Hitler

by Peter Longerich

  7. Drexler had previously tried to win support for the extreme Right among the working class without much success. In March 1918 he had sought to spread propaganda for a victorious peace by setting up a Free Workers’ Committee for a Good Peace. On Drexler see Tyrell, Trommler, 17ff.; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 90ff. See also Drexler’s piece ‘Erwachen’ (Awakening) with detailed statements about his political activities and his 1935 curriculum vitae (BHStA V, Slg. P 3071).

  8. On Harrer see Tyrell, Trommler, 188; Reginald H. Phelps, ‘“Before Hitler Came”. Thule Society and the Germanen Orden’, in Journal of Modern History 35 (1963), 245–61.

  9. Rudolf Sebottendorf, Bevor Hitler kam. Urkundliches aus der Frühzeit der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung (Munich 1934, new edn. 1934), 81; the book appeared in 1934 in a slightly altered edition. BAB, NS 26/2234, Decision of the Bavarian Political Police on 1 March 1934 to confiscate the book on the grounds that it exaggerated the role of the Thule Society in the national renewal. In his 1935 cv (BHStAV, Slg. P 3071) Drexler gives 5 January 1919 as the date for the foundation of the National Socialist German Workers’ Association e.V. It was established officially on 30 September 1920 (BAB, NS 26/76). This may have happened despite an earlier incorporation of the DAP as an association. On the founding process see Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 95.

  10. BHStA V, Slg. P 3071, Drexler, Curriculum Vitae of 1935; Anton Drexler, ‘Geburt und Werden der N.S.D.A.P’, in Völkischer Beobachter (VB), 25 February 1934.

  11. BAB, NS 26/76, minutes.

  12. A. Drexler, ‘Wie ein Arbeiter über die Schuldfrage denkt’, in Münchener Beobachter (MB), 22 February 1919, and Auf gut deutsch, 29 August 1919.

  13. Drexler, ‘Erwachen’, 37.

  14. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 254; Kershaw, Hitler 1, 171. In MK, 238ff., Hitler portrays his joining the Party, presumably for dramatic effect (‘it was the most important decision of my life’), as the result of a period of reflection lasting several days (244).

  15. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 160ff.; KAM, SchützRgt. 41, Bund 5, Gebinde 229 (now Reichswehr SchützenRgt. 41, No. 5), Order of the Day, 12 November 1919, in which Hitler is mentioned. On the reconstruction of the propaganda material available to Gruppenkommando 4 see Plöckinger, Soldaten, 218ff.

  16. KAM, Nr. 4470/7111, Hitler’s personal file; JK Nos 75–78, No. 81f. and No. 84f.

  17. Among these there was, in particular, a leaflet comparing the treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Versailles. See Plöckinger, Soldaten, 166; Text: JK, No. 72; MK, 525. Also: KAM, Gruppenkdo. 4, Nr. 314, Hitler file with references to Mayr’s assignments to Hitler.

  18. BAB, NS 26/230, No. 543.

  19. Tyrell, Trommler, 195, fn. 77. According to Plöckinger, Soldaten, 149, the ex-propagandists were Ewald Bolle, Alois Knodn, Karl Schauböck, Johann Stricker, Heinrich Brauen, and Karl Eicher. BAB, NS 26/80, Attendance list; KAM, Gruppenkdo. 4, No. 309, re: Indoctrination commando, 22 July; No. 315, undated ms. Liste ‘Lechfeld’ and report on the indoctrination course in Lechfeld camp published in Deuerlein, ‘Eintritt’, 195 and 200.

  20. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 145; BAB, NS 26/80, Attendance list.

  21. Ibid.

  22. SAM, SprkAkte K 379; BAB, NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 881, date of entry 8 March 1920.

  23. Ernst Röhm, Die Geschichte eines Hochverräters (Munich, 1934), 113f.

  24. BAB, NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 623; Röhm, Geschichte, 100f.; RSA 4/1, Doc. 67. On Röhm see Tyrell, Trommler, 197; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 256f.

