The Memoirs of Ernst Röhm

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Consequently, it offers a snapshot of the state of the movement before National Socialism made its great advance and became the movement of destiny. As a result, we get to see what members of the movement thought was important, which consequently magnifies what we may think is unimportant and minimizes what we might think is important.

For example, General Ludendorff plays a far more important role in Rohm's memoirs than one might have thought based on usual history texts. Normally, Ludendorff gots trotted on stage in time for the Beerhall Putsch and then promptly disappears. Rohm depicts Ludendorff as a leader equivalent to Hitler; Hitler is the Fuhrer but Ludendorff is the War Leader. Rohm was very deferential to Ludendorff. Ludendorff managed the Volkisch parties while Hitler was in prison, according to Rohm. Ludendorff gets more mentions in this text than Hitler.

I did not know any of that.

On the other hand, correspondingly, there is not a lot on Hitler in this text. Hitler does get mentioned, and Rohm is complementary to him, but we don't get much information on his involvement in the Volkisch movement.

It is also interesting that Rohm's version of the Putsch had the Bavarian leadership deeply involved. Rohm's opinion was that the Putsch had a substantial chance of success but for the betrayal of the Bavarian political leaders.

Apart from that, though, and a certain flavor of the period, there is a lot of name dropping in this text. Rohm was also an inveterate memo writer and had no reluctance in quoting from his store of memos when necessary.

This is not particularly engrossing reading, but it is primary historical material from an odd moment in history.