Adolf Hitler's bodyguard
When Hitler returned to Munich from military service in 1918, he became a member of the Nazi Party, an extremist far-right political party in Bavaria. In 1921, he was elected leader of the party. As his speeches promoted violence and racism, Hitler needed permanent security.
Nazi Germany
The NSDAP was a far-right political party which arose during the social and financial upheavals that occurred following the end of World War I. The NSDAP remained small and marginalised, managing 2.6% of the federal vote in 1928, prior to the on-set of the Great Depression in 1929. By 1930 the NSDAP won 18.3% of the federal vote, making it the Reichstag's second largest political party. While in prison after the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf", which laid out his plan for transforming German society into one based on race. Nazi ideology brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more "Lebensraum" for the Germanic people. The regime attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were viewed as being inferior to the Aryan master race and part of a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. The Nazi regime believed that only Germany could defeat the forces of Bolshevism and save humanity from world domination by International Jewry. Others deemed life unworthy of life by the Nazis included the mentally and physically disabled, Romani people, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and social misfits.