our red-white-and-black swastika banner is fluttering over the
[presidential] palace in Berlin.”
The next day he learned that Bavarian police chief Colonel
Seisser was about to travel to Berlin for talks with the central
government.
“If you don’t act when you get back,” Hitler warned the
colonel at a private meeting, “I shall consider myself at liberty to
take action for you!”
Seisser reminded him that he had promised not to do
anything against the army or state police.
Hitler retorted that Göring’s SA and the other “troops”
were already straining at the leash. He repeated: If the triumvi-
rate did not march when Seisser came back, he would withdraw
all undertakings.
What did happen in Berlin is not clear. Whatever it was,
after Seisser returned to Munich on the morning of November
, he and the other two triumvirate members cold-shouldered
Hitler and the Combat League. Summoning the latter’s officers
and those of the Highland League to his own headquarters on
the sixth, Gustav von Kahr advised them not to indulge in
flights of fancy. “We are all agreed on the need for a new na-
tionalist government,” he said. “But we must all stand shoulder
to shoulder. We must proceed to a well-thought-out, ade-
quately prepared, and uniform plan.”
General von Lossow took the same negative line. He prom-
ised to stand by Kahr and to back any scheme that promised
success. “But,” he sniffed, referring to two recent revolutionary
fiascoes, “don’t expect me to join in, if it’s going to be just an-
other Kapp Putsch or Küstrin Uprising.” He pulled a notebook
out of his pocket and wagged it at Colonel Kriebel (Combat
League) and Dr. Weber (Oberland). “Believe me,” he intoned,
as the secret conference ended, “I want to march too. But I