This episode of The Great War is sponsored by Audible. When I am travelling on the night train from
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early years of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. The early Weimar Republic is crucial to understand
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chose, they’ll exchange it for free – so give it a shot! And now, on to the show. It’s December 1919, and in Germany, the
political landscape is in chaos. In Munich, an angry Great War veteran co-writes
the political program of the obscure German Workers’ Party – his name is Adolf Hitler. Hi, I’m Jesse Alexander and welcome to the
Great War. As 1919 came to a close in Germany, the country
was suffering from economic hardship, political polarization and violence, and the aftershocks
of defeat. For Germans, the world had been turned upside
down, and many sought answers in radical political ideas. One former soldier who did so was Adolf Hitler. Now when the war ended and Germany was rocked
by revolution back in November 1918, Gefreiter Hitler was in hospital, recovering from temporary
blindness and wounds received just before the armistice. When he was released on November 19, he was
still a member of the German army, since he hadn’t been demobilized. But unlike millions of others, Hitler was
in no rush to leave the army. He had no home, no immediate family, no job,
and no qualifications or useful connections. The war had shielded him from his own harsh
reality, and given him purpose – but it was over. The 30 year old lance corporal was now confronted
with the failures of his old life, and politics were not the priority – survival was. And for that, he needed to delay his demobilization
as long as possible. So instead of returning to his native Austria,
he re-joined his battalion in Munich on November 21. But Munich was actually the last place anyone
could ignore politics. The revolution had shaken the city early,
on November 7. A small group of the Independent Social Democratic
Party (USPD) under Kurt Eisner stormed a barracks and took control of the city - without any
bloodshed. Eisner proclaimed the Freistaat Bayern, or
Bavarian Free State, and deposed the king. Eisner’s group initially had quite a bit
of sympathy from the public, and it seemed like there was a chance for a democratic future
for Germany. At the same time, in the atmosphere of cathartic
release after years of wartime suffering, there were outbreaks of hedonistic partying
and drinking in the absence of the old order. Eisner formed a joint government with Erhard
Auer’s more moderate Majority Social Democrats. Though both parties were social democratic
in name , Eisner openly flirted with the radical left, and accepted German guilt for the war. For the reactionary right, this was unforgivable,
and he was marked as a traitor. Since his father was a Jewish merchant from
Berlin, he also became the target of anti-semitic attacks. Now, most of the German middle and upper middle
class accepted the ideas of democracy and a parliamentary system, even if a moderate
social democratic party were in power. But the radical-socialists and Bolsheviks
regarded the arrangement with the moderates as a failure, and pushed for full on revolution. This terrified the middle class, who feared
a Russian-style upheaval that would threaten their social status and property. Rumours of mass murder and starvation in Russia
were all over Munich, eroding support for the far left even as it radicalized further. But radicalism was not only present on the
left – on February 21, 1919, a reactionary officer murdered Eisner. In retaliation, a worker shot Auer, but he
survived. The chaos reached a head in March with the
news of a Bolshevik revolution in Hungary. Independent Social Democrats joined forces
with Bolsheviks and Anarchists, and proclaimed the Bavarian Soviet Republic in early April. This time, there was fighting in the streets,
and Auer and his moderate social democrats fled the city. So Munich was on fire with political strife
and revolution. But what did Gefreiter Hitler make of the
political storm playing out around him? The trouble is, not that much is known about his activities during this time. What we do know is that he spent December
and January overseeing the dissolution of a prisoner of war camp, until he was sent
back to Munich. Later on, Hitler wrote at length about his
brave resistance to the Bavarian Soviet Republic, but it is more likely he still tended towards
opportunism as far as politics were concerned. Given what we know, he was certainly not a
monarchist, and could have held sympathies for the November revolution’s opposition
to the old order . He was clearly not strongly opposed to the new order, since on April 3