  25. KAM, Officer’s personal file 61512: From this it is clear that Hierl was city commandant on 1 December 1919 and took up another post on 1 October 1920. Hitler’s letter to Hierl of 3 July 1920 was sent to a private address and not to the commandant’s office.

  26. BAB, NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 524; Max Domarus (ed.), Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945, vol. 2 (Neustadt a.d. Aisch, 1963), 2111ff.; Winfried Heinemann, Des Führers General. Eduard Dietl (Paderborn, 2004).

  27. BAB, NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 641; BAB, NS 26/80, Attendance list of 16 October 1919; SAM, SprkAkte, L 1711 (Schüssler), Judgment, 4 October 1948, and minutes of the session on the same day MK, 883; Tyrell, Trommler, 198; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 259.

  28. BAB, NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 648.

  29. BAB, NS 26/80, Attendance list, and NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 609.

  30. Margarete Plewnia, Auf dem Weg zu Hitler. Der völkische Publizist Dietrich Eckart (Bremen, 1970), 28f. On Eckart see also Engelman, ‘Dietrich Eckart and the Genesis of Nazism’, PhD Washington University, St Louis, MO, 1971.

  31. Eckart adopted Feder’s demand for the breaking of interest slavery in a pamphlet, which he signed (‘An alle werktätigen Deutschen’), BAB, NS 26/1318; it is published in Plewnia, Weg, 50.

  32. Plewnia, Weg, 66; BAB, NS 26/76, Drexler to the Berlin banker, von Heimburg, 14 August 1919. Eckart gave another speech to a DAP meeting on 5 February 1920 on the topic of ‘German Communism’. Deuerlein, ‘Eintritt’, Doc. 18.

  33. Plewnia, Weg, 68ff.

  34. BAB, R 8048/208, Gansser to Class, 21 July 1921: Eckart gave most of his fees from the staging rights to ‘Peer Gynt’ to the Party; as the play was staged in Berne in September 1921 this would have provided foreign exchange.

  35. Rudolf von Sebottendorf, Bevor. Index.

  36. Alfred Rosenberg, Letzte Aufzeichnungen. Ideale und Idole der nationalsozialistischen Revolution, 72ff., 83, and 91f.

  37. NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 878, 11 March 1920. On Lehmann see Sigrid Stöckel (ed.), Die ‘rechte Nation’ und ihr Verleger. Politik und Popularisierung im J.F. Lehmanns Verlag 1890–1979 (Berlin, 2002); on the Pan-German League see Hering, Nation, 482f.

  38. BAB, NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 515.

  39. BAB, NS 26/80, Attendance List; Tyrell, Trommler, 197.

  40. JK, Nos 63 and 67.

  41. Ibid., No. 93.

  42. BAB, R 8048/258, Letter of thanks from Mayr to Class, 9 August 1920, and Class to Mayr, 18 August 1920; BAB, R 8048/392, Hopfen to Class, 1 August 1920, and Class to Hopfen, 18 August 1920 (published in Joachim Petzold, ‘Class und Hitler. Über die Förderung der frühen Nazi-Bewegung durch den Alldeutschen Verband und dessen Einfluss auf die nazistische Ideologie’, in Jahrbuch für Geschichte 21 (1980), Doc. 1).

  43. For example, the League put an announcement in the MB for the DAP meeting on 16 October 1919 at which Hitler made his first big appearance. MB, 16 October 1919; Plöckinger, Soldaten, 158f.

  44. BAB, NS 26/230, Membership list No. 670. Tafel wrote among others the pamphlets ‘Das neue Deutschland’, ‘Parlamentarismus’, and ‘Volksvertretung’ as well as ‘Die Teuerung’.

  45. BAB, NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 660, CV in Joachimsthaler, Weg, 367.

  46. BAB, NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 531.

  47. If Z, ED 874/2, Feder Diary for 1920: 27 May and 2 June, 28 August, 16 September. The MB of 18 July reported on a further demonstration of the Kampfbund on 14 July in Munich.

  48. JK, Nos 67 and 73; MB, 21 January 1920, Report on Feder’s speech to the DAP on 18 January. There is evidence for more Feder speeches at NSDAP meetings on 18 May, 21 June, and 27 August 1920. See Deuerlein, ‘Eintritt’, 288f.

