and yeah, stability. Like it's just we really can't get our brain around that 600. No. Yeah. You know, it was 600 people, at least 20. Like they murder a whole school of Catholic children. You know, they killed 21 kids in like 1 you know, famous leftists. The Catholic school. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean to be actually, if we're being honest, like one of the in Germany, the anti fascists. We're a mix of anarchists, communists, Social Democrats and Catholics. A lot of very traditional conservative Catholics were anti fascists because they were against the Nazis, right. And they still believed some pretty messed up stuff. You're talking about Catholics in the 30s and 40s, but yeah, we're not Nazis, you know, and you get a lot of credit in my book if you're anti Nazi, regardless of what you believe in it. All the other stuff, I can say this about you. Yeah, but, you know, this does kind of everything that's happening in Germany in this. Makes it clear what I what I kind of consistently think is the most. The thing that we have going for us the most in our present struggle against fascism, which is that our fascists are they're ******* wimps for the most part, right? Most of them have never seen heavy combat. They have not seen people shot to death. They haven't shot anyone to death. They have not been in like. That's why a lot of them started to run as soon as, like, the police started really using force. The fascists, the the the Nazis, the OG Nazis. Most of them are hard, hard. People. Hitler is an incredibly physically tough man. Like Hitler is a guy who got into street fights with a whip. You know, like these are you with him all the time. These are rough people. And I, I that's one of the things we have going for us is that most of ours just aren't that tough, you know? Yeah. Yeah. There's like this weird, like, combo of, like, there's you're not that tough, but you have something to prove. So you're going to be so you're dangerous because you got something to prove, right? But then there's you are tough and you have something to prove and you ain't scared, you know, I'm like, yeah, that's a toll that that's a totally different situation. Yeah. Yeah. Like you'll see a lot of folks. Are far right. Dress up in, you know, plate carriers and carry guns and look like soldiers. The the Nazis did that, too. They wore military. They dressed like German stormtroopers. And most of them had been right when they dressed like the guys who charged through trenches with an axe in one hand and a handgun and another, it's because they charged through trenches with an axe in one hand and a hand gun in another, you know? Yeah, I know you've seen that look, bro. That is a tangent. But like the as much as you've traveled, as any war zones you've been in. Yeah. And then even here. Like, you could see it in a person's eyes to where you like, Oh yeah, you'll cut me. You will cut my throat. And you're not yet. You won't think twice. You'll cut my throat. Like, you can see it in a person's eyes. Yeah. Yeah. It's the willingness. It's it's the people. And you can really see it in a lot of folks eyes. The folks for whom doing violence is the same as, like, turning the page in a book. Right. Like, it doesn't require a switch in their mental circuitry. Yeah. Yeah. They're just ready, you know. And most of them aren't that. Most of the. Far right in Munich in this. Are that kind of person. You know, you've got folks like Heinrich Himmler who were too young and who want to be that and are playing at it, but a lot of them are really tough people. So mainstream Munich, which you know, after the write comes in and massacres everybody, it's still like kind of the liberals who are in charge of the government for about a year after this point, you know, kind of the mainstream center left. And they blamed the far left for everything, even though the vast majority of the killing had been done by folks that were basically Proto Fascists. And among other things, the fact that the left had taken over the city briefly helped to incite and fuel an extremely active right wing militia scene. So all of these different St militias of armed young men start to form up during this period of time. So different groups of angry young men, many of them veterans, got together to fight the Reds and ensure their city would never fall to the left again. Again, a liberal government is in charge for the next year, but after the the Freikorps and the army come in the real power in Munich. With the military and the police and the dominant political ideology and the city among both the center left and center right becomes a thirst for order above all else. Right. Which you can understand. Like, these people aren't just going through, like, a lot of Americans just want order at this point after the last four years. And we didn't go through a war that killed, like, what, one out of every ten of our young men? Something like that. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Their calls for law and order are understandable. Yeah. I think they're, you know, history will show it was the wrong way to go about it. But, yeah, you have to be. More sympathetic to them than the people calling for now. Like, well, you, you can't even imagine. No one in in America can imagine we have no cat. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So Ernest Poner was one of the first men who stepped in to fill this need for order. And he'd been enraged by Eisner and, you know, even more enraged by the Soviet Republic that briefly took charge of Munich. And so he gets promoted to be the head of the Munich police force in May of 1919. And he's fresh back from commanding a regiment at in World War One at this point and. As soon as he's put in, you know, in charge of the police force, he sets to work not just crushing Marxism, but doing everything he can to encourage the growth of the radical right in Munich now, the radical right. There were a number of different parties this. But the one that would come to dominate the Munich far right scene was, of course the National Socialist German Workers Party, the NSDAP. They were founded in February of 1920 by a fellow named Anton Drexler. A lot of people don't know this. Hitler didn't start the Nazi party. He wasn't involved at the very beginning. There was a locksmith named Drexler who had been involved previously in a bunch of other fanatical nationalist parties. Now from the beginning, the NSDAP, and they're not the Nazis at this point, nobody calls them that yet that that that takes for a while later. So at this point, calling them the National Socialists or the NSDAP, their goal initially was to be the party of the German middle class, and I think you'll remember that from our episode on Italy. Yep, Drexler sought robust social aid programs for Arians, so he wanted socialism. 4 Arians, right? And he wanted anyone who was not to not be in his ******* country. Yeah, yeah, that's that. Now, at the onset, the National Socialists were a small and secretive group of about 60 people. Now the Reichswehr, which is Germany's post war army, becomes immediately concerned with the small party, namely because they were afraid that it might have subversive or revolutionary goals. Right? The army is definitely more anti left than right, but they're concerned about anyone who might be a threat to order in this. So they decide to send in a spy to look at this young starting party and figure out if it's a threat. And the spy they send is a young German corporal. Named Adolf Hitler. Here we go, here we go, here we go. Like, yeah, of of all the times they, I mean like yeah of so there's so much of world history that fascinates me. But this moment, this time, this time the, the, the in between wars, this time is so interesting to me. Interesting that we should take an ad break for suspense. Yeah, you know who won't send Hitler in to infiltrate a radical political party and then become its head? Our sponsors, they will not. Our sponsors have never ordered Adolf Hitler to infiltrate a right wing politician. Say that for a fact absolutely certain. I'm a ******* for that transition, by the way. That was a great transition. