The Bavarian Government at the same time curried favor with the so-called national associations which were in part organized along military or semi-military lines and also possessed weapons. The whole thing was directed against Berlin and, as we expressed it, against the “November Republic.” We could agree up to that point.
On the Sunday, before the 9th of November, there was a large parade in Munich. The whole Bavarian Government was there. The Reichswehr, the police and the fatherland associations, and we too, marched past. Suddenly, on that occasion, we saw that the figure in the foreground was no longer Herr Von Kahr but the Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht. We were very much taken aback by that. The suspicion arose among us that Bavaria wished to follow a course which would possibly lead to a considerable disintegration, and Bavaria might secede from the body of the Reich. But nothing was farther from our intentions than to permit that. We wanted a strong Reich, a unified Reich; and we wanted to have it cleansed of certain parties and authorities which were now ruling it.
We had become distrustful of the so-called “March on Berlin.” When this became a certainty and Herr Von Kahr had called the well-known meeting in the Bürgerbräukeller, it was high time to frustrate such plans and to guide the whole undertaking in the direction of the “Greater Germany” idea. Thus the events of 9 November 1923 materialized in very short time. But as far as I personally am concerned, I was—and I never made a secret of this—ready from the beginning to take part in every revolution against the so-called November Republic, no matter where and with whom it originated, unless it originated with the Left, and for these tasks I had always offered my services.
Then I was severely wounded at the Feldherrnhalle—the events are well known—and with this incident I close this first chapter.
DR. STAHMER: When, after that time, did you come together with Hitler again?
GÖRING: At first I was in a hospital in Austria. There was a trial before the Bavarian People’s Court regarding the 9th of November.
DR. STAHMER: Who was indicted?
GÖRING: Hitler was indicted first of all, and naturally all those who had been present and were apprehended. I had been in Upper Bavaria for several days in a seriously wounded state and was then brought to the border, was arrested there, and then the Bavarian police brought me back to a different place. I asked Hitler at that time, whether I should appear at the trial. He begged me urgently not to do that, and that was a good thing. In this way the proceedings could not be held behind closed doors, because I had made the statement that if that was done I, for my part, would make an appropriate public statement with regard to the trial.
Then, after my recuperation, I spent about a year in Italy; then elsewhere abroad. In the year 1926 or 1927 there was a general amnesty for all the people involved in the different illegal—if I should call them that—incidents which had occurred up to then, not only for us but also for the Leftists and the peasants, and I could return to Germany.
I met Hitler again for the first time in 1927 at a rather brief conference in Berlin, where he was present. I was not active in the Party then, rather I wanted first to provide myself with an independent position once more. Then for months I was not in touch with Hitler again. Shortly before the May elections of the Reichstag in 1928 Hitler called me and told me he wanted to put me up as one of the first of the Reichstag candidates for the National Socialist Party and asked me whether I were willing and I said “yes,” and also whether my activity in the Party to a still greater extent . . .