On
this date, November 9, 1923, in Munich, Germany, police and government troops
crush the Beer Hall Putsch in Bavaria. The failed coup is the work of the Nazis.
I will post information about the Blood Flag from Wikipedia and other links.
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Adolf Hitler holding Blutfahne
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The
Blutfahne (pronounced [bluːtˈfaːnə]),
or Blood Flag, was an individual Nazi German Swastika flag used in the
failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, Germany on 9 November 1923, during which it
became soaked in the blood of one of the SA members who died. It subsequently
became one of the most revered objects of the Nazi Party. It was used in
ceremonies in which new flags for party organisations were consecrated by the
Blood Flag when they were touched by it.
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Adolf Hitler touching Blutfahne
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Beer
Hall Putsch
Main article: Beer Hall Putsch
The
flag was that of the 5th SA Sturm, which was carried in the march towards the Feldherrnhalle.
When the Munich police fired on the Nazis, the flagbearer Heinrich Trambauer
was hit and dropped the flag. Andreas Bauriedl, an SA man marching alongside
the flag, was killed and fell onto it, staining the flag with his blood.
There
were two stories about what happened to the flag in the aftermath of the Putsch: one was
that the wounded flagbearer Heinrich Trambauer took the flag to a friend where
he removed it from its staff before leaving with it hidden inside his jacket
and later giving it to a Karl Eggers for safekeeping. The other story was that
the flag was confiscated by the Munich authorities and was later returned to
the Nazis via Eggers. In the mid-1930s, after a myth emerged that Bauriedl himself
had been carrying the flag, an investigation by Nazi archivists concluded that
Trambauer was the standard-bearer and that the flag had been concealed by an SA
man, not taken by the police, though they had confiscated other flags which
they later returned.
Regardless
of which story was the correct one, after Adolf
Hitler was released from Landsberg
prison (after serving nine months of a five-year prison sentence for his
part in the putsch), Eggers gave the flag to him.
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Adolf Hitler
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Sacred
Nazi symbol
After
Hitler received the flag he had it fitted to a new staff and finial and just
below the finial was a silver dedication sleeve which bore the names of the 16
dead participants of the putsch. Bauriedl was one of the 16 honorees. In
addition, the flag was no longer attached to the staff by its original sewn-in
sleeve, but by a red-white-black intertwined cord which ran through the sleeve
instead.
In
1926, at the second Nazi party congress at Weimar, Hitler ceremonially bestowed
the flag on Joseph Berchtold, the then head of the SS. The
flag was thereafter treated as a sacred object by the Nazi Party and carried by
SS-Sturmbannführer Jakob
Grimminger at various Nazi party ceremonies. One of the most visible uses
of the flag was when Hitler, at the Party's annual Nuremberg
rallies, touched other Nazi banners with the Blutfahne, thereby
"sanctifying" them. This was done in a special ceremony called the
"flag consecration" (German Fahnenweihe).
When
not in use, the Blutfahne was kept at the headquarters of the Nazi Party
in Munich (the Brown House) with an SS guard of
honour. The flag had a small tear in it, believed to have been caused during
the Putsch, that went unrepaired for a number of years.
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The repeat of History: Strelkov versus Hitler
with their War Flag.
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Disappearance
The
Blutfahne was last seen in public at the Volkssturm
induction ceremony on 18 October 1944 (not, as frequently reported, at Gauleiter
Adolf
Wagner's funeral six months previously). This ceremony was conducted by Heinrich Himmler and attended by Keitel, Guderian,
Lammers,
Bormann,
Fiehler,
Schepmann and Kraus.
After
this last public display, the Blutfahne vanished into history. Its current
whereabouts are unknown and it is not even certain whether the flag still
exists.
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