National Socialist German Workers Party

The National Socialist German Workers Party (German: {{Audio|de-NSDAP.ogg|Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei}}), better known as the NSDAP or the Nazi Party was a political party that was led to power in Germany by Adolf Hitler in 1933. The term Nazi is a short form of the German word Nazionalsozialist shortened to the first two syllables, and spelled with -zi, because the ti syllable is pronounced in German (National Socialist), reflecting the ideology of the NSDAP. The NSDAP set up the Third Reich after Hitler being appointed chancellor by the president and the party being democratically elected to lead the German government in 1933.

Party history

Origins

In the beginning of 1918, a party called the Freier Ausschuss für einen deutschen Arbeiterfrieden (Free Committee for a German Workers' Peace) was created in Bremen, Germany. (6) Anton Drexler, locksmith and poet, formed a branch of this league on March 7, 1918, in Munich. In 1919, Drexler, with Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart and Karl Harrer, changed its name to the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers' Party, abbreviated DAP). This party was the formal forerunner of the NSDAP, and became one of many völkisch movements that existed in Germany after its defeat in World War I. In order to investigate the DAP, German army intelligence sent a young corporal, Adolf Hitler, to monitor party activities. However, he was impressed by what he saw, and he joined as Member Number 555, although Hitler later claimed to be "Party Member number 7" to make it look like he was a founder. He was, in actual fact, only the 55th member of the DAP but the party began its membership totals from 500 in order to appear larger. He was in fact the 7th member of the DAP's central committee. At this early stage, Hitler brought up the idea of renaming the party, and he proposed the name "Social Revolutionary Party" (4). However, Rudolf Jung insisted that the party should follow the pattern of Austria's Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei. As a consequence, the DAP was shortly renamed the NSDAP on February 24, 1920.

Related Topics:
1918 - Bremen - Anton Drexler - March 7 - 1919 - Gottfried Feder - Dietrich Eckart - Karl Harrer - ''völkisch'' movements - World War I - Adolf Hitler - Rudolf Jung - Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei - 1920

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Other early members of the Nazi Party include Rudolf Buttmann, director general of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library), and Hermann Esser, editor of the Völkischer Beobachter.

Related Topics:
Rudolf Buttmann - Hermann Esser - Völkischer Beobachter

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Struggle for power

Adolf Hitler became Nazi Party chairman on July 29, 1921, and at once began a program where the Nazi Party became a radical and revolutionary organization. The Sturmabteilung (storm troopers) was founded under Hans Ulrich Klintzsch that same year and began a policy of expanding the Nazi Party by way of fear, intimidation, and violent attacks on other political parties.

Related Topics:
July 29 - 1921 - Sturmabteilung - Hans Ulrich Klintzsch

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In these early years, the Nazi Party was confined mainly to the city of Munich in Bavaria. Splinter Nazi groups did exist elsewhere in Germany; however, the programs and agendas were such that, even among the Nazis, such extra-Bavarian Nazi groups were considered separate from the main Nazi Party as a whole.

Related Topics:
Munich - Bavaria

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Disaster presented itself in 1923 when the Nazi Party attempted to seize control of the Bavarian government in the so-called "Beer Hall Putsch". The two-day revolution was crushed by Munich authorities, and several Nazis were killed in the process. Hitler and his top Nazi advisors were tried and convicted of treason. Sentences ranged from 12 to 18 months, with Hitler serving his term at Landsberg prison. During this period, from 1923 to 1925, the Nazi Party ceased to exist. However, Hitler spent the time writing Mein Kampf, detailing how he would accomplish a political comeback once he was released from prison.

Related Topics:
1923 - Beer Hall Putsch - Landsberg - Mein Kampf

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Reborn Nazi Party

Upon Adolf Hitler's release from prison in 1925, the NSDAP was refounded, with Hitler taking Party membership number 1. That same year, the Schutzstaffel (SS) was founded. The evolution of the party, during this era, is an integral part of the decline of the Weimar State.

