In becoming a turncoat, Hitler was far from unique. In fact, at the time Munich was full of turncoats. For example, some former members of the Red Ar… - Thomas Weber

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.

More important than what I think about Hitler’s performance as a soldier during the war is what the other members of Hitler’s unit thought of him. A letter I found through serendipity in the US National Archives testifies that frontline soldiers in the trenches considered Hitler an Etappenschwein (‘rear area pig’), as they thought that, unlike them, he had landed a cushy job with regimental HQ a few miles behind the front. The reason this is so important is because it puts a lie to the orthodox view that Hitler was a typical product of his wartime unit.

As the rope tightened around the neck of the Soviet Republic in late April, life for any real or perceived counterrevolutionaries left in Munich grew very dangerous indeed. For instance, on April 29 and the following day, revolutionaries showed up at the neoclassical palace on Brienner Straße that housed the papal nunciature, entering the building and threatening the nuncio, Eugenio Pacelli, with guns, daggers and even hand grenades. Pacelli was hit so hard in his chest with a revolver that it deformed the cross that he carried on a chain around his neck. The attack on the future Pope Pius XII was not the only reported case of aborted action taken against real or perceived adversaries of the Soviet Union.