What political party did Hitler belong to?
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.
List of Warrior Nun Areala characters
National Socialism, or Nazism for short, was a German political movement begun in 1919 and that quickly became identified with Adolf Hitler, a German corporal originally sent to spy on the organization by German intelligence but who ultimately became its leader. Hitler and his "Nazis" quickly rose to power; this was due in part to Hitler's promises of revenge against the Allies for the Versailles Treaty which humiliated a defeated Germany in World War I, his scapegoating of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and other Untermenschen for said defeat, by providing jobs for unemployed Germans amidst the Great Depression, and appealing to German racial pride. In the decades since its fall Nazism has come to be seen as synonymous with evil; it is fact that, in real life, Nazism did have some occult undercurrents though this was of overall minor importance.
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.
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth (German: , often abbreviated as HJ in German) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins dated back to 1922 and it received the name "Hitler-Jugend, Bund deutscher Arbeiterjugend" ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1933 until 1945, it was the sole official youth organisation in Germany and was partially a paramilitary organisation; it was composed of the Hitler Youth proper for male youths aged 14 to 18, the German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth ("Deutsches Jungvolk in der Hitler Jugend" or "DJ", also "DJV") for younger boys aged 10 to 14, and the League of German Girls ("Bund Deutsche Mädel" or "BDM").
Max Ilgner
Ilgner was offered membership of the Nazi Party in 1933 but refused on the grounds that he wished to retain his membership of Rotary International, an organisation that Joseph Goebbels had declared incompatible with Nazism. Nevertheless, Ilgner was happy to work closely with the fledgling Nazi regime and encouraged public support for Nazism by the company's factory workers. He also worked with Goebbels in an attempt to get the Minister of Propaganda to tone down some of his rhetoric, which Ilgner believed was damaging Germany's reputation internationally, an initiative which initially enjoyed some success until Goebells became angry at Ilgner telling him what to do and broke off communication. Undeterred Ilgner hired the services of the American public relations expert Ivy Lee to improve the reputation of Adolf Hitler on the world stage. After Lee's initial suggestion, the dropping of anti-Semitism, was rejected out of turn by Hitler, they agreed on a programme of presenting Germany as a welcoming, historical destination to American investors whilst also plotting a policy of arranging for pro-Hitler articles to be added to American newspapers. Ilgner's work was criticised by other "Vorstand" members, who felt that he was undertaking too much government propaganda and not enough work for IG Farben, but his initiatives won Hitler's approval and increasingly IG Farben's overseas offices also became centres of Nazi Party propaganda. In return Ilgner was able to boost IG Farben's contracts with the government, notably their fading Leuna arm which was rejuvenated considerably when Ilgner was able to use contacts in the Reichswehr's Weapons Office to secure for this branch of the company the contract to produce fuel for the Luftwaffe, which was being covertly built up in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles but which would have been discovered had they been forced to import large quantities of aircraft fuel. According to Ilgner's much later claims his influence amongst the Nazi hierarchy even saved the life of Gattineau on Night of the Long Knives after his fellow executive had been arrested due to his membership of the "Sturmabteilung" and his friendship with Ernst Röhm. Ilgner would finally join the Nazi Party in 1937.
Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp
Prior to the Reichstag vote for the Enabling Act under which Hitler gained the "temporary" dictatorial powers with which he went on to permanently dismantle the Weimar Republic, Hitler promised the Reichstag on 23 March 1933, that he would not interfere with the rights of the churches. However, with power secured in Germany, Hitler quickly broke this promise. He divided the Lutheran Church (Germany's main Protestant denomination) and instigated a brutal persecution of the Jehovah's Witnesses. He dishonoured a Concordat signed with the Vatican and permitted a persecution of the Catholic Church in Germany. The long term plan was to "de-Christianise Germany after the final victory". The Nazis co-opted the term Gleichschaltung to mean conformity and subservience to the National Socialist German Workers' Party line: "there was to be no law but Hitler, and ultimately no god but Hitler". Within a short period, the Nazi government's conflict with the churches had become a source of great bitterness in Germany.
Hermann Röchling
Röchling met Adolf Hitler in 1933 and promoted formation of the "German Front" in the Saar at Hitler's suggestion.
After the expiry of the League of Nations mandate over the Saar in 1935, Hermann Röchling committed himself to the return of Saarland to Germany.
Röchling was violently antisemitic, and when the Nazis temporarily reduced their attacks on Jews before the January 1935 plebiscite on the return he protested that the Saar risked turning into a "Jewish nature reserve".
Röchling joined the Nazi Party in 1935.
In 1935 he was appointed to the Reich's Armament Advisory Board (Rustungsbeirat).
Hermann Röchling was a confidant of Hitler, who valued his knowledge of industry. 
Röchling wrote several memoranda for Hitler.
In his "Thoughts on the Preparation for the War and Its Implementation" in August 1936 he urged Hitler to declare war on the Soviet Union.
Ernst Schmidt
Schmidt was an eager member of Hitlerjugend and served as a soldier on the easternt front during the Second World War. After being taken prisoner of war, he attended a Comintern indoctrination school in the Soviet Union and became a fanatical stalinist prior to his return to Germany. After the war, he joined the Communist Party of Germany, which was banned by the West German government in 1956. In the 1950s, Schmidt was one of the publishers of the newspaper "Der Ruhrbote", which supported the then-banned Communist Party. For this reason he was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment for anti-constitutional activities. He served six months and was released on parole. In 1968 he joined the German Communist Party.
Nazism
Within the Nazi Party, the faction associated with anti-capitalist beliefs was the Sturmabteilung (SA), a paramilitary wing led by Ernst Röhm. The SA had a complicated relationship with the rest of the party, giving both Röhm himself and local SA leaders significant autonomy. Different local leaders would even promote different political ideas in their units, including "nationalistic, socialistic, anti-Semitic, racist, völkisch, or conservative ideas." There was tension between the SA and Hitler, especially from 1930 onward, as Hitler's "increasingly close association with big industrial interests and traditional rightist forces" caused many in the SA to distrust him. The SA regarded Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 as a "first revolution" against the left, and some voices within the ranks began arguing for a "second revolution" against the right. After engaging in violence against the left in 1933, Röhm's SA also began attacks against individuals deemed to be associated with conservative reaction. Hitler saw Röhm's independent actions as violating and possibly threatening his leadership, as well as jeopardising the regime by alienating the conservative President Paul von Hindenburg and the conservative-oriented German Army. This resulted in Hitler purging Röhm and other radical members of the SA in 1934, during the Night of the Long Knives.
Georg Ledebour
Ledebour remained in the USPD after the splits in that party in 1920-22, when most of the membership merged with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1920, and most of the rest merged with the SPD in 1922. In 1931 he joined the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD). He went into exile in Switzerland after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and died in Bern in 1947 after a long illness.
Albert Hensel
Hitler became agitated by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) after the Reichstag fire on February 23, 1933. The fire was started by Marinus van der Lubbe who was accused of being one of many communist agitators; however, a trial in March 1933 determined van der Lubbe acted alone. The Reichstag fire caused Hitler to create the Enabling Act which removed habeas corpus and many other civil liberties, providing Hitler with dictatorial control over Germany. Hitler quickly established a plan to execute any person who was working against the Nazi party and twice extended the act beyond its initial 1937 expiration. The Enabling Act also allowed Hitler to rule that all competing political parties of the Nazi regime were illegal. Albert Hensel and his co-conspirators did not have the strength to outwardly fight against Hitler, so they took a secretive approach to resisting. The German police were secretive in their counter efforts as well. The resisters were often not well received by the German populace and had to also hide their actions from them in fear of the citizens informing the police of their actions.
Adolf Hitler in popular culture
Adolf Hitler (born April 20th 1889 died April 30th 1945) was the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and Chancellor of Nazi Germany from 1933 (Führer from 1934) to 1945. Hitler has been represented in popular culture ever since he became a well-known politician in Germany. His distinctive image was often parodied by his opponents. Parodies became much more prominent outside Germany during his period in power. Since the end of World War II representations of Hitler, both serious and satirical, have continued to be prominent in popular culture, sometimes generating significant controversy. In many periodicals, books, and movies, Hitler and Nazism fulfill the role of archetypal evil. This treatment is not confined to fiction but is widespread amongst nonfiction writers who have discussed him in this vein. Hitler has retained a fascination from other perspectives; among many comparable examples is an exhibition at the German Historical Museum which was widely attended.
