WEBVTT - Behind the Insurrections - Hitler's Munich Beer Hall Putsch, Part 1 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:09.719 Hitler, Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. But we did it. I always 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:12.600 promised we do it again. That's our That's everyone's favorite 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:17.720 intro is when I just a totally shouted Hitler. We're 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:23.400 talking about Hitler today. This is Behind the Bastards podcast 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:25.919 about the worst people in all of history. I'm Robert Evans, 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.800 and this is actually a special mini series of Behind 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.600 the Bastards called Behind the Insurrections. Uh. Last episode we 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.920 talked about Benito Mussolini's March on Rome. This episode, we're 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:41.800 talking about another fascist insurrection directly inspired by the March 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.960 on Rome and carried out by Bastard's pod side character 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.760 and main character, Adolf Hitler. We're talking about the Munich 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:54.320 beer Hall push today. Yeah, lighted a fire, baby lighted 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:59.000 on so awful insurrection. I realized I should probably reference 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:06.000 where I got that from. It's okay, so Common the 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:10.840 actor and I call him the actor. I'm finishing. That 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:16.319 is an interesting since the rapper. Okay and yes, and 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.600 one could argue of the top ten list of greatest 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.280 rap albums of all time, Common may hold two of 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.840 those slots, one of which is an album called Resurrection 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.560 and That's where I got that from, was because he's 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.680 saying Ris Rick should so I was just saying insurrection, 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.160 deep cut, unnecessary piece of information. But you can pull 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:40.160 that out next time somebody tried to judge you about 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:44.200 your pop culture stuff. Beautiful, thank you. I'm more excited 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.399 about the fact that he was common sense. And then 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:48.800 he got into Hollywood and decided to drop the sense, 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:54.280 which no com There was a there's a band out 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.160 here in l A, like a local band who sued 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:01.200 him whose name was common said, and they were like 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:06.440 almost like a three eleven sublime, like white Boy Raggai band, 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:08.440 and they sued him for the name. They were like, 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:10.800 we were common sense first, and I mean I feel like, 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.600 I feel like you can't copyright the word or name 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:19.040 common sense, but they wont. So he was like, all right, 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:25.200 whatever comment and then became a list celebrity. I was 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.919 going to say, speaking of people who won, we should 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.640 talk about hitler Um at least for a while, but 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:35.079 not in this particular story, although eventually, at least when 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:41.560 this particular story ends, it's not the end of the story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.360 This particular story is with Nazi defeat. But the broader 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.840 story of the Nazis is more complicated than that. So 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:51.720 I think we're gonna start here by talking about the 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.560 city of Munich, because generally when people talk Nazis, they 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.680 wind up kind of focusing on Berlin Um. But Munich 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.320 is where the National Sohalist Germans Workers Party, the n 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:04.600 s d a P, the Nazis, That's where they came from. 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.239 That's the birthplace of the Nazi movement is Munich. And 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.560 if you look a little bit into Munich's history it 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.320 makes sense. Um. Munich is a city in the German 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.880 state of Bavaria Um and Bavaria is historically the most 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.600 conservative part of Germany. It's kind of like Texas, uh 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.680 in that even after German unification in eighteen seventy, Bavarians 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.800 tended to see themselves as different and other from like 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.200 the rest of Germany, right like we're Germans, sure, but 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:33.920 we're more Bavarian, right Like it's it's this this the 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.520 attitude that you do kind of see like Texans have 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.560 a bit of this, right like where we're our own thing. 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.600 So that's always big in Bavaria and there's this kind 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.720 of like traditionalism. They have their own monarchy that's separate 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.440 from the Kaiser right, like the Kaiser's in charge of 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.440 Bavaria still, but they also have their own king UM. 