Hitler: Backstory 1919 to 1932
Hitler During the Intra-War Years
Adolf Hitler’s adult never held a regular job and aside from his time in World War I, led a lazy lifestyle, from his brooding teenage days in Linz through years spent in idleness and poverty in Vienna. But after joining the German Workers’ Party in 1919 at age thirty, Hitler immediately began a frenzied effort to make it succeed.
The German Workers’ Party consisted mainly of an executive committee
Hitler and his career as a Corporal in the German Army ~ 1919
Adolf Hitler’s early years as an adult, especially his military service and success with political agitation and intrigue, provided the prefect preparation for becoming an effective psychopath and one of the worst dictators in modern history, only matched (perhaps) by Polpot.
He served in the Army during WWI. While still in the military and stationed in Munich in 1919, Corporal Hitler become an Army informer, naming soldiers in his barracks that supported the Marxist uprisings in Munich. This resulted in their arrest and executions. Then he became an Army undercover agent, assigned to weed out Marxist influence within the ranks of the German Army and also investigate so-called ‘subversive’ political organizations.
Proven to have a modicum of talent and no scruples whatsoever, the Army sent him to a political indoctrination course at the University of Munich, where he quickly came to the attention of his superiors. In Mein Kampf, he describes his first experience making a political speech in one of his classes :
“One of the participants felt obliged to break a lance for the Jews and began to defend them in lengthy arguments. This aroused me to an answer. The overwhelming majority of the students present took my standpoint. The result was that a few days later I was sent into a Munich regiment as a so-called educational officer.”
His anti-Semitic outbursts impressed his superiors, including his mentor Captain Karl Mayr, (who was later to die in Buchenwald as a result of Hitler’s own policies). In August 1919, Hitler was given the job of lecturing returning German prisoners of war on the dangers of Communism and pacifism, democracy and disobedience.
By now Hitler had discovered he spoke well in front of an audience, and was able to hold their attention and sway them to his point of view. An Army report confirmed his talent by to him as “a born orator.” He was particularly effective when delivering tirades against the Jews to weary soldiers, who were always looking for someone to blame for their misfortunes.
Dictator-N-Training ~ 1930-1932
Then they placed an advertisement in an anti-Semitic newspaper in Munich, and at Hitler’s insistence moved the public meeting to a beer cellar that would hold about a hundred. The other committee members were concerned they might have trouble filling the place, but just over a hundred showed up at the meeting held on October 16, 1919.
It was Hitler’s first time as a featured speaker for the DAP. Some committee members doubted Hitler’s ability, but despite these misgivings he astounded everyone with a highly emotional, at times near hysterical manner of speech making. For Hitler, it was an important moment in his young political career. He described the scene in Mein Kampf:
“I spoke for thirty minutes, and what before I had simply felt within me, without in any way knowing it, was now proved by reality: I could speak! After thirty minutes the people in the small room were electrified and the enthusiasm was first expressed by the fact that my appeal to the self-sacrifice of those present led to the donation of three hundred marks.”
The 300 Deutsche marks he raised were used to buy more advertising and print leaflets. The German Workers’ Party now featured Hitler as the main attraction at its meetings. In his speeches Hitler railed against the Treaty of Versailles and delivered anti-Semitic tirades, blaming the Jews for Germany’s problems. Attendance slowly increased, numbering in the hundreds.
Hitler took charge of party propaganda in early 1920, and recruited young men he had known in the Army. There were many alienated, maladjusted soldiers and ex-soldiers in Munich who had a thirst for adventure and distaste for the peace brought on by the Treaty of Versailles. In particular they were angry about the creation of the German Free Republic decreed by Treaty that, with a stroke of a pen, had eliminated the historic German Empire.
A significant portion of Germans objected to the undemocratic means used by a foreign power to force a democratic form of government on the German population without even asking them. Many such people expressed their discontent by joining the German Workers’ Party.
However the DAP was not the only rabble-rousing game in town. Many other political groups were looking for members, but none more successfully than the Marxists. There was genuine fear of a widespread Communist revolution in Germany, like the Russian revolution of 1917.
Hitler associated Marxism (whose ideas came from Carl Marx, who was Jewish) with Jews, which doubled his hatred of both. He also understood how a political party directly opposed to a possible Communist revolution could play on the fears of so many Germans and gain support.