he was elected Vertrauensmann, or Trusted Man, of his battalion’s Soldier’s Council. He never joined a Freikorps or a counter-revolutionary
regiment but instead remained with the army. And the army units in Bavaria, for this brief
period, had been declared the Bavarian Red Army, though it was not comparable to the
Soviet Red Army. It seems he kept his head down, and tried
to stay out of sight. Once government and Freikorps troops had crushed
the Bavarian Soviet Republic in May, the political pendulum swung in the other direction –Hitler
swung with it. Before the legal government returned to Munich,
the city was under military control, and soldiers were on the hunt for revolutionaries who might
still be among them. Hitler joined an investigative commission,
which denounced and condemned many of his former comrades. And he must have done his job well, since
he attracted the attention of Karl Mayr, head of the propaganda department of the emerging
Bavarian Reichswehr. At this point it seems Mayr gave Hitler a
job in the army intelligence service, and it was there that Hitler’s interest in politics
began to grow . Now he was part of the propaganda agency meant to counter Bolshevist ideology
and bring the people back around to nationalism and militarism. In July 1919, Hitler was even sent to attend
seminars at the university of Munich, where most professors had strong anti-capitalist
and anti-Semitic views. Their lectures were focused on the perceived
historical connections between Judaism, capital interest, and the international stock market. One of his lectures was delivered by Gottfried
Feder, who railed against so called Mammonism, which he described as: “[…] on the one
hand, the overwhelming international money-powers, the supragovernmental financial power enthroned
above any right of self-determination of peoples, international big capital, [and] the purely
Gold International; on the other hand, a mindset that has taken hold of the broadest circle
of peoples; the insatiable lust for gain, the purely worldly-oriented conception of
life that has already led to a frightening decline of all moral concepts and can only
lead to more.” (Feder, 7) Now Hitler, who had never been to university,
was easily intimidated and influenced by intellectuals. But at the same time, he was attracted to
the ideas in the lectures. He certainly had nationalistic and anti-semitic
tendencies before the war, which were quite common at the time and an important aspect
of Viennese politics when Hitler lived there before the war. But the impact of the Bolshevik coup in Munich
and the violence it brought with it, along with the university lectures, likely radicalized
Hitler for good. It turned out it wouldn’t be long before
Hitler went from student to teacher. He soon attracted attention as a natural and
passionate speaker, and so the army made him an instructor in its anti-communist training. This training was aimed at rank and file soldiers,
and helped escalate tensions on the streets of Munich. It’s important to remember that Hitler was
just a small cog in a bigger machine. He absorbed these anti-Bolshevik and anti-Semitic
ideas, and helped spread and strengthen them. He was not an eccentric lunatic – hatred
of Jews and Communists was entrenched in the middle class, the officer corps, and at universities. The notion that the revolution and Bolshevism
were controlled by Jews who planned to bring more chaos to Germany. Which caused a rapid surge in pre-existing
anti-semitism. In fact, the anti-semitism gaining ground
on the right went beyond use as a political tool. According to the latest academic theories
of the day, Jews were not simply Germans with a non-Christian religion, but were an entirely
different and incompatible race. Once the Treaty of Versailles was signed in
May, passions were further inflamed. Public anger at the terms of the peace found
an easy outlet in blaming socialists and Jews for the infamous stab in the back. Influential figures in German society did
little to oppose it and some, like Erich Ludendorff, espoused anti-semitism themselves. In Munich, there were two schools of anti
semitic thought: the so called “rational” anti-semites, who preferred a non-violent
solution to the “Jewish question”, like forced emigration, and the so called “pogrom”
anti-Semites, who openly advocated violence. The situation in the city was so bad in October,
that the local police prepared for actual pogroms. So in the midst of rising anti-Semitism, a
society petrified of Bolshevism, and lingering resentment following defeat in war, Hitler
got into politics himself. On September 12, 1919, Hitler paid a visit
to a gathering of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or German Workers’ Party – DAP for short
