What political party did Hitler belong to?
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The book is divided into two sections: in the first part, a narrative retells the formative years of the young Adolf Hitler between 1907 and 1918, when he lived as a starving artist on the streets and in the asylums of Vienna, and then joined World War I as a volunteer on the Western Front. When the war ends, Hitler comes into contact with members of the Thule Society in Munich, an association of occultists who had launched a political party, the German Workers Party (DAP).The narration ends in 1920 when Hitler takes over the DAP and turns it into the Nazi Party (NSDAP). In an interview with The Guardian, author Claus Hant explained that the events after 1920 are exhaustively documented in the numerous Hitler biographies. But what the biographies do not investigate is the time before then, when Hitler was transformed from inconsequential artist and drifter to towering political leader. Hant says that he has centered Young Hitler deliberately around this momentous transformation. According to Hant, this decisive turning point in Hitler’s life can only be explained satisfactorily now that recent research has unearthed certain previously unknown data and facts.
Young Hitler
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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.
Adolf Hitler's bodyguard
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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.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
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Adolf Hitler rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Being one of the best speakers of the party, he told the other members to either make him leader of the party or he would never return. He was aided in part by his willingness to use violence in advancing his political objectives and to recruit party members who were willing to do the same. The Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923 and the later release of his book "Mein Kampf" (Translation: "My Struggle") introduced Hitler to a wider audience. In the mid-1920s, the party engaged in electoral battles in which Hitler participated as a speaker and organizer, as well as in street battles and violence between the "Rotfrontkämpferbund" and the Nazis' "Sturmabteilung" (SA). Through the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Nazis gathered enough electoral support to become the largest political party in the Reichstag, and Hitler's blend of political acuity, deceptiveness and cunning converted the party's non-majority but plurality status into effective governing power in the ailing Weimar Republic of 1933.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
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In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the Nazi Party 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. They capitulated to Hitler's demand and on 29 July 1921 a special congress was convened to formalize Hitler as the new chairman; the vote was 543 for Hitler and one against.
Political views of Adolf Hitler
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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).
Political views of Adolf Hitler
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Hitler believed in the leader principle (hence his title, the Leader, "der Führer"), and he considered it ludicrous that an idea of governance or morality could be held by the people above the power of the leader. As Joachim Fest described a 1930 confrontation between Hitler and Otto Strasser, "Now Hitler took Strasser to task for placing 'the idea' above the Führer and wanting 'to give every party comrade the right to decide the nature of the idea, even to decide whether or not the Führer is true to the so-called idea.' That, he cried angrily, was the worst kind of democracy, for which there was no place in their movement. 'With us the Führer and the idea are one and the same, and every party comrade has to do what the Führer commands, for he embodies the idea and he alone knows its ultimate goal.'"
Political views of Adolf Hitler
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On 14 September 1921, Hitler and a substantial number of SA members and other Nazi Party adherents disrupted a meeting at the Löwenbräukeller of the Bavarian League. This federalist organization objected to the centralism of the Weimar Constitution, but accepted its social program. The League was led by Otto Ballerstedt, an engineer whom Hitler regarded as "my most dangerous opponent." One Nazi, Hermann Esser, climbed upon a chair and shouted that the Jews were to blame for the misfortunes of Bavaria, and the Nazis shouted demands that Ballerstedt yield the floor to Hitler. The Nazis beat up Ballerstedt and shoved him off the stage into the audience. Both Hitler and Esser were arrested, and Hitler commented notoriously to the police commissioner, "It's all right. We got what we wanted. Ballerstedt did not speak." Hitler was eventually sentenced to 3 months imprisonment and ended up serving only a little over one month.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power
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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".
Political views of Adolf Hitler
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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.
German Workers' Party