In February of 1920, Hitler urged the German Workers’ Party to holds its first mass meeting. He met strong opposition from leading party members who thought it was premature and feared it might be disrupted by Marxists. Hitler had no fear of disruption. In fact he welcomed it, knowing it would bring his party anti-Marxist notoriety. He even had the hall decorated in red to aggravate the Marxists.
On February 24, 1920, Hitler was thrilled when he entered the large meeting hall in Munich and saw two thousand people waiting, including a large number of Communists.
A few minutes into his speech, he was drowned out by shouting followed by open brawling between German Workers’ Party associates and disruptive Communists. Eventually, Hitler resumed speaking and claims in Mein Kampf the shouting was gradually drowned out by applause.
He proceeded to outline the Twenty Five Points of the German Workers’ Party, its political platform, which included: the union of all Germans in a greater German Reich; rejection of the Treaty of Versailles; the demand for additional territories for the German people (Lebensraum); citizenship determined by race with no Jew to be considered a German; all income not earned by work to be confiscated; a thorough reconstruction of the national education system; religious freedom except for religions which endanger the German race; and a strong central government for the execution of effective legislation.
One by one Hitler went through the Twenty Five Points, asking the rowdy crowd for its approval on each point, which he got. For Hitler, the meeting was now a huge success.
“When after nearly four hours the hall began to empty and the crowd, shoulder to shoulder, began to move, shove, press toward the exit like a slow stream, I knew that now the principles of a movement which could no longer be forgotten were moving out among the German people.”
“A fire was kindled from whose flame one day the sword must come which would regain freedom for the Germanic Siegfried and life for the German nation.”
Hitler realized one thing the movement lacked was a recognizable symbol or flag. In the summer of 1920, Hitler chose the symbol which to this day remains perhaps the most infamous in history, the swastika.
It was not something Hitler invented, but is found even in the ruins of ancient times. Hitler had seen it each day as a boy when he attended the Benedictine monastery school in Lambach, Austria. The ancient monastery was decorated with carved stones and woodwork that included several swastikas. They had also been seen around Germany among the Freikorps (soldiers for hire), and appeared before as an emblem used by anti-Semitic political parties.
But when it was placed inside a white circle on a red background, it provided a powerful, instantly recognizable symbol that immediately helped Hitler’s party gain popularity.
Hitler described the symbolism involved: “In the red we see the social idea of the movement, in the white the national idea, in the swastika the mission to struggle for the victory of Aryan man and at the same time the victory of the idea of creative work, which is eternally anti-Semitic and will always be anti-Semitic.”
The German Workers’ Party name was changed by Hitler to include the term National Socialist. Thus the full name was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) called for short, Nazi.
By the end of 1920 it had about three thousand members.
After the elections of March 5, 1933, the Nazis began a systematic takeover of the state governments throughout Germany, ending a centuries-old tradition of local political independence. Armed SA and SS thugs barged into local government offices using the state of emergency decree as a pretext to throw out legitimate office holders and replace them with Nazi Reich commissioners.
Political enemies were arrested by the thousands and put in hastily constructed holding pens. Old army barracks and abandoned factories were used as prisons. Once inside, prisoners were subjected to military style drills and harsh discipline. They were often beaten and sometimes even tortured to death. This was the very beginning of the Nazi concentration camp system.
At this time, these early concentration camps were loosely organized under the control of the SA and the rival SS. Many were little more than barbed-wire stockades know as ‘wild’ concentration camps, set up by local Gauleiters and SA leaders.
For Adolf Hitler, the goal of a legally established dictatorship was now within reach. On March 15, 1933, a cabinet meeting was held during which Hitler and Göring discussed how to obstruct what was left of the democratic process to get an Enabling Act passed by the Reichstag. This law would hand over the constitutional functions of the Reichstag to Hitler, including the power to make laws, control the budget and approve treaties with foreign governments.
The emergency decree signed by Hindenburg on February 28th, after the Reichstag fire, made it easy for them to interfere with non-Nazi elected representatives of the people by simply arresting them.
