Was the January 6th Capitol Riot America’s Beer Hall Putsch?

For those who’d like to “move on” from the events of January 6th, history gives a stern warning of autocratic danger for those not held accountable.

Nazi coup attempt, Munich 1923 (Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 119-1486 / CC_BY-SA 3.0).

It was a ham-fisted operation.

In the fall of 1923, several thousand members of Germany’s nascent “national socialist” movement, fed up with the democratic Weimar Republic gathered in the Bavarian city of Munich. For five years, Hitler and others on the German right had been telling their followers a big lie: that Germany had not really lost World War I. Instead, Germany had been “stabbed in the back,” betrayed by civilian politicians (democrats and socialists, controlled, Hitler said, by Jews). Bavaria had become the center of a large network of right-wing militia groups who believed the lie and were ready to act on it. [1]

Their intention? Overthrow the legitimately elected Weimar government, exercise authoritarian power and make Germany great again.

Adolf Hitler and his early followers led the violent coup d’état in an unlikely spot — a beer hall in Munich, the Bürgerbräukeller, far from the capital city of Berlin and its parliament. [2] At this hall, the political, military, and police leaders of the state of Bavaria were meeting. Hitler sought to give a speech, riling local officials to join right-wing militia groups in seizing power of the Bavarian state government. In turn, this would lead to a “March on Berlin,” fomenting a larger “national revolution” to overturn the democratically elected government. [3]

At first, it seemed to succeed.

Miscalculation

But Hitler had miscalculated. He did not have sufficient organization or firepower to prevail. He overestimated his support and lacked a cohesive, coordinated strategy. The Bavarian leaders turned on Hitler. Police and military units then speedily crushed the coup.

Thus the aptly named “Beer Hall Putsch” was a failure. Sixteen Nazis and four police officers were killed that day. Hitler and some of his followers were jailed, Hitler receiving a five year sentence for “high treason.” But prison became Hitler’s locus of political exile where he immediately began both his personal resurrection and the rehabilitation of his budding National Socialist movement — a movement nearly killed in its crib. Behind bars, he wrote his manifesto Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”). For those willing to pay attention, he laid out not only his contempt for world Jewry but a megalomaniac plan for Nazi world domination. His five year sentence turned into a pardon that had him out of prison in less than a year. [4]

A Date That Will Live in Infamy

One year ago — unless one believes the inane arguments that the January 6th gathering in Washington was a mix of Antifa antagonists, false flag leftists and Deep State government insiders — an angry mob of thousands of right wing Trump supporters, egged on by the soon-to-be-former president and adherents such as Rudolph Giuliani, stormed the nation’s Capitol. They violently breached the building and searched out government officials to hold them accountable (including Vice President Pence who they deemed a traitor for not initiating efforts to reverse the Presidential election). People died in the violence and it shocked the nation. Even Republican leaders who had supported Trump, e.g., Texas Senator John Cornyn — tweeted that the attack “was horrific & appalling… I agree w/Speaker Pelosi — a 9/11-type investigation is called for to help prevent this from happening again.” [5]. As with December 7th and September 11th, January 6th is a date that shall live in infamy, a watershed moment in American history.

Ham-Fisted, Too

Much like Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, Trump’s January 6 coup attempt, too, was ham-fisted. It lacked cohesion, broad political support and a concise endgame strategy. What exactly did Trump, his acolytes and the insurrectionists hope to achieve?

By January 6th, Trump’s Republican support — even if there were 100 Congressmen willing to upend a legitimate, newly-elected government — was waning. Attorney General Bill Barr had left the administration because Trump had become unhinged in his pursuit of maintaining power. A week before the attack on the Capitol, we now know that Fox News’ host and Trump White House insider Sean Hannity had expressed concerns about Trump’s plans to thwart a congressional certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Republican election officials within Trump’s White House and in key states such as Georgia, Arizona and Michigan had all agreed: there was no evidence of broad voter fraud and that Biden had won the election.

Aside from the striking resemblance in terms of the size of the insurrections and the resulting violence, the Beer Hall Putsch and the January 6th coup attempt bear a more notable similarity: the buildup of political tensions was based on outright lies. Hitler lied about Germany’s defeat in World War I and Trump lied about voter fraud behind his 2020 election loss. Both were big lies that undermined faith in government institutions and gained credibility from frequent repetition.

Though found guilty and imprisoned, Hitler used his trial as the groundwork for fostering a future political takeover. A key condition of his parole was that he refrain from speaking in public for two years. In his classic 1960 book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer, explained Hitler’s challenge: “A silenced Hitler was a defeated Hitler, as ineffective as a handcuffed pugilist in a ring.” In similar fashion, Trump has had his bully pulpits on Twitter and Facebook stripped.

A Cautionary Tale

But, of course, history tells a cautionary tale: the Beer Hall putsch was the beginning, not the end of the extreme right wing takeover of Germany. Hitler continued to undermine democracy and governmental institutions.

Donald Trump is not Hitler and American right wing nationalism has not reached the depths of virulent German fascism. But Hitler’s aggressive campaign to turn the failed insurrection of 1923 into his ascension to power in 1933 bears striking similarities to Trump’s path in seeking a triumphant return to America’s presidency. [6]

U.S. House of Representatives’ member Jamie Raskin says “I think we have to talk about fascism, which [former Secretary of State] Madeleine Albright has reminded us is not a specific ideological system with particular content. It’s just a strategy for taking power and maintaining power against the rule of law and against the majority in a democracy.” [7]

History does not always repeat itself, but it may very well rhyme. Those societies that choose to ignore it, may pay the ultimate price.

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Notes:

[1] Benjamin Carter Hett, Op-Ed: “The Trump Insurrection Was America’s Beer Hall Putsch,” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2021.

[2] Carter, Ibid.

[3] James Zirin, “The Putsch of January 6, 2021,” moyers.com, January 8, 2021.

[4] Zirin, Ibid.

[5] David Gumpert, “Repositioning an Insurrection: How Republicans Could Transform January 6 into a Day of Triumph,” OpEd News, May 21, 2021.

[6] Gumpert, Ibid.

[7] Khaleda Rahman, “Jamie Raskin Says It’s Been a ‘Tough Year’ Since Son’s Death,” Newsweek, January 5, 2022.