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for. None of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or for a family and. Meant family start at 2 lines. All plans come with unlimited talk and text, plus high speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any mint mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. Just switch to Mint mobile and get premium wireless service starting at 15 bucks a month. Get premium wireless service from just $15.00 a month and no one expected plot twists at mintmobile.com/behind. That's mintmobile.com/behind. Seriously, you'll make your wallet very happy. Mintmobile.com/behind, now a word from our sponsor. Better help. If you're having trouble stuck in your own head, focusing on problems dealing with depression, or just you know can't seem to get yourself out of a rut, you may want to try therapy. And better help makes it very easy to get therapy that works with your lifestyle and your schedule. A therapist can help you become a better problem solver, which can make it easier to accomplish your goals, no matter how big or small they happen to be. So if you're thinking of giving therapy a try. Better help is a great option. It's convenient, accessible, affordable, and it is entirely online. You can get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey. And if the therapist that you get matched with doesn't wind up working out, you can switch therapists at any time when you want to be a better problem solver therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's better helpp.com/behindbetter. Com behind hey Robert Evans here. It's been like two months since I got LASIK laser eye surgery and my vision still 2020. So many things about my daily life has changed. I don't have to worry about putting on a mask in my glasses fogging up. I don't have to take out contacts at night or put them in the day. I don't have to like, worry all the time when I'm traveling. Like, how many contacts do I have by I go swimming at the lake during the summer? Something I like to do, go to the beach or whatever. I don't have to worry about losing a contact or, you know, bringing swimming glasses or something with me. Everything is just easier. And getting it done was easy too. You know. I went in, I had my consultation. They told me I was a good candidate and then I went back in a couple of days later about it being about a boom. You know, my eyes were perfect. So LASIK Plus is a leader in laser vision correction in the United States. They have over 20 years in the industry and more than two million treatments performed. If you want to start your LASIK plus journey, you can get $1000 off when treated in September. That's 500 per eye. So visit my LASIK offer. Dot com to schedule your free consultation now. Oh my gosh. We have returned and I am just loving talking about some old H bomb hit. He hits H bomb. Hitting his bomb. There we go. Hits, hits. Here. Here's what you could do. You here's what you could do for these people, which is some of the. Well, I don't get into discussions anymore because they're ridiculous, but Umm. Help these people understand this party having the term socialists in it. But they're not socialist. Like, yeah yeah. Help them understand that that's just they're they're national socialists, which means, which means they're they're kind. And in their conception that means that like we seek a socialist state for members of our race so we want to and and some of that was just was just lies because the Germans a lot of stuff is happening here from one thing. The left is very powerful in Germany during this point the Communists are beating the Nazis for the most part in elections for most of this. History, yeah. So, and they're both competing for people who have been radicalized, like we talked about last time, people who have accepted that the system is ****** a lot of them can go left or right. So the Nazis have to be reaching out to the workers, have to be trying to recruit from that. And there's also, you know, you you are talking about a period of time in which the German economy is, it's like 5.7 billion marks to the dollar, like Germany is a nation of trillionaires who can't afford food. So you have to be able to speak to these people. And promised them some sort of aid and that was a big part. And and the way basically the left is like, everybody deserves to be taken care of. We need to take money away from these. We need to nationalize industries. We need to nationalize corporations. We need to give the means of production to workers. The Germans are basically like, we need to take money away from the Jews in businesses, away from the Jews and give it to Arians, right. Because of them. Yeah. Yeah. The idea of like accepting the fact that like. You lost this war. Yeah. I feel like that's what's so it, that this is part of what's interesting to me about this season to this time of history, because it's like. Who couldn't get your brain around the fact that y'all just lost? Yeah, like it just you lost you you drained your economy on award that you shouldn't have been in the 1st place again. Nothing that sounds similar to this country today. Exactly. Yeah. None of this. Yeah, you just. Hey, bro, take it on the chin. You lost. You know, I'm saying let's figure this out. What you looking for? Like, whoa, we just lost because of him? Like, bro, you anyway. Yeah, none of this is familiar. And it's also when we're talking about sort of socialism within the Nazis, one thing people do need to understand. Is that in the early period and this hasn't even really evolved yet. In the episode we're talking about, this is more in like the later 20s. There's a left wing and a right wing of the Nazi party. There are Nazis who are anti capitalist. The night of Long Knives is the right wing of the Nazi Party, which is the dominant chunk of the party murdering all of those people. Which is not to say the left wing of the Nazi party weren't a bunch of hideous racist monsters. They were, of course. They just believed slightly different things and were then murdered, right, like that's that's what the night of long knives. This was a purging of the kind of more socialist elements within the Nazi party, that they needed to kind of get into power and get enough workers behind them that they could, you know, take the streets. So again, a lot of chairman, his political history is incredibly complicated in this. So much is going on. And again, like people who are convinced that the system needs to be destroyed will often have some stuff in common with each other, which is why you do see. Nazis and Communists on a couple of occasions like fight together against police in the state, not because they agree with each other, but because they they agree on the fact that the state is ****. You know, it's it's a very messy time because everything is falling apart again. I'm sure Americans can identify with that. So yeah, this Hitler's, you know, commanding officer sends him to infiltrate this far right group and learn if it's like a threat to the German Government, which I think you have to count. Is like, one of the worst decisions ever made, like, calculation. I don't know if anything's ever backfired more than be like, oh, we don't wanna, we want to make sure these guys don't overthrow the government, send Hitler in the checkout. