For those who don't know this name actually demeans what actually happened. What actually happened was a group of veterans including a very famous one Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff decided to take action against an illegal government that had occupied Berlin for a number of years and suppressed the population and led to horrible economic times in the country. So this group of veterans decided to march on the government. The government lined up machine guns in the streets against this group of veterans. H was not the leader of the group he was one of the participants. The expected leader was the famous world war I veteran Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff As these people marched in the street they were literally gunned down by machine guns in the street by their government. What this resulted in was a large trial of the participants.Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff negotiated a settlement to save their own ass. Instead h was on trial. This trial actually elevated h to a very high level in international politics because it was widely covered by international newspapers all over the world. Unlike others like Ludendorff who stopped and moaned and tried to create excuses h laid out the case for what they were trying to do and the illegal government that was occupying their country for a number of years. After h's personal speech in his own defense he developed a huge following and became internationally well known. His following was so popular after his speech that when he was sentenced to prison he was given a very very cushy jail cell which was really more like an apartment suite and his supporters and friends were allowed to gather. This was where of course he famously wrote his famous book. He developed such a huge following that upon release he became the political leader of germany. From that point on it was only a matter of time before his party grew because it was the populist party it was the party of the people and it was the party of right against wrong. Without this incident this march down the street and without their government gunning them down with machine guns h never would have been able to rise to the level of authority and legitimacy that he gained because that trial gave him the international and the national platform to tell his people who was for them and who was against them.