  49. MB, 6 December 1919 on a meeting on 1 December in the concert hall of the Wagner Hotel.

  50. BAB, NS 26/230, Membership list, No. 626.

  51. Uwe Lohalm, Radikalismus, 295; SAM, SprkAkte K 1522.

  52. Hermann Gilbhard, Die Thule-Gesellschaft. Vom okkulten Mummenschanz zum Hakenkreuz (Munich, 1994), 155.

  53. JK, No. 63, No. 71 (appears here as ‘Hesselmann, editor of the Beobachter’) and No. 83.

  54. Tyrell, Trommler, 72ff.

  55. Sebottendorf, Hitler, 171ff.; Gilbhard, Thule-Gesellschaft, 154ff.

  56. Manfred Weissbecker, ‘Die Deutschsozialistische Partei 1919–1922’, in Dieter Fricke (ed.), Lexikon zur Parteigeschichte, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1984), 547–9.

  57. MB, 25 October 1919.

  58.
BAB, NS 26/80, Attendance list; JK, No. 63; See Tyrell, Trommler, 197.

  59. JK, Nos 66f. and 73; for the co-speakers see the footnotes to the individual documents.

  60. Ibid., Nos 69 and 74.

  61. Ibid., No. 262; BHStA V, Slg. P 3071, Drexler to Hitler, January 1940.

  62. BAB, R 8005/26, Lindeiner report. His trip is mentioned in Elina Kiiskinen, Deutschnationale Volkspartei, 42; she does not, however, refer to Harrer’s contacts.

  63. MK, 390f. and 401.

  64. BAB, NS 26/76, Rules of procedure, and NS 26/77, Organization of the committee of the Munich local branch. Tyrell, Trommler, 30f.; Joachimsthaler, Weg, 265f., with a facsimile of Hitler’s signature; BHStA V, Slg. P 3071, Drexler to Hitler, January 1940.

  65. Joachimsthaler, Weg, 265.

  66. See MK, 390f. and 401; RSA 3/2, Doc. 62; RSA 4/1, Doc. 61.

  67. Lohalm, Radikalismus, 293f.

  68. JK, No. 83; complete reproduction of the police report in Phelps, ‘Hitler’, Doc. 2; MK, 400ff.; Joachimsthaler, Weg, S. 268; Kershaw, Hitler I, 186ff.

  69. Agricola, ‘Geldwahn’. Dingfelder published as Germanus Agricola with the Hoheneichen-Verlag as well as regularly in the MB. On his giving up the pseudonym see Fenske, Konservatismus, 325.

  70. Drexler claimed retrospectively both to have been responsible for the mass meeting and also for co-authorship of the programme (BHStA V, P 3071, Drexler to Hitler, January 1940); see also Joachimsthaler, Weg, 267ff.

  71. It corresponds fairly closely with the DSP’s programme, which the MB had published on 31 May 1919 under the heading ‘Our Political Programme!’

  72. Ernst Deuerlein, Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in Augenzeugenberichten (Munich, 1974), 108ff.

  73. Tyrell, Trommler, 191; JK, No. 168.

  74. Johannes Erger, Der Kapp–Lüttwitz-Putsch. Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Innenpolitik 1919/1920 (Düsseldorf, 1967).

  75. Michael Kellogg, The Russian Roots of Nazism. White Emigrés and the Making of National Socialism, 1917–1945 (Cambridge, 2005), 88. According to the report of the Augsburg industrialist and Nazi sympathizer Gottfried Grandel of 22 October 1941, Eckart was the central figure in the organization of the Kapp putsch in Bavaria (see BAB, NS 26/514).

  76. Mayr to Kapp, 24 September 1920, published in Kurt Gossweiler, Kapital, Reichswehr und NSDAP. Zur Frühgeschichte des deutschen Faschismus 1919–1924 (Cologne, 1982), 554ff.; on the indications that this link had already existed since the beginning of 1920 see Plöckinger, Soldaten, 174.

