Adolf Hitler and the DAP
Adolf Hitler and the DAPThe German Workers' Union was conceived by Anton Drexler on
the seventh of March, 1918. Drexler's union consisted of about forty
members, most of whom were railwaymen, that were banded together by
shared sentiments of fierce nationalism, anti-Semitism, and support
for the war effort. Previous to the end of World War I, this small
union carried the rather verbose title of the "Free Labor Committee
for a Good Peace." At this time the organization adhered to a rather
straightforward program-"Strikers, Bolsheviks, Jews, malingerers, and
war profiteers were the enemy, and it was the duty of the workers to
unite behind the war effort." (Payne, 135) However, after the
disastrous conclusion to the war, Drexler's union, having changed
its name to the "German Worker's Party," lacked any coherent program
and was on the brink of collapse when Hitler inadvertently stepped
into the picture.
When this happened the party ceased to be Drexler's partly; it
became Hitler's. The German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
became the foundation of the Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei, commonly abbreviated as the NAZI party. Hitler's
ability to transform this forty-member union into the dominant
political force that it became gives us clear indication that he was
an inherent leader and a master of propaganda. In fact, I believe,
that without his introduction to the DAP, the Nazi party would
probably never have been formed.
Hitler was assigned to attend his first DAP meeting on the
twelfth of September, 1919 in order to investigate the party and its
activities for the military. In the course of the meeting, Hitler
became actively involved in one of the arguments. He refuted one
person with such force that the man left "like a wet noodle" before
Hitler was even finished speaking. However, Hitler's only purpose for
that meeting was to attend and then write a report. For this reason he
took one of Drexler's pamphlets which detailed much of the group's
political philosophy. Here he found "in Drexler a prophet after his
own heart." (Payne, 137) In one chapter, "The Jew and His Activity
Before and During the World War," Drexler wrote:
There is a race-or perhaps we should call it a nation-which
for over two thousand years has not possessed a state of its own,
but has nevertheless spread over the entire earth. They are the
Jews...They quickly conquered the money market, although they began in
poverty, and were thereby made all the richer in vice, vermin and
pestilence... Only one per cent of the total population is Jewish but
for thousands of years the Jews, form the highest to the lowest, have
grimly pursued the thought that this tiny people should never serve
rulers but always govern them. Yet they are unable to form a state of
their own. (Drexler, 29)
Drexler was equally impressed with...
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