Nazi Party Origins

In 1919, army veteran Adolf Hitler, frustrated by Germany’s defeat in

World War, which had left the nation economically depressed and
politically unstable, joined a fledgling political organization called the
German Workers’ Party. Founded earlier that same year by a small
group of men including locksmith Anton Drexler (1884-1942) and
journalist Karl Harrer (1890-1926), the party promoted German
nationalism and anti-Semitism, and felt that the Treaty of Versailles,
the peace settlement that ended the war, was extremely unjust to
Germany by burdening it with reparations it could never pay. Hitler
soon emerged as a charismatic public speaker and began attracting
new members with speeches blaming Jews and Marxists for
Germany’s problems and espousing extreme nationalism and the
concept of an Aryan “master race.” In July 1921, he assumed
leadership of the organization, which by then had been renamed the
Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party.

Did you know? Sales of Hitler's political autobiography "Mein Kampf," sometimes referred
to as the bible of the Nazi Party, made him a millionaire. From 1933 to 1945, free copies
were given to every newlywed German couple. After World War II, the publication of "Mein
Kampf" in Germany became illegal.
Through the 1920s, Hitler gave speech after speech in which he stated
that unemployment, rampant inflation, hunger and economic
stagnation in postwar Germany would continue until there was a total
revolution in German life. Most problems could be solved, he
explained, if communists and Jews were driven from the nation. His
fiery speeches swelled the ranks of the Nazi Party, especially among
young, economically disadvantaged Germans.

In 1923, Hitler and his followers staged the Beer Hall Putsch in
Munich, a failed takeover of the government in Bavaria, a state in
southern Germany. Hitler had hoped that the “putsch,” or coup d’etat,
would spark a larger revolution against the national government. In the
aftermath of the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler was convicted of treason and
sentenced to five years in prison, but spent less than a year behind
bars (during which time he dictated the first volume of “Mein Kampf,”
or “My Struggle,” his political autobiography). The publicity
surrounding the Beer Hall Putsch and Hitler’s subsequent trial turned
him into a national figure. After his release from prison, he set about
rebuilding the Nazi Party and attempting to gain power through the
election process.