Etschberg
In the early 1930s, the Nazi Party (NSDAP) became somewhat popular in Etschberg. In the 1930 Reichstag elections, 11% of the local votes went to Adolf Hitler’s party while 52.5% went to the Communists. By the time of the 1933 Reichstag elections, after Hitler had already seized power, local support for the Nazis had swollen to 35.9% while the Communists’ share of the vote had risen slightly to 54.7%. The Nazis nevertheless prevailed in the end, and Hitler's success in these elections paved the way for his Enabling Act of 1933 ("Ermächtigungsgesetz"), thus starting the Third Reich in earnest. Among other things, Hitler banned the Communist Party of Germany.
Nazism
The "Sturmabteilung" (SA) and the "Schutzstaffel" (SS) functioned as the paramilitary organizations of the Nazi Party. Using the SS for the task, Hitler purged the party's more socially and economically radical factions in the mid-1934 Night of the Long Knives, including the leadership of the SA. After the death of President Hindenburg, political power was concentrated in Hitler's hands and he became Germany's head of state as well as the head of the government, with the title of "Führer", meaning "leader". From that point, Hitler was effectively the dictator of Nazi Germany, which was also known as the "Third Reich", under which Jews, political opponents and other "undesirable" elements were marginalized, imprisoned or murdered. Many millions of people were eventually exterminated in a genocide which became known as the Holocaust during World War II, including around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe.
Hitler family
The Hitler family comprises the relatives and ancestors of Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945), an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party ("Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei", abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party. He was dictator of Germany, holding the titles Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and served as head of state as "Führer und Reichskanzler" from 1934 to 1945. He is noted for his central role in the rise of fascism in Germany, provoking the start of World War II, and the death of millions of people in the Holocaust.
Wilhelm Keitel
As a military officer, Keitel was prohibited by law from joining the NSDAP (Nazi Party). However, after the "Wehrmacht"s rapid early successes on the Russian Front, he was given a "Golden" (Honorary) NSDAP membership badge by Hitler, who was seeking to link military successes to political successes. In 1944, German laws were changed and military officers were encouraged to seek NSDAP membership. At the Nuremberg Trials, Keitel claimed he did so as a formality, but never received formal party membership. He was one of only two people to receive honorary party membership status (Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank, was the other).
Political views of Adolf Hitler
While he studied the activities of the German Workers' Party (DAP), Hitler became impressed with founder Anton Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas. Drexler was impressed with Hitler's oratory skills, and invited him to join the DAP on 12 September 1919. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party, and within a week was accepted as party member 555 (the party began counting membership at 500 to give the impression they were a much larger party). Hitler, in his work "Mein Kampf", later claimed to be the seventh party member (he was in fact the seventh executive member of the Party's central committee).
Centre Party (Germany)
In the early days of the Weimar Republic, the Centre Party was the second-largest party in the Reichstag. After the Reichstag Fire in early 1933, the Centre Party was one of the ones who voted for the Enabling Act, which granted dictatorial powers to Adolf Hitler. By this vote, the Centre Party effectively destroyed itself, as the Nazi Party became the only legally permitted party in the country shortly thereafter.
Rommel myth
Rommel was not a member of the Nazi Party. However, Rommel, as did other Wehrmacht officers, welcomed Hitler's seizure of power. During his time in Goslar, he clashed with those "Sturmabteilung" (SA) men who attacked the Jews and others who supported them. Rommel thus showed sympathy towards Hitler's elimination of the SA, believing the worst was now over, although he opined that in the future the Führer should learn to see his own true strength and refrain from such illegal processes. Remy dated Rommel's support for Hitler as 1935, noting a speech in which Rommel praised Hitler for restoring German's self-respect and establishment of the way towards an honourable and righteous peace, as well as efforts in alleviating the disadvantaged people's problems. Numerous historians, such as Ralf Georg Reuth, David T. Zabecki, Bruce Allen Watson and Peter Caddick-Adams, state that Rommel was one of Hitler's favorite generals and that his close relationship with the dictator benefited both his inter-war and war-time career. Historian Robert Citino describes Rommel as "not apolitical" and writes that he owed his career to Hitler, to whom his attitude was "worshipful", while the historian Charles Messenger describes Rommel's "growing admiration" towards Hitler following the invasion of Poland. Speaking at The National WWII Museum's 2012 International Conference on World War II, the author Nigel Hamilton referred to Rommel as "quite a Nazi". This sympathy did not extend to the Party though. In this regard, he was similar to many other Wehrmacht soldiers, who, with encouragement from Hitler, erroneously believed the army to be the most important element of the regime. Rommel showed particular resentment towards the SA and later, the SS, for their brutality and absorption of resources and personnel.
Hugo Wenzel
In January 1933 the NSDAP (Nazi Party) took power and lost little time in switching to one-party government in Germany. While all political parties other than the Nazi Party were banned, the new chancellor, Adolf Hitler was particularly vitriolic in his opposition to the Communist Party. In February 1933 Wenzel moved to Berlin and "went underground". He made his apartment available to the Communist Party "Anti-military group", which was a cover for a party news agency, under the leadership of , to whom Wenzel was related. In July 1933 Wenzel was arrested and detained in a series of prisons and concentration camps. Although he was being held under investigative pretrial detention, in May 1934 he was unexpectedly released due to "lack of evidence". He then worked at the Siemens-Schuckert plant in Berlin. War returned in 1939. Wenzel was rearrested and held at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He was again accused in connection with the party "Anti-military group". Wenzel was by now suffering badly with Pulmonary tuberculosis, and on 24 January 1940 he died in the concentration camp.
Politischer Arbeiter-Zirkel
While Harrer believed there was something to be said for keeping the "Politischer Arbeiter-Zirkel" small and secretive, Drexler wanted to have a bigger audience and work on the spread of his ideals. Drexler wanted to make it a political party. Ultimately, Drexler proposed the creation of the German Workers' Party. With the uniting of the "Politischer Arbeiter-Zirkel" with the Workers' Committee, the German Workers' Party ("Deutsche Arbeiterpartei"; DAP) was founded. Besides Drexler and Harrer, founding members included Gottfried Feder and Dietrich Eckart. It met for the first time on January 5, 1919 in the hotel "Fürstenfelder Hof" in Munich. Drexler's vision for the party increasingly came into conflict with Harrer's. Harrer wished to ensure that an elite 'inner circle' remained in control of the party, while Drexler wanted to expand it into a mass movement. When Adolf Hitler joined the party, Drexler's position was strengthened. Hitler and Drexler worked on a new constitution to marginalise the role of the "Politischer Arbeiter-Zirkel". Harrer was outvoted, and resigned from the party. The DAP was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party ("Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei"; NSDAP) on February 24, 1920.
Political views of Adolf Hitler
Hitler blamed Germany's parliamentary government for many of the nation's ills. The Nazis and Hitler especially, associated democracy with the failed Weimar government and the punitive Treaty of Versailles. Hitler often denounced democracy, equating it with internationalism. Since democratic ideals espoused equality for all men, it represented to Hitler and his Nazi ideologues the notion of mob rule and the hatred of excellence. Not only was democracy antithetical to their social-Darwinist abstractions, but its international-capitalist framework was considered an exclusively Jewish-derived conception. Hitler also thought democracy was nothing more than a preliminary stage of Bolshevism.
Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party
Heinrich Himmler was a senior member of the Nazi Party and is most well known as the "Reichsfuhrer-SS"; as a result, most of Himmler's attire is connected to his SS uniform. In addition to being "Reichsführer-SS" and a "Reichsleiter", towards the end of World War II he held numerous high level positions including Commander of the Replacement Home Army and General Plenipotentiary for the entire Reich's administration "(Generalbevollmächtigter für die Verwaltung)". Himmler however, never chose to wear a Nazi Party uniform and all photographs of him are in either civilian clothes or in his SS uniform.
Gottfried Feder
That year, Feder, together with Anton Drexler, Dietrich Eckart and Karl Harrer, were involved in the founding of the "Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" (German Workers' Party-DAP). Adolf Hitler met him in the summer of 1919 while he was in an anti-Bolshevik training course at Munich university—funded by the army and organized by Major Karl Mayr—and Feder became his mentor in finance and economics. He helped to inspire Hitler's opposition to "Jewish finance capitalism." Delivering political courses alongside Feder was Karl Alexander von Müller (son of Bavaria's Culture Minister) who spotted Hitler's oratorical ability and forwarded his name as a political instructor for the army—an important step in Hitler's career.
Adolf Hitler
In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the NSDAP in Munich. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP). Hitler returned to Munich on 11 July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that the resignation of their leading public figure and speaker would mean the end of the party. Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich. The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26 July as member 3,680. Hitler continued to face some opposition within the NSDAP: Opponents of Hitler in the leadership had Hermann Esser expelled from the party, and they printed 3,000 copies of a pamphlet attacking Hitler as a traitor to the party. In the following days, Hitler spoke to several packed houses and defended himself and Esser, to thunderous applause. His strategy proved successful, and at a special party congress on 29 July, he was granted absolute powers as party chairman, replacing Drexler, by a vote of 533to1.