. Now, it’s not quite clear if he went to the meeting out of his own curiosity or if
he was sent by his commanding officer to keep an eye on the group. And it really was just a “group”, as opposed
to an actual political party. In fact, it was one of many splinter groups
which had arisen after the war in place of the shattered Vaterlandspartei, or Fatherland
Party. The Fatherland Party had been a conservative-liberal
party – that’s economically liberal by the way – which had been founded as a counter
to pacifist social-democracy. It was a party of middle-class nationalists
and students, and it supported maximalist German war goals. After the war, groups like the DAP carried
on elements of the Fatherland Party’s nationalist positions. The creation of the DAP is also linked to
the Thule Society, a right-wing group from Munich that was prominent in the April and
May bloodshed. The Society supported and sponsored many different
nationalist and anti-Semitic groups and causes, and used a distinctive political symbol – the
Swastika. Its members, including a certain Rudolf Hess,
greeted each other with the phrase “Sieg und Heil.” Now the Thule Society was not some sort of
all-powerful secret society, but its style was attractive to students and the upper middle
class. These groups saw it as their duty to bring
the “lost” working-class back to nationalism, and to achieve this they created workers’
political groups. In January, the DAP grew out of one of these
Thule-supported worker groups, under Society member and former sports journalist Karl Harrer. When Hitler joined the September meeting,
the DAP was definitely a small-scale affair. There were less than 30 members, there was
no political program, no flyers, no membership cards, not even a stamp to count attendance
at the meeting. The party’s “office” was in a back room
of the “Sterneckerbräu” inn and the party finances, according to Hitler, consisted of
7 Marks and 50 Pfennig. Harrer, who called himself the “Reichsvorsitzende”,
or Imperial Chairman, believed strongly that the truth, as he saw it, would attract followers
more effectively than propaganda. As best as historians can tell, about 40 people
attended the meeting that day. One man argued that Bavaria should separate
from Germany and join with Austria, which infuriated Hitler. He climbed onto the stage and spoke out against
the idea. One of the other speakers, toolsmith Anton
Drexler, was allegedly impressed by Hitler boldness and gave his own works to read. Although Drexler was no intellectual, he made
some arguments that would have a powerful influence on Hitler’s thought, like this
one: “Germany’s future depends on whether the nation’s spiritual and economic ruling
class will bring about enough social feeling to regain the confidence of the masses; and
whether those who have been led astray by internationalism can be imparted with national
sentiment.” ( Heiden 147) Now, you might be asking yourself: why would
Hitler stay with such a laughable little party? Well, the answer is likely that Hitler saw
the DAP as his chance to potentially achieve prominence, and play a leading role in shaping
the ragtag group into a real party shaped by his own beliefs. Hitler’s first opportunity came on October
16. The party had bought an ad in a local paper,
and Hitler spoke for 30 minutes in front of about 100 people, as the second speaker of
the night. The party wasn’t transformed that day, but
for Hitler it was a big step. The crowd’s positive reaction to his speech
gave him, a man disappointed with his life until now, renewed confidence. From now on, with every new speech he gave,
his confidence grew, and his audiences took notice. Listener Max Axmann was impressed: “There
was an unknown fire that burned inside him […] the man screamed, indulged in histrionics
- I’ve never seen anything like it! But everyone said afterwards, ‘He really
meant it!’ Sweat was pouring off of him, he was soaking
wet, it was unbelievable.” (Ullrich 106) From now on, though audiences grew slowly,
Hitler became the top speaker in the party. On November 15, Hitler received thunderous
applause, as he furiously condemned the Versailles Treaty and finance Minister Matthias Erzberger,
who had signed the armistice for Germany. But his success brought conflict: Chairman
Harrer and Hitler were soon at loggerheads, as Harrer could see that Hitler was taking
over the DAP and shifting its focus to the concerns of the middle class, and away from
workers’ issues. So Hitler had found a political home for himself
in the DAP, and had taken on a key role. Now, finally, people on the outside were beginning
to take notice of the firebrand Gefreiter in Munich. By late November, Hitler’s success in the
