IB History Constitutional Political Economic and Social Challenges Key Definitions

Hitler's failed attempt to seize power in Munich on November 8-9, 1923. On the night of November 8, Hitler interrupted a meeting in the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall and declared a "national revolution." He attempted to force key Bavarian officials (State Commissioner Gustav von Kahr, General Otto von Lossow, and Colonel Hans Ritter von Seisser) to support a march on Berlin. The next day, Hitler and around 3,000 Nazis marched through Munich but were stopped by police at the Feldherrnhalle. 16 Nazis and 4 police officers were killed. Hitler was arrested, tried for treason, and sentenced to five years in prison (he served nine months in Landsberg). In prison he dictated Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess. The failure of the Putsch convinced Hitler to pursue power through legal electoral means rather than force.

German for "stab-in-the-back legend." The myth, widely circulated among German nationalists after 1918, that the German army had not been defeated militarily in the First World War but had been "stabbed in the back" by internal enemies, particularly socialists, communists, and Jews, who had undermined the war effort from within. The legend was a fabrication: the German army had genuinely been defeated in the field by the autumn of 1918. But the myth was politically powerful and was exploited by the right, especially by Hitler, to delegitimize the Weimar Republic and blame Germany's humiliation on minority groups.