Weimar Republic. Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle , in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 15 Nazis, four police officers, and one bystander. Hitler escaped immediate arrest and was spirited off to safety in the countryside. After two days, he was arrested and charged with treason. The putsch brought Hitler to the attention of the German nation for the first time and generated front-page headlines in newspapers around the world.
His arrest was followed by a day trial, which was widely publicised and gave him a platform to express his nationalist sentiments. Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison , [ note 2 ] where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow prisoners Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess. On 20 December , having served only nine months, Hitler was released. In the early 20th century, many of the larger cities of southern Germany had beer halls , where hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of people would socialise in the evenings, drink beer and participate in political and social debates.
Such beer halls also became the hosts of occasional political rallies. Like many Germans of the period, Hitler, who had fought in the German Army but still held Austrian citizenship at the time, believed the treaty to be a betrayal, with the country having been "stabbed in the back" by its own government, particularly as the German Army was popularly thought to have been undefeated in the field.
For the defeat, Hitler scapegoated civilian leaders, Jews and Marxists , later called the "November Criminals". Hitler remained in the army in Munich after the war. He participated in various "national thinking" courses, organised by the Education and Propaganda Department of the Bavarian Army under Captain Karl Mayr , [ 9 ] of which Hitler became an agent.
On 26 September , following a period of terror and political violence, Bavarian Prime Minister Eugen von Knilling declared a state of emergency, and Gustav Ritter von Kahr was appointed Staatskomissar "state commissioner" , with dictatorial powers to govern the state.
