But were you at Coburg?

Read Adolf Hitlers account of the Nazis day out in Coburg, 14th October 1922

from Mein Kampf, Vol.I 1925

“‘Folkish’ associations planned to hold a so-called ‘ German Day’ in Coburg. I myself received an invitation to it, remarking that it would be desirable for me to bring an escort. This re¬ quest, which I received at eleven o’clock in the morning, came very opportunely. An hour later the arrangements for attending this ‘German Day’ had been issued. As an ‘escort’ I appointed eight hundred men of the SA; we arranged to transport them in approximately fourteen companies by special train to the little city that had become Bavarian. 1 Similar orders went out to National Socialist SA groups which had meanwhile been formed in other places.

It was the first time that such a special train was used in Germany. At all towns where new SA men got in, the transport aroused much attention. Many people had never seen our flags before; the impression they made was very great.

When we arrived at the Coburg station, we were received by a deputation of the organizers of the ‘ German Day,’ which conveyed to us an order from the local trade unions — in other words, from the Independent 1 and Communist Party — to the effect that we were forbidden to enter the town with flags un¬ furled, or with music (we had taken along a forty-two-piece band of our own), or to march in a solid column.

I at once flatly rejected these disgraceful conditions, and did not fail to express to the gentlemen present, the organizers of this congress, my surprise that they had carried on negotiations with these people and entered into agreements; I declared that the SA would immediately line up in companies and march into the city with resounding music and flags flying.

And that is just what happened.

On the square in front of the railroad station we were received by a howling, shrieking mob numbering thousands. ‘Murderers/ ‘bandits/ ‘robbers/ ‘criminals/ were the pet names which the model founders of the German Republic affectionately showered on us. The young SA kept exemplary order, the companies formed on the square in front of the station, and at first took no notice of the vulgar abuse. In the city that was strange to all of us, frightened police officials led the marching column, not, as arranged, to our quarters, a shooting gallery situated on the periphery of Coburg, but to the Hofbrauhauskeller, near the center of the city. To left and right of the procession, the uproar of the masses of people accompanying us increased more and more. Hardly had the last company turned into the courtyard of the Keller than great masses, amid deafening cries, tried to crowd in after us. To prevent this, the police locked the Keller. Since this state of affairs was intolerable, I had the SA line up once again, gave them a brief speech of admonition, and demanded that the police open the gates immediately. After a long hesitation, they yielded.

To get to our quarters, we marched back the way we had come, and now at last a stand had to be taken. After they had been unable to disturb the poise of our companies by cries and insulting shouts, the representatives of true socialism, equality, and fraternity had recourse to stones. At this our patience was at an end, and so for ten whole minutes a devastating hail fell from left and right, and a quarter of an hour later, there was nothing red to be seen in the streets.

In the evening there were serious clashes again. Some National Socialists had been assaulted singly, and patrols of the SA found them in a terrible condition. Thereupon we made short shrift of our foes. By next morning the Red terror, under which Coburg had suffered for years, had been broken.

With real Marxist-Jewish lies they now attempted to harry the ‘ comrades of the international proletariat ’ back into the streets, by totally twisting the facts and maintaining that our ‘ bands of murderers’ had begun a ‘war of extermination against peaceful workers’ in Coburg. The great ‘demonstration of the people,’ which, it was hoped, tens of thousands of workers from the whole vicinity would attend, was set for half-past one. Therefore, firmly resolved to dispose of the Red terror for good, I ordered the SA, which had meanwhile swollen to nearly one and a half thousand men, to line up, and set out with them on the march for the Fortress of Coburg, by way of the great square on which the Red demonstration was to take place. I wanted to see whether they would dare to molest us again. When we entered the square, only a few hundred were present instead of the announced ten. thousand, and at our approach they kept generally quiet, and some ran away. Only at a few points did Red troops, who had meanwhile come from the outside and who did not yet know us, try to pester us again; but in the twinkling of an eye, all their enthusiasm was spoiled. And now it could be seen how the frightened and intimidated population slowly woke up and took courage, and ventured to shout greetings at us, and in the evening as we were marching off broke into spontaneous cheering in many places.

At the station the railroad men suddenly informed us that they would not run the train. Thereupon I notified a few of the ring¬ leaders that in that case I planned to round up whatever Red bosses fell into my hands, and that we would run the train ourselves; however, we would take along a few dozen of the brothers of international solidarity on the locomotive and the tender and in every car. Nor did I fail to call it to the gentlemen’s attention that the trip with our own forces would, of course, be an extremely risky undertaking and that it was not excluded that the whole lot of us should break our necks and bones. But, anyway, in that case, we should be delighted to leave for the Hereafter, not alone but in equality and fraternity with the Red gentlemen.

Thereupon the train departed with the utmost punctuality, and we were back in Munich safe and sound the following morning.

Thus, for the first time since 1914 the equality of citizens be¬ fore the law was re-established in Coburg. For if today some simpleton of a higher official ventures the assertion that the state protects the lives of its citizens, this was certainly not the case at that time; for at that time the citizens had to defend them selves against the representatives of the present-day state.

At first the importance of this day could not be fully evaluated by its consequences. Not only that the victorious SA had been enormously enhanced in its self-confidence and its faith in the soundness of its leadership, but the outside world also began to follow our doings more closely, and many for the first time recognized in the National Socialist movement the institution which in all probability would some day be called upon to put a suitable end to the Marxist madness.

Only the democrats groaned that anyone could dare not peace¬ fully to let his skull be bashed in, and that under a ‘democratic’ republic we had had the audacity to oppose a brutal attack with fists and cudgels instead of pacifistic songs.

On the whole, the bourgeois press, as usual, was partly pitiful and partly contemptible, and only a few honest newspapers greeted the fact that in one place at least someone had dared to call a halt to the activity of the Marxist highwaymen.

In Coburg itself, at least a part of the Marxist working class, which incidentally could be regarded only as misled, had learned a lesson from the fists of National Socialist labor and been taught to realize that these workers also fight for ideals, since, as experience shows, men fight only for something that they believe in and love.

The greatest benefit, however, was derived by the SA itself. It now grew with great rapidity, and at the Party Day held on January 27, 1923, approximately six thousand men could take part in the dedication of the flag, and the first companies were fully equipped with their new uniforms.

For the experience in Coburg had shown how necessary it is, and not only in order to strengthen the esprit de corps, but also to avoid confusion and forestall mutual non-recognition, to introduce uniform dress among the SA. Until then it wore only the armband; now the canvas jacket and the well-known cap were added.

And, furthermore, the experience of Coburg had the significance that we now began systematically, in all places where for many years the Red terror had prevented any meeting of people with different ideas, to break this terror and restore freedom of assembly. From now on, National Socialist battalions were assembled again and again in such localities, and in Bavaria gradually one Red citadel after another fell a victim to National Socialist propaganda. The SA had grown more and more into its task, and so had moved further and further away from the character of a senseless and unimportant defense movement and risen to the level of a living organization of struggle for the erection of a new German state”.

Poster Advertising German day in Coburg.

Hitlers speech at 8pm in the Hofbräuhaus

Translated to English in the second picture.

Listen Hitlers account of the Nazi’s Day out in Coburg 14th October 1922

Read or listen to Personal account by Kurt G.W Ludecke taken from his book “I Knew Hitler”

Ludecke was a very early member of the Nazi party and travelled with Hitler to Coburg, he also gives a great insight into the Characters of Dietrich Eckart and Alfred Rosenberg,