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.360 And there's a lot of Bavarians who aren't super into 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.640 the idea of being part of Germany right because they 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:59.400 they they are more Bavarian than anything. Now. Adolf Hitler, 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.000 who was again in Austrian so he's not really a 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.960 German by the consideration of a lot of Germans. He 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.640 moves to Munich in nineteen thirteen mainly because he was 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:11.600 getting drafted to go join the Austrian Army and he 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:13.680 didn't want to join the Austrian army. So he's a 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.400 draft dodger and he moves to Munich to avoid serving 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.520 his time in the military. UM and just based on 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:21.719 what happens lest this is less because Hitler was Hitler 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:23.719 was not scared of being in the military. He didn't 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.120 like Austria. He thought it was like racially polluted UM 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:29.320 and so he moved to Munich because it was more 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.960 in line with his right wing sensibilities. UM. So he 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.320 rented a cheap room and he made a poverty level 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.680 income in Munich painting pictures of like famous buildings in 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.760 town because the beautiful city and selling them to tourists. 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.680 And this was like a whole industry in Munich. A 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.719 bunch of of little artists would paint pictures of local 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.880 buildings and sell them as like keepsakes to tourists. Hitler 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.240 was kind of unique among these artists because while most 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:55.400 of them would actually go out to where those buildings 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:57.880 were with like an easel and paint the buildings and 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.680 then sell their pictures and stuff, Hitler would buy cheap 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.640 postcards of those buildings and paint alone in his room 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.520 where he spent most of his time reading fringe political 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:11.159 tracts and one presumes masturbating furiously. We have to Yeah, 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:18.159 just unbelievable. Yeah, yeah he was. I mean he was 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.359 a pretty right wing guy. But yeah, he's he's pounding 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:24.360 it in his little office um and painting from postcards. Um. 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.640 And he's not a very good artist, which is one 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:31.200 of the key little because he lived in like a 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.280 tiny little real he was renting from a lady. He 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.760 was he was very little. Yeah, when Hitler, I thought 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.520 we were just putting him down for no reason. But no, no, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.800 he was extremely poor. So when Hitler moved to Munich, 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.880 he had just finished being like a homeless person in 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.240 in Vienna, Like he lived in like a men's home 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.359 and stuff for like people who couldn't afford um to 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.440 stay off the street and whatnot. So he had just 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:00.560 gotten out of like a really dire financial situation. Um. 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.120 And actually part of why he was in a dire 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.719 financial situation is he inherited money from his mom, but 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:06.800 then his sister needed it for her kids, and so 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.680 he gave up his inheritance to her. Um, which you know, 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.000 kind of his evidence that, like everyone who turns out terrible, 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:14.800 there was a period of time in which Hitler might 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.280 not have wound up being Hitler. Um. So anyway, important 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.800 to keep in mind. So Hitler's living in Munich, He's 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:24.200 painting shitty paintings, tugging it all the time, um, and 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.480 reading a bunch of like reactionary right wing zines, like 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:31.039 poorly mimiographed newsletters about the dangers of the Jews. That's 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.200 like a huge thing Hitler's doing in this period. Some 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.800 things never changed, man. Yeah, Yeah, It's like it's like 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:38.840 he's like hanging out on the day's equivalent of eight Chan, 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.280 which is like these tracts that are being passed out 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.080 on the street. So when World War One kicks off, 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.279 and you know, in this period, right the Archduke's assassinated, 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:49.240 as we talked about last time, but in the run 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.800 up to World of One, Benito Mussolini's furiously trying to 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.560 get his country Italy involved in the war. UM. Germany 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.039 goes to war with the World UM, and Hitler immediately 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:01.960 joins up and become as an infantry man. UH. And 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.920 he's almost immediately thrown into one of the most horrifying 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.440 battles in not just like the whole war, but like 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.480 ever it's known colloquially as the Slaughter of the Innocence 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:14.160 because the Germans sent tens of thousands of basically children 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:19.080 to die to like Allied machine guns, a horrible battle. UM. Now, 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.720 at the same time as Hitler's watching his friends getting 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.640 mowed down in the trenches, Herman Gerring, who would become 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.200 his future second in command, is becoming one of the 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.120 first fighter pilots in history. Gering flew with Manfred ron 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.840 Richtoven the Red Baron's Flying Circus. He took command of 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.280 the squadron after Ricktoven got killed in nineteen eighteen, and 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:39.360 he got something. He shot down like twenty nine planes. 