Artur Dinter
Dinter's thinking in the years after the war became steadily more radical and more racist. In 1919, he had already taken part in founding the "Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund" and was in its leadership until it was banned in 1922. Thereafter he became a founding member of the "Deutsch-Völkische Freiheitspartei" ("German- Peoples Freedom Party") and forged closer ties with Adolf Hitler. After the Beerhall Putsch in Munich in 1923, Dinter was elected in 1924 to the Thuringian "Landtag" as a representative of the electoral alliance "Völkisch-Sozialer Block" ("Peoples Social Bloc"), also becoming factional leader. He drew ever nearer the Nazi Party's position. Hitler appointed him NSDAP State Leader of Thuringia right after getting out of prison at Landsberg am Lech. At the same time, Dinter became publisher of the newspaper "Der Nationalsozialist", which appeared in Weimar. He fell out with his former associates from the VSB, leading to his expulsion from that party. In 1925, after Hitler had been released early from prison after the Putsch, the Nazi Party was founded once again after having been disbanded after the débâcle in Munich. For his "loyalty" to the Party, Dinter received the single-digit membership number "5".
Death of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and "Führer" ("Leader") of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. He killed himself by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his "Führerbunker" in Berlin. Eva Braun, his wife of one day, committed suicide with him by taking cyanide. In accordance with Hitler's prior written and verbal instructions, that afternoon their remains were carried up the stairs through the bunker's emergency exit, doused in petrol, and set alight in the Reich Chancellery garden outside the bunker. Records in the Soviet archives show that their burnt remains were recovered and interred in successive locations until 1946. In 1970, they were again exhumed, cremated, and the ashes scattered.
Religious views of Adolf Hitler
Once in office, Hitler and his regime sought to reduce the influence of Christianity on society. From the mid-1930s, his government was increasingly dominated by militant anti-church proponents like Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler, Rosenberg and Heydrich whom Hitler appointed to key posts. These anti-church radicals were generally permitted or encouraged to perpetrate the Nazi persecutions of the churches. The regime launched an effort toward coordination of German Protestants under a unified Protestant Reich Church (but this was resisted by the Confessing Church), and moved early to eliminate political Catholicism. Hitler agreed to the Reich concordat with the Vatican, but then routinely ignored it, and permitted persecutions of the Catholic Church. Smaller religious minorities faced harsher repression, with the Jews of Germany expelled for extermination on the grounds of Nazi racial ideology. Jehovah's Witnesses were ruthlessly persecuted for refusing both military service and allegiance to Hitler's movement. Hitler said he anticipated a coming collapse of Christianity in the wake of scientific advances, and that Nazism and religion could not co-exist long term. Although he was prepared to delay conflicts for political reasons, historians conclude that he ultimately intended the destruction of Christianity in Germany, or at least its distortion or subjugation to a Nazi outlook.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
In July 1919 Hitler was appointed "Verbindungsmann" (intelligence agent) of an "Aufklärungskommando" (reconnaissance commando) of the "Reichswehr", both to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). The DAP had been formed by Anton Drexler, Karl Harrer and others, through amalgamation of other groups, on 5 January 1919 at a small gathering in Munich at the restaurant Fuerstenfelder Hof. While he studied the activities of the DAP, Hitler became impressed with Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas.
Heinrich Harrer
In 1996 the ORF-editor and filmmaker Gerald Lehner found in American archives the membership card of Harrer joining the Sturmabteilung (SA) in October 1933. After the Anschluss of March 1938, as Germany annexed Austria, he joined the "Schutzstaffel" (SS) on 1 April. He held the rank of "Oberscharführer" (Sergeant), and on 1 May he became a member of the Nazi Party. After their ascent of the Eiger North Face the four climbers were received by and photographed with Adolf Hitler. Harrer later said he wore his SS uniform only once, the day of his marriage to Charlotte Wegener, daughter of the eminent explorer and scholar Alfred Wegener. After returning to Europe in 1952, Harrer was cleared of any pre-war crimes and this was later supported by Simon Wiesenthal. In his memoir, "Beyond Seven Years in Tibet", Harrer called his involvement with the Nazi Party a mistake made in his youth when he had not yet learned to think for himself.
Adolf Hitler
The Great Depression provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent about the parliamentary republic, which faced challenges from right- and left-wing extremists. The moderate political parties were increasingly unable to stem the tide of extremism, and the German referendum of 1929 helped to elevate Nazi ideology. The elections of September 1930 resulted in the break-up of a grand coalition and its replacement with a minority cabinet. Its leader, chancellor Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party, governed through emergency decrees from President Paul von Hindenburg. Governance by decree became the new norm and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government. The NSDAP rose from obscurity to win 18.3 percent of the vote and 107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election, becoming the second-largest party in parliament.
Religious aspects of Nazism
Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs have been a matter of debate; the wide consensus of historians consider him to have been irreligious, anti-Christian, anti-clerical and scientistic. In light of evidence such as his fierce criticism and vocal rejection of the tenets of Christianity, numerous private statements to confidants denouncing Christianity as a harmful superstition, and his strenuous efforts to reduce the influence and independence of Christianity in Germany after he came to power, Hitler's major academic biographers conclude that he was irreligious and an opponent of Christianity. Historian Laurence Rees found no evidence that "Hitler, in his personal life, ever expressed belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church". Ernst Hanfstaengl, a friend from his early days in politics, says Hitler "was to all intents and purposes an atheist by the time I got to know him". However, historians such as Richard Weikart and Alan Bullock doubt the assessment that he was a true atheist, suggesting that despite his dislike of Christianity he still clung to a form of spiritual belief.
Adolf Hitler's Munich apartment
After Hitler was discharged from the German Army in March 1920, he returned to Munich and went to work full-time for the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party), which was headquartered in that city. He rented a small bedroom at Thierschstrasse 41 from 1920 to 1929. Later, he rented a second room to use as an office. In 1936, the Munich city council placed a plaque on the building which read, "Adolf Hitler lived in this house from 1 May 1920 to 5 October 1929". The building still stands; Hitler's former room is used for storage.
Friedrich Wend zu Eulenburg
As a monarchist, Eulenburg was a member of and involved with the conservative German National People's Party (DNVP). He soon realised, however, that the influence of the large landowners could only be maintained if they had broad basis of support amongst the masses. He saw in the Nazi Party (NSDAP), that had already outdistanced the DNVP during the 1930 elections, a political force that could secure this broad popular consent. He therefore met with Adolf Hitler in 1931 in order to address the interests of the big landowners:
Sudeten German Party
In the parliamentary election of May 1935, the SdP with 1,249,534 (15.2%) of the votes became the strongest of all parties in Czechoslovakia. The party had won about 68% of the German votes, thus surpassing the German Social Democratic Workers Party, the German Christian Social People's Party and the Farmers' League. Meanwhile, the influence exerted by the German Nazi dictatorship became stronger and after 1935 several groups within the party were financed by Germany. In November 1937 Adolf Hitler openly declared - according to the Hossbach Memorandum - his intention to separate the Sudetenland from the Czechoslovak state. The SdP officially coordinated this policy with Nazi leaders in order to integrate the German-speaking parts of Bohemia and Moravia into the German Reich.
Helmut Brandt (CDU politician in East Germany)
In 1945 there was a widespread assumption that the destruction of Nazi Germany should open the way for a return to multi-party democracy. Helmut Brandt was a founder member of the Christian Democratic Union ("Christlich-Demokratische Union " / CDU), intended as a slightly more broadly based version of the DVP that had existed before the abolition, in 1933, of parliamentary democracy. He quickly became the party's expert on legal issues. The next year, however, April 1946 saw the creation of a new political party within the Soviet occupation zone, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED), formed through a contentious merger of the old German Communist Party and (many of the elements of) the more moderately left-wing Social Democratic Party. During the next few years the authorities sought to move towards a new one-party dictatorship, not by banning the other political parties but by controlling them. This was achieved by placing them all into an umbrella organisation known as the National Front and itself controlled by the SED (party). In the end it was only in the Soviet occupation zone (reinvented, formally in October 1949, as the German Democratic Republic / East Germany) that a return to single-party dictatorship was achieved, and even here implementation of the strategy was far from smooth, and stretched out over several years. With the CDU in his part of Germany increasingly under state pressure from without and infiltrated within, in 1948 Helmut Brandt joined the pro-Soviet District Federation (""Landesverband"") in the eastern sector of Berlin. In West Berlin this led to accusations that he was leading a split of the CDU which still saw itself as a single political party across all the allied occupation zones in what was left of Germany after 1945. It was also in 1948 that Helmut Brandt was appointed as one of the 45 CDU members of the first and co-opted as a member of the assembly committee charged with drawing up a new constitution. By this time. however, the CDU leadership in the Soviet occupation zone was undergoing internal fragmentation, dividing those who, for various reasons, were prepared to collaborate, whether willingly or not, with the constitutional developments being implemented by the ruling SED (party) from those, such as Georg Dertinger and Helmut Brandt, who were less so. On account of his "bourgeois-conservative" propensities Brandt now found himself forced out of positions of influence within the CDU, notably by of the East German party's collaborationist wing. It was Gohr who replaced him as chairman of the District Federation (""Landesverband"") in what was becoming known as the Soviet sector of Berlin.
