Hitler & the Early Nazi Party, 1919–23 (Edexcel IGCSE History: Paper 1: Depth Studies): Revision Note

Timeline & Summary

• After the First World War, Adolf Hitler, a decorated but angry soldier, joined the tiny German Workers' Party (the DAP) in September 1919

• The party was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (the NSDAP), or Nazi Party

• The party set out its aims in the Twenty-Five Point Programme of 1920

• Hitler's talent for propaganda and public speaking helped him become the party's leader by 1921

• Hitler created a paramilitary force, the SA, to protect its meetings and intimidate its opponents

• By 1923, the party had grown from a few dozen members to around 20,000

  • It remained just one of many small extremist groups in Germany, based mainly in Bavaria

Hitler and the German Workers' Party (DAP)

From soldier to spy

• Hitler joined the army and served as a soldier on the Western Front in France

• He was promoted to corporal and awarded the Iron Cross for bravery

• Like many other German soldiers, Hitler could not believe the news that Germany had lost the war

Post-war Munich and the DAP

• After the war, lots of extremist political groups formed

• From 1919, Hitler worked for the army monitoring the activities of these groups in Munich

• One of the groups he was sent to observe was the German Workers' Party (the DAP)

  • Anton Drexler had founded it in January 1919

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

  • It had only a few dozen members at the time

• Hitler attended the party's meetings to gather information, but over time he came to realise that he agreed with its views

• Hitler joined the German Workers' Party in September 1919

What the DAP believed

• The party's core beliefs were that:

  • democracy was weak, and Germany needed a powerful leader to rebuild its strength

  • Jewish people were to blame for making Germany weak

  • Communists and Socialists had caused the fall of the Kaiser

  • the socialist Weimar politicians had betrayed Germany by signing the Treaty of Versailles

Changes to the Party, 1920–22

Propaganda chief

• In January 1920, Drexler put Hitler in charge of propaganda for the German Workers' Party

A new name and new aims

• In the same year, adopted new aims in the Twenty-Five Point Programme

• The party was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or NSDAP, better known as the Nazi Party

Hitler becomes leader

• By 1921, Hitler had ousted Drexler and become the party's undisputed leader

• The party's aims were kept deliberately vague, so that they would appeal to many different groups in Germany:

  • nationalists were attracted by the promise to destroy the Treaty of Versailles

  • people looking for someone to blame for Germany's problems and defeat were attracted by the party's anti-Semitism

  • the middle classes and big businesses were attracted by Hitler's anti-communist ideas

Hitler's growing role

• Hitler was a talented speaker and attracted many new members to the party

• He surrounded himself with loyal supporters, including Ernst Röhm, Hermann Goering and Rudolf Hess

  • He also built a friendship with General Ludendorff, Germany's former army commander in the First World War

    • This gave the party valuable respectability

• By the end of 1920, party membership had increased to around 1,100

  • The party could afford to buy its own newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter (the People's Observer)

The Twenty-Five Point Programme and the role of the SA

Key demands of the programme

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

• It demanded:

  • the union of all Germans in a "Greater Germany"

  • the ending of the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Saint-Germain

  • land and territory to feed the German people and settle its "extra population"

  • that only people "of German blood" could be members of the German nation

The origins of the SA

• Many ex-soldiers, including former Freikorps members, were attracted to Hitler's ideas

  • They shared his nationalism and resented the settlement imposed after the First World War

• In 1921, Hitler set up the Sturmabteilung, or SA, sometimes called the "stormtroopers"

• SA members wore brown shirts, so they became known as the "Brownshirts"

  • They received uniforms, meals and hostel accommodation from the party

• The SA was a paramilitary force, created to disrupt the meetings of rival political parties and to control crowds at Nazi meetings

• The SA became problematic

  • By 1922, there were 800 Brownshirts, and numbers were rising

  • Ernst Röhm became the leader of the SA in 1923

    • The SA was not under Hitler’s direct control

    • Ernst Röhm was popular amongst the stormtroopers

  • To combat this, Hitler created the Stosstrupp or ‘Shock Troop’

    • These were Brownshirts specially selected by Hitler as his bodyguards

How much support did the Nazi Party have by 1923?

Evidence that the party had support

• Party membership had grown from about 50 in 1919, to around 1,100 in 1920, to about 20,000 by 1923

• The party had its own newspaper, its own paramilitary wing, and its own distinctive symbol (the swastika) and salute

• It had attracted notable figures, including Röhm, Goering and Hess

  • It had won the friendship of the respected war hero General Ludendorff

Evidence that the party was small

• The party's support was based mainly in Bavaria

• It remained just one of many extremist groups, including the Communists and other nationalist parties, competing for the same voters

• Despite its growth, the party had no seats in the Reichstag and no national profile by 1923

Conclusions

• By 1923, the Nazi Party was locally significant in Bavaria and organisationally impressive for its size

  • Nationally, it was relatively unknown

• Local strength, together with the national crisis of 1923, led Hitler to judge that November 1923 was the moment to try to seize power by force

  • This led to the Munich Putsch