On March 21st, in the Garrison Church at Potsdam, the burial place of Frederick the Great, an elaborate ceremony took place designed to ease public concern over Hitler and his gangster-like new regime.As Hitler plotted to bring democracy to an end in Germany, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels put together a brilliant public relations display at the official opening of the newly elected Reichstag.
It was attended by President Hindenburg, foreign diplomats, the General Staff and all the old guard going back to the days of the Kaiser. Dressed in their handsome uniforms sprinkled with medals, they watched a most reverent Adolf Hitler give a speech paying respect to Hindenburg and celebrating the union of old Prussian military traditions and the new Nazi Reich. As a symbol of this, the old Imperial flags would soon add swastikas.
Finishing his speech, Hitler walked over to Hindenburg and respectfully bowed before him while taking hold of the old man’s hand. The scene was recorded on film and by press photographers from around the world. This was precisely the impression Hitler and Goebbels wanted to give to the world, all the while plotting to toss aside Hindenburg and the elected Reichstag.
Later that same day, Hindenburg signed two decrees put before him by Hitler. The first offered full pardons to all Nazis currently in prison. The prison doors sprang open and out came an assortment of Nazi thugs and murderers.
The second decree signed by the befuddled old man allowed for the arrest of anyone suspected of maliciously criticizing the government and the Nazi Party.
A third decree signed only by Hitler and Papen allowed for the establishment of special courts to try political offenders. These courts were conducted in the military style of a court-martial without a jury and usually with no counsel for the defense.
On March 23rd, the newly elected Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to consider passing Hitler’s Enabling Act. It was officially called the “Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich.” If passed, it would in effect vote democracy out of existence in Germany and establish the legal dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.
Brown-shirted Nazi storm troopers swarmed over the fancy old building in a show of force and as a visible threat. They stood outside, in the hallways and even lined the aisles inside, glaring ominously at anyone who might oppose Hitler’s will.
Before the vote, Hitler made a speech in which he pledged to use restraint.
“The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures…The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one,” Hitler told the Reichstag.
He also promised an end to unemployment and pledged to promote peace with France, Great Britain and Soviet Russia. But in order to do all this, Hitler said, he first needed the Enabling Act. A two-thirds majority was needed, since the law would actually alter the constitution. Hitler needed 31 non-Nazi votes to pass it. He got those votes from the Catholic Center Party after making a false promise to restore some basic rights already taken away by decree.
Meanwhile, Nazi storm troopers chanted outside: “Full powers – or else! We want the bill – or fire and murder!!”
But one man arose amid the overwhelming might. Otto Wells, leader of the Social Democrats stood up and spoke quietly to Hitler.
“We German Social Democrats pledge ourselves solemnly in this historic hour to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No enabling act can give you power to destroy ideas which are eternal and indestructible.”
Hitler was enraged and jumped up to respond.
“You are no longer needed! The star of Germany will rise and yours will sink! Your death knell has sounded!”
The vote was taken – 441 for, and only 84, the Social Democrats, against. The Nazis leapt to their feet clapping, stamping and shouting, then broke into the Nazi anthem, the Hörst Wessel song.
Democracy was ended. They had brought down the German Democratic Republic legally. From this day onward, the Reichstag would be just a sounding board, a cheering section for Hitler’s pronouncements.
Interestingly, the Nazi Party was now flooded with applications for membership. These latecomers were cynically labeled by old time Nazis as ‘March Violets.’ In May, the Nazi Party froze membership. Many of those kept out applied to the SA and the SS which were still accepting. However, in early 1934, Heinrich Himmler would throw out 50,000 of those ‘March Violets’ from the SS.
The Nazi Gleichschaltung now began, a massive coordination of all aspects of life under the swastika and the absolute leadership of Adolf Hitler.
Under Hitler, the State, not the individual, was supreme.
From the moment of birth one existed to serve the State and obey the dictates of the Führer. Those who disagreed were disposed of.
Many agreed. Bureaucrats, industrialists, even intellectual and literary figures, including Gerhart Hauptmann, world renowned dramatist, were coming out in open support of Hitler.
In Germany, there were now constant Nazi rallies, parades, marches and meetings amid the relentless propaganda of Goebbels and the omnipresent swastika. For those who remained there was an odd mixture of fear and optimism in the air.
Temporary parking lot:
