Editing Beer Hall Putsch (section)

== Trial and prison ==
[[Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00344A, München, nach Hitler-Ludendorff Prozess.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|1 April 1924. Defendants in the Beer Hall Putsch trial. From left to right: Pernet, Weber, Frick, Kriebel, Ludendorff, Hitler, Bruckner, Röhm, and Wagner. Note that only two of the defendants (Hitler and Frick) were wearing civilian clothes. All those in uniform are carrying swords, indicating officer status.]]
[[File:Hitler, Maurice, Kriebel, Hess, Weber, prison de Landsberg en 1924.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Adolf Hitler, [[Emil Maurice]], [[Hermann Kriebel]], [[Rudolf Hess]], and [[Friedrich Weber (veterinarian)|Friedrich Weber]] at [[Landsberg Prison]]]]

Two days after the putsch, Hitler was arrested and charged with [[high treason]] in the special [[People's Court (Bavaria)|People's Court]].<ref name="DerHitler" /> Some of his fellow conspirators, including Rudolf Hess, were also arrested, while others, including Hermann Göring and Ernst Hanfstaengl, escaped to [[Austria]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia| url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/239310/Hermann-Goring |title=Hermann Goring (German minister) – Britannica Online Encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |access-date=2011-03-26}}</ref> The Nazi Party's headquarters was raided, and its newspaper, the ''[[Völkischer Beobachter]]'' (''The People's Observer''), was banned. In January 1924, the [[Emminger Reform]], an emergency decree, abolished the [[jury]] as [[trier of fact]] and replaced it with a mixed system of [[judge]]s and [[lay judge]]s in [[judiciary of Germany|Germany's judiciary]].<ref>{{cite journal | title= On Uses and Misuses of Comparative Law | first = Otto | last= Kahn-Freund | author-link= Otto Kahn-Freund | journal= [[Modern Law Review]] | volume= 37 | issue= 1 |date= January 1974 | jstor= 1094713 | page= 18, note 73| doi = 10.1111/j.1468-2230.1974.tb02366.x | doi-access= free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | title= Criminal Justice in Germany | first = Hans Julius | last= Wolff | author-link= :de:Hans Julius Wolff (Rechtshistoriker) | journal= [[Michigan Law Review]] | volume= 42 | issue= 6 | date= June 1944 | jstor= 1283584 | pages=1069–1070, note 7| doi = 10.2307/1283584 | url = https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol42/iss6/7 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | title= Lay Judges in the German Criminal Courts | first1 = Gerhard | last1= Casper | author-link1= Gerhard Casper | first2= Hans | last2= Zeisel | author-link2= :de:Hans Zeisel | journal= [[The Journal of Legal Studies]] | volume= 1 | issue= 1 | date= January 1972 | jstor= 724014 | page= 135 | doi=10.1086/467481| s2cid = 144941508 }}</ref>

This was not the first time Hitler had been in trouble with the law. In an incident in September 1921, he and some men of the SA had disrupted a meeting of the ''[[Bayernbund]]'' ('Bavaria Union') which [[Otto Ballerstedt]], a Bavarian federalist, was to have addressed, and the Nazi troublemakers were arrested as a result. Hitler ended up serving just over a month of a three-month jail sentence.<ref>Richard J Evans: ''The Coming of the Third Reich. A History'', 2004, S. 181; Joachim Fest: ''Hitler'', 2002, pp. 160, 225.</ref> Judge [[Georg Neithardt]] was the presiding judge at both of Hitler's trials.<ref name="gordon" />

