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Hitler the Agitator

Germany and especially the state of Bavaria, was in a state of chaos in the immediate post-war years. In Berlin a communist coup failed but in Bavaria, on 6 April, a Soviet Republic took over. The 29-year-old Hitler was part of this Soviet Republic, a Bolshevik-inspired regime whose leaders were predominantly Jewish. Hitler was elected as a representative of his battalion to ensure that the army in Munich remained loyal to the Red Republic. In desperation, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Ebert, called in the Freikorps, a group of violent, far-right ex-soldiers, and the Soviet Republic in Bavaria was brought to a bloody end. Hitler laid low; he played no part in its demise. The Soviet Republic of Bavaria had barely lasted a month but Hitler failed to mention in Mein Kampf that for a few weeks at least he served for a communist-inspired, Jewish-led regime.

Following his flirtation with the far left, Hitler remained in the army and started to be groomed as a political instructor, to ensure that the soldiers had not been overly influenced by the communists. In August 1919, encouraged by his mentor, Captain Karl Mayr, he went on a training course and there discovered his talent for public speaking. His speeches were so well attended that he became a star turn. When Mayr was asked, by letter, by a fellow trainee, Adolf Gemlich, to clarify the position on the Jewish question, Mayr passed it on to Hitler for a response. Hitler wrote that Judaism was not a religion but a race and the ‘final goal’ had to be ‘the irrevocable removal of the Jews themselves.’ The ‘Gemlich letter’ is the first known written statement, at the age of thirty, of Hitler’s anti-Semitism. (Captain Mayr was later to renounce Hitler and died in a concentration camp in 1945).

Hitler c.1920

Hitler monitored political developments in Munich and reported back to his superiors. It was in this role that, on 12 September 1919, Hitler was sent to a meeting of the German Workers’ Party, or, to use its German abbreviation, DAP. Founded in January 1919 by a 35-year-old Munich locksmith, Anton Drexler, the DAP was typical of many far-right parties in Germany at the time. Small and inconsequential, its membership cards began at the number 500 to give the impression of larger numbers. When during Hitler’s visit, one of the DAP’s members made a speech in favour of Bavarian independence. Hitler, the great advocate of a pan-Germany, interrupted with an aggressive counter-argument. Drexler was impressed and invited Hitler back to another meeting. He did return and was soon to join DAP as member 555, not the seventh as he later claimed, and signing his name as Hittler. Drexler believed his party could use someone with the gift of Hitler’s gab.

In October 1919, Hitler delivered a beer hall speech to an audience of a hundred. Within four months he was attracting over 2,000 listeners with his histrionic, hate-fuelled speeches attacking the enemies of Germany and the scapegoats blamed for all her ills, the Jews, the communists, and the Weimar politicians.

Germany was still in a state of anarchic chaos. In June 1919, the newly formed Weimar government signed the Treaty of Versailles, the document drawn up in Paris by the victorious powers following the war. The treaty stripped Germany of her armed forces, demilitarized the Ruhr (lest France should feel threatened by a military presence on its border), and forced Germany to pay reparations as compensation. But it was the ‘war guilt’ clause that rankled most with the German population, forced to accept that Germany had been ultimately responsible for the war.

By meekly accepting the treaty, the Weimar government undermined its power from the outset. Extremism flourished amongst the chaos as supporters and thugs of extremist parties, left and right, fought pitched battles in the streets and in the beer halls.

Hitler revelled in the turmoil and offered something different – an unusual blend of nationalism and socialism. In February 1920, having sidelined Drexler, Hitler extended the name of the DAP to reflect its message – the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or NSDAP. Its opponents, in an attempt at derision, soon abbreviated it further to Nazi. The newly named party drew up a programme of twenty-five points, its manifesto, which included attacks on the Treaty of Versailles, Jews, advocated a pan-Germany, and called for living space in the east, lebensraum: ‘to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth.’

In June 1921, Hitler faced his first challenge to his leadership when Drexler and members of the Nazi committee criticized his ‘lust for power and personal ambition’. Hitler offered to resign. He knew that without him the party was nothing. The conceited bluff worked and the committee confirmed Hitler as party chairman, and pensioned Drexler off as its ‘honorary president’.