From The Times: February 27, 1924
The onlookers gathered round the barbed-wire barricades of the Landespoizei ventured a subdued cheer as General Ludendorff, in a closed car, drove up this morning to the entrance of the Army School, where he, Herr Adolf Hitler, and their eight other associates are to be tried on a charge of high treason.
The proceedings were opened by the President of the Court, Dr Neidhart, calling the names of the accused, General Ludendorff alone receiving the title of Excellency, the others being addressed without any prefix.
An indictment of some 40 pages setting forth the events which took place on November 8 and 9 in Munich was read. This stated that the accused had undertaken by force of arms and in conscious cooperation with one another to overthrow the Bavarian Government and the Government of the Reich, to alter by force the Constitution of the Reich and Bavaria, and to set up an unconstitutional Government in Bavaria and the Reich, being thereby guilty of high treason.
In his examination of Hitler, the President brought out the fact that Hitler was an Austrian subject, that he had volunteered for service in the Bavarian Army in 1914, and had been wounded and afterwards seriously gassed, being unconscious in hospital for several weeks as a result.
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It was during these weeks that Hitler claims to have had a vision in which he saw himself as the saviour and regenerator of Germany. Warning Hitler that his political views were well known and that he must confine himself to essentials, the President adjourned the Court, and Hitler began his speech after the interval.
Beginning almost nervously, the little Austrian sign painter soon recovered himself, and his speech was reminiscent of many that he had made in the beer-halls of Munich. There was no applause, but it was evident that the sympathies of a large proportion of those in the Court were with the speaker when, with emphatic gesture, he declared that it was not himself or his associates who were on trial, but Herr von Kahr, and that “but for the Dictator’s treachery a National Government which could have saved Germany would now have been in power”.
After he had spoken for nearly four hours, the Court was adjourned.
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