WHAT’S THE STORY?

A CENTENARY which only the sickest of people will celebrate takes place today. On February 24, 1920, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) was formally established in Munich, Germany.

We know them better as the Nazi Party.

Just over a year earlier, the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the German Workers’ Party, had been founded by Anton Drexler and Karl Harrer along with Hermann Esser, Gottfried Feder and Dietrich Eckart.

They would soon have a new recruit, an Austrian by birth called Adolf Hitler.

DID HITLER FOUND THE NAZIS?

AFTER in the First World War, Hitler returned to Munich where he worked for military intelligence, encouraging nationalism and anti-communism amongst soldiers.

Such was the German authorities’ terror at a possible communist takeover that Hitler was one of numerous officers who were ordered to infiltrate small political parties and direct them away from communism.

Hitler first attended a meeting of the German Workers’ Party on September 12, 1919.

Arguing forcefully, he impressed the organising committee and since its basic philosophy chimed with his, Hitler was happy to do so, though he was not at first impressed with his new work colleagues.

Hitler later wrote: “When I arrived that evening in the guest room of the former Sternecker Brau, I found approximately 20 to 25 persons present, most of them belonging to the lower classes. The impression it made upon me was neither good nor bad. I felt that here was just another one of these many new societies which were being formed at that time.

“In those days everybody felt called upon to found a new party whenever he felt displeased with the course of events and had lost confidence in all the parties already existing.

“Thus it was that new associations sprouted up all round, to disappear just as quickly, without exercising any effect or making any noise whatsoever.”

WHAT HAPPENED?

HITLER quickly took control. He thought Drexler and Harrer too weak and later described what he thought was needed, namely a leader “fleet as a greyhound, smooth as leather, as hard as Krupp steel”.

Hitler brought his undoubted organisational skills to the committee. He took charge of recruitment and propaganda, and quite swiftly he encouraged the party to hold larger meetings and rallies, where his rabid oratory and extreme antisemitism – typically he would blame the loss of the war on Jews – won them many converts.

By February 24, 1920. Hitler was ready to strike. He organised a meeting of 2000 people in the Hofbräuhaus in Munich and controlling the agenda, he moved the foundation of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. There was no dissent, or at least anyone who dissented was made to leave the new party – Karl Harrer being one of the first to leave as he disagreed with Hitler’s plans.

Also at that meeting, Hitler announced the new party’s 25-point programme which had been written by Drexel and edited by Hitler.

Hitler would later explain his 25 points in his memoir Mein Kampf: “They were devised to give, primarily to the man of the people, a rough picture of the movement’s aims.

“They are in a sense a political creed, which on the one hand recruits for the movement and on the other is suited to unite and weld together by a commonly recognised obligation those who have been recruited.”

It contained the foundation beliefs of Nazism: “Only Germans may be citizens of Germany… No Jew may be a citizen … there will be special laws for foreigners living in Germany … crimes against the common interest must be punished by death … get rid of the old army and replace it with a people’s army.”

DIDN’T THE NAZI PARTY ALMOST DIE IN INFANCY?

INDEED. Hitler proposed that there be a sole leader and this was rejected. Then on July 11, 1920, he resigned from the NSDAP over a disagreement about merging with another party.

It was a big gamble for Hitler who said he would only return if he was made party chairman. Drexler and the committee agreed to Hitler’s demands.

He was made chairman with dictatorial powers and the Nazi Party was soon attracting many thousands of people.

WHAT HAPPENED IN MUNICH IN 1923?

THROUGHOUT 1922 and into 1923, the economy deteriorated and a political crisis erupted which ended with martial law being declared. Growing ever more popular and power-mad, on November 8, 1923, Hitler attempted a military coup and the overthrow of the Weimar Republic. This was the Munich Putsch, remembered as the Beer Hall Putsch.

It failed and Hitler was put on trial for treason. He was found guilty but a sympathetic judge sentenced him to just five years in prison of which he served nine months. In prison he wrote Main Kampf and Nazism now had its “bible”. We all known what the Nazis subsequently did.

IS NAZISM DEAD OR DYING?

NOT hardly. The party was long ago made illegal in Germany but neo-Nazis still try to keep its evils alive.

Germany’s new far-right party, Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, or AfD) continues to grow.

In 2017, one of its leaders, Alexander Gauland, gave a speech in which he said that “no other people have been so clearly presented with a false past as the Germans.” The rest of us will never forget or forgive the Nazis.