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mostly underestimated big ones. Yeah. So Hitler at the time was an angry young man still suffering from his war injuries. He'd been pretty badly messed up at the front, and he'd been at the front for about four straight years. So he's he's riddled with PTSD. And physically injured, and he's adrift in a nation on the verge of collapse. The economy is in freefall. People don't have jobs. And Hitler's kind of one of the reasons he does this is he's desperate to not get kicked out of the military. Most soldiers are released from the military after the war. He hangs on to his job for a while, and this is how. And he needs the ******* money, right? So he takes this gig, he goes in and shows up at a meeting or two of the Nazi Party, and he finds himself kind of enthralled by the group's discussions. Now, one of the parties early members was a fellow named Dietrich. Accurate now. Eckert was an anti-Semitic poet and most historians consider him to be the spiritual founder of the Nazi Party. Hitler himself, in some private writings, described Eckert as the spiritual founder of of Nazism. Now Eckert was all about nationalism and saving Germany from the Jewish menace that he believed had lost the war for her. Bereft of a Kaiser, Dietrich became convinced that an Arian hero was needed to save the German race, and he spent a lot of his time thinking about who that hero might be. And I'm going to quote. Trick here. This is talking about like, what he believes is necessary to save Germany. Yeah, the rabble has to be scared ********. I can't use an officer by which he means a military officer. The people no longer have any respect for them. Best of all would be a worker who's got his mouth in the right place. He doesn't need much intelligence. Politics is the stupidest business in the world. I know, right? I mean, politics is the stupidest business, yeah? Yeah, like, you have to see Eckert as in a lot of ways one of the most effective. And, like, like political thinkers of all time, he's absolutely right about how to take over German democracy. If it succeeds, the plan works. Yeah, turns out he was right. Yeah. Now, during what early Nazi party meeting, a professor got up and made an impassioned argument about why Bavaria needed to secede from Germany. Hitler got enraged by this, and he starts screaming at this professor. And he's so eloquent in his. Arguments about like, why Germany needs to stay together, that, like, everyone who's there is just struck by his his skill as a speaker. And this professor actually, like, flees the room in in shame because he can't, like, argue against Hitler. And yeah, this convinces all of the party leaders at the time that Hitler had a future as an orator, that he could be like a big voice for spreading the parties propaganda. So they start having Hitler give speeches and they're right. Like he's able to draw a crowd. That guy's a good public speaker. He gets better. Better about it over time, and in short order. He's the most prominent member of the National Socialist Party and the soon its figurehead. Now the Nazis grew quickly at this point, drawing in other disaffected veterans like Herman Gerring and Ernst Rohm. Now Rome had been a Stormtrooper, and he's a really interesting guy. He's one of the members who's purged in the night of long knives. So he had in World War One been like a special forces guy, an elite assault trooper. He's covered head to toe and scars his nickname because he has so many connections in the military, he's able to get like. Heavy machine guns for these militias and stuff like have them smuggled out illegally from the army to these right wing groups. They call him the machine gun King, which is a objectively cool nickname, *** ***. No, Rome is a terrifying person and and is just like a like. And if you want to think about his the way he's seen by a lot of the radical right at this point in Germany, think about a guy like Chris Kyle, right, the American sniper, how Republicans talk about him. Rome was that sort of legend. He's just this, this absolute. Legendary brawler. Tough as nails. Brawler. OK. He's also very, almost openly gay, which is why he's murdered. And the light night of long knives, right, is because, like, Hitler doesn't want that kind of bad PR. He's a very interesting guy. Yeah, he's a tough. He's a tough. And that's like a huge factor in, you know, again, we talk about all these kind of countercultural movements coming together. You see versions of this within the proud boys too, right? Like where? And that's a big part of, like, at the time. What? You know, Rome sexuality wasn't something that they advertised. Now, it is kind of an advertising point where it's like, hey, we're not white nationalists. Like, look, you know, our leaders. This is our leader is like a black guy. We've got all these gay people. Like, yeah, we couldn't possibly be fascists. And it's like, no, no, no. The fascists have had always at the start a lot of different people represented as long as they're violent. Now, once they get into power, they murder those people. Yes. Rome doesn't last after Hitler gets into power. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, but Hitler is happy to be his friend when he needs him to beat people up. The finesse on that kid Hitler, man, it's just that the finesse is ridiculous. Like, yeah, yeah, we need. You can't. So finesse is ridiculous anyway, Hitler starts attracting these war heroes. Cause garing is also Herman gerring's like a fighter race, and he's very handsome as a young man, like everyone knows, like the obese, heroin addicted garing that, like, you know, gets caricatured when he's a young man. He's this, like very handsome prominent, like he looks like a movie star and he's a legendary fighter pilot. You've got Ernst Rohm, who's just like tough as nails. And all of these like war heroes start joining the Nazi ranks, which of course brings in more guys from the far right that you've got all. Gary is a young man. Yeah, you need the young one. No, I'm looking at young one. This dude's handsome. Young Herman. Gary. Yeah, drop the leak. Yeah, I'll show you a picture of him. I'll show you a picture of him. Drop that in the chat. You know what I'm saying? We're gonna agree to disagree on this one. This is a pointy ************ looking like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to throw a I'm going to throw you ugly Lego loss from the rings. Make those cold in there. So I mean, no, I don't. I'm just ugly. OK though. Minute. Throw him in the chat. Throw him in the chat. We need to get you a picture of him. OK, hold up. So it's the same picture I was looking at. Yes, this is not an attractive man. He looks like, he looks like a young Bing Crosby. Yo, that's a little bit of, you know, I'm saying a little Matthew McConaughey jaw. Yeah, you know, I'm saying. It's traditionally I I I don't want to get caught into the talking about how hot Herman Gerring used to be. Part of this discussion is still a monster. He is. He is. He is seen as being an attractive young war here, traditionally attractive according to Western standards. We'll give him that. Also, half of the men in Germany in this. Have had their faces blown off, so it's the bar is not as high. Like Ricketts? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, but it's a no for me, dog. OK, well, good. Sophie does not think Herman Gerring is hot. Well, well, well. That's a T-shirt right there on the ************* record. We need to, we need a, you know? We just get two sets of T-shirts out. Team Herman Gehring was ******** and team Herman Gerring wasn't ********. Yeah, Sophie, can we get can we get tea public on that? Is that a good idea? Yeah, but I don't know if we want just just a picture of Herman Gerring and DTF? Right under. That might not go over well for us. It's all bad caring. So yeah, they start to draw in a lot of like because they've got all these war heroes. They start to draw in a lot of other people on the right who had idolized these men. Soldiers who, you know, these guys had been their heroes in the trenches, and also younger men who hadn't been old enough to fight in the war, but were drawn to wanting to be in the company of these legends. Guys like Heinrich Himmler, right? He sees all these heroes joining the Nazis. He never got to fight in the war, so he joins the Nazis. Now Hitler gives speech after speech after speech. And while he's doing this, Dietrich Eckart is helping Hitler mold his public appearance and create what came to be known as the Hitler myth. And this is the idea that Hitler was not just a politician, but he kind of supernaturally embodied the spirit of the German people and was their defender against their racial enemies. Eckert is the architect of this idea. Which is the core of, like, what becomes like the fewer principle? Like the the center of Naziism? Yeah, now, one of Eckert's main points was that a new German revolution was necessary. The 1918 revolution, he felt, which is like the socialist revolution that takes over Munich, had failed because it was soulless and Jewish. Eckert wanted a revolution, but he wanted a revolution that was led by someone he crafted, namely Hitler, that could lead the German people into freedom and wipe away the stain of defeat in World War One. Now of course the Nazis were opposed even from an early period as they always are by the