Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  Moreover, Hitler did not attend the DAP meeting alone; he was accompanied by Sergeant-Major Alois Grillmeier, who, like Hitler, had been a member of the Investigation Commission into Bolshevik Activities and who also joined the DAP,18 and by six other of Mayr’s former propagandists.19 Mayr had himself been expected to attend the meeting, as is noted on the attendance list;20 on 12 November, he did indeed turn up to a DAP meeting.21 And Mayr did more: he assigned a second propagandist to the DAP in the shape of Hermann Esser, a former NCO and editorial assistant in Mayr’s press department, who soon assumed a prominent role in the party, becoming one of its leading speakers, along with Hitler, Drexler, and Feder.22 Moreover, by introducing Captain Ernst Röhm to the DAP, Mayr provided it with an important contact. For Röhm was adjutant to the commander of the 21st Infantry Brigade, Colonel von Epp,23 and himself heavily involved in the Reichswehr’s support for the Einwohnerwehren. According to Röhm, he had already got to know Hitler before the latter had joined the DAP at Mayr’s instigation. They had met at an event at the Eiserne Faust [Iron Fist], a right-wing officers’ club. Hitler later recalled that he had already met Röhm in spring 1919. The first evidence we have of Röhm attending a meeting of the DAP is from October, shortly after which he joined the party. He was to become one of Hitler’s keenest supporters.24

  The DAP and Hitler also had a direct line to the city commandant’s office, which played an important role in the re-establishment of ‘law and order’ after the crushing of the Räterepublik. The city commandant of Munich, Major Konstantin Hierl, was an early mentor of the DAP and went on to become the head of the Reich Labour Service during the Third Reich. In July 1920 Hitler sent him a detailed description of the party’s organization, which reads like an official report.25 Thus, at the beginning of Hitler’s political career, the DAP enjoyed the support of three important military institutions, which during these months were heavily involved in reorganizing political life in Munich: the Information Department [Mayr], the City Commandant’s Office [Hierl], and the staff of the Reichswehr unit stationed in Munich (21st Infantry Brigade/Röhm).

  Other members of the Reichswehr also helped the DAP to get started. Thus, in the autumn of 1919, Captain Eduard Dietl was already a member of the DAP. And, although he left it again in 1920 – officers were in principle not permitted to be members of political parties – he remained sympathetic. When Dietl, by then a Colonel-General of the Wehrmacht, was killed in an air crash in 1944, Hitler commented at his memorial service that he, Dietl, had been the first Reichswehr officer to give him the opportunity to speak to his company and that Dietl had subsequently declared his absolute loyalty to him. In 1923 Dietl was to prove this by, on the instructions of the Reichswehr, helping to train the SA and then, finally, on the occasion of the so-called Hitler putsch of 8 November, declaring his support for the putschists.26 Vice-Sergeant-Major Rudolf Schüssler can be shown to have taken part in a meeting of the DAP on 16 October 1919 at which Hitler spoke; he joined the party at the end of 1919, becoming party secretary at the beginning of 1920. He is believed to have dealt with party business in his barracks.27 Among the other early members of the DAP whom Hitler recruited from the Reichswehr was Karl Tiefenböck,28 a former member of the group of runners from the 16th Reserve Infantry Regiment. And another old acquaintance whom Hitler won over to the DAP was Joseph Popp, his pre-war landlord.29

  In addition, within the DAP Hitler met several important figures involved in extreme right-wing journalism. Among them was Dietrich Eckart, a modestly successful völkisch poet, dramatist, and journalist, who has already been referred to. Eckart’s best-known work was a translation, or rather a freely rendered version, of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, which was regularly performed on the German stage. During the war, he had become politicized: he published a series of pamphlets in which he complained that negative reviews by Jews were responsible for his lack of success and that Jews were to blame for everything.30 In 1915 he established the Hoheneichen-Verlag publishing company and, in December 1918, the anti-socialist and anti-Semitic weekly, Auf gut deutsch, in which, among others, Feder and Bothmer published articles.31 Eckart was involved in the DAP before Hitler arrived, among other things as a speaker.32 He was not a member but acted as an influential sponsor. He had a sound reputation in conservative circles, enabling him to collect considerable donations for the party.33 He also supported it out of his own resources.34 Among the authors writing for Auf gut deutsch and published by the Hoheneichen-Verlag was Alfred Rosenberg, a young Baltic German who had emigrated from Reval (Tallin) to Munich in December 1918. Rosenberg, who was also recorded as a ‘guest’ of the Thule Society,35 introduced several members of the Baltic German emigré scene to the DAP. He got to know Hitler through Eckart.36

