Page "Hans von Seeckt" Paragraph 13

After Seeckt had met Adolf Hitler for the first time on 11 March 1923 he wrote: " We were one in our aim ; only our paths were different ".

On the night of September 29 – 30, 1923 the Black Reichswehr under the leadership of Major Buchrucker attempted a putsch.

Seeckt was prompt in his response, ordering the Reichswehr to crush Buschrucker's putsch by laying siege to the forts he had seized outside of Berlin.

After two days, Buchrucker surrendered.

Seeckt firmly resisted Hitler's Putsch on November 8 – 9, 1923, insisting that the Bavarian Division of the Reischswehr remain loyal to the state.

The British historian John Wheeler-Bennett wrote that Seeckt was loyal to the Reich, not the Republic and that ideologically Seeckt sympathized with Erich Ludendorff, Buchrucker and Hitler.

Seeckt was only opposed to the Munich Beerhall putsch and Buckrucker's putsch because the stated aim of the Nazis and the Black Reichswehr was to reject the peaceful settlement of the Ruhrkampf that had been agreed to in September and instead go to war with France in 1923.

Seeckt knowing the most probable outcome of such war preferred that the Weimar Republic stay in existence, at least for the moment when painful compromises were necessary.

Wheeler-Bennett wrote that if there were any chance that Germany could have defeated France in 1923, then Seeckt would had gladly joined forces with the Nazis.

Seeckt strongly opposed the Locarno Treaties which he viewed as appeasement of France and was sceptical of German membership of the League of Nations because he believed it was compromising Germany's connections with the Soviet Union.

In particular, Seeckt objected to joining the League as one of the conditions for League membership was the commitment not to engage in aggression against other League members, something that put something of a damper on Seeckt's plans for aggression against Poland.