German Workers' Party

Last updated
German Workers' Party
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
AbbreviationDAP
Chairman Anton Drexler
Deputy Chairman Karl Harrer
FoundersAnton Drexler [lower-alpha 1]
Dietrich Eckart
Gottfried Feder [1]
Karl Harrer [lower-alpha 2]
Founded5 January 1919
Dissolved24 February 1920 [2]
Merger of Political Workers' Circle [3] [4]
Free Workers' Committee for a Good Peace [5]
Succeeded by National Socialist German Workers' Party
HeadquartersFürstenfelder Straße 14,
Munich, Germany
Ideology Pan-Germanism [6]
Völkisch nationalism
Anti-Marxism [6] [7]
Antisemitism
Political position Far-right [8]

The German Workers' Party (German : Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) was a short-lived far-right political party established in Weimar Germany after World War I. It only lasted from 5 January 1919 until 24 February 1920. The DAP was the precursor of the Nazi Party, which was officially known as the National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP).

Contents

History

Origins

On 5 January 1919, the German Workers' Party (DAP) was founded in Munich in the hotel Fürstenfelder Hof by Anton Drexler, [4] along with Dietrich Eckart, Gottfried Feder and Karl Harrer. It developed out of the Freien Arbeiterausschuss für einen guten Frieden (Free Workers' Committee for a Good Peace) league, a branch of which Drexler had founded in 1918. [4] Thereafter in 1918, Harrer (a journalist and member of the Thule Society), convinced Drexler and several others to form the Politischer Arbeiterzirkel (Political Workers' Circle). [4] The members met periodically for discussions with themes of nationalism and antisemitism. [4] Drexler was encouraged to form the DAP in December 1918 by his mentor, Dr. Paul Tafel. Tafel was a leader of the Alldeutscher Verband (Pan-Germanist Union), a director of the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg and a member of the Thule Society. Drexler's wish was for a political party which was both in touch with the masses and nationalist. When the DAP was founded in January 1919, Drexler was elected chairman and Harrer was made Reich Chairman, an honorary title. [9] On 17 May, only ten members were present at the meeting, and a later meeting in August only noted 38 members attending. [10] The members were mainly Drexler's colleagues from the Munich railway yards. [10]

Adolf Hitler's membership

Adolf Hitler's DAP card with the membership number 7 (altered from the original) Hitler's DAP membership card.png
Adolf Hitler's DAP card with the membership number 7 (altered from the original)

After World War I ended, Adolf Hitler returned to Munich. Having no formal education or career prospects, he tried to remain in the army for as long as possible. [11] In July 1919, he was appointed Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance commando) of the Reichswehr to influence other soldiers and to investigate the DAP. While Hitler was initially unimpressed by the meetings and found them disorganised, he enjoyed the discussion that took place. [12] During these investigations, Hitler became attracted to founder Anton Drexler's anti-Semitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Marxist ideas. [4] While attending a party meeting at the Sterneckerbräu beer hall on 12 September 1919, Hitler became involved in a heated political argument with a visitor, Professor Baumann, who questioned the soundness of Gottfried Feder's arguments in support of Bavarian separatism and against capitalism. [13] In vehemently attacking the man's arguments, he made an impression on the other party members with his oratory skills and, according to Hitler, Baumann left the hall acknowledging unequivocal defeat. [13] Impressed with Hitler's oratory skills, Drexler encouraged him to join. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party. [14] Although Hitler initially wanted to form his own party, he claimed to have been convinced to join the DAP because it was small and he could eventually become its leader. [15] He consequently encouraged the organisation to become less of a debating society, which it had been previously, and more of an active political party. [16]

In less than a week, Hitler received a postcard stating he had officially been accepted as a member and he should come to a committee meeting to discuss it. Hitler attended the committee meeting held at the run-down Altes Rosenbad beer-house. [17] Normally, enlisted army personnel were not allowed to join political parties. In this case, Hitler had Captain Karl Mayr's permission to join the DAP. Further, Hitler was allowed to stay in the army and receive his weekly pay of 20 gold marks. [18] Unlike many other members of the organisation, this continued employment provided him with enough money to dedicate himself more fully to the DAP. [19] At the time when Hitler joined the party, there were no membership numbers or cards. It was in January 1920 when a numeration was issued for the first time and listed in alphabetical order Hitler received the number 555. In reality, he had been the 55th member, but the counting started at the number 501 in order to make the party appear larger. [20] In his work Mein Kampf , Hitler later claimed to be the seventh party member, but he was in fact the seventh executive member of the party's central committee. [21]

