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.
Political views of Adolf Hitler
After World War I, Hitler stayed in the army, which was mainly engaged in suppressing socialist uprisings across Germany, including in Munich, where Hitler returned in 1919. He took part in "national thinking" courses organised by the "Education and Propaganda Department" (Dept Ib/P) of the Bavarian "Reichswehr", Headquarters 4 under Captain Karl Mayr. Mayr recruited Hitler to help re-educate soldiers in the wake of the social revolution occurring across Germany. The aforementioned specialized courses took place at the University of Munich in June 1919, where Hitler heard lectures on Germany's economic situation, the political history of the war and other matters, all delivered in an anti-Bolshevik disposition, inciting him to proselytize nationalist messages to his comrades. These helped popularize the notion that there was a scapegoat responsible for the outbreak of war and Germany's defeat. Hitler's own bitterness over the collapse of the war effort also began to shape his ideology. Like other German nationalists, he believed the "Dolchstoßlegende" (stab-in-the-back myth), which claimed that the German Army, "undefeated in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" on the home front by civilian leaders and Marxists, later dubbed the "November criminals". "International Jewry" was described as a scourge composed of communists relentlessly destroying Germany. Such scapegoating was essential to Hitler's political career, and it seems that he genuinely believed that Jews were responsible for Germany's post-war troubles.