Weimar Republic
On 29 January, Hitler and Papen thwarted a last-minute threat of an officially sanctioned "Reichswehr" takeover, and on 30 January 1933 Hindenburg accepted the new Papen-Nationalist-Hitler coalition, with the Nazis holding only three of eleven Cabinet seats: Hitler as Chancellor, Wilhelm Frick as Minister of the Interior and Hermann Göring as Minister Without Portfolio. Later that day, the first cabinet meeting was attended by only two political parties, representing a minority in the "Reichstag": The Nazis and the German National People's Party (DNVP), led by Alfred Hugenberg, with 196 and 52 seats respectively. Eyeing the Catholic Centre Party's 70 (plus 20 BVP) seats, Hitler refused their leader's demands for constitutional "concessions" (amounting to protection) and planned for dissolution of the "Reichstag".
Adolf Hitler
At the time of Hitler's release from prison, politics in Germany had become less combative and the economy had improved, limiting Hitler's opportunities for political agitation. As a result of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, the Nazi Party and its affiliated organisations were banned in Bavaria. In a meeting with the Prime Minister of Bavaria Heinrich Held on 4 January 1925, Hitler agreed to respect the state's authority and promised that he would seek political power only through the democratic process. The meeting paved the way for the ban on the NSDAP to be lifted on 16 February. However, after an inflammatory speech he gave on 27 February, Hitler was barred from public speaking by the Bavarian authorities, a ban that remained in place until 1927. To advance his political ambitions in spite of the ban, Hitler appointed Gregor Strasser, Otto Strasser and Joseph Goebbels to organise and enlarge the NSDAP in northern Germany. Gregor Strasser steered a more independent political course, emphasising the socialist elements of the party's programme.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after the parliamentary elections of July and November 1932 had not resulted in the formation of a majority government. Hitler headed a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and the German National People's Party (DNVP).
Religious views of Adolf Hitler
While a small minority of historians accept these publicly stated views as genuine expressions of his spirituality, the vast majority believe that Hitler was skeptical of religion and anti-Christian, but recognized that he could only be elected and preserve his political power if he feigned a commitment to and belief in Christianity, which the overwhelming majority of Germans believed in. Privately, Hitler repeatedly deprecated Christianity, and told confidants that his reluctance to make public attacks on the Church was not a matter of principle, but a pragmatic political move. In his private diaries, Goebbels wrote in April 1941 that though Hitler was "a fierce opponent" of the Vatican and Christianity, "he forbids me to leave the church. For tactical reasons." Hitler's remarks to confidants, as described in the Goebbels Diaries, the memoirs of Albert Speer, and transcripts of Hitler's private conversations recorded by Martin Bormann in "Hitler's Table Talk", are further evidence of his irreligious and anti-Christian beliefs; these sources record a number of private remarks in which Hitler ridicules Christian doctrine as absurd, contrary to scientific advancement, and socially destructive.
Karl Mayr
In his capacity as head of the intelligence department, Mayr recruited Adolf Hitler as an undercover agent in early June 1919. Hitler's role involved informing on soldiers suspected of communist sympathies. Hitler took part in "national thinking" courses at the Reichswehrlager Lechfeld near Augsburg which were organized by the Bavarian "Reichswehr" under Captain Mayr. Mayr believed demoralized and Bolshevized forces should be taught national sentiments. After this training Mayr issued Hitler the order to become "anti-Bolshevik educational speaker" to the soldiers at the Munich barracks. Furthermore, Hitler was sent as an observer to the numerous meetings of the various newly formed political parties in Munich. Hitler spent much time at the meetings and wrote reports on the political ideas, goals and methods of the groups. This included studying the activities of the DAP (German Workers' Party). Hitler became impressed with founder Anton Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas. Drexler was impressed with Hitler's oratory skills and invited him to join the DAP, which Hitler accepted on 12 September 1919. After attending a further meeting on 3 October, Hitler stated to Mayr in his report "must join this club or party, as these were the thoughts of the soldiers from the front-line".
Hitler Cabinet
The Hitler Cabinet "de jure" formed the government of Nazi Germany between 30 January 1933 and 30 April 1945 upon the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of the German Reich by president Paul von Hindenburg. Contrived by the national conservative politician Franz von Papen, who reserved the office of the Vice-Chancellor for himself. Originally, Hitler's first cabinet was called the Reich Cabinet of National Salvation, which was a coalition of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP), it became an exclusively Nazi cabinet when the DNVP was intimidated into dissolving itself.
Religious views of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs have been a matter of debate; the wide consensus of historians consider him to have been irreligious, anti-Christian, anti-clerical and scientistic. In light of evidence such as his fierce criticism and vocal rejection of the tenets of Christianity, numerous private statements to confidants denouncing Christianity as a harmful superstition, and his strenuous efforts to reduce the influence and independence of Christianity in Germany after he came to power, Hitler's major academic biographers conclude that he was irreligious and an opponent of Christianity. Historian Laurence Rees found no evidence that "Hitler, in his personal life, ever expressed belief in the basic tenets of the Christian church". Ernst Hanfstaengl, a friend from his early days in politics, says Hitler "was to all intents and purposes an atheist by the time I got to know him". However, historians such as Richard Weikart and Alan Bullock doubt the assessment that he was a true atheist, suggesting that despite his dislike of Christianity he still clung to a form of spiritual belief.
Beer Hall Putsch
Hitler remained in the army, in Munich, after World War I. He participated in various "national thinking" courses. These had been organised by the Education and Propaganda Department of the Bavarian Army, under Captain Karl Mayr, of which Hitler became an agent. Captain Mayr ordered Hitler, then an army lance corporal, to infiltrate the tiny "Deutsche Arbeiterpartei", abbreviated DAP (German Workers' Party). Hitler joined the DAP on 12 September 1919. He soon realised that he was in agreement with many of the underlying tenets of the DAP, and he rose to its top post in the ensuing chaotic political atmosphere of postwar Munich. By agreement, Hitler assumed the political leadership of a number of Bavarian "patriotic associations" (revanchist), called the "Kampfbund". This political base extended to include about 15,000 Sturmabteilung (SA, lit. "Storm Detachment"), the paramilitary wing of the NSDAP.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
A middle-class liberal party strong enough to block the Nazis did not exist – the People's Party and the Democrats suffered severe losses to the Nazis at the polls. The Social Democrats were essentially a conservative trade union party, with ineffectual leadership. The Catholic Centre Party maintained its voting block, but was preoccupied with defending its own particular interests and, wrote Bullock: "through 1932-3 ... was so far from recognizing the danger of a Nazi dictatorship that it continued to negotiate with the Nazis". The Communists meanwhile were engaging in violent clashes with Nazis on the streets, but Moscow had directed the Communist Party to prioritise destruction of the Social Democrats, seeing more danger in them as a rival for the loyalty of the working class. Nevertheless, wrote Bullock, the heaviest responsibility lay with the German right wing, who "forsook a true conservatism" and made Hitler their partner in a coalition government.
Religion in Nazi Germany
In a speech made during the negotiations for the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933, Hitler argued against secular schools, stating: "Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith." One of the groups closed down by the Nazi regime was the German Freethinkers League. Christians appealed to Hitler to end anti-religious and anti-Church propaganda promulgated by Free Thinkers, and within Hitler's Nazi Party some atheists were quite vocal in their anti-Christian views, especially Martin Bormann. Heinrich Himmler, who himself was fascinated with Germanic paganism, was a strong promoter of the "gottgläubig" movement and he did not allow atheists into the SS, arguing that their "refusal to acknowledge higher powers" would be a "potential source of indiscipline". In the SS, Himmler announced: "We believe in a God Almighty who stands above us; he has created the earth, the Fatherland, and the Volk, and he has sent us the Führer. Any human being who does not believe in God should be considered arrogant, megalomaniacal, and stupid and thus not suited for the SS." He also declared: "As National Socialists, we believe in a Godly worldview."
