It was 26 February 1924 - the first day of the anticipated high treason trial that would rivet Germany. The star defendant was General Erich Ludendorff, whose series of risky offensives during the First World War doomed the country to defeat. But few people in the courtroom that morning expected that the real star to emerge in the legal drama would be the private first class at his side: Adolf Hitler. On the eve of the trial, Hitler was a minor, if ambitious, local party leader idolised by a small number of supporters. When he unsuccessfully tried to seize power in the notorious Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923, he was charged with treason. But once the trial began, his days of anonymity would be numbered. Based on extensive research, including never-before-published sources, this richly informed and gripping account explains how Hitler used his trial as a stage for Nazi propaganda.