DAP caught the attention of the army. He was invited to a gathering of army officers
known as the “Iron Fist.” There he met Ernst Röhm, who had helped crush
the Bavarian Soviet Republic in May. The two became friends, and through Röhm,
Hitler made connections to Munich’s officer class, political street muscle, and got access
to a new audience. Röhm’s soldiers began to attend DAP events,
and changed the character of the crowd. Instead of politically interested civilians,
Hitler’s listeners now included a large group of soldiers who had already received
political training, and who were used to following orders. Something of Röhm’s appreciation of Hitler’s
style can be gleaned from his writings about political street violence: “Since I am an
immature and wicked man, war and unrest appeal to me more than good bourgeois order. Brutality is respected, the people need wholesome
fear. They want to fear someone. They want someone to frighten them and make
them shudderingly submissive.” (Fest, The face of the Third Reich 139) In the middle class and the army, especially
junior and non-commissioned officers, Hitler found a willing public. The bankers and industrialists carried on
with their business, but the future was uncertain for small business owners and specialized
craftsmen, who feared economic changes might bring a proletarianization of the economy
and society. The generals had their pensions and estates,
but the junior officers and NCOs had lost status and security after the revolution and
peace treaty. The reduction in the size and prestige of
the army meant they’d lost their chance at a career and had been humiliated. Both groups were looking for a party that
promised them a future, and Hitler did just that with ideas like this: “The Republic
in Germany owes its birth not to the united national will of our people but to the cunning
exploitation of a series of circumstances which combined to produce a deep general discontent. […] A large section of our people is aware
that no mere change in the form of the State as such can alter or improve our position,
but only the rebirth of the moral and spiritual energies of the nation. This rebirth will be set in motion […] only
through the ruthless action of personalities with a capacity for national leadership and
an inner sense of responsibility.” (Noakes 12-14) Some in the DAP were also looking for a saviour. One such case was Dietrich Eckart, a poet,
anti-semite, Thule member, and DAP founder who would become an important influence in
Hitler’s life . Eckart saw in Hitler a man he could mould to lead Germany out of its
perceived misery and give it purpose, and fulfil his idea of a chosen Fuehrer. To give you an idea of his thinking, here’s
a sample from his work entitled “Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin:” "[…] from two directions
we must ward off attackers who also fight one another. The Reds scream at us as reactionaries, and
to the reactionaries we are Bolsheviks. From both sides the Jew directs the attack
on us. The lower stratum doesn't see him yet and,
thus, hates us from sheer stupidity; the upper stratum sees him but thinks it can serve its
own selfish purposes with him and thus, shoots us in the back more from unscrupulousness
than stupidity.” (Eckhart 11) Another key piece of advice from Eckart was
for Hitler to place himself at the centre of his propaganda – he should someday embody
both the message and the party. Like the professors in Munich, Eckart's intellect
intimidated Hitler, but the budding politician also realized how he could improve the impact
of his speeches. Anger and drama alone were not enough – he
needed to use different techniques to craft his words in such a way that the audience
would easily understand and agree with him. He tried out the new methods in a speech on
December 10, to great success. So by late 1919, Hitler had established himself as the rising star of the DAP, and his improved
speaking skills had gained him more attention and connections with the army. Now, it was time to create a political program
that could reach the whole country. In mid-December, Hitler met with Feder and
Eckart in Drexler’s apartment to draft the DAP’s first program. The 25 points they came up with together would
have a decisive impact on Germany’s future. Now, it’s important to remember that the
DAP’s program was not written by Hitler himself. The DAP was not yet a one-man party at this
stage, and each of the four authors contributed their political priorities to the document. In addition, the 25 points were not original
ideas . Instead they were a mix of nationalist, anti-Semitic, anti-capitalist, anti-Marxist,
anti-liberal and some socialist ideas that other parties were also advocating. Many of the points concentrated on German
