Status: 09.11.2023, 18:00 PM
By: Josef Hornsteiner
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The customs office in Mittenwald around 1920. From there, Göring managed to escape to Innsbruck on 9 November 1923. © Private
On November 9, 1923, Adolf Hitler attempted to seize state power for the first time in Munich. The march to the Feldherrnhalle ends in a hail of bullets. Injured, the Nazi leader fled and found shelter in the Hanfstaengl house in Uffing, where he was arrested on 11 November. At the same time, "Hitler's paladin" Hermann Göring is on the run: he reaches Tyrol via Mittenwald.
Mittenwald/Garmisch-Partenkirchen – He is standing on the balcony of the Riessersee Hotel. Swastika flags flutter in the wind. Like-minded people from Garmisch and Partenkirchen march up the street with torches. SA men stand at attention. Hermann Göring's words thunder from the balcony: "Years have passed, I stood here in these mountains in the depths of darkness. In the night and fog I had to flee from the fatherland."
The fact that Göring is up there is due to a few fateful minutes in Mittenwald. Historian Alois Schwarzmüller from Garmisch-Partenkirchen has compiled the events of that night on 10 November 1923. They show how Göring, Hitler's second man in the Reich, was able to flee to Tyrol from the shootings during the attempted coup in Munich exactly 100 years ago.
There are many legends surrounding Göring's border crossing
On 12 May 1933, the then National Socialist Reich Minister for Aviation was awarded honorary citizenship in Garmisch and Partenkirchen. Afterwards, he greeted his entourage from the hotel balcony and said what many locals already suspected or even knew. Göring had already been to the two places that were forcibly united in 1935, almost ten years earlier – at that time, however, close to death and on the run.
The injured Hermann Göring was taken to the Villa Gumpenburg in Partenkirchen on 9 November 1923. © Market Archive Garmisch-Partenkirchen
There are many legends surrounding Göring's border crossing – most of them spun by the Nazis themselves (see margin). According to Schwarzmüller's research, the true events may have taken place as follows: On November 9, 1923, Göring marched to Munich's Feldherrnhalle, with Adolf Hitler at the front. According to U.S. historian David Clay Large, he was among the first to be hit by a bullet from the state police. The projectile landed in the groin area, and Göring sought shelter on all fours in the entrance gate to the residence. Later, one of the coup plotters dragged him to a nearby apartment building, where the wife of a Jewish furniture dealer gave him first aid, Clay Large researched. What to do with the injured person?
Historian researched from three reports what Göring's flight to Austria on November 9 looked like
From three reports, Schwarzmüller researched that Göring's flight to Austria on November 9 initially ended in Partenkirchen. One of the most important people: Franz Thanner, a shop steward of the Bund Oberland. He took the wounded Göring to the Partenkirchen villa Gumpenburg of Major Friedrich Schueler van Krieken (1885 to 1936). Like Göring, he had served as an officer in the German Air Force in World War I. At about 22 p.m., Thanner received orders at the villa to take Goering and his wife out of the country immediately. Also in the car was Dr. Richard Meyer, a doctor at the prestigious Partenkirchen sanatorium "Dr. Wiggers Kurheim".
The path was to lead via Griesen. However, the border guards refused to allow Goering to cross, but did not arrest him because no arrest warrant had yet been issued. Accompanied by the state police, he was driven to the Garmisch district office. He remains under police surveillance, but can choose accommodation himself, according to protocols from the district office. His companion chose the Wiggers health resort. He should drive up the car and wait, Thanner was instructed around 1:30 a.m. With the engine switched off, he pushed the vehicle in front of the rear front door with members of the Bund Oberland.
There was a firefighter's ball at the Lamm inn in Scharnitz - too many people and too much noise for the wounded man
The escape was now to take place via Mittenwald, as in the meantime the arrest warrant had arrived at the border stations by telephone from Munich. Göring received the false passport of a Dr. Klüter from Garmisch. In Mittenwald, they were lucky: there was a power outage because work was being done on the lines. As a result, the barrier of the border station remained open to prevent accidents in the dark. "I stopped, gave a short signal, but immediately after no one was visible, I drove on at full throttle" This is how Thanner once described the escape trip to the NSDAP. An officer shouted "Stop" after him a few more times. No shots were fired. So Göring, who was supposed to stay in the Scharnitz inn "Lamm", escaped. Only there was a firemen's ball that night – too many people and too much noise for the wounded man. So Thanner took the putschist to the Hotel Tirol in Innsbruck, where he was taken to the hospital.
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It was not until 1926 that Göring was able to return to Germany, and from 1933 onwards he became one of Hitler's closest and most powerful collaborators. He was jointly responsible for the extermination of the European Jews. He escaped the death sentence of the victorious Allied powers at the Nuremberg Trial by committing suicide.