The Early Nazi Party

Member number 555

On 12 September 1919 a thirty-year-old corporal named Adolf Hitler, still on the army payroll as a political instructor, was sent to a Munich beer hall to report on a small nationalist club called the German Workers Party, founded that January by a locksmith, Anton Drexler. It had perhaps forty members. Hitler argued with a speaker, impressed Drexler, and joined as member 555, a number the party inflated by starting its cards at 501. He spoke for the party for the first time on 16 October to 111 people. On 24 February 1920 he read a 25-point programme to around 2,000 in the Hofbrauhaus, and the party renamed itself the National Socialist German Workers Party. It adopted the swastika flag that year, bought a newspaper in December, and in July 1921 gave Hitler dictatorial powers as chairman after he threatened to leave. That August it formed a squad of ex-soldiers to guard its meetings and break up those of its enemies, the SA. By the end of 1922 the party had around 20,000 members; by November 1923, 55,000. The exam asks how it grew from a club to a movement in four years, what its programme and its stormtroopers were for, and how far the growth was the work of one speaker. This module gives you the dated evidence and the Paper 3 shapes.

Five words the examiners use

Each definition ends with the moment it mattered, because a bare definition earns nothing in a 12-mark answer.

From club to movement, in order

Put these six events in the order they happened.

• Drexler founds the German Workers Party in Munich
• Hitler, sent to observe the party for the army, joins it
• The 25-Point Programme is announced at the Hofbrauhaus and the party is renamed
• The party buys the Volkischer Beobachter
• Hitler becomes chairman with dictatorial powers and the SA is formed
• The SA marches through Coburg and the party passes 20,000 members

Why did the party grow between 1920 and 1922?

Munich had dozens of nationalist clubs in 1919. Which explanation best accounts for this one growing from forty members to 20,000 in three years?

• Munich was the right place: Bavaria had been through a Soviet republic in April 1919, crushed by the Freikorps with around 600 dead, and its conservative state government from 1920 protected right-wing groups that Berlin would have banned; the party had a speaker who could fill a beer hall and a programme that promised something to workers, soldiers, shopkeepers and the racist right at once; it had money and a newspaper from army contacts and sympathisers such as the Bechsteins; and the SA gave unemployed ex-soldiers a uniform, a fight and a purpose while showing the public a party that could keep order.
• The party won seats in the Reichstag election of 1920 and became famous.
• The army ordered its soldiers to join the party.
• Mass unemployment drove millions to the Nazis.

What the 25 points promised, and to whom

The question may ask about the programme or the appeal of the party. Know which points were aimed at which audience, and which were kept.

Question 1: inference from a source

Source A: from the 25-Point Programme of the German Workers Party, announced by Hitler at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich on 24 February 1920. A student infers that the programme was designed to appeal to workers as well as to nationalists. Tap the TWO points that support that inference most directly.

• Point 1: We demand the union of all Germans in a Greater Germany on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples.
• Point 14: We demand profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises.
• Point 4: Only a member of the race can be a citizen. Only a person of German blood can be a member of the race. Accordingly no Jew can be a member of the race.
• Point 15: We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
• Point 22: We demand the abolition of the mercenary army and the formation of a national army.

The role of the SA

Select the THREE statements that correctly describe the SA in the years 1921 to 1923.

• The SA was formed in August 1921 from ex-soldiers and Freikorps men, organised by Ernst Rohm, an army captain who supplied it with weapons and recruits, and it wore no brown shirts until 1924, when a job lot of surplus tropical shirts was bought cheap.
• Its first job was to protect Nazi meetings from the left and to break up socialist and communist meetings with fists and chair legs, and at Coburg on 14 to 15 October 1922 around 800 SA men fought the town left to a standstill and marched through the streets.
• It gave unemployed and rootless ex-soldiers a uniform, comrades, a fight and a leader, so that by November 1923 it was several thousand strong and the party could attempt a Putsch with it.
• It was controlled by Himmler and the SS from the start.
• It was a legal police force set up by the Bavarian government.
• It had 400,000 members by 1923.

Two interpretations of the early party

Question 3 gives you two interpretations and asks how they differ, why, and how far you agree. The two below were written for this module to show the shape of the argument; the exam will print real historians. Interpretation 1. The early Nazi Party was the creation of one man. Before Hitler joined it in September 1919 it was a club of forty with no programme, no newspaper and no future; within two years he had written its manifesto, bought its paper, made himself its dictator and filled the largest halls in Munich. Nothing the party became before 1923 can be explained without him. Interpretation 2. Hitler was the product of Munich, not its cause. Bavaria in 1919 had seen a Soviet republic and a Freikorps massacre, was governed from 1920 by a right wing that sheltered nationalist paramilitaries, and was full of ex-soldiers, racist clubs and army officers with money to give. Any able demagogue could have built a movement in that soil; Drexler had already found the audience, Rohm supplied the muscle and the guns, and the inflation supplied the grievance. Question 3(c) asks why they differ. The answer is what each counts as the cause: Interpretation 1 reads the party records and the speeches and sees the leader; Interpretation 2 reads the history of Bavaria and sees the conditions. This meant that one explains why it was the Nazi Party that grew and the other why any such party could, and the judgement in 3(d) asks whether the same man in Hamburg, or the same city without him, would have produced the same result.