During 1919, the DAP set out an explicit program of being nationalistic, anti-Semitic, and anti-Marxist. [22] Unlike other similar nationalist parties at the time, the DAP aimed its rhetoric towards working class Germans, hoping to cross class boundaries and recruit them. [22] However, Hitler explicitly rejected the Marxist idea of dictatorship of the proletariat, and instead attempted to appeal to the working class to create a "volksgemeinshaft" (people's community), where German identity took precedence over class, religion, or other ideas. [22]

After giving his first speech for the DAP on 16 October at the Hofbräukeller , Hitler quickly became the party's most active orator. Hitler's considerable oratory and propaganda skills were appreciated by the party leadership as crowds began to flock to hear his speeches during 1919–1920. Such was the popularity of Hitler's speaking skills, the party began charging an entry fee for visitors to hear his speeches. [23] With the support of Drexler, Hitler became chief of propaganda for the party in early 1920. Hitler preferred that role as he saw himself as the drummer for a national cause. He saw propaganda as the way to bring nationalism to the public. [24]

From DAP to NSDAP

The small number of party members were quickly won over to Hitler's political beliefs. He organized their biggest meeting yet of 2,000 people on 24 February 1920 in the Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München (a beer hall in Munich). Further in an attempt to make the party more broadly appealing to larger segments of the population, the DAP was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) on 24 February. [25] [26] Such was the significance of Hitler's particular move in publicity that Harrer resigned from the party in disagreement. [27] The new name was borrowed from a different Austrian party active at the time (the Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, i.e. the German National Socialist Workers' Party), although Hitler earlier suggested the party to be renamed the Social Revolutionary Party in order to distance the party from association with socialism. It was Rudolf Jung who persuaded Hitler to adopt the NSDAP name. [28] The name was intended to draw upon both left-wing and right-wing ideals, with "Socialist" and "Workers'" appealing to the left, and "National" and "German" appealing to the right. [22]

Membership

Early members of the party included:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anton Drexler</span> Far-right German politician (1884–1942)

Anton Drexler was a German far-right political agitator for the Völkisch movement in the 1920s. He founded the German Workers' Party (DAP), the pan-German and anti-Semitic antecedent of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Drexler mentored his successor in the NSDAP, Adolf Hitler, during his early years in politics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazi Party</span> Far-right political party active in Germany (1920–1945)

The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party, was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party, existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremist German nationalist, racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against communist uprisings in post–World War I Germany. The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti–big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes. The party had little popular support until the Great Depression, when worsening living standards and widespread unemployment drove Germans into political extremism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beer Hall Putsch</span> Failed 1923 Nazi coup attempt in Germany

The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch, was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff and other Kampfbund leaders in Munich, Bavaria, on 8–9 November 1923, during the Weimar Republic. Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 15 Nazis, four police officers, and one bystander.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thule Society</span> German nationalist and occultist movement (1918-25)

The Thule Society, originally the Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum, was a German occultist and Völkisch group founded in Munich shortly after World War I, named after a mythical northern country in Greek legend. The society is notable chiefly as the organization that sponsored the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, which was later reorganized by Adolf Hitler into the National Socialist German Workers' Party. According to Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw, the organization's "membership list ... reads like a Who's Who of early Nazi sympathizers and leading figures in Munich", including Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Julius Lehmann, Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart, and Karl Harrer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dietrich Eckart</span> 19/20th-century German poet, playwright, journalist, and far-right political activist

Dietrich Eckart was a German völkisch poet, playwright, journalist, publicist, and political activist who was one of the founders of the German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party. Eckart was a key influence on Adolf Hitler in the early years of the Party, the original publisher of the party newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, and the lyricist of the first party anthem, "Sturmlied". He was a participant in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 and died on 26 December of that year, shortly after his release from Landsberg Prison, from a heart attack.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gottfried Feder</span> German economist and politician (1883–1941)

Gottfried Feder was a German civil engineer, a self-taught economist, and one of the early key members of the Nazi Party and its economic theoretician. One of his lectures, delivered on 12 September 1919, drew Adolf Hitler into the party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl Harrer</span> German journalist and politician

Karl Harrer was a German journalist and politician, one of the founding members of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in January 1919, the predecessor to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, more commonly known as the Nazi Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregor Strasser</span> German politician (1892–1934)

