two SA “battalions” to the Bürgerbräu that evening to await
further orders; others would muster at the Arzberger and Hof-
bräu beer cellars. The one-hundred-strong élite force, the Adolf
Hitler Shock Troop, was to stand by at the Torbräu. Röhm’s or-
ganization had already booked the Löwenbräu beer hall across
town.
Some word of all this reached the triumvirate, but it failed
to trigger adequate alarm. At Kahr’s request Colonel von Seisser
had that morning briefed his state police. “I told them,” he tes-
tified, “that some people intended to set up a Reich dictatorship
with its base here in Munich, and to carry it northward by force.
And I said that this was bound to lead to catastrophe.”
At : .. Dr. Weber telephoned Seisser to ask if he was
definitely going to be at that evening’s “support demonstration”
at the Bürgerbräu. Seisser confirmed that he would be there.
They all drove across the River Isar that evening to the
great beer hall Seisser, Kahr, his deputy, and a police major in
one car, and General von Lossow in another. Kahr was queasy
again when he saw the way the audience was overflowing onto
the sidewalks outside the packed beer hall, and the hundreds of
political uniforms among them. He recognized many of his
friends, looking equally perplexed. Later he learned that the
Nazi conspirators had invited Bavaria’s entire government and
military élite.
“Herr Hitler has said he’s coming too,” apologized one or-
ganizer, Kommerzienrat Eugen Zentz. “But you are please to
start without him. He’ll be here shortly.”
Seldom can sheep have herded themselves so obligingly
into the shearing pen. Kahr elbowed his way through the five
thousand people jammed into the cavernous, two-hundred-
foot-long hall, climbed onto the rostrum, and unfolded his
notes.