Despite the fact that the participants in the putsch had shot dead four policemen and staged an armed and (in any reasonable legal terms) treasonable revolt against a legitimately constituted state government, both offences punishable by death, the court sentenced Hitler to a mere five years in prison for high treason, and the others were indicted to similar or even lighter terms. Ludendorff, as expected, was acquitted. The court grounded its leniency in the fact that, as it declared, the participants in the putsch ‘were led in their action by a pure patriotic spirit and the most noble will’.