Gregor Strasser was a German politician and early leader of the Nazi Party. Along with his younger brother Otto, he was a leading member of the party's left-wing faction, which brought them into conflict with the dominant faction led by Adolf Hitler, resulting in his murder in 1934. The brothers' strand of the Nazi ideology is known as Strasserism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hermann Esser</span> Founding member of the Nazi Party (1900–1981)

Hermann Esser was an early member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). A journalist, Esser was the editor of the Nazi paper, Völkischer Beobachter, a Propaganda Leader, and a Vice President of the Reichstag. In the early days of the party, he was a de facto deputy of Adolf Hitler. As one of Hitler's earliest followers and friends, he held influential positions in the party during the Weimar Republic, but increasingly lost influence during the Nazi era.

The National Socialist Program, also known as the 25-point Program or the 25-point Plan, was the party program of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Adolf Hitler announced the party's program on 24 February 1920 before approximately 2,000 people in the Munich Festival of the Hofbräuhaus and within the program was written "The leaders of the Party swear to go straight forward, if necessary to sacrifice their lives in securing fulfilment of the foregoing points" and declared the program unalterable. The National Socialist Program originated at a DAP congress in Vienna, then was taken to Munich, by the civil engineer and theorist Rudolf Jung, who having explicitly supported Hitler had been expelled from Czechoslovakia because of his political agitation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Austrian Nazism</span> Far-right political movement in Austria

Austrian Nazism or Austrian National Socialism was a pan-German movement that was formed at the beginning of the 20th century. The movement took a concrete form on 15 November 1903 when the German Worker's Party (DAP) was established in Austria with its secretariat stationed in the town of Aussig. It was suppressed under the rule of Engelbert Dollfuss (1932–34), with its political organization, the DNSAP banned in early 1933, but was revived and made part of the German Nazi Party after the German annexation of Austria in 1938.

In the fourteen years the Weimar Republic was in existence, some forty parties were represented in the Reichstag. This fragmentation of political power was in part due to the use of a peculiar proportional representation electoral system that encouraged regional or small special interest parties and in part due to the many challenges facing the nascent German democracy in this period.

The early timeline of Nazism begins with its origins and continues until Hitler's rise to power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erhard Heiden</span> Member of the Nazi Party and third commander of the Schutzstaffel

Erhard Heiden was an early member of the Nazi Party and the third commander of the Schutzstaffel (SS), the paramilitary wing of the Sturmabteilung. He was appointed head of the SS, an elite subsection of the SA in 1927. At that time the SS numbered fewer than a thousand men and Heiden found it difficult to cope under the much larger SA. Heiden was not a success in the post, and SS membership dropped significantly under his leadership. He was dismissed from his post in 1929, officially for "family reasons". He was arrested after the Nazis came to power in 1933 and executed that same year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolf Hitler's rise to power</span> Events leading to Hitlers dictatorship of Germany

Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Being one of its most popular speakers, he was made the party leader after he threatened to otherwise leave.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ulrich Graf</span> Member of the Nazi Party and one of Adolf Hitlers inner circle

Ulrich Graf was an early member of the Nazi Party and one of Adolf Hitler's inner circle. In 1923, he served in a bodyguard unit for Hitler and was wounded in the Beer Hall Putsch. Graf was considered a lifesaver for Hitler, using himself as human shield and taking five bullets for him. He was a long serving member of the Munich City Council and the Supreme Party Court and in 1936 was elected to the Reichstag. After the war, Graf was sentenced to five years of hard labour by a denazification court and died in 1950.

Captain Karl Mayr was a German General Staff officer and Adolf Hitler's immediate superior in an Army Intelligence Division in the Reichswehr, 1919–1920. Mayr was particularly known as the man who introduced Hitler to politics. In 1919, Mayr directed Hitler to write the Gemlich letter, in which Hitler first expressed his anti-Semitic views in writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brown House, Munich</span> Former Nazi Party headquarters building in Germany

The Brown House was the name given to the Munich mansion located between the Karolinenplatz and Königsplatz, known before as the Palais Barlow, which was purchased in 1930 for the Nazis. They converted the structure into the headquarters of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Its name comes from early Nazi Party uniforms, which were brown. Many leading Nazis, including Adolf Hitler, maintained offices there throughout the party's existence. It was destroyed by Allied bombing raids during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sterneckerbräu</span>

The Sterneckerbräu was a brewery in Munich, Germany. The associated inn served as a meeting place for the first branch of the German Workers' Party (DAP), which later changed its name to the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Similar to the Bürgerbräukeller, it was a place of pilgrimage for the Nazi movement. The building is now used as a residential and commercial building and is a registered monument on the Bavarian monument list.

