Ben Wilson

Lassau would be the minister of defense and head of the military, and Caesar would be the minister of police.

And Hitler saw himself

as the political leader of this new provisional national government.

He told them that, you know, he's got this pistol on the table and he says, this is for me in case the coup fails.

All right.

So he's explicitly making the case.

This is either going to succeed or I'm going to commit suicide.

That's how committed I am to seeing it through.

Lossow later recalled that Hitler seemed utterly transformed in that back room.

He no longer seemed like a rabble rouser, like a popular speaker, but he seemed like a determined man.

He wasn't asking, he was giving orders.

He was in total control.

So Hitler has these negotiations going on with these three men in this back room.

Not going super well.

Meanwhile, back in the main hall,

Hermann Goering, who was a First World War flying ace, he was a war hero, and he was one of Hitler's key lieutenants.

He addresses the crowd.

And he assures them that this action was not directed against the police or the army.

It was directed only against the November criminals in Berlin.

That's what they call the people who signed the peace treaty at the end of World War I. Call them the November criminals.