Karl Harrer
Harrer became increasingly unhappy with the direction in which the party was going after Adolf Hitler became an influential force within it. Early in 1920, Hitler moved to sever the party's link with the Thule Society and to redefine the policies of the DAP. On 24 February 1920 in the "Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München", Hitler for the first time enunciated the twenty-five points of the German Worker's Party's manifesto that had been drawn up by Drexler, Feder and Hitler. In addition, to increase its appeal to larger segments of the population, the DAP changed its name to the "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" (National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party). Such was the significance of the move in expanding the party's public profile that Harrer resigned from the party in disagreement as he had always believed that it should be a semi-secret elite group rather than a mass popular movement. The Thule Society subsequently fell into decline and was dissolved about five years later, well before Hitler came to power.
Economy of Nazi Germany
Many business leaders welcomed Hitler's rise to power due to his anti-Communist and anti-trade union stance. The month after being appointed Chancellor, Hitler made a personal appeal to German business leaders to help fund the Nazi Party for the crucial months that were to follow. He argued that they should support him in establishing a dictatorship because "private enterprise cannot be maintained in the age of democracy" and because democracy would allegedly lead to communism. In the following weeks, the Nazi Party received contributions from seventeen different business groups, with the largest coming from IG Farben and Deutsche Bank. Many of these businesses continued to support Hitler even during the war and even profited from persecution of the Jews. The most infamous being firms like Krupp, IG Farben, and some large automobile manufacturers. Historian Adam Tooze writes that the leaders of German business were therefore "willing partners in the destruction of political pluralism in Germany." In exchange, owners and managers of German businesses were granted unprecedented powers to control their workforce, collective bargaining was abolished and wages were frozen at a relatively low level. Business profits also rose very rapidly, as did corporate investment.
Hitler family
A couple of Adolf's relatives served in Nazi Germany during the war. Adolf's nephew Heinz was a member of the Nazi Party. He attended an elite military academy, the National Political Institutes of Education (Napola) in Ballenstedt/Saxony-Anhalt. Aspiring to be an officer, Heinz joined the "Heer" (army) as a signals NCO with the 23rd Potsdamer Artillery Regiment in 1941, and he participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. On 10 January 1942, he was captured by Soviet forces and sent to the Moscow military prison Butyrka, where he died, aged 21, after interrogation and torture. He never married nor had children.
German nationalism
The Nazi Party (NSDAP), led by Austrian-born Adolf Hitler, believed in an extreme form of German nationalism. The first point of the Nazi 25-point programme was that "We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the people's right to self-determination". Hitler, an Austrian-German by birth, began to develop his strong patriotic German nationalist views from a very young age. He was greatly influenced by many other Austrian pan-German nationalists in Austria-Hungary, notably Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Karl Lueger. Hitler's pan-German ideas envisioned a Greater German Reich which was to include the Austrian Germans, Sudeten Germans and other ethnic Germans. The annexing of Austria "(Anschluss)" and the Sudetenland "(annexing of Sudetenland)" completed Nazi Germany's desire to the German nationalism of the German Volksdeutsche (people/folk).
Heinrich Himmler
To gain political power, the NSDAP took advantage of the economic downturn during the Great Depression. The coalition government of the Weimar Republic was unable to improve the economy, so many voters turned to the political extreme, which included the NSDAP. Hitler used populist rhetoric, including blaming scapegoats—particularly the Jews—for the economic hardships. In the 1932 election, the Nazis won 37.3 percent of the vote and 230 seats in the Reichstag. Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, heading a short-lived coalition of his Nazis and the German National People's Party. The new cabinet initially included only three members of the NSDAP: Hitler, Hermann Göring as minister without portfolio and Minister of the Interior for Prussia, and Wilhelm Frick as Reich Interior Minister. Less than a month later, the Reichstag building was set on fire. Hitler took advantage of this event, forcing von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. The Enabling Act, passed by the Reichstag in 1933, gave the Cabinet—in practice, Hitler—full legislative powers, and the country became a de facto dictatorship. On 1 August 1934, Hitler's cabinet passed a law which stipulated that upon von Hindenburg's death, the office of president would be abolished and its powers merged with those of the chancellor. Von Hindenburg died the next morning, and Hitler became both head of state and head of government under the title "Führer und Reichskanzler" (leader and chancellor).
German National People's Party
Performing badly in subsequent elections, the party chose to be a junior coalition partner to the NSDAP in the so-called, short-lived "Regierung der nationalen Konzentration" (Government of National Concentration) upon Adolf Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933. Although Hugenberg had severe doubts about Hitler as Chancellor he agreed to serve in a Hitler government provided that he was made "economic dictator" by being appointed Minister of Economics and Agriculture on both the "Reich" and Prussian levels. He was one of eight ministers in the government that were either members of the DNVP or were backed by it. The Nazis were limited to three seats in cabinet, and only two with portfolios—the chancellorship for Hitler and the then-powerless Interior Ministry for Frick (Göring was a minister without portfolio). The cabinet's makeup was conceived by Von Papen and Hindenburg in hopes of keeping Hitler in check and making him their puppet. On the morning of 30 January 1933 when the Hitler cabinet was going to be sworn in by President von Hindenburg, just minutes before the ceremony was going to be performed, a major dispute arouse between Hitler and the cantankerous, bad-tempered Hugenberg when the latter learned that Hitler was going to violate his promise not to call early elections, and was planning on dissolving the "Reichstag" as soon as possible. The shouting match between the two men delayed the swearing in of the cabinet and was only finally mediated by Presidential state secretary Otto Meissner who warned Hitler and Hugenberg that Hindenburg would not wait forever and by Von Papen who told Hugenberg that he should never doubt the word of a fellow German.
On 30 January 1933 Hugenberg was sworn in by Hindenburg to serve in Hitler's government as Economics and Agriculture minister as he had requested. During his time in Hitler's cabinet Hugenberg did not stand in the way of Hitler's efforts to make himself a dictator. As mentioned above, many prominent DNVP members had long favoured scrapping Weimar's democracy in favour of an authoritarian system. After the Reichstag fire, Hugenberg gave a speech that spoke of the necessity for "draconic measures" and of "exterminating the hotbeds in which Bolshevism can flourish". Hugenberg argued that "in these earnest times there can no longer be any half-measures...no compromise, no cowardice". At a Cabinet meeting Hugenberg together with the other DNVP cabinet ministers voted for the Reichstag Fire Decree, which effectively wiped out civil liberties. The decree was based largely on a proposal by Ludwig Grauert, a DNVP member who had recently been named chief of the Prussian state police, to provide legal cover for the mass arrests of Communists on the night of the fire. On the afternoon of 27 February—hours before the fire—Gürtner had submitted a draft decree which, like the Reichstag Fire Decree, would have imposed draconian restrictions on civil liberties in the name of curbing Communist violence.
Pan-Germanism
It was in the post-World War I period that the Austrian-born Adolf Hitler, under the influence of the stab-in-the-back myth, first took up German nationalist ideas in his "Mein Kampf". Hitler met Heinrich Class in 1918, and Class provided Hitler with support for the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler and his National Socialist friends shared most of the basic pan-German visions with the Pan-German League, but differences in political style led the two groups to open rivalry. The German Workers Party of Bohemia cut its ties to the pan-German movement, which was seen as being too dominated by the upper classes, and joined forces with the German Workers Party led by Anton Drexler, which later became the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi party) that was to be headed by Adolf Hitler from 1921.
Sterneckerbräu
The German Workers Party (DAP) of Anton Drexler met once a week in the restaurant on the first floor of the new building. On 12 September 1919, Adolf Hitler attended a meeting of the DAP on behalf of the intelligence command of the army. The meeting took place in a meeting room of the Sterneckerbräu. Drexler invited him to join the DAP. Hitler accepted on that date, becoming the party's 55th member. In October 1919, the first branch of the DAP, which in February 1920 changed its name to the Nazi Party (NSDAP), was set up in a side room of the Sterneckerbräu.
Criticism of the Catholic Church
Though the broader membership of the Nazi Party after 1933 came to include many Catholics, aggressive anti-Church radicals like Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Hitler's chosen "deputy" Martin Bormann saw the campaign against the Churches as a priority concern, and anti-church and anticlerical sentiments were strong among grassroots party activists. While the Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler's public relationship to religion in Nazi Germany may be defined as one of opportunism, his personal position on Catholicism and Christianity was one of hostility. Bormann recorded in "Hitler's Table Talk" that Nazism was secular, scientific and anti-religious in outlook.
Adolf Hitler
In addition to political campaigning, the NSDAP engaged in paramilitary violence and the spread of anti-communist propaganda in the days preceding the election. On election day, 6 March 1933, the NSDAP's share of the vote increased to 43.9 percent, and the party acquired the largest number of seats in parliament. Hitler's party failed to secure an absolute majority, necessitating another coalition with the DNVP.