nationalism and anti-Semitism, which were Hitler’s priorities. These called for the union of Austria and
Germany; the repeal of the Treaties of Versailles and Saint Germain; colonial lands for German
expansion; and a censored press controlled by ethnic Germans. Point 4 read: “Only members of the nation
may be citizens of the State. Only those of German blood, whatever their
creed, may be members of the nation. Accordingly, no Jew may be a member of the
nation.” ( Program of the German Workers’ Party 1920)
Non-German immigration was to be stopped, and non-Germans were to lose some rights. Eckart’s influence can also be seen in the
points dealing with the common duty to work, and the prioritization of the collective over
the individual. The program’s approach to capitalism bears
the stamp of Gottfried Feder, who opposed the pursuit of riches. These points adopted an anti-capital interest
stance , and abolished income not gained from work, and also called for war profiteers to
be punished. There were also several points related to
socialist state policies, most of which were included because of Drexler. These points call for the nationalization
of trusts, profit-sharing of big companies, state-run education, and public health insurance
for workers and their families . Land could be expropriated for the national good. At all levels, the state was to have massive
control over national life. When considering the DAP program, it is important
to look at the context in which it was created. It had multiple authors who had different
priorities. Much of the document spoke to middle-class
concerns about national pride, anti-Semitism, law and order, education, and the economy. There was little related to the concerns of
the peasants, who formed most of the population in Bavaria. And the only one of the authors who really
emphasized workers’ interests and socialist ideas was Drexler. He was a worker, who knew the reality faced
by those toiling in the factories, and hoped to create a right wing alternative to the
appeal of Marxism. Hitler, Eckart, and Feder did not have working
class backgrounds, and pushed the program and the party towards middle class issues. All this leads to the question of what Hitler
thought of the socialist and anti-capitalist parts of the program, which had been the focus
of other authors. Given he was only partly responsible for the
document, it is intriguing that when Hitler later became Führer, he never openly spoke
of the program, but also refuse d to change it. 10 years later, Goebbels is recorded to have
said: “Wollte Gott, wir hätten von diesen unglückseligen 25 Punkten nie etwas gehört.” „I wish to God we had never heard of these
unfortunate 25 Points,” so even among hardcore Nazis the program was not uncontroversial
(Heiden 153). It is possible that Hitler himself had reservations
about certain points, but we cannot say for sure. So the party had its program, a combination
of different ideas cobbled together by four different men. But only one, Hitler, would become the face
of the party. Hitler revealed the program to the public
at the Hofbräuhaus in Munich, on February 24, 1920. 2000 people took in his furious speech targeting
Erzberger, Versailles, and the Jews. Then he introduced the new program. Many cheered, but some leftist workers disagreed
with much of it. But Hitler and the DAP would not tolerate
dissent. They banned Jews and known socialists from
attending, and hecklers and those who tried to debate them were beaten and expelled from
the hall. The final line of the program Hitler read
out that night went as follows: ““The leaders of the Party promise to work ruthlessly—if
need be to sacrifice their very lives—to translate this program into action.” (Program of the German Workers’ Party 1920) The DAP also renamed itself to appeal to workers,
and was now the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the name it kept until 1945. The party was still on the political fringe
, but these events were the first step in Adolf Hitler’s rise to political prominence,
and Nazi propaganda would soon be a fixture in Munich streets and newspapers. With the party program and a new face, the
National Socialists were ready to grow. We want to thank Markus Linke for helping
us with the research for this episode. As usual, you can find all our sources for
this episode in the video description, including links to our amazon stores. To get access to all ouyr podcast episodes
with expert interviews and other perks, you can also support us on Patreon or by clicking
the join button below. I’m Jesse Alexander and this is The Great
War 1919, a production of Real Time History and the only YouTube history channel that
couldn't come up with a good Hitler christmas joke.