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:41.720 He's an extremely good fighter pilot, and it's like a 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.760 dad becomes like a dashing national hero. Now another big 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.760 Nazi you might know, Heinrich Himler was too young to 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.040 serve during World War One. He came from that awkward 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.120 generation where you were too young to fight in the 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.320 First World War, and he would have been too old 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:57.800 to fight in the second, and so his entire youth 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.680 was spent like idolizing these soldiers go off to die 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.320 in France who he was unable to join. Now, another 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:07.680 fellow who went to war in nineteen fourteen was Ernst Pohner. 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.360 Now Powner was a middle aged I know, it's a 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.920 rough name. You gotta give the guy some credit for 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.360 it the real cross to bear. So Powner grew up 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.000 or Powner was like a middle aged, conservative educated Bavarian, 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:23.480 pretty right wing guy. When the war starts and he 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.000 was commissioned as an infantry officer and eventually rose to 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.280 regimental command. Now, despite being a Bavarian to his soul 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:31.760 and thus being kind of like separate from the rest 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:34.760 of Germans, fighting in the war gives him this sense 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:36.880 of like unity with the rest of Germany and he 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.520 starts to feel like a member of this, like this 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.200 unified nation for the first time in his life. And 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.000 in fact, all of Bavaria was brought closer in step 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.360 to the rest of Germany. As a result of the war. 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.000 The region industrialized rapidly to provide armaments, and as the 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.760 German state devoted itself increasingly to becoming an engine of 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.920 arms production. Um, Bavaria becomes like a big part of that, 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.720 particularly Nuremberg or not, I think I think it might 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:02.360 have been. It was it was Narremberg. I'm not great 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.800 on all the other German cities, but like Bavarius starts 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:09.440 industrializing heavily, and their military was like just the best 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.800 in the world, incredibly good. Yeah yeah, like like Germany 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.520 actively amazing goes up against the entire rest of the 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.240 world in World War One and comes pretty close to winning. 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.240 They yeah, they like it's not like World War Two 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.319 where after a while, like they're almost they almost pulled 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:29.160 it off almost one yeah yeah, um, so the Kaiser's 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.079 propaganda had forbidden so like and that that's actually part 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.120 of the problem is that right up until the end 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.760 of the war, Germany could win it. It's not again, 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:38.840 not like World War Two. We're after nineteen forty three. 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:41.520 Everyone can see the writing on the wall up until 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.240 like late nineteen eighteen, Germany could pull that ship off. 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.040 Um And this is sort of compounded in the minds 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.520 of German people who see their soldiers winning by the 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.480 Kaisers propaganda, because the Kaiser had forbidden journalists from reporting 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.120 on the dire situation in the West. Um. So number one, 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:01.400 Germany is in a pretty good position most of the war. 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.240 They knock Romania and Russia out of the fight, so 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.240 they beat like two powers, including Russia, which is like 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.480 a fifth of the world's land masks which they heard 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:14.360 of at the time. They conquer Ukraine, um like get 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.280 it in a treaty basically, and they spend most of 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:21.080 the war within spitting distance of Paris. So on a map, 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.760 Germans spend most of that war thinking like we're winning. 