  77. Mayr mentions the flight in his letter to Kapp, 24 September 1920, published in Gossweiler, Kapital, 554ff.; BAB, NS 26/514, Gottfried Grandel (Freiburg), Report, 22 October 1941.

  78. Fenske, Konservatismus, 89ff.; Horst G. W. Nusser, Konservative Wehrverbände in Bayern, Preußen und Österreich 1918–1933 (Munich, 1973), 196ff.

  79. Bruno Thoss, Der Ludendorff-Kreis 1919–1923. München als Zentrum, der mitteleuropäischen Gegenrevolution zwischen Revolution und Hitler-Putsch (Munich, 1978), esp. 351ff.

  80. On the cell of order see Karl-Ludwig Ay, ‘Von der Räterepublik zur Ordnungszelle Bayern. Die politischen Rahmenbedingungen für den Aufstieg Hitlers in München’, in Björn Mensing and Friedrich Prinz (eds), Irrlicht im leuchtenden München? Der Nationalsozialismus in der ‘Hauptstadt der Bewegung’ (Regensburg, 1991); Martin H. Geyer, Verkehrte Welt. Revolution, Inflation, und Moderne. München, 1914–1924 (Göttingen, 1998), 112–17; Herbert Speckner, ‘Die Ordnungszelle Bayern. Studien zur Politik des Bayerischen Bürgertums, insbesondere der Bayerischen Volkspartei, von der Revolution bis zum Ende des Kabinetts Dr. von Kahr’, Dissertation. Erlangen, 1955.

  81. Fenske, Konservatismus, 166.

  82. Pamphlet, 29 February 1920, quoted in Fenske, Konservatismus, 166.

  83. JK, Nos 242 and 259.

  84. Speeches until the end of 1920 in ibid., Nos 87f., 90–115, 117–21, 123–31, 134, 136–41, 143–8, 150f., 153–5, 157–61, 164–73, and 177.

  85. Ibid., No. 100 (Hofbräuhaus, 11 May 1920: 2,000), No. 118 (Bürgerbräukeller, 6 July 1920: 2,400) and No. 148 (Münchner-Kindl-Keller, 24 September 1920: 3,000–4,000).

  86. Thus the main line taken in ibid., Nos 93, 100, and 108b.

  87. Ibid., Nos 83 and 108b.

  88. Ibid., Nos 91 and 103.

  89. Ibid., Nos 69 and 146. On Hitler’s foreign policy ideas during the early phase of his career see Axel Kuhn, Hitlers außenpolitisches Programm. Entstehung und Entwicklung 1919–1939 ((Stuttgart, 1970), 32ff.

  90. JK, No. 69.

  91. Ibid., No. 109.

  92. Ibid., No. 121; see also Nos 124 and 124b.

  93. Ibid., Nos 272 and 380.

  94. So long as he was a soldier (till the end of March 1920) he avoided using the, at the time, quite usual propaganda slogan of Jewish Bolshevism in public and, compared with his later tirades, was restrained in his anti-Semitic statements. See Plöckinger, Soldaten, esp. 342f., points out that his caution was a response to the official position of the Reichswehr.

  95. JK, Nos 96, 103, 105, 121, and 124.

  96. Ibid., Nos 103, 108b, 112, and 121.

  97. Ibid., No. 139.

  98. Plewnia, Weg, 94ff.

  99. JK, No. 136. On this speech see also Kershaw, Hitler 1, 197.

  100. JK, Nos 91 and 96.

  101. Ibid., No. 91.

  102. Ibid., No. 136; see also Nos 91, 112, and 159.

  103. Ibid., No. 173.

  104. Ibid., No. 129.

  105. Ibid., No. 140.

  106. Müller, Wandel, 144f.

  107. Carl Zuckmayer, Als wär’s ein Stück von mir. Horen der Freundschaft (Frankfurt a. M., 1971), 435f.

  108. SAM, SprkAkte Amann K 20, Interrogation, 5 November 1947. On Hitler’s exaggerated rhetorical style see also the notes of the opera singer, Paul Stieber-Walter, stage name Paul Devrient, who gave Hitler speech training in 1932. See Werner Maser (ed.), Paul Devrient: Mein Schüler Adolf Hitler. Das Tagebuch seines Lehrers (Munich, 2003).