Related Topics:
Schutzstaffel - Weimar State

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The second Nazi Party saw Gottfried Feder as economic theoretician. Rudolf Jung supplied the reborn Nazi Party with a ready-made ideology that he carried with him from Czechoslovakia. It was a 25-point program. Hitler added his ideas about foreign policy, and Julius Streicher added his more virulent anti-Semitic views.

Related Topics:
Gottfried Feder - Rudolf Jung - Czechoslovakia - 25-point program - Julius Streicher - Anti-Semitic

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Between 1925 and 1929, the Nazis competed poorly in elections. In the election of 1930, however, the Nazis (propelled by Germany's economic problems in the incipient Great Depression) increased their vote dramatically, becoming the second-largest party in the Reichstag. The NSDAP continued to improve its position in the years thereafter, despite a brief ban in 1932 of the SA (the party's private army). In the elections of 1932 the party reached a total of 13.75 million votes and so became the largest voting bloc in the Reichstag.

Related Topics:
1930 - Great Depression - ''Reichstag'' - 1932 - SA

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Seizure of Power

The Nazis never won an electoral majority on their own, but Hitler was appointed Chancellor of a coalition government by President Paul von Hindenburg in January 1933. His coalition partners were the right-wing Nationalists led by Alfred Hugenberg, the press baron, and his Vice-Chancellor was the ex-Centre Party politician and former Chancellor Franz von Papen.

Related Topics:
Chancellor - President - Paul von Hindenburg - January - 1933 - Alfred Hugenberg - Vice-Chancellor - Centre Party - Franz von Papen

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On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag parliament building was set on fire. This Reichstag fire was promptly blamed on a Communist conspiracy, and used as an excuse by the Nazis to close the Communist Party of Germany's offices, ban its press and arrest its leaders. Furthermore, Hitler convinced the ageing and senile President von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending most of the human rights provided for by the 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic. A further decree enabled for preventative detention of all the Communist deputies, amongst many thousands of others.

Related Topics:
February 27 - 1933 - Reichstag fire - Communist Party of Germany - Senile - Reichstag Fire Decree - Human rights - Constitution - Weimar Republic

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Since the new government lacked a majority in parliament, Hitler held a Reichtstag election in March of 1933. The Nazis obtained 43.9%; with their right-wing Nationalist DNVP allies included, they controlled a simple parliamentary 51.8% majority coalition.

Related Topics:
Reichtstag - DNVP

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A decisive step on Hitler's way to becoming dictator was the so called "Enabling Act",

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which granted the cabinet - and in fact Hitler - legislative powers. However, since the Enabling Act allowed for deviations from the constitution, a two thirds majority was required. Hitler needed the votes of the Centre Party and after promising certain guarantees to the Centre's chairman Ludwig Kaas, the party voted in favour of the Enabling Act. The Centre Party's thirty-one votes added to the fragmented middle-class parties and the right-wing Nationalists (DNVP) and gave Hitler the right to rule by his own decree and to further suspend many civil liberties.

Related Topics:
Centre Party - Ludwig Kaas - Enabling Act

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In five clauses the Enabling Act gave the government power to change the Constitution, the cabinet to enact laws without legislative approval, the Chancellor to draft legislation, the Cabinet to enact foreign treaties abroad, and a renewal every four years dependent on the continuation of the government. The only left-wing party remaining in the Reichstag, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, valiantly protested the Act from being passed. As the Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House, patrolled and harangued by brown-shirted SA men, the Enabling Act passed and, as punishment for their dissent, the Social Democrats became the second party banned by the Nazis (on 22 June) following the move of their leadership to Prague.

Related Topics:
Social Democratic Party of Germany - 22 June - Prague

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After all parties were either banned or pressed into dissolving themselves, the Nazi government banned the formation of new parties on July 14, 1933, turning Germany into a one-party state. This was part of the Gleichschaltung. Hitler kept the Reichstag as a pulpit with the Reichsrat (upper house of the German parliment) controlled by Nazi appointees who quickly voted the Enabling Act and then dissolved the Reichsrat as a legislative body. The legislative bodies of the German states soon followed in the same manner, with the German federal government taking over most state and local legislative powers.