Military career of Adolf Hitler
Hitler was, by default as Führer, the supreme commander of every Nazi paramilitary organization, but he never adopted extra ranks in these organizations nor did he have special uniforms to denote his position (for instance, there was no special SS uniform or insignia for Hitler, even though he was considered SS member #1 and outranked Heinrich Himmler). Hitler also technically qualified for every Nazi political decoration, but in practice only wore his World War I Iron Cross, the Golden Nazi Party Pin, and the Wound badge in Black. During Nazi rallies at Nuremberg in the early 1930s, Hitler temporarily wore the 1929 Nuremberg Party Day Badge, but discontinued this after about 1935.
Dietrich Eckart
To raise funds for the Party, Eckart introduced Hitler into influential circles including to his future etiquette tutor, socialite Helene Bechstein. In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the NSDAP in Munich. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP). Hitler returned to Munich on 11July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that the resignation of their leading public figure and speaker would mean the end of the party. Eckart was asked by the Party leadership to talk with Hitler and relay the conditions in which Hitler would agree to return to the Party. Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich. The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26July 1921.
Adolf Hitler
Hitler ran against Hindenburg in the 1932 presidential elections. A speech to the Industry Club in Düsseldorf on 27 January 1932 won him support from many of Germany's most powerful industrialists. Hindenburg had support from various nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, and republican parties, and some Social Democrats. Hitler used the campaign slogan ""Hitler über Deutschland"" ("Hitler over Germany"), a reference to his political ambitions and his campaigning by aircraft. He was one of the first politicians to use aircraft travel for political purposes, and used it effectively. Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 35 percent of the vote in the final election. Although he lost to Hindenburg, this election established Hitler as a strong force in German politics.
Political views of Adolf Hitler
Hitler's political views were formed during three periods: (1) His years as a poverty-stricken young man in Vienna and Munich prior to World War I, during which he turned to nationalist-oriented political pamphlets and antisemitic newspapers out of distrust for mainstream newspapers and political parties; (2) The closing months of World War I when Germany lost the war; Hitler is said to have developed his extreme nationalism during this time, desiring to "save" Germany from both external and internal "enemies" who, in his view, betrayed it; (3) The 1920s, during which his early political career began and he wrote "Mein Kampf". Hitler formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925, but did not acquire German citizenship until almost seven years later; thereby allowing him to run for public office. Hitler was influenced by Benito Mussolini who was appointed Prime Minister of Italy in October 1922 after his "March on Rome".
Joachim von Ribbentrop
In 1928, Ribbentrop was introduced to Adolf Hitler as a businessman with foreign connections who "gets the same price for German champagne as others get for French champagne". Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf, with whom Ribbentrop had served in the 12th Torgau Hussars in the First World War, arranged the introduction. Ribbentrop and his wife joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party on 1 May 1932. Ribbentrop began his political career that summer by offering to be a secret emissary between Chancellor of Germany Franz von Papen, his old wartime friend, and Hitler. His offer was initially refused. Six months later, however, Hitler and Papen accepted his help.
Die Freundin
"Die Freundin" remained, on the whole, rather hesitant on issues concerning political parties. Although Irene von Behlau recommended the election of the Social Democratic Party in her article "The Gay Woman and the Reichstag Election" of May 14, 1928; since 1930, however, a kind of neutrality was necessary, since statistics of the year 1926 had made clear to the BfM that they had members of both left and right parties. There was an emphasis on voting for parties which would work towards the abolition of . After some recently discovered cases of "same-sex-loving people" in Hitler’s party the NSDAP, who were “the most efficient and best party members”, the publisher Friedrich Radszuweit wrote an open letter to Adolf Hitler in August 1931 encouraging him "to allow the deputies of the party to vote in the Reichstag for the abolition of § 175.”
Nazism
and that, Hitler's and the Nazi Party's political positions
Hofbräukeller
It is a traditional Bavarian restaurant in a cellar with a beer garden, not a tourist spot like the Hofbräuhaus am Platzl. It is a part of the "Wiener Platz", home to the Wiener Markt. Adolf Hitler gave his first political speech as a member of the German Workers' Party ("Deutsche Arbeiterpartei", DAP) at the beer hall on October 16, 1919.
Heinrich Himmler
As a member of a reserve battalion during World War I, Himmler did not see active service. He studied agronomy in university, and joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and the SS in 1925. In 1929, he was appointed "Reichsführer-SS" by Hitler. Over the next 16 years, he developed the SS from a mere 290-man battalion into a million-strong paramilitary group, and, following Hitler's orders, set up and controlled the Nazi concentration camps. He was known for good organisational skills and for selecting highly competent subordinates, such as Reinhard Heydrich in 1931. From 1943 onwards, he was both Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police). Himmler had a lifelong interest in occultism, interpreting Germanic neopagan and "Völkisch" beliefs to promote the racial policy of Nazi Germany, and incorporating esoteric symbolism and rituals into the SS.
Religious aspects of Nazism
In the autumn of 1918 Sebottendorff attempted to extend the appeal of the Thule Society's nationalist ideology to people from a working-class background. He entrusted the Munich sports reporter Karl Harrer with the formation of a workers' club, called the "Deutscher Arbeiterverein" ('German workers' club') or "Politischer Arbeiterzirkel" ('Political workers' ring'). The most active member of this club was Anton Drexler. Drexler urged the foundation of a political party, and on 5 January 1919 the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP, German Workers' Party) was formally founded. When Adolf Hitler first encountered the DAP on 12 September 1919, Sebottendorff had already left the Thule Society (in June 1919). By the end of February 1920, Hitler had transformed the "Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" into the "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" (NSDAP or National Socialist German Workers’ Party). Apparently, meetings of the Thule Society continued until 1923. A certain Johannes Hering kept a diary of these meetings; it mentions the attendance of other Nazi leaders between 1920 and 1923, but not Hitler.
Religious views of Adolf Hitler
In Hitler's early political statements, he attempted to express himself to the German public as a Christian. In his book "Mein Kampf" and in public speeches prior to and in the early years of his rule, he described himself as a Christian. Hitler and the Nazi party promoted "Positive Christianity", a movement which rejected most traditional Christian doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus, as well as Jewish elements such as the Old Testament. In one widely quoted remark, he described Jesus as an "Aryan fighter" who struggled against "the power and pretensions of the corrupt Pharisees" and Jewish materialism.
Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)
Müller became a member of the Nazi Party in 1939 for the purely opportunist reason of improving his chances of promotion and only after Himmler insisted he do it. Historian Robert Gellately does not give much credence to this apolitical image of Müller and cites the musings of Walter Schellenberg, who claimed that during a conversation with Müller sometime in 1943, that Müller lauded the Stalinist system as superior to Nazism, which he believed compromised on too much. Schellenberg even alleged that when Müller compared Stalin against Hitler, his (Müller's) opinion was that, Stalin did things better. As Gellately relates, such a politically-oriented asseveration certainly indicates Müller did indeed have preferences. Another indicator along this vein—Müller was notorious for his admiration of the Soviet police.
Henschtal
When the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank temporarily belonged to France, Trahweiler belonged to the "Mairie" (“Mayoralty”) of Quirnbach, the Canton of Kusel, the Arrondissement of Birkenfeld and the Department of Sarre, whose seat was at Trier. In the Bavarian time that followed Napoleon's defeat, beginning in 1817, the village belonged to the "Bürgermeisterei" of Quirnbach in the Canton of Kusel, with Kusel also being the "Landkommissariat" seat. In the early 1930s, the Nazi Party (NSDAP) was quite popular in Trahweiler. In the 1933 Reichstag elections, 51.3% of the local votes went to Adolf Hitler’s party. Hitler’s success in these elections paved the way for his Enabling Act of 1933 ("Ermächtigungsgesetz"), thus starting the Third Reich in earnest.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
In June 1921, while Hitler and Dietrich Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the NSDAP in Munich. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP). Hitler returned to Munich on 11 July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that the resignation of their leading public figure and speaker would mean the end of the party. Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich. The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26 July as member 3,680. In the following days, Hitler spoke to several packed houses and defended himself, to thunderous applause. His strategy proved successful: at a general membership meeting, he was granted absolute powers as party chairman, with only one nay vote cast.