left, namely Socialists and communists. In this. And this is before the birth of German anti fascism. As a as a movement there are people fighting fascism. But like the idea of like Antifa as we know it like comes out of Germany like a decade later than this or so. That hasn't really evolved yet. And they're anti fascism in Germany in this. Is that a more primitive level than it is in say Italy, right? So there are, but they are still opposing the Nazis. And there are frequent fights at Nazi party rallies. Communists and socialists will show up at beer halls where Nazis are meeting and, like, try to beat the **** out of these guys. And the Nazis will do the same thing at left wing gatherings. All, everything, every political thing in Munich happens at a beer hall. And you do have to assume that everyone but Hitler is wasted at pretty much all the time. Hitler's not much of a drinker. Everybody else is just ******* man. How come? Like, as as unstable as the world is like at this time, man, you know, I wonder if we would have. Much more people entering into political discourse, if they fought the way that these people fight y'all just drinking scrap. Like, could you imagine that? That like our part? I know our Parliament in the 1700s was like this, you know, I'm saying 1800s, we used to actually scrap, you know what I'm saying? But, like, these dudes like, like you, you talking is so funny because it's like, it's this is hood ****. This sound like **** ****. It like y'all pulling up. It's like, yo, you left this. Yeah, and you gonna left this? What's what's, what's y'all saying? It's like you flashing. Hides at each other y'all, y'all politicians, y'all politicians. You know, I'm saying, like what? That's so that's what I I think that, again, that's going back to what I mean by like, we don't have. We don't have categories for this. Their officials fight. Yeah, that's crazy to me. Yeah, they are like, like, and this is a lot of these guys are like, kind of not elected. Like, elected leaders do get into fights and stuff at this time, too. But these are officials. Yeah. A lot of these guys are just sort of, like, campaigning. And a lot of it happens via street fighting. And it's it's ugly ****. People are being gunned down and stabbed and beaten. Like, it's nasty stuff. And in fact, it gets so nasty that not only does, like, Hitler start carrying a whip and a handgun so that he can, like, slash people's faces open during bar brawls, but the Nazis? In order to like defend their meetings, develop a powerful and organized street fighting arm. These guys are called the Sturm Abteilung or the Storm Division, and they were created in early 1920 as a hall protection force. Like a beer hall protection force for like the meetings that the party would hold in Munich. Now, in addition to having like a bunch of guys who would show up to like, crack heads and fight communists, they also opened a sports and gymnastics wing which started training their men in boxing, jujitsu and exercise, and you see the same thing. Modern fascists. There's a lot of fascist and neo-Nazi MMA gyms. A strong like lifting culture among groups like the rise against movement who are a big part of Charlottesville. Unite the right in Charlottesville? Yeah, like, you know that. That the idea of like Nazis loving to get into jiu jitsu. Nothing against jujitsu, it's rad as hell. But like the fact that they've been into it that goes back a century, right dog man? I tell you what, bro. Like, yeah, there's been plenty of times where I'm like, I'll just, man, I'll just do some like somebody like calisthenics, like plyometric stuff. Now, I'm not going to these gyms just you just like you just you feel like it's just full of these like, **** boys, you know? I'm saying. And now it makes sense. It's like, yeah, there's a history of this. Yeah, there's a history, which is like, there's also some pretty rad, you know, anti fascist like MMA gyms and stuff out there. I need to go find it. Yeah, because I think it's important to train people who aren't Nazis and how to defend themselves against Nazis. But there's a long history of like, there's a, there's a huge, like fascist MMA fighting, like network. In the Eastern Europe, particularly in Ukraine, like they'll have these big conventions and and competitions and stuff like it's a big part of that kind of culture. Yeah, so that you know, that starts with the Nazis. In this. They're doing jiu jitsu in 19 ******* 20. So that's kind of hard. In the the Stormtrooper catch phrase in this. Was a very subtle death to the Jews, so not great at keeping a lid on what they're about, you know? Now in 1922, Herman Gerring was promoted to lead the Sturmabteilung hereafter known as the essay. These are the guys that come to be known as the brown shirts now. By that point, his men had spent much of the last two years and. By being a steady diet of race hatred and revolutionary fascist propaganda, Wilhelm Bruckner, who is the head of the Munich storm troopers told Hitler that year that very soon Hitler would be unable to restrain his men from doing something. And what Bruckner was warning about is the same thing we saw in Washington DC on the 6th. If you have this movement of young men that you gin up with conspiracies about child eating, pedophiles and the globalist destruction of their race and nation, which is exactly the kind of a lot of the **** the Nazis are learning, hearing this. Is like Q Anon **** right? Very similar, yeah. If you, if you get a bunch of angry, violent young men obsessed with weaponry, focused on that **** for years, they will demand to go shed blood to stop it at some point and you won't be able to stop them. And kind of one of the areas where, you know, Trump ****** ** is he didn't do anything with them cohesive because I don't think he ever had much of a cohesive plan. So they raided the capital and caused a crackdown on themselves. Yeah, it's it's beyond him now. Yeah. It's beyond him now. Hitler doesn't let it get beyond him. He realizes this is happening and that action needs to be taken now. For a while, he was able to kind of burn out this excess energy among his street fighters by having them go after journalists and newspaper offices, having them tear down political propaganda and beat up left wing canvassers in the streets. So he has them assaulting his enemies and in part to just try to get off this excess energy so they don't blow up and, like, tip their hand too early. And of course, all of the fighting and violence in the street they're doing is very illegal. Under under German law at the time, but the police president Poner, who we've talked about earlier, ensured the Nazis faced few consequences, and I'm going to quote from Mcgees article on the Munich political police. At this point, the debt with which the Nazi movement owed Poner was real. As police President, Poner extended a sheltering hand to protect the activities of the nascent Nazi movement. In doing so, he ensured its survival and gave it an opportunity for future growth. This passive image, however, does little to convey the full dimensions of poner's commitment to both the radical right. In general, and Nazis in particular. As a key figure in Bavarian politics during the post war period, Poner actively aided the Volkisch movement and occupied a central position in its highest councils. And the volkisch movement is like, all these ideas about the Aryan race and the German people that kind of feed into Nazism. I mean, they had like, they had judges and yeah, we'll be talking about the judges. Connor becomes a judge. He's the chief of police. Now he becomes a judge. Yeah. Yeah. These people sitting in court with their legs all the way up, feet cross. Like, yeah, yeah, go ahead. What? Yeah. And for an example of how biased he was, at one point during his time as the chief of police in Munich, Poner is asked if he realizes the Nazis are murdering people in the streets of Bavaria. And he replies yes, but far too few of them. So. Now as an aside, unrelated to anything we're talking about present, we now know that at least 28 police officers were present for the storming of the capital on January 6th, 2021. I should note that in 2018, after a series of dueling protests in Portland between left and right wing demonstrators that ended with police assaulting and