IN HITLER'S MUNICH

A German Jewish historian mines the intricate story behind Hitler’s rise to power in Munich as a direct reaction to the failed socialist coup of 1918-1919, many of whose leaders were liberal Jews.

In the wake of the assassination of Kurt Eisner—the first Jewish prime minister of Bavaria, whose socialist republic overthrew the centuries-old monarchy—in February 1919, reactionary, antisemitic forces took hold in that once-liberal cultural capital and enabled the rise of Hitler. Brenner looks closely at the lives and beliefs of those Jewish intellectuals, anarchists, and revolutionaries, such as Eisner, Erich Mühsam, Ernst Toller, Eugen Leviné, and Gustav Landauer, as well as the better-known Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky. Many were from czarist Russia, where they had been oppressed and found in socialism freedom, opportunity, and a method for helping others in similarly oppressive situations. As Saul Friedländer wrote, “the activities of the Jewish revolutionaries in Germany were based on an unquestionably naïve, but very humane idealism—a sort of secular Messianism, as if the revolution could bring deliverance from all suffering.” Many were nonpracticing or nonbelievers, and many worked in opposition to each other and did not necessarily share a political consensus. Still, the revolutionary actors in Bavaria banded together to effect a bloodless takeover of the monarchy, leading first to shock among the bourgeoisie and then vengeful new rulers and a wave of terror—a “pogrom atmosphere in Munich.” Brenner examines the ideology and background of each of the key players and how their Jewishness affected their worldview. The violent reaction to the coup put the “Jewish question” front of mind and the “unspeakable Jewish tragedy,” as Martin Buber called the era, to follow at center stage. The story Brenner pieces together is fascinating, with details that will be unknown to nonspecialist readers, and its ramifications were world-changing then and remain so today.

Deep, important research by a master historian.