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:25.680 This is tough, we're losing a lot of men, but 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.680 like we're gonna win this thing now. The situation on 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.600 the map belied some crucial realities, including the fact that 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.840 as the war went on, Germany was completely hollowed out 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.680 of soldiers, of supplies, and of food. Three quarters of 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.600 a million German civilian starved to death as a result 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.800 of the Allied blockade. UM. By the time Germany surrenders 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.480 in the winter of nineteen eighteen, it's army is on 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.360 the very brink of collapse. The generals who are in 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:54.600 charge at the end a guy named Eric Lundor for 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.440 you might remember from the Wonder Woman movie. Yes, he's 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.520 the bad guy and Wonder Woman um, but was a 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:04.480 real dude. UM. And Paul von Hindenberg, who was his 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.880 his co general. We're not the ones to accept failure gracefully, right, 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:10.840 Like both of them had some victories to their name, 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.200 both of them made some major strategic errors at the 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.439 end that we're a big factor in German defeat. Um. 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:19.040 But when the Germans lose, they don't stay on deck 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:21.320 to be like, hey, guys, we tried our best, we 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:23.199 fought as hard as anyone could fight, and we got 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:27.040 our We we just lost. They fucking bounce like as 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.760 soon as it becomes clear they're going to surrender, they're 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:35.319 fucking out of there. Yeah yeah, so back yeah, and 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.080 they they hand over responsibility for negotiating Germany's surrender because 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.040 the Kaiser also bounces like that motherfucker's off the Belgium 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.840 on a trade like um. So all of the people 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:48.400 who had gotten Germany into war and had like pushed 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.839 the war the whole time leave and put the responsibility 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.880 for negotiating the surrender on the social democrat dominated Reichstag. 0:11:56.000 --> 0:12:00.120 So Germany overnight is a social democracy. And also the 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:02.640 liberals who had been most a lot of them anti 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.240 war up to that point, now have to deal with 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.840 negotiating germany surrender. Meanwhile, the guys who were responsible for 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.120 losing the war start concocting a narrative that the left 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.440 had stabbed the German army in the back, um, and 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:18.679 that's why they lost. And when I say the left, 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.559 I also mean the Jews, because that's what they mean, right, 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:23.800 like they're not, yeah, the left. And it's the same 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.120 thing people talk about cultural Marxism today, right the turn 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.360 back then was Judeo Bolshevism. But it's the same idea, right. 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.199 So the first days and weeks after Germany's defeat, there 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.680 were just a bunch of revolutions all throughout these different 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:38.760 cities in Germany, and a lot of them were left wing. 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.600 But Verry was not spared in this wave of unrest. 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:43.760 As you said, there was a strong While Bavaria is 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.840 very conservative, in Munich in particular, there's a very vibrant 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:51.040 left wing. And several days before Germany signs the armistice 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.760 on November eleven, on November seven, this huge crowd as 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.760 symbols in Munich and they forced the Bavarian king to 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.320 leave his throne. Now, the guy who orchestrate did this 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.520 was a dude named Kurt Eisner, and he's the head 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.800 of the Bavarian Social Democratic Party and his goal was 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:07.360 to you know what he did. He wanted to kick 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:11.040 out the king and establish a Bavarian republic. Now, that 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:15.360 worked for a little while. The unfortunately Eisner, the coalition 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:17.320 that Eisener used to kind of kick the king out 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.720 and establish a republic was only united in their desire 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:22.599 to bring it into the war and get rid of 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.000 the king. And once that war ended and the king 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.480 was gone, they didn't agree on anything else because it 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.480 was a coalition of like the far left, but also 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.160 a lot of like center left people and even centrists 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.320 were just like this World War One thing doesn't seem 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.319 to be working out for anybody. All of us sucks 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:39.720 for all of us. And when that ends, a lot 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.720 of these centrists are like, well, we don't really agree 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.800 with the left on anything else, you know, And there's 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.520 this huge desire to We've got the king out, the 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.160 war has gone. Let's go back to business as usual. 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.000 Let's go back to the way things were before the war. 