  109. JK, Nos 195 and 238.

  110. Alfred Stein, ‘Adolf Hitler und Gustav le Bon. Der Meister der Massenbewegung und sein Lehrer’, in Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 6 (1955), 362–8.

  111. Tyrell, Trommler, 42ff., on the sources of Hitler’s propaganda see also 53ff.; VB, 29 September 1919, ‘Die Massenseele’.

  112. MK, 107ff., 193 and 376.

  113. Ibid., 194. He devotes a whole chapter to the war propaganda.

  114. Ibid., 197.

  115. Ibid., 198.

  116. Ibid., 201.

  117. Ibid., 649.

  118. JK, No. 178.

  119. MK, 649.

  120. Ibid., 653.

  121. Tyrell, Trommler, 37f.; on this, retrospectively: SAM, PolDir. 6778, Committee to Hitler 15 July 1921.

  122. Tyrell, Trommler, 42ff. in detail on his political conception, also 65ff. on the impetus and reasons prompting Hitler to take over the Party chairmanship. On the leadership crisis in the summer of 1921 see Wolfgang Horn, Der Marsch zur Machtergreifung. Die NSDAP bis 1933 (Düsseldorf, 1980), 53ff.; Kershaw, Hitler 1, 208ff.

  123. On his unstable mental state and unpredictability see Tyrell, Trommler, 107ff.

  124. Excerpt published in Petzold, ‘Class’, Doc. 10.

  125. JK, Nos 96 and 95.

  126. Ibid., No. 101.

  127. Ibid., No. 185.

  128. Ibid., No. 203.

  Hitler becomes Party leader

  1. Paul J. Madden, ‘The Social Composition of the Nazi Party 1919–1930’, Dissertation, University of Oklahoma 1976, 77.

  2. JK, No. 97.

  3. Donald M. Douglas, ‘The Early Ortsgruppen. The Development of National Socialist Local Groups’, Dissertation, Lawrence/Kansas, 1968, 55ff. and 93.

  4. Lohalm, Radikalismus. 298 and 306ff.

  5. JK, No. 116.

  6. See Georg Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 286, Lehmann to Mayr, 24 June 1920 (according to Franz-Willing in ‘private hands’).

  7. Plöckinger, Soldaten, 74.


  8. Mayr to Kapp, 24 September 1920, published in Gossweiler, Kapital, 554ff., quote 556f.

  9. KAM, Gruppenkdo. 4, No. 253.

  10. BAB, NS 26/229, Entries 22 July, 24 October, 18 November, and 7 December 1920; see Tyrell, 175ff.

  11. BHStA V, Slg. P 3071, Drexler to Hitler, January 1940. JK No. 175; BAB, NS 26/514, Grandel report, 22 October 1941. On the take-over of the paper see Tyrell, Trommler, 175ff.; Franz-Willing, Ursprung, 271ff.

  12. BAB, R 8048/258, published in Joachim Petzold, ‘Class’, Doc. 2. The letter was intended for Class and for Paul Bang, another influential figure in the Pan-German League. From the letter it is clear that Hitler had got to know Class following a stay by the latter in Munich, which is confirmed by Class’s unpublished memoirs. See Johannes Leicht, Heinrich Class 1898–1953. Die politische Biographie eines Alldeutschen (Paderborn, 2012), 287; also, Hitler had already visited Class in Berlin during 1920 perhaps in connection with his March trip to the capital. See ibid.

  13. Petzold, ‘Class’, Docs. 3–5; the originals are all in the file BAB, R 8048/258. On this issue see also Leicht, Class, 287ff.

  14. BAB, R 8048/258, Class to Tafel, 8 June 1921, Petzold, ‘Class’, Doc. 6.

  15. Lothar Gruchmann and Reinhard Weber (eds), Der Hitler-Prozess 1924. Wortlaut der Hauptverhandlung vor dem Volksgericht München I (Munich, 1997), 447.

  16. Adolf Hitler MK, 403.