In the shoes of Hitler, 1919 to 1921

Four decisions in the making of the party. Choose what Hitler actually did, and notice what each choice built.

• September 1919. You are a corporal paid by the army to watch political meetings. You have just been to one held by a club of forty men with a locksmith for a chairman and no programme. What do you do?
• February 1920. The party needs a programme. Drexler wants a workers manifesto; the racist right wants blood and soil; the ex-soldiers want Versailles torn up. What do you write?
• July 1921. You are the chief speaker but not the chairman. While you are in Berlin, the committee opens talks to merge with a rival nationalist party. What do you do?
• August 1921. Socialists are disrupting your meetings and Munich is full of ex-soldiers with nothing to do. Rohm at army headquarters can find weapons. What do you create?

From cause to consequence

Because Bavaria had lived through a Soviet republic in April 1919, Munich teemed with demobilised soldiers, nationalist societies and officers ready to pay anyone who fought the left. Because the army sent Hitler to watch a club of forty in September 1919, he found a party small enough to take over and joined as member _____. Because the programme of February 1920 offered something to nationalists, racists and _____ at once, it could fill a hall of 2,000. Because Hitler resigned in July _____ and returned as chairman with dictatorial powers, the party had one voice from then on. And because the SA under _____ gave ex-soldiers a uniform and a fight, the party had several thousand men to march with by November _____.

Measure the growth

The Nazi Party had about 3,000 members in 1921 and about 55,000 by November 1923. By how many members had it grown?

Question 3(b): the main difference

Question 3(b) asks: What is the main difference between the two interpretations on the callout card? Explain your answer using both. Which answer would score all four marks?

• The main difference is that Interpretation 1 explains the growth of the party by Hitler himself, pointing to the programme, the newspaper, the chairmanship and the speeches, whereas Interpretation 2 explains it by the conditions in Munich, pointing to the Soviet republic and the Freikorps, the sheltering state government, the ex-soldiers and the money, and argues that any demagogue could have used them.
• Interpretation 2 says that Munich was full of ex-soldiers and racist clubs and the inflation supplied the grievance.
• I agree with Interpretation 1 because Hitler was the only man who could fill a beer hall.
• They differ because one is about a person and the other is about a place.

A 12-mark paragraph, marked

Question 2: Explain why the Nazi Party grew in the years 1920 to 1922. One reason the party grew was the conditions in Munich. Bavaria had been through a Soviet republic in April 1919, crushed by the Freikorps at a cost of around 600 lives, and from March 1920 it was governed by a right-wing administration under Kahr that sheltered nationalist paramilitaries and refused to enforce bans that Berlin issued. This meant that a party which promised to destroy the left could recruit openly among the ex-soldiers, Freikorps men and army officers who filled the city, could hold meetings of 2,000 in the beer halls without interference, and could raise money from sympathisers such as the Bechsteins and from army funds, which paid for the Volkischer Beobachter in December 1920. The party grew because Munich after 1919 was the one place in Germany where a movement like it was protected rather than policed. What earned the marks: a cause named in the first sentence; specific support (April 1919, 600, Kahr, 2,000, the newspaper, December 1920); the link phrase this meant that; and a closing sentence that returns to the question. Two more paragraphs, on the speaking of Hitler and the 25-Point Programme and on the SA and the appeal of the uniform, and the answer reaches the top level.

Write the 12-mark answer

Explain why the Nazi Party grew in the years 1920 to 1922. You may use the following in your answer: the 25-Point Programme; the SA. You must also use information of your own.

• Support that counts: a date, a figure, a name or a place
• Causes of your own: the speaking of Hitler, the conditions in Munich, the newspaper and the money, or the leader principle of 1921

Question 3(d): how far do you agree?

Question 3(d) asks: How far do you agree with Interpretation 1 that the early Nazi Party was the creation of one man? Use both interpretations and your own knowledge. A student has written the case FOR Interpretation 1. Which is the strongest point to set AGAINST it?

• Hitler made the party what it was, but Munich made Hitler possible: the same speaker in a socialist city would have been arrested, and it was the Bavarian government of Kahr, the Freikorps veterans, the army money that bought the newspaper and the Rohm connection that armed the SA which turned speeches into a movement, so the test is that the party grew only in Bavaria before 1923 and collapsed the moment the state withdrew its protection after the Putsch, which means the man explains why it was the Nazi Party and the place explains why it grew, and a judgement should give each its share.
• Drexler founded the party, not Hitler.
• The party was still small in 1922, so nobody had created much.
• Hitler only became important after 1930.