  In March 1920, Julius Friedrich Lehmann, head of the Lehmann publishing house and referred to previously, joined the now renamed NSDAP. Apart from publishing learned medical works, he was also responsible for a series of eugenic, anti-Semitic and nationalist books and pamphlets. Through his leading role in the Pan-German League and the Deutsch-völkische Schutz- und Trutzbund Lehmann ensured that the NSDAP secured support from these organizations as well.37 The extent to which the völkisch scene formed a dense network is demonstrated by the Deutscher Volksverlag press, which Lehmann founded in April 1919. Run by Ernst Boepple, another early member of the DAP,38 who was simultaneously a member of the Schutz- und Trutzbund, it was responsible for publishing Drexler’s pamphlet as well as the early works of Alfred Rosenberg and Eckart’s Peer Gynt translation. Another example is Wilhelm Gutberlet, a member of the Thule Society and a partner in another völkisch publishing firm, the Eher Verlag, who was one of those who attended the DAP meeting of 12 September at which Hitler appeared for the first time and, in October 1920, gave his shares in the firm to the DAP.39

  In October and November 1919 Erich Kühn, the editor of the Pan-German League’s journal Deutschlands Erneuerung [Germany’s Renewal], spoke at meetings of the DAP.40 In return, Hitler, who in the meantime had become moderately well-known, defended the League against the accusation of having been responsible for the war: ‘it wasn’t Pan-Germans; it was Pan-Jews’.41 Three and a half months later, Privy Councillor Heinrich Class, the influential chairman of the Pan-German League, who was based in Berlin, sent the DAP 3,000 Reich marks [RM]. Significantly, the money was received via Captain Mayr. In other words, the captain was still keeping a protective eye on the party. Soon afterwards, Class donated another 1,000 RM to finance a propaganda trip by Hitler round Austria.42 Also, right from the start, the DAP received a helping hand from the Deutsch-völkische Schutz- und Trutzbund.43 Apart from Lehmann, this was true above all of Paul Tafel, an engineer with idiosyncratic ideas about a new economic order, who had already become a member of the DAP in 1919,44 and of Ferdinand Wiegand, the Munich district manager of a Hamburg firm, who for a few months in 1920 even became the DAP’s first secretary.45

  In addition, Gottfried Feder, who has been frequently referred to, played a key role as a link man in the völkisch scene in Munich. An early member of the DAP46 and founder of his own modestly successful organization, the Combat League for Breaking Interest Slavery, Feder was a valued speaker for the extreme Right. Apart from giving speeches for his own organization,47 the DAP,48 and the Reichswehr – Hitler had heard him speak at Mayr’s indoctrination course – Feder was also on the bill at the first public meeting of the Munich Schutz- und Trutzbund on 1 December 1919.49 Marc Sesselmann was equally well connected. Born in 1898, a member of the Thule Society and the early DAP,50 he was active in the Schutzbund and also involved in founding the Deutschsozialistische Partei (DSP) in Munich.51 In May 1919, Sesselmann, along with Thule members Hans Georg Müller and Friedrich Wieser, took over the editorship of the Münchener Beobachter, retaining it until March 1920;52 its national edition had been renamed the Völkischer Beobachter in August 1919. In the autumn of 1919 and at the beginning of 1920 he and Hitler spoke at various engagements organized by the DAP and the Schut
zbund.53

