We do know that Hitler spent his birthday wearing a red armband, which all soldiers in Munich were required to wear. We also know that on April 20, d… - Thomas Weber

Yet Hitler managed not to get caught up in the violence directed against real and imagined supporters of the Munich Soviet Republic. According to his friend Ernst Schmidt, he was released again from captivity through the intervention of an officer, who encountered him in the wake of his arrest and who knew him from the front.

Exploiting the fears among Munich’s new rulers about a repeat of the Munich Soviet Republic, [Hitler] volunteered to become an informant for the new masters of the city. By becoming a turncoat, he managed against all odds, not only to escape decommissioning and thus to escape an uncertain future, but also to emerge strengthened from a situation that otherwise might have resulted in deportation to his native Austria, imprisonment, or even death.

It is certainly true that Hitler returned from the war as a man without a compass and embarked on a path of self-discovery. Yet opportunism and expediency and vague political idea coexisted and at times competed with each other, within Hitler.