Related Topics:
July 14 - 1933 - Gleichschaltung - Reichsrat

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Hitler also tried to incorporate the Churches into his new regime. On March 23, 1933 he had called them "most important factors" for the maintenance of German well-being. In regard to the Roman Catholic Church, he proposed the Reichskonkordat between Germany and the Holy See, that was signed in July. In regard to the Protestant Church, he used church elections to push the Nazi-inspired "German Christians" to power. This however provoked the internal opposition of the "Confessing Church".

Related Topics:
March 23 - 1933 - Roman Catholic Church - Reichskonkordat - Holy See - Confessing Church

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Consolidation of power

Between 1934 and 1939, the Nazi Party began a series of measures to merge the Nazi Party and the German government into one entity. It was also during this time that Nazi racial views were transferred to legal practice with Germany becoming an anti-Semitic and racialist state after the passing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935.

Related Topics:
Racialist - Nuremberg Laws

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Hitler?s first act to merge the Nazi party and German government was upon the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in August of 1934. Three hours before Hindenburg died, Hitler's government passed a law to take effect on Hindenburg's death which prescribed that the office of President would be merged with that of the Chancellor and that Hitler would henceforth be the Führer und Reichkanzler of Germany. By this action, Hitler made himself Head of State, Head of Government and Chairman of the Nazi party combined into one single office.

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In the mid 1930s, the Nazi Party appointed and staffed nearly the entire German government with Nazi Party officials. In addition, the SS had by 1936 become the state police service controlling all aspects of law enforcement and political enforcement. By the time World War II began in 1939, there was virtually no distinction between the Nazi Party and the Government of Germany with the latter two being considered one and the same.

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The original act which made Hitler dictator of Germany, the Enabling Act, was renewed in 1937 and then in 1941 for an indefinite term. Even as late as 1944, however, there were those in Germany who believed that the Nazis were simply a political party who were currently in power but could be voted out of office when and if the German people so chose. On paper, at least, Hitler?s dictatorship was not to last forever and some Germans saw the Enabling Act as temporary only until World War II was over at which time Germany would again become a democratic country with a Presidency and Chancellorship split into two separate offices once again (this is what in fact happened when Hitler killed himself in 1945). Most likely, however, had Germany triumphed in World War II Hitler would have become dictator for life.

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Post World War II Nazi Party

The Nazi Party ceased to exist in May 1945 when Law Number 2 of the Allied Control Council declared the Nazi party disbanded and the Nazi party, itself, illegal. Since that time, several ?successor groups? have claimed to be continuations of the Nazi party but only one was actually ever declared to be so by German and Allied authorities.

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The National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) was founded November 28, 1964 as a political party of West Germany. The NPD advocated a program nearly identical to old Nazi ideals and began combining various Neo-Nazi groups under its authority. This, in combination with a leadership of former Nazis from the Hitler era, became very alarming to the West German government and the allied occupation forces still technically in charge of Germany. Efforts were made in the 1960s to have the NPD declared a direct successor to the Nazi Party and disbanded under West German law, however the Party survived to a large enough extent that it still maintains a presence in German politics to this day.

Related Topics:
National Democratic Party of Germany - 1964 - West Germany - Neo-Nazi - West German

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The only other successor Nazi group, noticed as extremely dangerous by government officials, was the American Nazi Party under the leadership of George Lincoln Rockwell. The American Nazi Party reached its height in the 1960s with many U.S. law enforcement leaders stating that the party was becoming as dangerous, if not more so, than the original Nazi Party had in the 1920s and early 30s. As American free speech did not allow for the disbanding of political parties, the American Nazi party was allowed to continue its existence but lost most of its membership and finances after the death of George Rockwell.

Related Topics:
American Nazi Party - George Lincoln Rockwell

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In the 21st century there are no organizations which are seriously recognized as continuations of Hitler?s Nazi party. Most such groups are scattered, disorganized, and so full of Anti-Semitism and white supremacist rhetoric that average citizens look upon such organizations as little more than hate groups.

Related Topics:
21st century - Anti-Semitism - White supremacist

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