Hitler's Table Talk

272 A COUP — CLASH WITH COMMUNISTS
There had been talk of attempting a coup, in agreement with
the bourgeois parties. It was to take place here and there all over
Germany, especially in Thuringia. I'd been well let down by
the bourgeois over the business, which I remember as the finest
of our mess-ups. But Nortz couldn't prevent our march on
Oberwiesenfeld.
At three o'clock in the morning, after taking possession of our
weapons, we occupied Oberwiesenfeld according to plan. The
hours passed, and still nothing happened. Our bourgeois allies
had stayed in their beds. Calm prevailed throughout Germany,
whilst we awaited from all quarters the confirmation of the
expected risings. At six o'clock, gangs of Reds gathered to meet
us. I sent some men to provoke them, but they didn't react.
Ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, and the Reich still did not emerge
from its stupor—and we were still there on the look-out, armed
to the teeth !
We had to make up our minds to go home. During the return
march, we met a few inoffensive Reds, fellows who could be
dispersed by a flourish of trumpets. We beat them up a little,
in the hope of getting a big row started, but it was no use.
Everything was over when a trotting, horse-drawn battery,
which I hadn't sent for, arrived from Tölz. It unfolded like a
flower, right in the face of the police. I'd done well to swear
never again to undertake anything in collaboration with the
bourgeois.
Three days later I was summoned to appear before the
Prosecutor General, a bloody man, to reply to the accusation of
having endangered public security. "I in no way infringed
public order," I said. "But an attempt was made to do so."
"Who says that?" "The law declares that the fact of arming
gangs ..." "Who is speaking of gangs? My men are perfectly
disciplined. As for my weapons, they were stored in the State
arsenals." "So you possess weapons?" "Of course. Are you
not aware that the others possess them, too?"
This inculpation had no consequences. In the circumstances,
Stenglein and Ehardt were sitting pretty.
This was how I'd procured weapons. A certain Councillor
Schäffer had a store of weapons at Dachau, and he offered to