Young Hitler
The book is divided into two sections: in the first part, a narrative retells the formative years of the young Adolf Hitler between 1907 and 1918, when he lived as a starving artist on the streets and in the asylums of Vienna, and then joined World War I as a volunteer on the Western Front. When the war ends, Hitler comes into contact with members of the Thule Society in Munich, an association of occultists who had launched a political party, the German Workers Party (DAP).The narration ends in 1920 when Hitler takes over the DAP and turns it into the Nazi Party (NSDAP). In an interview with The Guardian, author Claus Hant explained that the events after 1920 are exhaustively documented in the numerous Hitler biographies. But what the biographies do not investigate is the time before then, when Hitler was transformed from inconsequential artist and drifter to towering political leader. Hant says that he has centered Young Hitler deliberately around this momentous transformation. According to Hant, this decisive turning point in Hitler’s life can only be explained satisfactorily now that recent research has unearthed certain previously unknown data and facts.
Julius Schaub
After defeat in World War I, Germany was plunged into bankruptcy, social injustice, poverty, crime and mass unemployment. During these depressing years, Germany saw the creation of a number of extremist political and paramilitary associations, representing both the far-left and the far-right. Amidst this crisis, Schaub decided to join the National Socialist German Workers Party, later commonly known as the Nazi Party; he became member #81. The political program of the party was essentially a rejection of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, antisemitism, and anti-Bolshevism, driven by Adolf Hitler and his world view.