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:58.600 I think people Americans can understand. People. Yeah, I just 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:00.480 want to go back to branch man. Yeah, I want 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.200 to go back to brunch. And a lot of these 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.480 centrists wanted to go back to the center right and 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.280 the center left, arguing because both the extreme right and 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:09.520 the extreme left had been empowered by the war and 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.280 the economic collapse that came with it, and these these 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.280 folks in the middle were scared by that. So this 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:20.120 is before like Proust, and like the new like the 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:24.080 new Democrats or the new like Constitution. They right, like this, 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:28.720 this is right, this is before the Weimar Constitution. Istion 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.440 Eisner over Eisner leads his sort of revolution like five 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:37.280 days before Germany surrenders. Um. So this is contemporary, like 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.640 the Weimar Constitution starts being written during the period where 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.080 a lot of this is happening. But this starts before. 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:47.320 This starts while the Kaiser is still on the throat, right, Um, 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:49.280 I'm fairly sure while the Kaiser is still on the front. 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.200 It starts before the official German surrender. So things, you know, 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.440 the center right or the center left decides like, we 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.600 don't really want to work with Eisener. Eisner's support dissolves, 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:01.880 and he kind of winds up unable to govern because 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.200 he doesn't really have a lot of people backing him. Um. 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:09.880 There's new elections, uh in January of nineteen nineteen, and 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.680 this kind of center left dominates as opposed to Eisner's 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.760 far left. So on the morning of February one, nineteen nineteen, 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:21.160 Kurt Eisner starts walking to the lawn Tag, the land Tag, 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:23.080 which is like they're, you know, kind of their Congress 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.480 sort of thing, to resign his position as head of 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.840 the local government. Now, while he's on his way, this 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:33.440 German noble count Anton Arco Valley, which is a fucking badass. 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:39.960 Now Arco Valley, it's like he's like a Spiderman victim right, Billy, Yeah, Um, 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.480 he's a he's a rich Bavarian nobleman. So Arco Valley 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:46.480 like comes up and shoots him dead. Eisner. Um so 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.320 because he's you know, Arco Valley is a monarchist and 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.200 a and a far right kind of guy, and he 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:53.280 wants to murder this left wing dude, even though the 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.520 guy is about to leave power willingly. So one of 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.640 Eisner's Eisner does have some very loyal followers, and one 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.240 of them responds to Eisner being killed by gunning down 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.440 another politician. And for reasons unknown to history, this like 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.120 leftist supporter of Eisner, instead of going after one of 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.280 arco Valley's allies, picks a moderate liberal um, a guy 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:18.800 named Ernard our Um and shoots him. Now, our survives 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:20.120 an hour at the time is kind of the head 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.720 of the Social Democrats and Munich. So he's like, he's 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:24.800 like kind of the Joe Biden right, Like he's like 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:29.560 a moderate liberal. Um. Yeah uh. And this leftist shoots 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:31.720 him instead of one of arco valleys allies for a 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:35.720 good reasons that aren't really well known. Um, but our survived. 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.520 What theories you know, I I haven't really heard a 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:41.960 good one. It might just be that, as a rule, 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:44.000 a lot of folks on the far left will always 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.720 hate liberals more than they hate the right. Um. It 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:50.000 might have been it's like it was just like personal 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.080 It's like that fool hit on my girl. Yeah, I've 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:56.840 been personally. He might have been a man. I took 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.360 my chance. He might have just fucked up right, like 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:01.760 guns are at the wrong rate back then, you know, 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.440 like you know, I don't really know. Um Ours survived 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:07.479 though he doesn't get killed, but his injuries keep him 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:09.560 out of politics for two years. And while our was 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.600 like kind of a centrist, he was an effective leader 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:14.960 of the Social Democratic Party. He was good at getting 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:17.640 people in line. Um And the fact that he's out 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:19.560 of the picture for a couple of years means that 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.880 his party is effectively rudderless right at the same time 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.840 that the far left is energized by Eisner's martyrdom. Now, 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.199 our successor, a guy named Johann Hoffman, was weak and 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.879 not very competent um. So you've got this position where 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:38.239 the dominant center left party loses its effective leader at 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.879 the same time as the radical left gets energized by 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.960 the assassination of like one of their big dudes. And 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.760 I'm gonna I'm gonna read a quote now from a 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.159 graduate dissertation by James McGee titled the Political Police in 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.480 Bavaria nineteen nineteen to nineteen thirty six. To explain what 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.879 happens next. The assassination of Eisner had worked as a 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.240 solvent upon political consensus such as it was in Bavaria. 