hospitalizing a left wing activist, internal planning documents from the police revealed that they viewed the fascist activists as quote much more mainstream than the anti fascists this along through line. Now, yeah, yeah, that mainstream has quite a subtext. It sure does. Yeah, sure does. From yeah, yeah. So by 1923, the thrill of beating the **** out of their enemies in the streets was wearing thin for the Sturmabteilung. Now roughly 2/3 of the Nazi Party membership was under the age of 31. At this point, these are young men who want to drink and fight and revolt against the Liberals and Jews they see as ruining their country, right? They look a lot like the proud boys. It's a group of like macho, like testosterone loaded young men who drink and probably do a lot of like the proud boys do a lot of cocaine, I'm guessing. A lot of these guys are on blow too, you know? Yeah, yeah, not uncommon in Germany in that. Yeah, so. Hitler was super on board with getting these guys into the fight, due largely to what he and the rest of the world had watched Benito Mussolini's blackshirts do in Italy the year before. Because again, the March on Rome is the year before Hitler does his beer hall PUTCH 192223 is the beer hall putsch, and I'm going to quote now from a book called the trial of Adolf Hitler by David King, and that he's this is Hitler talking at first. If a German Mussolini is given to Germany, Hitler said to a journalist for London's Daily Mail, on the eve of the punch, people would fall down on their knees. And worship him more than Mussolini has ever been worshipped. This journalist was unimpressed. In private he dismissed Hitler as another hot air merchant. But Hitler had in fact decided to follow in the fascist footsteps and March on Berlin. The original plan had been to strike on Saturday night, November 10th. This was, after all, the weekend which Hitler believed was the best time for a revolution. Authorities would be away from their desks, police would be reduced to a minimal staff, and the lighter traffic would not impede on the movement of his trucks and troops. O Hitler becomes convinced after seeing Mussolini that, like, not only did Mussolini have some great ideas, but this will work even better in Germany because we kind of have more of an authoritarian culture. Italy, when Mussolini took over, had a much longer democratic tradition. Germany a lot more authoritarianism. Hitler's like, if I present myself the way Mussolini did, I'll be even more powerful. People will join me on the road to Berlin and we'll take over the whole country now. Oh my gosh, Hitler was terrifying. Yeah, he's not. I mean, he's wrong in this instance, but not overall. Yeah, yeah, there's an interesting like. Even with that, like Germans like. At the time propensity towards like authoritarian, like I still think even. And and then there their saltiness towards Catholicism when I think about their like Protestant movement being so informed by sort of like Reformed Calvinist thought like this, this idea that like. Humans are so depraved at their core because of sin, you know, I'm saying, like, you can't trust them to make. Good choices for themselves. So you need a strong man in the same way that Jesus was your strong man. You know, I'm saying to make to make these answers, to choose these for you because, I mean, you're full of sin nature, so why would we trust what you would vote for yourselves? No, you need a guy. You need a guy, a dude in charge that can tell you what's better for you because you can't trust your own instincts. And and that that theological twist, to me, it's like. It adds to the mythos of how somebody like a good, smooth talking Hitler could convince this nation who already got got authoritarian tendencies. Now you add in this, like this, like theological worldview to it, it's just like it's just going to work. Thought I'd know that and it does. And you know what else is going to work? The products and services that support this podcast. Oh yeah, that is going to totally deprave my wallet. Yeah, they are absolutely going to March on Berlin and overthrow the Reichstag. Yes, I I think that's been tea public school from the beginning. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. There's no trapping you into a two year contract. You're opening the bill to find all these nuts fees. There's no luring you in with free subscriptions or streaming services that you'll forget to cancel and then be charged full price for. None of that. For anyone who hates their phone Bill, Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for just $15.00 a month. Mint Mobile will give you the best rate whether you're buying one or for a family and. That meant family start at 2 lines. All plans come with unlimited talk and text, plus high speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any mint mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. Just switch to Mint mobile and get premium wireless service starting at 15 bucks a month. Get premium wireless service from just $15.00 a month and no one expected plot twists at mintmobile.com/behind. That's mintmobile.com/behind. Seriously, you'll make your wallet very happy. At Mint mobilcom slash behind now a word from our sponsor better help. If you're having trouble stuck in your own head, focusing on problems dealing with depression, or just you know can't seem to get yourself out of a rut, you may want to try therapy. And better help makes it very easy to get therapy that works with your lifestyle and your schedule. A therapist can help you become a better problem solver, which can make it easier to accomplish your goals, no matter how big or small they happen to be. So if you're thinking of giving therapy a try. Better help is a great option. It's convenient, accessible, affordable, and it is entirely online. You can get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey. And if the therapist that you get matched with doesn't wind up working out, you can switch therapists at any time when you want to be a better problem solver therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's better helpp.com/behindbetter. Com behind hey Robert Evans here. 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If you want to start your LASIK plus journey, you can get $1000 off when treated in September. That's 500 per eye. So visit my LASIK offer. Dot com to schedule your free consultation now. We're back. So now Hitler knows he wants to March on Berlin. He wants to do a Mussolini, but better. But he's he's not a dumb guy. He realizes that he alone doesn't have a big enough name to successfully push Bavaria. He's very popular within Munich and the Munich, right? He's not a national figure at this point, so he has to enlist the help of a national figure and he picks someone. He had idolized, General Eric Ludendorff, now the old general, had already tried to take over the government once before, right after World War One, and had failed. With that. But he hadn't really been punished because, you know, he was the war hero. He's ludendorf. He was the architect of the victory over Russia. Uh, he was just very beloved. And he was a massive figure for the right wing, revered and respected. For his part, the old Field Marshall had spent his declining years becoming an increasingly massive racist and conspiracy theorist and mostly pushing the stab in the back narrative blaming the loss in World War One on the Jews. All that stuff. You could see him as like a general Flynn figure. He's he's this very popular. Among the far right general whose shacks up with this far right political character. Now, the big difference is that General Flynn has been, like profoundly loyal to Donald Trump and Ludendorff. Just kind of saw Hitler as a vector for which he could, you know, push his kind of fringe right wing politics. Thinking more storming Norman Schwartzkopf head ***. Yeah, a little. Yeah. I mean, he he's not that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's not like a he's not like loyal to Hitler, but he sees Hitler as a guy he can use. The Hitler sees Ludendorff as a guy he can use. I feel like in that that exact sentence is like, was the dagger for almost all their political parties. Y'all thought you could use this man like he wasn't. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I mean. And so Hitler goes to Ludendorff and is like, hey, I want to overthrow the government, I want to be the dictator, and I want to have you be basically like, running the country with me. You'll be in charge of the army and together we'll bring Germany back to greatness. And Ludendorff gives us soft. Yes, the kind of, yes. That could mean a no if like the police. Came to his door and he could say like, I, but he's like, yeah, if you do it like, I'm on board, I'll take over the army if you win, you know? Yeah. Like that's the kind of, yes, Ludendorff gives him, but he's he's he's on board. As long as he doesn't have to stick his neck out too much. It's kind of like Ludendorff's attitude towards this. So the initial plan for the push is November 10th, but they wound up pushing it up by two days, kind of at the last minute to Thursday, November 8th, because Gustav von Carr, who's basically he's the general Commissar, he's basically like the governor. Of of of of Munich. He's giving a speech at the Burger Brow Keller Beer Hall, which is one of Munich's most prestigious places for people to drink heavily and do politics. Burger, Carl's Burger Brown, the burger brow beer beer hall. That's yeah, man, we need to rename something like that because that's. Yeah. I would love still around today, I think. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. So this is where the push actually starts. So car is in charge in in Munich and he is he, he's been brought to power and what some would call a military coup. It was kind of a soft coup. But basically, after the Liberals had let the left seize the city and revolt, the military made sure that a strongman like Carr wound up in charge after the, you know, a year or so later. And Carr had vowed during his campaign to turn the city into a cell of law and order. Oh, God. And they keep saying that. You keep saying that, which you guys keep saying law and order, but I just. You don't. Never happens. Never. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to. From author David King describing cars politics here, he welcomed right wing extremists to settle in the region, and many of them in turn joined the paramilitary societies emerging in the aftermath of the war and revolution. Carr also organized many of these bands into a loose coalition called the Einwohner Werven, or Citizens Militia that would soon surpass 300,000 men. Carr would use this volunteer, Home Guard and everything from law enforcement to Border Patrol. They were necessary, he said. Like a fire brigade. So. Car builds this citizens militia, basically a private army of himself, for him, his own to crack down on the left. And Germany at this point is forbidden from having much of a real military. They're capped at about 100,000 soldiers in their ranks there, and this is a part of the Treaty of Versailles. And France realizes that Carr is raising up thousands and thousands of private soldiers, and they complained that he's building a new German army, and he's forced to disband his militia. Now, this ****** off the far right, the fact that. Are caves and cancels his militia and tells his guys to go home. And a lot of them consider him like the fascist equivalent of a rhino at this point, you know, a Republican in name only. Like, they're like, AH, cars not really on the right. Yeah. What he got cooked by the French. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But he's still very popular with the center, right. And he's seen as something of like a, A, a resistance hero among like the the center right. So he's, you know, he's not like popular on the fringe, right, but he's popular on the middle, right. So in October now another thing that's happening at this period of time is in August of 1923, Gustav Stressman is elected Chancellor of Germany. And right before he comes to power, the Germans had begged the allies for a moratorium on reparations payments because the German. Economy is collapsing in this. And they just can't afford it. The French had refused to put in a moratorium on payments. And then in order to get money out of Germany that Germany wasn't sending, they invaded and occupied the Ruhr, which is Germany's industrial heartland. So Germany defaults on their payments after, like, you know, before they invade the ruin. Like the fact that the French invade ****** off all of Germany and particularly the German right wing. Yeah. So is this this again? Yeah. Like, little, little little human in this story here is like, yeah. So you guys new Chancellor because they had to write a whole new constitution. There were a whole new constitution. Got a new chancellor. They gotta pay back all the **** they destroyed for this war. They already feel salty about that. Like, damn, I gotta. I gotta clean it. I gotta pay for all this, you know? I'm saying, and then they, like, literally we're broke. Like, *** **** it, we're broke. You know? I'm saying, so then and then for France to be like, oh, you gonna give me my money? And they're like, what money? What money? Don't have anything. What money? We don't have it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We starve to death on turnips last winter, like we have nothing. Like you saw it, we lost. Damn, man, we lost. And now we have like we ain't got it. Yeah. And this, this a lot of the anger at the Treaty of Versailles. Yeah. The way the French are behaving gets pushed onto the German liberals, who like because they're internationalists. Kind of, like, try to engage with the French. And Gustav Stressman gets elected. And one of the first things he does is he orders at the end of a general strike against the French and the rule. And he starts resuming reparations payments. And this enrages the right wing. Yeah. And so and Stressman knows it's going to. So he has the President of the Reich declare an emergency. The Bavarian government gets ****** by this because they hate stressman. They're all very conservative. He's a liberal. And they're like, basically, this guy's been cucked by the French and they declare Bavaria to close its own state of emergency. Now, the decision to do that was made by the triumvirate that ruled Bavaria, which consisted of von Carr, General von Lasso, who's in charge of the army in Bavaria, and the commander of the state. Police a guy named Cyser, I think now this triumvirate had publicly refused a number of orders from Berlin as a show of protest and is red meat to their right wing base. So basically it's like a state in the United States refusing orders from the federal government because it's against what their political base wants. And this is mostly for show because yeah, this is mostly for show because like the federal government has the ability to deny funds to Bavaria, right? Which kind of ***** them over. And so by early November, the the triumvirate is losing heart. Because they wanted to get red meat to their base and, like, improve their own personal popularity by saying **** you to the central government. But they didn't want to pay consequences, so they're starting to cave by November. But most voters don't know that. And so when von Carr takes the stage at the Burger Brow Beer Hall on November 8th, the like, a lot of people show up because they think he's about to announce that Bavaria is seceding from Germany. Now, Hitler knows that's not gonna happen. He's knows that's very unlikely because Hitler sees von Carr is basically a moderate, but he also knows that a huge crowd, including all of the people running Bavaria, are going to be in the beer hall that night, which makes it a great place to occupy with armed men. If you're going to do a push, if you're pushing, you know that's where you want to put this, where you push the put. Yeah, yeah, this is the beer hall. The Burger Brew Beer Hall is the equivalent of the capital on January 6th here. It's like where all these elected leaders are, if you want to actually. Capture these people. This is where you do it. So he gets together his Stormtrooper leaders and his key advisers, and they work with their police insider, who's a fellow named Frick. Because a lot of cops are Nazis. Yeah, I'm not even gonna put, like, a timeline on that. A lot of cops are not like this. Let's just let that one settle for a little. Yeah. OK. Cool. Yeah. So, Frick. This cop ensures that the police