(3 of 3)
For his part in the Beer Putsch Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison, served one. Complacent editors thought that that was the end of Hitlerism. So perhaps it would have been but for the Depression. Adolf Hitler gave thousands of young Germans a chance to escape from reality. Hitlerites had uniforms, brass bands, roaring mass meetings, plenty of free beer. In 1930 when Germany had over 3,000,000 unemployed, Hitler had 6,000,000 followers and with 107 delegates controlled the Reichstag's second-largest party.
Last week his goal was still in sight. The emergency decree with its Price Commissioner, its arbitrary fixing of interest rates, rents, even doctors' fees, meant that the Brüning Dictatorship was trying to out-Hitler Hitler. Germany was operating under a system of state capitalism. The experiment might fail any instant. Adolf Hitler sat in Berlin and waited.