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.119 The Hoffman government found itself caught between the advance of 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:05.960 radicalism on both the right and the left the first round, 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.320 and the struggle went to the radical left. No longer 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.240 able to maintain itself in Munich, the Hoffman government decamped 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.840 on April seven, eventually coming to rest in the northern 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.800 Bavarian city of Bomberg. Authority in Munich was assumed successively 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.440 by two councils, the first led by an ill assorted 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.800 collection of independent socialists and anarchists, and the second by 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:28.320 the communists. So two different successive kind of far left 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:32.080 governments take over through like a revolution basically, but neither 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:34.280 of them are very good at it right. Neither of 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.400 them really have like the anarchists are way more focused 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.160 on creating public art and stuff um and don't really 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.360 have a great, uh cohesive set of plan to deal 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.359 with the needs of a lot of like uh Moonstionaris, 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.399 I think it is like people of the people of Munich, 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.760 um whereas the communists are kind of they're not really 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:54.239 that good at building support outside of the people who 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.400 are already involved in their movement. Uh there there spent 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:00.359 a lot of time going after their political enemies, um 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.920 and again aren't very good at consolidating power. Meanwhile, outside 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.680 the city, conservative forces start regrouping and preparing to invade 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.639 Munich because there's been a left wing revolution. What is 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:12.640 the right going to do? They're gonna murder everyone they can. 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.560 So the core of this right wing movement where the 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.520 Free Corps um, and that's an organization of right wing 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.200 veterans that you could see is broadly similar to groups 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.000 like the Oath Keepers or the three Percenters today. Now, 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.000 the main difference between these two is the oath Keepers 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.439 and the three Percenters are mostly people dressing up like 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.200 soldiers who if they were in the military, never heard 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.560 a shot fired in anger. The men of the Free 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.280 Corps are hard sons of bitches, like they have They 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:39.199 have done a ton of killing. They have seen thousands 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:41.919 die before their eyes, Like a lot of these guys. 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.160 These guys are like veterans of the trenches. So they're 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.719 not they're not playing, you know, like they're not dressing 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.680 up because soldiers look cool. They've they they have been 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.200 so broken by war that it's the only thing they 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:57.360 can really do, you know, Larkin over here. Yeah, they're 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.000 called the Free Corps, the Free Corp, the Free Corps 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.439 right like where, Yeah so, and the Free Corps. Not 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:05.320 all these guys. A number of like free core dudes 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.040 actually become anti Nazis later, but a lot of the 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.320 Free Corps are the genesis of what becomes some of 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.800 the Nazi street movements too. And it's kind of like 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:15.480 we saw with the r d T in Italy right 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:17.720 where you've got all these veterans. Some of them do 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:19.880 become some of them just one order and they're more 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.280 Republican than anything. But they'll fight the radical left and 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:25.920 then they wind up being anti Nazi. Most of them 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.200 go more in a Nazi direction. Some of them wind 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.199 up being kind of more on the left after a 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.120 while because they get, you know, disillusioned by right wing politics. 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:35.680 But you have this melting pot of soldiers who are 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.280 angry at things, and the bulk of them do go 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:42.880 to the right. Now. Yeah, so these guys invade and 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:44.879 they make quick work of the Red forces of the 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:48.320 Revolutionary Government. I'm gonna quote from macgee's article again. By 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:50.439 the end of April, the feeble Red forces had been 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.600 pressed back into the environs of Munich itself. At this moment, 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:55.680