  Sesselmann, who was active in the DAP and the DSP, was not the only member of the dense völkisch–anti-Semitic network in Munich who joined more than one political party. At the end of 1918, Alfred Brunner, a mechanical engineer from Düsseldorf, proposed founding a German Socialist Party [Deutschsozialistische Partei = DSP],54 and his idea was taken up by the Thule Society. At Christmas 1918, the Society launched the party with a programme drafted by Brunner (although he was not mentioned by name). Alongside its initiative in founding the DAP, Thule supported the establishment of a local branch of the DSP in Munich,55 which, mainly thanks to the efforts of Müller and Sesselmann,56 took place in May 1919. In the autumn of 1919, a German Socialist Working Group [Deutschsozialistische Arbeitsgemeinschaft] was also established in Munich.57 In November, another important DSP local branch was founded, this time in Nuremberg, which was recruited largely from members of the Schutz- und Trutzbund. The party was officially established at Reich level in April 1920. Its programme was more or less identical with that of the DAP: the main difference was that the DSP followed a parliamentary strategy, albeit initially without success. In the election to the first Reichstag on 6 June 1920 it received only 7,186 votes (0.03 per cent).

  On 16 October 1919, at the DAP’s first public meeting, the main speaker was not Hitler but the Pan-German journalist, Erich Kühn.58 However, Hitler, a new member, intervened in the discussion with a lengthy anti-Semitic diatribe and, from November onwards, spoke at further DAP meetings in Munich beer halls, often with other speakers from the party (Feder, Drexler, and others), to audiences of 300–400 people.59 On 10 December 1919 and then again on 23 January 1920 he was the main speaker.60

  Before the DAP took the stage in front of a wider public, Hitler succeeded in getting rid of the party leader, Harrer. Hitler maintained later that Harrer had wanted to hang on to the idea of the party as a kind of political study group, thereby blocking Hitler’s more ambitious plans. However, this account is implausible.61 In fact, at the end of 1919, Harrer was sounding out the possibility of cooperation with the Deutschnationale Volkspartei [German National People’s Party (DNVP)] in Berlin. This was the most important right-wing Conservative party in Germany, which was trying to bring together all the right-wing conservative and völkisch forces in the Reich; however, it did not yet have a state-wide organization in Bavaria. It was only in March 1920 that it managed to establish a permanent link with the (Bavarian) Mittelpartei. In December 1919, the secretary of the DNVP, Hans-Erdmann von Lindener-Wildau, met Harrer during a trip to Bavaria and they both concluded that politically they were largely in agreement. Harrer gave assurances that the DAP would not put up its own list of candidates in future elections provided that the DNVP included a ‘white-collar employee’ in its list.62 This conversation totally contradicts the image of Harrer as a cautious person merely interested in being a member of a political sect that Hitler later tried to convey.63 Almost certainly Hitler’s engagement in a public conflict with the party chairman was primarily because he was determined to maintain the independence of the DAP and, unlike Harrer, was unwilling to cooperate with a powerful partner. His determination not to be forced into a right-wing ‘united front’ was to be a leitmotif of Hitler’s future policy.

  At the beginning of December 1919, Hitler pushed through new rules of procedure for the party, according to which an already existing six-man committee, which contained Drexler, Harrer, two secretaries, and two treasurers, but not Hitler, should take over the actual running of the party. According to a commentary on the rules, composed by Hitler, the aim of the change was to exclude any ‘paternalistic form of control’ by a ‘superior or co-existing authority’, by which was meant Harrer’s original ‘Workers’ Political Circle’.64 Under pressure, Harrer resigned as party chairman at the beginning of January 1920 and disappeared from the political stage. He was succeeded by Drexler.65

  The DAP was able to acquire much larger audiences after February 1920 not, as Hitler insisted on maintaining,66 because Harrer was no longer blocking the way, but as a result of close cooperation with the Schutz- und Trutzbund or, to put it more accurately, through its patronage. For the DAP was only able significantly to increase its audiences within the context of the anti-Semitic mass meetings organized by the Bund at the beginning of 1920. The first mass public meeting organized by the Schutz- und Trutzbund took place on 7 January 1920 in the Kindl-Keller beer hall in Munich. Kurt Kerlen, the secretary of the North Bavarian Schutz- und Trutzbund, was the main speaker before an audience of 7,000; Feder, Sesselmann, and Hitler were among those who spoke in the discussion. Hitler made a strong anti-Semitic statement. While a general ban on public meetings in Munich was imposed from 12 January to 9 February, the Bund continued its agitation in membership meetings and then went public again with two mass meetings on 19 and 21 February 1920. This exceptionally successful series of mass meetings represents the breakthrough for anti-Semitism as a mass movement in Munich.67 The seed that the Schutz- und Trutzbund had sown in the second half of 1919 with its massive anti-Semitic agitation had now germinated and the Nazis would by and large be the ones to harvest its fruits.

