Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

Nazis. A History of Austrian National Socialism,
London/Basingstoke, 1981, ch.3.
    12 . See esp. Mosse,
Crisis of German Ideology,
pt.I; and George L. Mosse,
Germans and Jews,
London, 1971, Introduction.
    13 . See Kurt Sontheimer,
Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik,
3rd edn, Munich, 1992, esp. ch.II and Mosse,
Crisis of German Ideology,
ch.16.
    14 . See Sontheimer, 271–2.
    15 . Weimar coalition parties won only 44.6 per cent (205 seats out of 459) of the vote compared with over 78 per cent (331 seats out of 423) in the National Assembly elections of 1919 (Kolb,
Die Weimarer Republik,
41).
    16 . MK, esp. 415–24; and see Martin Broszat,
Der Nationalsozialismus. Weltanschauung, Programm und Wirklichkeit,
Stuttgart, 1960, 29.
    17 . Broszat,
Nationalsozialismus,
23.
    18 . Tyrell,
Trommler,
191 n.53. A good description of the atmosphere in Munich at the time Hitler was stepping on to the political stage is provided by Large,
Where Ghosts Walked,
ch.4.
    19 . Helmuth Auerbach, ‘Nationalsozialismus vor Hitler’, in Wolfgang Benz, Hans Buchheim and Hans Mommsen (eds.),
Der Nationalsozialismus. Studien zur Ideologie und Herrschaft,
Frankfurt am Main, 1993, 13–28, here 26; Jeremy Noakes,
The Nazi Party in Lower Saxony, 1921–1933,
Oxford, 1971, 9. A comprehensive exploration of the organization is provided by Uwe Lohalm,
Völkischer Radikalismus. Die Geschichte des Deutschvölkischen Schutz-und Trutz-Bundes, 1919–1923,
Hamburg, 1970.
    20 . Noakes,
Nazi Party,
9–10.
    21 . Lohalm, 89–90; Noakes,
Nazi Party,
11.
    22 .Tyrell,
Trommler,
20, 186 n.21; Lohalm, 283–302.
    23 . For the following see Tyrell,
Trommler,
72–89; and Noakes,
Nazi Party,
12–13.
    24 . Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 6–8. Lehmann is one of the central subjects of the study of Gary D. Stark,
Entrepreneurs of Ideology. Neoconservative Publishers in Germany, 1890–1933,
Chapel Hill, 1981.
    25 . See Rudolf von Sebottendorff,
Bevor Hitler kam,
2nd edn, Munich, 1934 (the account by the Society’s leading figure); the scholarly analysis by Reginald H. Phelps, ‘“Before Hitler Came”: Thule Society and Germanen Orden’,
Journal of Modern History,
35 (1963), 245–61; Goodrick-Clarke, 135–52; also Tyrell,
Trommler,
22 and 188–9 n.38; Auerbach, ‘Hitlers politische Lehrjahre’, 8–9; and Noakes,
Nazi Party,
13. The Thule Society took its name from that given by the ancient Greeks to the northernmost land they knew. The name had mystical significance for Nordic cultists.
    26 . A clear distinction between the Arbeiterzirkel (which Hitler attended for the first time on 16 November 1919) and the Arbeitsausschuß, the committee of the DAP, is difficult to draw. The former, controlled by Harrer and clearly bearing his imprint, remained reminiscent of the inner core of a secret society and seems to have been essentially a small debating club (Reginald H. Phelps, ‘Hitler and the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei’, in Henry A. Turner (ed.),
Nazism and the Third Reich,
New York, 1972, 5–19, here 11). The committee was officially responsible for party business matters, but in practice there was overlap in both personnel and matters under consideration (Tyrell,
Trommler,
24–5, 190 n.48).
    27 . BHStA, Abt.V, Slg. Personen, Anton Drexler, ‘Lebenslauf von Anton Drexler, 12.3.1935’, 3 (partly printed in Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
59); Drexler’s initial suggestion was ‘Deutsche Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei’, but Harrer objected to
‘sozialistische’
and it was dropped (IfZ, Fa 88/Fasz.78, Fol.4 (Lotter Vortrag, 19 October 1935)). Harrer was not present at the foundation meeting of the DAP, and was possibly not enamoured by the creation of a ‘party’. According to Sebottendorff, on 18 January 1919 he was named 1st Chairman and Drexler 2nd Chairman of the Deutscher Arbeiterverein, which was founded in the rooms of the Thule Society (Sebottendorff, 81; see also Tyrell,
Trommler,
189 n.42).
    28 . BHStA, Abt.V, Slg. Personen, Anton Drexler, ‘Lebenslauf von Anton Drexler, 12.3.1935’, 3; Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
56–9; IfZ, Fa 88/Fasz. 78, Fol.4 (Lotter Vortrag, 19 October 1935); Phelps, ‘Hitler’, 8–9; Tyrell,
Trommler,
22; Drexler states that there were around thirty present (not fifty, as given in Deuerlein,
Aufstieg,
59). In his 1935 lecture, Lotter (Fol.4), probably from notes he made at the time, is more precise: ‘There were 24 present, mainly railway workers’
(‘Anwesend waren 24, überwiegend