Hitler's trial began on 26 February 1924 and lasted until 1 April 1924.<ref name="PressPolitics" /> Lossow acted as chief witness for the prosecution.{{r|knickerbocker1941}} Hitler moderated his tone for the trial, centring his defence on his selfless devotion to the good of the people and the need for bold action to save them, dropping his usual anti-Semitism.<ref>[[Claudia Koonz]], ''The Nazi Conscience,'' p. 21</ref> He claimed the putsch had been his sole responsibility, inspiring the title ''[[Führer]]'' or 'leader'.<ref>[[Piers Brendon]], ''The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s'', p. 38</ref> The [[lay judge]]s were fanatically pro-Nazi and had to be dissuaded by the presiding Judge, [[Georg Neithardt]], from acquitting Hitler outright.<ref>{{cite journal | title= The Bavarian Problem in the Weimar Republic: Part II | first = Carl | last= Landauer | author-link= :de:Carl Landauer | journal= [[The Journal of Modern History]] | volume= 16 | issue= 3 | page=222 | date= September 1944 | jstor= 1871460 | doi=10.1086/236826| s2cid = 145412298 }}</ref> Hitler and Hess were both sentenced to five years in {{Lang|de|[[Festungshaft]]}} ('fortress confinement') for treason. {{Lang|de|Festungshaft}} was the mildest of the three types of jail sentence available in German law at the time; it excluded forced labour, provided reasonably comfortable cells, and allowed the prisoner to receive visitors almost daily for many hours. This was the customary sentence for those whom the judge believed to have had honourable but misguided motives, and it did not carry the stigma of a sentence of ''Gefängnis'' (common prison) or ''Zuchthaus'' (disciplinary prison). In the end, Hitler served just over eight months of this sentence before his early release for good behaviour.<ref>Claudia Koonz, ''The Nazi Conscience'', p. 22</ref> Prison officials allegedly wanted to give Hitler deaf guards, to prevent him from persuading them to free him.{{r|irvine193111}}

Although the trial was the first time that Hitler's oratory was insufficient,{{r|irvine193111}} he used the trial as an opportunity to spread his ideas by giving speeches in the courtroom. The event was extensively covered in the newspapers the next day. The judges were impressed (Presiding Judge Neithardt was inclined to favouritism towards the defendants prior to the trial), and as a result, Hitler served just over eight months in prison and was fined {{Reichsmark|500|link=yes}}.<ref name="gordon" /> Due to Ludendorff's story that he was present by accident, an explanation he had also used in the [[Kapp Putsch]], along with his war service and connections, Ludendorff was [[acquitted]]. Both Röhm and [[Wilhelm Frick]], though found guilty, were released. Göring, meanwhile, had fled after suffering a bullet wound to his leg,{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=131}} which led him to become increasingly dependent on [[morphine]] and other painkilling drugs. This addiction continued throughout his life.

One of Hitler's greatest worries at the trial was that he was at risk of being deported back to his native Austria by the Bavarian government.{{sfn|Kershaw|1999|p=238}} The trial judge, Neithardt, was sympathetic toward Hitler and held that the relevant laws of the Weimar Republic could not be applied to a man "who thinks and feels like a German, as Hitler does." The result was that the Nazi leader remained in Germany.<ref>[http://www.spiegel.de/international/revoking-the-fuehrer-s-passport-hitler-may-be-stripped-of-german-citizenship-a-471168.html Revoking the Fuehrer's Passport] at spiegel.de</ref>{{refn|group=note |The court explained why it rejected the deportation of Hitler under the terms of the Protection of the Republic Act: "Hitler is a German-Austrian. He considered himself to be a German. In the opinion of the court, the meaning and the terms of section 9, para II of the Law for the Protection of the Republic cannot apply to a man who thinks and feels as German as Hitler, who voluntarily served for four and a half years in the German army at war, who attained high military honours through outstanding bravery in the face of the enemy, was wounded, suffered other damage to his health, and was released from the military into the control of the district Command Munich I."<ref name="Kershaw2001">{{cite book |author=Ian Kershaw |title=Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris |page=217 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b2xlHSQcna0C&pg=PT1481 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-14-192579-0|year= 2001 }}</ref>}}

Though Hitler failed to achieve his immediate goal, the putsch did give the Nazis their first national attention and [[propaganda]] victory.<ref name="ckoonz" /> While serving their "fortress confinement" sentences at [[Landsberg Prison|Landsberg am Lech]], Hitler, [[Emil Maurice]] and [[Rudolf Hess]] wrote ''[[Mein Kampf]]''. The putsch had changed Hitler's outlook on violent revolution to effect change. From then his ''[[modus operandi]]'' was to do everything "strictly legal".{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=207}}{{sfn|Evans|2003|p=249}}

The process of "combination", wherein the conservative-nationalist-monarchist group thought that its members could piggyback on, and control, the National Socialist movement to garner the seats of power, was to repeat itself ten years later in 1933 when [[Franz von Papen]] asked Hitler to form a legal coalition government.