Politischer Arbeiter-Zirkel was a political activist group founded by Karl Harrer, a known nationalist, in hopes of gathering intellectuals to discuss the political future of Germany in March 1918. The organization eventually merged with the Workers' Committee for a Good Peace formed by Anton Drexler to become the German Workers' Party in January 1919. Ultimately these principles would develop into the National Socialist German Workers Party, also known as the Nazi Party.

References

Informational notes

  1. ↑ Served as Chairman of the German Workers' Party from 5 January 1919 to 24 February 1920.
  2. ↑ Served as Deputy Chairman of the German Workers' Party from 5 January 1919 to 24 February 1920.

Citations

  1. ↑ Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, p. 82, ISBN   978-0-393-33761-7.
  2. ↑ "How a Speech Helped Hitler Take Power". Time. Retrieved 11 September 2020. "Feb. 24, 1920 [...] that Adolf Hitler delivered the Nazi Party Platform to a large crowd in Munich, an event that is often regarded as the foundation of Naziism."
  3. ↑ Goodrick-Clarke 2004, p. 148.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kershaw 2008, p. 82.
  5. ↑ Hatheway, Jay (Jul., 1994). "The Pre-1920 Origins of the National Socialist German Workers' Party". Journal of Contemporary History . Sage Publications, Inc. Vol. 29, No. 3. pp. 443-462. doi:10.1177/002200949402900304.
  6. 1 2 Wladika, Michael (2005), Hitlers Vätergeneration: Die Ursprünge des Nationalsozialismus in der k.u.k. Monarchie (in German), Böhlau Verlag, p. 157, ISBN   9783205773375
  7. ↑ David Nicholls. Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. pp. 236–37.
  8. ↑ Colley 2010, p. 11.
  9. ↑ Kershaw 2008, pp. 82, 83.
  10. 1 2 Kershaw 2008, p. 83.
  11. ↑ Kershaw 1999, p. 109.
  12. ↑ Childers, Thomas (2001). "The Weimar Republic and the Rise of the Nazi Party". A History of Hitler's Empire, 2nd Edition. Episode 3. The Great Courses. Event occurs at 23:00–24:30. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  13. 1 2 Kershaw 2008, p. 75.
  14. ↑ Evans 2003, p. 170.
  15. ↑ Kershaw 1999, p. 126.
  16. ↑ Childers, Thomas (2001). "The Weimar Republic and the Rise of the Nazi Party". A History of Hitler's Empire, 2nd Edition. Episode 3. The Great Courses. Event occurs at 15:00–25:00. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  17. ↑ Kershaw 2008, pp. 75, 76.
  18. ↑ Kershaw 2008, p. 76.
  19. ↑ Childers, Thomas (2001). "The Weimar Republic and the Rise of the Nazi Party". A History of Hitler's Empire, 2nd Edition. Episode 3. The Great Courses. Event occurs at 24:00–25:00. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  20. ↑ Mitcham 1996, p. 67.
  21. ↑ Werner Maser, Der Sturm auf die Republik – Frühgeschichte der NSDAP, ECON Verlag, Düsseldorf, Vienna, New York, Moscow, Special Edition 1994, ISBN   3-430-16373-0.
  22. 1 2 3 4 Childers, Thomas (2001). "The Weimar Republic and the Rise of the Nazi Party". A History of Hitler's Empire, 2nd Edition. Episode 3. The Great Courses. Event occurs at 26:00–31:04. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  23. ↑ Childers, Thomas (2001). "The Weimar Republic and the Rise of the Nazi Party". A History of Hitler's Empire, 2nd Edition. Episode 3. The Great Courses. Event occurs at 26:00–27:00. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  24. ↑ Kershaw 2008, pp. 81, 84, 85, 89, 96.
  25. ↑ Kershaw 2008, p. 87.
  26. ↑ Zentner & Bedürftig 1997, p. 629.
  27. ↑ Shirer 1960, p. 36.
  28. ↑ Konrad Heiden, "Les débuts du national-socialisme", Revue d'Allemagne, VII, No. 71 (Sept. 15, 1933), p. 821.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.