presence outside the beer hall is minimal. Like the all of the guys running Bavaria are there, but they don't have very many cops protecting them, and that's by design. To make it easier for the stormtroopers. Yeah. So Hitler sets. Yeah, I know another thing that has never happened again. Yeah. So Hitler's other lackeys, the guys who aren't like fighters, get set to the organizing propaganda. One man was set was like put to the job of organizing the distribution of posters and newspapers announcing the Nazi overthrow of the government. Hitler's Half American friend, a guy named Ernst Hanfstaengl, better known as Putzie, who's like a Harvard graduate, was in charge of making sure the foreign press was there without knowing why they were there. Because puts a charmer he's a he's a like an aristocrat guy. He's good at talking to people. He's good at talking to like American media. So like the New York Times has a guy there on this night. Now Hitler and his entourage show up at the beer hall that night, like as thousands of people are gathered up outside to get in to watch von Carr speak, and Hitler's immediately gets out of his. I think it's a Mercedes. And he's immediately greeted by a crowd of 3000 people outside the hall because Hitler is very popular in with the right in Munich, so he gets mobbed by this crowd who wanted to know if like he knew what von Carr was going to speak about is. You know, are we gonna secede? What's happening? And Hitler's, like, I'm just a guest. I'm here like the rest of you. And he goes inside to get a beer. And he doesn't get a beer because he wants to drink it. Hitler's not really a drinker every now and then, yeah, he'll he'll like down like some champagne or something. He's not much of a drinker. He has the beer because gearing has warned him. Like, hey, we're going to try to overthrow the government. We don't want people to realize we're on to something early. If you're sitting in a beer hall in Munich with a beer, no one will suspect that you're planning to break the law because it's Munich. So Hitler gets a beer and he's like kind of nursing it, and Carr takes the podium. Now car speech is boring and pointless and the big bummer to everybody. He just starts like he's not seceding. He starts a standard harangue about the evils of Marxism, about how Munich was going to fight the contagion and quintessential evil of socialism. Pretty normal right wing stuff. And Hitler is reported to have asked his men during car speech. Does anyone understand what he's talking about? Like, what the **** is this guy doing up there? Rolling him, yeah. So. So while this is going on, well, you know, Hitler and his kind of inner circle are watching cars speak, and this beer halls got thousands of people in it. Hitler's stormtroopers are assembling nearby now as 26 year old cigar dealer named Yosef was the quartermaster. And so he basically like, as the troops assemble, he starts handing out rifles and machine guns and grenades to several dozen of the Nazi Party's best fighters, the men of starstruck Hitler or the Hitler Assault squad. Now, these guys wore a Gray military uniform with a silver deathshead badge on their caps. The starstruck would wind up evolving into the Schutzstaffel, which is the infamous s s, right? Like, that's the the guys who, among other things, may in the concentration camps. At this point, they're Hitler Street fighters and are responsible for protecting him and stuff. And these are the guys he's going to use to be the the armed fist of his push. Now, before the punch, Hitler had given his fighters a few suggestions for how to behave. He had told them cruelty impresses. And don't leave a fight unless you're being carried out. Dead. God, these are disorders. Green, light, yellow. You're only yeah, the only way you leave is in a bag. Yeah, these guys are ******* you know he's a gangster. Yeah, this is a gangster regime. A lot of people at the time actually like a lot of American newspapermen in the 20s and 30s will say this about the Nazis. These people are ******* gangsters. They're just gangsters. Yeah, yeah. Now, a little before 8:30 PM, a 100 stormtroopers swarmed to the premises of the Burger Brow and entered the beer hall shouting **** ****** and waving guns. Herman Gerring, who led the assault team, told the police officers outside that the government was being overthrown. The dozen or so cops there were easily overpowered. Gehring and his men secured the building, and as he entered, he called for quiet. Now, everybody's drunk at this point, so they don't get quiet, so he has to shoot into the roof with his handgun. Then he, like, basically hands things over to Hitler, who pulls off his trench coat to reveal a black suit with two iron crosses pinned to his lapel. And I'm going to quote next from a write up by Douglas O Linder. He jumped up on a table, pulled out a pistol, and fired two shots into the ceilings. The second guy who's fired into the ceiling that night? It keeps happening. It happened several more times drinking guys and fired two shots into the ceiling. Silence, he yelled. Then Hitler and several supporters pushed their way to the front of the room and confronted Speaker Carr at the podium. Stormtroopers pointed a machine gun at the crowd. Many who were in the audience later said that they suspected they were about to witness an assassination. Hitler shouted to the crowd. The National Revolution has begun. 600 armed men are occupying this hall. No one may leave. The governments of Bavaria and in Berlin have been overthrown. Army barracks and police headquarters are now under the control of this party. None of this was true, but Hitler hoped and expected that it would be soon enough. Hitler then told Carr and two other important political leaders, General von Lasso and Colonel von Seiser, that they should join him in a side room for a conversation about Bavaria's future. After the men leave, Gahring told the crowd. You all have your beer. Keep drinking. You have nothing to worry about. It's going to be fine. It's just a punch. Chill out, guys. Give some more beer. Nobody has to die, man. Keep drinking. Just know I'm in charge. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. We're in charge. We're the Nazis. It's fine. It's fine. So. Hitler's goal was to convince the triumvirate to back his plan. He wanted Bavaria's army units and police on his side. He doesn't want to fight these guys. His plan is to do a grander version of what Mussolini had done and start marching with 10s of basically all of the right wingers in the military of Bavaria and start marching up to Berlin. And he imagines thousands of people are going to join him on the way. And once they reach Berlin, they're going to overthrow the liberal government easily and institute a fascist state-run by Hitler and Ludendorff. And of course, for that to happen, they can't get bogged down fighting. Bavarian state, right? Yeah. Now Cyser, Losso and Carr were all pretty close to being fascists themselves, but these guys are all state loyal, right? They're not revolutionaries. They don't want to overthrow the government. They want the government to change into a more right wing government. But they're not like bomb throwers like Hitler is. So they didn't want to follow this weird little Nazi guy in open rebellion against the state. Now Hitler tried to smooth talk them. He promised them cushy positions in the new regime car is a monarchist and Hitler tells him like, hey man, I'm going to bring back the king of Maria and you can be his envoy to the government. Isn't that like your dream? It's cool, right? Sweet dude. Come on, bro. So they resist car in in lasso and everyone like, they're not they're not on board with this. And before very long, Hitler did what Hitler's. You. And he starts threatening to murder them at gunpoint. Now. Ludendorff. Who? Like, when the occupation of the beer hall starts Ludendorff, like some Nazis show up at his house and like, hey, you know that thing you kind of agreed to? We're doing it. And ludendorf, like, shows up and is like, OK, I guess we'll see if this works. And he's kind of horrified by Hitler's behavior because Ludendorff is a he's like a classic Imperial German manners dude, right? There are ways in which you, especially these people are nobles. Yeah, you don't you don't point a