  It was in the heated atmosphere of these February days that the DAP took the plunge and held its first meeting in front of a large audience.68 Around 2,000 people turned up at the Hofbräuhaus beer cellar on 24 February. The main attraction was a speech by the well-known völkisch speaker and doctor, Johann Dingfelder.69 After his speech Hitler read out and explained the new party programme he had produced together with Drexler70 and which the already excited audience now confirmed point by point through acclamation. Moreover, at this meeting the DAP was renamed the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei [National Socialist German Workers’ Party: NSDAP]. From now onwards, 24 February 1920 was regarded as the official date of the Party’s foundation.

  The programme reflected contemporary völkisch demands.71 The Party was committed to the ‘union of all Germans’ in a ‘Greater Germany’; it demanded the suspension of the peace treaties signed in Versailles and St Germain; and it demanded colonies. Jews should be excluded from German citizenship since they were not ‘of German blood’ and so were not ‘national comrades’. A close reading of the programme shows that a considerable number of demands were clearly anti-Semitic, even if, taken literally, some of them were aimed only at ‘non-Germans’. As ‘guests’ in the Reich they were to be subject to ‘aliens’ legislation’ and were not permitted to hold any public office; if there was insufficient food they were to be deported. Moreover, all non-Germans who had entered the Reich since the start of the war were to be forced to leave, a demand that was aimed at the so-called ‘Eastern Jews’. As a matter of principle, only Germans could become journalists and publishers. The economic demands also had anti-Semitic implications, indeed they can only be understood in the context of völkisch polemics against allegedly ‘Jewish capitalism’ and ‘Jewish war profiteers’. The Party demanded the ‘abolition of income not earned by work’, the ‘breaking of interest slavery’ and the ‘confiscation of all war profits’. It demanded profit sharing in all large enterprises, the ‘communalization of large department stores’ and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders, the abolition of ‘speculation in land’, the death penalty for ‘common criminals, usurers, profiteers etc.’. There followed general statements of social policy such as the demand for an improvement in provision for old age, for the expansion of the ‘whole education system’ and the ‘improvement of public health’. A specific commitment was made to ‘positive Christianity’, including a polemic against the ‘Jewish materialist spirit’.72

  Thus, at the time of its first mass meeting, the NSDAP was operating as part of a wider völkisch network. Indeed, in spring 1920, together with fourteen other extreme right-wing groups in Munich, it formed a German-Völkisch Working Group, which included, among others, the Pan-German League, the Thule Society, the German Socialists, the Deutschnationale Handlungsgehilfenverband [a white-collar trade
union], and the Deutsch-völkische Schutz- und Trutzbund.73

  The Kapp putsch and the Emergence of Bavaria as a ‘Cell of Order’

  On 13 March 1920, a group of right-wing conservative politicians and army officers attempted a putsch or coup against the constitutional government in Berlin. They were aided by Free Corps units, whose existence was being threatened by Allied demands for a reduction in the German armed forces. The two main organizers of the putsch, who had won the support of the former Quartermaster General of the old imperial army, Erich Ludendorff, were Wolfgang Kapp, the director of the East Prussian Landschaft, a public corporation providing credit to the landed nobility, and Walther Freiherr von Lüttwitz, the former commander of the Reichswehr units in Berlin, who had just been relieved of his command. The putsch collapsed after only a few days as a result of a general strike in Berlin during which civil servants refused to obey the new ‘government’ under its self-appointed ‘Reich Chancellor’ Kapp, while the conservative establishment, although sympathizing with the coup, for tactical reasons remained aloof from it. The putsch did, however, lead to a change of government and (one of the key demands of the plotters) a general election.74