History of Western civilization
Another Fascist party, the Nazis, would take power in Germany. The Nazis were similar to Mussolini's Fascists but held many views of their own. Nazis were obsessed with racial theory, believing Germans to be part of a master race, destined to dominate the inferior races of the world. The Nazis were especially hateful of Jews. Another unique aspect of Nazism was its connection with a small movement that supported a return to ancient Germanic paganism. Adolf Hitler, a World War I veteran, became leader of the party in 1921. Gaining support from many disillusioned Germans, and by using intimidation against its enemies, the Nazi party had gained a great deal of power by the early 1930s. In 1933, Hitler was named Chancellor, and seized dictatorial power. Hitler built up Germany's military in opposition to the Versailles Treaty and stripped Jews of all rights in Germany. Eventually, the regime Hitler created would lead to the Second World War.
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was "Reichsführer" of the "Schutzstaffel" (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and among those most directly responsible for the Holocaust.
Świebodzin
Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933. Hitler quickly moved to consolidate and expand his power, adopting severe repressive measures against his political opposition and the German Jewish minority. However, Hitler remained popular with the public because he oversaw the German economic recovery of the 1930s. The new government sponsored many public works programs and a massive rearmament campaign which included the construction of an extensive fortified line of bunkers, "Ostwall" (today known as the Międzyrzecz Fortified Region) twenty kilometers north of Schwiebus.
Nazism
The Nazi Party won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, making them the largest party in the legislature by far, but still short of an outright majority. Because none of the parties were willing or able to put together a coalition government, in 1933 Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul Von Hindenburg, through the support and connivance of traditional conservative nationalists who believed that they could control him and his party. Through the use of emergency presidential decrees by Hindenburg, and a change in the Weimar Constitution which allowed the Cabinet to rule by direct decree, bypassing both Hindenburg and the Reichstag, the Nazis had soon established a one-party state.
Catholic Church and Nazi Germany
After World War I, Hitler became involved with the fledgling Nazi Party. He set the violent tone of the movement early, forming the Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary. Catholic Bavaria resented rule from Protestant Berlin, and Hitler initially saw the revolution in Bavaria as a means to power, but an early attempt proved fruitless. He was imprisoned after the 1923 Munich Beerhall Putsch. He used the time to produce "Mein Kampf", in which he claimed that an effeminate Jewish-Christian ethic was enfeebling Europe, and Germany needed a man of iron to restore itself to build an empire. He decided on the tactic of pursuing power through "legal" means.
Nazi Party
In "Mein Kampf", Hitler directly attacked both left-wing and right-wing politics in Germany. However, a majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as being a far-right form of politics. When asked in an interview in 1934 whether the Nazis were "bourgeois right-wing" as alleged by their opponents, Hitler responded that Nazism was not exclusively for any class and indicated that it favoured neither the left nor the right, but preserved "pure" elements from both "camps" by stating: "From the camp of bourgeois tradition, it takes national resolve, and from the materialism of the Marxist dogma, living, creative Socialism".
Nazi Party
The 1930 elections changed the German political landscape by weakening the traditional nationalist parties, the DNVP and the DVP, leaving the Nazis as the chief alternative to the discredited Social Democrats and the Zentrum, whose leader, Heinrich Brüning, headed a weak minority government. The inability of the democratic parties to form a united front, the self-imposed isolation of the Communists and the continued decline of the economy, all played into Hitler's hands. He now came to be seen as "de facto" leader of the opposition and donations poured into the Nazi Party's coffers. Some major business figures, such as Fritz Thyssen, were Nazi supporters and gave generously and some Wall Street figures were allegedly involved, but many other businessmen were suspicious of the extreme nationalist tendencies of the Nazis and preferred to support the traditional conservative parties instead.
During 1931 and into 1932, Germany's political crisis deepened. Hitler ran for President against the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg in March 1932, polling 30.1% in the first round and 36.8% in the second against Hindenburg's 49% and 53%. By now the SA had 400,000 members and its running street battles with the SPD and Communist paramilitaries (who also fought each other) reduced some German cities to combat zones. Paradoxically, although the Nazis were among the main instigators of this disorder, part of Hitler's appeal to a frightened and demoralised middle class was his promise to restore law and order. Overt antisemitism was played down in official Nazi rhetoric, but was never far from the surface. Germans voted for Hitler primarily because of his promises to revive the economy (by unspecified means), to restore German greatness and overturn the Treaty of Versailles and to save Germany from communism. On 24 April 1932, the Free State of Prussia elections to the Landtag resulted in 36.3% of the votes and 162 seats for the NSDAP.
Kampfbund
The Kampfbund ("Battle-league") was a league of nationalist fighting societies and the German National Socialist party in Bavaria, Germany, in the 1920s. It included Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party (NSDAP) and its "Sturmabteilung" (SA), the Oberland League and the "Bund Reichskriegsflagge". Hitler was its political leader, while Hermann Kriebel led its militia.
Religious aspects of Nazism
In Hitler's early political statements, he attempted to express himself to the German public as a Christian. In his book "Mein Kampf" and in public speeches prior to and in the early years of his rule, he described himself as a Christian. Hitler and the Nazi party promoted "Positive Christianity", a movement which rejected most traditional Christian doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus, as well as Jewish elements such as the Old Testament. In one widely quoted remark, he described Jesus as an "Aryan fighter" who struggled against "the power and pretensions of the corrupt Pharisees" and Jewish materialism.
Adolf Hitler
Hitler made a prominent appearance at the trial of two Reichswehr officers, Lieutenants Richard Scheringer and Hans Ludin, in late 1930. Both were charged with membership in the NSDAP, at that time illegal for Reichswehr personnel. The prosecution argued that the NSDAP was an extremist party, prompting defence lawyer Hans Frank to call on Hitler to testify. On 25 September 1930, Hitler testified that his party would pursue political power solely through democratic elections, which won him many supporters in the officer corps.
Religion in Nazi Germany
The esoteric Thule Society lent support to the German Workers' Party, which was eventually transformed into the Nazi Party in 1920. Dietrich Eckart, a remote associate of the Thule society, actually coached Hitler on his public speaking skills, and while Hitler has not been shown to have been a member of Thule, he received support from the group. Hitler later dedicated the second volume of "Mein Kampf" to Eckart. The racist-occult doctrines of Ariosophy contributed to the atmosphere of the völkisch movement in the Weimar Republic that eventually led to the rise of Nazism.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
At the end of 1928, party membership was recorded at 130,000. In March 1929, Erich Ludendorff represented the Nazi Party in the Presidential elections. He gained 280,000 votes (1.1%), and was the only candidate to poll fewer than a million votes. The battles on the streets grew increasingly violent. After the Rotfront interrupted a speech by Hitler, the SA marched into the streets of Nuremberg and killed two bystanders. In a tit-for-tat action, the SA stormed a Rotfront meeting on 25 August and days later the Berlin headquarters of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) itself. In September Goebbels led his men into Neukölln, a KPD stronghold, and the two warring parties exchanged pistol and revolver fire.
Religious aspects of Nazism
While a small minority of historians accept these publicly stated views as genuine expressions of his spirituality, the vast majority believe that Hitler was skeptical of religion and anti-Christian, but recognized that he could only be elected and preserve his political power if he feigned a commitment to and belief in Christianity, which the overwhelming majority of Germans believed in. Privately, Hitler repeatedly deprecated Christianity, and told confidants that his reluctance to make public attacks on the Church was not a matter of principle, but a pragmatic political move. In his private diaries, Goebbels wrote in April 1941 that though Hitler was "a fierce opponent" of the Vatican and Christianity, "he forbids me to leave the church. For tactical reasons." Hitler's remarks to confidants, as described in the Goebbels Diaries, the memoirs of Albert Speer, and transcripts of Hitler's private conversations recorded by Martin Bormann in "Hitler's Table Talk", are further evidence of his irreligious and anti-Christian beliefs; these sources record a number of private remarks in which Hitler ridicules Christian doctrine as absurd, contrary to scientific advancement, and socially destructive.
Adolf Hitler
After World War I, Hitler returned to Munich. Without formal education or career prospects, he remained in the army. In July 1919 he was appointed "Verbindungsmann" (intelligence agent) of an "Aufklärungskommando" (reconnaissance unit) of the "Reichswehr", assigned to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). At a DAP meeting on 12 September 1919, Party Chairman Anton Drexler was impressed with Hitler's oratorical skills. He gave him a copy of his pamphlet "My Political Awakening", which contained anti-Semitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Marxist ideas. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party, and within a week was accepted as party member 555 (the party began counting membership at 500 to give the impression they were a much larger party).
Religion in Nazi Germany
The attitude of the Nazi party towards the Catholic Church ranged from tolerance to near-total renunciation and outright aggression. Bullock wrote that Hitler had some regard for the organisational power of Catholicism, but he had utter contempt for its central teachings, which he said, if taken to their conclusion, "would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure". Many Nazis were anti-clerical in both private and public life. The Nazi party had decidedly pagan elements. One position is that the Church and fascism could never have a lasting connection because both are a "holistic Weltanschauung" claiming the whole of the person.
