1. IDs and Definitions • Hofbrauhaus • Mein Kampf

2. Questions and Imperatives • Describe the origins of the Nazi Party in Germany. How did it move to gain power in Germany?

3. Beginning of the Nazis • Nazi Party: • German Workers Party (DAP) founded January 1919 in Munich with Anton Drexler as its leader • Drexler envisioned a völkisch German state focused on broad middle-class interests, and a purge of foreigners and Jews • (story of Hitler’s job after the war) Ernst Roehm had recruited him as a civilian investigator; his job was to find out what was going on in meetings of any extremist parties; Hitler checked on the DAP • At first Hitler found the meeting boring and was ready to leave; he was then drawn into discussion about Bavarian separatism, which vehemently opposed • Hitler was invited back and joined joined the DAP in September (party # 555) and became the 7th member of the executive committee • Soon, name of party changed to NSDAP • anti-Semitism characterized its meetings

5. 1919-1921 • 1919-1921 – violent anti-Semitic pogroms swept through Poland and the Ukraine, with many Jews injured and killed (60,000) • February 1920: first mass meeting of the NSDAP in Munich’s Hofbrauhaus: Hitler established the party program (perhaps with Drexler’s help) • 1921: Ernst Roehm formed the Brown Shirts (SA), a paramilitary group; the swastika appeared and would be used as the symbol for the Nazi party • SA seemed mostly to be thugs, watched out for party leaders • Summer 1921: Hitler becomes party’s first chairman with dictatorial powers; Nazi party based on leadership principle of a fuehrer (leader)

8. Better Organization • beginning of Hitler Youth and SS • Adolf Hitler Boys Storm Troop, later called Hitler Youth (1926) • Shock Troop Adolf Hitler, nucleus for SS founded the next year, an elite version of the SA (black uniforms with “ss”), brutal, but in a refined sort of way, initially Hitler’s guard and later elite armed guard of the Third Reich (lead by Heinrich Himmler) • 1922: foreign minister Walther Rathenau, a Jew, is assassinated • Jewish graves are desecrated throughout Germany for next 20 years • Hitler gave talks at rallies to get people to believe in “stab in the back” theory

10. 1923 • Hyper-inflation, the currency becomes worthless (German mark traded 4 billion to one U.S. $) • we see the first issue of the pro-Nazi anti-Semitic newspaper DerStürmer(The Attacker) published in Nuremberg; its slogan was “The Jews are our misfortune,” a quote picked up from Heinrich von Treitschke • DerSturmer banned by Weimar Republic soon after its beginnings, but resumes printing in 1925; The Nazi JULIUS STREIKER edited newspaper “DerSturmer”...convinced Hitler to hold Nazi rallies in Nuremberg. • Jewish homes are burned in Berlin • 1923 putsch in Munich (putsch is an uprising), party attempted to take over the government, Hitler was arrested and spent about 9 months in prison, writing Mein Kampf (transcribed by Rudolph Hess, also in prison for Putsch)…the book will be published in 1925/26…and editions continued

12. Best way for Nazis to take power??

13. The End of the Beginning • Weimar had banned Hitler from speaking (1925), but lifted that ban in 1927 • Joseph Goebbels published the first issue of the anti-Semitic DerAngriff(The Attack). It was founded to rally Nazi Party members because of the ban on the Nazi Party in Berlin • 1929: Hitler appoints Heinrich Himmler Reichsführer-SS • Nazi Party day rally held in Nuremberg in August 1929 and draws over 100,000 people • Great Depression hit • this gave the Nazis the boost they needed • the center parties had helped to stabilize the Republic??? • with the Depression, German citizens looked to the extreme parties • Nazi’s increased their seats in the Reichstag

15. The End of the Beginning • Weimar had banned Hitler from speaking (1925), but lifted that ban in 1927 • Joseph Goebbels published the first issue of the anti-Semitic DerAngriff(The Attack). It was founded to rally Nazi Party members because of the ban on the Nazi Party in Berlin • 1929: Hitler appoints Heinrich Himmler Reichsführer-SS • Nazi Party day rally held in Nuremberg in August 1929 and draws over 100,000 people • Great Depression hit • this gave the Nazis the boost they needed • the center parties had helped to stabilize the Republic??? • with the Depression, German citizens looked to the extreme parties • Nazi’s increased their seats in the Reichstag

17. Election for President 1932 • German banks forced to close for financial reasons for a month in summer 1931 • Hitler speaks to German industrialists in 1932 as he makes his bid for the presidency • 1932 election for President: Hindenburg, Hitler, and Thaelmann • Hitler had enough votes to force a second vote against Hindenburg • Hindenburg won, but Hitler’s following increased having been in the spotlight