The Beer Hall Putsch (Part 2):The failure of the Beer Hall Putsch should have been the end of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Within 10 years Hitler was in power and in the process of establishing a dictatorship. How was disaster turned into triumph, and what does this reveal about the condition of the Republic?Speaker-Rhys

Producer-Sam and Toby

Music-Sam

The Beer Hall Putsch (Part 1): The failure of the Beer Hall Putsch should have been the end of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Within 10 years Hitler was in power and in the process of establishing a dictatorship. How was disaster turned into triumph, and what does this reveal about the condition of the Republic?Speaker-Rhys

Producers-Sam and Toby

Music-Sam

The rise of Hitler's status in German politics is reflected in his belief that he could launch a successful putsch against the German government. Throughout 1923 Hitler was emerging as the mouthpiece of the extreme right-wing in Germany, and the unique conditions of the year had further undermined the credibility of the Republic. It was in this context that Hitler launched his putsch. The failure of the putsch exposed the weaknesses of the movement and Hitler's leadership. Speaker-Rhys

Producers-Sam and Toby

Music-Sam

Hitler's leadership of the fledgling Nazi Party had brought about important developments in the nature and growth of the party. Yet by the end of 1922 the Party was nothing more than a provincial, albeit loud, extremist political movement. All of this was about to change. As the French and Belgians occupied the Ruhr industrial region and inflation turned to hyperinflation, 1923 would launch Hitler and his Party on to the national stage.

Speaker-Rhys

Producers-Sam and Toby

Music-Sam

Hitler's Vienna experience had provided the foundation for his embryonic worldview, but it was the Great War that turned it into a hardened political philosophy. The defeat in 1918 came as a bitter blow to Hitler but it was the decisive event that turned Hitler to a career in politics.

Speaker-Rhys

Producers-Sam and Toby

Music-Sam

The image of Hitler that was carved out by Goebbels' propaganda machine encouraged visions of heroic leadership underpinned by historical inevitability. Hitler's early life and the hard years as a down and out in Vienna, however, tell a different story of the man who would become leader of the Third Reich.

Speaker-Rhys

Producers-Sam and Toby

Music-Sam

1923 was a watershed moment in the early years of the WR. The Republic had shown remarkable resilience in the early years of political upheaval by thwarting two attempted putsches, but it was now to face its gravest crisis to date. As the value of the mark collapsed it threatened to destroy the financial stability and social status of the middle class, who by now were the only guarantors of the Republic's survival.Speaker-Rhys

Producers-Sam and Toby

Music-Sam

The so-called 'German Revolution' of 1918-19 was not really a revolution at all. The institutions, personnel and ideas of the old conservative order remained. Weimar was, in the words of historian Richard J Evans, 'born with a hole in its heart'. Isolated and lacking support it was swiftly becoming a 'Republic without Republicans'. Its greatest enemies were not without, but within.

Speaker-Rhys

Producers-Sam and Toby

Music-Sam