Adolf Hitler himself has been described as a "spiritualist" by Laqueur; but he has been described by Bullock as a "rationalist" and a "materialist" with no appreciation for the spiritual side of humanity; and a simple "atheist" by Blainey. His Fascist comrade Benito Mussolini was an atheist. Both were anticlerical, but they understood that it would be rash to begin their Kulturkampfs against Catholicism prematurely. Such a clash, possibly inevitable in the future, was put off while they dealt with other enemies.
Military career of Adolf Hitler
Hitler wanted to remain in the army after the war, but this was impossible with the near total disbandment of Germany's armed forces. He returned to Munich for demobilization. In July 1919 he was appointed "Verbindungsmann" (intelligence agent) of an "Aufklärungskommando" (reconnaissance commando) of the "Reichswehr", to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). While monitoring the activities of the DAP, Hitler became attracted to the founder Anton Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Marxist ideas. Impressed with Hitler's oratory skills, Drexler invited him to join the DAP, which Hitler did on 12 September 1919.
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.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in Germany in September 1919 when Hitler joined the political party known as the "Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" – DAP (German Workers' Party). The name was changed in 1920 to the "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" – NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party). This political party was formed and developed during the post-World War I era. It was anti-Marxist and opposed to the democratic post-war government of the Weimar Republic and the Treaty of Versailles; and it advocated extreme nationalism and Pan-Germanism as well as virulent anti-Semitism. Hitler's "rise" can be considered to have ended in March 1933, after the Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act of 1933 in that month. President Paul von Hindenburg had already appointed Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933 after a series of parliamentary elections and associated backroom intrigues. The Enabling Act—when used ruthlessly and with authority—virtually assured that Hitler could thereafter constitutionally exercise dictatorial power without legal objection.
Hitler and the Occult
The Nazi Party reportedly grew out of several occult groups that sprang up in the late 19th century as a reaction to the advanced materialism and technology of the era. These groups spoke of the coming of a new Messiah that would save Germany. Hitler developed the notion that perhaps he was the chosen one to save the German people.
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.
Political views of Adolf Hitler
In Hitler's mind, communism was a major enemy of Germany, an enemy he often mentions in "Mein Kampf". During the trial for his involvement in the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler claimed that his singular goal was to assist the German government in "fighting Marxism". Marxism, Bolshevism, and communism were interchangeable terms for Hitler as evidenced by their use in "Mein Kampf":
Führerprinzip
In the case of the Nazis, the "Führerprinzip" became integral to the Nazi Party in July 1921, when Adolf Hitler forced a showdown with the original leaders of the party after he learned that they were attempting to merge it with the somewhat larger German Socialist Party. Learning of this, and knowing that any merger would dilute his influence over the group, Hitler quit the Nazis. Realizing that the party would be completely ineffective without Hitler as their front man, the founder of the party, Anton Drexler, opened negotiations with Hitler, who delivered an ultimatum: he must be recognized as the sole leader ("Führer") of the party, with dictatorial powers. The executive committee gave in to his demands, and Hitler rejoined the party a few days later to become its permanent ruler, with Drexler kicked upstairs to be honorary chairman for life.
German Workers' Party
The small number of party members were quickly won over to Hitler's political beliefs. He organized their biggest meeting yet of 2,000 people for 24 February 1920 in the "Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München". Further in an attempt to make the party more broadly appealing to larger segments of the population, the DAP was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) on 24 February. Such was the significance of Hitler's particular move in publicity that Harrer resigned from the party in disagreement. The new name was borrowed from a different Austrian party active at the time (the Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, i.e. the German National Socialist Workers' Party), although Hitler earlier suggested the party to be renamed the Social Revolutionary Party. It was Rudolf Jung who persuaded Hitler to adopt the NSDAP name.
Political views of Adolf Hitler
Either way, anti-Semitism always constituted one of the most important aspects of Hitler's political views. Historian Peter Longerich writes that "There can be no doubt that Hitler's behaviour during his entire political career... was characterised by radical antisemitism." Correspondingly, Germanic cultural and racial purity remained paramount in his understanding of the world, having once exclaimed, "The greatest danger is and remains for us, the alien racial poison in our body. All other dangers are transitory."
Adolf Hitler
Hitler was born in Austria—then part of Austria-Hungary—and was raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the NSDAP, and was appointed leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted to seize power in a failed coup in Munich and was imprisoned. In jail, he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, anti-semitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. He frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as part of a Jewish conspiracy.
Hjalmar Schacht
By 1926, Schacht had left the small German Democratic Party, which he had helped found, and began increasingly lending his support to the Nazi Party (NSDAP), to which he became closer between 1930 and 1932.
Though never a member of the NSDAP, Schacht helped to raise funds for the party after meeting with Adolf Hitler. Close for a short time to Heinrich Brüning's government, Schacht shifted to the right by entering the Harzburg Front in October 1931.
Albert Vögler
As a business man, Vögler feared the rise of communism in Germany. Records of donations from Vögler to the Nazi Party from as early as 1931 exist. Vögler met Adolf Hitler on 11 September 1931. From 1932 Vögler openly funded the Nazi party. He was a member of the Freundeskreis Himmler.
Political views of Adolf Hitler
In many ways, Adolf Hitler epitomizes "the force of personality in political life" as mentioned by Friedrich Meinecke. He was essential to the very framework of Nazism's political appeal and its manifestation in Germany. So important were Hitler's views that they immediately affected the political policies of Nazi Germany. He asserted the "Führerprinzip" ("Leader principle"). The principle relied on absolute obedience of all subordinates to their superiors. Hitler viewed the party structure and later the government structure as a pyramid, with himself—the infallible leader—at the apex.
History of Germany
The humiliating peace terms in the Treaty of Versailles provoked bitter indignation throughout Germany, and seriously weakened the new democratic regime. The greatest enemies of democracy had already been constituted. In December 1918, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was founded, and in 1919 it tried and failed to overthrow the new republic. Adolf Hitler in 1919 took control of the new National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), which failed in a coup in Munich in 1923. Both parties, as well as parties supporting the republic, built militant auxiliaries that engaged in increasingly violent street battles. Electoral support for both parties increased after 1929 as the Great Depression hit the economy hard, producing many unemployed men who became available for the paramilitary units. The Nazis (formerly the German Workers' Party), with a mostly rural and lower middle class base, overthrew the Weimar regime and ruled Germany in 1933–1945; the KPD, with a mostly urban and working class base, came to power (in the East) in 1945–1989.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
Hitler's considerable oratory and propaganda skills were appreciated by the party leadership. With the support of Anton Drexler, Hitler became chief of propaganda for the party in early 1920 and his actions began to transform the party. He organised their biggest meeting yet of 2,000 people, on 24 February 1920 in the "Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München". There Hitler announced the party's 25-point program ("see" National Socialist Program). He engineered the name change of the DAP to the "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" – NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party), commonly known to the rest of the world as the Nazi Party. Hitler designed the party's banner of a swastika in a white circle on a red background. Hitler was later discharged from the army in March 1920 and began working full-time for the NSDAP.
In 1920, a small "hall protection" squad was organised around Emil Maurice. The group was first named the "Order troops" ("Ordnertruppen"). Later in August 1921, Hitler redefined the group, which became known as the "Gymnastic and Sports Division" of the party ("Turn- und Sportabteilung"). By the autumn of 1921 the group was being called the "Sturmabteilung" (Storm Detachment) or SA, and in November 1921 the group was officially known by that name.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
During the 12 September 1919 meeting, Hitler took umbrage with comments made by an audience member that were directed against Gottfried Feder, the speaker, a crank economist with whom Hitler was acquainted due to a lecture Feder delivered in an army "education" course. The audience member (Hitler in "Mein Kampf" disparagingly called him the "professor") asserted that Bavaria should be wholly independent from Germany and should secede from Germany and unite with Austria to form a new South German nation. The volatile Hitler arose and scolded the unfortunate Professor Baumann, using his speaking skills and eventually causing Baumann to leave the meeting before its adjournment. Impressed with Hitler's oratory skills, Drexler encouraged him to join the DAP. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party. Within a week, Hitler received a postcard stating he had officially been accepted as a member and he should come to a "committee" meeting to discuss it. Hitler attended the "committee" meeting held at the run-down Alte Rosenbad beer-house. Later Hitler wrote that joining the fledgling party "...was the most decisive resolve of my life. From here there was and could be no turning back. ... I registered as a member of the German Workers' Party and received a provisional membership card with the number 7". Normally, enlisted army personnel were not allowed to join political parties. However, in this case, Hitler had Captain Mayr's permission to join the DAP. Further, Hitler was allowed to stay in the army and receive his weekly pay of 20 gold marks.