GCSE Edexcel History Unit 2A (Germany 1918-39) Unit 2

Hitler attended his first DAP (German Workers' Party) meeting in September 1919 and found that the small group's antisemitic, antidemocratic, anticommunist and nationalist views chimed with his own beliefs. By February 1920 he had become the right-hand man of the leader, Anton Dexler, and the two together published the party's manifesto, its "25-Point Programme". Hitler was an effective public speaker and by June 1020 the party had 1,100 members. ON the 7th of August 1920 Hitler changed the party name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP or Nazis for short) and membership continued to grow to about 3,000. With the new funds from this increased membership Hitler was able to buy a newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter, for 180,000 marks. Finally, in 1921 Hitler became the party leader and introduced the Nazi private army, the Sturmabteilung (SA), also known as the "Brownshirts". In 1923 he also formed his own "Shock Troop" bodyguard from the most loyal SA members. Although the Munich Putsch (see unit 1 notes) was a failure, Hitler used the publicity to gain 32 seats in the May 1924 election after the ban on the party was swiftly lifted. Hitler was also only imprisoned for nine months intead of the original five years, during which he wrote his memoirs, "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle).

Hitler relaunched the Nazi Party on the 27th of February 1925, ironically at the very beer hall where his planned putsch had failed. 4,000 people attended and a further 1,000 were turned away. Hitler appointed Philipp Bouhler as secretary and Franz Schwarz as treasurer; he also split up the party into regions (gaue) each run by a gauleiter. He also recieve extra income from anti-communist corporate backers, with which he expanded the SA to 400,000 members and set up the Schutzstaffel (**), led first by Julius Schreck and then by Heinrich Himmler. Hitler also expanded his propaganda machine; his speechs were reported in over 120 newspapers by the 1930s and massive rallies were used to project an image of power; the Nazi propaganda exercise, led by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, also took advantage of then-new technology including radio, films, records and aircraft to keep Hitler publically visible. Despite this, however, in 1928 the Republic was recovering and as a result the Nazis lost all but 12 seats in the May 1928 elections and…

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