gun in their face, right? Like, that's very Ghosh. And he's, he's not he doesn't like Hitler in a lot of ways because Hitler's a ******* you know a kind of a pee on to him. But he's not you know he's he's he's gotten acclimatized to being in high society. Hitler is very much crude damn. And Ludendorff, kind of like horrified by this. But he's in he's still on board with the general plan because he wants to take over the government and institute a right wing military dictatorship and eventually now that once Ludendorff shows up to these guys. Car and and lasso and seiser kind of agree to help the push and agree to like, basically put the the, the powers of the Bavarian state behind Hitler's putsch attempt. And they they didn't really mean it, but a guy was threatening to murder them. So they're like, all right, yeah, yeah, whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah. Now, while this was happening, different armed groups of Nazis were out capturing key parts of the city. The Bavarian War Ministry was taken by Ernst Rohm and his men, including Young Heinrich Himmler, and they proceeded to fortify it. Another group of 400 Stormtroopers was sent to take guns and equipment from the Army engineer barracks. Now, this is a very fun story because these Nazis all show up. And the captain on duty who's like, in charge of handing out guns and stuff, they're like, hey, we're here to do maneuvers. Can we borrow the guns and the captain? Realizes something is very fishy, and it's like, you can use the guns, but you can't go on maneuvers outside. You got to show up inside in, like the big gymnasium. And then I'll hand you the guns there and you can do your maneuvers inside. And so all 400 Nazis go into the gymnasium and he locks it from the outside. Brilliant. Brilliant. It's like the oldest tricks in the book. Yeah. Come here. Come here, bro. Yeah. You know, I got you. It's right here. No, no. Yeah. Everybody's going there. Yeah. Right inside this door. I got you. Yeah, this guy's name should be remembered. His name is Captain Oscar Canceller. And he, he ruled he saves the German state that night. He definitely stays the German, at least for a little while. You know, it didn't last, but he did his bit. So the Nazis who were locked inside couldn't call Hitler to let him know they had the guns. And we're ready to take part in the push. And Hitler was waiting for that call, right? He's got teams going out and seizing places in the city. And he realizes, like, these dudes haven't called in from the barracks yet, right? Something must be wrong. And this was a key part of his intricate plan. And. The new so this kind of puts Hitler in a bind. He knew that the triumvirate were not enthusiastic about this plan. And if he was going to keep them enthusiastic and, like, kind of force them to be enthusiastic, his men and we're going to have to be in total control of the city, right? If he could, if he could really be in charge in Munich, they weren't going to fight him. They'd give the army the orders to go along with it, right, because they don't want to die, but he's got to actually be in charge. And making his first critical mistake, Hitler decides it's necessary for him to leave. Burger Brow Beer Hall late that night to see what's going on at the engineer barracks, and he leaves Ludendorff alone with the triumvirate. This is a bad call. Uh, so Hitler and his Nazis know these guys are captives. He knows that he's holding them against their will. He knows that if they're agreeing it's they're not really that on board with the idea. Ludendorff, again, is kind of not being told the entire truth about what's happening, and he thinks these guys are fellow German patriots, right? And he also thought they looked tired. You know, it's been a long night. And he's like, do you guys want to go home and, like, take a nap or something? And they're like, yeah, we would like to go home. And he's like, hey, bro. Yeah, man, you guys are German officers. I, as a German officer, know that no German officer would ever lie. Give me your word of honor that you'll come back to help us finish the coup tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll be back. What time we'll be. Yeah. They say, of course we'll come back. Of course. Well, what time? What time? Like 10? Yeah. When you win a coup. Yeah, yeah. We'll see you in the morning. Yeah. So some of the Nazis there are Nazis in the room too, and they see Ludendorff doing this and like, dude, they're not going to come back. And Ludendorff gets ****** at them and he's like, I forbid anyone in this room from doubting the word of a German officer. How dare you? So if I'm lasso, yeah, when I was a kid, you know, the, the, like the, the, the clue you was about to get knocked out but robbed by somebody was like, hey, hey, hey, hey. Can I borrow your phone right quick? Let me use your phone and you would look and be like, don't get that, man. Your phone. Do not walk over there and get me what you talking about. You just want to borrow. Don't give him your phone. Yeah, don't give me your phone. What do you do? You keep walking, bro. Like, hey, hey, man. Come on, let me just use it right quick. No man, like. So you like, you know what do you what do you what are you doing? What are you doing? Uh, well there it is. Now you're now you're sleeping. Umm, he just put you to sleep and you're barefoot. The guy just stole your shoes. I told you not to. Yeah, so that's totally funny. Like the other guys in room saying, yeah, the boss is like, yo let him go take a nap and the dudes are like, hey, I don't think that's a good idea, man. You really think they're gonna come back? Like I don't think they're gonna come back. Hey boss, maybe you shouldn't let them leave. You kind of see in this why Ludendorff didn't win the war, right? Yeah, like always. Good idea, coach. Yeah. Hey boss, this this might not be the plan, so that is where we're going to leave it. In part One, General Ludendorff, the genius of German military tactics, is just let everyone go. That he needs in order to make his put trust in ever. Germans don't lie, German officers don't lie. Killer, see, I I swear to you, I'm coming back. I'll bring back. Yeah, absolutely. Tons of coffee. We're gonna we're gonna push the hell out of this state. Just give me a minute. Yeah, let me get a nap. Crap. You wanna plug any plegables before we roll out? And then I do Part 2. I do. Yeah, you could follow me on all the things prop hip hop got podcast called Hood Politics with prop that. Given all the good takes, uh, and I got some T-shirts and music, a lot of music rolling out this year, so I can't wait to show you all that is like the highest quality. Like, I wear his shirts all the time. Yeah, they're they're all, they're all like, they're all like, you know, ethically sourced and recyclable material. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's me. Highly recommend. And you can find me somewhere on the Internet. If if you first told me in your heart, but only then, only if I am with you, then you will miss. Alright, follow me on Twitter. Under score, Sophie, under score why? Oh yeah, happy plug for myself shamelessly. You should, dude. And yeah, check out Sophie. Check out prop. Find me in your heart and come back on Thursday to hear the thrilling conclusion of put put tabulous. They push their there you go, push it. There you go. Yes, alright. Push it. Bazam. Yes. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams, let's break or handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. Want to say I don't know less? Listen to stuff you should know more. Join host Josh and Chuck on the podcast packed with fascinating discussions about science, history, pop culture, and more episodes. Dive into topics like was the lost, city of Atlantis Real? And how does pizza work? Say goodbye to I don't know, because after listening to stuff you should know. You will listen to stuff you should know on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your co-host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her impactful behavioural discoveries on chimpanzees. It wasn't until one of the chimpanzees began to lose his fear of me, but I began to really make discoveries that actually shook the scientific world. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.