an officer, an aviator, an air-force captain. Blue eyes blazing, jaw
thrust forward, he glared at the five thousand faces and shouted
for silence, then he too loosed off a pistol shot into the ceiling.
Bellowing at the top of his voice, he promised that no harm was
going to come to the Bavarian leaders the ones who were go-
ing to be got rid of, he declared, were “the wretched Jews
(elende Judenschaft) in Berlin.” (At this, there were faint
cheers.) “At this very moment,” he continued, “units of the
army and Landespolizei are marching out of their barracks with
colors flying to join with us.”
That sank in. A hush fell across the cavernous hall.
Meantime, he apologized, nobody could leave the building.
“Be patient,” he cried jovially. “You’ve all got your beer!”
It was going to be a long night. Colonel Kriebel instructed
Göring to use his SA men to supervise the feeding of these five
thousand, and sent a motor cyclist to head off Röhm’s troops
and send them to Lossow’s headquarters, where they were to
greet the general with a guard of honor on his return from the
Bürgerbräu. “I reported first to Herr Hitler,” testified Lieuten-
ant Brückner at the later trial, “then to my superior officer,
Captain Göring. He told me to march my troops into the Bür-
gerbräu, where everybody was to rest and be victualed. That
took up most of the night.”
Hitler himself was making little progress in his attempts to
win over the angry triumvirate. Göring left General von Lossow
in little doubt of his private opinion of him. “What does an old
general have to do, anyway?” he sneered. “Just sign a few orders
... I can do anything he can. I can be a division commander too
let’s sack him here and now.”
The threat of dismissal had little effect. As Hitler pleaded
and cajoled with Kahr, Seisser, and Lossow, the angry hubbub
from the hall arose again. Leaving Göring to continue the ar-