The Growth of the Nazi Party, 1919-1933 (OCR GCSE History B (Schools History Project)): Revision Note

Summary

Between 1919 and 1932, the Nazi Party (originally the DAP and later the NSDAP) rose from a small Munich-based group to become the largest political party in Germany.

Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, they tried and failed to violently seize control of Germany during the Munich Putsch of 1923. Hitler was imprisoned for his crimes and decided to change his approach to getting into power. He decided to try to get voted into power and reorganised the NSDAP, or Nazi Party, on a national scale.

Initially, this was not a success, but after the German economy collapsed as teh world entered the Great Depression, more and more Germans began voting for Hitler. By 1932, the Nazis had more seats in the Reichstag than any other political party.

The German Workers' Party (DAP)

IMAGE Needed - DAP timeline

• Anton Drexler founded the DAP in February 1919

  • Drexler was a railway mechanic from Munich

  • In September 1919, the DAP had 23 members

  • It was a right-wing party that targeted the working classes

• The government hired Hitler to spy on political parties in Munich

  • The Weimar Republic had struggled to survive threats from extremist parties

    • They wanted to know the plans of the different political parties

  • As an ex-soldier, Hitler desperately needed the work

    • The majority of Germany’s armed forces had been made unemployed after the Treaty of Versailles restricted the German army to 100,000 soldiers

• Hitler attended his first meeting of the DAP on 12th September 1919

  • The ideas discussed at the meeting matched Hitler’s personal beliefs

  • On 19th September 1919, Hitler signed up as a member

    • This went against his government assignment

The Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler

• By 1920, the DAP had changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (the NSDAP or Nazi Party)

• Hitler implemented his takeover of the NSDAP in 1921 in five ways:

1. Changing the party’s policies to the Twenty-Five Point Programme

2. Using his personal appeal

3. Developing the party’s organisational structure

4. Forcing a change of leadership and choosing members for key positions

5. Creating the NSDAP’s private army, the SA (Sturmabteilung)

The Twenty-Five Point Programme

• In January 1920, Hitler and Drexler wrote the Twenty-Five Point Programme, which formalised the aims and beliefs of the DAP

• These aims and beliefs included:

  • Anschluss and the union of all German speakers into one German country

  • Germany's former overseas colonies should be returned to German control

    • These would provide extra food and space for the German people

  • The belief that the Jewish people were not German citizens

  • The government’s top priority was to provide jobs for German citizens

  • All citizens should have equal legal rights

  • The banning of private ownership of land

  • The implementation of a strong, centralised government

The appeal of Hitler

• The DAP experienced a rapid increase in membership in 1920

  • By June 1920, the DAP had 1,000 members

    • By the end of the year, this had increased to 3,000

  • It had also changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) to broaden its appeal

• The main cause of this increase in membership was the appeal of Hitler

  • Hitler's speeches attracted an audience and new members

  • It was his popularity that enabled Hitler to replace Drexler as leader in 1921

• In January 1922, Hitler called a party conference

• Hitler established his autocratic control of the party

  • He spoke for two and a half hours

  • He persuaded the NSDAP members to surrender their right to elect the leader of the party

    • This effectively made the NSDAP a dictatorship

• The popularity of the NSDAP accelerated in 1923

  • By November 1923, the NSDAP had 50,000 members

  • The Weimar government was dealing with the hyperinflation crisis. Many Germans began to look at extremist parties like the NSDAP for solutions

The Munich Putsch

• By November 1923, Hitler decided that the NSDAP  (Nazi Party) was ready to seize control of Germany

  • Support for the Nazi Party had increased due to the Weimar government’s failure to deal with the hyperinflation crisis

  • Many people were looking to extremist parties for economic and political solutions

The events of the Munich Putsch

• The plan was for Hitler and the SA (led by Ernst Röhm) to seize control of the local Bavarian government

  • They were to be helped by a World War I general, General Ludendorff

  • The leaders of the Bavarian government, Gustav von Kahr, Colonel von Seisser and General von Lossow, were to be captured during a meeting at the Burgerbrau Keller in Munich

• The Munich Putsch failed, and Hitler was arrested for high treason

• The NSDAP (Nazi Party) was banned

  • Although Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison, he only served nine months

The reorganisation of the Nazi Party

• Hitler left prison after serving nine months of his five-year sentence

  • Judges were much more lenient on right-wing offenders

• Whilst in prison, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (‘My Struggle’)

  • In the book, he considered what the core values of the Nazi Party should be

  • He dictated the text to Rudolph Hess, who then wrote it

    • Hess later became a deputy in the party

  • Hitler published Mein Kampf  in July 1925

• The government lifted the ban on the NSDAP in February 1925

  • Hitler relaunched the party on 27th February 1925

• The failure of the Munich Putsch made Hitler rethink the organisation of the party

  • Hitler had learnt that violent putsches did not work.

  • After being released from prison, he set about trying to get into power by legal means, which meant winning elections

    • To make the Nazi Party electable, its systems needed to be a lot clearer

• Hitler divided Germany into 35 regions (called a Gau)

  • These corresponded to the constituencies created by the Weimar government

• Each Gau (single region) had a local Nazi Party leader called a Gauleiter

  • Often, Gauleiters were not appointed

  • Hitler left it to the Nazi members in the Gau to fight over who became the Gauleiter

    • Hitler strongly believed in the survival of the fittest mentality

    • Whoever wanted the position more would win it by any means necessary

  • Strasser became a powerful Gauleiter in North Germany

• To fund a national party, Hitler persuaded business owners who shared his nationalist vision for Germany to contribute:

  • Big corporations such as Thyssen, Krupp and Bosch funded the Nazi Party

  • The business owners believed Hitler’s influence over the workers would limit the power of trade unions

    • Business owners feared trade unions because they could make unreasonable demands for increased pay and benefits

    • Trade unions had strong links to communism

    • If communism became powerful, business owners would lose their ability to make lots of profit

The Great Depression and the Rise of the Nazi Party

• Between 1924 and 1929, life in Germany settled and the economy recovered

  • This meant few people voted for Hitler

    • His extreme policies did not appeal in a time of stability

  • However, in 1929, the American stock exchange on Wall Street crashed

    • This caused the German economy to collapse

• The economic issues triggered an employment crisis

  • German banks recalled loans, which forced businesses to close and workers to lose their jobs

  • The USA’s crash affected other countries across the world

  • Other countries stopped purchasing German goods, which increased unemployment

    • Unemployed workers did not spend money on goods or services. This resulted in even more companies having to make redundancies

• By September 1931, 4.3 million German workers were unemployed

  • Over 40% were factory workers

  • Half of all 16 and 30-year-olds did not work

  • By January 1933, unemployment hit 6.1 million people

• Widespread unemployment meant many German people started looking to the extremist parties for solutions

  • Both the Nazis and the German Communist Party (KPD) started to win more votes in the elections

  • By 1932, the Nazis had more seats in the Reichstag than any other political party